Marketing Ethics Essay

Strategies: What strategy or mix of strategies is the corporation following? Are they consistent with each other,

This case study analyzes the experiences of Courtland Kelley at General Motors (GM). Courtland Kelley a third generation GM worker put his job on the line by pushing the GM managers and executives to fully respond to the safety issues found while working as a safety inspector at the company. Kelley along with his supervisor Bill McAleer first discovered the issues while auditing GM cars at rail yards across the country, a spot check of vehicles before the cars were cleared to be delivered to the dealers. McAleer was taken off the audit as a result, who subsequently sued the company seeking whistle-blower protection. The case was eventually dismissed by a judge in favor of GM. The judgement only increased Kelley’s

Discuss the strategic decisions that firms in this sector may be facing. What future strategies can firms pursue to try to secure their competitive advantage and long term survival?

Discuss what is meant by the term “customer orientation”. Illustrate with examples how companies demonstrate their customer orientation by reference to at least two elements of the marketing mix.

Top managers develop long-range plans, called strategic plans that define the company's overall mission and goals. Strategic planning focuses more on issues that affect the company's future survival and growth. To develop strategic plan, top managers also need information from outside the company, such as economic forecasts, technology trends, competitive threats, governmental issues and shareholder concerns.

Kodak is making history. In 2010, we made real progress toward becoming a profitable, sustainable digital company. We enjoyed a record level of digital earnings from operations and produced promising results from the four engines of our digital growth strategy – Consumer Inkjet, Commercial Inkjet, Packaging, and Workflow Software & Services. As a group, revenue from these product lines increased 18% last year. Our strategy is working. We are using our competitive advantage at the intersection of digital imaging and materials science to pursue large markets in need of transformation, such as commercial printing. We are gaining market share and building growth businesses with exciting potential. During 2010, we achieved a number of milestones: • Sales of printers and ink collectively in or Consumer Inkjet business grew by 35% • We surpassed our unit placement goals for commercial digital inkjet presses, and we shipped our first PROSPER Presses, which feature continuous inkjet technology

Prior to April 1994, there were several challenges to meet. The company needed to research if it could keep its traditional competitive advantage with print economies of scale (it was found that they could). “Costs were higher than expected: the presses were expensive, required skilled and dedicated operators, and used more toner than anticipated.” Finally, there were issues with selling the idea of digital print medium to internal divisions. “Internally, people thought digital was a good idea but no one wanted it because it was outside their core business. They all had some potential digital work, but didn’t know enough about the markets and were scared of an unproven technology. Customers, on the other hand, almost jumped up and down, even though they too didn’t know what to do with the new technology, or were themselves just starting to convert to digital format.” In other words, there were challenges moving the leadership from the old business model thinking into the new tech future. The basic task was to find out if the new model could work and still keep the competitive advantage and then sell the divisional leadership on adopting the new technology and the new business model.

Kodak currently has no position within the ink market. The ink business is a $45 billion a year sector that could regenerate Kodak’s position in the printing sector. The market for ink is dominated by HP, followed by Epson, Canon, and Lexmark. Entering a complete new market may be beneficial in its current position. According to Kodak, the greatest obstacle to printing at home is the cost of ink and supplies. Kodak can develop a cost efficient solution that will be more appealing to consumers. With the launch of this product, Kodak must focus on several sectors of business: marketing, pricing, distribution, and production. Onesource (2011).

Xerox hopes to avoid mistakes of the past by having “a system to prevent technology from leaking out of the company”, according to Robert V. Adams, president of XTV. They have a $30 million dollar fund to support this intrapreneurial activity. It has supported a dozen start-ups thus far, only two having failed. These are extremely promising numbers, with 83% of ventures coming to fruition.

We live in a world where, because of the Internet and the Web, we can communicate with someone in Africa or Asia as easily as we can communicate with someone in the office next door. A company like Xerox represents businesses all over the world, and the diversity of its employees is a big plus. Acknowledging our differences and

To fully understand the nature of the question posed one must know the meaning of ethics. Webster’s dictionary defines ethics as the philosophical study of the moral value of human conduct and of the rules and principles that ought to govern it; moral philosophy, the moral fitness of a decision, course of action, etc. Basically, I believe ethics is how one makes a decision according to the social norm that surrounds him. The social norm includes not only the culture but the laws and standard procedures of the environment. These laws and norms must be fully understood before one can understand the ethical significance of one’s decision.

Ethical problems in marketing starts with conflicts and disagreements. Each party in the marketing transaction brings expectations of how the business relationship will exist and how the transaction should be conducted. Some ethical problems in marketing research aren’t always the invasion of privacy and stereotyping. Selective marketing is used to discourage the demand from undesirable markets or just by disenfranchising them altogether. Examples of unethical market is the exclusion markets such as gay, ethnic minorities, and plus-size markets.

Financial Research – The Xerox Abstract On April 8th, 2002, the Xerox Corporation ("Xerox") announced its willingness to accept the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to reach a settlement with the conditions. Thereafter, its financial fraud became surfaced. On June 28th, Xerox Corporation in accordance with the requirements of the settlement, submitted the unaudited 1997-2000 restated annual financial statements to the SEC, and recognized fraud interest income of $6.4 billion, pre-tax profit of $1.4 billion (SEC thought that should be $1.5 billion) during this period, which sparked

Major advantage with this option is the fact that Xerox operates in the market it fully knows, dominates and controls. As a market leader, having gained clear edge over main competitor IBM, Xerox can consolidate its position with the introduction of innovative new product "Book-In-Time solution" that could significantly reduce the publishing costs.

Market research: ethical danger points in marketing research include: - Invasion of privacy – Stereotyping Market audience: ethical danger points include - targeting the vulnerable children, the elderly - Excluding potential customers from the market: selective marketing is used to discourage demand from undesirable market sectors or disenfranchise them altogether. Pricing ethics: list of unethical pricing practice: - Price fixing - Price skimming - Price discrimination - Price wars - Bid rigging - Dumping