Several months after David Cameron spoke to Business In The Community about his vision for Business in Big Society, they have released their Business Case for being a Responsible Business, outling 7 – or possibly 9 – clear selfish motivations for companies to adopt sustainability and corporate responsibility agendas. You’ll be unsurprised to learn I looked at it another way: it offers social entrepreneurs a list of 7 – or possibly 9 – key sales messages to help them get into the supply chains of big businesses.
The Foreward to the document stresses ‘What is needed is …what McKinsey & Co call ‘long-term capitalism’… This means ensuring that responsible business is at the heart of all aspects of business operations and business models, and not just a preoccupation of one department. And it means new connections and partnerships that will help businesses take a more joined-up approach to their activities…’. Quite. I’ve been trying to come up with a metaphor to describe what an organisation looks like with social businesses integrated at every level, in every supply chain… I got as far as the not-very-catchy expression ‘good parasites’. But then I remembered my GCSE Biology – that the correction definition is Mutualists – ‘organisms that live inside us and help us or do us good’. This is interesting – the strapline of this blog is ‘…working together for mutual benefit’ – exactly what mutualism means in biology: independent selfish pursuits which have clear benefits for both parties.
I’ll go through the BITC list of benefits one by one below, each time referencing one of my current clients that I feel could use this sales message:
1. Brand value and reputation
To my mind, this is about building trust with your consumers and to be able to do that you need to understand them. Social entrepreneurs are incredibly good at understanding the needs and representing the views of the people in their communities.
One thing private sector companies that deliver public services really suffer from is a branding issue. Why should …say…Serco work with Beyond Youth? Because Beyond Youth know their beneficiaries inside out. They have a trusting relationship of mutual respect that Serco could only dream of. This relationship is what creates such amazing results for Beyond Youth but it also would strengthen Serco’s brand amongst government, beneficiaries and members of the public.
2. Employees and future workforce
CSR is considered a powerful way to attract and retain valuable staff. Embedding social businesses within your company structure shows you want your staff to do business in the right way. whomadeyourpants are a worker’s cooperative in Southampton, providing flexible employment, training and community ties for marginalised local women. What they can’t teach your company about treating your staff right, about ‘investing in people’, isn’t worth knowing.
3. Operational effectiveness
This is all about more efficient processes: saving money through innovative business practice. Clients of mine from FoodCycle, Intergen and Bristol Together all drive efficiencies in their businesses through effectively monitising what others would consider ‘waste’ – waste people or waste product – in catering, teaching an construction respectively.
4. Risk reduction and management
If any of you have seen the current Magners ad about a man with a beard made of bees you’ll know that “without the bees, there’d be no 17 varieties of apples to make Magners”. Quite funny… but were Magners to work with someone like the Bee Guardian Foundation they could genuinely ensure that their business is protected against what are the very serious consequences of rapidly declining bee populations.
When Greg Dyke described his company as ‘hideously white’ he set a clear agenda for media companies to employ as diverse a work-force as the consumers who they sell to. Catch 22 Magazine work with UK media companies to provide staff and produce content from ethnically and culturally diverse backgrounds. Yes, its CSR – and yes, there may even be legislation to fine those organisations that don’t – but how can having writers that represent and understand the views of your readers and viewers NOT make for a stronger long-term business proposition?
6. Organisational growth
Private Health Insurance firms make vast fortunes from corporate clients but incur huge expense dealing with stress and mental health issues caused by employers. Wouldn’t the company attract more staff and the insurance firms save vast amounts of money by contracting pre-emptive, mood-monitoring services like Moodscope or Mindapples as a core employee benefit… a new market in prevention rather than cure.
7. Business opportunity
Patients Know Best have seen the future of healthcare. It’s in patient-controlled records. Any large pharmaceutical company worth it’s salt should have spotted this huge Market opportunity by now and be fighting themselves to work with PKB. Patients get better treatment, NHS save time and money and the pharmaceutical companies deliver a better, more effective product.
8. Responsible leadership
For responsible, innovative, brave, ambitious leaders look no further than Kate, David and Arthur of The People’s Supermarket. Tell me there’s a company out there that couldn’t learn from their approach to radically rethinking a huge part of the lives of every single one of us. Re-thinking key issues around local food, strong communities, a fair price to suppliers & food waste whilst running a profitable business.
9.Macro-level sustainable development
Eco Computer Systems collect unwanted IT equipment from local businesses in South London (mostly at no cost to the businesses). They train long-term unemployed from the area to repair it and then resell online. With the profits they make they have taken over 4 libraries in the borough and provide IT training and free/heavily reduced broadband and laptops for digitally excluded on local estates. Macro-level (well, borough-level) sustainable development. Local businesses improve the wealth, health and education of local residents simply through making a supply chain purchase decision.
These are just a handful of social entrepreneurs I work with. There are hundreds more out there that tick these boxes. So… a call out to all social entrepreneurs: with which of the following key sales messages can you drive value for businesses whilst pursuing your own selfish, social goals?
Shared Value Supply Chains 