Corporate Social Responsibility
CSR, ISR, Corporate Giving, employee involvement … big words … common in today’s time but still uncommon in practice.
In Indian context, TATA is one name which comes to mind at the mere mention of CSR.(Corporate Social Responsibility) Their advertisement – ‘We also make steel’ says it all and is still a benchmark for corporate world across India. Since then many companies have joined the CSR bandwagon. Reasons vary … so does the effort, the impact and the chosen way/means.
But most of these are big names with turnover in thousands and crores and hence fully armed with all possible resources! In their case it’s only the intention which breaks or builds their CSR!
But what about the smaller companies? The SME’S – The small and medium size enterprises! Where do they stand in the CSR picture?
Ask them and the answer is same … We are still in growing stage and need to concentrate on our growth, our business and our profits. We are too small to make an impact … To do CSR … To allocate resources to CSR!
The argument is always the same
The reasoning always defensive.
They don’t think that they can/should do it.
Actually it’s not about if they can/should do it … its all about mind set… their mind set!
Practically, socially, feasibly and profitably they can and should do it. It’s all in the mind.
It’s all about Individual Social Responsibility (ISR) … owning one’s ISR and collectively doing CSR.
Infact, if only the SME’s look at CSR … they will realize that CSR is one tool which can help more than many marketing tools put together. Also if only they put CSR and marketing together in different permutations and combinations the impact can be manifold and gains astounding.
For simple reasons, that CSR
Does improve the brand value
- Does show consumers that the company cares
- Does indicate that it’s not all about only profits
- Gives the Emotional / humanity connect
And all these together can help any business grow big.
I know of this Spa & Beauty saloon, which within the first year if its inception, adopted two parks – took care of plantation and maintenance, organised environment day and children’s day with the community for the underprivileged children. As I was speaking to Shweta, the owner, she said she wanted to do something and didn’t see any reason to wait for few years, break even and then start on!
It is all about the mind set and attitude!
In her case, the park and other activities, which she proactively advertised with banners and media releases have had a positive impact on her clients and has given her the social and business edge over her competitors.
This is just one example, Google and I am sure there are many more such stories.
Moral – Look at the CSR as your ISR
And inculcate it in your organisation at every level by aligning your business development marketing strategies with your social efforts.
10 Top CSR Tips for Smaller Businesses – http://davidcoethica.wordpress.com/2009/04/01/10-top-csr-tips-for-small-and-medium-sized-businesses/
