Reference no: EM133449090

Case Study: You and your fellow group members are purchasing employees at ABC Company, a mid-size product manufacturer located in Kitchener, Ontario, with customers across Canada and worldwide. You have recently returned from a three (3) day business conference on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), where the theme centered on global customers' interest in the CSR policies and practices of the companies they purchase products from (i.e., their suppliers). The conference focus was on how the purchasing function needs to be a key
contributor and supporter of CSR. You are aware that your employer, ABC Company, is in the process of developing new CSR policies, but none of you are involved in the project to date. In your weekly meeting with the Chief Operating Officer (COO), you discuss the various concepts recently introduced to you at the conference and ask for the purchasing team to become actively involved in the development of ABC Company's CSR initiatives from now on. The COO is tremendously impressed with your enthusiasm and asks you to make a report summarizing your ideas, including a benchmarking analysis and comparison with a well- known, publicly held manufacturer MICROSOFT. Your report will substantiate why the purchasing function should always be a part of the CSR planning process. Key areas of your benchmarking research and analysis should include (but are not limited to):

Questions: COMPANY IS MICROSOFT
• Research & identify the published CSR values of your assigned organization and identify the role you believe the purchasing team plays in each of those values (MCROSOFT).
• Research & identify any known contradictions to those published values.
• Do the organization's overall vision and published mission statement correlate to the CSR values? Why or why not.
• Discuss if the organization has an ethical statement or mandate for their employees and their suppliers. If so, how well does it correlate with the published ethical purchasing guidelines from well-known purchasing associations?
• Discuss BOTH the benefits and drawbacks that the assigned organization's CSR initiatives may have on their purchasing department regarding supplier screening, strategic sourcing, and maintaining ethical standards.
• Describe all the elements of the "Three Pillars of Social Responsibility" (People, Profit, and Planet) that impact the purchasing department's sourcing activities related to your assigned company's CSR values (microsoft).
• Based on your benchmarking findings, discuss why you believe the purchasing department should always be a part of developing a company's CSR values and policies.