Procter & Gamble Case Study

History/Overview

This research discusses the corporate culture of the well-known Procter & Gamble enterprise, established in 1837. For over 150 years, Procter & Gamble has defined its corporate culture through their business tactics and way of management. Corporate culture refers to a company's values, beliefs, business principles, traditions, ways of operating, and internal work environment. For over 150 years, Procter & Gamble has worked toward maintaining their standards, which has defined their corporate culture.

Established by William Procter and James Gamble in the mid 1800's, the Procter & Gamble Corporation has had continued success since its first major product, Ivory soap. Procter & Gamble markets everyday products, such as; hair, skin, beauty, home, and fabric care. The corporation is confident in the brands they sell. They maintain Corporate Governance by their principles and values.

Procter & Gamble uses the letters Procter & Gamble as their company logo and the colors blue and white on their website. The white and blue colors symbolize the purity that the company tried to express when they first marketed Ivory soap. Ivory soap is just one of the many products distributed by Procter & Gamble that customers use in their everyday lives. The corporation's slogan: "Touching Lives, Improving Life" corresponds with the products they distribute. With this slogan, Procter & Gamble wants their customers to know that their company is aware that the products they distribute are important to people's everyday lives. The language they use in the website is easy for the public to understand, showing that they work for people. Upon studying their site, it is apparent that their values, principles, commitments, and ideologies all work toward accomplishing their objective, which they say is "to provide branded products and services of superior quality and value that improve lives of consumers." These aspects allow for further speculation in Procter & Gamble's corporate culture.

Procter & Gamble wants consumers and customers to know the integrity of the company through the values they uphold. As a company, Procter & Gamble values leadership; they want to be the leading corporation in their products sold. They also value the aspect of ownership. They also feel it is necessary for the company leaders to all act as owners and treat the company, as it is their own. They feel that if the employees feel as though they own part of the corporation, they will strive for further success of Procter & Gamble. To maintain the value of ownership, the leaders of Procter & Gamble encourage employees to become shareholders. This idea was established bye William Cooper Gamble, who felt that if employees were also shareholders, their interests and motivations would be inseparable from the companies.

In addition to the values already stated, Procter & Gamble made it clear in their website that they act with the "culture standards/traditions" in mind. Procter & Gamble feels that if they follow the standards set by the company's morals (stated clearly as being honest with one another and always trying to do the right thing) that in turn, "consumers will reward [them] with leadership sales" allowing stockholders and employees of Procter & Gamble to prosper. Through all of their values, Procter & Gamble is trying to come to a main objective of making money.

By reading through the website, the management style of Procter & Gamble is far from scientific. They value trust amongst their employees and have confidence in their colleagues, consumers, and customers capabilities. They respect individuals and believe that they can and want to contribute to their fullest potential. Procter & Gamble values "personal mastery," allowing and encouraging individuals to expand and further their own ideas.

The principles and standards of the Procter & Gamble Corporation are set very high. They state that they want to be the best and are dissatisfied with the status quo. They feel that going beyond their demarcation is necessary to keep up with the changing environment. They are willing to reinvent their culture to keep up with the outside world. Procter & Gamble builds relationships with organization's that stand for the corporations ideologies of providing products and services that improve lives. Live, Learn and Thrive is one of the many organizations that Procter & Gamble sponsors, showing their care to provide a better life for consumers and the public.

Procter & Gamble also understands the importance of being diverse in their corporation and marketing. They are proud of the relationships they created with multinational communities and provide career opportunities with no discrimination. To prove their diversity to customers and consumers, they get involved with different communities in need of improvement and sponsor different organizations.

Procter & Gamble maintains their corporation's culture by following closely their purpose, values, and principles. These values and principles give the corporation character and wholeness, which defines their culture. Procter & Gamble's purpose or mission statement states exactly why Procter & Gamble is so driven in providing quality products and services to consumers all over the world. Procter & Gamble's purpose according to their website is as follows:

"We will provide branded products and services of superior quality and value that improve the lives of the world's consumers. As a result, consumers will reward us with leadership sales, profit and value creation, allowing our people, our shareholders, and the communities in which we live and work to prosper."

This way of organizing their corporation, allows Procter & Gamble to use their culture as a tool to accomplish their objectives and define the purpose of their corporation.

SWOT Analysis

A SWOT analysis of Procter & Gamble would reveal a company with plenty of resources but also possible weaknesses in its corporate strategy. Procter & Gamble's strengths would definitely be in the product lines and the proven market techniques with which to sell its products. Some other strength would be global leading position in the consumer goods industry, "star brands" in most of its business segments, multicultural and decentralized managerial team, and core competencies in R&D and Marketing. Finally, the strong and decentralized IT department provides collaborative technology to support key strategy-activities like planning and