The mission of Better World Books Company is to exploit the worth of used books to support and finance the nonprofit literacy curriculum. About five values direct the company. These include customer attention, do the correct thing, people matter, nurture innovation, craving for literacy and planet, people, and profit. It has its headquarters based in Mishawaka, Indiana. Better World Books Company has seen advanced growth to great digit income of $30 million under the management of CEO Mike Miller, a success which is accredited to effective governance. It markets its products to companies such as eBay, Amazon.com and has its private e-commerce site ( Rothaermel, Arthaud-Day, & Grigoriou, 2015) . Donation program, library rejects, and campus collection program includes some of the portfolios owned by the company. The company is headed by the initiators and the Chief Executive Officer and vice president. The heads are inventive in the sense that they have invested in e-commerce. They also focus on suitable values that contribute to company growth. As a result of effective leadership, good administrative culture has been formed.
The establishment of the online used-book industry dates back to 1995 when Amazon.com picked textbooks as the primary products to be marketed on its e-commerce platform. The e-commerce site focused its operations in selling original copies of books which ensured it was stocked in huge portfolio stores that amounted to about 11.8 million area square feet in North America only ( Rothaermel et al., 2015) . As a result, the site started its online platform to third-party dealers, massively increasing its available inventory. In return for a transfer fee and either a per-item or regular monthly access charge, outdoor vendors could then make an inventory of their products for sale via Amazon, and they could choose whether or not to have Amazon package and dispatch their purchases for them. This developed an exceptional chance for used-book vendors, who were formerly limited to readers in their stores within their geographical locality.
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BWB evaluates its operations as is typical for the majority of social entrepreneurship firms. It does this based on a triple bottom line. The first prop of a triple-bottom-line corporation is the traditional monetary value which is assessed through standard economic and accounting tools. Social commitment is another prop to business traditions that support the interest of companies’ full range of stakeholders. The stakeholders in BWB include the employees, the local community and the reader all over the world. The third prop is an environmental obligation to viable business operations (Rothaermel, 2000). The company was integrated as a benefit corporation to indicate the company’s commitment to socioeconomic and environmental goals. This corporation represents a newfound form of commerce that willingly surrender to outward assessment to ensure the company’s operations support the interest of all related patrons.
The B Impact Rating System (IRS) is a management evaluation tool to assist companies to measure their effect on every stakeholder and their environmental and social practices. Maryland was among the first companies to officially acknowledge B corporations in the year 2010. After that, 27 states had already ratified regulation on behalf of profitable corporations with other 14 countries which were seeing similar lawful protection (Arthaud-Day et al. 2012. These corporations do not deliberate official IRS levy status unlike the more traditional C and S corporations. However, allies of the B company concept are working effortlessly to offer tax benefits to its stakeholders with original levy incentive which was contracted to law in Philadelphia in 2009.
BWB is a company for profit which was an intention by its initiators who supposed that a business representation provided better assertion of enduring survival than did total charity. The finances generated through book sales are channeled to three payments. The payments include a fixed proportion of the profit revenue remunerated to the donor based on the exact number of books sold. Libraries, on the other hand, receive 15 percent of the profit sale worth of the books they dispatch through BWB ( Rothaermel et al., 2015) . The company generates a social profit margin of nearly 7 to 8 percent from every used book it manages to sell, all of which is plowed in the company. Additional 5 percent of the profit sales is channeled to one of the BWB’s main charitable literacy partners chosen by the donor (Grigoriou et al., 2008). Notably, the literacy associates have their selected share of net profits irrespective of whether the company receives an economic benefit in that period or not. Through this procedure, the company is in a position to receive reliable sources of income.
Better World Books belongs to an unattractive industry. However, with their tactic of TBL, the company have been able to attain justifiable modest advantage at the moment. This being the current driver, it could be a prospective obstruction if more competitors applied for the same as a strategy (Arthaud-Day et al., 2012). The company, therefore, need to form appropriate core values and mission to drive the establishment’s approach as well as study different aspects via Porter’s five forces framework and SWOT analysis to realize current and viable competitive advantage.
References
Arthaud-Day, M. L., Rode, J. C., & Turnley, W. H. (2012). Direct and contextual effects of individual values on organizational nationality conduct in teams. Periodical of Applied Psychology , 97 (4), 792.
Grigoriou, O., Papoulias, I., Vitoratos, N., Papadias, C., Konidaris, S., Antoniou, G., & Chryssikopoulos, A. (2008). Effects of nasal administration of calcitonin in oophorectomized women: 2-year controlled double-blind study. Maturitas , 28 (2), 147-151.
Rothaermel, F. T. (2000). Technological discontinuities and the nature of competition. Technology Analysis & Strategic Management , 12 (2), 149-160.
Rothaermel, F. T., Arthaud-Day, M. L., & Grigoriou, K. (2015). Better world books and the triple bottom line . McGraw Hill Education.
