The approach to disclosure in the Companies Act 2006 is preoccupied Essay

The approach to disclosure in the Companies Act 2006 is preoccupied with one audience, shareholders - Essay Example The obvious way for companies to prove legitimacy to the wider class of stakeholders is through reporting requirements. Unfortunately, the Companies Act 2006, while recognizing the social contract between the company and stakeholders, does not make social and environmental reporting mandatory. A close reading of the relevant sections of the 2006 Act reveals that environmental and social reporting are entirely voluntary. It is therefore reasonable to conclude that the Companies Act 2006 has shifted momentum in favour of stakeholder theory to the principle of shareholder primacy. Clark and Knight argue that the disclosure requirements contained in the Companies Act 2006 appear to meet the needs of shareholder and while they may appear to meet the needs of stakeholders, the disclosure requirements are motivated by the market value of the corporation rather than expanding the concept of corporate social responsibility. In this regard, the disclosure requirements of the Companies Act 2006 speaks to informing the shareholders of the company rather than to all stakeholders. Essentially, companies, may if they wish, inform stakeholders of their social and environmental activities and policies, while they must inform shareholders of their financial activities and policies. This is symptomatic of the ambiguous approach taken by the Companies Act 2006 to stakeholder and shareholder primacy.

Customer portfolio and Strategic Account Management 04255 Essay

Customer portfolio and Strategic Account Management 04255 - Essay Example This paper is focused on the concept of customer portfolio and its relevance to the strategic account management. Storbacka (2012) mentioned that the concept of strategic account management is based on the â€Å"co-creation of value†. The term strategic accounts or the key accounts indicate to the most valuable customers of the company (Ford et al, 2003). The process of value generation lies in the centre of the corporate goals that allows the firms to deeply focus on understanding the customers’ value creating process and how the firm’s strategies are responsible for it. Homburg et al (2002) opined that the value generation through strategic account management program involves a long list of activities including product development, pricing, distribution, offering services along with manufacturing and sales. The integrated effect of these factors yields value for the customers, which creates a long term relationship between them and the firms. Piercy and Lane (2006) argued that there are significant levels of risks involved with the implementation of the strategic account management process. There must be a proper alignment of the internal organizational activities and the organizational goals. To put it simply Guesalaga and Johnston (2010) described that the organisational activities of different departments must be holistically aligned to the goals and objectives related to the customer value generation. Sherman et al (2003) proposed that the strategic account management should be viewed as a process of conducting business and not simple a selling process. The concept of inter-organizational alignment suggests that the organizations should increase its overall understanding of the business concerns of the customers and creating value proposition through a â€Å"joint venture†. Eid and Trueman (2002) have mentioned that the strategic or key accounts management has