Fruitful

Creating competitive advantage through sustainability

I just published a post on my business blog outlining the five steps to creating competitive advantage through sustainability. Go take a peek and let me know what you think. 

Don't cut CSR spending; reallocate to build your brand

As consumer expectations rise and trust in corporations decline, the need for ethical business practices is greater than ever. Yet in a recession, companies seeking to cut costs will likely postpone important CSR initiatives or cut spending in favor of core business initiatives.

But it doesn’t have to be either-or. Companies that consider social and environmental initiatives as potential innovation platforms and brand builders — not expenses — will come out ahead...

For prioritization frameworks and retail industry example, continue reading on my business blog.

Five strategies for building your ethical brand

There's been a lot of discussion about elevating corporate responsibility to become a strategic driver of your business. Most companies would like to benefit from their ethical efforts in the form of increased customer attraction and loyalty, yet few have figured out how to do it successfully. When marketing and PR are relied on, it can often backfire in accusations of greenwashing. The secret is to apply brand strategy principles to build your ethical reputation.

Continue reading on my business blog.

Strategic CSR in Hospitality

Just wrote a new post on Building the Ethical Reputation: Strategic CSR in Hospitality on my business blog... it includes an Opportunity Audit comparing initiatives for Fairmont Hotels, Marriott and IHG and mapping how well they support the brand strategy. Come visit and contribute your thoughts. 

Lessons in responsibility

Ok, I’m a bit late to the game, but I just stumbled upon Liberty Mutual’s The Responsibility Project that was launched last year. The discovery led me to investigate whether its focus on responsibility was rhetoric or real...

Continue reading this post on my new blog site.

CEOs not seeing CSR as driver of long-term success

In reading PWC's 12th Annual Global CEO Study, I found the chart on "drivers of long-term success" during the downturn to be insightful on how CEOs view corporate social responsibility.

Specifically, while 63% rate brand strength and reputation as critical to success, CSR falls to the bottom of the pack with only 20% perceiving it as critical.

These findings suggest that business leaders are not seeing CSR as a strategic way to strengthen their brand and reputation. Interesting.

As I talk to people about Fruitful's mission to align business strategy with social impact, most people immediately think of philanthropy. Few see social impact as a strategic growth platform integral to the brand and business. I believe that will change given consumers' lack of trust in "business as usual" and the increase of businesses that perceive no conflict between the desires of shareholders and society at large.

GE is a great example of a company that has so tightly aligned CSR with their brand that it's hard to tease the two apart. "Ecomagination is a business initiative to help meet customer demand for more energy-efficient products and to drive reliable growth for GE; growth that delivers for investors long-term."

Eventually, the 80% of business will follow the 20% of leaders like Immelt who value the business-critical role of CSR (or as I've redefined it, corporate social opportunity.) As Immelt once said, We’re not in the business of hobbies. We're in the business of making things that are economically justifiable."

Are you relegating social impact to philanthropy or feel-good programs? Then it's time to shift your thinking about social impact from hobby to win-win competitive advantage. Yes, you may have to cut some pet projects to reallocate CSR resources to better support and align with your brand and business goals. You'll find that it will pay off.

Let's be the change we want to see

New Years Day. Always a time of deep introspection, reflection and reiteration of what I want my life to be all about. I like to think about my life in relation to the whole; in other words, what do I want my relationships, family, business, etc. to be like, and what actions must I take to make that happen?

Along these lines, I couldn't help but think about some of the major trends in business today. There's been so much written about the failure of corporate America to satisfy the needs of customers, and in an attempt to fix the symptoms we've created new mantras (create customer evangelists!), new technologies (CRM), special programs (frequent flier miles), and the list goes on.

But who, exactly, is "corporate America"?
We are.

The corporate transformational change that we consumers have been crying for will happen when we -- the consumers, the customers, the employees -- begin living the changes we want to see. Instead of fixing the symptoms, let's address the root cause. Putting the blame on faceless corporations is the same error as putting the blame on our spouses, our co-workers, our families. Not only are we all connected, but we ourselves are individual components of multiple intersecting wholes.

We, the individuals who make up today's society, have created the world we see today. We've made -- and are continuing to make -- different choices than our parents and grandparents did at our age. These choices have created consequences that we often don't want to recognize or own, so we point outside ourselves and declare the culprits to be the big bad corporations (for whom we work) and government officials (whom we elect) and 'the system' (which we accept).

So what are these choices? Here are a few factoids from Bowling Alone that indicate that our social and family ties are loosening, and we're increasingly withdrawing into ourselves:
- In the past 3 decades, participation in government, local clubs and organizations dropped by up to 50%.
- Job instability, churn and the increasing numbers of independent contractors have resulted in a measurable decline of social connectedness in the workplace.
- Americans are entertaining friends at home 45% less frequently now than in the mid-70s; the number of picnics declined by 60% in the same time period.
- The fraction of married Americans who say that their family 'usually dines together' has dropped from 50% to 34%
- The number of families who vacation together dropped from 53% to 38%; watch TV together from 54% to 41%; sitting and talking, from 53% to 43%
- Reported charitable giving dropped by almost 20% from 1980 to 1995.
- The percentage of those who feel that "people in general today lead as good lives -- honest and moral -- as they used to" dropped from 50% in 1952 to 27% in 1998.

It's interesting to note that these percentages have remained more stable in small towns versus large cities. It's tough to be impersonal in a small town, but quite easy in a city. It's harder to be impersonal when you run a small business than when sheltered in the walls of a large corporation.

These statistics don't just show trends; they reveal our choices. We have chosen -- under the veil of 'too busy, not enough time, not enough money' -- to distance ourselves from our families, our co-workers and our communities. As isolated individuals, it's much easier to forget that we're part of a whole; that we're interconnected with everyone else and that our choices impact others as well as ourselves. We have made these choices individually but the combined effects are now reaching critical mass. How can we connect with a customer when we're not making meaningful connections with our own loved ones?

The lack of corporate/customer relationships is just the tip of the iceberg; it is symptomatic of a much more far-reaching issue. We've somehow adopted an us versus them mentality: not only between companies and customers, but between departments within the same company, between neighborhoods, races and religions. For real change to happen on the corporate and societal level, each one of us must first decide to build richer relationships within our own sphere of influence.... the forged bonds will move upward and outward, but we must start at the core, where we live. We must start by breaking down silos and walls within our own communities and companies and neighborhoods; by reaching out to others with compassion instead of holding back in distrust.

In a similar vein, we're calling on corporations to be more authentic, transparent and honest. Yet how will that happen if we're not transparent and honest ourselves? We so often are fearful of what others will think that we lose sight of our own authenticity. Political correctness has its limits. It's time for both individuals and businesses to stop trying to be all things to all people, and give ourselves permission to live honestly, and -- most importantly -- allow others to live their own truths without trying to change them. Each employee, each member of the whole, must be encouraged to live their own personal brand honestly and openly. When that happens, authentic and transparent corporate brands will naturally fall into place.

So perhaps our 2004 resolutions need not be so mundane. If each of us chooses to take ownership of our small section of the vast social fabric that ties us all together -- to tighten it up and halt the unravelling, not just with technology but with our own authentic goodness -- our society can be irrevocably changed for the better. Speaking for myself, I plan to seek out ways to be more authentic and transparent, more compassionate, and more willing to make time to deepen my connections with others. These are a few of my New Years resolutions; I hope you'll join me.

Favorite quote of the week

As I've been surfing around over the past week, there's one statement that really jumped out at me that I wanted to share here. It's at the end of John Porcaro's post about scarcity: John Porcaro: mktg@msft: Your Economics Professor Was Wrong

Technology will always progress, allowing us to do more with less--breaking the laws of scarcity. And with the rapid adoption of technology, it's happening even faster. So Seth's right: it's going to take smarter, more dedicated people to make real money, and the rest of the world is going to resort to operating on the razor-thin lines of zero profit due to perfect competition. What's really scarce? Wisdom. Courage. Honor. Relationships.

Ahhh. Those words are so scarce in our society and in general business that it's gratifying and nourishing to see them in print. Thanks, John, for the wonderful reminder.