A few days ago I asked for your collaboration to tell me about business successes. As I think it is also important to know the business failures to learn what should not be done either in terms of business management or product marketing. Thank you very much for your collaboration.
Hi Pedro,
in the study linked below there might be a story or two that could be relevant in relation to your question...
Article Fail forward: Mitigating failure in energy research and innovation
If you cannot access the paper please feel free to “hit the request button” and I will make it available to you...
all the best,
Jacob
Yes, I know one company which was having very good product quality but couldn't continue as of misconduct to feel advertising as expenditure
Ciao Pedro Maria,
This is an important question that falls within the area of corporate responsibility and business ethics in organization studies, management, and international business or even NGOs and hybrid institutions. Companies/organisations are doing a lot of things right but history tells us that a lot also goes on that needn’t be repeated if we want to avoid product marketing failures and negative consequences on the planet and people-before profits. As matters stand, we have it the other way round.
Two important points: one obvious and one less obvious. a)What firms get wrong also includes what they don’t do right which they could have done right, b) engaging in management practices which may not be illegal but yet produce serious social and environmental consequences. That is, when firms find ways (or look for what is called loopholes) to engage in practices that may not get them prosecuted but affect human lives; both workers and other stakeholders/environment.
A few points come to mind.
1) When a firm’s subsidiary uses slave labour or sweat shops but defends its actions that ’’ we outsourced this to another company so we are not responsible. This is a common practice in the fast fashion industry.
2) Advertisements that seek to diminish the humanity of one ethnic group, to create uproar and draw attention may not be illegal but is it ethical?
3) Paying miserable salaries to the man on the field whilst putting no cap on executive compensation.
4) Overpricing of essential medicine (google pharma bro).
5) Management by dispossession of land from indigenous people…. Too many examples.
6) Interfering in politics using corporate political power.
7) Not explaining or hiding from consumers the side effects of certain products. Sometimes companies end up paying big fines and in the automobile industry recalls may come at massive costs.
8) These practices are worse especially in the areas of food, water and medicine….Some people argue that there are just a few bad apples. Such people probably buy apples from the shelves of super markets and know nothing about fruits. When one rot is not discovered quickly within the basket or on the farm or on a single tree, it spreads in a massive way-the same way a little virus in an organism cannot be ignored as just a little.
It seems to me that in so many cases, the consumer/ society is on its own. Protect thyself, and be thy neighbour’s keeper against certain practices by sharing useful info. Hope this helps a little.
There are many reasons that lead to business failures and in most cases, business owners blame that on the country’s economy of which I say NO to.
I believe two components stand out to business failures:
First, lack of planning: Although this may sound too obvious, it is true because most business owners lack inventiveness that can address the issues that test the external and internal forces of the business environment (economy, political, customers, suppliers, etc). These need to be known ahead and how they will affect the business. When known the SWOT analysis can be carried out so that a productive business environment can be constructed.
Second, lack of Innovation: The goods and services, which are the major factors for the business survival, should be competitive enough to attract the market. It is not good enough to fill the ‘store’ house with ‘everything’. Innovation, which is an improvement in how products are delivered, will lead to business success. Goods and services should be tailor-made to meet the market needs, regardless of the location.
Many other factors as also play a role in business failures as Frederick Ahen has earlier alluded to:
Poor Customer relationships
Lack of Social responsibilities
etc
Dear Pedro:
The worst mistake I´ve heard in products was the creation and introduction of the Ford model Edsel. The car was hoped to be a revolution but it was a complete failure. The curious thing is that there were two designers for the car, one for the rear and one for the front. The result was a car that did not like at all. One explanation is that certain tasks, like design, can not be divided in parts.
Regards
Gustavo Concari
Errors are learned more than successes, which are already a success in itself. There is to be a willingness to overcome
I heard of story of business warier that explain bottle neck competition between Nike and Adidas, how Nike was face a challenge due to failure to consider working age in one of its franchisee company located in Pakistan which attracts media tensions and was reported global TV channels. that is basically from perspective of social responsibility, also , the Netscape and Microsoft cases, Samsung and apple product design issues and many more can be listed.
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