Brico Devices: Makeover Through CSR to Address Illegal Factory Issues

This report addresses the critical issue of illegal factory practices at Brico Devices, specifically focusing on poor working conditions, low pay rates, unsafe waste disposal, and environmentally unsustainable practices. An audit revealed these issues, prompting a need for strong corrective actions. The report proposes that implementing Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategies can significantly improve Brico Devices' brand image and profitability. Recommendations include conducting waste assessments, implementing effective waste management and recycling systems, developing fair work and overtime policies, and creating comprehensive employee benefit programs with fair pay structures. By adopting these CSR measures, Brico Devices can comply with regulations, enhance customer loyalty, and achieve long-term sustainable growth. Desklib provides access to this and other solved assignments to aid students in their studies.

Running head: BRICO DEVICES (A MAKEOVER)
Brico Devices (A Makeover)
Prepared for the
CEO of Brico
Mr. Matthew Flanagan
Prepared by
Name of the Student
Student’s Number
Date:

1BRICO DEVICES (A MAKEOVER)
Executive Summary
There have been negative reports on the Brico’s factory four illegal practices and the audit was
conducted with the help of surveys, interviews and questionnaires. The results were poor
working conditions, low pay rate, unsafe environment and waste clearance.The main purpose of
this report is to conduct an analysis and investigation on the four issues, more importantly, Brico
needs toseriously considerstrong and effective solutionsto rectify the negative image of Brico
Devices.It has been proposed that corporatesocial responsibility (CSR) can be regarded as a
concept of management in which the business organisationsintegrate their social and
environmental concerns in their business operations and interact with their stakeholders
(Schwartz 2017). Brico Devices can become majorly beneficial from CSR as it will create better
recognition of the brand of Brico Devices,and therefore improve the business’ profits.

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Findings...........................................................................................................................................3
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................5
Recommendation.............................................................................................................................5
References........................................................................................................................................8

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Introduction
Brico is currently under a serious breach of illegal factory practices and from the audit
four issues were discovered. The concept of CSR considers the impact of the business operations
on the environment and society with the help of transparent and ethical behavior (Clapp and
Rowlands 2014).In addition, CSR ensures the sustainable development of the business
organizations and ensure companies can conduct their business operations by complying with all
the required laws and regulations (Tai and Chuang 2014). This could possibly assistBrico in the
development of positive reputation of the businessand the reduction of costs for the company.
Most importantly, the adoption of CSR strategies will boost the sales of Brico Devices by
increasing customer loyalty (Crane, Matten and Spence 2013).
Findings
Data collected from the survey shows some of the major CSR related issues in Brico
Device. These issues can be divided into four segments; they are poor working condition, low
pay rates, environmentally unsustainable practices and the methods of unsafe waste disposal. The
issues related to these segments are discussed below:
Methods of Unsafe Waste Disposal
 Waste is considered as the unwanted, unusable materials created from the production, or
manufacturing operation of the business and it has harmful effect on the health of people
and environment (Marshall and Farahbakhsh 2013). Brico Devices, the manufacturing
process generates different types of harmful wastes like mercury, arsenic, cadmium and

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others and they are accumulating in the landfill sites of the factory (Karmperis et al.
2013).
 Apart from this, the company allows the chemical wastes to run into the ponds, lakes and
rivers in the local community. This particular aspects leads to the sudden deaths of
animals of marine ecosystem and creates health issues for the people of the local
community.
Environmentally Unsustainable Practices
 The above discussion shows the unsafe waste management process by Brico Device and
it implies that the company does not take into consideration the negative effect of their
business operation on the environment (Tilman and Clark 2014). The smoke from the
production unit of the company leads to air pollution. This smoke from manufacturing
unit contains carbon-dioxide, dust particles, carbon monoxide and other elements that are
harmful for community people as well as other animals (Seinfeld and Pandis 2016).
 In addition, the company does not have any effective recycling process in the
manufacturing unit due to the presence of old infrastructure for the manufacturing
process. Apart from this, the company does not have any recycling process for the metals.
With effective recycling process, Brico could extract precious metals from the waste
(Tilman and Clark 2014).
Poor Working Condition
 The regulatory authorities have set the limit for working hour per week for workers and
the companies will have to pay for overtime work. However, in case of Brico Device, it

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can be seen that the management of the company forces their workers to work more
hours per week in order to meet the manufacturing target (Bhattacharya et al. 2017).
 In case of overtime, the regulatory authority has also set a specific limit for the
employees. However, it can be observed from the audit that the company has forced their
employees to work more than the regulation allowed overtime hours.
Low Pay Rates
 It needs to be mentioned that that the regulatory authority has set a minimum wage limit
for the workers and all the businesses are required to comply with this regulation.
However, in case of Brico Devices, it can be seen that workers of the company paid are
below minimum wage rate (Carroll 2015).
 Apart from this, while conducting the audit, the auditors have also found that there is no
provision of medical insurance, pension schemes, leaves for maternity, insurance for
workplace related injuries and others (Carroll 2015).
Conclusion
From the above discussion, it can be seen that CSR plays an important part in the
decision-making process of the organizations such as cost saving, customer loyalty and brand
recognition. Therefore, it is necessery for Brico Device to address all these issues so that the
company can achieve the benefit of CSR.
Recommendation
Recommendations are provided in order to achieve the benefits of CSR in their business
process:

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Methods of Unsafe Waste Disposal
 It is recommended Brico Device should take up the assessment of harmful waste in order
to measure the environmental damages. In addition, the company is recommended to
implement an effective waste management system by developing and complying with all
the required requirements.
Environmentally Unsustainable Practices
 It is recommended to Brico Device that they should implement an effective recycling
system in order to reduce the effect of their waste on the environment. This process will
ensure sustainable practice in the company as it will result in the minimization of
production cost. It is also recommended that the recycling process needs to be able to
extract precious materials from the waste and identify the opportunities of recycling and
others.
Poor Working Condition
 Brico is in the needs of forming an effective work and overtime policies. For this reason,
it is recommended that Brico Device needs to prepare and implement the correct and
effective working and overtime policies that will ensure the compliance of the company
with required labor laws and regulations.
Low Pay Rates
 There is a need for an assessment of the pay structure of the workers of Brico Device tha
will helps in finding the weakness in their pay strategy. After this assessment, it is
recommended the company should develop and implement new and effective employee

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benefit policies that will include correct pay structure along with other facilities like
pension plan and bonuses.

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References
Bhattacharya, C.B., Korschun, D., Sen, S. and Routledge, H., 2017. Corporate social
responsibility. Journal of International Law, 26(2).
Carroll, A.B., 2015. Corporate social responsibility. Organizational dynamics, 44(2), pp.87-96.
Clapp, J. and Rowlands, I.H., 2014. Corporate social responsibility. The Essential Guide to
Global Environmental Governance. Routledge: London, pp.42-44.
Crane, A., Matten, D. and Spence, L., 2013. Corporate social responsibility in a global context.
Karmperis, A.C., Aravossis, K., Tatsiopoulos, I.P. and Sotirchos, A., 2013. Decision support
models for solid waste management: Review and game-theoretic approaches. Waste
management, 33(5), pp.1290-1301.
Marshall, R.E. and Farahbakhsh, K., 2013. Systems approaches to integrated solid waste
management in developing countries. Waste Management, 33(4), pp.988-1003.
Schwartz, M.S., 2017. Corporate social responsibility. Routledge.
Tai, F.M. and Chuang, S.H., 2014. Corporate social responsibility. Ibusiness, 6(03), p.117.
Tilman, D. and Clark, M., 2014. Global diets link environmental sustainability and human
health. Nature, 515(7528), p.518.

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