CERES GARDENING COMPANY CASE STUDY/G5P/B200
Executive Summary Ceres Company, backed by its innovative GetCeres program, has been capitalizing on a previously untouched segment of the organics market. In capturing a key demographic of consumers, those causal gardeners who demand instant gratification, rather than the extended gardening period, Ceres is eager to expand quickly to capitalize on this opportunity before its competitors. This strategy is putting extensive strain on the company’s resources and its relationship with suppliers. The exciting growth in sales have eclipsed the company’s sustainable growth rate and Ceres is hampered by cash deficits. Our team has identified three options for Ceres as it looks to
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3. Contextual Environment: The nature of the business is quite an innovative concept of social responsibility as the company is aiming to do well, while doing good. The industry is shaped by trends in organic awareness and it must focus its marketing efforts not only on its products but also on educating customers on going organic.
II. PRAXIS - Alternative Policy Options
A. Ceres will switch to a more conservative, slow growth and marketing approach in response to increasing debt and decreasing cash flows. Our ratio analysis (Exhibit 2) has identified that the company is growing too fast and is putting considerable strains on its resources, raising the possibility of bankruptcy in the near future. The 2006 pro-forma statement calculates a 98-day payable period, with suppliers already angry at the 90-day period. Profit margins are decreasing and the plummet in NOCF is worrying (Exhibit 1). The company is not generating enough business from operating activities and is debt financing. As a result of GetCeres, AGE, Inventory and AP have increased significantly more than sales, resulting in a lack of cash. All leverage and liquidity ratios (Exhibit 2) confirm that. Our first policy is to slow down growth to the sustainable growth rate, calculated at 12%
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.
The context analysis is a study of what my company and brand is doing now,
The income over the last three years has been fluctuating.. This tells us the company has an initial growth period. Sales also drop between years 7 and 8 and the gross profit margin decreased as well. This may be due to operating expenses. This leads to the prospect of stable future sales. The stakeholders are continuing to back the company and the company does predict sales will remain stable. The modest increase in sales does not show enough to recover without making adjustments to free capital.
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.
Discuss the four components of corporate social responsibility and how they relate to a charitable campaign such as (Product) RED. How does participation in a cause-marketing event contribute to a company's social responsibility? What role does sustainability play?
This case captures the problems concerning cash flow and working-capital management typical of small, growing businesses. At the end of 2005, Bob and Maggie Brown have completed their third year of operating Horniman Horticulture, a $1-million-revenue woody-shrub nursery in central Virginia. While experiencing booming demand and improving margins, the Browns are puzzled by their plummeting cash balance. The case highlights the difference between cash flow and accounting profits, as well as the common negative effects of growth on cash flow. It also provides a forum for instilling appreciation for the relevance of free cash flow to business owners and managers, introducing
On the other hand, the company has been growing constantly. In deed, according to the net income estimation for 2007 (see Table 7) the company increases its profits $25 thousand dollars more than the previous year. This is an evidence of how the company is been management and of its willing to grow year after year. Nevertheless, the first quarter of 2007 the working capital only has increased by $7 thousand dollars, which is the difference between the current assets and current liabilities but the importance of this is that according to the rotation on receivables and payable accounts, shown in Table 5 and 10, leads us to the conclusion that the company will have to pay its suppliers
Frog’s Leap Winery is located in Napa, California has recently made steps to become more socially responsible and self-sustainable. This case analysis will study the effectiveness of the company’s newly implemented strategies and provides constructive feedback for the company. The winery industry is highly populated and Frog’s Leap Winery is only one of the thousands that consumers have to select from. The current market is very health conscious and these “green” consumers focus primarily on “Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability. The company has expanded it’s vineyards and increased it’s net sales with the past 10 years by emphasizing to the importance of the “triple bottom line,” which the
Companies today are heavily influenced by the demands of customers and stakeholders. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) refers to the social and environmental responsibility policies and practices developed by an organization to increase its positive influence and reduce its negative activity towards society (Parks, 2008). The business approach and corporate philosophy of an organization is easily altered due to economic pressures, technological improvement and stakeholder needs and demands. "Going green" or being eco-friendly is one such demand. Environmental and sustainability concerns originate most often from governments, consumer activists, and the general public (Schlosser, 2008). Thus, organizations must implement sustainability into daily practices. In addition, sustainability alters the nature of competition and drives companies to think differently about products, processes, and technologies (Parks, 2008).
Support: The inventory increase in 1997, YOY, was 58%. Additionally, the COGS to revenue ratio reduced from to 72% in 1997. This combination of increase in inventory and reduction in COGS as a percentage of revenue seems to indicate that the fixed costs may have been spread over a larger base through over production, thereby causing the COGS to reduce. This may be a cause for concern and could be a potential red flag.
The firm’s accounts receivable ratio increased from 68.71 in 2006 to 74.56 in 2010. This means that it is taking Abbott almost six days longer to collect from its customers today than it did five years ago. Furthermore, the firm’s accounts payable days has decreased from 43.72 in 2006 to 38.22 in 2010. This means that Abbott is paying its suppliers 5½ days earlier today than it did in 2006. A change in the inventory ratio from 8.01 in 2006 to 11.03 in 2010 indicates that it is taking the firm longer to sell finished goods than it used to. The increase in the accounts receivable and inventory ratios, combined with a decrease in the accounts payable ratio, indicates poor working capital management and helps to explain why the firm has increased its holdings of cash and short-term investments. To correct this, Abbott’s managers should focus on collecting cash from its customers faster and delaying payments to its suppliers. To maximize its cash position, the firm would be best served by paying its suppliers in the same amount of time as it collects payment from its customers.
The company’s creams inventory remains constant because it does not follow a trend in innovation and changes so often as the other products. The surplus in inventory is a big disadvantage since; last year’s products may not be in style this year in addition to the cost of storage. For all these reasons their cash flow is less in comparison with previous years causing that Luxor Cosmetics keeps increasing their bank loans, creating more debt, making it harder to pay out as 2011. In this particular situation the company could have either decrease its budgeted sales (productions) or increase its actual sales by improving more effective marketing strategy and research and development of its products in the markets. This way their inventory would decrease and their cash flow would increase. (Hopkins, 2009)
Our choices led to a constant increase in net income over the three years. Short term debt increase by approximately 100% percent but steadily reduced over the next three years. We were happy with the positive growth of the company and the fact that we were able to pay off most of the initial short term funding required by the increase in working capital requirement. Overall the current situation of the company in 2018 is good, although the total value created is less than 20% of that created in phase 1. From this we learned that the value of the firm can be significantly increased more through a reduction in working capital requirement than through increasing the firm’s sales and net income.
This assignment will initially describe social marketing and then indicate how corporations affect stakeholders through companies’ social marketing and responsibility. Following that, the importance and functions of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and social marketing will be demonstrated. Finally, it will explain how organizations reflect CSR and make a short conclusion to indicate the relationship between social marketing and CSR.
quantity of net income dollars of company earned for each dollar invested by the owners was 8.5% in 2010 and 10.4% in 2011 reflecting an increase of 1.9%. After analyzing the solvency ratios the following highlights were found: Riordan’s debt of totals assets ratio indicates company’s capability to survive losses without spoiling the interests of creditors. For 2010 was 14% and during 2011 was 29.4%, showing an increase of risk of 15.4% (higher the number, higher the risk that leads the company to be unable to meet its maturing obligations). The company’s time’s interest earned ratio that determines company’s capability to meet interest payments as they come due was 26.9 in 2010 and 8.3 in 2011. A high ratio on times interest earned may lead to investors to think that a company has an undesirable lack of debt or is paying down too much debt with earnings that could be used for other projects (Investopedia, 2013). Subsequently evaluating our performance and efficiently of the collected data, it reveals that Riordan Manufacture has displayed remarkable progress in comparison between years 2011 and 2010. The company liquidity demonstrates that we are capable to