Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company - Research Paper Example The challenge pushed the company, towards changing its market outlook, to adopt an approach where they targeted profitable customer segments (Mentzer, et al., 2001). The strategy has pushed the company to focus on the marketing and the sales of original equipment. Additionally, the company has had to adopt market-back innovation, which featured the rejuvenation of product lines like Wrangler and Eagle. There was also the challenge of improving its operational excellence across its supply chain – including the company’s 52 operational facilities located at 22 countries (Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, 2012). The goal of the company has been the reduction of inventory at the different facilities as well as affiliated facilities, while at the same time improving the efficiency of business (Lavassani, Movahedi & Kumar, 2009). The supply chain needs to evolve in a number of areas, so that it can support its business. These include focusing their sales and production capaci ty to the service of the highly profitable customer segments, including the original equipment line. Secondly, the company needs to carry out market-back innovation continually, which will increase its efficiency through re-energizing its brands. Thirdly, the company will need to push its facilities and those of its suppliers to increase their operational excellence, through changes like the reduction of inventory (Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, 2012). A larger proportion of the company’s success has come from its vertically integrated sales outlook and supply chain. For example, the company realized huge success through its vertical integration with Formula one and NASCAR. Their major success through the company’s vertical integration with these vehicle consumers and vehicle makers shows that the company should widen its vertical integration (Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, 2012). The wider vertically integrated supply chain should cover other players like garage owners, car importers, car manufacturers, the suppliers of rubber materials and other commodity producers. 2. The competitive advantage of the company lies in the area of quality, primarily due to their reputation as the main suppliers of reputable racing companies like Formula one and NASCAR. The company’s reputation for quality products can also be traced to the Goodyear blimp, after the first Goodyear blimp flew in 1925 (Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, 2012). The core operational competencies of the company include that its tires have been associated with sporting cars and events, to the levels that they have gained reputation for their performance capabilities. The second operational competency is the company’s business in 22 countries, where its brands are reputable (Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, 2012). Thirdly, many of the company’s brands are globally reputable, which allows it to win against its competitors. The market risks facing the company inc lude that its market positioning has been tainted by its ranking, as the 19th-largest corporate contributor to air pollution in the US. This threat becomes worse, following the continued pressure of different corporate consumers to consume the products of green-operating companies (Simchi-Levi, Kaminsky & Simchi-levi, 2007). The second competitive threat facing the compan

Ethical concern related to low-wage workers Essay

Ethical concern related to low-wage workers - Essay Example First of all, in order to create a background for my essay, I would like to start with a definition of the term 'ethics'. This term is taken from the Greek, and the Greek word 'ethos' means 'character'. Nowadays, ethics can be defined as the set of rules for interpersonal communication, which takes place either on daily basis or at the level of big business. "Making ethical decisions in business is often difficult because business ethics is not simply an extension of an individual's personal ethics or a society's standards of right and wrong" (answers.com, 2005). Just being a righteous person, who fits ethical criteria, might not be enough to handle the problems, which occur in the workplace, such as the treatment of low-wage employees and their career development. It is important to note that many professions have already responded to the demanding business problems - in particular, with the creation of "codes of ethics, statements of corporate goals, sponsor training and educational programs in ethics" (ibid) , the installation of internal jurists who deal with various ethical improprieties, and with creation of special telephone hot lines, which allow employees report anonymously possible ethical violations. A code of ethics contains certain standards of behavior, which are obligatory for the representatives of a certain profession. Moreover, a code of ethics generally provides professionals with information about the obligations towards one another, their customers, employees and the whole society. "A code of ethics is generally developed by a professional society within a particular profession. The higher the degree of professionalism required of society members, the stronger and therefore more enforceable the code" (ibid). The main function of a code of ethics is to guide employees and employers in the most complicated ethical questions, in particular those which are especially unclear. Decisions in such cases can be made more effectively and easily if the code informs about what actions should or should not be taken and about the penalties for morally wrong behavior. Many companies have their own codes of practice, or codes of ethics, which correspond to the mission of the organization and the organizational culture. There are several ethical concerns associated with low-wage workers. The most widespread ethical dilemma, which arises in many organizations is 'utility vs. morality' (Bernstein, 1997). The ideas of utilitarianism, which penetrated the business, have been developed into the utilitarian approach to ethical concerns, which concentrates on "taking the action that will result in the greatest good for the greatest number of people" (poznaklav.com, 2005). For instance, employing low-wage workers, entrepreneur, who follows utilitarian principles, would attempt to determine whether using low-wage employees would bring prosperity to the company. For instance, those business owners, who use low-wage foreign employees in response to price competition, will probably benefit from such decision. On the other hand, using low-wage workers is likely to decrease the wages of the other employees, decreasing at the same time their standards of living and thus, reducing their ability to purchase the good s the company produces. Those company owners, who support the ideas of morality (Blank, 1997) would probably pay living wages to all employees regardless