Background and Concept of the Company

With the growing need and demand for house cleaning products, what the consumers did not notice was the harm that was being caused to the environment and the human life. The environment was harmed due to the toxic raw materials that were being used in the products as well as the process of testing these products on animals.

Animal testing has been a major issue for the past fifteen years and there are still some who support it. The human life was affected by the fumes which were generated through the products when they kept at home and the children would always be watched for not going too close to the products.

After reviewing a normal routine of a house wife, I realized that the use of such products was large and that there must be a solution for the increasing environmental and human life hazards that were being introduced. The best option that I had was to develop a solution for these threats.

The basic idea of my company was to develop a health and environment friendly portfolio of house cleaning products that would develop the understanding and importance for caring for the environment and health. I did not believe in competing against price because I knew that my product was of prestige and of quality which is what the other competitors did not think of or match.

Since I initiated this new product line, the first mover advantage paid off in large amounts, from which my belief for this company grew even further. I then decided to continue growing the company with various products required in the daily chores, as long as they were made of environment and health friendly raw materials.

Ethical issues involved

When I started this company I knew that the image that I had created for the company was premium based, meaning that I would paid for the quality and the concept that I was carrying. I had gained brand equity within the first few years of operations and this allowed me to grow upon my own image further.

I promised the consumers that there would be no hazardous material introduction into the products sold by me. This was the ethical ground I stood on for several years till I reached a point where I had to make a decision between being ethical and earning at the same level as before, or I had the option of being unethical for a certain product development and earn big profits.

Parties affected

If I were to decide whether to continue with the processing of the cleaning cloth, I would put my brand equity at stake because what I would have to balance and check is whether the introduction of my new product is more important or less important than my brand equity which I had developed and gained in years.

Let us not forget that brand equity is not built over night and neither is the confidence that the customers have in you. This is an elaborate process which allows the customers to first use the product and then feel comfortable with it. Once the customer is comfortable with the product then he / she would use the word of mouth in order to market the product.

The word of mouth has been a renowned and most powerful marketing tool for any company because it is the customer who would have the power and convince the other customers’ buying preferences more than the traditional way of marketing through advertisements and discounts.

If the customer is happy with the product then there is a guarantee that another customer would be told about the product. And it is human intuition that if one knows about a certain product from a friend, there would be a moment where the individual would certainly agree to try it out once.

Another party that would be affected by the decision would be the stakeholders who would be evaluating the performance of the company. As the company has been doing well, the stakeholders would have built a strong confidence and trust within the company and me to continue to grow at the same pace.

The stakeholders are an integral part of the company because here I am running a sole proprietorship where I receive all the revenue, but rather I am a part of a corporation that appoints me the responsibility of increasing each shareholder’s value to an optimal level. And in order to fulfill that responsibility, I need to innovate and grow at a continuous rate.

If I were to take the decision of creating the cleaning cloth from an unfriendly material, there is a chance that the stakeholders would give up on me and would lose their trust and confidence in the decisions are made. This would be the impact from their own personal perspective when they analyze the ethical standards and values.

However, if the revenue and sales of the company was to drop after the introduction of the cleaning cloth, there is a chance that the brand equity of the company would fall drastically, causing the shareholder value to decrease in the same manner. So the stakeholders would be impacted both mentally as well as financially.

My character and integrity

Considering the input of my character and integrity for this decision, I would surely have to say that I have not certainly not been in such a situation before where my ethical values would have been tested to the extent where I would need to decide between introducing a certain product into the product line or not.

If I were to analyze this situation, I would have to way the benefit from introducing this product to the values and beliefs that I have inbuilt in me. I may have the devotion of introducing new products to the company; however, I am not an individual who would make decisions solely on the revenue being generated.

When I enter a company and work for it, I whole heartedly and solely take responsibility for all the actions that are being taken in it because the company is an entity that I must monitor and evaluate at all times. I must always show my true potential to the stakeholders and this is why I was appointed as a chief executive officer.

Potential actions to be taken

Purely, the first decision that must come to mind is to scrap the plan to include a cleaning cloth into the product line because the generation of revenue is less important than the trust and the confidence that the customers and the stakeholders have in built into the company as well as to maintain the mission of the company.

A possible action that could be taken is to conduct a research study in order to analyze and screen the corn plant feedstock for genetically modified organisms. This would allow the company to better understand the environmental or health hazards involved with the process materials and how the process can be re-engineered.

Another basic but heavy investment can be made into ones own corn plant farm where the company can monitor the farm. This action would certainly take a lot of time, however, if the cleaning cloth was to be introduced by me in any case at some point in time, now was the time to start the research study and develop my very own farm.