Evaluate the statement “Green business is good business” from the perspective of what the Operations function can contribute to your selected organisation environmental performance. Consider in your response, whether you can justify a relationship between ‘being green’ and ‘being lean’?
Why going green is good for business
The statement “Green business is good business” is a worthwhile statement that can be used in the automotive industry. The statement refers to the practice used by an organization where customers, employees, the surrounding community as well as the environment is protected. In other words, a green business avoids using any of the identified factors wrongly. Therefore, it appears that a green business has the mind of the people who are employed, the customers, and also the environment (Luthra et al., 2011). A green business often tends to be considerate of all the factors of production. It considers the customers, their ability to buy the tailored product, the conditions that the employees undergo while making the product, the impact that the production of the product has in the community as well as the measures taken to improve the environment or at least make sure that the processes involved do not at least spoil the environment.
The Landrover is a prominent car maker in the United Kingdom. Having been established in 1948, this company has extensively grown from a low production company to a mega production company. On a neutral position, this organization has incrementally observed the basic principles of the green environment. This can be justified by observing a few concepts of the business environment. In their strategic plan in 2012, their rate of emission per every car produced amounted to 0.93%. This informs the company has invested a lot on mechanisms that prevent the production of emissions while producing the cars. In addition, the energy used to produce one car by this company is very minimal compared to the energy count that is used by competitors such as Volkswagen (Zhou, 2016). It is indeed a tremendous achievement noting that cars produced by land lover are considered as high-quality cars, yet produced using minimal energy. In this plight, it is, therefore, noticeable that the company is committed to protecting the environment.
Companies that are environmentally friendly
In their strategic 10 plan, indicated by their CEO Dr. Ralf Smith, the company indicates yet another aspect of the green environment. One factor that the green environment presses for is ensuring that manufacturing does not only use the facilities of the local population. Rather, a company should ensure that their business is also beneficial to the local population. Land rover has up to now remained a custodian of this practice. A sustainable number of employees at Land rover include the local population. As per his words, the CEO maintains that 60% of people who are employed by the company hail from the local community while 40% is made of others mainly the experts. The local community has, therefore, by a very great margin benefitted from the company.
The Land Rover also adopts a fair employee treatment. In this observation, the company has a total population of 24,000 employees committed to achieving the goal of the organization. As per the core values of the organization, these employees are fairly treated with integrity, some level of understanding is also maintained between the employer and the employee who has brought unity in the organization which is the main reason why the Land Rover brand has always remained a top performer (UK Automotive International Competitiveness Report 2015). Ample employee engagements are also maintained between the employer and the employee. This has continually led to and increased rate of performance as well as investment.
However, there is a growing feeling that Land Rover is a very costly brand. Hence, it can be assumed that Land Rover lacks a view of the customer in mind. While it may not be attributed as the main reason that has made this company lag behind in comparison to competitors, it is a compelling factor that should be rethought by this firm. There is a growing need to involve and consider all important groups in the process of developing their brands in such a way that the brands meet the requirements of potential customers across the economic divide.
Businesses going green
Being green is about considering all notable important factors that determine how the business operates. Land Rover is by far a green business seeing that the thoughts of a good environment, the local population and considering employees in the process of production are honoured requirements of green business. Being lean means that an organization fails to consider all these important aspects of green business. In this consideration, the Land Rover Company may be discussed as Lean seeing that they are lean on their customers. Being lean negatively affects the organization negatively while being lean makes it a top performer. Land Rover should, therefore, adopt a fully green business to maximize on their customers. Based on your responses to the above, list some recommendations to your selected carmaker to remain competitive in a turbulent and global business environment
As it stands right now, the Land Rover Company still remains a top performer. However, the need to fully turn green is evident seeing that failure do so as resulted in a weaker progression towards success. The main goal of ensuring a green business is about ensuring that the company ensures some environmental protection. It should also ensure that the people around the organization are protected from harmful emissions. Employees also need to be protected from harmful emissions that may later cause harm to them (Timmer et al., 2015). Land Rover as a green company should ensure that the people in context are protected from all these dangerous eventualities. With this in mind, basic approaches would be recommended to turn the Land Rover company fully green.
First, it is notable that the company releases some wastes as well as emissions into the environment. These wastes are the real threat to a green environment in the facility. As a corrective measure, the company ought to review it waste management process such that very little waste is released into the environment. By reviewing the waste management system, the company is set to arrest some of the effects of the wastes. In addition, the company needs to implement a new emission management system. The system would be efficient in managing emissions making sure that only harmless emissions reach the environment.
Environmentally responsible companies
However, some of these applications may however never be reached. For instance, some wastes are non-renewable. These wastes, therefore, need to be treated in a properly covered sewer where the wastes do not manage to affect the population around the industry. Few concerns have however been raised concerned the way Land Rover dumps their wastes. Land Rover should, therefore, review their dumping practice and ensure that they only dump the wastes in an enclosed region where it does not negatively affect the local population (Amison & Bailey, 2014). Need to provide the employees with proper tools for handling wastes also arises where more protective clothing would be provided to the employees. It would be an instrumental factor towards ensuring a sustainable green environment within the organization.
The scope of sustaining a green business is more important when it comes to sustainability on the side of the consumer. Whenever consumers are not conversant with a product that they have bought, then it is assured that it is very rare for the consumers to be contented with the product. While sustainability includes the buying price of the vehicle, the green environment makes a deeper observation of the management of the vehicle upon buying (Timmer et al., 2015). Management regards the fuel consumption of the car among other factors. In this context, the organization should build more on developing cars that have a higher capacity and which consume less.
Conclusively, operation management in the automobile industry is a task. The global crisis introduced a time where the companies had to search for strategies to ensure that thy protected themselves from such an occurrence. Contrary to the expectations of the firms these strategies were met by legislative as well as environmental factors that have derailed them and led some such as Volkswagen into prosecution. However, as it stands today, there is still a great room for development as well as an extension by decentralizing operations. Firms should, therefore, adopt a green business working to protect the environment as well as the local populations. In this observation, a sustainable automotive industry will be maintained in the United Kingdom.
References
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Smith, M., ; Crotty, J. (2008). Environmental regulation and innovation driving ecological design in the UK automotive industry. Business Strategy and the Environment, 17(6), 341-349.
Timmer, M. P., Dietzenbacher, E., Los, B., Stehrer, R., ; Vries, G. J. (2015). An illustrated user guide to the world input;output database: the case of global automotive production. Review of International Economics, 23(3), 575-605.
UK Automotive International Competitiveness Report 2015. (2015). Retrieved 7 March 2017, from http://www.automotivecouncil.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/1511-Automotive-Council-UKIC-Report.pdf
Zhou, A. (2016). Analysis of the Volkswagen Scandal Possible Solutions for Recovery.
