Management Dilemma: A Case Of Beer Industry Versus Health Industry

Introduction

Management dilemmas manifest in many ways. For example, it is very hard to regulate multinational companies that profit by selling alcoholic beverages in a developing nation where workers like their beer, and like it cheap, to the extent that alcohol use has become a serious public health problem. Given the core goal of multinational corporations is to gain more market share, this essay argues that there should be a compromise between who qualifies to take alcohol, when to take it, and the price of the alcohol.

The government should control alcohol consumption through legislations that stipulate the legal drinking age, official drinking hours and tax. At the same time, the government should create a friendly business environment for multinational companies to operate in. To this end, there should be a compromise between the monetary implications and the health implications of alcoholic industry since the government earns revenue but spends such revenue in providing health care to persons who suffer from alcoholic addition.

On the other hand, the head office of the multinational company expects all its subsidiaries to make more profit and expand their market. It is least concerned by the health implications of the sale of its alcoholic products to the local population. Moreover, it needs to sell its alcoholic products at a lower price to attract more customers. As such, any regulation that seeks to reduce the drinking hours or increase the prices of alcoholic beverages threaten its overall competitive advantage. Alcohol consumers in developing countries seek to maximise satisfaction all the time. They achieve this by looking for the least priced alcohol products in the market. Since there are many operators in the alcohol industry and cheap alcoholic beverages in the developing countries, consumers will tend to buy more as long as the products have been approved by the local quality standards body.

Lastly, the country manager is tasked to make profits and expand the local market share. He will therefore use all strategies including lowering of product prices so as to fit well in a market where consumers are willing to buy alcoholic products as long as their prices are low. He will also lobby the legislators to enact laws that restrict alcohol consumption or slap heavy tax on alcoholic beverages.

Overall, the government and the country manager should engage each other in coming up with a balanced regulation that discourages heavy drinking and encourages leisure drinking. This can be achieved through slapping alcoholic beverages with mild taxes, limiting drinking to evening, weekend, and holidays, and disgorging the over-excessive consumption of alcohol.