Carrs Billington Agriculture Ltd: Business Practices Case Analysis

This case study provides an analysis of Carrs Billington Agriculture Ltd., a company specializing in agricultural products and services. It highlights the company's commitment to social responsibility, ethical standards, and environmental sustainability, along with its focus on livestock welfare and community support. While acknowledging good practices such as maintaining ethical supply chains and high governance standards, the study also points out potential bad practices like the impact of supplements on animals and the use of natural resources. The recommendations include focusing on new product segments, investing in technology, improving financial planning, and addressing challenges from new market entities. The study emphasizes the importance of social responsibility, ethical standards, and health and safety for employees and stakeholders, with the document available on Desklib for students seeking similar case studies and solved assignments.

CARRS BILLINGTON

INTRODUCTION
 Carrs Billington Agriculture Ltd. provides
product and services related to agriculture
for farming in rural communities. It was
incorporated in 1923.
 The company offers both new and used farm
machinery and equipment. It also offers
farming supplies online.
 Manufactures and market special blends and
mixtures and compound feeds like a beef
diary, poultry, pigs and sheep. It is a network
of professional nutritionists, country store
and sales staff (Carrs Billington, 2019).

COMPANY DESCRIPTION
 Carrs Billington Agriculture Ltd. was known
as Carrs Agriculture Limited. The company
changes its name to Carrs Billington
Agriculture Ltd. in September 2001.
 It is based in Carlisle, the UK in South West
Scotland and north England.
 The company operates its business in more
than in fifty countries around the world.

GOOD PRACTICE
 Carrs Billington places emphasis on social
responsibility and maintaining ethical
standards (Billington Group, 2019).
 The organization takes care of the well-being
and safety of its people.
 The management ensures that business
activities do not impose a negative impact on
the environment.

GOOD PRACTICE
 Carrs Billington focuses on maximizing
health, productivity, and welfare of livestock.
 The organization supplies rural and farming
communities with a wide variety of
agricultural products and services.
 The environmental committee within the
organization is responsible for decreasing the
impact on the environment.

GOOD PRACTICE
 Carrs Billington supports the community in
many forms such as sponsorship and
donations to mentoring and volunteering.
 The employees participate in various
community interactions and a variety of
sponsorships and charities (Clarke, 2010).
 The organization has maintained an
appropriate relationship with customers and
other people within the community.

GOOD PRACTICE
 Carrs Billington is committed to sustainable
development and improving the governance,
environmental and socio-ethical issues.
 The management ensures that the supply
chain is free from human trafficking and
slavery (Anti slavery statement, 2017).
 The company has maintained an appropriate
relationship with the suppliers.

GOOD PRACTICE
 Carrs Billington is committed highest
corporate governance standards which are
considered to be important to business
performance, reputation, and integrity.
 The organization puts emphasize on
stakeholder’s values and needs (Gond and
Moon, 2012).
 The company ensures a true and fair
representation of the financial information.

BAD PRACTICE
 The use of supplements can sometimes
impose a negative impact on animals.
 The natural resources are being used by the
organization which can affect the community.

RECOMMENDATION
 The company earns most of its profits from the
agriculture division, which is 75% of its profit and
at the same time, the engineering division
contributes only 25% of the profit.
 The structure of the company is only compatible
with the present model of the business that causes
limitation in adjacent segments of the product. The
company should focus on implementing the latest
structure (Griffin et al., 2014).
 The marketing of products is the most important
part of an organization. It doesn't matter whether
the product is successful or not in term of sale.
Selling strategies need to be implemented by the
organization

RECOMMENDATION
 Carrs Billington Agriculture Ltd. should focus
on moving towards another product segment
as it struggles in coming out from its comfort
zone, even though it one of the leading
organizations in its industry.
 The company should focus on investing more
behind the technologies (Mallin, 2013).
 The financial planning of the company is not
done professionally and appropriately. The
company requires looking into it.

RECOMMENDATION
 The company requires tackling all the challenges
presented by the new entities as it can be noticed
that the company is losing the small market share
of the segment in the niche categories.
 The company requires of building internal
mechanism for feedback which should come
directly from the sales team in order to counter
these challenges.
 High attrition rate can increase workforce for a
company. It has been found that the attrition rate of
Carrs Billington Agriculture Ltd. is much higher than
other organization.
 The company has to focus on providing appropriate
training and development to its employees.

KEY LEARNING POINT
 All organization follows their social
responsibilities and also maintains high
ethical standards that are beneficial for
society. (Shaw, 2017).
 The company also provide maintenance and
highest slandered of health and safety to its
employees, customers, visitors and others
who might get affected by the activities of its
business.

REFERENCES
 Anti slavery statement (2017). Anti slavery-statement. [online] Carrs-
billington.com. Available at:
https://www.carrs-billington.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/anti-slavery-
statement.pdf [Accessed 27 Mar. 2019].
 Billington Group (2019). Carrs Billington – The Billington Group. [online]
Thebillingtongroup.com. Available at:
https://thebillingtongroup.com/agriculture/carrs-billington-agriculture/
[Accessed 27 Mar. 2019].
 Carrs Billington (2019). Carrs Billington Agriculture Ltd | Agricultural and
Rural Supplies. [online] Carrs Billington Agriculture Ltd. Available at:
https://www.carrs-billington.com/ [Accessed 27 Mar. 2019].
 Clarke, P. (2010). Business studies. 3rd ed. Harlow: BBC Active.
 Gond, J. and Moon, J. (2012). Corporate social responsibility. 4th ed. London:
Routledge.
 Griffin, R., Ebert, R., Starke, F., Dracopoulos, G. and Lang, M.
(2014). Business. 4th ed. Toronto: Pearson Canada.
 Mallin, C. (2013). Corporate governance. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
 Shaw, W. (2017). Business ethics. 5th ed. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.