Research Challenges in the Global Business Environment

Challenges in the Global Business Environment
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Apple’s Supplier Code of Conduct.
The Supplier Code of Conduct of Apple Inc ensures that suppliers endorse the transformed commitment of the company to health and safety, labor and human rights, environmental accountability, and integrity in business. This code of conduct outlines thorough standards that defend against spontaneous and juvenile labor, inequity, and job-related injury. Additionally, it persuades community engagement and sustainability of the environment through obligatory company policies. Apple Inc now has new globally recognized standards that are vital to the company’s ethical standing. In the past, Apple has received major criticism for the supposed employment of sweatshop labor, destruction of the environment, and business practices that are unethical. It is for this reason that Apple has amended its supplier Code of Conduct (William, 2015).
A list of Specific changes that Apple has made to its Code of Conduct in recent years
Accountability: Apple sets high standards that they then aid their suppliers to meet. To help suppliers in being accountable, Apple uses Audit which gives the suppliers a chance of improving daily
Human Rights are workers’ rights: Apple Inc. ensures all workers in their suppliers’ facilities get fair treatment. To achieve this goal, Apple partners with the suppliers in ending underage labor, bonded labor as well as over working. They also ensure their materials are well sourced in the supply chain of their suppliers.
Empowerment of workers: Apple works on ensuring that their workers are well prepared for expected responsibilities. This is achieved through offering them training which prepares them for the next career level and makes them better informed, Apple also partners with vocational schools to improve education standard.
Guarding the environment: In the past, Apple was criticized greatly for environmental degradation. To rectify the challenge, the company has indicated that together with the suppliers, they are working hard to protect the environment. This is done through providing workers with the required safety gears in the working area, and also through setting strict policies on environment.
Changes that suppliers of Apple should practice to maintain a good working relationship
Apple Company has gone through major criticism in the past for violation of human rights, breaking of law and degradation of the environment. As a company, we have over the years worked hard to fight these vices. As the chief compliance officer, I wish to address the issue so that we can have a good work relationship. After numerous audits on our suppliers we have come across discriminatory cases, the presence of unprotected juvenile workers, and workers working for excessive hours. We wish to ask all the suppliers to correct these issues. We have further cracked down acts of involuntary labor and hiring of underage in some countries. Companies that have been found violating this order are asked to make monetary reparations and also take the under aged workers back to school. They will further finance their education as well as continue paying them an equivalent of the salary they used to earn as workers (Burrows, 2013).
On the issue of Environmental practices, our main focus is conflict minerals. All the tantalum smelters are currently conflict free as confirmed by a report done through the third – party auditors. Auditing will also be conducted on all other smelters. The company shall release a list that shows the refiners that we use along with their status of verification. Our main goal is to ensure that our smelters work responsibly and have a good relationship with our stakeholders.
We are also working vigorously to end extreme working hours. Over the years we have managed to minimize the problem hoping to end it totally in the future. We have further expanded the program of Supplier Employee Education and Development (SEED) through doubling the facilities numbers in which we are offering free education to our employees. The program is credibly growing each year hence improving our employees’ abilities. We have further launched a one and a half year program to teach employees about the environment, safety and health matters. This program is also expected to expand even further in the future.
Apple’s Supplier Responsibility information summary
Apple Inc is highly devoted to ensuring that the supply chain is treated with respect and dignity as they deserve. The Company’s team is working extra hard to ensure that each year there are more improvements on working conditions. We are further working harder to ensure that more educational chances are provided, while living standards of all employees are improved. We have further been on the front line to ensure that human rights are protected. In this summary I will clearly show how the company has been protecting human rights through eliminating extreme working hours and how we have addressed the case of under aged workers in the past years. I shall also mention the steps that we have been taking to maintain our environment by the safe use of chemical, natural resources conservation, effective use of energy and use of greenhouse energy.
Compliance of working hours among the suppliers went up to 97% in 2015. This is the highest percentage of compliance that has ever been experienced in the industry. Over nine million employees have undergone training since 2008. About 1.5 million workers have gone through educational programs of Apple with over 25.6 million US dollars going into extreme recruitment fees. We have attained very substantial results from our push for renewable energy creation and better environmental standards. As a result of the company’s campaign, the suppliers have managed to divert over 73,000 metric waste tons from varying landfills.
Through Apple’s Clean Water Program, over 3.7 billion gallons of freshwater have been saved. Under the energy efficiency program, which is still new, suppliers have managed to prevent over 13,900 metric tons of carbon release. This company is putting more effort to help our suppliers become more competent. Currently we are working on powering their businesses with renewable energy sources through our clean energy program. Since 2013, the participants of Environment, Health, and Safety (EHS) Academy have been able to launch over 2500 EHS projects. Besides this progress, we are working hard to address other challenges in the supply chain. The company is explicitly working with partners in the industry, NGOs, governments, and other shareholders that believe in our vision of humanizing lives and upgrading our environment (Adam, 2014).
Apple’s stance on each of the following areas:
Empowering workers
Apple has trained more than nine million workers since 2008. Through the training, workers understand better health and safety regulations, local laws and also the company’s code of conduct. The supervisors are expected to understand the employment policies as well as be in a position of maintaining a workplace that is safe. The supervisors have also been trained through the Supplier Employee Education and Development (SEED) program on better communication skills. This shows clearly that the company embraces empowerment of workers.
Classrooms have been set in the facilities of supplier where employees take free training in different subjects that include human resource management, graphic designs and computer skills. All the classrooms are well equipped with video conference abilities and Mac computers. iPad devices with SEED training are also offered to the workers undertaking training. Further,...