Comparative legal and social analysis of Safeway and Wells Fargo

Safeway and Wells Fargo

Company analysis

Safeway Company remains a private company, which is listed on the New York stock Exchange being an American food and drug retailer. The firm is among the biggest supermarket chain retailers found in North America. The company has a solid supply chain of network partners, which facilitates manufacturing as well as distribution facilities. Presently the company seems to be operating under almost 13 unique brands found in the market. The company is listed as number 52 in the list with 1000 fortune companies. On the other hand, Wells Fargo is a company traded public and established by Henry Wells, William G. Fargo together with other associates. The founding of the company in that era was because of increased cases of stagecoach robberies. They concentrated on safely transportation of money from Nebraska all the way to California (Lorrayne, 2006). Currently, the company makes usage of the stagecoach image being the company's background as well as their main marketing techniques.

Legal Criteria

Safeway remains subjected to different local, federal, state as well as international rules, which have profound impacts on the business. They need to comply with all the regulations together with provisions. Any change of governmental regulation, which is against the practices of the business can lead to product redesigning, company strategies restating and even business units' closure. Safeway is considered a legal proceedings party from time to time as some of the proceedings undertaken against the firm is linked to employment issues, operations, dealings and other claims, which have extreme impact on the market image of the company. There are many law suits filed at the state and federal level mostly against the firm with respect to working hours coupled with the wage rates.

Conversely, Wells Fargo has experienced legal trends in America because of changing trends. The main one is war in that during such a situation, it creates more federal jobs for the population geared towards using every means to support the war. Businesses tend to profit by selling goods used for war to the government as more money keeps on coming because of the war and create many jobs to the public resulting to population growth. Alternatively, when the government creates policies, which affect the public such as shutting down of free medical clinics, then people tend to lose their jobs, which they had in the free clinics. All these can make the rate of population growth reduce as see less money is spent on various goods. Different sectors are affected in diverse ways with certain industries particularly affected by government actions. Even though, all businesses seems to be influenced by specific regulation licensing as well as certification, which can dictate largely how some industries operate.

Social Criteria

Safeway has come up with a foundation, which is called Safeway foundation with an aim to raise as well as spend money to improve the people and their communities. The major fund receivers are people suffering from hunger by providing them with education, human services, as well as assist people with disabilities. The firm reported funding approximate raise has been almost seventeen million dollars in terms of research on breast cancer. The firm has also participated into volunteerism by working together with people from different nonprofit organizations, whose main aim is operating to improve the living standards of people. The company has funded various research centers and donations of a million dollars to help different communities.

On the other hand, the social trends keep on changing in various life aspects as human activities often create new systems coupled with emergent behaviors, which are unpredicted. This is similar to the ever-increasing human integration and natural systems resulting to simultaneous increase of human evolution. A social trend, which society is embracing in the banking industry seems to be the online banking. The situation has encouraged Wells Fargo together with their competitors to come up with online banking options made available to everybody with internet 24 hours. Social trends have definitely changed in terms of following trends considered technological. Lack of technology items means there is generally no social trend, which will follow a particular item.

Future performance

The company needs to improve the company's image by encouraging positive publicity about the firm. This would minimize issues about products being recalled with recent lawsuits having affected the company's image negatively. There is a need for the company to take steps deemed reasonable to ensure such issues are dealt with finally in the firm. At the same time, the company needs to expand it's operations globally with the development of Asian markets representing big opportunities for the company growth (Estella, 2006). Conversely, there is a need to keep an eye on the pricing strategies of products to concentrate on customers. It can be done by providing unique products such as organic products with private labels of brands expanded in to their product lines in terms of the existing and potential customers to beat market competitors. The major three factors, which propose considerable threat on Safeway business practices are U.S. economic recession, increased rates of labour wage and vigorous market competition. The American economy seems to be experiencing recession for over a decade. The economy downfall has obviously affected the sales and profitability of the company with consumers less likely to purchase products and services in terms of meeting their daily requirements (Lorrayne, 2006).

Wells Fargo future performance entails meeting their strategic plan and ensures enough diversification to ensure the company stands out from competitors. As a financial institution, the real way to diversify remains provision of best service coupled with value added alternatives. The creation of excellent service requires hiring the right individuals and provision of constant training. The company, Wells Fargo with a diverse portfolio has to ensure all employees who have contact with clients understand all products or services provided and ways, which they can be of help to consumers. The main issues that the company needs to concentrate on are hiring, sales, training, development, and marketing. The items require constant review as well as evaluation to ensure implementation of a smooth plan. Wells Fargo's threats are confusion because of large-scale activity. The company has in the past been targeted by fraudsters and counterfeiting because of it's big size. Other weaknesses are the capacity to attain brand loyalty. Presently, many large-scale rival banks, find it challenging in terms of getting brand loyalty. Many individuals have accounts in many banks with several changing from bank to the other depending on the offers provided at different times.