For proctor & Gamble, there are various challenges that face its launching plan. The company should launch its product now. Firstly, the time it has spent conducting market survey is enough to convince the marketers about the projected returns from the liquid product.
Despite the competition from Henkel and the projected internal competition from Aerial, the introduction of the liquid detergent will set a new track for this company (Harvard Business School 1989). Waiting for some time will lead to the release of Henkel’s new product and this may affect the response from the customers.
Timeliness in the release of new products is very important. Although it gives the competitors something to learn about the product, it still creates an opportunity to get popular and gain consumer loyalty. By being vibrant in the launching campaign, the company will be in a better position to introduce a new wave of culture, in the use of liquid detergents.
This will lead to great market command in liquid detergents since Henkel might be on the verge of releasing a liquid detergent that might make it hard for Vizir product to succeed in the market. There should be no more wasting of time in the release of the product as it may allow for other competitor brands to be launched and hence affect the popularity of Vizir upon its release.
Should they launch the brand as euro brand?
There is usually a connection of consumers with local brands; they are usually influenced to purchase local products as a form of identity creation. In the case of Vizir, however, it should be introduced as a foreign brand and not as a European brand. The main reason for this is the washing culture in Europe and the differences that arise when compared to American culture. Introducing the brand as a European one would require to be changed wholly so as to make it compliant with European standards.
The brand should remain as a foreign product in order to make it easier to expand the sales to other countries. Developing a European brand would require changes in the marketing strategies since the customers’’ preferences have to be re-evaluated and re-strategized.
Consumer preferences have to be altered and before the brand can penetrate the local brand under local registration, it would take time and more money (Harvard Business School 1989). For this reason, the brand should remain as a foreign brand but with characteristics that favor the European markets. This might reduce the limiting factor associated with marketing and expanding the brand to other regions.
What should their structure be?
The organizational structure should not be different from the already existing one. This will make it easier to manage the new product. Being a company that is affiliated to the main brands, Procter & Gamble should elect a manager in every country to foresee the developments and acceptance of the new brand in the new market.
There should be two managers rather than three in order to reduce the expenses incurred at the executive level. The laundry and cleaning department as well as the personal care products departments should be headed by a single manager; this reduces the expenses and increases the possible returns on investment.
The sales team and product development managers should be supplied with more subordinate employees to help in popularizing the product upon its launch. With proper follow up from the executives, it would be easier to control the employees in sales and marketing departments in order to make the brand popular and establish its mark in the European market.
Proper definition of roles and responsibilities is one of the major concepts that will influence great returns upon investment. With a slight reduction in executive management and an increasing number of junior employees, the company has the manpower it needs to influence popularity of the product.
References
Harvard Business School 1989, Procter & Gamble Europe: Vizir launch, Harvard University Press, Cambridge.
Effective human resource management is essential for any company to succeed. This entails efficient management of the workforce in order to promote the performance of the company. The human resource at Proctor and Gamble is charged with the responsibility of ensuring excellent service delivery by the company’s employees and this positively impacts on the company’s remarkable global performance and this can partly be attributed to efficient management of the business (Anonymous 2010).
The company’s human resource sector aims at maintaining a skilled workforce as well as attracting the best talent to join the company’s workforce in order to ensure it enjoys high and efficient output from its human capital, which is essential for the good performance of the company.
Further, the organization puts more emphasis on evaluation and measurement of employees’ engagement and commitment to the roles assigned to them and has in addition established initiatives to promote involvement of the employees in the company’s strategic activities as well as sustenance of benefits.
To ensure that it achieves high standards of human resource management, the company has established and developed a human resource department that comprises of change agents, team builders advisors among other human resource specialists who constantly engage in activities aimed at motivating employees and promoting their welfare as well as ensuring the provision of a skilled pool of labor to the company through transparent recruitment of new qualified employees.
Human Resource Requirement for Service
Being part of Proctor and Gamble human resource team entails the responsibility of developing systems and tools that are directed towards attracting a skilled pool of labor, reward and motivation of the existing employees as well as challenging the employees in order to promote efficiency, innovation, and invention (Anonymous 2010).
The human resource management is expected to promote and protect the company’s values, purpose, and principles through inspiring, enabling, and engaging the company’s employees as well as acting as change agents in order to drive towards positive transformation of the company and provide a solid foundation for the company’s culture, external environment as well as company’s goals (Anonymous 2010).
The Human resource manager is not only expected to be academically qualified in the field but also has to possess qualities of good leadership coupled with social responsibility which is necessary when dealing with people from diverse backgrounds and social settings who make up the workforce.
Consultation with Stakeholders
Proctor and Gamble ensures involvement of the human resource sector as an ultimate business partner in order to promote increase in the company’s growth. This is because the human resource sector ensures that there is simplification of work processes in the company and promotes the creation of a culture that focuses on innovation through pro active labor relations (Anonymous 2010).
In addition, the human resource sector in the company seeks to understand and address the needs and wishes of potential employees as well as the current employees in order to strengthen the company’s position as an attractive employer (Anonymous 2010). At Proctor and Gamble, developing the employees into future leaders is one of the major long term strategies of the company.
Options required for delivery of service
Being on the forefront towards provision of intensely competitive consumer goods in the market, P&G puts consumer satisfaction as the major company’s priority and aims at understanding consumer needs better than their competitors (Lafley 2001).
To achieve this, the company’s management must connect these needs to an innovative engine that results in production of improved products that meet the consumer needs (Lafley 2001). Consequently, the human resource manager must have the ability to mobilize the employees towards the achievement of this goal.
Service Specifications
Being a human resource manager in this company requires you to work on assignments and tasks covering the major areas of human resource management, based on Dave Ulrich human resource champion model (Anonymous 2010). In addition, the human resource executives are expected to map and analyze the company’s salary planning in order to assess its effectiveness in line with the company’s goals, values, and objectives (Anonymous 2010).
Agreed roles and responsibilities
The human resource managers organize strategic plans such as those aiming at ensuring team effectiveness improvements; to achieve this, the human resource department facilitates and supports team events by providing constructive suggestions and ensuring implementation of agreed action plan in order to help the teams to become more efficient and effective (Anonymous 2010).
Through focus groups and individual interviews, the human resource management can gather adequate data to generate recommendations for Proctor and Gamble on areas requiring improvement in the company’s workforce while putting into consideration the long term vision of the company (Anonymous 2010). In addition, the human resource management is charged with the responsibility of recruiting and evaluating the company’s employees.
Training Support for Human Resource Management
In 2001, the research and development management at Proctor and Gamble called on its human resource to establish and develop a formal training program for its human capital and although these training programs had been in existence in the 80s and 90s, the programs had been gradually diminished in the 90s as a result of the company’s resource issues as well as competing priorities which dictated redirection of investment into other vital areas (Owen and Klein 2007).
However, due to the increased need for advanced knowledge and skilled labor at every level of management in the contemporary economy, the leadership at Proctor and Gamble emphasized that the human resource development through the establishment of a corporate university which would have ensured a direct link between corporate learning efforts and the company’s goals (Owen and Klein 2007).
A further evidence of the company’s commitment to learning can be highlighted by its collaboration with Accenture which assumed the responsibility for development and maintenance of advanced management systems which have promoted high performance in Proctor and Gamble through the development of internal capabilities in strategic critical core components such as human resource management (Accenture 2009).
Accenture played a major role in development of skilled and knowledgeable workforce in Proctor and Gamble by ensuring that P&G met its learning objectives through the provision of leading and advanced technologies, enhanced business skills and deep knowledge of the operational management systems in order to promote efficiency in its operations through increasing output of the employees (Accenture 2009).
Proctor and Gamble has consequently advanced a robust maintenance support system which ensures reliability of the management system as well as allowing the company to reach its rising global demand for web based training and through the accessibility of the system to over ninety thousands Proctor and Gamble employees, the application has further served to reduce overall operational cost of the company (Accenture, 2009).
In addition, a study conducted by Accenture revealed a strong correlation between high performance and the priority that companies place on human capital which further justifies development of an efficient human resource management in Proctor and Gamble.
Timelines
In order to develop a skilled pool of labor among the existing workforce, one of the major strategies of Proctor and Gamble was to establish a corporate university which entailed formal training for the company’s employees in diverse environment and departments of the organization (Owen and Klein 2007). The human resource faced numerous challenges in the implementation of this move but eventually achieved remarkable success from its implementation.
The human resource management utilized the corporate strategy model through which they sought to breakdown the entire process into basic questions and then provide answers to these questions in order to achieve the intended goal (Owen and Klein 2007). The leadership further sought to define the desired workforce that the company aimed at achieving through the agreement of desired level of competencies among various groups of target learners (Owen and Klein 2007).
This was further followed by actual analysis of the state of the existing workforce performance in the company. The corporate strategy sought to define the goals and inspirations of the company as well as facilitating the establishment of the scope of influence in the training program and pioneered the initial description of the company’s goal to succeed (Owen and Klein 2007).
Establishment of the research and development universities have served to enhance knowledge and skills among managers and other officials who have consequently transmitted their knowledge to their juniors leading to a culture that upholds knowledge and skills in the organization.
Quality assurance measures
Proctor and Gamble embrace the philosophy of quality assurance by ensuring that they deliver products of superior quality to the consumers as well as provision of business environment that is condusive for effective performance of quality systems in the company (Anonymous 2010).
In order to achieve its quality assurance measures, the corporation ensures provision of superior quality goods to consumers as well ensuring corporate responsibility towards their employees and the community at large (Anonymous 2010). This is evident in the corporation efforts to safeguard its employees against harm y providing a safe working environment. The company is headed for greater success in future due to its implementation of quality assurance measures.
Ethical Service Delivery standards and their consistency with organizational code of conduct
The company’s code of ethics outlines the mode of governance in the company and governs the way the affairs of the company are governed (Anonymous, 2010). In addition, the code of ethics outlines the duties of various managers and officials in the company consequently forming basic fundamental rule for the company’s activities (Anonymous, 2010).
Proctor and Gamble has formulated guidelines which ensure quality service provision as well as ethical conduct of its employees. Officers in the company are allowed to hold to or more offices but they are prohibited from executing, acknowledging and verifying any instrument in more than one capacity if the instrument is required by the company’s regulation to be executed, acknowledged and verified by two or more officers (Anonymous 2010).
This serves to minimize incidences of subjective decision making, discrimination, and corruption among other negative aspects that may arise in leadership positions as well as the recruitment process (Anonymous 2010). These officials are further elected objectively by the board of directors for a predetermined period of time and can further be removed from office by the board upon incidences of misconduct (Anonymous 2010).
The board commonly holds annual elections to in order to appoint officials who under normal circumstances hold the office until the end of a specified period of time after which a qualified successor is elected (Anonymous 2010).
In addition, any vacancies created in the official positions as a result of death, resignation or other inevitable factors, the board is charged with the responsibility of electing a successor to hold the office for the remaining period of time pending the official election period (Anonymous 2010). This further promotes transparency and consistency in the recruitment process.
All officers are expected to effectively perform their duties and take full responsibility of all the duties assigned to them by their seniors. The code of ethics regulates the treatment of human resource in this major corporation by ensuring the implementation of one of its major policies which involves the recognition of interests of the employees in the same token that the company addresses its own interests (Anonymous 2010).
For instance, the board of directors is authorized in its discretion to maintain a profit sharing plan, adequate benefit and pension plan as well as granting employees a chance to be heard in matters regarding conduct of business but this goes as far as the board of directors limits (Anonymous 2010).
To further promote employee participation towards good performance of the company, the board of directors assists the employees to form part of the company’s ownership by becoming shareholders which further promotes their welfare (Anonymous 2010).
Monitoring the Process of Recruitment
In most organizations, the process of recruitment is often blurred with malpractices, corruption and often ignores the company’s outlined procedures for recruitment. It is therefore vital for the company to effectively monitor the process of recruitment to ensure fair and objective appointment of qualified personnel.
The company may appoint an independent body to oversee the recruitment process after which the independent body submits an extensive report of the procedure followed during recruitment. In addition, the company may conduct an independent survey to assess the productivity of the recruited employee in order to ascertain that he is qualified for the job.
Unethical behavior reporting
Employment discrimination is a common unethical behavior prevalent in recruitment process and is usually based on race, gender, nationality, and age among other subjective factors which have overall negative long term consequences on the performance of a company (Lucas 2006).
The government of United States has put in measures to protect against employment discrimination by enacting laws that govern such practices. For instance, the congress enacted the age discrimination in employment act of 1967 which aimed at protecting older people from being discriminated against in job recruitment as a result of their age as well as ensuring that the employees are provided with benefits regardless of their ages (Lucas 2006).
Discrimination against older is one of the most common and often ignored form of discrimination in job recruitments. The business culture in most parts of the world perceive the old as less productive relative to the young consequently preferring the young population as worthwhile investment since they have a lower mortality rate and are more healthy (Lucas 206).
These preconceived and often false notions may result to unethical practices in employment recruitments giving rise to illegal discriminations against workers in Proctor and Gamble (Lucas 206). Therefore it is important for Proctor and Gamble to ensure that its human resource does not discriminate employees based on subjective practices and should ensure that the process is consistent and transparent.
Dealing With Measurements and Variations
Forced ranking is one of the controversial methods commonly used by major companies to evaluate the performance of the companies whereby employees are ranked against each other based on a particular scheme or design (Lucas 2006).
Some companies rank their employees according to the normal distribution curve which they use to identify low and high performers while others place their employees on the quartiles depending on their performance with the low performers occupying the first quarter and the highest performers occupying the last quarter (Lucas 2006).
The high performing candidates are eligible to pay increments, bonuses and job promotions while low performing employees lack such privileges. Forced ranking identifies and rewards good performers and forces out the poor performers consequently ensuring that the company improves the loyal workforce and remains competitive in the industry (Lucas 2006).
This method of ranking is preferred due to its discriminatory effect towards the non productive workforce and its emphasis on the talented and energetic (Lucas 2006). Companies that have adopted this method of evaluation reject the premise that it is illegal and unethical and emphasizes that it has a valid business purpose (Lucas 2006).
However, these evaluation models also display elements of discrimination whereby the older employees are placed at the lower grades in order for the employers to maintain a cheaper and less expensive workforce without breaking the provision of the law governing discrimination against aged workers (Lucas 2006). Consequently, the forced ranking system may facilitate discrimination by acting as a disguise for intentional and illegal age discrimination (Lucas 206).
Data from survey of clients and feedback from clients
Proctor and Gamble markets over 250 brands across the globe and have a consumer base of nearly five billion consumers in over 130 countries (Lafley 2001).
The company has achieved remarkable success in consumer satisfaction in its service provision which can e proven y the company’s numerous honorary awards such as being featured in the Fortune magazine’s world’s most admired companies list from 1985 to 2001 and the inclusion in 2001 list of top 50 Net savvy U.S organizations (Lafley 2001).
Further, the company has achieved increased profitability over the years which serve to prove popularity of their products across the consumer base. In the fiscal year of 2001, the employees delivered total revenue of $ 39.2 billion (Lafley 2001).
Recommended changes for Future Service Delivery
Proctor and Gamble should ensure that they retain the older workers since they have a wealth of experience necessary for effective performance of the company (Lucas 2006). Proctor and Gamble should consequently device mechanisms to provide jobs that attract and accommodate older workers into the business environment.
This is only possible through the creation of a culture that promotes and honors experience by the human resource emphasizing on qualities such as experience knowledge and expertise rather than energy, fast pace and fresh thinking (Lucas 2006).
The human resource of Proctor and Gamble should focus more on role playing exercises as well as the individual ability to handle jobs relevant situations when interviewing applicants rather than focusing on psychometric and verbal reasoning skills in order to provide an equal opportunity for older employees to compete in the job market (Lucas 2006).
The company should also provide flexible retirement rates for its employees; most firms have in the past offered early retirements incentives to reduce costs which have consequently resulted in shifting of costs from employee health care accounts into retiree health care accounts (Lucas 2006).
Proctor and Gamble should device mechanisms to accommodate and leverage the older segment of the population by allowing the employee to take a specified period of time retirement after which he is reinstated as an independent contractor and this will enable the company to benefit from this pool of experience for execution of special projects (Lucas 2006).
Reference List
Accenture, 2009. High performance delivered, consulting, technology, outsourcing- helping Proctor and Gamble strengthen a culture of high performance through its learning process. Chicago, Accenture publishing.
Anonymous, 2010. P&G careers in Western Europe; human resource at Proctor and Gamble-code of regulations. Cincinnati, Proctor and Gamble.