Annals of the University of Oradea: Economic Science (Dec 2011)
COMPETITIVENESS AND PERFORMANCE ON THE COSMETICS MARKET
Abstract
Most organizations are going through massive changes. Their customers are changing, their competition is changing, their customer’s needs are changing and their resources availability is changing - the cosmetics companies are no different. Organizational survival and success depends on the ability of the managers to detect and adapt to critical changes in the environment, which may impact the company. The paper has two main purposes. First to underline the importance performance measurement has in today’s business and second to present a few key elements regarding the performance of the cosmetics sector in Romania. For this we have tried to answer the following question: Are the cosmetics companies competitive? This paper is based on exploratory literature review of different approaches regarding organizational performances in organizations in general. Despite the global economic crisis and the general slowdown of many markets, the Romanian beauty and personal care market continued to grow in 2009. Consumer awareness and product knowledge is growing rapidly and the development of retailing chains and their widening product offer have also helped to further the development of the beauty and personal care market. The paper also presents the results of section three of an online survey conducted at 10 cosmetic companies from Romania. The results have shown that multinationals have both the economic and managerial power to succeed in obtaining their goals. Even though the sample of 72 respondents was rather small, we managed to conclude from the received answers that the majority of companies focus on economic and managerial performance rather than on social and ecological performance indicators. This paper aimed to contribute to the literature review development in the field of performance management. The results of this study can be of use for managers from the analyzed domain or for other researchers in the economic field. The authors have contributed to the originality of this paper, by presenting pertinent conclusions about the cosmetics market from Romania, resulted from the literature review and from an empirical study.
