Professional Documents
Culture Documents
PepsiCo
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Background: PepsiCo is a food and beverage company that was created
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Code of Conduct: PepsiCo has their own Global Code of Conduct that
around the world. PepsiCo endorses the United Nations Womens Empowerment
Principles. The topics that they discuss include leadership promoting gender
equality, equal opportunity, inclusion and nondiscrimination, health, safety and
freedom from violence, education and training, enterprise development, supply
chain and marketing practices, community leadership and engagement, and
transparency, measuring and reporting. Also, PepsiCos Pinnacle Group was
launched in 2011 in the United States as a way to increase the retention of the
companys female sales talent as well as strengthen and diversify their future
leadership. Because of PepsiCos partnership with Aspabel, which is a local farm
cooperative, women have been able to have meaningful and relevant jobs at the
companys plantain supplier in Belen de Umbria. According to the 2013 United
States diversity and inclusion statistics in PepsiCos GRI report only 19% of all
associated were female. This statistic shows that PepsiCo has a lot more work to
do to create a more diverse workplace with more women in it.
Recommendation 1: One recommendation that I have for PepsiCo is that
they should put more vitamins into their products to promote better health for
their consumers. For example, the vitamins that people are most commonly
deficient in include vitamin D, vitamin B12, magnesium, and iron. The majority of
PepsiCo products are not healthy for the consumer and contain many sugars that
are bad for peoples health. If PepsiCo began to implement some of these
vitamins into their products then they could potentially have a positive affect on
the health of their consumers. Also, if they focused on putting specific vitamins
into products around different parts of the world where theyre needed they could
take steps forward in helping the UN Millennium Developmental Goals to achieve
their goal to eradicate extreme hunger and poverty. If they chose to start
implementing vitamins into many of their products then they could potentially
provide more jobs for people. By making the vitamins their own sector and having
new employees operate that part of the company they are opening up new
opportunities for company growth.
Recommendation 2: My next recommendation involves the LGBTQ
community. As time passes more people are feeling comfortable in their own skin
and comfortable sharing that with the world. The LGBTQ community is growing
and many companies have problems with discrimination when it comes to that
community. PepsiCo doesnt talk about the presence of the LGBTQ community in
their workplace in their sustainability report nor do they in their GRI report.
Because of the absence of this topic it implies that they do not have much to
report on the success of their company with the inclusion of this community of
people. It is important that PepsiCo stay up with the times and be inclusive of all
people in their work environment as they stated in their sustainability report.
There was an article published in the Huffington Post in November of 2011 about
PepsiCo and their steps toward become more diverse especially with the LGBTQ
community. However, this article was based in North America and not worldwide.
As PepsiCo likes to announce how present they are globally, so should the
LGBTQ environment in their workplace. It is important for them to focus on not
only women and people of color, but also the LGBTQ community. If theres no
information to report on how well they are doing in this category then it means
they are not doing well enough to report anything. It is also important in the future
that they start to report on this statistics in their sustainability report and their GRI
report. Not having the information given to the reader causes the reader to
search for it. When they have to search for it and can barely find anything, it
makes it hard to understand how the company could be doing anything about this
topic. The company should make it a goal in next years sustainability report to
diversify their community with the LGBTQ community and report on their
progress in the years to come. Its important for people to have access to that
information if you are in support of that community or part of it.
Recommendation 3: PepsiCo should sign on with the Gender Equality
Principles which is an initiative launched in 2008. These principles urge
companies to identify their strengths and weaknesses and then recognize how
gender equality could help the business as a whole. The seven principles of the
Gender Equality Principles include employment and compensation, work-life
balance and career development, health, safety, and freedom from violence,
management and governance, business, supply chain and marketing practices,
civic and community engagement, and leadership, transparency, and
accountability. Out of these seven principles PepsiCo could particularly benefit
from taking after the principle that includes work-life balance and career
development. Nowhere in the companys sustainability report do they talk about
principles state that businesses should support and respect the protection of
internationally proclaimed human rights and to make sure that they are not
complicit in human rights abuses. The one principle about anticorruption states
that businesses should work against corruption in all forms, including extortion
and bribery. These are all principles that line up with PepsiCos goals and
existing principles. They would benefit from signing on with them. They should
also make their anticorruption standards more visible. They do not talk about
their anticorruption standards in their sustainability report. It is important for the
public to be able to read about PepsiCos feelings on anticorruption and the steps
that they are taking to prevent it in the company. According to their GRI report the
company prohibits unethical business practice which includes corruption and
bribery. However, they do not speak of it at all in their sustainability report. They
should report more on their stance towards anticorruption and also make sure
that all of their employees are educated on the topic and PepsiCos goals
surrounding it. If the employees are not educated about the topic then they wont
be able to know if theyre following the companys policies surrounding it.
Competition: Coca-Cola is PepsiCos biggest competitor. Some of CocaColas goals in their 2013/2014 sustainability report include helping to get people
moving by supporting physical activity programs in every country where they do
business, to enable economic empowerment of 5 million women across their
global value chain by 2020, to give back at least one percent of their operating
income annually, to safely return to communities the amount of water equal to
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what they use in their finished beverages and their production, to assess the
vulnerabilities of the quantity of water sources for each of their systems bottling
plants and develop a locally relevant source water protection plan, and more.
Coca-Cola has 22 goals in their sustainability report compared to PepsiCos 10.
Also, 43% of Coca-Colas employees are of color and 39% of the total elected
company officers are women. Coca-Cola and PepsiCo are alike and have many
similar goals, but Coca-Cola seems to be more successful in achieving them.
When reading through the goals on Coca-Colas sustainability report they
seemed to be much more specific and thought out. The detail in which they map
out their goals most likely helps the company to achieve them more successfully
and efficiently. If PepsiCo wants to keep up with Coca-Cola then they should start
to choose more than just 10 goals to focus on in their sustainability report. They
should try to double that number and vocalize 20 goals that they will be working
towards. They should also be more specific in their goals, they should use
specific numbers and specific areas so that the company knows exactly what
they are trying to accomplish. Clarity often leads to more success. PepsiCo also
needs to work much harder to keep up with the success that Coca-Cola has in
the diversity in their workplace.
Conclusion: In conclusion, PepsiCo has a lot to work on in the next few
years. They should focus mainly on the diversity of the workplace because that is
something thats important to their image, to their consumers, and to human
rights. They should try to partner with Coca-Cola to provide access to safe water
worldwide. They should also try to adopt some goals similar to those of CocaColas in the aspect of water. They should also attempt t implement more
vitamins needed by their consumers into their products.
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References
Balch, O. (2014, October 24). Why rivals like PepsiCo, Coca Cola, Unilever and
P&G are joining forces. Retrieved November 19, 2014, from The Guardian
website: http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2014/oct/23/pepsicococa-cola-unilever-proctor-gamble-partner-business
Coca-Cola 2012/2013 GRI report. (2013). Retrieved November 19, 2014, from
Coca-Cola website: http://assets.cocacolacompany.com/44/d4/e4eb8b6f4682804bdf6ba2ca89b8/2012-2013-grireport.pdf
Global code of conduct. (n.d.). Retrieved November 19, 2014, from PepsiCo
website: http://www.pepsico.com/Company/Global-Code-Of-Conduct
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Human rights. (n.d.). Retrieved November 19, 2014, from UN Global Compact
website:https://www.unglobalcompact.org/AboutTheGC/TheTenPrinciples/human
Rights.html
Our history. (n.d.). Retrieved November 19, 2014, from PepsiCo website:
http://www.pepsico.com/Company/Our-History
PepsiCo 2013 GRI report. (2013). Retrieved November 19, 2014, from PepsiCo
website: http://www.pepsico.com/Assets/Download/PepsiCo_2013_GRI.pdf
Who we are. (n.d.). Retrieved November 19, 2014, from PepsiCo website:
http://www.pepsico.com/Company
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