Creating Shared Value

The “Creating Shared Value” article made very interesting points about why companies should have socially focused initiatives. The article was written in 2011 all these things have happened since it came out. We have seen a lot of companies change their capitalist mindset. However, this can be seen as another way to strategically develop your company. For example, I worked for a financially company called Columbia Thread Needle Investments. They were in charge of marketing socially-aware investment strategies (E-investments). The way E-investments worked was people would come to the company and ask them to invest their money, like any regular transaction. However, if the customer chooses to have e-investments then Columbia Thread needle could only invest the money with companies that have a socially conscious approach to their company. On the surface-level this seemed like an easy initiative to have with the company.  However, whenever Columbia Thread Needle saw that a company has 99% socially conscious activities and 1% not so socially conscious activities, they could not invest in the company. Also, some customers would become angry because they were not seeing high enough rates of returns. They had to tell the people that the reason why is because their money was tied to only social conscious companies.

I think what companies are dealing with now is understanding that even though they are making changes to the capitalist system, they are losing out on potential profits.  Though they are losing potential profits they are taking a sustainable approach so that profits can exist in the future. A company that is good at creating shared value was ITC. ITC was built on the idea on creating shared value. Compared to existing companies it is much easier for ITC to integrate initiatives into their ventures.  It also believes it is much easier for companies that don’t have national branches. Large companies find it harder to make sustainable changes to their processes at a cost-effective way.

 When I start the work in the entertainment business I will focus on making sustainable investments. For example, a lot of DJ in the music industry tour for about 200 days out of the year. This leads to things like heavy depression and sometimes suicide. In order to be sustainable and make sure the artist can play more shows throughout his/ her life time. Though this will make me have less profits throughout the year I will have more profits within a certain span of time rather than having the artist get burned out. The goal of sustainable investments and conscious thoughts is to increase the life span of goods being produced.