From the analysis of the case study presented here, it is understood that the major issue has been associated with the loss of contract with Glistrom, which has been caused due to the lack of skills and capability to adjust to the changes within the external environment. Due to this, the company has lacked proper approaches to manage sustainability, which can also contribute to the poor management of sustainability and absence of a Chief Sustainability officer or CSO too (Miller and Serafeim 2014). The topic of choice has been the sustainability management, which prioritises on the management of sustainable approaches to protect the environment and at the same time, keep the costs of business operations and processes under control. The problem is also related to the inability to respond to the external environment, which has also affected the production and overall business process efficiency for Narinex. The second issue has been the compliance issue related to the manufacturing and operational procedures at Narinex, which also increased the costs of manufacturing and production as well as created complexities due to the higher costs of tracking. Moreover, with the absence of a CSO, the issue further escalated and resulted in being unable to meet the requirements and demands of the clients effectively (Strand 2014). Therefore, it can be clearly understood that the first issue is the inability of the organisation to suit the business operations whereas the other issue is the poor sustainability management practices that can affect the overall production and revenue generation for the organisation.
Statement A
From the case study, it is understood that the main issue has been related to the adaptation to the external environment and unable to cope up with the changes. Due to this, the organisation is unable to manage suitability with the business operations, furthermore, hindered the management of sustainability and affected the growth and development of Narinex, which has been one of the major concerns of Jennifer Brown, the CEO of Narinex. The sustainability factor is a pressing need for the company’s growth in this situation as Narinex had just lost another major contract to Glistrom. Who is a UK-based competitor that it had beaten several times over the year (Mangra, Cotoc and Dumitru 2014). Jennifer Brown, the CEO of the company has found that the cause of this failure might be the inability to cope with the external environmental changes and develop sustainable business process in production as well as service of the company.
Analysis A
Due to the constant issues and failures related to the sustainability management, Narinex has constantly faced pressure, due to which, the operations and processes have not been up to the mark, which also created difficulties for the organisation to sustain in the long run. Thus, the sustainability issues has been the main concern considering the case, which has enabled the company unable to cater the needs and requirements of managing the business operations and processes properly (Galbreath 2016). With the company managing its business operations and processes for meeting the needs of customers for a long time, due to the changing business market conditions, often sustenance in the highly competitive business environment might seem to be difficult. As stated by Percy (2000), the identification of issues is essential for determining the areas that require changes, furthermore, make sure to cater to the needs of the external environment at Narinex. But for that, the selection of Chief Sustainability Officer or CSO is required, who can manage the sustainability competency and make sure to resolve the issues surrounding the concept of sustainability and ability to respond to the changes in the external environment much comprehensively. Considering the sustainability management concepts, not only does the company adopted greener approaches through extensive green channels of products, business practices and services delivered, but also the positive brand image and reputation has been acquired (Nwobodo-Anyadiegwu and Mbohwa 2017). It was also found that the company with whom Narinex lost a contract, i.e., Glistrom, managed to enable changes and improvements to cope up with the external environment by incorporating various environmental friendly methods and techniques along with the adoption of green policies, principles and greener approaches. This is essential for creating a positive mindset among the multiple stakeholders involved in business such as the shareholders, employees, customers, managers and the community.
It has also been found that the company, while operating within the current market, Narinex made sure to fulfil the needs of suppliers and also managed ethical approaches to set the right prices along with manage delivery of goods and services effectively too. Due to this, the company has managed to strengthen its relationship with the suppliers and also made sure to prevent any conflicts with the Government, for ensuring the maintenance of standards and comply with the legal obligations, rules and regulations (Weinert 2018). In addition, the disposal of the waste materials after manufacturing the goods or end products is also environment-friendly and abides by all the regulations of the government. This is the reason why the c-suits of the company Narinex were not able to identify what the actual problem is and why it is losing to its competition. Though the company has managed sustainable approaches to enhance the production ethically, still the issues emerge unless the environmental practices have been changed in order to adapt to the external environment (Thakhathi et al. 2019).
According to Turker (2018), the change in market conditions has further affected the management of sustainability, which also results in compliance issues about the waste management and related to the fair wages paid by the suppliers along with the transformation of written or paper documents into online documentation where there is no need of paper usage. On the contrary, Glistrom has beaten Narinex in terms of manufacturing of the goods and services sustainably. The company (Narinex) has different branches around the world, and it tries to cater to the needs of its customers in different ways, the pressure of maintaining a profit and market share of the company, results in making unethical and unsustainable choices in order to maintain competitiveness in the market. The company utilises the opportunity of different regulations from different governments to maximise profit gains ignoring its externalities (Ivada and Fauzi 2018). In the markets where the environmental regulations are looser and allow customer specifications permit, the company produces goods with lower-cost substances that would not be acceptable in all other regions. The environmental practices of the company is, therefore, the main problem for which it is not being able to touch the level of perfection and losing competitiveness in the market. Due to the increase in the threat of global warming and the direct connection of companies around the world contributing to increase levels pollution, the governments of more countries have changed their environmental policies through which more barriers to the free operation of the companies has been limited (Jahanshahi, Brem and Bhattacharjee 2017).
It could be the responsibility of the C suite of the company who will make these decisions to bring forth changes in the policies of the company and make them more sustainable by spanning outside the boundaries of the organisation. A CSO will be able to analyse the market trends and make a forecast regarding any policies and process changes due to sustainability. This will then create awareness among the stakeholders to see through the veils of the advertisement and look onto the actual operation of the company. In this case, the company is manufacturing a low-quality product and not investing in the R&D department for innovative ways to reduce waste problems (Afshar Jahanshahi, Brem and Bhattacharjee 2017). In order to make the business sustainable, it is the responsibility of the C suite of the company hence Narinex can focus on bring necessary changes in the policies of the company and follow the path of the competitors to mitigate the needs of the changing external environment.
The second issue has been the compliance issue related to the manufacturing and operational procedures at Narinex, which also increased the costs of manufacturing and production as well as created complexities due to the higher costs of tracking. Moreover, with the absence of a CSO, the issue further escalated and resulted in being unable to meet the requirements and demands of the clients effectively. The topic of choice has been the management of sustainability, which could ensure that sustainable measures are undertaken considering the management of hazardous substances along with management of business functions and processes within limited cost as well.
Considering the case study, it has also been found that the second issue is related to the cost and compliance issues that have been experienced during the manufacturing and production processes at Narinex. There were main complexities that arose, which further escalated the tracking costs and this issue has been influenced with no presence of CSO, thereby, resulted in setting the prices of products higher, thus being unable to fulfil the demands and expectations of people within the marketplace. Wiengarten, Lo and Lam (2017) suggested that going green often reduces the costs of business operations and processes and thus, the manufacturing and production processes are managed seamlessly too. Based on the case study, the cost and compliance issue has resulted in higher costs incurred during the monitoring and tracking processes along with the creation of negative impact on the business in terms of brand image and reputation too. Lack of commitment in certain areas towards the management of sustainability has also affected the cost savings and also made the business lose its potential customers to Glistrom (Kanashiro and Rivera 2019).
Based on the analysis of the case study, it is found that the company Narinex suffered from poor sustainability management because of the absence of a CSO and thus the company also faced issue in complying with the sustainability laws, rules and regulations, which also affected the environment. The most important issue, thus, has been the poor management of sustainability and unable to comply with the environmental laws, rules and regulations, which also made the company fail to get the job done within the allocated cost or budget too. Thus, the costs of business functions and processes were quite higher, which also has been considered as a major issue considering the case study analysis for Narinex. This further indicated the higher costs in production and further issues arose with the failure to comply with the European Union’s RoHS regulations that govern the management of hazardous substances within the workplace. Notably, with the absence of a CSO, the employees were not much aware of managing sustainable measures, which also resulted in poor performance and failing to establish a healthy corporate culture within the workplace of Narinex.
In spite of the cost and compliance issues, it has created great scopes and opportunities for facilitating the innovation perspectives all across the company, furthermore, ensured stable business functioning. Moreover, it is also found that to overcome the cost and compliance issues as well as save a significant amount of cost associated with the business manufacturing and production processes, and it is essential to ensure implementation of change in the process of sourcing. This would not only make the various line of components for Emerald be produced at a much lesser cost but could even contribute to the proper management and governing of hazardous substances by complying with the European Union’s RoHS laws, rules and regulations.
It has also been found that these kinds of issues often affected the culture present at the organisation, which also affected the team working ability, coordination at work and imperfect communication process too (Peters and Romi 2014). The absence of a CSO can be considered as a major factor that has contributed to the issue furthermore, as well as reduced the company’s ability to implement sustainable measures for gaining competitive advantage and meet the demands and expectations in the marketplace. Both the issues, i.e., A and B have led to a similar kind of conclusion, which represent the fact that the absence of a Chief Sustainability Officer or CSO has been a major problem experienced by the organisation Narinex.
While there have been debates surrounding the need for hiring and not hiring a CSO, it is true to believe that a Chief Sustainability Officer is to act as a strategic thinker, who can not only provide guidance, but can even develop a sustainability vision for the accomplishment of sustainable goals and objectives at Narinex (Henry, Buyl and Jansen 2019). Considering the importance of corporate social responsibilities nowadays, Narinex should hire a CSO to focus on the Triple Bottom Line, i.e., the people, planet and profit, thereby, manage the resources properly along with the management of legal environmental compliance to reduce the costs of business’ manufacturing and production processes. The CSO, if hired at Narinex, would be able to identify the issues surrounding the business as well as understand that the sustainability issues are related to the various risks as well as opportunities that tend to affect the business functioning and hinder becoming socially responsible towards the community. Ths, development of a sustainability vision involving the CEO of the company and CSO should also boost the company’s ability to integrate the sustainability vision into the ore functions, thus, increase the chances of facilitating the bottom-line thinking and keep up with the latest green trends within the industry (NGAN 2014).
Not only does the involvement of CEO is essential for the implementation of sustainability strategies, but also the hiring of a CSO should assist in the execution of strategy, furthermore, commit themselves fully towards the accomplishing of sustainability goals and objectives across various levels effectively too. The CSO could be employed at Narinex for embedding sustainability practices within the organisation and at the same time, lead the change management implementation to create a positive impact on the financial performance as well as on the commitment towards sustainability. According to NGAN (2014), Considering the cost and compliance issues, the CSO should be hired for prioritising on the two major stages of compliance and efficiency by carrying out a generic set of activities such as by implementing a sustainability management strategy and even focus on the issues arisen, management of relations with the stakeholders and also communicating the employees of the organisation about the sustainability approaches to be undertaken, sustainable policies, principles, etc (Vikas and Officer 2015). This would promote innovation perspective and at the same time, manage decentralisation of business activities and rights to make decisions that could make the business organisation successful in the long run.
As stated by Strand (2014), it has also been believed that the strategic leadership play a major role in managing the corporate sustainability and at the same time, facilitate the roles and responsibilities of the top management of the organisation to commit towards the sustainability goals, objectives and responsibilities effectively. Due to this, the strategic leadership not only facilitated the key performance indicators, but also ensure that the CSR goals and objectives are taken into consideration for resolving the issues and problems emerged within the organisation (Strand 2014). With the hiring of a CSO, the sustainability management approaches should be managed much more wisely, thereby, increase the scopes and opportunities for making changes to the sourcing process, which could also allow the organisation to produce the goods and services at a much lesser cost. The compliance issues would be resolved furthermore with the prioritisation on the management of EU’s RoHS rules and regulations, thereby, ensure handling the hazardous substances much more cautiously to prevent any harmful impact. The strategic leadership support with the involvement of CSO at Narinex could also facilitate the acquisition of necessary opinions, ideas and responses of the employees and enhance the process of decision making mostly (Rivera and Kanashiro 2016). This should also foster a healthy corporate culture, where teamwork and coordination could be promoted, thereby, raise the chances of better communication and commitment towards sustainability achievement much comprehensively too.
The recommendations are provided to ensure that whether Narinex should hire a CSO or not based on various findings of the research provided. As it could be seen from the case study that the company was facing issues related to the management of sustainability and being unable to respond to the external environment, which resulted in cost and compliance issues too. Moreover, the cost and compliance issues were also due to the lack of a CSO, which made the company lack certain aspects and knowledge regarding the management of sustainability. Few advantages for the company by hiring a Chief Sustainability Officer include analysis and prediction of the future outlook and manage stability of business functions and processes with minimum negative environmental impact. According to Lo and Fu (2016), the CSO is also assigned with the roles and responsibilities of setting various policies, principles, goals, objectives and approaches required to maintain consistent productivity as well as to attain the desired level of profit with much ease and effectiveness by following the environmental policies and principles too. With the hiring of CSO, it is recommended to manage compliance with the environmental laws, rules and regulations for Narinex, furthermore, make the employees influenced to manage the recycling activities along with the management of green teams for bringing sustainable measures and become socially responsible too (Svejenova and Alvarez 2017). It is also recommended to look at the climatic change conditions, management of water and health-related issues like obesity to make sure that a healthy environment is created for better wellbeing of the community and environment at large.
Just like the same, there are both advantages as well as disadvantages of not hiring a CSO at Narinex. Though with the hiring of a CSO facilitates renewable sourcing of energy and manage energy efficiency to create a positive environmental impact, still there are few significant social and economic implications too based on the decisions made. While maintaining sustainable measures, knowledge on every department is essential for management of better work at the company, furthermore, develop sustainability plans to move forward in the future. Identification of sustainability plan, to the core, is recommended, which is required to sustain in the future, and this often has been ignored at times. Without hiring a CSO, there would also be no need to manage the supply chains consisting of the raw materials, which could also make the company prioritise on the present sustainability plans rather than making prior expectations or assumptions for expansion in the future (Thomashow 2014).
On the other hand, not hiring a CSO would result in saving a significant amount of money, thereby, also sustain in the competitive business environment by keeping good relations with the shareholders, thus making them to increase the investments made. Though CSO has the capability and skills, sill the CSO has not been positioned as central to the operations, sales and marketing, human resources management department, etc. Moreover, the sustainability management must be managed all across the functions and at various levels of the organisation, because of which, it might lead to complexities while making useful and effective decisions too. Therefore, CSO might not also be hired in many cases as considered from the sustainability management perspective.
The scientific management theory by Frederick Taylor, as considered by Waring (2016), has allowed for improving the efficiency of workforce as well as the economic condition, thereby, facilitate the productivity of labour and ensure keeping employees motivated at work to perform to their potential as well. Based on the theory, in case the efficiency is higher than the basic standard, then the workers are to be paid with 120 percent of the actual wages that are being paid to them. Considering the present scenario, it is recommended for Narinex to hire a CSO and make sure to adopt the necessary sustainable measures for managing the business functions and processes effectively and also create a positive environmental impact. It has also been recommended to influence the shareholders to make investments and at the same time, integrate the sustainability functions to the sales, manufacturing, human resources management, operations. This enhances the efficiency of procurement and supply chain activities for producing synergies and respond to the changes in external environment too with much ease and effectiveness (Tzortzaki and Mihiotis 2014). It is also important to invest in the community and protect the environment, thereby, provide money as charities for becoming socially responsible as well.
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