Cadbury Plc - a Good Business Through Social Responsibility

CADBURY PLC- A GOOD BUSINESS THROUGH SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY.

“Once we realign our perspective, many things fall into place. Corporation make profit in order to serve the society better. Making a profit is thus a means, not the end (Lim Boon Heng 2004).”

Since Profit is not only the main point of doing business, therefore, nowadays, every single business leader must deal with the concept of CSR. More than just chasing profits, every business leaders are also faced with the reality they have to care about their environment welfare because that is the business of business.

To understand a concept of CSR is not an easy job. We must really understand the meaning and the concept among a bewildering range of definition and concept that has been revealed for us. According to Wong Evelyn (2009, 242), CSR is essentially a company’s commitment to responsible to in a business practice, trying to generate its profits by building concern not only for the shareholder interest, but also for the other stakeholders include everyone who was affected by firm decision making (Clarkson 1994, p5, Sabaf 2006b:57). There are inexhaustible benefits that we can get by doing CSR in our business. External intangible benefits such as: branding, reputation, sustainability, and also internal benefits such as: employee commitment can be achieved by doing this CSR (Wong 2009, 245). As one of the methods which are believed to enhance the viability and business competitiveness, then the CSR is expected to be implemented in every single business area. To understand better the importance of CSR concept in doing business, in the next following will be discussed one of the companies that prioritizing CSR in carry out their business.

Company overview

Cadbury is one of the oldest and largest family run businesses with a portfolio of gum, candy, and chocolate products (Williams Iolo, 1931), which employed about 46,517 employees (datamonitor n.d). It has a lot of affiliates spread over more than 60 countries in the world while the headquarters is in London, UK (Williams Iolo, 1931).

Comes from a small business founded by John Cadbury in 1894 (Bradley 2008), Cadbury chocolate company now evolved into one of the market share leader. Research conducted by the company "data monitor" shows that in 2008, Cadbury's annual income reaches £ 5,384,000 (approximately $ 9,988.3 million) and he earned an annual profit of about £364 million (approximately $675.3 million) in 2008 (marketlineinfo n.d.).

Company Character of Value

The main purpose of Cadbury in running their business is “to create brand that people love” (Bradley 2008). To accomplish that Cadbury recognise 5 area of responsibility that are defined as their priority to sustainability (Cadbury