Quanta Corporate Citizenship I strongly recommend Muhammad Yunus’ second book, ‘Creating a World Without Poverty – Social Business and the Future of Capitalism’. Yunus’ remarkable success as the founder of the Grameen Bank, which pioneered the microcredit concept and used entrepreneurship to lift people out of poverty, led him to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006. With such social success to back his argument, his thoughts on the role of companies in achieving positive social change through corporate social responsibility are very insightful.
Yunus argues early on that through weak or strong CSR programmes, companies will operate either on a level of ‘do no harm to people or planet’ or ‘do good for people and planet’ respectively. Neither of these behaviours will come about if there is a risk to profit and this is the underlying problem with CSR. Why? Because companies have a fundamental responsibility to their shareholders and shareholders measure by profit alone.
This reasoning raised a lot of questions for me in light of Quanta’s work and recent reading I have been doing. One of the key questions that came to mind, was whether we are doing a good enough job as companies in informing our shareholders of the important expectations that other key stakeholders have? Are stakeholders underestimating the value of better social behaviour by their companies or are we failing to make them aware of it?
Marketing firm MS&L Worldwide wrote recently about what they consider to be the new consumer DNA, which has come about following a ‘values recalibration’ with this key stakeholder group. They found that consumers are now looking for companies to demonstrate a social relevance in everything they say and do and that brand distinction (a commonly recognised profit tool) comes about when consumers are engaged in ways ‘that take them to a different, more positive, emotional place’. Sounds remarkably like the effect of a great CSR programme.
Another key stakeholder group for our shareholders to be considering is of course our employees. HR managers across the country are looking for ways to stop employee disengagement and inertia that comes with insecurity in a workforce, so, again, are we overlooking the value of good CSR programmes to keep employee morale and activity high? A Quanta client recently told us that whilst 14% of its workforce was being made redundant a staggering 80% of employees said the CSR programme was essential and had to continue despite the economic climate. It was the only business practice that employees identified should remain the same in light of such significant changes going on within the company. It was the activity employees could rally around and find comfort in.
And of course our stakeholders don’t stop at our consumers or employees, we have our suppliers, government, competitors, society, the environment and not for profit sector to consider. When we listen to all of our stakeholders then we may start to hear a voice intrinsic to profit making that even shareholders cannot ignore. Whilst the rest of Yunus’ book takes us on a voyage through the merits of social enterprises, led by social impact not profit, I cannot help but wonder if the financial crisis and our ‘values recalibration’ as consumers, employees, society, suppliers etc. is giving the corporate sector the space to become social change makers.
For us at Quanta this is the exciting frontier for development. It is why we work on a strategic level with our clients to open their decision making process up to all of their key stakeholder expectations and show them the value of a CSR programme aligned with their business objectives.
- Kim
Yunus argues early on that through weak or strong CSR programmes, companies will operate either on a level of ‘do no harm to people or planet’ or ‘do good for people and planet’ respectively. Neither of these behaviours will come about if there is a risk to profit and this is the underlying problem with CSR. Why? Because companies have a fundamental responsibility to their shareholders and shareholders measure by profit alone.
This reasoning raised a lot of questions for me in light of Quanta’s work and recent reading I have been doing. One of the key questions that came to mind, was whether we are doing a good enough job as companies in informing our shareholders of the important expectations that other key stakeholders have? Are stakeholders underestimating the value of better social behaviour by their companies or are we failing to make them aware of it?
Marketing firm MS&L Worldwide wrote recently about what they consider to be the new consumer DNA, which has come about following a ‘values recalibration’ with this key stakeholder group. They found that consumers are now looking for companies to demonstrate a social relevance in everything they say and do and that brand distinction (a commonly recognised profit tool) comes about when consumers are engaged in ways ‘that take them to a different, more positive, emotional place’. Sounds remarkably like the effect of a great CSR programme.
Another key stakeholder group for our shareholders to be considering is of course our employees. HR managers across the country are looking for ways to stop employee disengagement and inertia that comes with insecurity in a workforce, so, again, are we overlooking the value of good CSR programmes to keep employee morale and activity high? A Quanta client recently told us that whilst 14% of its workforce was being made redundant a staggering 80% of employees said the CSR programme was essential and had to continue despite the economic climate. It was the only business practice that employees identified should remain the same in light of such significant changes going on within the company. It was the activity employees could rally around and find comfort in.
And of course our stakeholders don’t stop at our consumers or employees, we have our suppliers, government, competitors, society, the environment and not for profit sector to consider. When we listen to all of our stakeholders then we may start to hear a voice intrinsic to profit making that even shareholders cannot ignore. Whilst the rest of Yunus’ book takes us on a voyage through the merits of social enterprises, led by social impact not profit, I cannot help but wonder if the financial crisis and our ‘values recalibration’ as consumers, employees, society, suppliers etc. is giving the corporate sector the space to become social change makers.
For us at Quanta this is the exciting frontier for development. It is why we work on a strategic level with our clients to open their decision making process up to all of their key stakeholder expectations and show them the value of a CSR programme aligned with their business objectives.
- Kim
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