Pepsi One of the Things

Pepsi One of the things I admire most about PepsiCo is their community involvement. Pepsi has a program known as the Pepsi Refresh Project, which allows consumers and the company to donate to a variety of different causes at the consumer's discretion. The project is an example of what corporations can do when they commit themselves to the greater public good. With this project, Pepsi doles out grants for projects that it deems worthy. Some examples are with respect to clean-up of the Gulf of Mexico (Schwartz, 2010).

This is an example of the corporate spirit that Pepsi embodies. The company believes that "as a corporate citizen, it has a responsibility to contribute to the quality of life in our communities" (PepsiCo, 2010). The company views this responsibility as being towards funding and sponsorship of programs in all of the areas in which the firm operates. This is the basis for the Refresh Project, in which the company finances projects around the world, based on need.

In order to embody this program in my own business, I would need to incorporate into the business a few different aspects. The commitment to community is the most important aspect that I would incorporate into my own business. I may not have the money to run a contest as Pepsi has, but I would embody strong community values by dedicating a percentage of my profits towards endeavors that serve to build a better community.

In my view, businesses should not only seek to earn profit, but they should contribute to the communities in which they exist. To that end I think that businesses should have a plan for such contributions. They should understand the needs of the community and seek to find ways to respond to those needs. Ideally, the business should respond to those needs in a way that delivers benefit to the business, but this is not essential.

Even if the benefit is strictly within the community, this is an honorable outcome for the company, and it probably generates goodwill that the company can leverage in the future with the general public. Pepsi is a good model for my objectives because they are not only a highly successful business but they also make strong contributions to the different countries in which they operate. Pepsi donates to charities and builds its enterprise in a manner that supports local businesses.

What Pepsi does is they promote local bottlers and they help those bottlers to build their businesses. Ultimately, this helps Pepsi to build its business but beyond that it also helps Pepsi to exceed on a corporate level. Overall, I view Pepsi as a business to emulate both in terms of its general business success as one of the world's most admired brands, but also as one of the most successful business in terms of community involvement.

I look at a program like the Pepsi Refresh program and I see a company that has a strong involvement in the community, to the extent that the community plays a direct role in the financing of different charitable endeavors.