Global business transaction is the exchange of goods and services for money, involving individuals or firms from different countries in the world. It means that the business firms must be operating in the foreign land and thus referred to as Multinational Corporations (MNC’s) (Hesse, 2008). Coca-Cola Company, Hershey Company and chevron are good examples of well known MNC’s in the global business world. There has been an increase in competition, world trade and improvement in the technology that has forced the businesses to expand in search for new market. Among other factors, increase in unethical practices poses great challenge to the business sector. It forces them to expand their operations in order to maximize their turnover and profits, while minimizing the cost of operation. This paper seeks to establish the most attributed factors to the challenges of the global business and to compare how norms practiced by various multinational corporations. The code of ethical conduct of Soft drink and beverage companies including Coca-Cola Company, PepsiCo and Cadbury Schweppes Will be discussed.

Coca-Cola Company’s code of ethical conduct

Coca Cola Company is one of the leading global soft drink companies in the world. It was founded in Atalantia, Georgia where its headquarters are also located. The drink was first made by a pharmacist called John Pemberton in 1886, which he started selling in the same city for five cents (Ford, W et al, 2008). It was in 1919 when the company was purchased for $25 million by Earnest woodruff, who later turned the ownership of the company to his son, Robert woodruff in 1923.It is through the firm recognition its brands that the company has been able to establish itself word wide and to spread the Americanism to the rest of the world. The main goal for the corporation as of other business is to maximize the profit gained so as to compete effectively with their main rival, PepsiCo. This has made it to do all possible efforts to ensure constant global expansion.

The corporation is divided into six operating segment of which the first five segments are referred to as strategic business units. The main function of the units is to control the internal financial reports. Each strategic business unit is headed by a unit head. His roles include taking the financial report to the operating officer who later on takes the report to the chief executive and the chairman of the board of directors. The strategic business units formed are distributed all over the different continents in the world. They include; North America, Africa, Asia, Europe, Eurasia and Middle East and finally Latin America. These units are responsible for the business operation that happens in the different countries in those specific continents (Girard, 2005).

The company sells around 400 brands of drinks worldwide in more than 200 countries. They include the soft drinks, coffee, tea and drinking water. The four famous and top selling soft drinks brands that they sell includes; coca-cola, Fanta, sprite and diet coke. They also have more brands including Dasani water, POWERade, Fruitopia, Minute maid and Barq’s. Besides, they sell more brands of drinking water apart from the dasani water. These includes; sparkletts, Evian and Dannon. These are sold in the United States of America. They estimates that in every 10 non alcoholic drinks sold in the world one of them is from the coke company (Richard, 2005). The company however does not sell products that it has produced from the start to finish. It only produce what it calls syrups and concentrates which are then sold to other authorized companies for canning, package, bottling and distribution of the final product.

The company’s code of conducts.

The company is guided by a set of codes that ensures consistency in behavior within and outside the company. Acting with integrity is one of the fundamental codes that the company follows. It means doing what is right to the company, the customers, the suppliers, the government and to each other in the work place. Following the law, acting with honesty and being accountable for the action done is part of the code. By so doing the reputation of the company and its brands continue to improve over the 200 countries in the world (Kent, M., 2009).The managers are expected to play an important role in ensuring that the culture of ethics and compliance to it is promoted. The company also holds the employees responsible to protect the codes of conduct. The employees can report particular personnel within the company who break the codes of conduct while they choose to remain anonymous. This enables proper investigations for corrective measures.

Conflict of interest is another important aspect for the success of the business. For the business to succeed, personal interest should not be allowed to interfere with the business operations and the ability of the individual to make sound decision for the benefit of the company. s (Muhtar, K.,2009) .Recognition of human dignity, respecting peoples freedom and dignity are avoidance of discrimination of one another on basis of gender, race or religion are also parts of ethical consideration on the company.

The codes of conduct emphasizes on maintenance of high standards of relation with the customers, suppliers, employees and the authorities. In addition, there is need for healthy competition, caring of the environment and considering the effects of the product to the customer’s health. These are key ethical issues to the success of a business (Kent, M., 2012). This is because, the business is surrounded by law, customer workers and the competitors who would affect the performance of the business if they are not satisfied.

The codes of conduct is the almost the same from the immediate major competitors of the company. In his statement, Nooyi (2008) provide a list of business code of conduct world for the PepsiCo company. These include respect for the personnel from workers to customers, following of the law, healthy competition, integrity and promotion of maintenance of the codes of conduct in the business. This is the same message upheld in Cadbury Schweppes that fro good business operations, maintenance of the codes of ethics must be reinforced (Saylor, 2008).

However, the companies that direct competitors often find themselves acting unethically to each other. The unethical practice is to help the businesses to maximize their profit without really caring for the the other or for the customers. Coca cola and PepsiCo for example had been alleged to have involved child labor in their operations and used pesticides as their preservatives in the beverages. This practice was not reported from other soft drink companies. This shows that there is a difference in the way the companies maintains their code of conducts especially in the care of the customers health (Immi, 2011).This could have made the turning point of th companies operations especially in losing the consumers of their products. The companies did not refuse the allegations but offered to give full details of the whole incident. Denial is not the way forward when such allegation comes about. Some fake products may be made by other people in an attempt to make money and destroy the company’s image. The way forward is to accept to carry out an investigation tot the alleged unethical deed. This gives the consumers and al the stakeholders involved hope that the company is concerned and hence the good image of the company is maintained. The employees, suppliers and the distributors will develop royalty to the business and consequently the business will continue maximizing its profits.

Failure to address the unethical issue by the companies would lay a good foundation for their competitors to convince the consumers against buying their products. Apart from stagnating the business operations, the company would face serious prosecutions from the relevant authorities and it’s a risky period of even collapsing the business. It is therefore critical to address the issues and refer to the written codes of ethics for better future of the company.

Maintenance of codes of ethics by Coca Cola Company

The world is advancing in terms of politics, economy, technology socially and culturally. These changes may interfere with the set code of conducts of a business. It calls for special measures to ensure that the codes of conducts are not violated despite the changes. Formation of the internal audits team can ensure that the code of conduct is maintained. This can be done hand in hand with giving freedom to the workers and consumers to report any form of violation of the codes of conduct which can then be investigated by the relevant body (David, A, 2013)The company has also formed the social responsibility committee which is responsible for overseeing healthy environment maintenance. Moreover there was formation of disclosure committee which could bring the issues to the table for discussion and corrective measures.

Technology and the company

The company has used the technology to accelerate its operations, marketing and sales. Use of IT has been essential in the marketing setting of the company. This makes it fast to convince the consumers to buy their products. To add on this, use of a fountain dispenser for the beverages has reduced the number of workers thus reducing the cost of operation (Levi, 2013). However the company faces the challenge of damaging the business image when most of the employees are sucked for the use of machines. Use of the information technology requires highly trained individuals. These challenges are eliminated by training the workers on IT.

Lobbying by Coca Cola Company.

The company has been involved in support programs, political committees, contribution to political organizations and ballot measure campaigns. They do so to demonstrate their good will for the government and thus get some favors. This effort is appropriate because the company acts as a watchdog for the public. This also helps determine the decision making by the people.

Global corporate citizenship

The company does all the efforts maintain its trust of the customers in the global market. It sets up set of principles for attaining the right citizenship by convincing the customers that they will serve them without discrimination, and that they will maintain a growing economy of the country by contributing to the government revenue. They adhere to the codes of conduct for proper conservation of the environment. The company became a contribute to the job opportunity, and a variety of goods and services for the citizens of the company

Conclusion

There exist numerous challenges in every business. At the same time there exist variety of alternatives and measures to carry out to face these challenges. Guided by the codes of conduct of the company and embracing the technology into the business operation can help maintain high standards of performance of the business.

References

Hesse, 2008. Challenges within business environment. University of cooperative Education, mosbach.

Girard, R., 2005.Coca- cola company: inside the real thing. Corporate profile. Print.Poralis institute

Muhtar, K., 2009. Coca-Cola company codes of business conduct. Print.Atlanta, Georgia.

Nooyi, I., 2008.World wide code of conduct. Print. From U.S virgins island.

Immi, 2011. Unethical Practices by Pepsi and Coca Cola. Print.NJ riverside.

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