1200 Assignment 1

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School

Cornell University *

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Course

1200

Subject

Business

Date

May 2, 2024

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docx

Pages

2

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Assignment Pt. 1 Reflection To be honest, at first I just had AEM 1200 on my list of courses to take to fulfill the requirements for my business minor (my major being in electrical and computer engineering). However, this past summer I worked at Comcast as a product management intern, where I was exposed to business concepts and the work that goes into running a successful company. I absolutely loved the experience, and it was from there that I realized that the knowledge I would gain from this class would be useful as I continued through my journey of product management. As an engineer, I know that I have the technical skills to back up a career in this field – I’ve learned Python, SQL, computer engineering, and more in my previous coursework. However, to be a successful product manager I know that I need to be equally well-versed in human resources, finance, strategy, and more. I hope to learn about these concepts in this class, in addition to getting to know how to utilize these ideas to run a profitable business in a team setting. As an intern, I loved getting to speak with people and considering their varying backgrounds and strengths for a project, and I hope to do the same in this class. I’ve already met so many students from our icebreaker exercises with backgrounds in economics, veterinary sciences, human ecology, and more – and I’m so excited to see what everyone in my group will bring to the table as we run our simulated business. And while I know it’s easy to say all that I’d like to learn in this class, I’d only know if I truly learned it all when I enter the workforce and utilize the perspective developed from this class to shape and inform my decisions. 5, 10, even 30 years down the road, I hope to find myself making an important choice in my work, seeing success as a result of it, and remembering that I learned it from my college management class. Pt. 2 While Unilever was the one that initially proposed the organizational and governance structure between themselves and Ben and Jerry’s, they must have understood the risks of undertaking such a system. Knowing that Ben and Jerry’s were strongly opinionated, Unilever knew that they had to appeal to their passion for social causes to even have a chance of acquiring the company. This concession would set a precedent of what Ben and Jerry’s would expect out of their relationship with Unilever and could easily cause rifts, as we see in this case. Unilever easily benefited from this structure as Ben and Jerry’s consistently produced popular and novel ideas in the ice cream business, allowing for
them to be a viable competitor at the forefront of the industry. Again, however, despite the benefits, they took a risk giving Ben and Jerry’s so much decision-making power. As a result, as we saw in the special board meeting to discuss whether to sue Unilever, Ben and Jerry representatives were able to occupy the majority of the 7 seats at the table. And of course, they voted to move forward with the lawsuit because of that power given. Personally, I respect Ben and Jerry’s headstrong approach towards social activism and using their widespread brand for good. The causes that were mentioned in the podcast, such as LGBTQ+ rights and supporting refugees, are something that had never really been seen before by any major brand. Even today, despite the example that Ben and Jerry’s has set, I don’t think that I’ve seen anyone else achieve the same level of outspokenness that Ben and Jerry’s has. And while I believe in free expression of political views as long as it doesn’t harm anyone’s well-being (although frankly, I don’t think pulling just one ice cream brand from stores would absolutely devastate anybody), I do think that if Unilever wanted to avoid having another situation like this, they would have to propose a contract with more rigid guidelines. They would have to modify the governance structure to be more like the traditional acquisition of a company, where the larger company would have more power. They could introduce another clause that indicated special circumstances where they could step in or take over more of the social causes that Ben and Jerry’s primarily controlled. Either way, Unilever would have to obtain more authority in their governance structure – the only question is whether Ben and Jerry’s would accept such an idea.
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