Competitive business environment with unexpected changes of external environment and lack of necessary information demand to provide successful sustainable strategy for the company. According to the 2010 UN Global Compact-Accenture CEO Study “A New Era of Sustainability”, more than 90% of top-managers believe that sustainable culture can provide a brighter future for their firms (Bertels, 2010). It is the common knowledge that engaging with sustainability pave the way for the growth opportunities and make the company prosperous. According to the McKinsey Global Survey results, companies define sustainability as the process of managing environment, governance and social issues. More than 60% of managers consider that using sustainability strategies important to overall long-term corporate strategy (McKiney Company, 2010).
The sustainability strategy builds on the cooperation of four basic components as economic, governance, social and environment. Experts from the area affirm that social part is one of the most significant for maintaining the high level of marketability. It has an impact on the importance of competent strategy within the role of the company in our society. Modern corporation everyday meet challenges due to expectation that society and employee's place on them. However, those expectations can be effective for further companies’ approach to the thorough rethinking of their long-term development strategy.
In order to manage the sustainable culture and creating value for the company’s shareholders and society, managers can use corporate social responsibility strategy (CRS). Kellie McElhaney defines CRS as a business strategy that is integrated with core business objectives and core competencies of the firm, and from the outset is designed to create business value and positive social change, and is embedded in day-to-day business culture and operation (McElhaney, 2009). I completely agree with this definition and believe that if a company follow CRS strategy, it will drive a sustainable culture within the organization. According to the CRS, during the process of building long-term sustainable strategy, it is necessary to develop company’s mission and vision. The significant part of it is providing the assessment of external and internal environments with SWOT analysis and identifying strategy alternatives for business activities. The actual goal for most corporate social responsibility strategies is engaging the key principles of sustainable culture. However, experts admit that CSR includes not only the social part of business conduct; it is also connected to the revenue increasing and creation share value.
Within the bounds of modern CSR strategy, successful companies’ leaders develop a system of employee motivation and build the favorable working environment. We can describe favorable working environment not only by flexible hours and free kitchen, but also by sufficient financial support and benefit package. It is important to ensure the fulfillment of employees’ interests and requests.
The companies’ leaders can measure the success of CRS strategy, developing the annual CRS reports. Kellie McElhaney states that the better CRS reports, the more probability of revenue and value increasing (McElhaney, 2009). In order to provide an annual CRS report, the company’s managers can use the set of activities, including payroll payment, the amount of the overtime work, results of employee assessment, contribution to human resources development etc.
The integration CRS strategy of the company’s long-term development strategy will ensure its sustainable future success. The growing of the importance of CRS strategy in the nearly future will be the significant part of business management. I consider that all existent companies will engage the strategy into their management and performance system.
References
Bertels, S. (2010). How can organizations build durable, enduring cultures of sustainability? Network for business sustainability. Retrieved from
http://nbs.net/knowledge/topic-culture/culture/executive-report-organizational-culture/
Google’s Rules. (2011). The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2011/03/11/business/20110313_sbn_GOOGLE-HIRES-graphic.html
McKinsey Company. (2010). How companies manage sustainability: McKinsey Global Survey results. Retrieved from
http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/sustainability-and-resource-productivity/our-insights/how-companies-manage-sustainability-mckinsey-global-survey-results
McElhaney, K. (2009). A Strategic Approach to Corporate Social Responsibility. Executive forum. Retrieved from
https://responsiblebusiness.haas.berkeley.edu/documents/Strategic%20CSR%20(Leader%20to%20Leader,%20McElhaney).pdf
