case studies: BP, Office Angels, corporate responsibility & sony

BP, Office Angels, corporate responsibility & sony:

BP: why do companies merge and what are the impacts on teh companies themselves, their staff, investors as well as customers?

companies merge because they have to get synergy effects. They are divided in tangible or intangible effects. Tangible effects could be be reasonable like less costs, higher customerbase or economy of scale. Intangible are e.g. in teh case of BP, the power to handle governmental issues or negotiating rights for oil discovery.
Companies can get an advantage if they currently suffer from bad performance, high costs, debts or something like that. They can win power. Market access or ... can avoid sales restrictions or tariff barriers in foreign countries. Staff can get bigger problem, because mergers are axpansive and a very popular way for companies to find money is to save staff. Some parts do not have to be done twice.
Customers and investors can get some problems, because the "new" big company has to aapt new structure, business mission or corporate culture that can be a reason that investors try to get out of responsibility and customers t otry to find another company with equal products but better service.

Office Angels: How does the company keep its workforce as well as its business partners satisfied?

Office Angel's culture says they want to have happy staff, because people ( customers) would like to work with the same people (staff) again and again.
Tehy want that their staff tries to build relationship, get to know theit customers and take ownership. They also believe that a customer would recognize when a staff memberis not satisfied and just plan a role. How do they get their staff happy?
Office Angel's believe in incentive's schemes like CD's instead of holidays, development, award-dinners or take the best teams on a trip every year. They motivate their staff to be a part of a company. They empasize that everybody of the company who wnats to open own branch is very welcomed to do this.
Another very important part of the culture is that they are encouraged to get out of the offices t osee their customers face-to-face, because that makes it easier to build a relationship.

corporate responsibility: why should companies pay attention to the environment and what are the benefits of "good corporate citizenship"?
CR is very important part of a company it is our future and if the companies don't take care of it they will be a disaster.
But what is really interesting for companies?
Money, you can aern a lot of money with waste so that is interesting for companies to take care of it.
Ans you can save a lot of them if you produce more effectively.
People are also very aware of clean companies so that if you are really responsible with it, you can increase sales, because people like those marketing ideas like e.g. drinking beer for the forest, saving petrol with hybrid-cars etc.
Some researchers discovered that long-term stakeholders oriented companies are more successfull than short-term shareholders , value oriented companies and this is also a tangible asset for companies.
But not everything about image and money, some ressources are not renewable which makes it t oa very serious problem and we should introduce the same pollution norms all around the world, not just in Europe. Because wasting environment in Asia or USA seems to be a bigger problem if they don't change their behavoiur.

Sony: What do you think of the company's marketing strategy of the robotic dog AIBO?
Their strategy of AIBO seems quite interestin, because they introduce themselves with a nice momentum as possible. They use public relationship, magazines, nespapers, TV, Radio, Internet, and in-shop informations. They use everything that could be a good idea so that everybody can see, read and hear about it and can do research after getting a teaser or read an advertisement.
It is quite difficult to coordinate all these are very important, because they have an independent opinion and can describe the positive features from customers to customer.
They want t oemphasize just the technical features, they want to build a community where you can share your experiences with others via internet.
AIBO is planned to be a part of the family not just an IT fun or toy.