Mercedes-Benz


Mercedes-Benz

Source: Automotive News (Feb, 2021)

Mercedes is reputed for producing cars that provide exceptionalperformance and longevity. Its focus on quality manufacturing, top-notch precision engineering, painstaking and rigorous testing, has made it a house-hold name in the global auto industry. Mercedes Benz stands out among the world’s major car brands. The success story began in 1886, and in more than a century and three decades later, has devoted itself to its initial vision of luxury, performance, and safety. Committed to high quality R&D, innovative engineering, and designs, coupled with its focus on quality and reliability, Mercedes has created a reputation for quality, advanced technology, safety, and luxury. Studies have shown that owning a Benz is associated with opulence and status, and it says a lot about the owner’s personality. Over the years, its reputation has earned it a spot among the top car brands in the world. It is reported (2023) that Mercedes-Benz was the most valuable car brand, and top spot in the total number of luxurious cars sold, in the world.

The success story of Mercedes-Benz lies in it’s brand values of Integrity, Openness, and Respect, and whilst the vision is customer-centric, its  business strategy is about the customer, which is at the nucleus of its business practice. An enterprise core value is the backbone of every organization, and it represent the heart and thought-process, from conception, to design, and to the final output. Corporate values represents what the structure, brand, and employees stands for and ultimately aligns the culture and business strategy with the vision, to drive success in the market place. Core values forms the heartbeat that differentiates businesses from competition, and most organizations rely on these values for communicating to the market and industry, its strategic focus, and what it stands for, in the short and long run. While some organizations understands the essence of core values to the business success of their organization, others struggle to put them into practice. Lack of a well defined and actionable corporate value can portend a devastating negative consequences of a directionless enterprise. Core values ultimately educates the marketplace what the organization stands for.

Corporate core values are not static, and their dynamic nature requires constant reviews to reflect societal, cultural, and market trends. As the market environment and corporate structure changes, the core values which is the DNA of the organization, must change to adapt to changing consumption patterns, corporate culture, market realities, and global technological disruptions. It is the responsibility of  leadership to drive the culture and core values of the organization. Successful leaders aligns their personal values with the organization’s core values to drive inspiration, trust, and commitment from employees, and all stakeholders. Leaders who understands their personal values must align these with the enterprise core values, and any area of overlap, the corporate values overrides. Leaders who consistently seeks to bring their over empowering beliefs and values on organization’s values tends to deviate from an established culture, guiding and driving its goals and mission. leaders ensures a top-down approach to the success of the business, and sync his personal values with the organization’s, which, in most cases, could be complex.  The CEO and senior management sets the tone, define the nucleus, sets objectives and strategies, and KPIs. Ultimately, it is the responsibility of the CEO to drive the culture and overall compliance.

Consistency and compliance to the corporate core values guarantees  success in the market place. However, lack of a clear-cut organizational values and culture, results in lower productivity, product quality, and market share. Studies have shown that employees, disengaged from organizational culture and values, leads to lower productivity, more errors, lower morale, and high turnovers. A strong corporate culture and core values are never compromised. This leads to a strong product quality, better outcomes in marketing communication strategies, and quality workforce. Successful organizations utilizes these values to drive performance, guide actions and behaviors, shared values, mission, and long term vision. Organizations must practice what they preach. The overall success of products and services must reflect what organizations stands for and communicates to the market place.  Mercedes Benz commitment to consistency, dedication to quality, safety and reliability, and luxury, is rumored to have set a standard for the automotive industry, which has earned it a strong brand identity over the years.

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Poverty and Income Inequality in Africa's most Populous Nation.

Image
Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa. With a population of over 206 million people, the World Bank (2020) projected that Nigeria's population will reach 400 million with the current growth rate of 2.5 percent. The effects and consequences of rapid population growth rate are dire, given the growth rate of GDP, there are more people living in poverty in Nigeria than anywhere else in Africa. Economic inequality and poverty in Nigeria has reached extreme levels. Despite being the largest economy in Africa. The country has an expanded economy with abundant human and economic potential to lift millions out of poverty. OXFAM International ( 2020)  in its report  stated that the combined wealth on Nigeria’s five richest men could end poverty at a national level yet five million face hunger. More than 112 million people in Nigeria live in extreme poverty, yet the country’s richest man would have to spend $1 million in a day for 42 years to exhaust his fortune.  Poverty and inequal
Read more

Africa Population Growth: Socio-economic consequences of rapid population growth in Africa.

Image
Hello Africa, World Bank (2020) estimates projects Africa population to grow at 2,5 percent per annum, and sub-Sahara Africa, at 4.7 percent. Estimates also show that the fertility rate is the highest in the world. With a current population of 1.3 billion people, it is projected at 2.5 billion by 2050. Nigeria and Egypt has a combined population of 308 million, and this represent 23 percent of the total population of Africa.   In the last decade, the population of Africans have been rising as this has not been the case for a continent that has been experiencing slow growth in its population, particularly in the 20 th  century. The issues associated with increasing population is not just numbers but rather the serious consequences of the wellbeing of Africans and humanity in general. If economic development involves the improvement in living standards, particularly, incomes, health, education, freedom of choices, dignity and self respect, then how will population growth interact with th
Read more

Rising Social and Economic Inequality in Africa

Image
Hello Africa Social and economic inequality have been identified as the major cause of social issues, and societal troubles and challenges in Africa. Some scholars see inequality as a positive and fair outcome and feel that as long as people are able to live a just and decent life, inequality is not a problem to the society. The argument is that the best way to make unequal things equal is to completely breakdown the fabric of the society, by eliminating the wealth of the rich and make everyone poor. Inequality is characterized by the existence of unequal rewards for the different social classes and positions within individuals or society. Inequality includes recurring models of unequal allocation of goods, opportunities, and incentives. Social inequality includes the existence of unequal rewards and opportunities for varied classes and social groups or society.     Inequality in Africa: Source, World Bank (2018) The most used method of economic inequality is the Gini Coefficient
Read more