14 Feb 2008 in Corporate Culture, Corporate Responsibility, Information Integrity
This week, IBM released a study on Businesses Seeking Growth through Social Responsibility available at: www.ibm.com/gbs/csrstudy.
IBM surveyed more than 250 business leaders globally to gauge how deeply Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has penetrated the core of corporate strategies and operations to discover that two-thirds of them are focusing on CSR activities to create new revenue streams. However, IBM found fewer than one-quarter of those surveyed believe they understand their customers' and other stakeholders CSR expectations well. This should be an alarming finding in today’s economic environment when customer expectations - and clout - are an increasingly important business dynamic.
This week, IBM released a study on Businesses Seeking Growth through Social Responsibility available at: www.ibm.com/gbs/csrstudy.
IBM surveyed more than 250 business leaders globally to gauge how deeply Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has penetrated the core of corporate strategies and operations to discover that two-thirds of them are focusing on CSR activities to create new revenue streams. However, IBM found fewer than one-quarter of those surveyed believe they understand their customers' and other stakeholders CSR expectations well. This should be an alarming finding in today’s economic environment when customer expectations - and clout - are an increasingly important business dynamic.
IBM’s data and analyses support what many have known intuitively—that the Internet’s influence on buying behavior is immense and growing. By providing easily accessible, often in-depth information about companies, their global supply chain partners, their investments, and their impact on people, society and the environment, increasingly ubiquitous Web access is driving customer decisions and activism. As a result, businesses of every size need to understand more fully the threats and opportunities of CSR or more simply, corporate responsibility.
Today, everything--from a reputation for fair and ethical behavior, to concerns about climate change, to product safety issues, to labor practices, to corporate financial accountability, to questions about whether enough profits are being returned to the community --drive consumer, stock-holder and other business decisions.
The idea of CSR or Corporate Responsibility as a competitive advantage and growth opportunity, rather than a compliance function or cost of doing business is long overdue. Only when an organization's commitment to ethical and responsible action is wholly integrated into all strategy and operations can businesses remain competitive in today’s information saturated environment. Unfortunately, as IBM and others have documented, much activity in the name of corporate responsibility is still driven by the desire to contain, rather than engage, critics and to hide mistakes, rather than revel in taking corrective action. The only way for businesses to get a better handle on consumer, stakeholder and business partner expectations is to foster relationships based on integrity, trust, transparency, continuous engagement and collaboration.
The Internet has transformed the market, now CEO and board leadership needs to transform corporate culture to meet the challenge of corporate responsibility.
GM
