Seeing bigger value in shared value

Clear the stage for Puma CEO Jochen Zeitz. He’s the latest big name calling for a paradigm shift towards businesses thinking about how to “do more good, not just less bad”. ‘CSR’ can't be confined to a single department, he says, ‘responsibility’ must be woven into the fabric of big business.

Zeitz has seen the business benefit of this kind of approach. His comments are reported in Marketing Week in an article titled ‘The New CSR: This time it’s profitable’, which documents the rush of companies realising that good business is good for the bottom line.

From M&S' £50million benefit of Plan A, to Coca Cola's $100million saving from reduced packaging, this is valuable reading for those knocking on the Chief Financial Officer's door.

The idea that businesses can generate real business value through delivering broader societal value is nothing new. It’s something that Good Business has been helping companies to achieve since 1997! But there certainly seems to be a real and growing buzz about ‘shared value’ this year, kicking off in January with a challenge to old-style capitalist models from Harvard School’s Professor Michael Porter. Let’s hope Marketing Week can inspire the marketing world to join the charge towards responsible growth.

Time to rethink your appearance

Recession and our choice of images - it's not something that I would have really thought about but, having read this recent article and gone through the process of helping write and source content and images for one of our client's responsible business section of its Annual Report, its clearly something on the corporate agenda. What we're seeing is a shift in the images used in corporate communication in these times of austerity.

Could this be a line in the sand that starts to demonstrate how much more companies are thinking about sustainability and corporate responsibility? Many businesses are showing they are concerned about what its stakeholders think of it. Business is aware that trust needs to be rebuilt. Aloofness, arrogance and one up-manship are out. In are open, friendly, inclusive pictures that show you, as a business, cares – as David Cameron might say – “we’re all in this together”.

Okay so we’re talking about communications and communications doesn't always mean the company has changed. However, I’m a great believer that half the battle is just starting the process. Often writing a report is less about what is written and more about the process of starting to think about the issues you are reporting about. Also, in this day and age of technology and social media if you don't live up to your word, you will be found out pretty quickly.

I’m sure there are plenty of examples of where companies have made this shift – can you think of any examples that stand out? Or examples that don't quite live up to the pictures?