De La Salle University - Manila

A Focus on Values as a vehicle

for Sustainable Financial
Management
Managing Sustainable Business
Prof. Vincent de Paz
 Learning Objectives
• Learn importance of values in making financial management decisions
• Study financial strategies anchored on entrepreneurs’ values and mental
models
Under what circumstances should
companies sacrifice profit to exercise
their social or environmental benefits?
Financial strategies for value-centered
entrepreneurs
Pursue Profits
Premium Positioning

Controlling Costs

Aggressive Growth
Financial strategies for value-centered
entrepreneurs

Give up Profits
Paying above Market prices for some inputs
Passing on profitable opportunities
Undertaking non profitable projects
Financial strategies for value-centered
entrepreneurs
Achieve win-win
Through the business model

Making investment that pay for themselves

Business with struggling communities

Treating Employees well to obtain results

 Premium Positioning
• Product affordability is not always viewed as a pre requisite for
serving society.

• Pricing is just not perceived as an essential lever for serving

society or protecting the environment.
Grameen Bank brings economic and social changes to the poor. The idea
is based on trust. They look at what the borrower can have by going to
the customers. Most owners and borrowers are poor women located in
rural areas. The loans are for productive activity, not consumption.
Grameen Bank
• Founded by Muhammed Yunus, a Bangladeshi National and
world´s leader and pioneer in offering micro loans for the poor.
• Lower interest rates, but its loans are not cheap
Grameen Bank
• Business loans have 20% interest rate, twice that of most
industrialized countries.
• Yunus does not have any banking background. However, he is
aware of the needs of the poor and the detrimental impacts of
poverty to society.
Grameen Bank
• He observed that poor people do not have the capability to borrow
money from the bank due to inability to pay the loan.
• He decided to borrow from the bank himself to directly
communicate with people who wants to loan from him.
• His view is “If you lend farmers, they would borrow regardless of
what interest you charge.”
 Grameen Bank - Principles

- Poverty is not created by poor people. It is created by the institutions

and policies which surround them. Loans offer people the opportunity
to take initiatives in business or agriculture to make earnings that
enable them to pay off debt.
 Grameen Bank - Principles

- Poor people have skills that remain unutilized or under-

utilized. It is not the lack of skills that makes them poor.
 Grameen Bank - Principles
- Charity is not an answer to poverty. It only helps poverty to continue. It
creates dependency and takes away an individual’s initiative to break
through the wall of poverty. Utilizing the energy and creativity in each
human being is the answer to poverty.
 Cost Control
• Essential component of values centered entrepreneur´s strategies
• This includes identifying and reducing business expenses to
increase profits.
• Examples are Migros´s production of about 25% of its
merchendise internally; 7th Generation´s cost control through
Outsourcing
Kylie Cosmetics thrives on Outsourcing
their supply chain and direct operations
from other companies such as Seed Beauty.

She also relies on Social media and

Instagram in marketing her cosmetic
products.
Consumer Cooperative:
- Owned and controlled by customers
- Buys products or suppliers in bulk and sells them to its members
- Any surplus or “savings” belongs to cooperative members
 Migros
• Gottlieb Duttweiler, one of the world’s first value-centered entrepreneurs
• Because of his success earlier on, many competitors were threatened and the
government even implemented a regulation against Migros
• He contemplated on diversification and entering politics but ultimately decided on
making his business a “cooperative”, wherein consumers are in charge of business
operations.
• Duttweiler’s socio-economic philosophy and personal values were operationalized at
Migros through strict adherence to two strategic goals: (1) providing economic value
for its customers and (2) responding to the cultural and social needs of Switzerland.
 Migros
• Today, with revenues in excess of $16.4 billion, Migros is one of the largest business
organizations in the world, ranking 451 on the 2007 Fortune Global 500.

• The company not only controls over 25 percent of the food market in Switzerland but also is
highly diversified into such businesses as travel, restaurants, banking, furniture stores, gasoline
stations, and international language schools. Additionally, it is an important contributor to
Swiss culture and society. Although Gottlieb Duttweiler died in 1962 his business philosophy
and the corporate culture that he embedded at Migros has endured.
 Pursue Aggressive Growth
• Growth can impact profitability both by increasing revenue and
reducing costs through economics of scale.
• To become a social force, a company must also have size and
financial stability
• Examples include Starbucks coffee´s aggressive geographical
expansion in the US and internationally within little concerns for
the fate of local coffee shops.
Starbucks’ aggressive expansion of its branches globally is not only an
economic strategy that potentially earns them millions, but also a social and
environmental strategy as they remain committed to helping Coffee farmers
and minimize environmental impacts from waste recycling and responsible
sourcing.
 Starbucks
• Starbucks Corporation is an American global coffee company and coffeehouse
chain based in Seattle, Washington. Three partners who met at a college founded it:
English teacher Jerry Baldwin, history teacher Zev Siegl, and writer Gordon
Bowker. These guys adored coffee and decided to share their passion by opening a
small coffee shop.
• The store opened in a quiet inconvenient time: at the end of the 60s, the Americans
completely gave up on instant coffee. Moreover, the majority of them did not even
know that there is some different type of coffee, which is other than instant. Thus,
there were not too much of the visitors.
 Starbucks
• The name “Starbucks” comes from the name of one of the characters
of Herman Melville’s novel “Moby-Dick.” A twin-tailed mermaid or a
Siren as she is known in Greek mythology became the image of the
company. She symbolizes that Starbucks’ coffee is delivered from the
different areas of the world. You can still find the original Starbucks logo
at the first store in Seattle.
• They are the leading specialty coffee brand and retailer in the world
 Starbucks
• They are present in 26 countries globally
• Starbucks is committed to “contribute positively to our communities and
our environment.”
• They are committed to coffee origin countries. They pay for coffee
directly from farms, paying higher premiums for the coffee and working
closely with the producers on quality, and encouraging participation in
social programs for health and education.
 Give-up Profits
• How values-centered entrepreneurs and their
companies sacrifice profits to accommodate
their social and/ or environmental causes.
• Some entrepreneurs deliberately undertake
certain actions that reduce profits.
• Examples include The Body Shop’s Fair Prices
and Whole Foods support to Sustainable
Fishing.
 Pass on Profitable
Opportunities
• A good number of values-centered companies
demonstrated that they are willing to pass up
profitable opportunities if that means they would
have to bend their beliefs.
• Examples are Dancing Deer Bakery’s nixing deal
with Williams-Sonoma and Craiglist’s disinterest
to monetize their web operations
 Undertake Non-economic projects
• Companies are willing to take on
projects that are not financially
beneficial
• They are also willing to make
calculated financial sacrifices in
balancing non-economic mission
with the profit objectives of their
firms. (I.e. Oxfam)
Through Business Model
• Some entrepreneurs have created
win-win propositions through
their business models
• Some companies market their
products that are environmentally
or socially superior to those of
their competitor.
 Do business with struggling
communities
• Most of the entrepreneurs in the study
understand the positive social and economic
impact businesses can have in impoverished
communities, particularly developing
communities
• Example: The Body Shop’s Anita Roddick is a
proponent of non-exploitative means of
partnership with struggling communities
 Make Pro-environmental Instruments pay for
themselves
• Most investments designed to
protect the environment do
not result in clear savings or
profit, but some do and
several entrepreneurs have
creatively found such
situations.
Treating Employees Well to obtain results
• This may be a part of some
firms, but they also believe that
their employees relations
programs and policies produce
financially beneficial results
• There is no unequivocal evidence
that superior or more attractive
employee benefit packages lead to
other improved productivity or
enhanced profitability.
¨A person´s treatment of money is the most decisive test
of his character, how they make it and how they spend it¨

- James Moffatt, Bibilical Scholar, 1870 to 1944