Corporate Community Service Involvement: Electronic Arts Inc

Corporate Community Service Involvement: Electronic Arts Inc

Name

Class

Affiliation

Date

Electronic Arts Inc

Electronic Arts, Inc is an American major video games developing, publishing and marketing company, which has grown to be one of the largest video game publishers in the world (Jenkins, 2005).The company develops and distributes interactive softwaregames, which are playable by consumers on a number of devices including; Microsoft Xbox, Sony play station 2, and the Nintendo GameCube. Other games platforms includes a personal computer, cellular handsets and mobile game players or on the internet.

Electronic Arts was founded and incorporated in 28th May 1982 by Trip Hawkins. The company simply started as a publisher of home computer games with its headquarters in Redwood Shores, Redwood City(Plunkett, 2008). It later expanded through hiring of games developers and by year 2000, the company had become one of the biggest games publishers in the world and announced revenue of $3.8 billion on 4th May 2011. The company continued to grow, expanding its sales and by 13th January 2012, its revenues had exceeded the previous year with $1 billion. Currently, Electronic arts has a revenue of $3.589billion, employing over 7 820 people and with a total equity of $2.564 billion.

Involvement in the community

Like any other company that needs to be successful and to create loyal customers, electronic arts company also gets itself involved in social responsibility, through supporting of different projects among the members of the society.According the Electronic Arts Company website (2011), the company invests its time, talent and money, in conjunction with non-profit organisations to promote different compassionate, charitable and educational programs. These projects have been beneficial in making the company’s reputation and increasing the sales. Among the famous projects that the company participates in are;

The employees of Electronic Arts participates is community projects through donating money under the employee matching gift program, whose money is used for assisting the community. An example is that last month Electronic Arts employees donated $11000 that was offered as a donation to the B.C. children hospital foundation. During the year 2008Electronic Arts made corporate grants of $600 000, which was to be donated to schools and non-profit organizations, whose aim is to benefit underserved youth of 17years and below in two major areas (Electronic Arts, 2011). The money was to fund academic programs in subjects such as mathematics, multi-media, computer science, art,music and animation. It was also to assist in compassionate programs, such as the children’s hospitals, and the terminal children’s wishes. The company also host an annual motion ball event called the Special Olympics, whose aim is to raise fund used for community development.

The company has also been sponsoring a mentorship class for arts Umbrella for the past six years, called EA Teen Game Design Scholarship Program. This is a famous program that is used to support and expose talented students to digital arts under the supervision of highly experienced directors. The company has in the past been involved in hosting of tours for over 45 children from Canuck Place, make a wish foundation and the BC children hospital, who suffer from life threatening or terminal illness. There is also another program that the company engages in and this is the charitable game donation program. Since the beginning of 2012, the company has already donated more than 500 games to over 200 non profit foundations. This is cooperation between the company and non profit organisations, where the organisations receive the donations from the company and use them for auctions of raffles. These raffles and auctions raise money that the organisations use for their projects.

Electronic Arts Company participates in outreach programs in local and international levels. Some of these programs are the EA India program called Basketball Without Borders, EA Geneva Bike Tour program, EA Redwood Shores Aids Walk, Rebuilding Together,Race for the Cure, and the Giving Tree Events, EA Australia Cancer Council Event, Giving Tree Fundraiser, and the Variety Show Event, EA UK Giving Tree, EA Tiburon make A Wish Event, Boys & Girls Club Event, and EA Montreal After School Programs among other projects.

Community perception of the Company

According to Jenkins (2005), Electronic Arts Company is involved in community projects, which have created a strong brand name, which is essential for the profitability and good business reputation. The company has been on the frontline to assist terminally ill children and support training for talented children in visual arts. Due to presence of highly qualified workers as programmers and development of high class games, there are very many people becoming loyal customers of the company products. As a result of good reputation, people are more than willing to identify with Electronic Arts, and the company has also had it easy in hiring and maintaining workers.

Companies’ obligation to serve communities and financial sense

Serving the community is seen as an added cost to the companies as there are investments to be made in to the community projects. However, companies taking part in corporate social responsibility (CSR) benefit in many ways than those that are not concerned with giving back to the society. According to Sprinkle& Maines (2010), one of the direct benefits of CSR is the development of pride among the people or the society due to the benefits that the people gain from the company actions, they are usually proud to be associated with the company. This pride among the customers creates loyal customers of the company products, which increases sales and in the end, the company benefits financially.

Participation in community development projects improves the innovativeness of the employees as a result of working in the highly reputed organisation, which in turn increases competition and market positioning for the company. Community projects create good reputation for the company and market widening. This makes the company products favoured among many in the market and in return makes the company more competitive, ensuring ease of products moving (Sprinkle & Maines, 2010). This is because more and more people become open to trying new products from the company, therefore the company market enlarges and its financial benefits become more.

Conclusion

Electronic Arts Company has been involved in different community development projects, which has helped in the making of the company name and winning of loyal customers, who buy the company products. This translates to financial benefits for the company and its growth. Therefore, company participation in community projects stand to enjoy financial benefits, which are as a result of good reputation gained by the company.

Reference

Electronic Arts (2011, June 29). EA Outreach: How EAC gives back to the Community.Inside EA. Retrieved March 6, 2012, from

Jenkins, T. (2005).Enterprise Content Management technology : what you need to know. Waterloo, Ontario: Open Text Corp.

Plunkett, J. (2008).Plunkett's advertising and branding industry almanac 2008 : the only comprehensive guide to advertising companies and trends. Houston, Tex: Plunkett Research.

Sprinkle, G. B., & Maines, L. A. (2010). The benefits and costs of corporate social responsibility.Business HorizonsJournal,53(5), 445-453.

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