If you care about you reputation, you'll know, both intuitively and explicitly, what and how to do - and how not to. This should apply to business, as well.
Brand is definitely one of the most valuable assets to any business. Brand management must bring along risk management covering customer experience. Customers nowadays live more and more constantly in their social networks.
Firms may "own" their brands, but brands really live in the heads of their consumers. Companies must constantly nurture and actively manage their brands at the speed customers form opinions about them. -Real-time Brand Management, Harvard Business Review
Therefore quality of service, the core product itself, must be supported with an excellent array of customer service use.
Managing environmental risks
But the core processes need to be acceptable, too. The business is not allowed to bring harm to people, never to its customers, nor to its employers; but not to the environment. Not any more. Today business processes need to be sustainable.
I believe Nestle was one of the first 'naughty ones' I remember hearing of when I was a kid. Back then there were no computers in every day life, and the most 'social media' there was, was shopping at the same time with your neighbors =) Well, 30 years later, Nestle is in trouble again. This time in Facebook. The topic has changed: this time it is palm oil.
They will not accept unethical behavior. Their opinion might matter to your customers. (Vol.2*link corrected*)
Even the most cautious preparations get caught by surprise. Preserving the environment, let alone the ultimately vulnerable rain forest, must have been a top priority in an multi-million investment of Botnia in Uruguay.
Environmental challenges bring sustainability and new business ideas. To be continued..
It is time to dive into the bigger picture. You might have been asking, what on earth connects the dots from green values to hardcore moneymaking.
The answer is customer, the citizen, the Conscious Consumer. He or she is more and more often willing to enlighten also others in his or her no-cost social media networks.
Not hurting the nature means most of all responsibility in all business processes. And this is where we bump into ethics. If the right choice costs more, your bottom line is bound to suffer. Mission impossible? My previous post at Vol.1
China and Finland, cases mentioned in Vol.1, were crimes covered by the traditional press. South-Korean girl not taking care of her dog waste or a blogging mother at the mercy of a multi-national conglomerate are examples of the power of this new media. It offers those long-needed channels through which to participate and do our share for the mutual cause.
That's why nature is also your business!
Social media is a means to build social (environmental) awareness. That's why sustainability is a value that is - and must be - on the rise. As Esko Kilpi put it: There is a shift of paradigm going on.
That paradigm is something big; so big that not one business can afford to neglect it.
As people are testifying odd weathers, reading scary reports and watching terrifying pictures from natural catastrophes they are also searching for information. Web offers them loads of details, also and more and more often misbehavior and neglect of companies, among other things.
Be aware: those who care just won't turn away. They will not accept unethical behavior. Their opinion might matter to your customers.
Gradually this "Mission impossible" type of equation is becoming reality. Winning fast profits at the expense of someone else - and the nature - is turning social media audience against anyone trying it. Dare you try?
A breakfast seminar a few weeks ago. The stage is set for two extremely radiant thought leaders: Esko Kilpi and Ilkka Herlin(F).
The main theme for the day was to approach a triangle that didn't use to (or did it?) have anything in common: the Business, green values and social media. Now this all has changed: social media has brought the essential elements together: around the customer - citizen.
The discussions were elevating. The brief history of Baltic Sea Action Group was a great thing to hear. It is a story of one man. But in my mind, it's also a story of building a brand - something that can be bigger than just us as individuals.
Timing is important in order to be heard
At our best we are a rich combination of our values, experiences and contacts. Bring in a pinch of passion, mix it with inspiration and other talented, passionate people - and there are no limits what can happen!
This is what Ilkka has built. His interests, career, family backgrounds.. it all has taken him to where he - this cause - is now. His passion and actions for the nature and the Baltic Sea had to wait for about ten years for others to wake up and join the cause.
During those years came another man, who after not becoming the president of the US of A concentrated his energies working against the climate change. His work has been spreading the word, waking up those others. Yet another influential man, Bill Clinton, has used his influence and networks to gather resources for the benefit of the things he believes in.
Wake up! Do nothing and we're gonna be in deep *you know*.
Looking for a change
Let's think about the traditional business drivers for a minute. Financial laws demand that business create profits to the owners. Everything evolves around the quarterly reporting for the P/E.
This responsibility to spend wisely applies, of course, to the public sector, too. What I am saying, is that short term planning simply isn't enough. It is extremely difficult to build financial models, scenarios if you will, that could actually bind together income from the further future with the expenditure invested today. In other words, how do we justify the cost of doing something slightly outside the scope of the next quarter, or two years in the public sector? How do we build the scenario in monetary terms?
Eternal growth is an impossibility
Esko put it this way: We all have been taught that full employment can only be achieved it the annual growth of GDP exceeds 3%. Thus what we need to do is to make sure that our expenditure grows; that's how we best help our neighbor in need of a job. What about the Third world? It's our turn, they claim! And all the statistics show that the poor planet just can't cope the exploitation of the natural resources. On the other hand, the amount of waste goes beyond reason.
It is our turn to give way to other people's needs.
But that doesn't have to mean the destruction of the western businesses! It just calls in for new business ideas, like recycling the raw materials. You just need to come up with the idea that turns recycled materials into desirable products thus generating lucrative business. Take a look at Globe Hope.
Not hurting the nature means most of all responsibility in all business processes. And this is where we bump into ethics. If the right choice costs more, your bottom line is bound to suffer. Mission impossible?
NO! In China you could, for a while, add plastics into milk to make it more nutritious - only as far as you got caught (and might lose your head). In Finland the waste company was able to dump the waste into storm drain - until it got caught and lost its reputation and hence business deals.
But it must be impossible to justify a bigger expenditure in favor of something general, say nature? There the cost is bound to generate no money, only something, not measurable, that will benefit somebody else, right?
WRONG! Nature is everybody's business. Businesses', too.
If you care about you reputation, you'll know, both intuitively and explicitly, what and how to do - and how not to. This should apply to business, as well.
