Tetra Pak- multinational food packaging and processing company

Executive Summary

Tetra Pak is a multinational food packaging and processing company of Swedish origin with head offices in Sweden and Switzerland. Tetra Pak was founded by Ruben Rausing and built on an innovation by Erik Wallenberg, the Tetrahedron packing, from which actually the company name was derived. The company is privately owned by the family of Gad Rausing through the Swiss based holding company Tetra Laval, which also includes the dairy farming equipment producer DeLaval and the plastic bottle manufacturer Sidel.

Tetra Pak Pakistan was first inaugurated in 1984 with joint venture of packages with the help of Mr. Babar Ali and later in year 2011 Tetra Pak established its own factory in Sundar industrial area Lahore.

Tetra Pak core values form and shape the essence of the company's culture. These values serve to keep all the employees together as a team and re-affirm what Tetra Pak stands for everywhere in the world. The core values build on the company's heritage and provide an aspiration for the future. This rich culture and sense of belonging contribute towards the citizenship behaviour in which everyone perform as if it is their own company

The company ensures that it adds value and inspire its customers. Since the company believes on utilitarianism, its basic preference always remains the greatest good to the greatest number of people with no compromise on quality

Tetra Pak treat all its employees with care and affection, the employees were saying  good words of mouth about the company and its management. Everyone seemed to be satisfied and respectful. Employees were of the view that Tetra Pak is best employer in Pakistan.

Tetra Pak provides its employees with very handsome salary packages and other fringe benefits  that extrinsic rewards or salaries hardly remain the effective tools for  motivation of the employees. It was observed that Employees of Business Control an Finance Department were more inclined towards establishing friendly and close interpersonal relationships and were in fact motivated by the friendly behaviours of their colleagues and managers

Tetra Pak provides its employees complete freedom to take initiative and act decisively in the best interests of Tetra Pak and its customers. The way employees were consulting to the managers, giving them their suggestions and were being guided by managers showed that Tetra Pak gets its employees involved in making the goals for different tasks.

Supportive management team makes every individual sitting in any department of Tetra Pak to see familiar in different light and flare up the world through his creative ideas.

For bringing efficacy the management gets its operations done through  different teams. All the four types of teams were found at least in business control and finance department.

Company Profile:

Tetra Pak is a multinational food packaging and processing company of Swedish origin with head offices in Sweden and Switzerland. The company offers packaging solutions, filling machines and processing solutions for dairy, beverages, cheese and ice-cream including distribution tools like accumulators, cap applicators, conveyors, crate packers, film wrappers, line controllers and straw applicators.

Founder of Tetra Pak:

Tetra Pak was founded by Ruben Rausing and built on an innovation by Erik Wallenberg, the Tetrahedron packing, from which actually the company name was derived. In the beginning of the 1950s to the mid-1990s the company was headed by the two sons of Ruben Rausing, Hans and Gad, who took the company from a family business of 6 employees, in 1954, to a multinational corporation. Tetra Pak is currently the largest food packaging company in the world by sales, operating in more than 170 countries and with over 23,000 employees. The company is privately owned by the family of Gad Rausing through the Swiss based holding company Tetra Laval, which also includes the dairy farming equipment producer DeLaval and the plastic bottle manufacturer Sidel.

Tetra Pak in Pakistan:

Tetra Pak Pakistan was first inaugurated in 1984 with joint venture of packages with the help of Mr. Babar Ali and later in year 2011 Tetra Pak established its own factory in Sundar industrial area Lahore and now the share of packages has almost reduced to 7%.

Business Control and Finance Department:

Business Control and Finance Department is a supportive department for all other departments and takes into account the major responsibilities of Customer Screening, Order Calculation, Payment Receiving, Communication and Coordination with customers and other departments.

 

Organizational Culture:

Tetra Pak’s core values form and shape the essence of the company's culture. These values serve to keep all the employees together as a team and re-affirm what Tetra Pak stands for everywhere in the world. The core values build on the company's heritage and provide an aspiration for the future. It is up to each one of the employee to be a role model in applying company's core values everyday in everything they do. This rich culture and sense of belonging contribute towards the citizenship behaviour in which everyone perform as if it is their own company. During the factory visit a lady( head of one of the department ), simply dressed, moving around and doing her tasks with her daughter in the plant's day care centre simply shows a family culture in the company. Furthermore the managers and CEOs act as a role model in reinforcing the strong company culture by declaring the employee of the month and then telling stories about the success of the company to all the employees. Moreover the company also sets material symbols and one simple example are the automobiles used by the employees of the company. The company finances its employees to have luxury cars, this shows the company's care for its employees and the elite status enjoyed by the company employees.

Utilitarianism:

The company ensures that it adds value and inspire its customers.The management of the company dare to lead with a focus beyond tomorrow and take opportunities to learn and grow. Since the company believes on utilitarianism, its basic preference always remains the greatest good to the greatest number of people with no compromise on quality. The management persistently drive for better and breakthrough innovations that contribute not only to the betterment of its employees but also for the customers worldwide.

Organizational and Interactional justice:

Whenever someone becomes the part of some organization then its a fact that perception about the organizational justice automatically gets generated and person tries to weigh the fairness, rewards distribution and treatment of oneself in the organization. Because Tetra Pak treat all its employees with care and affection, the employees were saying  good words of mouth about the company and its management. Everyone seemed to be satisfied and respectful. Employees were

of the view that Tetra Pak is best employer in Pakistan and most of them were even committed to serve it for life. The way Tetra Pak treat its employees with dignity, shows concern about each individual and respect everyone from its employees is basically the reason people dream to be the part of this organization

Need for affiliation:

Tetra Pak has a monopoly in Pakistan. There is no other standard company for providing packaging solutions specially in beverage industry, that is the reason for which it enjoys a large stream of profits. Being well established multinational company, it provides its employees with very handsome salary packages and other fringe benefits  that extrinsic rewards or salaries hardly remain the effective tools for  motivation of the employees. It was observed during the communication with employees from the BC & F department that employees were more inclined towards establishing friendly and close interpersonal relationships and were in fact motivated by the friendly behaviours of their colleagues and managers. This has proven the McClelland's theory suggesting  need for affiliation as an essential component for motivation of the employees.

Job Engagement & Citizenship Behaviour:

Tetra Pak provides its employees complete freedom to take initiative and act decisively in the best interests of Tetra Pak and its customers. This brings sense of responsibility in every employee and everyone take responsibility for his actions and contribute to the communities with which they deal during their course of operation. Moreover employees respect and rely on one another and all our stakeholders for outstanding results. Employees enjoy working together and celebrating their achievements. This freedom, responsibility and fun at workplace make the job more interesting and favourable that everyone get engaged deep into the job than simply liking it. This ultimately contribute in driving the performance to the highest standards.

 

Management by Objective:

The way employees were consulting to the managers and giving them their suggestions about the short term goals was clearly depicting that the management of Tetra Pak gets its employees involved in making the goals for different tasks. The controlling of the tasks by the manager Mr. Qasim Jaffery and his reviews and constructive feedback to its employees were enlightening the reason for the high performance of Tetra Pak's employees.

Creativity:

The company hires the individuals that suit the best for the available position and the management makes it sure at the time of selection that the individual being hired must have experience, creative mind and the internal derive to excel in his field of operation. Furthermore Tetra Pak provides its employees complete freedom to take initiative and act decisively in the best interests of Tetra Pak and its customers. This makes every individual sitting in any department of Tetra Pak to see familiar in different light and flare up the world through his creative ideas.

Teams :

Being a multinational company Tetra Pak has a lot of responsibilities and operations that need to be addressed in a very effective and efficient way. For bringing efficacy the management gets its operations done through  different teams. Almost all the four types of teams were found at least in business control and finance department. During the short time span at Tetra Pak the application of cross-functional and virtual teams was seen. Like the usual practice key accounts managers (KAMs) from different departments were having a discussion on the impact of the usage of Ecoline pakaging by Engro foods, on the sale of Tetra Pak. The manager and CFO, Mr. Misbah Burney , were busy in some discussion with the finance manager Dubai office.

Perception:

Its true that everyone view Tetra Pak as a great place to work and there is no doubt that the company itself proves a very perfect place to work. Conducive environment, supportive workforce, freedom of work, sense of responsibility and celebrations on achievements all were present and contributing towards the citizenship behaviour of the company but a little bit disturbance was found in the social setting of BC & F department. Few of the individuals were found involved in incivility especially with interns; disturbing the overall perception about the company and resulting in the perception about the employees that Tetra Pak's employees are not supportive. Though on macro level its not true in this case but it sometimes impacts a lot to the company's image when internees share their views to someone about the company.