Question

An important concept related to corporate responsibilities is stakeholders. Stakeholders are those individuals or groups that have a stake in the success of the organization, and also those who are impacted/affected by the success or failure of the organization. Choose any organization that you are familiar with and then detail the internal and external stakeholders of that organization. Then, discuss how best an organization can meet, or exceed, the needs or desires of any two stakeholders listed for your company in your example.

Answer 1

Corporate Responsibility or Corporate Social Responsibility is a self-regulating business model that helps a company to be socially accountable to itself, its stakeholders and the public. This makes the company be conscious about the kind of impact they are having on all aspects of society, including economic, social and environmental.

Now a stakeholder are those individuals or groups that have a stake in the success of the organization and all those who are impacted or affected by the success is failure of the organization. The major examples of these stakeholders are;

i. Customers

ii. Employees

iii. Investors or Shareholders

iv. Suppliers and Vendors

v. Government

vi. Society

Starbucks is one of the famous market players that is known to be the best and the earliest in stakeholder engagement. They have been concerned about making a social impact as a company ever since it opened its doors.

Internal Stakeholders:

i. Employees:

This is the best internal stakeholder which contributes to the growth of the organization on a large scale. These are the persons who are hired by the company to provide services to them on a regular basis in exchange of compensation and who does not provide these services as a part of independent business (i.e. Contractor).

ii. Managers:

Manager is the administration of an organization. They also involve the people who manage each functional or divisional departments of the entity. And every business will be having an administration group. They basically set the strategy for the functioning and growth of the entity and to accomplish its goals for ensuring growth.

iii. Owners:

These are the persons who have the exclusive rights and control over the property which may be an organization, intellectual property or any other assets. Here in case of Starbucks it is the exclusive ownership of the brand.

External Stakeholders:

iv. Customers:

Customers are the recipients of the goods, service or the products of a seller or vendor i.e. Starbucks as chosen here. They are a very important stakeholder as the winning of customers help us exist or grown in the market.

v. Shareholders:

These are very important as they control the entity and its business. They will own one or more shares of stock in the company. They can also be referred to as members of a corporation. Their influence on the company is determined on the basis of the shareholding percentage.

vi. Creditors:

They lend money to the company and will be having mostly secured interest in the company’s assets. Basically they are the parties to whom money is owed along with an interest.

vii. Government:

Government is the system or group of people governing an organized community. This is another important stakeholder as they collect taxes from the company.

Government also collects tax from the employees of the company on their payrolls and also from the shareholders on their returns. They also benefit from the overall GDP or Gross Domestic Product to which the company contributes.

viii. Community:

This is where the company is located and hence is the major stakeholders. Due to this they are impacted by many a things like job creation, the economic development of the society, their health, safety etc. This can be positive or negative depending upon the community into which they enter and they exist. Starbucks is one of the major players who always try and adapt in to a community by understanding and adopting their culture and standards. They always try to uplift the standard one point ahead.

ix. Suppliers/Vendors:

They sell their goods or services to the company and basically are the raw material providers. Starbucks have many vendors around the world who supply them the best quality coffee and depend on them for their major income.

How best an organization can meet, or exceed, the needs or desires of any two stakeholders listed for Starbucks.

Among the stakeholders listed above, the major and most important 2 are:

i. Employees

ii. Customers

Let’s have a detailed look.

i. Employees:

As explained above, this is the best internal stakeholder which contributes to the growth of the organization on a large scale. These are the persons who are hired by the company to provide services to them on a regular basis in exchange of compensation and who does not provide these services as a part of independent business (i.e. Contractor).

Every organization will be having a unique human resource force r its employees to provide them with the competitive advantage. So it should be a major goal to the organization to meet and exceed the desires and needs of them as a stakeholder.

This can be done by increasing their standard of living by increasing their payroll or by including an addition to their payroll chart which states that the particular payment is with regard to the improving their standard of living. They can also take necessary steps for providing these employees with the proper training which will help them serve better and thereby also improve their professional skills individually.

Awarding employees on the basis of their contributions on a monthly basis and displaying this on their uniform by using stars or any other means is also a strategy that can be adopted and is adopted by many organizations today.

ii. Customers:

Another finger on the hand and important stakeholder as enlisted above they are the recipients of the goods, service or the products of a seller or vendor i.e. Starbucks as chosen here. They are a very important stakeholder as the winning of customers help us exist or grown in the market.

For meeting and exceeding their desires and requirement, Starbucks can involve a research team who will have a detailed look into the market trends and come up with the possible new products that may help them develop a new range which might trend in the market.

Customers as basic human beings always crave for new products and experience which will attract them towards any entity. SO if Starbucks is able create this feeling of new and updating, they will always come back to the outlet for the same.