Businesses who ignore corporate responsibility do so at their own peril
Burns
Boards and chief executives who fail to take corporate responsibility seriously will struggle to survive in an age where stakeholders are increasingly focused on the issue.
Wayne Burns, director at The Centre for Corporate Affairs and executive director of Acil Allen Consulting, told the CommsCom conference in Sydney that most successful companies now use corporate responsibility as a way of “managing the business”.
The boss of the public affairs consultancy said business needed to address corporate responsibility at board level, engage with stakeholders and realise that employees are also increasingly keen to play a part.
“Corporations that can’t get their head around this in the very near future won’t be those companies that are in business in 1o, 20, or 30 years time,” Burns told delegates. “They will be taken over, they will stumble and they will fall.”
He said there are high profile examples where companies have failed to take it seriously – Enron and Kodak among them.
“There are companies who didn’t understand the stakeholder environment, and didn’t understand the need to have corporate responsibility,” Burns said. “This is not soft stuff.
“For most companies that are doing well in this country, they look at corporate responsibility as a way of managing the business. It’s not a program, it’s not a unit, it’s a way of managing.
“It’s a way of making decisions and asking ‘how is this going to impact our stakeholders, do we understand our stakeholder priorities'”.
“This is important because reputation has never been more vulnerable or valuable”
Burns said the importance of corporate responsibility has risen since the Global Financial Crisis when the roles of corporations and their behaviour came under so much scrutiny.
Companies, including Coca Cola, are even putting a dollar value on their corporate brads, not just their retail operations.
The “game has changed”, he added.
“There are still naysayers and companies who are missing the mood and not engaging their stakeholders. A lot of chief executives say I shouldn’t have to worry about it but they have to worry about. It’s licence an operate.”
Steve Jones
Totally agree
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STOP PRESS: Public affairs consultancy says public affairs is a critical issue !
somebody should tell Mr Burns that:
1. Enron failed due to FRAUD, not through failing to engage stakeholders
2. Kodak failed due to UNDERESTIMATING DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY, not through failing to engage stakeholders
Misappropriating case studies does nothing but undermine his premise. If you can’t find a decent case study to showcase your point, then obviously you’re waaaaaay overstating the threat….
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