Sanitarium Health &Wellbeing Company was established in 1898 by the Seventh-day Adventist Church in New Zealand with the sole purpose of promoting and providing plant-based health foods. This devotion by the Church is driven by the belief that these plants were offered by God, Our Creator, to sustain human life and the human race in general (Sanitarium, 2018). The services of the church are global and operate under the above-mentioned philosophy. The company’s mission is to “Share health and hope for a better life with our community.”
Following this shared goal, the relationship between the Sanitarium and the Adventist Church continues to tighten as they both indicate a common purpose and reason for existence. Sanitarium is the current leader in the market for providing healthy foods that appeal to the highest nutritional standards(Sanitarium, 2018). This position has been attained through the commitment and dedication of the Corporate Nutritional team to provide true and unbiased information to customers and potential clients whenever they reach out to them through the free call services available in the digital communication media. Sanitarium’s expertise is also applauded by the food industry as well as the governments, who even go ahead and seek advice pertaining to industry policies, food development, and consumer education.
This culture has been prevalent in New Zealand since the early 1900s when nutritional and cooking lectures were being offered everywhere across the country. Even though the Sanitarium runs as a charity organization, it makes huge profits, which are directed back to the SDA Church in New Zealand (Church, 2012). The company is entitled to pay related taxes such as FBT, PAYE, and GST but is exempted from paying income tax owing to the fact that it is registered as an NZ Charity organization.
Task 2: Environmental Analysis of Sanitarium Company
Sanitarium Company is owned and managed by the Seventh Day Adventist church, and all its proceedings are aimed at the development of its community. Sanitarium is the general description, but it is the operational name for a series of companies that deal in assorted food products that serve whole breakfast dietary as well as providing a range of variety for vegetarian consumers to choose from (MBA Skool-Study.Learn.Share, 2018). Sanitarium Company can trace its history and initial relevance back in the year 1898 at first producing the brand Weet-Bix. From its inception, it has been able to expand its operation to serve a wider scope encompassing Australia and New Zealand. From this, we can be able to analyze how Sanitarium has influenced its environment, its scale of relevance, and its irreplaceable contribution to the society it impacts.
SWOT analysis of Sanitarium would give insight into the prevailing forces that determine its operation in the immediate environment exposed to the company. This also helps locate the greatest or immediate impact the company has on the market base. This will be made based on both audits of the company from the internal and external factions. Sanitarium, in its environment, is exposed to different market forces that its management has to remedy in order to stay viable in the industry. These are keeping up with the recent technologies that minimize overall production costs (MBA Skool-Study.Learn.Share, 2018). The company also has to assess its immediate competition as well as the demographic properties of the market. Sanitarium stays ahead of this by balancing between prevailing political formalities and policies that make their legal ground. Sanitarium stays ahead of the competition by maintaining a high-quality standard in its product line. The company has managed to develop big brands that are in great demand in the market.
When it comes to adopting modern technologies, Sanitarium has its own innovation and creation workshops that already set technological trends for other companies in the industry. This is in reference to new cost-effective methods of production and dissemination of products. These methods have several requirements entailing environmental friendliness. These properties have placed Sanitarium at a very strategic place in the market. The Company’s management fits well in the future prospects of the respective environment (Radd, 41). This is with special consideration for factors such as future demographic properties of the market and economic and political projections. The company is thriving in the immediate environment, and the people seem content with the current standard of service delivery.
Currently, vegetarians have great regard for Sanitarium Company. The general focus of many food companies is fast-selling food commodities because of their fast profitability. For vegetarians, the Sanitarium presents them with a variety of coronary options (Radd, 42). This focus on special groups shows the relevance of the company to its immediate environment. The success of Sanitarium can be largely attributed to the way it spreads out corporate functions beyond just maximizing profit. This is seen by the dedication of its corporate profits towards developing the Seventh-day Adventist agendas. This community development and focus on social responsiveness makes Sanitarium more than just a producer company in the locality. In its environment Sanitarium is a standard by which industry should be developed serving a wider range of consumers.
Sanitarium has its own set of strong points that make it a giant in the industry. The company has a stable financier that works on holistic principles. These are their sponsors, the Seventh Day Adventists, who manage the company’s cash flow with transparency, hence snuffing out the chances of the company becoming insolvent. The oversight authority of the company, however, faces the challenge of rigidity when it comes to certain modern trends. Such is the case of implementing an online marketing team that would give a whole new platform to their product line. The management is, however, church-based and obstinate on some developments.
On a negative note, in 2011, the company is estimated to have lost a lot of revenues when one of its buildings that produced Marmite located in Christchurch closed due to damages. This kind of risk was unprecedented and paved the way for a national-wide crisis as most dealers only relied on just-in-time inventory stocks (Radd, 43). This meant that the entire nation had to deal with the low supply, opening the door to capitalists who wanted to squeeze out desperate customers through extremely high prices. Another recent environmental issue that hit the company was back in 2017 when the company tried to acquire 300 boxes of Weetabix from a shop owner in Christchurch. The New Zealand officials detained the package, claiming that the British-made Weetabix contradicted and confused most people as it had an almost similar brand to New Zealand ‘Weet-bix.’ What followed was a backlash from people and the country at large.
Task 3: Sanitarium’s Ethics And Csr
Sanitarium and Wellbeing Company believes it has a role to play in improving the immediate environment in terms of improving quality of life as well as preserving the natural way. The business models adopted by the institution provide a functional basis that does not work to degrade the environment in any way. The Sanitarium Company has incorporated principles articulated in the environmental law stipulations and its regulations. The company has also developed and successfully sustained the habit of preserving all the natural resources within the premises owned by the institution (Cronin, 128). Where the company has to create partnerships or develop lasting relations with customers, environmentally friendly channels are applied so as to be true to our lasting culture. Such is the case in the case of packaging as well as developing business partnerships with partners who show true regard for the environment.
The Sanitarium Company maintains openness by seeking customer feedback. This encourages responsiveness to different issues of concern from our market base. This also helps improve the quality of our service delivery as well as correct our wrongs where they may arise. This responsive culture is greatly encouraged even with the company’s human resources. Other significant implementations by the company entail the adoption of renewable sources of energy where applicable, which makes the company’s residual waste minimal (Anderson, 2006). A company’s integrity can be measured by assessing the mechanisms they uses to get rid of its industrial waste. Sanitarium Company traces its development history and relevance from wholesome and holistic service to impact the lives of our community members. From such principles the company makes extra effort to effectively alienate the industrial waste from the natural environment.
Statistics show that up to 90 percent of raw material is converted to refuse, and the final product itself accumulates more waste in the following five months. Sanitarium Company has, therefore, adopted the circular economy model that restores the utility of most resources used in the manufacturing process as well as distribution (Cronin, 128). The residual waste accumulated is greatly reduced, making the long-term implications of the company’s operation positive. For such goals to be achieved, the company knows that it has to develop a culture that is easy to pass through the generations. Such a culture is already in place in the company, which is easy to adapt for new staff as well as managing body. The circle model is constantly developed through cooperating with other companies in creating a responsive industry.
The concept of recycling has been a major issue at the production department of Sanitarium Company. How well can we regenerate the usage of products? The company works on a reduce-recycle- reuse model, hence making the packages flexible for secondary purposes. This has had positive implications also as customer loyalty has greatly improved over the years, making products by Sanitarium the most preferential in our current market base. Achieving these standards, however, has involved our continued attention to detail (Anderson, 2006). This is by delegating a team to keep up with the market reviews, consumer feedback and environmental performance ratings. Our track record continues to be consistent with good reviews, especially owing to the different measures the Sanitarium administration has adopted. This is in regard to schemes such as purifying industrial water, the company’s compliance with the guidelines articulated by Sustainable Packaging, and energy conservation within the factories owned by the institution.
Guided by the spirit of corporate Social responsibility the company does not invest all its resources in maximizing profits only as it is with most companies (Cronin, 128). The company also spreads out its resources to maintain certain corporate standards which in turn are used as a standard for comparing other companies in the locality.
Task 4: Sanitarium’s Cultural Organization
Sanitarium’s mission statement is “To share a message of health and hope for a better life.” After the successful adoption and implementation of “Up and Go” in Australia, Sanitarium is thinking of extending its scope so that it can reach all countries in the world. That said, the company needs to incorporate strong cultural values that describe the characteristic interests and activities of a people (Management, 2018). In essence, these values should be able to allow measurements using different dimensions. Hofstede’s cultural dimension works best when comparing or determining the cultural aspects of an organization based on a number of factors. Using the framework provided by this model, Australia is described as a low-context culture. This can be attributed to the fact that the hierarchy of most Australian companies is based on convenience reasons (Land, 2014).
Australia can also be described as individualistic due to the high tendency of individuals to take care of only themselves and their loved ones. Going by past achievements, Australia is greatly associated with success and as such, is highly possessive of a masculine culture. On the same note, Australians are also largely indifferent when it comes to uncertainty avoidance (Management, 2018). This means that business people are able to keep calm even in difficult or ambiguous situations. With respect to time, the culture of most Australians can be described as impulsive due to their short-term spending engagements, which are desire-driven and focused on delivering timely results. From the above description, we can deduce that Up and Go as a product succeeded in Australia because of the high living standards, busy family lives, and supportive government policies that promote healthy lifestyles.
Onwards, Sanitarium defines its culture as the shared norms, expectations, and values that outline how individuals should interact with each other in the workplace. Based on an employee proposition that entangles leadership, culture, recognition, and development, Sanitarium looks to incorporate a working culture that meets the customers’ needs by satisfying the staff. Learning, leading, and living by values are among the core values of Sanitarium, which has enabled it to cultivate a professional culture that emphasizes the need for training from the time of induction. Opportunities for development are offered through various conferences and meetings such as workshops, job training, eLearning, peer learning, webinars, retreats, and 360 feedback (Land, 2014). This program is meant to familiarize the company’s employees with the mission statement and connects to a performance review known as “iGro.” This system adds to the Sanitarium business strategy and, at the same time, facilitates a two-way communication between managers and employees.
Although the main focus of iGro is business outcomes and employee development, there is also an aspect of compensation where, based on one’s achievements, there is a possibility to earn more in monetary terms if an employee performs above expectations. The well-being of the employees is a culture that has been cultivated for many years at Sanitarium. This can be evidenced by the “Better U” initiative which looks to ensure that staff members are offered a range of services ranging from weight management products, nutritional products, mental health, and physical strength (Management, 2018). Through such programs, staff members are able to keep track of their health and liaise with a coach to track their progress against the set objectives. Based on the emphasis the company places on its employees, it was recognized as the Employer of Choice in the 2016 Australian Business Awards.
References
Anderson, H. and Landau, I. (2006). Corporate Social Responsibility in Australia: A Review. SSRN Electronic Journal.
Church, S.D.A., 2012. Not-for-Profit Tax Concession Working Group Consultation Paper, November 2012.
Cronin, C., 2001. Corporate social responsibility in Australia: A select review of the literature (pp. 1-28). Smith Family.
Land, G., 2014. Historical dictionary of the Seventh-day Adventists. Rowman & Littlefield.
Management, I. (2018). The Australian Business Awards 2014 | ABA100 Winner for Employer of Choice. [online] Businessawards.com.au. Available at: http://www.businessawards.com.au/winners/2014/Employer-of-Choice/Sanitarium-Health-and-Wellbeing.php [Accessed 18 Apr. 2018].
MBA Skool-Study.Learn.Share. (2018). Sanitarium Health and Wellbeing Company SWOT Analysis | USP & Competitors | BrandGuide | MBA Skool-Study.Learn.Share.. [online] Available at: https://www.mbaskool.com/brandguide/food-and-beverages/9578-sanitarium-health-and-wellbeing-company.html [Accessed 18 Apr. 2018].
Radd, S. and Marsh, K.A., 2012. Practical tips for preparing healthy and delicious plant-based meals. MJA Open, 1(2), pp.41-45.
Sanitarium.com.au. (2018). Driven by our philosophy. [online] Available at: https://www.sanitarium.com.au/about/sanitarium-story/philosophy [Accessed 18 Apr. 2018].
