Nestle: The Global Food Processing Giant Est. 1866 - Essay Sample

Introduction

The company operates in a total of 189 countries around the world, with over 447 factories in various operating locations. Nestle is a co-owner of L’Oreal Cosmetics Company, which is the world’s most abundant in the cosmetology industry. It was first established in 1866 as a milk condensing company by two Americans- George and Charles and has grown to the present food processing company corporately based in Switzerland. Nonetheless, the Nigerian branch was first set up in 1961 (Hamza, 2019, p12).

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The production factory of Nestle Nigeria Plc; is located at Agbara Industrial Estates in Ogun State. The company best deals in breakfast food and cereals, baby food products, food seasoning products, and hydrolyzed plant protein mixture. At inception, the company operated as a sales and distribution center for Nestle products that were imported to Nigeria by merchants. As the demand for such products as Maggi seasoning grew, the company had to establish a production firm within Nigeria. The manufacturing of Maggi and Milo products were based on the leased land of the Agbara Industrial Estate as of 1978 (Daniel, 2015, p.67). The product called Cerelac was first produced in Nigeria in 1982, while baby products were first produced between 1982 and 1986.

The company’s products were now containing local raw materials like cereal nutrient and maize, unlike the imported one’s years earlier. The high demand continued, and in 2011, the company opened a production company at Flowergate in Ogun State for Maggi (Hamsa, 2019, p,45). Other than the two factories, the company has a distribution center in Ota. Part of its marketing efforts is the sponsoring of Maggi cooking show and competition. It has also sponsored sports activities through milo advertisements. The products have been differentiated into three leading brands, namely: food and cereal, seasoning, and beverage. Other than milo, the company also has Golden Morn, Nestle Pure Life, and Nescafe as part of its beverage products.

The company’s staff strength is approximately 23,000 within Nigeria (Olewapo, 2017,p.221). Other than Lagos headquarters, the company has eight other branch offices within Nigeria.

Corporate social responsibility is a crucial goal for this company, which ensures its success by impacting the lives of people in the community. The long-term approach to business management has been the company’s best way of forecasting success and corporate growth. Therefore, Nestle focuses on creating shared value in the long-term for eventual success in the coming days. Value creation encompasses both the welfare of shareholders and the community. The products produced by Nestle are of standardized quality both in health and nutritional values. The company also absorbs rural programs that support the activities of local farmers and their produce. In so doing, Nestle achieves consumers’ interests through differentiation.

However, it is the high profiled leadership that ensures the company saves costs related to water usage through appropriate stewardship (Sadun et al., 2017, p.117). Therefore, the company creates shared value as part of the organization's performance leadership. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate high-performance leadership features as present at Nestle Nigeria Plc. through questionnaire.

SAMPLE HIGH-PERFORMANCE LEADERSHIP QUESTIONNAIRE

Questionnaires

(Q). How many people do you manage directly?

(A) In my department, I oversee activities of 26 to 50 employees.

(Q). How Do Nestle and You, as a leader, achieve the first, HPO principle of future-oriented, steadfast, and disciplined?

(A). All the participants agreed that Nestle Inc. leaders are future-oriented and inspirational. At Nestle, discipline is nurtured in everyday activities to ensure that there are no drawbacks to success.

(Q). How does your organization inform, dialogue, and communicate to achieve fast decision making?

(A). Information cuts across all spheres of Nestle organization. Even the headquarters in Switzerland receive updates on progress. Thus knowledge is shared horizontally to ensure there is feedback, collaboration, innovation, and creativity from sharing ideas.

(Q). Does Nestle impact on the lives of employees and their careers?

(A). All respondents agreed that they are satisfied while working at Nestle. They agreed that they have stayed loyal since the company y cares for their needs and offers opportunities for growth. Through motivation, job satisfaction, and further training, employees feel they are growing while at Nestle.

(Q). What is your organization’s internal and external point of focus?

(A). Nestle focuses on employees and customers as the internal points of focus. They are the stakeholders who determine corporate growth. Externally, the organization focuses on impacting the community through Corporate Social Responsibility.

(Q).What steps does your organization take to improve creativity and nurture innovation among employees?

(A).The principle of autonomy is part of Nestlé’s daily practices. The organization gives freedom to employees to handle projects freely without elaborating on the finer details. That way, employees get the opportunity to explore their own ideas and improve creativity.

(Q).What position does your organization hold among other companies in the same industry? In terms of what- market share, asset base, profitability, staff strength, etc.

(A). In Nigeria, Nestle is in the first position among food processing companies.

How do you score on the characteristics of a high-performance managerial leader on a scale of 1(not at all) to 10 (altogether)?

(A).On a scale of 1 to 10, Nestle scores 9 in high-performance leadership.

How I Collected the Information

During my research, I used interviews and the above questionnaire to collect my answers. I had audio recording devices to ensure that the interview responses were captured for future analysis. Since I could not travel to Nigeria in the midst of a pandemic, I made use of teleconferencing to interview my select respondents. I would record our conversations and note down their verbal responses. Afterward, I sent them the questionnaires which they filled and returned after two days. I also used a notebook to jot down relevant information that answered the above questions. Importantly, I assured my respondents that the information was confidential. I built a rapport with them, ensuring that they trusted me. Thus, I told them why I was doing the research and how important it is to my career.

My Audience

During my research, I was unable to reach the topmost company officials at Nestlé. Thus, I sought the help of ten employees whom we conversed over the phone through teleconferencing. They were very cooperative and answered my questions appropriately since they believed I had the right intentions.

Validation of My Answers

The responses from my ten participants were related. Thus, I drew comparisons and came up with similarities and differences from their answers. As a result, the information presented in this paper is a product of the answers I gathered. I also used customer reviews from the Nestle Inc. website and social media pages to ensure I had the right information.

There are various features of a high performing managerial leader that I entirely relate with. I, therefore, rate their administrative ability by the following HPO principles.

Why I used the Above Questionnaire

My aim was to figure out how Nestle Inc. applies high-performance leadership in the organization. Therefore, I used the above questions since they are relevant to my topic and would dig into the necessary details.

Principle 1: Future-Oriented, Disciplined, and Steadfast

Future-Oriented

DEVELOPING COMPANY VISION

At Nestle Nigeria Plc., they envisioned a future that improves the quality of life of their consumers and society. They have created a shared value for our products and services that targets our shareholders, customers, and community. As a food and beverage company top-rated in entire Africa, they have a culture that aims long-term revenues rather than short-term. Therefore, they create an environment that allows both the shareholders, employees and consumers to benefit from their activities. The 'cooking show,' for instance, is part of their operations that target improving our corporate social responsibility activities within and outside Lagos. All their Nigerian stores have employees that are motivated by their excellent remuneration, collaboration, and innovative culture.

Nestle Plc encouraged transformational leadership across all departments, which calls for open office interactions in all critical sections of the company. They are focused on societal impact through quality, health, nutritious foods, and consumer services.

DISCUSSING COMPANY VISION WITH EMPLOYEES

Since they encourage transformational leadership strategies, all of their employees are involved in the decision-making process. The implication here is that all the ideas shared or information gathered in the executive committee meetings should also be shared with every employee. They do not want a situation where employees feel left out in vital decisions made by the company management (Akpoviroro et al., 2019, p. 2).

On this note, I recommend horizontal communication across all cadres so that no employee feels discriminated. Such processes ensure that all their employees feel free to air their views concerning the items discussed by the management committee. Opinions received are part of the feedback generation program that they will embrace as a company. The quality level of their managerial leaders will improve by encouraging and involving all their employees.

PROVIDING AN INSPIRING PICTURE OF THE COMPANY TO EMPLOYEES

In the future of Nestle, Nigeria is to reach out to more clients within the country. With almost eighty offices currently, they target more regions in Nigeria (Akpoviroro et al., 2019, p. 3). Also, they hope that they continue serving more clients with nutritious heathland foods. Their main target for the future also revolves around local farmers. Since most Nigerian farmers have ventured in maize and other raw materials production, Nestle is developing a program that shall purchase their farm produce, which is part of their corporate social responsibility plan. They no longer rely on imports from Switzerland, their parent company (Hamza, 2019, p.14). Since the establishment of the two factories in Ogun State, Nigeria, they are targeting production with local raw materials. In so doing, they not...