Total S.A. Company (Other (Not Listed) Sample)

Total S.A. Company
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Total SA
Total SA is one of the top ranked Multinational Corporations (MNCs) in the world. It is one of the first six oil companies and enjoys a wide range of partnerships with some of the big corporations around the globe. Its businesses include oil and gas exploration, refinery and transportation. It trades in petroleum products and engages in power generation, as well as chemical manufacturing. The success stories behind this company are worth emulating, and this can be possible through strategic analysis of its major operations. This paper studies Total SA in relation to its competitive ability, branding and messaging. It also includes the company's approach to globalization issues, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), global marketing strategies and other cross-border business operations in general.
Analysis of the Website
The company's website gives an impression that it is a big player in the oil and gas industry and shows its commitment to meeting the everyday energy needs. The website is rich in information about the company, covering its goals, area of operations, commitment to conserving the environment, dedication to implementing the CSR policies, and the structure of its leadership. The company has designed a very easily navigable website, with a very simple design but very informative. The overall layout is very appealing and gives it the general impression of a large and very committed corporation. The website colors are very soft to the eye, and the logo image is clear and well placed.
Vision and Mission Statements
The company's strategic vision is to meet the rising energy demands while incorporating both performance and responsibility in its business operations. The company focuses on sustainable development as an approach to meeting the customer demands and responding to the current environmental challenges. They purpose to enable all its prospective consumers get access to energy, bearing in mind the constantly growing demand. It does this successfully by upholding the three key values, i.e. Safety, Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility. The company aims at fulfilling all these through its various goals of expanding its exploration and production, strengthening its competitive ability by widening its refining base and always keeping pace with the constantly changing market trends. It also works towards realizing a secure energy future by focusing on innovation, research and exploitation alternative energy sources, improving its efficiency in meeting demands, and participating in the development agenda of the customer countries. The company considered launching a new campaign through improving its brand image. It is because the company has experienced a lack of recognition in a number of countries in the recent past. The new baseline creates awareness of the company's commitment to serving energy needs and communicates its dedication to providing efficient and inclusive services to all its customers (Total SA, 2015).
Strategic Approach to Globalization and Competition
Total SA is one of the companies that have taken measures such as improving its efficacy, enhancing customer responsiveness and its innovative strategies so that it can give a relevant response to the challenges of globalization. Among the company's stated goals are strategies that work towards enhancing its competitive ability. It aims at firming up its position as one of the leaders in oil and gas industry by expanding its operations globally. It also focuses on moving at the same pace with the changing market trends as well as considering pursuing development goals in other countries. It has spread its operations in Africa, the Middle East and Asian countries. For the purposes of sustainability, the company considers innovation and research as the way forward. Through innovation, Total SA believes that it will meet the ever-growing demand for energy and meet its responsibilities as concerns environmental conservation. Innovation incorporates new and complex methods of production and address the long-term search for energy efficiency.
Corporate Social Responsibility
Total SA has a very comprehensive approach to addressing the Corporate Social Responsibility issues. It maintains long-term relationships with its stakeholders through a number of commitments. For example, the company has an outline of its responsibilities to its stakeholders. Its main objective is to satisfy its customers, engage in dialog with the stakeholders, to offer its services in a transparent manner, and to provide a safe environment for its employees. The company highly values its stakeholders since they are the determinants of its success. It maintains a large network of investors, employees, and suppliers by maintaining a good working relationship with them. It pays its customers well and gets involved in community development programs in the host countries. It also pays its dues to the host governments in due time.
Marketing
Most businesses face a very big challenge in managing their marketing strategies. In today's economy, corporations must focus on maintaining a sustainable business as well as keeping its customers. As such, every corporation must always embark on finding innovative marketing strategies that will keep them ahead of others every time (Anita, 2014). Total SA has purposed to work on this by coming up with new marketing strategies, a move that will reinforce its branding and messaging in the global markets. First, the company came up with a new campaign baseline a few years ago. It aimed at promoting its brand awareness in the countries where it operates and has come up with a strong brand that enables it to operate efficiently in the markets (Total SA, 2015). Moreover, the company depends on its service stations worldwide for marketing and service provision. Through these outlets, the company offers a wide range of services and sells to its customers a number of products such as fuel and lubricants. It enjoys a large network of service stations globally, and they use these to promote a strong brand. TOTAL has a large number of a marketing team that always work towards expanding the company's network and strengthening its brand. It also focuses on providing helpful services to its customers at the service stations, and these include giving their customers advice on the best practices for their cars, sharing information on health matters and road safety.
Analysis and Cross-border Issues
The company enjoys an advantage over many oil companies due to its French origins, which makes it have a large oil base. Some of its oil reserves are in the Middle East, Africa and Iran. Some of these regions, however, are prone to terror attacks thus puts the company at a disadvantage. Meanwhile, it has managed to fare on well in these countries since it has familiarized itself with the cultures of these people. Moreover, the overdependence of these countries on foreign capital makes it operate successfully in these regions. One of the reasons why it has not fared on well in places like Latin America is because it lacks enough experience to operate across these borders CITATION Wik11 \l 1033 (WikiInvest, 2011).
Other challenges that TOTAL faces include the volatility of the oil and gas sectors. This industry faces varying input and product costs, forcing the company to focus majorly on upstream development. Some of the major issues surrounding all these challenges include the worries about climate change. Environmental issues have forced the major oil companies to focus on developing clean energy such as solar and wind energy.
Total SA faces competition from some of the world's oil majors such as Royal Dutch Shell, BP, Exxon Mobil, among others. It makes the industry very competitive, and TOTAL has to focus on strategies that would make it stay relevant in the global market.
Financial Statement Overview
The 2014 financial year recorded revenues of USD 211.99bn, which was an 18.22% drop from the last year's records CITATION ftc15 \l 1033 (ft.com, 2015). The drop can be because of the company's weak upstream business though it is one of the leading corporations. It means that the company still needs to strengthen this business segment, which it does by employing huge capital investments (WikiInvest, 2011). Moreover, the fall in revenues can result from the declining oil reserves and some problems such as oil bunkering, which occurred in Nigeria. Competition from key players can also have a significant effect on a company's revenues if the company is not prepared to meet the challenges of globalization.
Expectations and Tangibility of Corporate Ethics and CSR
The company drafted a five-year outline (2012-2017) that will guide its efforts towards meeting its SCR goals. Moreover, the company has a co-ordinated method of doing its CSR analysis and reporting. The main aim is to inform all the stakeholders of the company's performance in any given year. It publishes its CSR reports each year and these cover safety, environmental and social performance indicators. The company is also included in several key Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) indices that examine companies' performance based on these three key areas (Total SA, CSR Analysts, 2015). The company's ethical values centers on respect, responsibility and good conduct. It has an ethics committee, which comprise of members from different business sections, which ensures that every employee adheres to the ethical obligations as outlined. The company asks independent organizations to evaluate its practices so that it can determine the feasibility of all these policies (Total SA, 2015).
SWOT Analysis
Strengths

Weaknesses

* Total SA is among the leading major firms in oil and gas industry in Western Europe. It is the leading company in Afri...