Greening the Message Strategy
“Greening the Message” Strategic Communication
Every employee enjoys the environment around the community. It is refreshing to awake in the morning, grabs a cup of coffee and enjoy breakfast with their families. The drive into work provides a breath-taking view of the incredible landscape and appreciation of personal reflection. What if all that disappears? What if the environment around us is polluted because of an exuberant amount of waste from Magic Eye production? Magic Eye has a legal responsibility to ensure the protection of the environment through local, state, and federal laws and an ethical responsibility that consumers presume that Magic Eye operating with every effort to protect the environment. The team has accomplished many great things; increase of production and friendly customer service. However, Magic Eye have not been friendly to the environment though. It has come to the attention of the Senior Leaders that all though production has increased, waste has not been reduced. This presents an ethical dilemma for Magic Eye and needs to be corrected. Should the organization sacrifice the bottom line and address this issue or sacrifice integrity to secure a higher bottom line? As part of the company’s mission, Magic Eye is dedicated to the protection of the environment around the community. The ethical climate of the organization needs to shift and align with the Magic Eye mission, vision, purpose and philosophy. Ethical climate is defined as the processes by which decisions are evaluated and made on the basis of right and wrong (Bateman, 2013). If Magic Eye is going to claim a truly “green” company, then the operations should match.
Strategic Decision and Conflict
Looking at what strategy that the organization should move towards, there are things that need to be considered. The organization was faced with multiple choices of how to handle the messaging of Magic Eye’s waste output. The first choice is; Doing nothing, this means that the organization would be covering the facts. This would potentially give competitors the advantage because customers would find alternative solutions; short term win but is not sustainable. The second choice is; marketing launching a “green” campaign to allow the leadership to develop and implement cost controls and develop new products. The outcome of this choice could potentially increase sales but lead to having to answer to product advocacy groups if competitors decided to challenge the campaign; short term win. The third choice is; launching a campaign that does highlight energy efficiency but apply integrity and acknowledging that waste output has not been reduced. The outcome of this might affect sales initially with a decrease, put could build back up in the long game; long term win and sustainable. The fourth choice is; disregard the message all together and run a campaign on the energy efficiencies. The potential outcome of this choice is an initial increase in sales but could have detrimental effects in the long game. Ensuring that the organizations applies ethical business practices, enforcing an ethical climate and staying true to the organizations philosophy, it has been decided that Magic Eye will launch the “green message” illustrating improved energy efficiency, but being honest about a lack of reduction in waste output. Magic Eye has a social responsibility to be transparent in the production operations. This may potentially have an initial negative effect on sales but will have a long term positive effect on the trustworthiness, image and compliance with laws. Measuring sales numbers, units sold and so forth are measurable metrics that management uses to ensure that expectations of contract execution are met. The goals attached to these metrics will be adjusted to ensure that ethical behavior by agents. This report serves as formal communication of the official strategic decision of Magic Eye and reconciles conflicts in regard to expectations of the managerial hierarchy and eliminates assumptions that the Senior Leaders interest is morally acceptable; managers should not act unethically to fulfill contract obligations (Doyle, n.d.). All managers should implement this strategy and conduct behaviors that align with the organizations decision and what is best for all internal and external stakeholders. Implementation of this decision is key to the success of this campaign. Everyone should ensure that ethical decisions are applied. All managers have an obligation to execute the strategy and should do this with humility, integrity, and faithfulness to the organizations regardless of opinion or thought of the strategy.
The Plan
Timing is crucial for a campaign to be successful and relevant to societies demands. Amanda Dzwill wrote in an article called Strategic Marketing: The Importance of Timing In Your Campaign that timing and agility in responding to a situation before your competitors can give you a huge advantage.
First; mangers conducted an internal analysis (SWOT), with a focus on the “green” message of waste output. Marketing will need to collect data from each of the departments and create an overview of where Magic Eye is at currently today in the industry and market. Activities that will need to be accomplished: Environmental scan to understand where the organization sits within the market and perceptions the community and the world have of Magic Eye, GAP analysis to determine what gaps from the environmental scan and how the organization is doing business. Evaluate if competitors have benchmarked or close to benchmarking a higher standard of reducing waste, what are industry standards for waste output, and Magic Eye’s performance and processes of reducing waste output. Managers will have a week to conduct these analysis’s and provide a report of the analysis with recommendations on which strategy would be the best suitable for the organization.
Second; the origination will conduct and external SWOT analysis focusing on the “green” message of waste output. How are competitors meeting this message, are they truly “green”, How does Magic Eye stack against them in the market as a truly “green” company and so forth. Managers will have a week to conduct the analysis and provide and report of the findings with recommendations on which strategy would be the best suitable for the organization. This will inform stakeholders and Senior Leaders where Magic Eye is currently at against competitors and help in determine the strategy to get the organization where it wants to be.
Third; Senior Leaders and managers and other stakeholders will meet to review the analysis, other inputs and collaborate on courses of action. Magic Eye leadership would encourage all stakeholders to look keep ethical responsibilities, environmental responsibilities and social responsibilities to the community that aligns with the organizations philosophies.
Fourth; Senior Leaders will work with managers to define strategies; listing what the objectives are, what is the key strategy, what the short and long-term goals are and operational plans (how we will accomplish the goals). The operational plans will be heavily dependent on the managers to provide realistic scenarios based on forecasting. All departments will develop a plan on how recycling efforts; digital records keeping, electronic communications capabilities and accountability methods that can be digitized and reduce waste. Each department will evaluate specific efforts to that department that will reduce cost; Production should have the most impact on reducing waste output.
Fifth; Senior Leaders will meet for a final review of all goals, plans and outcomes based on the different strategies and adjust.
The current strengths of the organizations; increased revenue, increase in stock prices and reduced energy during production allows the organization to address the dilemma and have a model that is sustainable while the organization shifts towards the “green” campaign. Magic Eye does have a weakness that will be affected by the campaign. Sales numbers have decreased and there is a risk of sales numbers decreasing more potentially making the organization vulnerable to reporting negative progression to shareholders but can level out in the long term. Even though this weakness could be a high impact to the organization, Magic Eye has an opportunity to benchmark transparency with customers and the community and that Magic Eye is diligently working to become a “green” organization. This benchmarking will propel the organization back into a higher competitive advantage over the competitors. Threats to the organization could be other company’s already achieving “green” production, or question Magic Eye’s integrity if another choice is made but cannot be supported. This outcome would have detrimental consequences and cause the company to lose all business, which affects internal and external stakeholders.
Conclusion
The environment and community around Magic Eye is part of everyone’s life and the organization has a responsibility to maintain its beauty and perfection. As an organization that is based on the philosophy of Integrity and Faithfulness, it is the ethical duty of the organization to put the business of making money on hold and address this environmental issue, that if executed well will provide fruits of the labor that will set Magic Eye’s apart from the competition and see with “green” eyes.
References:
BATEMAN. (09/2013). M: Management, 3rd Edition. Retrieved from: https://myeducationmanager.tradepub.com/c/pubRD.mpl?secure=1&sr=oc&_t=oc:&qf=w_make26
Dzwill, A. (2014, March 6.) Strategic Marketing: The Importance Of Timing In Your Campaign. Retrieved from: https://myeducationmanager.tradepub.com/c/pubRD.mpl?secure=1&sr=oc&_t=oc:&qf=w_monc01
