Introduction
The ethical problems of global companies can lead to negative consequences that affect the organization’s activities in the future. An example of such a case is a mistake in KFC’s activities, a global chain of fast-food restaurants. The issue in 2022 showed how important it is to consider cultural characteristics when planning any algorithms for a company’s actions (Connolly, 2022). In the German market, the company faced a severe problem, which was associated with an advertising message sent to customers from this region and related to the tragic event of Kristallnacht.
The Problem
KFC is present in many markets and operates differently, adapting certain policies to specific conditions. However, the error that emerged in Germany in 2022 showed a significant flaw in corporate policy that led to a scandal (Connolly, 2022). A sharp adverse reaction from the public followed immediately, forcing the organization to reconsider planning any future events. In this case, we are talking about an advertising message sent to all company customers in Germany on the 84th anniversary of Kristallnacht, which has significant historical significance (Connolly, 2022).
This night marked the beginning of the Holocaust when more Jewish businesses were attacked, and the Nazi regime killed innocent civilians. The message showed the tragedy as a holiday due to a glitch in the company’s policy of congratulatory messages on important dates. This mistake caused widespread public outrage in Germany, which affected the company’s reputation and public perception.
The Ethical Violation
The ethical violation in this case is characterized by the fact that KFC made a mistake by displaying a tragic event in the history of the two people as a holiday. This was due to a lack of cultural sensitivity and sensitivity and a lack of mechanisms for checking the distribution of messages. According to the company, they have generated automatically concerning particular dates in the history located by the system itself (Connolly, 2022).
However, the organization should have introduced specific algorithms for checking such messages to avoid the described case. The persons involved in the conflict could decide not to limit the message, as this helped them save money and not hire exceptional people who would manually form the distribution of advertising messages.
This case is not about “good people in a bad situation” but highlights that KFC has not paid much attention to getting to know the local culture and testing messaging mechanisms. Management must constantly supervise marketing communications to ensure that such cases are impossible. Otherwise, this will lead to what happened with KFC, which the German population began to treat with prejudice (Connolly, 2022). Thus, an attempt to save on the involvement of specialists and the development of additional verification mechanisms led to the fact that the company inadvertently hurt the feelings of many people, including Jews who live in Germany and abroad.
Purposes and Differences
The goals and differences between strategic, tactical, and operational plans have some common aspects but primarily differ. The overall goal of these aspects is to create a strategy that the company will use in different time periods of its activities in other countries and for different cultural groups. Strategic plans are distinguished by the fact that they aim to create high-level, long-term projects, highlighting the overall mission and vision of the company (Webb, 2019). They can usually cover three to five years to highlight the particular development of organizational activities in this period. This helps management make more informed choices about investment or development direction to ensure sustainability.
Tactical plans differ in that they focus on the medium-term goals of the corporation. In this regard, it is possible to single out a period from one to three years, which should be guided by specially dedicated goals developed by tactical planning. Tactics in organizations are designed to eliminate the incompatibility between strategic vision and day-to-day tasks (Larsen et al., 2022). Thus, it should unite all areas of planning in the organization. Failure to agree on different directions in planning can lead to disagreements that will periodically arise within the organization and may lead to non-compliance with the overall order of development.
Operational plans differ from the rest in that they are short-term goals that are more localized for each day or week. Their task is to ensure that operational activities are carried out according to plan and in line with the overall vision (Larsen et al., 2022). Operational procedures also guarantee the achievement of further strategic targets by connecting with them through a tactical element. Operational plans are essential to continuously maintain the company’s performance and achievements in specific segments. Thus, it can help carry out the organization’s activities as efficiently as possible and achieve the set action conditions.
Production of Better Results
In the modern realities of a rapidly changing world, making great efforts to implement the decisions is essential. This can bring more benefits because the correct implementation will eliminate certain negative aspects of any plan, even if there are any. For example, there was a case when management instructed me to implement decisions that might not lead to the desired results (Kabeyi, 2019). However, properly planning and distributing the available workforce was vital in facilitating the most competent and qualified result possible.
In the case of KFC, the decision to send congratulatory messages was quite correct. However, if the implementation had been carried out at a sufficient level, this would not have led to negative consequences. By using more effort to implement the decision, you can achieve better results since, in the process, it will be possible to eliminate negative aspects (Kabeyi, 2019). In this way, companies can anticipate shortcomings in planning and strategic direction of individual decisions.
Conclusion
Corporate decision-making is essential for companies to ensure that their strategic direction is sound and sound. In this way, achieving greater efficiency in tactical and operational planning is possible. This can lead to a better arrangement for the company’s future direction. This is a positive influence that can help further determine the direction and guidelines that are important to employees and clients of organizations. This can further provide them with a competitive advantage over other firms. Thus, KFC had to pay more attention to the implementation of the solution for its successful implementation.
References
Connolly, K. (2022). KFC apologises for Kristallnacht chicken and cheese promotion. The Guardian. Web.
Kabeyi, M. (2019). Organizational strategic planning, implementation and evaluation with analysis of challenges and benefits. International Journal of Applied Research and Studies, 5(6), 27-32. Web.
Larsen, E., Lachapelle, S., Bengio, Y., Frejinger, E., Lacoste-Julien, S., & Lodi, A. (2022). Predicting tactical solutions to operational planning problems under imperfect information. INFORMS Journal on Computing, 34(1), 227-242. Web.
Webb, A. (2019). How to do strategic planning like a futurist. Harvard Business Review, 30, 1-7. Web.