Introduction
S.C. Johnson & Son, a family company and a global manufacturer of consumer goods was founded by Samuel Curtis Johnson, Sr. in Racine, Wisconsin, United States. The company has successfully completed over 100 years of worldwide service of household cleaning supply and has operations in 72 countries and its brands are sold in over 110 countries. (SC Johnson, 2013).
Marketing advantage and strategy of S.C. Johnson
While many international business executives are day and night working to expand the business, more companies may want to focus on socio-economic, not geographic, markets to find new opportunities. After all, the “bottom of the pyramid,” is the lower. Consumer packaged goods companies that sell cleaning products in sachets instead of massive boxes are among the ones who understand this. (Bloomberg, 2015). Now, tar wage earners, take about 70% of the world population. king about S.C. Johnson, a company with over 12000 employees and great revenues, reveals its Marketing experience including multiple brands for varied experience as well as robust global experience for international experience. SC Johnson also offers marketers significant responsibility enabling quick decision making and the opportunity to directly dive into big projects, while some companies just give managers small projects to start with which implies that S.C. Johnson believes in complete marketing exposure. Moreover, S.C. Johnson offers successful and quick adaption with structured workshops and informal interactive sessions. The company focuses on its key elements including advertising, legal, packaging, promotions, sales, marketing research, finance and business analysis. Besides its innovative products, S.C Johnson offers a pool of opportunities for growth including mentoring and a presumed performance management process. (CSR Wire, n.d.). Also, S.C. Johnson is a contributor to the local efforts to reduce the risks of contracting malaria mainly in Ghana. In a rural district due North of Accra named Yilo Kribo, S.C. Johnson has adapted the WOW program launched in 2012 by the company itself carrying out the massive sale of malaria fighting products. S.C. Johnson is not only creating economic opportunities but also addressing a public health problem at the same time.
SC. Johnson’s Business Model and Sustainable Management
Working in collaboration with Stuart Hart, Samuel C. Johnson, the chairman of the Sustainable Global Enterprise who is also a well known Management Professor at Cornell University, S.C Johnson’s work is both responsible and pragmatic. The company is focusing on a growth-oriented and sales drove business model that brings value to consumers in the lower-income group. (CSR Wire, n.d.). In June 2005, S.C. Johnson favoured field testing of the base of the pyramid protocol. This was a statement by the team of skilful interns who had spent almost a year in Kenya while working alongside their hosts as well as understanding the commercial and social ecosystem of the largest slum of Africa. (SC Johnson, 2013). All these interns, along with the employees of S.C. Johnson Kenya, hosted workshops based on local business idea generations. This helped the people to discover the way to build a business model that was co-created and that brought worth to their community. In return, the company learnt about BoP consumers and how could they serve the market better. They believed that their partnership with that community has been growing several new skills and value opportunities. They have been able to build mutual value both between the community and the business.
The S.C Johnson is well committed to creating efficiency in their operations along with bringing down packaging while making it recyclable. They have been able to succeed in their sustainability operations by improving their products and using fewer resources which includes reducing wastes.
The difference across communities and countries
S.C Johnson & Sons have successfully been running their operations in more than 70 countries physically and sells virtually in every country. This is only because of their policy in keeping a significant difference in its operations and its activities based on country to country and community to community. (Bloomberg, 2015). Maintaining such a difference when taking the operations on an international level is inevitable to sustain on a global scale due to the following reasons:
- Respect for the local culture and customs; awareness of public holidays and social taboos and laws is key element to present yourself as an ethical organization.
- Knowledge about one market is not considered as a proxy for another; Costing ascertained, operations and activities carried out, etc for a product in a particular community/country cannot be the same as that of another. (SC Johnson, 2013).
- Relationship with the local partners; the local partners being the natives of a community provide you with the most prominent information about the likes and dislikes of their people. Hence, the relationship is maintained with the local suppliers, distributors and other stakeholders. (IISD, 2013).
- Back-checking of local translations becomes vital; the mission of misinterpretation of a single word or the erroneous cut and paste of a paragraph can drastically change the meaning of your product.
- Timings; uniformity in the working of across borders cannot be maintained due to the difference in the time zones. Hence, they have to be altered as per the demands of the country/community. (Bloomberg, 2015).
Conclusion
Every year since 2003, S.C. Johnson & Son has was also rated a good 100% on the Human Rights Campaign’s yearly Corporate Equality Index report. Also, Working Mothers magazine named the company among the top ten in its annual list of 100 Best Companies for working mothers in 2005 and 2006.
References
- SC Johnson (2013). Johnson, A Family Company. Retrieved from: http://www.scjohnson.co.uk/nqcontentadfb.html?a_id=1
- Bloomberg (2015). Company Overview of S. C. Johnson & Son, Inc. Retrieved from: http://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=705144
- CSR Wire (n.d.) CSR Profile of S.C. Johnson & Son, Inc. Retreived from: http://www.csrwire.com/members/12337-S-C-Johnson-Son-Inc-
- IISD (2013). What is Sustainable Development? Retrieved from: http://www.iisd.org/sd/
