The Way Forward - Part 1

by Carlos Menezes

A couple of weeks ago I was at a friend's place, slowly but surely eating her out of house and home. With us was a group of twenty-something’s that have decided to get together every month and discuss topical issues.

Conscientious Consumerism
This time the issue was “conscientious consumerism”. Now, being from a business background I normally struggle to identify with friends who constantly send me emails persuading me to boycott Shell because they're driving the world to an ecological meltdown, or to stop buying Procter & Gamble products because they have all been tested on animals. While I share their concerns I tend to have a more sceptical view about such claims. There's just too much room for our own suspicions of these Big Brother corporations to build up strong prejudices before we properly do our research.

I'm not denying that the vast majority of these corporations have probably damaged our world and its people to a great extent, but there is the distinct possibility that they've changed. No, this isn't some naïve belief that brands and companies have a passionately inherent utilitarian trait about them. Rather, these entities are being forced to adopt a more benevolent corporate personality in order to survive in the twenty-first century. Sustainability reporting is now more crucial to many mega-companies than pure bottom-line profits. As globalisation speeds up, so too does technology, and with it, accountability. Companies are being forced to look ever further into the future and as such need to take the well-being of all stakeholders into account.

Films like Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth are hitting larger audiences more powerfully than ever before. They poke at topical issues and get people talking. The problem I have with this is that everybody is going to think that they are an expert on any matter after having watched one movie or read one blog post. The solution to most of our problems will never be reached by lighting torches and brandishing pitchforks at the gates of rampant capitalism. What happens then when no noticeable effect is forthcoming? Do the disgruntled masses trudge back home into their comfortable lifestyles once more turning a blind eye to the pertinent issues at hand? Who does this benefit? Not the consumers… as they will not achieve what they set out to do, nor the corporations and brands as the ill-feelings will impact negatively on their bottom-line at some stage.

I was struck by how aware my friends were of the limits of their knowledge on these matters. But here was a group of people, all of them with very strong beliefs (yeah, read “world saving tree-huggers” if you want to), ready to argue both for and against what is generally perceived as the “great evil” of our world.

I have always found it a bit of a cop-out to boycott one company, or launch a preaching crusade against an established brand. It's just too easy to sit here and proclaim that one entity is wrong and is to be held responsible for all of our woes. Corporations and brands are here – seemingly to stay. If somebody truly wants to make a difference they will analyse the problem, find a solution, and implement it. If you don't agree with how a firm is running its business, come up with a better way and start your own endeavour. Or better yet, propose the solution to the firm and get them to accept it - just don't hide from the facts. These solutions are easy to volunteer, but much harder to transform into something pragmatic.

Questioning of brands and companies has been around for a long time – it goes hand-in-hand with the denouncing of the evils of capitalism. And this dissatisfaction with our commercial rulers has greatly prevented the wrong face of capitalism from fully merging. But this questioning gives itself to sceptical prejudices far too easily for my own liking. What if there is a way forward and we don't want to believe it merely because in our eyes these companies are evil and we refuse to accept that they can change?

Talking with my friends who have very little exposure to the world of commerce really drove home that there are people out there who believe that the corporate world can change. They want to know more. And they are making themselves heard!
 
Companies have a choice of either engaging with these stakeholders or ignoring them. The first option can see the corporates and their consumers establish relationships which will lend themselves to levels of reward as yet not evident in our world.
The latter could prove to be catastrophic.

Next Time
I'll be carrying on my train of thought in another two blog posts in the coming week. In part 2 I'll chat about a case study that I came across during my studies last year. It involves a giant company with good intentions that tried to set itself on this quasi-idealistic path, but failed due to its past reputation preceding it. And to conclude this series of posts I hope to outline some possible ideas for transforming this idealistic vision into a very attainable goal.

2007/01/30 | permalink | comments (7) | trackbacks (0)

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