Cadbury

Applying Cadbury Brothers Philanthropic Principles to Business. Applying Cadbury Brothers Philanthropic Principles to Business. A significant characteristic that I noticed about John Cadbury was that he was a philanthropist, a humanist interested very deeply with the welfare of the people around him; his humanitarian nature was successfully translated into his business strategy for managing his chocolate factory. In my opinion, it is possible, and highly desirable to use the philanthropic principles of the Cadbury family to manage a business today; businesses should not just focus on making profits for themselves, there should be some effort put in to somehow improve the life of its customers.
It is interesting to note that the Cadbury family were Quakers (The Story of Cadbury, n. d); as Quakers, it was their job to carry out reforms to bring positive changes to the social and industrial life of society. The Cadbury family even tried to eliminate poverty and deprivation; John Cadbury actually introduced chocolate and related products to act as substitutes for alcohol since he believed alcohol was the main cause of poverty in the lower classes of society (The Story of Cadbury, n. d). More of the Cadburys dedication towards improving life for others can be seen in the way in 1893 120 acres of land were bought by them near the Bourneville factory, to house the workers (The Story, n. d), and from the way they were producing chocolates on a large scale and thus affordable for everyone and not just limiting it to the elite classes (The Story, n. d). The Cadburys even encouraged their customers to interact with them and their production process by setting up tours of the factory in 1988 (The Story, n. d). In my opinion, this kind of humanistic attitude should be there in managing businesses; customers are the only reason why businesses can sell their products and make profits, and it only makes sense that the customers should be paid attention to and taken care of. I especially liked how the factory tours were set up which would allow the customers to witness the production process themselves and even feel part of and connected to the business on a personal level.
The Cadbury family had created a favorable public image of themselves and their chocolate business, and this image has been maintained throughout the years into today. In my opinion, a business is nothing without its consumers; businesses have to construct a favorable image of themselves in order to sell a product. For example, it has set up the Cadbury Cocoa Partnership and provide money to small cocoa farms in Ghana, India, Indonesia and the Caribbean (The Story, n. d); this money is used to improve the rural businesses, set up schools in these areas and build wells for clean drinking water (The Story, n. d); this has created a very positive image of the Cadbury business in the eyes of customers, since it shows a caring and humanistic side of the business. Also, Cadbury received a further boost of its public image in the way it moved to Fair Trade in 2008 (The Story, n. d); by showing that it believed in protecting the wages of local cocoa farmers in developing countries like Ghana, a positive image of the business was created. Other businesses too must aim for creating a positive public image of itself in order to attract customers.
As it can be seen, the philanthropic principles that underlie the Cadbury business strategy have allowed the business to be successful even into today. Since these principles have been useful to Cadbury in the past and even today, it makes sense that other businesses should adopt them too.
Works Cited
” The Story.” Http://www. cadbury. co. uk/, n. d. Web. 06 July 2013. .
” The Story of Cadbury.” Http://www. cadbury. com. au/, n. d. Web. 06 July 2013. .