Business Ethics- Cosmetic Industry Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Business Ethics- Cosmetic Industry - Essay Example Though this industry is continually growing at leaps and bounds, it is though wrought with a wide array of ethical issues from sourcing of cosmetic ingredients to testing of the cosmetic products to determine safety to the marketing of such products and services (Betton 7-9). The essence of ethics is all about determining the rightness or wrongness of certain human actions, and the number of ethical controversies that plague the cosmetic industry have tremendous moral, environment, social, legal, and health implications to the stakeholders involved (Skov 3). This paper analyses the business ethics of the cosmetic industry with a focus on make-up industry globally. Brief Overview of the make-up cosmetics Industry The make-up industry is the one of largest segment within the cosmetics industry after skin care and fragrances, and mainly consists of face make-up, lip make-up, eye make-up and nail make-up. For the year 2010, the global market generated sales worth $34.5 billion and growin g at 4.2% compounded annual growth rate over the period 2006-2010. This growth is as depicted in figure 1. With most of the world economy still in recovery, the growth rate over the period 2010-2015 has been projected to be at 4.1% annually with the market value projected to rise to $42.2 billion by the end of 2015 (Datamonitor 9). Figure1: Global make-up Market Value, Source: Datamonitor, 2011, pp. 10 The highest growing markets are the markets in the Americas and Asia Pacific with these markets exhibiting a 4.3% and 4% growth rate respectively (Datamonitor 9). The biggest consumer of make-up cosmetic products though is Europe accounting for 41.2% of the global market value followed by t he Americas which account 30.5% of the global make-up market, Asia-Pacific 25.7% and Africa and the Middle east at 2.5% (Global insight 1; Datamonitor 13). The leading player globally is L’Oreal followed by Proctor & Gamble and Estee Lauder Companies as shown below in figure 2: Figure2: Glob al Make-up market share. Source: Datamonitor, 2011, pp.14 With most cosmetics companies increasingly claiming to produce their make-up products in the most ethical manner, ethical considerations impacting the industry have increasingly become issues to contend with. Key ethical issues within the industry The ethicality of an issue is mainly determined by how right or wrong an issue or action is. There are a number of ethical issues faced by cosmetic industry, and in specific the make-up industry. These include testing of products on animals, misleading advertisements concerning the performance of the cosmetic products, inclusion of harmful ingredients into the cosmetic products, unethical alliances between academic institutions and professional dermatologists with cosmetic companies to endorse the use of the company’s products purporting them to be scientifically proven as safe and with high efficacy, and unethical sourcing of products ingredients (Betton; The Environmental A ssociation for universities and Colleges; Hussain & Yamaguchi). These ethical issues have plagued the cosmetic industry with most cosmetic industries which claim to be ethical mainly showing that they source their raw materials ethically following fair trade policies and that they do not use animal testing for their products. Most cosmetic companies have at some point tested their cosmetic products on animal

Travelocity SWOT Analysis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Travelocity SWOT Analysis - Essay Example We market these net rate offerings to travelers at a price that includes service fees that we retain, plus an amount sufficient to pay the travel supplier for its charge for providing the travel accommodations, along with any applicable occupancy and other local taxes on that charge. For this type of business model, we require pre-payment by the traveler at the time of booking. High customer acquisition costs, as the marketing and promotional costs are quite high to deal with and it is challenging to upgrade the features of online portal quite often. A new feature from competitor keep Travelocity on toes as it may deviate Travelocity's customers. Customers may reduce transactions through our distribution channels, which could reduce Travelocity revenues: business segments have objectives that lead to conflicts with customers of other business segments related to parent company "Sabre". For example, Travelocity and Travelocity Business operations compete with travel-agency subscribers of Sabre Travel Network. That competition could cause current or potential travel agency subscribers to elect to use competing GDS providers, websites or other channels of travel distribution, which could reduce our transaction fee revenue and materially adversely affect our business. Opportunities: Sustainable global corporate customers' growth creates an opportunity to provide right customer experience and extend the corporate associations for a long period of time. As travel industry is extremely competitive, companies have to target to retain their most valuable clients. Along with retaining clients it has to look out for new clients & markets for considerable growth opportunity. Opportunities to explore the new markets as the internet penetration in developing countries is on raise and E-Commerce is evolving tool for travel purchase. Countries like India where internet penetration is picking up at rapid pace have to be explored with aggressive marketing and promotional strategies. Opportunities exist for online booking for rail and road travel across the globe as it is the basic mode of the common man's travel. Threats: Economic downturns, rising fuel costs and the financial instability of travel suppliers in recent times have bought the confidence levels of travel markets to an all time low. Political instability, acts of terrorism, hostilities and war have created a negative perception on the travelers mind