Colgate-Palmolive is a multinational company that manufactures various consumer products. The company is based in New York City, in the USA. Colgate-Palmolive manufactures and distributes personal care, household, health care, and veterinary products. The company carries out operations in more than 75 countries globally and its products are distributed in more than 200 countries worldwide. Some of Colgate-Palmolive's most renowned brands include Colgate, Palmolive, Elmex, Sorriso, and Softsoap. Colgate has more than 34, 500 employees in the various branches and countries that the company operates in ( MK, 2016). The company has research and manufacturing centers that are distributed in various countries across the globe that the company operates in.
Mission and Vision
Colgate-Palmolive’s Mission is to incorporate integrity in doing business and observing the proper ethics and honesty in all situations. The company values the dissenting opinion and all differences and listens to all parties. As part of its mission, the company is also committed to protecting the world's environment and to facilitate development in the countries where its employees work and live ( MK, 2016). To be compliant with government regulations and laws is also part of Colgate-Palmolive’s mission.
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Colgate Palmolive’s vision envisages continuous improvement in the company’s current and future projects and initiatives. The company’s vision points out at sustained growth of the company in the oncoming years and emphasizes on building global teamwork on the grounds of care to the global community.
Values and Ethics
Colgate-Palmolive operates within the confines of three values that are fundamental to the operations of the company as they are part of all the initiatives undertaken by the company. The Values include Caring whereby the company shows caring for its employees, consumers, business partners, and shareholders. Global teamwork whereby everyone who is associated with Colgate-Palmolive either as a consumer, employee or business partner is considered part of a global team. Continuous improvement whereby the company constantly works towards improving its products and bettering its customer service to its customers and consumers.
The Company encourages its customers, consumers and business partners to promote ethical behavior through their undertakings. The company is committed to ethical leadership within all its ranks by holding leaders to account for their unethical behavior. The company also challenges any behavior or conduct by its employees and business partners that may violate the company's ethical standards and code of conduct. Colgate-Palmolive encourages its customers, consumers and business partners to make inquiries from the company about issues that may be unclear or when they are in doubt to avoid violating the company's ethical standards or code of conduct.
Organization Structure and Culture
Colgate-Palmolive is headed by a CEO who is also the President of the company. The company has a board of directors who are largely involved in making critical decisions that may affect the operations of the company. The board of directors is headed by Chairperson of the board, who is deputized by the Vice-chairperson of the Board. The company has various departments such as production, marketing and customer service with each of the departments being headed by a Director. Colgate-Palmolive has Directors in charge of the countries where the company operates in. Each country where the company operates is headed by a Director who is deputized by several Heads of departments in the respective countries.
Colgate-Palmolive has a culture that is tailored to reflect the company's values which include being a caring company, continued improvement of products and services and global teamwork. The company has a culture of a strong commitment to the integrity of all its operations and undertakings. Developing communities within which its employees and consumers live and work is also part of Colgate-Palmolive's culture.
Colgate-Palmolive’s Overall Measurements of Success
Colgate-Palmolive has put in place measurements that enable it to keep track of its success. The company has employed highly-skilled financial specialists who come up with financial statements for the company (Palmolive, 2019). The financial statements are used by the company's leadership to look at the company's sales, profits and losses, and overall earnings. The leadership of the company, therefore, gets to know which departments of the company meet their designated targets within the financial year and which ones are lagging. The leadership of the company, therefore, knows which areas need to be worked on.
Other measurements of success that Colgate-Palmolive employs include checking their customers and consumer satisfaction by asking them to give feedback on the products and services of the company. Where customer satisfaction is below the expectations of the company, the company gets to work on the complaints to guarantee customer satisfaction and value for money to the customers and consumers of its products (Carpenter, Bauer, Erdogan, & Short, 2009) . Colgate-Palmolive also conducts surveys on how many new customers but the company’s products within a financial year as a method of measuring its success.
Top Leader of the Company
Colgate-Palmolive is headed by Noel Wallace, who is the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the company ( Executive Team: Colgate-Palmolive, 2020) . Wallace became the Company's Chief Executive Officer in 2019 and doubled up as the Chairman of the company in 2020. Previously, Wallace had doubled up as the President and Chief Operating Officer from 2018 to 2019. During his tenure as the Chief Operating Officer of the Company, Wallace was in charge of all the company's units operating in the various countries globally. According to ( Executive Team: Colgate-Palmolive, 2020) Wallace Joined Colgate-Palmolive in 1987 as one of the junior managers in the company. Over the years, Wallace has progressed through various management roles in the company until he got to the top leadership of the company, where he currently sits as the President of the company. In 2010, Wallace became the President of Colgate North America as well as the President of Colgate-Palmolive's Global sustainability wing. He became the President of the Latin America faction of the company in 2013 where he doubled up as the Chief Operating Officer. Wallace was also in-charge of Global Innovation and Growth in the Company in 2013 and was also the Chief Operating Officer of Hill’s Pet Nutrition in 2016.
Issues that Noel Wallace faces at Colgate-Palmolive
As the Chief Executive Officer and President of Colgate-Palmolive, Noel Wallace is faced with several issues. He seems determined to make some acquisitions of some of the rival companies. If the plans succeed, Colgate-Palmolive will expand operations globally and introduce new products as a way of claiming a larger portion of the market share. The acquisitions will enable Colgate-Palmolive to start experiencing rapid growth and expansion after years of slow growth. Another issue that Wallace faces at Colgate-Palmolive is to maintain the company’s presence in the market amid a high number of growing rivals. Wallace will have to be innovative in his leadership to enable the company to retain its reputation and expand its market share.
Major Strengths of Colgate-Palmolive
Colgate-Palmolive Company has major strengths that have proved to be assets for the company. The company prides itself on having a highly-skilled workforce. Colgate-Palmolive continues to offer more training and learning programs to its workforce to supplement their skills. The continued training translates to the production of high-quality products and satisfactory customer service (Carpenter, Bauer, Erdogan, & Short, 2009).
Automation of activities is also a major strength of the company ( What Are Colgate's Strengths and Opportunities? 2015). The Automation of activities has helped the company to maintain consistency in the quality of its products. The automation of activities also enables Colgate-Palmolive Company to scale up and down its activities depending on the demand conditions present in the market.
The other major strength of Colgate-Palmolive is the growth of pet nutrition. The company is known for its high-quality pet feeds. The growing number of people who keep pets is a promising opportunity to keep expanding its pet nutrition segment.
Favorable demographics is also a major strength for Colgate-Palmolive. The company has invested operations in a majority of African and Asian countries, whereby competition is relatively low. Asia and African countries have proved to be a major market for Colgate-Palmolive products. Considering that Some African and Asian countries are experiencing economic growth at a good rate, Colgate-Palmolive is likely to enjoy a wider market share in these countries, a factor that may significantly increase the company’s sales volume and subsequent profits.
According to ( What Are Colgate's Strengths and Opportunities? 2015), having a strong brand portfolio is also one of Colgate-Palmolive’s major strengths. Colgate is renowned as a major consumer packaged goods firm courtesy of its strong brand portfolio. A strong brand portfolio has enabled Colgate to maintain consumer trust over the years. This factor has enabled the company to maintain its expansive market share in more than 200 countries globally.
Ways in Which Planning, Organizing, Leading & Controlling contribute to the Success of Colgate-Palmolive
Colgate-Palmolive attributes its success to intense planning, organizing and controlling its operations and undertakings. The company has a team of specialists at different levels that are mandated with planning, organizing and controlling operations in their designated areas. This factor greatly contributes to the success of the company by ensuring attention to detail. Colgate has competent leadership with the majority of the leaders have passed through the ranks of the company from junior officers. This ensures that the leaders are conversant with the needs of the company and have the capability to drive those needs. The company foots its operations through intense planning and organizing, which has contributed to the success of the company. The company's leadership and organizational structure are well-elaborate, with highly skilled directors and other officials taking the center-stage of operations. This makes the leadership of the company water-tight, leaving no room for leadership vacuum. At the various levels of company leadership, responsibility is highly emphasized. Colgate-Palmolive has automated its activities, an aspect that greatly helps with the planning, organizing, and controlling of its activities in the various countries that the company operates in. The advantage of automated activities to the company is enhanced planning and organization of activities.
Most Important thing leading to Colgate-Palmolive’s Success
The most important thing that leads to Colgate-Palmolive's success is the company's strong brand portfolio. For many years, Colgate has constantly strived to build its brand portfolio. Due to the strong brand portfolio, the company has managed to maintain a huge market share of the consumer packaged goods market (Henfrey, Graham, & Bennett, 2018). Having a strong brand portfolio has over the years helped to build customer recognition, a factor that helps in dealing with competition and maintain sales and profits. The strong brand portfolio also goes a long way in building Colgate’s competitive edge in the market, which means that rival brands have a hard time dealing with Colgate-Palmolive products as their main competitor. The strong brand portfolio that Colgate-Palmolive has built over the years makes it easy for the company to introduce new products in the market. This was evident through the introduction of the pet nutrition segment, from which the company makes significant sales.
The other way in which a strong brand portfolio is the most important thing leading to Colgate-Palmolive’s success is the customer loyalty that the company enjoys. Customer loyalty translates to sustained sales and reliable feedback from customers on the products. This helps the company to keep on improving its products, putting into consideration the recommendations of its loyal customers. The strong brand portfolio also contributes to the success of the company by enhancing the credibility of the company’s products. Credible products are more recognized by consumers, a factor that helps to increase sales. Colgate-Palmolive’s strong brand portfolio also enhances the success of the company by enabling customers to purchase its products with ease. The strong branding ensures that customers can easily identify the products.
Major Challenges that will face Colgate-Palmolive in the next five years
One of the major Challenges that Colgate-Palmolive will face for the next five years is the need to adapt to change. The company has been slow in responding to change. Considering the highly and fast-changing that is the contemporary world, Colgate-Palmolive needs to adjust to changes. Most of the changes are triggered by technology, which means there is a need to adopt as much technology by the company as possible. For instance, a high number of people globally are doing their shopping online, a factor that accounts for the exponential growth of online vendors such as Amazon. Colgate-Palmolive needs to come up with strategies to sell their products online as one of the ways of adapting to change.
The other challenge that Colgate-Palmolive will face in the next five years is the exponential growth of Asian economies such as China. The Asian economies have highly invested in the manufacturing of products, whereby they manufacture almost any type of product and sell them at cheaper prices. Such products have flooded the world market and considering the dwindling purchasing power of consumers around the globe, most consumers opt for cheaper products. Companies such as Colgate-Palmolive will, therefore, experience a major challenge in defending their market share in the global platform.
Conclusions on the Management of Colgate-Palmolive
Colgate-Palmolive’s management is well competent and highly skilled, a factor that has enabled the company to expand massively over the years, establishing operations in more than 200 countries globally. The management of the company has been strong enough and enabled the company to establish a strong brand portfolio that has won the loyalty of millions of its customers worldwide. Colgate-Palmolive’s management is well elaborate from junior supervisors to the top management of the company. The elaborate management is instrumental in ensuring the free flow of operations. However, despite Colgate-Palmolive’s impeccable and highly competent management, there is still room for improvement of operations in the company. For instance, the company’s management needs to constantly keep on improving the company's adaptation to change. The management also needs to keep on cultivating the right culture in the company by constantly urging every employee to do better, an aspect that would lead to improved results on the targets set by the company.
References
Carpenter, M. A., Bauer, T., Erdogan, B., & Short, J. (2009). Principles of management . Washington, DC: Flat World Knowledge.
Executive Team: Colgate-Palmolive. (n.d.).https://www.colgatepalmolive.com/en-us/about/executives-and-boards/executives
Henfrey, C., Graham, C., & Bennett, D. R. (2018, July). The effects of Brand Portfolio Management on brand choice behavior. In Academy of Marketing Conference 2018 . Academy of Marketing.
MK, A. (2016). Leader Speak: Fostering Employee Wellness at Colgate Palmolive. NHRD Network Journal , 9 (4), 9-13.
Palmolive, C. (2019). Colgate Palmolive Annual Report 2019.
What Are Colgate's Strengths and Opportunities? (2015, August 5). https://marketrealist.com/2015/07/colgates-strengths-opportunities/
