The Environmental Scan: Tiffany's Little Blue Box

Corporate Social Responsibility is an important term that few know of. This term stands for everything that’s moral, from using less harmful chemicals in their products to protecting the rights of the workers and the society we live in. However, some companies do not live by this word. This, coupled with the massive amount of consumers buying their products, can cause a multitude of problems not only for the company workers, but to the world itself. As such, companies should become more aware of their effects on the world around them and change their moral responsibilities to treat their workers more humanely, protect the lives of the people in their towns, cities and countries and save the environment from further destruction and pollution.

or so many years our society has been thinking of forming new creative and innovative businesses, which would be more environmental and customer friendly. Nowadays a large number of different companies follow the social, ethical, as well as moral consequences when it comes to their decision making. One of the relatively new concepts involving economic and social concerns is Corporate Social Responsibility. Many of us apply this approach not only at work, but also in everyday life without even recognizing.

Scholar and cording (2006) told about lack of awareness what a customer have about corporate social responsibility and this is the reason why these things are playing a barrier in success of a

The final area that could be improved regarding the company’s attitude toward social responsibility is to offer a larger selection of health-conscience and organic products. Though these products come at a higher margin, the requests made by consumers show a demand for products of this type. By offering a better selection, Company Q demonstrates concern for the health and well-being of the community attracting new business and increasing profitability which by definition is socially responsible.

Businesses today face a plethora of ethical duties such as upholding corporate governance, maintaining stakeholder relationships, and presenting an image of social responsibility. In review of Company Q’s (Q) current ethics culture, its image in regards to social responsibility is not equivalent to that of its competitors. In a growing market faced with increasingly challenging competition, there are several areas that Q can and needs to address to bring the company to a level of social responsibility that exceeds stakeholder expectations. First, attention Q needs to address market demands for additional locations to better

Because Company Q is a small, local grocery store in a major metropolitan area it can at times be very over whelming. Big chain stores are putting family owned stores out of business on a constant basis. This reason, along with social responsibility taking hold of companies, brought on by consumers demanding that companies adjust their thinking from a profit-seeking standpoint to being socially and ethically understanding to all consumers in their business ventures.

Moreover, the growing number of conscience consumers was highlighted in a recent Bursen-Marsteller report; “people will more likely choose a product that supports a social cause when choosing between otherwise similar products” (Penn, Schoen & Berland, 2010). These average consumers daily decisions are slowly but surely being influenced by social concern and responsibility. Finally, the critical issue for Company Q is the social responsibility to its customers, who looks to business to provide them with satisfying, safe products and respect their rights as customer.

Almost all companies in the business world have to promote or deal with ethical and social responsibilities. One current ethical issue that is happening in the news today is how Chipotle’s food has been contaminated with different viruses, bacteria, and other substances that have been making many customers sick. They have had countless issues with this food related epidemic and now are trying to rebuild their brand name and reputation to bring its customers back. Chipotle is socially and ethically responsible for taking care of their customers, which means they have to ensure that when they prepare and serve food that it is clean and uncontaminated. On the other side of the business world, Volkswagen has had countless issues with their cars

However, today, the focus on stakeholder’s (apart from the shareholders, these are customers, suppliers and employees) expectations has also grown radically. Accordingly, ethical behaviours such as meeting stakeholders’ expectation objectives, environmental objectives and corporate social responsibility, which is accountability to the society and social responsibility, have resultantly become very important. Failure to comply with ethical behaviours can causes a business to damage its brand value and its reputation, which in turn could lead to reduced profits or even losses (Carroll and Buchholtz, 2014).

TABLE OF CONTENTS 1.0 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY3 2.0 INTRODUCTION3 2.1 Background to Organization3 3.0 ANALYSIS3 3.1 Porters 5 Forces (Model of Competition)3 3.2 PESTEL (External Analysis)5 3.3 SWOT6 4.0 KEY FINDINGS OF ANALYSIS/PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION/ KEY STRATEGIC CONCERNS6 4.1 Vertical Integration6 4.2 Diversification7 5.0 POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS & STRATEGIES.8 7.0 CONCLUSION9 8.0 APPENDICES11 Appendix 1: Porters 5 Forces11 Appendix 3: Luxury Goods Group & Brands Top Ten Competitors13 Appendix 4: Industry Map*.14 Appendix 5: Financial Performance14 Appendix 6: PESTLE Analysis15 Appendix 7: SWOT Analysis16 Appendix 8: Evaluating industry Attractiveness and Competitive strength19 Appendix 9: A Nine Cell Industry Attractiveness-Competitive Matrix20

Corporate social responsibility has been one the key business buzz words of the 21st century. Consumers' discontent with the corporation has forced it to try and rectify its negative image by associating its name with good deeds. Social responsibility has become one of the corporation's most pressing issues, each company striving to outdo the next with its philanthropic image. People feel that the corporation has done great harm to both the environment and to society and that with all of its wealth and power, it should be leading the fight to save the Earth, to combat poverty and illness and etc. "Corporations are now expected to deliver the good, not just the goods; to pursue

Porter’s five model is defined as the framework that evaluate the position of a company in the external environment with focus drawn on the level of competitiveness (Roy 2011). The framework considers factors such as rivalry, substitute goods, the power of suppliers and buyers as well as new entrants. Four forces can influence the success of Michael Kors. The first one is competitive rivalry. Here, the struggle is about maintaining performance despite different tactics used by different companies to increase sales. For instance, Ralph Lauren uses premium prices for quality products to differentiate itself, while Coach uses product variety within the line of handbags to remain competitive (Stewart 2016). Also, when the industry is flooded with similar companies producing similar merchandise, the probability of a company stagnating is high because consumers have a variety to pick from. Hence, the need to establish loyal customers.

One of the leading companies that adopted CSR as a pioneer of ethic is The Body Shop. The company has used CSR as a competitive strategy in order to succeed in business. The shop owner knows what she does best. So, products are developed based on a specific group of customers in order to create a strong brand preferences and unique way with a perception of enormous customer groups, called sustainability ideals. The source of The Body Shop success is to utilize the benefits of CSR by selling products based on natural ingredients, paying a fair price and no testing on animal. According to porter (1985), he claimed that sustainability of differentiation depends on two things: "it is continued perceived value to buyers and the lack of competitor ability to imitate it" (Porter 1985 cited in Mallin 2009, p.71). It requires a transparency of work process with stakeholders. From this example, it explains why CSR is important to modern businesses like The Body Shop (Mallin 2009, pp.59-78),(Kwapong 2005, p.89).

Every organisation has an obligation to act to benefit the society at large in an ethical framework. This helps in maintaining and developing the organisations image and consequently influences the customers’ overall evaluation

‘Corporate social responsibility’ (CSR) means that the firm has wider responsibilities in relation to objectives and people apart from the owners or shareholders (Beal and Goyen 2005). These responsibilities are achieved when the firm adapts all of its practices to ensure that it operates in ways that meet, or exceed, the ethical, legal, commercial and public expectations that society has of business. Objectives often associated with CSR include a responsibility to manage natural assets sustainably and not to pollute by chemical discharge, smell, noise, dust or other irritants; fair treatment of employees and ethical attitude towards clients. The other people include employees, customers, suppliers,