Dannon Case Study

Consumers are increasingly skipping breakfast and morning food sales are on the decline. Yogurt tastes are changing as well, with many consumers opting for Greek yogurt as opposed to regular yogurt. GIS was greatly impacted by these changes in consumer preferences and saw US cereal sales drop 3% from 2017 to 2016 while US yogurt sales dropped 18% year-over-year. In July of 2017, GIS introduced a new French Style yogurt brand to appeal to changing consumer tastes and increase yogurt sales. One positive for the industry is that consumers are snacking more often. Consumers want convenient filling foods that fit in with their busy lifestyles. The packaged food industry can take advantage of this growth capitalize on the growing popularity of quick meals and nutritious snacks. Snacks comprise 21% of GIS’s total net sales and this is expected to continue to grow as GIS introduces more healthy options. Another concern is aging populations in the developed world. As consumers age, their dietary needs change. Older populations move away from many foods products with high levels of sugar and fat in favor of more nutritional products. There is slow population growth with birth rates below the replacement level in many developed nations. This decline in new consumers is a problem for the industry as they can no longer rely on consumer growth

The company has been pioneer in field of business and also been responsible. The company has kept its objective very close to its heart and its initiative to reduce Carbon Footprint and water wastage to Zero by 2040 and Sustained source of supply for its food business by 2020 shows its commitment towards external stakeholders as well. They have been pioneer in field of business and have worked to improve its business

Dannon 's CSR focused on three aspects—nutrition and health, people, and nature (Marquis et al, 2011). Despite its efforts, Dannon was not known for its CSR directives. The company 's CSR history was mostly internal—not well known to consumers—and a stark contrast to the company 's major competitor Yoplait, celebrated for its annual “Save Lids to Save Lives” campaign (Marquis et al, 2011). Contemplating on the direction Dannon should take, if any, Neuwrith sought council from company stakeholders (Marquis et al, 2011).

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a very controversial topic. A question that has been debated for the past few decades is; is it corporately viable to introduce social responsibility as a proposed addition to the work ethic of business organisations. As well as, if adopting the framework of corporate social responsibility would yield positive improvements for those organisations.

This initial setback with dairy products drove Danone to copy in China the alliance strategy used with great success to expand into Italy and Spain in the 1980s. Danone decided to capitalize successful local businesses rather than build its own businesses from scratch, resulting in a strong focus on joint ventures and acquisitions. Unlike most multinationals, Danone gave these acquired local businesses a great deal of autonomy. The joint ventures and acquired firms continued to sell their products under their own brands. Until late 2002, 80 per cent of Danone’s sales in China were under local brands. Furthermore, Danone let the former executives run the businesses and didn’t get involved much in daily operations. In fact, Danone functioned more like a capital investor, linking its joint ventures through capital investment rather than joint products. This expansion strategy in China worked very well. In 2001, Danone had become one of the largest food concerns in China, with $1.2 billion in sales, more than 50 plants and around 25,000 employees.14 Accounting for 9 per cent of Danone’s international sales in 2003, China became Danone’s third largest

Stakeholders will generally detect duplicity in CSR motives; intrinsic or genuine motives as well as extrinsic profit-related motives; however, stakeholders will be tolerant of clear extrinsic motives, if the CSR initiatives are rooted in intrinsic values. This leads to the perceived “win-win” scenario, and is one of the driving factors behind company CSR initiatives, as they realize the value of helping society while still being able to focus on the impact to the bottom line (Tonello, 2011). In addition, if campaigns are not communicated specifically around the brands it produces, then a “halo effect” for the entire industry could be the end result, of a poorly executed communication strategy (Marquis et al., 2011) Therefore, it is important for Dannon to construct a carefully balanced communication strategy, which considers the perception of its stakeholders in the marketplace, while also ensuring to highlight the specific impact of its CSR initiatives within the communities it operates.

Danone felt that the U.S. was an emerging market for yogurt and hence, Dannon focused its marketing strategy on increasing the yogurt consumption and expanding the category. Dannon had to follow Danone and maintain a strong commitment to CSR. At Danone, local decision making and was trusted and encouraged. Also, Dannon had a responsibility to its parent company and was accountable for a set of deliverables and data for reporting purposes. It believed in collaborative decision making and therefore major strategy

While Arosio, Pollock, Sargent, and Binney were able to point out both the positive and negative sides of communicating the company’s CSR efforts, Jove, Vice President of Marketing, and Cicio, Vice president of Human Resources, did not have any reservations in voicing out the true risks of the idea. According to Jove, since the U.S. population is still an emerging market for yogurt, the timing for communicating Dannon’s CSR as a marketing message would be premature. He knew very well that the current challenge is to get the American consumers to “want yogurt first” before making them “want Dannon”. Jove quoted, “I cannot put the chariot in front of the horse. First is product. Then we can enrich it with community and social activities.” (Marquis et al., 2011, p.11). Alongside Jove opposition to the idea, Cicio’s main concerns communicated its potential “moral dilemma”. He reminded Neuwirth of the bold conflict that the idea can bring by mixing CSR concepts as a marketing effort and

Dannon following the Corporate Social Responsibility program will help blend products naturally and the message will be consistent which will increase confidence in Dannon products. The risk with corporate and local level Corporate Social Responsibility communication program is measurability, impact and calculation of return of investment. Corporate Social Responsibility communication does have a positive impact and provides intangible benefits. During the communication campaign, there will be a short-term impact other than few products such as Activia. Depending on the individual Corporate Social Responsibility communication, competitor may take advantage or gain, if the consumer were to confuse about which company's Corporate Social Responsibility initiative. Critics could analyze Corporate Social Responsibility communication and demand is doing more, which will leave Dannon in a defensive position generating disinterest by its consumers (Marquis, Pooja, Tolleson, & Thomason, 2011, p.

Shared value is a business strategy which focuses on creating overall value while addressing social problems. This concept of management strategy was expressed in the “Creating Shared Value” article by Porter and Kramer. Shared value is not just an aspect of a company’s growth strategy or general business operations. It is well integrated in the way a company operates along with what their goals are as an organization. The value created for a company’s targeted end user also has some sort of social impact which benefits their company purpose. Creating social impact is a company goal and success is measured through creating a shared value network. Porter believes that “The ability to address social issues is integral to profit maximization instead of treated as outside the profit model.” He is addressing that profits are not measured by impact not just monetary gains for the company, we can change our mindset to think of profit in a different way. Profit can be a benefit or some sort of added value. In this approach Porter argues that “Corporate social responsibility encompasses not only what companies do with their profits, but also how they make them.” This relationship is the driving force for a company’s development and future growth, and it goes beyond corporate strategy it also incorporates investments and key stakeholders for each company. Quantifying a monetary figure and amount for social impact may be extremely difficult, however it has progressed with awareness and

However, Danone may need to consider extending its concept deeper, richer or wider to determine whether the benefits may be higher than they currently are (Edmondson, et al., 2008).

This is essay will focus on analyzing how corporate social responsibility (CSR) influences the investor relations of a corporation and whether it is good for the society, using Gasland and FrackNation as examples. In the contemporary society, CSR sounds like a commendatory term for the society. Over decades, it seems like that both the public and the media are trying to encourage corporations to behave more responsibly, and corporations are gradually becoming more socially aware in the contemporary society because they know they cannot afford the consequence of ignoring it. (Bernstein, 2009:606) However, CSR is not always beneficial. One of the major practices of public relations is investor relations, because the concerns of a corporation’s investors can directly relate to its welfare. When the corporations paid more attention on CSR, their investors will inevitably somehow feel ignored. As a public which has real material input to the corporations, investors are seeking for future returns, they want to be treated specially by the corporations that they invest. Also, value too much about CSR can make corporations become the victim of being morally hijacked, which may harm both a corporation’s financial success and the whole society’s harmony.

Cole + Parker is a sock company with a cause: to eliminate poverty in the world. To do this, Cole + Parker partnered with Kiva to create a program called 1 For Many. Through 1 For Many, Cole + Parker donates a portion of the proceeds of every pair of socks sold to charity through Kiva, both domestically and internationally. Kiva is a nonprofit organization that distributes zero interest loans to impoverished entrepreneurs. Cole + Parker has also partnered with Socktober, an annual event that encourages young adults and children to make a positive difference in the world through charity.

It has a great operation chain to support its operation around the world. From the research centers which mostly locate in European countries like France and Netherlands, the research center of DANONE in the business cluster of Paris-Saclay, is the one of the big research nutrition facility of DANONE and have been playing as vital role to participate in the innovation project as part as the research and development division. Moreover, the benefit from the acquisitions of other food companies initially took the shape of research potential as DANONE penetrate deeply through food technology innovation and it could be the part of the product development of DANONE. For the sourcing of raw material, DANONE has also invested to build standard value to deal with local supplier as partnerships. In some countries that DANONE has the huge market share, raw material from suppliers are not enough for the operating production. Vertical integration is option of strategy. DANONE invest into agricultural farming to be own supplier and eliminate the bargain power of supplier. This can help DANONE to save millions of money and security of raw material for sustainable production. Moving to Processing Factory, DANONE equip the own factories with most advance technology machine that can produce the product with high productivity. This can be the critical resource

There are now several concepts of CSR and its definition, along with the meaning across corporations. In my opinion, and according with our textbook in page 11. CSR is about a particular set of business and strategies that deal with social issues. In addition, we can clearly perceive that CSRs application along corporations has increase in the past decade due to the several local, and international regulations in order to enforce business to act responsible.