Pell Technologies

Pell Technologies was a midsize but growing technology company that recently went public. It offered a variety of wearable technologies such as activity monitors and music players as well as high performance sports trackers like GPS watches and heart rate monitors. While Pell Technologies was a growing player in the performance wearables, it had developed its supply chain at such a fast rate to keep up with competitors that it had little insight into its suppliers. Suppliers were selected on cost$,$ capacity, efficiency, and quality. For the early years of its operations starting in $2007,$ Pell had little or no incidents. But in $2009,$ one of Pell's major suppliers in Taiwan was experiencing labor issues. The supplier had rapid employee turnover and some employees had even threatened suicide. In $2010,$ several employees did commit suicide over productivity pressure and poor conditions. The event was all over the news and social media for weeks. Pell had to scramble to make good on their supply chain practices, because they were being held responsible for practices at their suppliers.

To deal with the firestorm of the supplier issue, Pell put out a series of statements about their concern for their supplier's labor conditions and suicides. Their stock price dipped for a few days and their shareholders began to get nervous. Pell's consumer hot line was full of questions about labor conditions at Pell's contract manufacturers. Eventually the commotion died down and operations resumed to normal along with their stock price. While the buzz was quiet for the moment, Pell knew that it wasn't the last they would hear about conditions at supplier plants. Not only did they know little about their Taiwan based contract manufacturer, they knew hardly anything about their smaller suppliers, much less Tier $2$ suppliers and beyond. That same year, the SEC Dodd$-$Frank Regulation was announced and placed additional pressure on Pell to act.

P$1$: According to the case, Pell Technologies was being currently pressured by which forces to implement change in their supply chain:

Select all that apply.

Government

International governments

Society

Suppliers

Natural Resources

Weather Events

Customers

Climate Change

Communities

P$2$: Based on what is happening at Pell's supplier plant, what social requirements should they include in their Supplier Code of Conduct?

Select all that apply.

Working Hours

Raw Material Use

Wage and Benefits

Energy Use

Humane Treatment

Freedom of Speech

Gift, Meals and Entertainment

None of the Above

P$3$: In their European operations, Pell is being held responsible to collect some of its products at end of life. What is this called?

Reuse and Return Law

Extended Producer Responsibility

Product Safety Law

Dodd$-$Frank

Product Recall

Liability

None of the above

P$4$: After growing pressures, Pell decides to seek greater visibility into its supply chain and act on issues it finds at its suppliers. What type of corporate response is this on the 'Continuum of Responses' discussed in the lessons?

Select the best answer: Do nothing$/$comply$/$avoid$/$transform$/$re$-$design$/$insure