Does your Organisation have a Corporate Social Responsibility Strategy?

What is your organisation’s direct and indirect impact on its stakeholders? How can you measure it effectively?

An organisation has a direct impact on its stakeholders namely suppliers, customers, work colleagues, and consumers of its goods and services. It also has a range of indirect impacts on non-governmental organisations and an indirect, but often significant impact on the local community within which it operates, and on the national or indeed global community. It is therefore important for an organisation to recognise its responsibilities to its suppliers, customers, and staff and address the way it impacts on its social and physical environment.

Organisations need to review their current performance, determine if their current level of performance meets predetermined ethical aims and objectives and if necessary identify how the organisation could improve and communicate this to their stakeholders. The management team need to define these aims and objectives so that they can drive internal improvements, potentially decrease the cost of production and also build the confidence of customers and potential customers in the organisation. To be a preferred supplier they must inspire trust and confidence by consistently meeting the quality standards of their customers, ensuring reliability in meeting product and service requirements, and seeking to continuously measure and improve performance. They must also be able to demonstrate their understanding of the ways that their activities affect the local community. A Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Strategy can deliver brand value and increase brand equity by acting as a management tool to:

· manage and where possible reduce costs,

· manage, mitigate or minimise risk,

·  and identify new  organisational opportunities.  

Therefore a CSR strategy describes an organisation’s vision - its key aims, objectives and measurable indicators of success. It also defines an organisation’s governance structure and the management systems that are in place. Many organisations produce an annual report to inform their stakeholders of their CSR performance and report is increasingly being utilised as a marketing tool as well as an organisational driver.  So, how do you define your organisation’s key environmental, social and economic priorities? How do you measure business success?