Ethical Audit of Vodafone Group

Question: Desribe about present approach of the company to corporate governance code and the current approach of corporate social responsibility? Answer: 1. Introduction Corporate Governance Code of UK determines the standards of good practices correlation to effectiveness, board leadership, accountability along with remuneration as well as relationship with stakeholders of the company. Blowfield and Murray (2015) has stated that all companies with the premium listing of quality shares in UK are needed under Listing Rules in order to report how they have applied the Code in their annual report. Apart from that, the companies are required to follow some social responsibilities with respect to paying something positive to the existing environment and society. This report would focus on these two most significant parts of a selected company. Vodafone Group is the chosen company in this regard. 2. Chosen Company Vodafone is a British Multinational Telecommunication Company headquartered in London (Vodafone.com 2015). It has been also found from Vodafone is considered as the second largest mobile Telecommunication Company in the world with respect to both subscribers and annual revenue (Vodafone.com 2015). From the company profile, it has been observed that Vodafone Company operates as well as owns its network in 21 countries of the world and apart from that; the company has partner networks in over 40 additional countries. In this particular research work, the main focus would be on Corporate Governance Guide of the company along with the Corporate Social Responsibility. Along with these, the company has been introducing several new technologies regularly to reach the highest level of customer satisfaction and M-Pesa is one such advanced technology of Vodafone (Vodafone.com 2015). 3. Present approach of the company to Corporate Governance Code From the company profile, it can be found that Vodafone is committed to a high standard of corporate governance which is considered highly critical to the integrity of their business. The company has a primary listing in the London Stock Exchange and most importantly, the company is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index (Vodafone.com 2015). The company believes that the standards of corporate governance help the company to maintain a strong trust of the investors. Therefore, the company expects that all the directors, suppliers and employees to be honest and highly integrated as well as ethically fair in the workplace. The code of conduct of the company sets out the expectation of the company from every single person working for as well as working with Vodafone. The company states that they have a strong as well as an effective system throughout the group and the responsibility for the good governance entirely lies with their board (Vodafone.com 2015). Corporate governance strategies of the company are set at the board meetings of the company. Reports of corporate governance of the company are presented by the chief auditors of the company in the board meetings and the reports are analyzed in the meetings for understanding the required improvements of the corporate governance strategies. The future plans of the business are developed after analyzing the reports of different sections or branches of the company. Different types of reports analyzed in the board meetings are report of financial performance, treasury matters reports, review reports of acquisition and insurance. Motive of the corporate governance strategies of the company is to provide better customer satisfactory services (Vodafone.com 2015). In order to develop the corporate governance policies of the company, they used to give priority to the innovative ideas developed by the different employees of the company. The talents of the employees are helping the company inco rporate innovative strategies in their business development. Progress reports of the different types of plans are analyzed by collecting feedbacks from customers of the company. The social media platform is helping the company collect customer feedback and further improvements in their business strategies (Frc.org.uk 2015). Corporate governance codes of the company are associated with the following components: Appointments of the new directors in the company The annual budget of the current year and the proposed budget plan for next three years Financial statements and the annual report of the business External audit process Bond issuance Renewal of the insurance policies Risk assessment and internal control Health and safety reports Review report regarding the effectiveness of the board of the company Reviews of the board of the company and associated committees 4. The current approach of Corporate Social Responsibility Vodafone is following a Code of Conduct in the area of the CSR activities. The different sections of the code of conduct are: Individual conduct, compliances with the government legislations, health and safety of the people, financial integrity, public policy, community and society and environment (Vodafone.com 2015). Haerens and Zott (2013) have given the pyramid structure for the CSR activities which is stating that the CSR activities are three types economic, social and environmental. In the CSR activities of the Vodafone all the three aspects can be found. Different CSR activities of the company are discussed in the section below. In the area of individual conduct, the security of the people of the company has the highest level of priority in their CSR code. In this purpose, the properties of the people and the personal information are kept secured by the company. Avoidance of conflicts of interest is another component of the CSR practice code of the company. Vodafone provides travelling allowances and some special expenses to the employees. The diversity and inclusion management among the employees of the organization is an important section of the CSR activities of the company. The company also focus on prevention of harassment and the use of alcohol (Vodafone.com 2015). Vodafone maintains all government rules and regulations in the business. The different types of laws maintained by the company are insider dealing, competition laws, proper payment law, Anti-money Laundering Act, global sanctions and Trade Control Acts. The Health and Safety Act is also maintained by the company in the area of CSR activities of the company (Vodafone.com 2015). CSR activities of the company regarding Financial Integrity, Vodafone is committed to fulfil the contracts and expenditures of the business. Supply chain management of the company is very effective and transparent. Protecting the brand and other assets by providing superior services to the customers is also part of the CSR activities of the company. The public policies of the company are associated with creating an effective communication with customers. In this area, the company uses social media platform for communicating with customers and for collecting their feedbacks. The company is also working for the development of the society or community people. They provide support to the communities which are providing social services to the common people (Vodafone.com 2015). At Vodafone, they are highly committed to use their resources in such a way that tend to contribute positive effects on the society, environment as well as on those with special needs. The company believes that climate change is one of the greatest challenges both in the local and global platform and thus the company has successfully reduced their CO2 emission by 34% (Vodafone.com 2015). The company has targeted children, women, men, disabled, geriatrics as well as the rural communities in their corporate social activity agenda (Haerens and Zott 2013). They have incorporated several programmes and projects that tend to promote gender equality and along with that support creation of opportunities to facilitate employment of women along with the differently abled people and other weaker sections of the society. Moreover, the company has tried to introduce some effective programs that help reduce child mortality as well as improve maternal health and try to facilitate hygiene and sanita tion. (Crisan and Borza 2012). It has been found that the company has been incorporating several programs regarding education system of the comparatively backward population of society and along with this there has been focus on enhancing the environmental condition, helping in disaster relief as well as supporting the technology incubator (Shin 2011). Moreover, it can be easily said that the company has been concentrating on sustainability and all these steps are directed towards achieving sustainability in the long run for the company (Hunnicutt 2012). One of the most appreciated steps adopted by the company is that Vodafone is committed to reducing their impact on environment with their campaigning Goodbye paper bills and hello tress. Moreover, the company has set up recycling containers in more than 100 Vodafone stores in different parts of the world (Vodafone.com 2015). 5. Conclusion The corporate governance code and the Corporate Social Responsibilities of Vodafone group have been analyzed in this report. These two have become necessary for conducting effective business in this tough competitive market. As per analysis of the report, both the corporate governance code and CSR strategy are very good for the business of the company. Corporate governance codes of the company have the aim of providing best services to customers. In the area of CSR strategies of the company, all three aspects of the CSR strategy can be found. All of the economic, social and environmental strategies are helping the company develop a good brand image and to face high level of success in their business. It can be concluded that the corporate governance and CSR strategies are important weapons of the company for competing with the other companies. References Blowfield, M. and Murray, A., 2015. Corporate responsibility. Crisan, C. and Borza, A., 2012. Social Entrepreneurship and Corporate Social Responsibilities. IBR, 5(2). Frc.org.uk, 2015. UK Corporate Governance Code. [online] Available at: https://www.frc.org.uk/Our-Work/Codes-Standards/Corporate-governance/UK-Corporate-Governance-Code.aspx [Accessed 28 Dec. 2015]. Haerens, M. and Zott, L., 2013. Corporate social responsibility. Hunnicutt, S., 2012. Corporate social responsibility. Detroit, MI: Greenhaven Press. Shin, K., 2011. Corporate social responsibility reporting in China. Vodafone.com, 2015. [online] Available at: https://www.vodafone.com/content/annualreport/annualreport15/assets/pdf/governance.pdf [Accessed 28 Dec. 2015]. Vodafone.com, 2015. [online] Available at: https://www.vodafone.com/content/annualreport/annual_report13/downloads/corporate_governance.pdf [Accessed 28 Dec. 2015]. Vodafone.com, 2015. Vodafone - Who we are. [online] Available at: https://www.vodafone.com/content/index/about.html# [Accessed 28 Dec. 2015]. Vodafone.com, 2015. Vodafone's corporate governance. [online] Available at: https://www.vodafone.com/content/index/investors/about_us/governance.html# [Accessed 28 Dec. 2015]. www.addison.co.uk, A., 2015. Corporate governance - Vodafone Annual Report 2011. [online] Vodafone.com. Available at: https://www.vodafone.com/content/annualreport/annual_report11/governance/corporate-governance.html [Accessed 28 Dec. 2015].