Don't be misled by the word social in the title. This is a book
about how to improve corporate performance and gain competitive
advantage. In Corporate Social Opportunity! Grayson and Hodges
challenge perceived wisdom that adherence by business to corporate
social responsibility (CSR) is a zero-sum game where the impact on
companies is added costs and extra regulatory burden. From their
unique vantage point working with leaders of global businesses and
of local communities, the authors explain how powerful drivers
forcing companies to adopt stringent social, ethical and
environmental standards simultaneously create largely untapped
opportunities for product innovation, market development and
non-traditional business models. The key to exploiting these
opportunities lies in building CSR into business strategy, not
adding it on to business operations. With examples from 200
companies to illustrate their case, they outline both in theory and
practice a seven-step process managers can apply to assess the
implications of CSR on their business strategy and identify their
own corporate social opportunities. Business is operating in a
whirlwind of interacting global forces: revolutionary developments
in communications and technology, significant changes in markets,
shifts in demographics, and a transformation of personal values.
The fallout from these forces is the underlying reason that
corporate social responsibility has come of age. These global
forces have led to a number of issues-such as ecology and
environment, human rights and diversity, health and well-being, and
communities-becoming potential liabilities for companies. Once
regarded as 'soft' management issues, they are now increasingly
recognised as hard to predict and hard for the business to deal
with when they go wrong. Corporate Social Opportunity!, by the
authors of the best-selling Everybody's Business moves the argument
from the "why" of corporate social responsibility (CSR) to the
"how" and beyond - to a future where CSR is perceived as an
opportunity for business both in terms of reaping the benefits of
retaining brand or organisational value and by developing new
products and services, serving new markets and adopting new
business models. This is not always a story of black and white, of
what is right or what is wrong. Often it embraces apparently
conflicting demands which require the application of judgement,
guided by a clear sense of overall direction and corporate purpose.
This book is designed to act as a compass for aiding navigation
through such dilemmas and complex decisions. Using examples of
current good practice, detailed interviews with leading CEOs and
newly created diagnostic planning tools, all framed within a
seven-step model for making CSR happen, the book aims to provide a
practical guide to help business leaders and their managers
understand how to assess the impact of corporate social
responsibility factors on their core business strategy and
operations and help them identify and prioritise between subsequent
options and resulting business opportunities. The book is
structured into two parts. Both parts describe the same seven-step
model which, if followed, will help managers think through desired
changes to business strategies, and necessary corresponding changes
to operational practices. In Part 1, the seven steps-triggers;
scoping; making the business case; committing to action; resources
and integrating operations; engaging stakeholders; and measuring
and reporting-are described and illustrative evidence and
corresponding data provided. In Part 2, the authors have created a
worked example of the diagnostic processes that form the backbone
of the seven steps, based on the health and well-being issue of
fast food and the growing problem of obesity, particularly among
children, along with notes on how a manager might work through the
processes with colleagues. The authors are pro-business although
not business-as-usual. The book is written first and foremost with
the purpose of helping to improve business performance, because
business is after all the principal motor for growth and
development in the world today. The authors argue that companies
adhering to best practice in CSR and taking advantage of
possibilities inherent in Corporate Social Opportunity! are good
for shareholders as well as customers and employees.
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