Business ethics: German car manufacturer BMW

Résumé du document

International firms are more dealing with an International orientation by developing the business in new emerging markets and consolidating the loyal ones. In order to be effective, they have to control many elements in the same time: accountancy, human resources or sales department are really important in each company's organization. Another notion has been taken more and more place since twenty years and the expansion of firms: Business Ethics. This notion is now a way which is really used is term of communication. In what could a company control its image through the ethical process it has put in place?

In this final assignment we are going to be interested in a field I have always enjoyed: car industry and more precisely in a German firm I am passionate since I have the right to drive a car: BMW. My objective in the future is to work for this company. Is it not a good way to be effective and productive at work if you are working for a way and a brand that has always been a passion for you?

Extraits

[...] The main problem is that this is a sector where the demand was decreasing and as a consequence many firms had to lay off a lot of people. The difficulty for the board of director is to preserve the balance between the responsibilities they have and the decision they are taking every day and not to have a too much important salary which would make the people think: has no money anymore but the Board of Director has a quite comfortable salary. Why aren't they sharing this salary in order to keep employment”? [...]

[...] What we can say as a conclusion of the financial situation of BMW is that they quite crossed the economic crisis well. They continue to produce vehicles and sell them. What is interesting is the development of new markets especially in Asia where it is important to show that you have a good life because you are able to buy a German car. Composition of the Board of Director The board of director of the company BMW is mainly composed by the members below: Prof. Dr.-Ing. Dr. [...]

[...] That is the reason why ingeneer are trying to find a way to create new kind of car. BMW has developed a new concept of gearbox which is reducing the unleaded (or gasoil) consumption from 20%. In fact gearboxes are now or 7-speeds instead of the 5-speeds it had five years ago. Thanks to this system, they are able to be eco-friendly by reducing the impact of each car on nature. The second problem the firm has to face is the following: it is producing as many car manufactories out of Europe. [...]

[...] We can see on this picture that the group decides to keep a majority of its production in Europe contrary to other car manufacturers such as Renault (France). We can see on this graph the sales volume of automobiles from 2006 until 2010. We can see the impact of the economic crisis in term of volume. What is relevant is that the revenues didn't face even if there was a decrease in 2008 and 2009, revenues in 2010 are better than in 2006. [...]

[...] What is Business Ethics: practices and policies I will give two definitions I have found on the Internet which are quite complementary. The difficulty of giving a definition is that the notion of Business Ethics is not so easy to understand: it is a really vast domain which is covering many aspects such as: law, respect the difference of opinion, respect the person you are working with, not taking benefit of a situation by “using people”. It was one of the most difficult seminars for these reasons: this is a topic which is really deep and hard to cover. [...]