Keys to Success in Multinational Companies

In managing a multinational company in the food products industry, it is essential to implement a solid knowledge management system to ensure that as much relevant information as possible is handled in the most effective manner. Issues that must be addressed to ensure the safety of the product and that optimum delivery to consumers is possible include: sanitation, where workers may eat and drink, conflict resolution, how in-house teams will conduct business, how online teams will facilitate the organization, security, and emergency evacuation procedures. This paper will discuss the key benefits of creating a best practice policy on each of these described issues and will speculate on the major ramifications if such policies are not created. This paper will also predict the significant ways in which the best practices policy created here will contribute towards the long-term sustainability of the company. Finally this paper will determine whether or not the best practices policy would provide a competitive advantage over other international companies while giving an example of a company using a best practices policy that proves the case.

Sanitation is a critical aspect of safety especially in the food industry. Ensuring that employees no matter the country wash their hands, have proper toilet facilities, and practice good hygiene around food is very important. To guarantee sanitation, workers will be required to follow a step-by-step process when handling food for each new order. The process will dictate when an employee must wash his or her hands, when to wear gloves, and where toilet facilities will be and how they must be maintained. Checklists will be used to ensure cleanliness in the facilities on a routine basis.

The policy on eating and/or drinking is that this can only be done at designated tables and areas and should not be conducted at desks or at any place on company grounds that is not a designated area for food consumption. The purpose of this is to prevent infestation of bugs and/or rodents in the workplace. Foods that are not properly contained can attract pests, therefore it is the safest and best policy to contain foods and eating and/or drinking to designated areas.

Conflict resolution will be addressed by having those involved in the conflict enter into mediation with a disinterested third party. All decisions made will be final and will be accepted by the parties in the conflict. The purpose of this is to ensure that conflicts do not carry over and harm morale in the long run. Promoting a positive workplace culture is very important for a successful business in any environment (Schyns & Schilling, 2013).

In-house teams will be required to meet at designated hours of the day and week for meetings, reviews, and communications, and the leaders of the teams will be appointed by a democratic process because democratic leadership is one of the strategies that can be and will be used to support the organization’s overall aims (Woods, 2004). The in-house teams will also select scribes to record the minutes of the meetings so that they can be entered into the information systems and stored in the knowledge management system for later retrieval.

Online teams will be responsible for providing service and maintenance to the online site with 24-hour coverage on phone due to time differences from country to country. The teams will follow guidelines written for how they will deal with customers, and scripts will be provided them. Monitoring of online maintenance will also be conducted to ensure that the site is effectively running at optimum levels.

Security will have a variety of aspects that need to be addressed: leaving doors open, locking up, retrieving keys from departing workers and so on will be priorities at the premises. Food supply chain security is an issue that also have to be addressed as a number of factors on the global scale could disrupt or cause harm to foods in the supply chain, including droughts, earthquakes, famines, wars, etc. As Shaffer (2017) shows, security threats abound in regions like the Middle East and ensuring security in this area will be ensured by following clear guidelines regarding checkpoints, monitoring, and receiving supplies.

In the case of fire, flood, earthquake, or war, emergency evacuation procedures are necessary to have and implement. Emergency evacuation training will be mandatory and required of all workers, and managers will be appointed to lead emergency evacuation procedures to ensure that all workers and patrons are evacuated quickly, safely and effectively when an evacuation is required.

The key benefits of creating this policy include: 1) keeping all stakeholders assured of the integrity of the products provided by the company, 2) ensuring the safety of all workers and patrons of the company, 3) creating a harmonious vision among employees of the company by providing clear guidelines for every set of circumstances related to how work will be conducted, overseen, measured, and controlled. Without these policies in place, the knowledge management system will lack integral aspects of information that can be used to help create an effective workplace environment no matter which part of the world it exists in.

If this policy were not adopted, the company would lack cohesion and uniformity; from country to country and place to place; the business would be subject to the whims of local stakeholders, who may not know the best practices to follow when dealing with any of the described issues above; and workplace environments could suffer as a result with safety, security, and efficiency all negatively impacted. The company could lose its investment in critical parts of the world where maintaining a footprint and market share is essential to business success. If market share is lost, the company’s value will decrease and stakeholders in the company would flee to more attractive investments. The company could lose substantially on a failure to implement universal best practices and the result would inevitably be having to file for bankruptcy as an effect of being unable to efficiently expand to new markets.

Long-term sustainability is essential for the success of the company and the best practices described herein will help to ensure that long-term sustainability is achieved because they will lay the foundation for building the company upward. Without a proper foundation, a house cannot stand and will not last for long. The foundation is what prevents the structure from falling down into ruins. Best practices serve as a foundation for the company’s structure from region to region. They set the stage for how workers are expected to act, provide guidance on how to measure progress, and give goals for employees to achieve so that everyone knows at all times what is expected of them and what they are expected to be doing.

This practice correlates with the long-term vision of the company and what it means to provide stakeholders with a path towards success. The long-term vision should support long-term sustainability by guaranteeing that risks that could impact the business are known and prepared for thanks to the combined efforts of risk management and knowledge management systems. Best practices help to facilitate the long-term objectives of the company by providing a road map of actions to the workers so that they can align their activities with the company’s vision of where the business should lead. Sustainability requires that conservative measures be employed to help save time, resources, and energy—and best practice policies are focused on ensuring that a conservative approach is implemented.

The ways in which the best practice policy will contribute towards the long-term sustainability of the company include: 1) Helping to reduce turnover by providing a positive workplace environment where guidance is clear, expectations are understood, and what is and what is not permitted is known by all; 2) Promoting safety, security and efficiency, so that resources are not wasted, energy is not lost in useless or inefficient transactions, and consumers are always protected by preventive practices that foster good health; 3) Providing stakeholders in the company with guidance on how to address a variety of issues, from bomb threats to earthquakes to protests, with policies outlined for each type of scenario so that risk is foreseen and limited and that managers know how to and when to enact specific actions that will protect the company’s interests at all times and in all places.