Revealing The FacadeCorprorate responsibility

P is a pretty short name for a company but as the fourth largest company in the world, you don’t need to be extravagant when it comes to brand awareness. British Petroleum, as it became known in 1954 after a series of name changes

and intriguing power plays involving even the CIA, became simply known as BP plc in 2001 adopting the tagline “Be-yond Petroleum” attempting to become the poster child for corporate social responsibility (CSR). Unfortunately for the company, on April 20, 2010, BP took on a new persona, that being “Big Polluter”.

The incident is a major hit to BP’s CSR mandate which saw the company completely changing its image to one that was more palatable in a world becoming increasingly aware of the environmental impacts of petroleum use. BP plc, through sizable investments in the area of solar energy, is now the largest maker of solar panels in the world shor-ing up its image as a celebrator of alternative energy while flying its new logo high above its head. Now it seems that a number of CSR setbacks may undermine BP’s efforts to shed its oil baron image and may expose its efforts as just a more elaborate public relations campaign.

Immediately after the Transocean owned oil rig sank with the lives of 11 workers, BP’s initial estimates were that they were losing 1000 barrels of oil daily. After underwater foot-age showed that this estimate was laughably undervalued, a revised estimate of 5000 barrels daily was posited. In-dependent scientists have estimated the true value to be closer to 80,000 barrels a day using a particle flow simulator which has not helped BP’s image at all. 5000 seems to be an acceptable figure and BP is sticking to it and all those pesky scientists with their newfangled devices can go take a hike.

In all honesty would a company such as BP who has touted company responsibility have shirked the option of installing a failsafe switch which automatically shuts down the rig in the event of a blowout? A device like that goes for about half a million US dollars and one could see a multibillion dol-lar company that has invested billions in image change, balk-

ing at this figure. Sarcasm aside, BP has lost $US30 billion dollars since the incident and it is almost laughable to think that going beyond petroleum didn’t involve a $500,000 fail-safe.

BP will be required to pay no more than $US75 million to clean up the Gulf of Mexico spill after which the US govern-ment will use the funds from a cess on all petroleum prod-ucts to clean up the rest. Seems like a slap on the wrist but considering the bigger picture and the hit that BP has taken on a whole, maybe BP will realize that CSR goes beyond a spiffy new logo.

yourmoney ezine

Business Lounge

B

In all honesty would a company such as BP who has touted company responsibility have shirked the option of installing a failsafe switch which automatically shuts down the rig in the event of a blowout?

“”

advertisment

he Jamaica Tourist Board’s slogan for the better part of a decade has been “Once you go, you know” and it occurred to this writer that this bit of genius that most likely had its inception in the right brain of an advertising executive, may have

serious undertones about the dependence of Jamaica on its tourism product as a major contributor to the country’s for-eign exchange input. The thing is that this very slogan sums up the nature of a sector that is so dependent on a num-ber of prevailing factors that it has no control over. To be clearer, the visitors must come to know for sure but what if the image that is portrayed of our country makes it harder to get them to come, how will they ever know?

For years, Thailand and its capital Bangkok, has grown steadily to become a premier tourism destination, a status which it has almost lost in a matter of weeks. A visit to the Thai Tourism website shows a banner that is almost sure to prompt a move to cancellation of any vacation plans. Tour-ism contributes roughly the same to the GDP of both Ja-maica and Thailand, somewhere in the region of above 5%.

But since the political unrest that has killed over 50 people and wounded over 1600, this 5% contribution is in dan-ger of disappearing completely since images of protesters burning and creating replaced those beaches and sunsets on computer screens around the world. Even though the politi-cal situation in Jamaica is tense at this time it is premature to even think that we could face a public relations disaster of Thailand’s proportions but premature doesn’t mean impos-sible.

Right now, convincing any one that they have to go to Thai-land to know would require the silver tongue of a veteran confidence scam artist. Much of the talk about Thailand’s economic outlook has been about the tourism fallout but it is more than evident that Thailand is in a far better po-sition than Jamaica even if its tourism product disappears completely. Even with investor confidence slipping and gen-eral unease about the economy of Thailand it is easy to see where a country that exports from rice to cars and comput-er parts may have an easier time getting its foreign exchange earnings back to par a lot quicker than we would in Jamaica. Even within the turmoil, large Bangkok based companies such as SAP AG, Honda and LG have been finding ways to weather the storm and get ready for the eventual bounce back. After all, investors are a lot easier to convince than tourists in cases such as this.

The cry has been loud and clear for years about getting Ja-maica’s manufacturing and export sector back up to scratch but maybe we should attempt to match our efforts at woo-ing tourists in wooing investors. Considering the fact that we’ve had steady growth in our tourism sector with our crime problem then a serious campaign geared towards in-vestors isn’t that daunting. Just tell them something like this, “Once you invest, we’ll do the rest”. Well, that’s why I’m not an advertising executive.

yourmoney ezine

thai tourism

insights

Once You Know, You Wont Go

T

Even though the political situation in Ja-maica is tense at this time it is premature to even think that we could face a public relations disaster of Thailand’s proportions but prema-ture doesn’t mean impossible.

“”advertisment

by Andre Burnett

yourmoney ezine

speciaL

Graphic Courtesy of Vizworldhttp://www.vizworld.com

Read Your Money today...