Reflections on Social Business !

Few points to ponder from last week’s session by Mr.Harish Hande , MD,SELCO.

·        If a non-English speaker can become the CEO in China / Japan, why an Non-English speaker in India can’t become the CEO of an Indian MNC.
·        If you don’t ensure social sustainability, it would be five times more expensive than the financial sustainability five years down the lane.
·        Doing a Socially Responsible Business is all about how far you can connect the different economic strata of the society in the value chain process.
·        Is it only the metro people who can teach a rural government school kid ? Isn’t it possible the other way round ?
·        Social Investments to create equity is the main rationale behind CSR and its not a philanthropy
·        It’s all about increasing the buying power and not about offering discounts !

Today giving takes the quality of boomerang !!!

Ten years ago, giving was all about churning out money for the marginalized communities. But today it’s all about how to make them employable and empowered to survive. Social sector has undergone a complete metamorphosis, where the primary focus is on creating a social capital through addressing the needs of marginalized communities such that they become self- sustainable. Giving back to the society has become a mandatory responsibility from an act of philanthropy.

When things are scarce and needs are more - it’s very important to make investments that have higher impact on the long term well-being of the society moving from more to all.

At this juncture, business organizations are proactive enough to realize that in a country that has a third of the world's poor, 200 million people being food insecure and 300 million people having no access to electricity - they can’t do business any more. Selling gets tough when there is no potential market to tap.

In order to grow, business needs employable labors to work and more affordable individuals to buy. In this regard business fraternity was proactive enough to realize that leaving behind 50 % of the population in the growth trajectory would be synonymous to a man cutting a tree sitting at a wrong end and hence companies have started collaborating for growth.

This led companies to look beyond profits addressing the needs of the marginalized sector, empowering them to become affordable, creating social capital beyond generating economic value for the business and nation.

Recent bill by Government of India that mandates 2 % of three years average profit of the companies with investment of 500 crore and above (or) with annual turnover of 1000 crore and above (or) yearly profit of 5 crore and above, to be spend on CSR programs targeting 10 high impact areas specified by the government is great step forward in this line.

It intends inclusive economics and creating meaningful investments that would reap long term benefits where investments are not only for nurturing the marginalized community but also to tap the latent customer base to create economic value for business. Here giving takes the quality of boomerang.