BEYOND CSR TO INTEGRATED EXTERNAL ENGAGEMENT

Role of business is constantly evolving in an ever changing phase of Globalization. Along with the economic factors and guidelines driving the businesses, organizations today are bringing out new innovations and services, so that they can maintain a synergy with the society within which they co-exist. Now is the time that organizations should move on from boardroom discussions and half hearted approaches of the traditional concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), to adopt a focused approach towards the concept of external engagement with much greater emphasis on the Triple Bottom Line i.e. Environmental, Social and Financial aspects. Before discussing further, let us understand first the definition of an external engagement. External Engagement is a step that organizations take in order to develop and foster a relationship with an external world constituting of direct and indirect customers, competitors and society where it thrives. The external engagement is not just limited to social activity and philanthropy, it is about involving the society in the company’s operations and an overall functioning, thus creating and innovating products and services for the benefit of the society.“We are finding out quite rapidly that to be successful in the long term we have to ask: what do we actually give to society to make it better? We’ve made it clear to the organization that it’s our business model, starting from the top”. This is a statement by Pual Polman, CEO of Unilever, echoing the importance of integrating external engagement of organization with an external world. As one of the external engagement practice, is the recent example of Unilever’s partnership and the Earth Institute at Columbia University, under the leadership of its CEO, Paul Polman.The culture of an organization is driven by its leadership, thus proportionally effecting the external engagement and its integration into the mainstream philosophy of an organization. This is the reason why a traditional approach to corporate social responsibility is not successful, unless the organizations cease to treat CSR as an exercise to flaunt their reputation and the CSR activities end up becoming a job of one of the department in an organization. Relationship and engagement at any level is necessary and absence of the same can jeopardize the functioning of an organization. Thus, while organizations today are focusing on internal employee engagement, at the same time, external engagement must also be on the top agenda of company’s policy and must run parallel. In one of the Mckinsey Report, there are four areas that organizations must focus on to excel in the field of external engagement. These are: defining your contribution area; knowing who your stakeholder is; applying world class management and engaging radically. Complete alignment with an external environment, is the key element of external engagement for any business. As Phill Stubbs very aptly said, “When the wind blows there are those that build walls and then there are those that build wind mills”. By Dr. Gaganjit Singh- Executive President.