Company Overview
Cardinal Health is a globally cohesive healthcare services and products corporation that provides modified solutions to hospitals, chemists, and health organizations worldwide. It provides clinically verified medical products and pharmaceuticals that are cost-effective and affordable to customers. Cardinal health helps connect patients, pharmacists, providers, and manufacturers for an incorporated care coordination and improved patient management. It helps hospitals, pharmacies, and other healthcare amenities focus on patient wellbeing while reducing prices, improving proficiency and quality for their products and increasing profits.
The firm main headquarter is in Dublin, Ohio, Cardinal Health, Inc. It was founded in 1971 by Robert D Walter, has approximately 50,000 workers and is currently operating in nearly 60 countries (Shenkar, Luo and Chi 2014). Cardinal Health is placed number 23 on the present-day Fortune 50 list besides also being ranked as one of “the world’s best” companies by the Forbes magazine in 2002. Through its advanced products and services to millions of customers in the healthcare globally, Cardinal Health has survived the highly competitive industry to come out as one of the best.
It was started as a small supply center in Columbus Ohio. It was originally named Cardinal Foods, it was a prominent regional food supplier up until diverging into pharmaceutical sales in 1979, and it changed its name to Cardinal Distribution. It went public in 1983 and extended its fast-growing pharmaceutical supply corporate with the acquirement of many drug distributors (Lan, Lin and Lin 2016). It was growing rapidly and in 1991, its revenues exceeded I billion dollars. Currently, it is the leading drug distributor nationwide and revenues approximately $6.5 billion per annum.
Through its acquisitions over the years, it has multiplied its sales from $429million in 1986 to almost $49 billion in 2001 branding itself as one of the most innovative and highly growing companies. In the beginning, its acquisitions were relatively small and indicative of a potential trend towards consolidation in the drug distribution industry. These mergers helped reduce the number of participants in the market and the competition. The company has diversified itself from its central drug distribution business to specialty laboratory and pharmaceutical products, computer software, and selling chemists (Collis and Hussey 2013).
In January 2001 as the company celebrated its 30th anniversary, it began another exceptional year in financial records also value to customers. Chairman Walter accredited the company’s success to strong internal growth joint with meaningful acquisitions and significant partnerships. As of August 2001, it had 48,000 workers in forty-two countries on five continents. Cardinal Health operations were planned based on the products and services offered which comprised of four reporting sectors: pharmaceutical supply and provider services, medical-surgical merchandises and services, automation and information services and pharmaceutical technologies and services.
Product and Service Offerings
Cardinal health runs its businesses through two sectors: medical and pharmaceutical sector. Its medical sector dispenses a comprehensive variety of medical, laboratory plus surgical products to hospitals, laboratories, in addition to other healthcare providers. This sector also develops its own private brand of medical besides surgical products. The products include single-use surgical drapes, examination and operating gloves, gowns, apparel, fluid suction and collection systems, wound care systems and orthopedic products. Its manufactured products are sold directs or through third-party distributors. Its pharmaceutical sector distributes trademarked and generic medicinal merchandises through its pharmaceutical supply business to hospitals, retailers and extra healthcare benefactors. This sector trades pharmacies under the Medicine Shoppe and Medicap brands. They also dispense pharmaceutical goods and offers services to pharmaceutical manufacturers, third-party clients and different healthcare sectors that support the selling and distribution of the pharmaceutical products. This sector also provides pharmacy services to hospitals and other healthcare facilities.
Cardinal health through naviHealth Holdings and other companies, it delivers services and software to hospitals and other healthcare facilities that help manage the process of patient discharge. This sector also helps assemble and offer sterile and non-sterile procedure kits. The company also offers supply chain services, comprising of spend management, dissemination administration, and record administration services to healthcare suppliers
Cardinal Health comes out as more than a business or as a partner in the healthcare sector. It is focused on offering better and affordable healthcare solutions to all. Its strengths grow mainly from four areas of expertise: product, logistics, patient solution and business (Wheelen, Hunger, Hoffman and Bamford 2017). The logistics are focused on ensuring a streamline in supply, it identifies cost-saving opportunities, and helps improve performance. This helps healthcare facilities to maximize their efficiency, to better manage their inventory and reduce costs incurred in service delivery. Their supply network safe, reliable and highly regulated and ensures that products get to you fast enough. They provide a variety of innovative cold packaging chain that meets geographical, environmental and any transportation needs to ensure that products remain safe for use (Goldman, Nienaber and Pretorius 2015). Cardinal Health manufactures over 2.5 billion healthcare products per annum ranging from medical, pharmaceutical, lab and specialty and nuclear. All these products are of high quality and cost-effective to the patients.
Cardinal Health Company, just like any other business faces business issues. This company is mainly based on the healthcare sector industry. It is the leading company in the manufacture of healthcare products and their distribution. Cardinal health operates on a set of policies and standards of business conduct which is for responsible work and integrity. It is committed to complying with all applicable state and federal laws in the country, especially those aimed to address instances of healthcare and fraud. They operate under the following values: they are firm in fulfilling their commitments to their customers by supplying good quality and affordable medical products, they are accountable for high performance, they are innovative and adaptable to changes. They also bring a sense of confidence, enthusiasm plus develops competitive spirit towards work, they are inclusive and ensure teamwork with confidence and trust, they are honest, open, direct and respectful plus can be trusted to do the right thing (Crane and Matten 2016.).
Values and Policies
Cardinal health aims at maintaining its greater position in the market as one of the leading drug distribution companies in the world. The recession has affected it in many ways and it has put pressure on them as it tries to compete with other companies (Eaton, Kortum, Neiman and Romalis 2016). Recession to them means a decline in their profits and so to maximize their profits they must bring the idea of capitalism and collective bargaining. In order to maximize profits, they must buy supplies cheaply and also cut do production costs, which may lead to many concerns relating to policies and ethics.
From the lecture subjects learned in this course, one of the main issues the company faces is globalization. This involves the process of relations and incorporation among different people, companies, and different nations (Wetherly 2014.). It is driven by worldwide trade and investment and assisted by information technology sector. It affects the entire society, environment, political, cultural and economic development of the world. Globalization is an economic tide that is far-reaching the world and it cannot be stopped. It involves efforts aimed towards making the global community to coexist as one village (Abdellah, Noordin and Ismail 2015). As important as globalization is, it has its disadvantages in the global business sector as discussed here. Globalization has led to exploitation of labor by many big corporations. This has led to safety standards being ignored as they aim to produce cheap goods with as little capital investment as possible to maximize their profits. Globalization has seen large companies such as Cardinal Health to be accused of social injustice, poor working conditions which comprise of slave labor salaries and poor working and living environments. It has also been accused of lack of concern for the environment, ecological damage, and mishandling of natural resources. Many people see large companies as a threat as they are increasingly influencing political decisions due to the power they gain through globalization (Steger 2017).
Globalization has also led to unemployment due to high use of technology, which has reduced the manual labor significantly, by the corporation (Reader 2017). Globalization has led increased level of corruption at the international level and engaging in illegal practices as companies try to make more profits. Another negative impact of globalization is that ordinary citizens actually notice changes in tax rates. Since these big companies are able to move around to locations where taxes are lower, the citizens end up feeling the changes in tax most.
Globalization and Its Impact
Globalization has also created a very competitive setting in the world as every country and corporation strives to sell as many products as possible at the lowest prices as possible (Moncada-Paternò-Castello, Vivarelli, and Voigt 2011). This has led to the so-called currency race to the bottom. This has also made them cut down on production costs and cause them to pay their employee’s low salaries and use cheap fuels that pollute the environment leading to global warming. In a way, globalization has also led to the dependence of certain products and services by some countries. Hence, this leads to the country to stop producing their own goods and import from other countries putting their well-being in the hands of another country. (Burnside, Eichenbaum and Rebelo 2016) If this system fails, the reliant country is left without resources.
The company also faces many challenges in terms of legal settlements when sued (Singer 2018). In February of 2018, Cardinal Health was sued by Kentucky’s attorney general blaming it for contributing to an opioid epidemic by failing to stop and report the large and numerous orders by pharmacies for prescription of painkillers. The attorney general alleged that the company ignored red flags that prescription opioids were being used for illegal means, allowing making more profits in the process. The company has been sued on several occasions together with other drug makers for pushing addictive painkillers through dishonest marketing and failing to report doubtful drug orders. In fact, in December 2016, it was forced to pay $44 million to resolve claims that it failed to alert the U.S Drug Enforcement of questionably large orders of addictive painkillers. It also paid $20 million settlement to West Virginia so as to resolve a lawsuit over distribution of opioids in the state.
Another issue facing this company is the change in the sociological trends (Halinen et al 2005). Social trends such as immigration which influence the demographics of your customers’ base. Trends such as universal reliance on smartphones also influence the customers’ behavior forcing them to develop new tech-savvy marketing strategies. It is usually hard to adapt to these trends as they are constantly changing hence making innovations to become outdated.
Thoughts on the course’s subject matter
The subject matter was well catered. The themes and different subjects based on the contemporary business issues were explained making it easy to understand them. I found all areas to be useful as they are going to help me in my future career in the business sector. They all covered the emerging issues in the business sector and how they affect the global economy both negatively and positively (Smallbone, Welter and Ateljevic 2014). Subjects such as global warming are new in the world and need great consideration and care as they are going to greatly affect the global sector very soon in a huge way if measures are not put in place to counter it (Revesz et al 2014). Globalization helped me understand the integration of different corporations and countries in the economic sector to improve business. Study of the sociological trends also helps know how to anticipate changes in the global customer sector to know how to overcome them based on the customer needs. Study of ethics helped me know what is required of one in the workplace, their behavior and how the corporate should relate to other corporates.
Negative Impacts of Globalization
My most enjoyable session was on the study on the problems facing managers in contemporary management and media management. This is mainly because in future I anticipate to become a manager and this session helped me understand problems I am likely to face and how to overcome them as manager (Khan 2014). I also have to know the most important skills necessary for one to become a good manager. Studying media management was also great as we live in a technological world and media plays a key role in business through ways such as advertisements.
Summary of what I have learned from studying the module
Through the study of this module, I have gained new knowledge and gained new insights into aspects of running a business especially at the international level. This module offers you with the challenges and opportunities that may be presented. On completion of this module, I was able to inspire an attitude of professional inquisitiveness by challenging norms about current and emerging global issues that are affecting the business environment and how it can be addressed (Kuiper and Clippinger 2012). I was also knowledgeable on how to critically evaluate existing research and practice on the origins and effects of contemporary developing global issues. I also got to know how to judge the effects that revelation requirements will have on monetary and non-financial reporting, and contemplate the general impact that a shift towards the non-financial, sustainability and cohesive reporting will require on enterprise and accounting options.
Thanks to its many subjects such as the accountant as the strategic business adviser, communication and technology, financial reporting and business crime investigation, detection, and prevention. I also became knowledgeable about skills that will me to enhance my commercial awareness and business communication skills. I was also able to use clear and concise language when producing a well-structured report. I also gained entrepreneurial skills that helped me gain needed knowledge that would help me branch out and pursue unique business paths (Ray 2014.). This is also by gaining knowledge on project management.
How knowledge of these subject areas and the knowledge is have gained will make me a better manager
The various subjects’ areas in this module have equipped me with necessary skills to become a better manager in future. It is important to be a good manager as this will help one become versatile in any situation and also be able to accomplish what may seem difficult to others. It is through it that I have learned important skills that make a good manager. These skills include innovation, motivation, and problem solving, professionalism and communication skills. (Block 2016). I have learned that a good manager should be innovative and strive to come up with the best products and services to outdo the competitors, attract new customers and maintain the existing customers. As a manager, I will also be able to develop innovative solutions for customers’ needs and create research models to test new product ideas. I have also learned the importance of good communication with both the employees and other managers in the company. I should be able to send a clear message and share valuable information regarding the company both orally or in written form.
Competitive Setting
The manager should allow openness in communication develop the ability to take every employee’s perspective and see things from their point of view. As I manager I should also be able to identify any problems, face them and overcome them. A good manager should also be able to motivate the employees so as to increase their productivity. He should also create an energetic and highly motivated working environment. Good managers should hold themselves in the highest level of professionalism. They should ensure there are exceptional customer services and exhibit strong moral values. A good manager should be well planned and know what to be done and when it should be done so as to accomplish the company’s goals.
A brief summary of my feelings for the module
This module is good and important for any business students as it helps them examine and identify contemporary and emerging global issues to acquaint with business setting one is likely to work in as an accountant (Grant 2016). I enjoyed the module as it encouraged one to have an attitude of professional inquisitiveness by challenging assumptions about contemporary and developing global issues that tend to affect the business environment and how they should be addressed. It equips all business students with important skills necessary to operate anywhere in the globe in their future careers. This module also uses contemporary business issues as a way of advancing the growth of professional standards, ethics, and attitudes (Desjardins and McCall 2014). It teaches one how to conduct themselves to the highest professional standards teaches them how to be innovative and equips them with all necessary skills to become good managers and entrepreneurs. I like the module and would strongly recommend anyone interested in business-oriented careers to take it.
References
Abdellah, A., Noordin, M.I. and Ismail, W.A.W., 2015. Importance and globalization status of good manufacturing practice (GMP) requirements for pharmaceutical excipients. Saudi Pharmaceutical Journal, 23(1), pp.9-13.
Block, P., 2016. The empowered manager: Positive political skills at work. John Wiley & Sons.
Burnside, C., Eichenbaum, M. and Rebelo, S., 2016. Currency crises models. In Banking Crises (pp. 79-83). Palgrave Macmillan, London.
Collis, J. and Hussey, R., 2013. Business research: A practical guide for undergraduate and postgraduate students. Palgrave Macmillan.
Crane, A. and Matten, D., 2016. Business ethics: Managing corporate citizenship and sustainability in the age of globalization. Oxford University Press.
Desjardins, J.R., and McCall, J.J., 2014. Contemporary issues in business ethics. Cengage Learning.
Eaton, J., Kortum, S., Neiman, B. and Romalis, J., 2016. Trade and the global recession. American Economic Review, 106(11), pp.3401-38.
Goldman, G.A., Nienaber, H. and Pretorius, M., 2015. The essence of the contemporary business organization: A critical reflection. Journal of global business and technology, 11(2), p.1.
Grant, R.M., 2016. Contemporary strategy analysis: Text and cases edition. John Wiley & Sons.
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Kuiper, S. and Clippinger, D., 2012. Contemporary business reports. Cengage Learning.
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Moncada-Paternò-Castello, P., Vivarelli, M. and Voigt, P., 2011. Drivers and impacts in the globalization of corporate R&D: an introduction based on the European experience. Industrial and Corporate Change, 20(2), pp.585-603.
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Ray, N. ed., 2014. Handbook of research on strategic business infrastructure development and contemporary issues in finance. IGI Global.
Reader, J., 2017. Reconstructing practical theology: The impact of globalization. Routledge.
Revesz, R.L., Howard, P.H., Arrow, K., Goulder, L.H., Kopp, R.E., Livermore, M.A., Oppenheimer, M. and Sterner, T., 2014. Global warming: Improve economic models of climate change. Nature, 508(7495), pp.173-175.
Shenkar, O., Luo, Y. and Chi, T., 2014. International business. Routledge.
Singer, L., 2018. Settling disputes: Conflict resolution in business, families, and the legal system. Routledge.
Smallbone, D., Welter, F. and Ateljevic, J., 2014. Entrepreneurship in emerging market economies: Contemporary issues and perspectives. International Small Business Journal, 32(2),
Steger, M.B., 2017. Globalization: A very short introduction (Vol. 86). Oxford University Press.
Wetherly, P., 2014. The business environment: themes and issues in a globalizing world. Oxford University Press.
Wheelen, T.L., Hunger, J.D., Hoffman, A.N. and Bamford, C.E., 2017. Strategic management and business policy. pearson.
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