#Business as usual meaning free

Research from Boston Consulting Group shows that adding social impact to sales proposals can increase sales up to 7%, increase employee engagement and retention up to 7%, boost net promoter scores (NPS) by up to 7 points, and positively influence environmental, social and governance (ESG) ratings. In fact, using social impact as a tool to close deals has a better return on investment than other client acquisition tools, and it can help the sales team close more business deals, deepen customer relationships and actually improve profit margins. Sales departments can add social impact into their proposals, differentiating themselves by offering to underwrite social impact programs aligned with their buyers’ CSR goals.

#Business as usual meaning free

Why would suppliers underwrite these social impacts? It turns out social impact as a sales differentiator is 13 times more valuable than traditional sales incentives like free shipping or volume rebates. By reporting the impact to key internal and external stakeholders, they can derive significant cross-company value, benefiting human resources, investor relations, marketing and communications, and corporate social responsibility (CSR) - all at no additional cost because it’s underwritten by the supplier. In addition to negotiating the best price and terms, buyers can also add social impact into their request for proposals (RFPs) to generate new funding for nonprofit programs. Yet many key departments across the organization are overlooked when it comes to driving social change.įor instance, procurement teams can leverage social impact sourcing to advance their organization's social and sustainability goals.

Many companies are already integrating social impact into their marketing strategies to improve brand reputation and consumer favorability. To create enduring social change - that not only benefits nonprofits but also generates value for corporations - social impact initiatives must advance the company’s key performance indicators (KPIs). Right now, the business community needs a new paradigm that delivers growth while simultaneously creating robust and sustainable funding streams to address COVID-19 - and, going forward, impending predicaments like world hunger, climate change and other humanitarian crises.Įmbedding Social Impact Into Each And Every Department

All too often, this results in woefully inadequate contributions to fund nonprofit programs that take on society’s imminent challenges. In the traditional model of corporate philanthropy, a business determines the size of its donation based on its profitability only after it has completed its key business operations. The current infrastructure for charitable giving is not only incredibly fragile, but it is also limited by financial constraints. While these philanthropic donations are critical to addressing the immediate fallout of COVID-19, this source of funding actually runs the risk of depletion because corporate profitability is threatened by the pandemic.

Today, companies big and small are rising to the call by donating millions of dollars to nonprofits on the front lines of the crisis. That’s why the government alone can’t solve dire social challenges. Deep-rooted, interconnected issues require coordinated, interconnected solutions. The current crisis reveals just how vulnerable society is when we continually fail to address systemic issues like poverty, homelessness and educational inequality. Rewiring Business Operations To Address Social NeedsĬOVID-19 has devastated the lives and livelihoods of communities across the world. It’s time to ask ourselves how we can redesign business models and rewire operations so that people’s needs are at the center of business - not just in times of crisis, but every day. While issues like climate change, social inequality or world hunger disproportionally hurt low-income communities, their effects ultimately hurt everyone, threatening the business community, too.ĭuring this critical time, we need to seize this opportunity to reevaluate the role of business. Post-crisis, we won’t return to “business as usual” - nor should we, because business as it was before the pandemic played far too small a role in addressing society’s most pressing problems, many of which are exacerbated by COVID-19.