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Task 1 – Evaluation and recommendations of Company Q

A. Evaluation
Company Q’s current attitude toward social responsibility does not seem to exist. Of course it is a business’s goal is to make a profit, but it should also include good practice between the company and community. The company’s closure of stores due to high crime rate areas, offering products solely on being high margin items, and not donating day old food to local food banks are big factors of not being socially responsible.

B. Recommendations 1. Company Q should not have shut down stores just because they were in higher crime rate areas, which also created higher unemployment. It should have created stronger security which in turn would help better the community, which in turn creates profits. It would also be a way of offering better products to the community as opposed to local corner stores.

2. Company Q offering health conscious and organic products as per their consumers request, was not done for the consumer but because they were high margin items. They may be high margin items but it needs to be considered that if these types of items will be offered they have to be of good quality and from reputable markets. Consumers being able to afford these products, as they can be more expensive, also needs to be a major factor.

3. Company Q not donating to the local food bank is just showing that the company has no sympathy for the less fortunate. This type of attitude, can alone, destroy the reputation of the company. This type of event can easily become public from employees reporting or even videotaping all the food being thrown away. Also the worry of employees stealing rather than donating can be avoided by implementing a system of inventory of what is being delivered to the local food bank. Donation of the food can still be written off as a loss but instead of just disposing of it, you are giving to the community and showing sympathy for the less fortunate.

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