Marketing At A Business Organisation In Australia

Economic Issues

Discuss about the Marketing At A Business Organisation In Australia.

The report focuses on the major aspects of marketing at a business organisation in Australia. It sheds limelight on the impact that marketing has created o the community as well as on the environmental stewardship, also known as sustainability. The environmental stewardship means using the natural resources properly to protect the environment and by managing good and effective sustainable practices within the business organisation. The marketing is the various approaches that are followed by the business organizations to market its products and services properly and manage the relationship between human beings and land and how a good ecological balance can be maintained within the organisation with ease and effectiveness (Baker et al. 2012). 

There are several economic issues that are faced by Woolworths in Australia such as recession period and increase in rate of unemployment, which has affected the financial performance and resulted in poor productivity, lower sales and less profit generation too. With the global financial crisis, the company further faced economic and financial issues and the condition of the organization further declined. It closed its operations during that time and more than 30,000 people were unemployed who were previously working for the company (Baker, Griffis and Ochsner 2012). The sales level also decreased, further leading to financial disruption and failing to assess the needs and requirements of different market segments in Australia. The retail industry within which the company operates is quite huge and continuous support was provided to Woolworths to continue with the business operations and generate good amounts of profit in business (Woolworths.com.au 2017). After Woolworths continued its operations, many of the unemployed individuals already started to work in other companies and thus the company faced some other issues with the recruitment and selection of skilled individuals who have the necessary skills and knowledge to enhance the efficacy of the workforce (Berliner and Prakash 2013).

Another economic issue could be the rise in inflation rate that had resulted in increasing the prices of products and services and even managed the packaging methods at a higher rate for Myers. Though there were enough scopes for the company to ensure that the packaging activities had to be managed at a lower cost, still the plastic bags were used that not only acted as harmful substances to harm the ecological balance in nature. The rise in prices of products is another issue, though it is certain that it is important to cover everything within budget, though not compromising on the quality of products anyhow (Connolly et al. 2013). The sharp downturn in the economic growth of Australia has created various issues including less earning by the West farmers, suppliers, which posed to be a threat for the lower economic growth. Another issue considering the economic factors is that consumers have gone online nowadays and businesses often fails to implement the right online marketing technique to attract and retain new and existing customers with ease and effectiveness. The economic issues can result in making persons lose jobs as well as make the individuals of the marketing industry to focus on the changes in economic growth and how information is consumed (Demarche et al. 2012). Monopoly is another economic issue that makes the business organizations set higher prices of products and services that will be delivered to the consumers. The agricultural markets constantly start changing and this results in changing the prices of products and services from time to time. The volatile markets even cause change in economic growth and profit level and this is a major issue, which can be overcome with the help of a proper marketing technique. The marketing approach can help in adapting to the market needs and analyse the expectations and preferences of customers consistently to make sure that sustainability practices are managed to enhance brand reputation (Driscoll et al. 2012). Through enhancement of brand image and reputation, it would be easy to create a positive mindset among the customers and make them know about the sustainability practices managed and how they could get fresh quality food and other products delivered by the company. Scarcity of resources is another major issue faced by organizations like JB HI-Fi that has been caused due to rise in population and high consumption by consumers in the developing economies (Woolworths.com.au 2017).  This has resulted in higher prices, market volatility and a changing supply landscape. Myers has innovated its products and services through various marketing techniques to develop stronger relationship with the suppliers and ensure overcoming the economic issues quite comprehensively (Hollensen 2015).

Legal issues

One of the major issues that was faced by Woolworths, Freedom Foods Group in Australia had been the selling of unsafe and unhealthy products and services to the customers. Bellamy’s Organic was found to provide products that were not organic and even the food items had been made with artificial ingredients.  The company was ordered to pay $3 million dollars as penalty for selling the products and services that had been causing health related issues for many individuals. This was a major legal issue, because the Government failed to understand the entire situation and even failed to alert the authorities and make the issue known to the higher management, as required by law (Wilson et al. 2012). Though the company staffs explained this matter as a misinterpretation of certain characteristics and features of the products, still companies like Freedom Foods Group and Bellamy’s Organic were subjected to mislead interpretations regarding the safety of certain home brand products and services. Even few of the customers faced injuries and harms due to certain harmful chemicals present in the products. The products of Woolworths not only created injury to the individual but also deteriorated his physical condition, thereby making the customers need healthcare. Due to the poor quality products and unhealthy products, not only the environmental stewardship has been damaged but also the consumers have been unsatisfied (Wolf et al. 2013). Other issues related to the legal aspects had been not meeting up to the quality standards, which had created different problems for MCOR like bad brand image and reputation and decrease in sales revenue as well. MCOR used to sell eco friendly products but with time, the quality of products delivered deteriorated  due to the inorganic ingredients that were used and this failed to meet the quality standards. To overcome this issue, the quality assurance program is necessary during the management of marketing to deliver end-to-end services and monitor the progress all throughout the product life cycle (Baker, Griffis and Ochsner 2012).

Sustainability has emerged as a major aspect for the management of increased global understanding where economics, health and well-being of customers, environment health and protection are interrelated. NIEHS allows for promoting the good health and well-being of the community and people living there and conduct researches to contribute to a string and valuable relationship between the environment and people. Few of the major issues were not complying with the state, federal and local environmental laws, rules and regulations and not meeting the environmental requirements responsibly (Baker et al. 2012). By making the environment quality improvements feasible though various marketing strategies like by managing sustainability practices, it would be easy to maintain the standards and meet the demands and preferences of customers as a whole. It was seen that during the processes of manufacturing and production, high amounts of wastes had been generated that had not only created pollution to the environment, but also had hindered the maintenance of strategies and policies related to protection of the Environment. The resources would be consumed at less by ensuring that the wastes had been maintained properly (Baker, Griffis and Ochsner 2012). The marketing activities would include green technologies use that could create a positive impact on human health as well as promote sustainability and manage utilization of resources much more efficiently. To enhance the marketing and promotional activities and create a positive brand image among the minds of customers it would be important to provide education to all the employees and make them informed about the significance of environmental responsibility, furthermore sharing and exchanging proper and relevant information on the environmental performance with the public community (Berliner and Prakash 2013).

There are different kinds of ethical issues in marketing that is faced by Woolworths, Australia in the recent years. The ethics in the advertisements as well as promotional activities in Myers and JB Hi Fi has created lot of ethical issues. Puffery is one such ethical issue faced by these two companies in Australia which made exaggerated claim on the superiority of different products upon the other competitors in the market. Deception is the other issue wherein Woolworths has made misleading or false statements in order to gain competitive advantage in the market (Krasny et al. 2014). This has led to the misunderstanding among the customers of Myers and many of the quality standards were not met, which further resulted in complexities to maintain the ethical standards as well.

The other ethical issue is relating to the different advertisements that are related to the controversial products in the market (Barrage, Chyn and Hastings 2014). This has led to miscommunication among the customers as the respective supermarket has shown a false picture of a respective product that was ineffective in nature. This can lead to minimization of profit in the company as the customers will be facing trouble and this will lead to lack of trust among the customers about Woolworths as well.

 The ethical issues include damaging the personal autonomy or causing harm to the competitors in the market as well. When a respective company is causing harm to the competitors, it will lead to loss of reputation of the respective company as this will damage their personal autonomy (Vitell and Hunt 2015).

The other unethical practice that has been observed is manipulating the social values and false advertisements done by Freedom Food group and Organic can affect the trust and faith of the individuals in the society negatively. The company stated use of organic substances deliberately, though knowing that the inorganic ingredients have been used nowadays that are often ignored by the customers. These can lead to lack of faith of the customers on the respective company and there will be issues over trust and honesty among the customers as well (Leonidou, Leonidou and Kvasova 2013). There can be unethical issues relating to the taste as well as controversy among the customers of the particular supermarket as well. The other unethical practices are relating to the negative advertising techniques used by Woolworths wherein this can create loyalty issues among the customers as well.

These unethical issues that have huge negative impact on the environmental stewardship as this can have direct impact on the nature as well as the customers as they are the ones who consume such products from the market by trusting the reliable communication provided by them (Woolworths.com.au 2017).

There can be unethical issues related to the product that is sold by them such as selling different kinds of products that are banned in the host or home country. The company is not providing proper information about the different information relating to the side effects of specific products. This can lead to issues in the environmental stewardship as this is not potential and sustainable in nature (Ford and Richardson 2013). This can lead to unethical practices among the individuals who are the target customers of the respective company as well.

Lastly, the other unethical practices that lead to issues in marketing of products are unnecessary packaging of different goods and these products can be unsafe to the customers as well.

Such unethical practices have to be properly sorted out by the companies by implementation of different strategies that will help them in maintaining sustainable environment. Proper usage of advertisements, selling proper packaged goods to the customers and building proper trust among the customers will help them in maintaining environmental stewardship or potential environment (Woolworths.com.au 2017). 

Conclusion

The report focused on the major concepts of marketing considering the various issues related to the economy, legality and ethics maintained at various business organizations in Australia. It could be seen that various economic issues like rise in inflation rate and plastic packaging created imbalance in the environmental conditions. The legal issues were delivering products that created harmful impacts on the health of individuals while the ethical issues were puffery, deception that damaged the personal autonomy and made the company fail to stay ahead of its competitors.  All these issues were overcome with the sue of various marketing techniques so that the environmental sustainability is maintained and customers are kept safe and healthy from any harm that might be caused due to the products and services offered by Woolworths, Australia. The sustainability practices helped in maintaining a positive brand image and reputation, which created positive mindset among the customers, created positive effects on the community and furthermore maintained proper environmental sustainability with ease and effectiveness too.

References

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Woolworths.com.au. (2017). Woolworths.com.au. Retrieved 13 October 2017, from https://www.woolworths.com.au/