Foundations of Business Communication

Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Explanation of sustainable approach to business strategy and management and the strategies used
by businesses to operate in an ethical and sustainable way.............................................................4
Different approaches to CSR of Micro, SME and Corporate Business, and measuring success in
CSR strategies..................................................................................................................................6
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................10
Part 02............................................................................................................................................12
Introduction....................................................................................................................................12
Self-reflection on the skills I have acquired so far throughout the course....................................13
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................15
References......................................................................................................................................16
Introduction

With the rapid changes in business environment and increasing competition, organizations today
need to think differently. With a view to embrace diversity and catch up with the pace, modern
organizations are frequently adopting to various sustainable approach to business strategy and
management. Sustainability here refers to the modern business approach of generating a long
term value, by integrating various social, economic and ecological approaches with the goals and
planning of the organization. The aim of this report is to show various applications of sustainable
approaches to modern business. For a better understanding, the reference of Unilever has been
used in this report. Unilever is a UK based multination FMCG Company, which is highly aware
of various sustainable issues, including the relevant strategic planning and CSR challenges.
Keeping this company in focus, various aspects of sustainable approaches to business strategy
and management have been discussed in this report.
Explanation of sustainable approach to business strategy and
management and the strategies used by businesses to operate in an
ethical and sustainable way.

Different business organizations take different kind of sustainable approaches in their business
strategy and management policies. However, Unilever takes these kind of issues seriously, and
they try to ensure a good application of those. Being highly aware of the significance of
sustainable business strategy, Unilever always tries to carry out their business and operation in
such a way that benefits the people and environment inside and outside of the organization. The
prime focus of Unilever’s sustainability strategy is to ensure the growth and sustainability of
their business considering the betterment of the future generation (Rogers, 2016). To categorize
furthermore, the areas can be broken down to the followings:

Health and hygiene: Unilever works to ensure better health and hygiene standard for
everybody. The company has undertaken a number of event and initiatives from time to time in
order to ensure better hand wash, sanitation, oral health, clean and safe drinking water facilities
with a view to offer people an improved Lifestyle.

Environmental welfare: With a view to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases which affect
the environment negatively, Unilever has taken certain measures. Also, it has taken a number of
timely and modern measures for water preservation, waste management and production process
improvement.

Employee safety and satisfaction: Along with ensuring a better environment and better health
standards, Unilever has seriously considered the issue of employee safety and satisfaction. The
company has certain employee policies to complement their effort. Also, the company abides by
all the national and international rules and regulations, including the UN human rights.

Improving the production process: Unilever continuously work on developing their production
process. The aim is to make the whole process as early as possible, so that it can contribute to the
betterment of the environment.
Sustainability approach focusing on different stakeholders

Unilever has certain sustainable approaches which have been determined targeting different
stakeholders of the company (Thompson, 2017). It strongly follows the United Nation’s plan and
goals of sustainable development.

Sustainability in Sourcing: Unilever has always optimized a sustainable method in order to

source the necessary resources for the business it operates. To say more specifically, the
organization has focused on sourcing various agricultural raw materials on a sustainable way
(Unilever, 2019).

Sustainability in Health and nutrition: Unilever is well known for its high quality products in
the product lines of health, hygiene and nutrition. The company has launched a number of
different programs for hand wash, sanitation, hygiene, oral health and many other important
health and hygiene aspects.

Sustainability related to environmental issues: Unilever is always determined to play its part
to make the planet and the environment a better place to live in. It has been trying to ensure
minimum greenhouse gas emission, and also it has been working on other important
environmental aspects water preservation, waste handling and improving the manufacturing
process to reduce waste, and many more.

Sustainability for improving the livelihood at Unilever: Unilever tries to ensure a better
lifestyle for their employees. The company follows a fair compensation policy, and abides by the
United Nation’s human right policies and regulations. The company believes in the equality
among gender, and it tries to ensure that by all aspects it is treating its employees fairly and
equally.

Governance at Unilever:

The governance of Unilever is based on sustainability. The structure of Unilever’s governance is

pretty sound and well-built indeed. The vision, purpose and plans of Unilever shows that the
company is highly committed towards ensuring sustainability at all level. The management
structure for sustainable growth involves governance at various level including the level of board
of director, corporate business leader, divisional level leader, as well as their operating
companies. At board level governance, the company has an audit committee, a board committee,
as well as a committee for corporate responsibility. Governance is seen to be carried out at each
level of organization. All of these together, are facilitating Unilever in its journey towards an
ethical and sustainable business (Unilever, 2019).

Different approaches to CSR of Micro, SME and Corporate

Business, and measuring success in CSR strategies.
Corporate Social Responsibilities

CSR or Corporate Social Responsibility is one kind of self-regulation that is maintained by

different private businesses internationally. CSR aims to participate in the contribution to the
society and its goals of activist, philanthropic or charitable nature. CSR works through the
engagement of voluntary as well as it supports all kind of ethical practices.

As people know, corporate social responsibility is such a management concept, where

organisations try to integrate different types of environmental concerns in the business
operations. By following CSR approaches, companies also integrate social practices while
interacting with a large number of stakeholders (Gjerdrum Pederden, 2015). CSR aims to be
socially accountable and focus on the welfare of the society.

Corporate Social Responsibilities that are concerned of the welfare of the society include various
programs such as social awareness, activity and workshops on different social issues and
seminars, infrastructural development. These all are obliged to meet the interest of the society.
Beside the societal welfare, CSR involves a company to perform responsibilities toward the
employees and other stakeholders. CSR helps organisations to understand the duty they have
toward different parties and stakeholders at the same time to protect their rights and needs.

Different CSR Approaches

There can be different approaches performed by organisations following CSR. The approaches
are not often similar for all companies as they are different in size and industry. CSR approaches
vary and they even put effective impacts on the operations of different organisations (Coombs
and Holladay, 2012). Approaches to CSR,
Philanthropic Approach: Philanthropy or philanthropic approach to CSR means the charitable
contribution to all worthy causes on a large range. In a philanthropic approach, there must me
more than one single donation or charity. Organisations undertake this kind of effort relying on a
benevolent will for improving human welfare. Philanthropic approach to CSR also refers to an
approach that balance among organisational goals and charitable activities. This approach
ensures organisational profit and charity at the same time. It is an approach that is used by almost
every organisation.

Community Approach: The community based CSR approaches are created thus organisations
can integrate their CSR practices into the core operations of the business. To accumulate
community approaches to CSR in a company, the core people must understand how the CSR
values are created. Community based CSR tries to focus on the welfare of the whole community
in which an organisation operates. The approaches make it easy to understand the developing
relationships between organisation and the society.

Shared Value Creation Approach: Shared value creation approach is the practice of economic
value creation in such a way which is going to help create social value. The approach helps in
social value creation through addressing social challenges and needs. Unlike philanthropic and
community based CSR approaches, shared value creation lies in the core of a business. This
approach is also for making perfect focus on the development of future market by making the
society and economy stronger.

Corporate Social Responsibility in Micro Businesses

Micro businesses are those small business organisations where a very small number of
employees work. A micro enterprise is often found operating with less than ten people. It is usual
for micro businesses to start with a tiny amount of capital.

Micro businesses try to follow such CSR approaches that are useful and beneficial for the society
and societal needs. Even after being a small ranged organisation, micro businesses try to focus
on the well-being of society people mainly. They try to contribute to the society standing beside
other corporate businesses. CSR approaches followed by micro enterprise also help them
improve the market image and societal prestige. Micro businesses often need to deal with
different issues comes from the society or environment while involving in CSR activities. Yet
they try to ensure a continual improvement of the societal approaches (Spence and Mathuri,
2018). Micro businesses also try to bring stakeholder and employee satisfaction besides their
safety and rights. Micro businesses often follow philanthropic approach to perform their
corporate social responsibilities.

Corporate Social Responsibilities in SMEs

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are one of the most important contributors to the
economy. In UK, 99.9% of all businesses are marked a SMEs. For the economy of developing
countries, SMEs are playing major roles. Small businesses are marked with a limited number of
employees and resources. They have less than fifty employees in the organisation and an annual
turnover of £6.5 million. Where, a medium size enterprise is one that has less than 250
employees.

The corporate social responsibilities in small and medium enterprises focus on the corporate
responsibilities that include corporate working environment and staff valuation. Their
approaches are also concerned of stakeholders’ interest and their protected rights (McKay and
Wolfe, 2016). SMEs often use community approach while performing CSR activities. In this
area of sustainability, organisations be able to provide a better place of working for the
employees.

Corporate Social Responsibilities in Corporate Business

Corporate businesses are that form of business which declares individuality and the business as a
legal and separate entity. They are guided by a team that is called directors’ board. Rather than
other types of businesses, corporate businesses are best advantageous because of their individual
entity.

For most of the corporate sectors, CSR activities are to contribute to their organisational
sustainability. Organisations use their profit for societal welfare. Here, philanthropic and
charitable activities are found. Unlike micro businesses and SMEs, corporate businesses follow
shared value creation approach. Such corporate sectors following shared value creation
approach try to bring big and good change to the society that will benefit everyone. Their plan
for sustainability is more concerned of the impacts on environment, workplace equality, waste
management and stakeholders’ conveniences. Some big corporate businesses that are
manufacturer try to ensure highest quality of their products, reducing risk level and concerning
customers’ needs and satisfaction. They also try to think bigger than other business organisations
(Eweje and Bathurst, 2018). They think of projects beyond the limits and globally such as global
warming and virus prevention.

Measuring The Success of Corporate Social Responsibilities

Though it may seem tough for some organisations to keep going with CSR activities for the long
run and organisations can face different issues, the importance of corporate social responsibilities
cannot be ignored. So, measuring the CSR successes within every organisation is very necessary
to know how much the organisation is contributing, how well people are getting benefitted, how
much the welfare is necessary and is the donation reaching the right hand or not. The analysis is
also important to improve future CSR decisions and activism (Idowu, Schmidpeter and Fifka,
2015). To know organisations’ CSR success, it is needed to check that CSR within the
organisation is aligned to the organisational objectives or not. To measure CSR success
organisations may follow such steps,

1. Benchmarking is one of the most effective ways to understand the level of organisations’
CSR approaches. An organisation can use benchmarking to them against other competitors.
A comparison is created that shows differences among the performance, goals and
achievements.
2. Participating can be another tool to measure success of CSR. The awards related to corporate
social responsibilities give recognition to the ones who is best. Participating can help
organisations know which is their position and rank among all.
3. There are Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) as measuring tools. Organisations can use such
indicators to measure their organisational success in CSR activities. Organisations often use
waste reduction rate as a KPI for their sustainability indicator. KPIs help differentiate
between outcome metrics and activity measures.
4. Organisations can settle on clear goals. Many big corporate sectors have big dream and
ambitious vision. But, at the time of CSR activities, they need to make sure it is being
grounded in social perspectives. The trick to measure is coming up with shared ideation or
plan than enlist both internal and external stakeholders.
5. Organisations can recognize industry standard measures that fit them best. Some
measurement tools are CommunityMark, GRI SASB, UN Frameworks etc. CommunityMark
is a well ranked measurement tool for the community involvement. So, it is going to be
useful for SMEs to use this tool.
Conclusion
Different approaches organisations are using for their sustainability and CSR activism benefit
them in every possible way. Organisations having great plans for their sustainability are
benefitted better with their approaches. Besides, their duty toward the society and welfare earns
recognitions. Analyzing different CSR approaches, it has been seen that how well micro, SMEs
and corporate businesses are contributing to the social responsibilities individually. The
approaches of each enterprise may differ but all are being socially accountable for their
responsiveness. Enterprises perform CSR approaches in accordance with their size, range,
industry and operations where the success of the activism can be measured.
Part 02

Introduction
Self-reflection is important as it enables a person to become more productive by evaluating the
strengths and weaknesses. Multiple skills are developed by me while completing the module
which will help me to grow in the future. A reflective report was developed on the skills that I
gathered while doing the courses which will increase my employability skills and make me more
competent in the future. I believe that the course has enabled me to gain competence for a better
self-development. The way I developed the skills and the proficiencies that will be achieved after
successful acquisition of these skills will be discussed here.
Self-reflection on the skills I have acquired so far throughout the
course.
As a student, I need to become a quick learner to learn and acquire the things that will be
meaningful to my life and I have become successful to do during the completion of the module.
Firstly, I have acquired enough communication skills while doing my coursework. During
presentations and other group tasks, I always had to interact with others to complete my tasks.
Besides these, the tasks were assigned in groups and therefore I had to communicate with others
including my teachers for successfully executing these tasks. In this way, my communication
skills improved than before. Besides these, I had to attend the courses in a platform where
students from multiple countries were present. They belonged to different cultures and therefore
diversity was present due to different culture, language and race. Thus, developing
communication skills became way easier for me. Nit only verbal, I also became able to develop
my written communication skills. Throughout the semester there were time when I had to take
notes and prepare reports for my coursework. Besides, I had to write proposals to my faculties
and teachers for the approval of the topics of research papers. Thus, both written and verbal
communication skills were developed by me.

Besides, I was able to analyze my proficiency in Internet and Communication. While preparing
for presentations along with appearing in front of the whole class, I also had to prepare the
contents using PowerPoint. I had to prepare slides for presenting the topics I was assigned with
and developed creative contents to properly execute the topics. Moreover, for making these
contents I also had to surf the internet for finding out many data regarding the topics. I had to go
through multiple websites, research papers and articles for gathering the information related to
different topics based on which I designed my contents for successful delivery. However, before
developing contents using PowerPoint, I was quite nervous and afraid as I did not have enough
skills for developing such contents. The reason behind this is I was not competent enough for
using software and other relevant tools. My researching skills were also not good enough to find
out the right information from the internet. Initially I took a lot of time to find out the correct
information and had to go through a number of articles for collecting the right information. After
first 2 presentations, I could easily find out the most relevant sources and could easily compile
the data found from different sources.
Numeracy skills were also developed by me throughout the course as I had to focus on working
with numbers. Many statistical data were collected and interpreted by me while competing
assignments and presentations. Before college, I was good at number, but it was quite difficult
for me to analyze and evaluate the available data. after attending different seminars and taking
part in different webinars and sessions, it was possible for me to understand an interpret different
types of data. The trends of different companies were understood by me after I looked after the
data from their annual reports. From their forecasts and actual data, I could become able to
understand the significance of handling data with proper poise and care. besides, during different
assignments, I had to collect the data and analyze the gathered information using different
statistical tools like SPSS, excel and other analytical tools. This has not only enhanced my
numeracy skills but also, I have gathered an insight on how to understand the significance of the
available data. Besides, it also helped me develop my IT skills at the same time.

Another important skill that has been developed by me is the ability to work with others.
Teamworking is a skill that every organization now looks or in the cohort of their employees.
Teamworking is a great skill and in order to develop oneself as a competent worker, the
capability to work with other must be present. By studying the team roles of Belbin, I have
understood how people can contribute to the teams and the different roles of people in
undertaking a teamwork. Working with others is something that every student should have, and
every employee should develop. The agile a modern institution select the employees who are
good at working with others. As there were a number of tasks assigned in teams, I had to work
with my classmates even though I was not quite familiar with them. This has enabled me to
understand my contribution towards my team and how effectively I can manage the works while
being in a team. In many cases, time sensitive tasks were assigned which I had to perform in my
team and thus the team dynamics were understood by me and I became better at working with
others through cooperation and equal contribution. Besides, teamworking helps to understand
others and become more empathetic which is also a good skill that made me more competent to
communicate with others by properly understanding the situations they go through during their
lives and while at work.

Besides, I also became good at solving complex problems. I took part in many webinars, case
competitions and online seminars based on problem solving. All these have enabled me to
develop skills to solve different problems and move forward to achieve the goals. I learned to
solve problems by facing difficulties and getting ideas on how these can be solved. Problem
solving has become quite easier to me after I mastered the skills of brainstorming.

Conclusion
This report presumes that I will intend to proceed and keep up my expert and self-improvement.
I will take part in customary exercises to refresh my expert portfolio. I can create and share my
advancement abilities which will help me in my future. I will keep on securing more information
and will attempt to confront new difficulties like settling on a choice. This intelligent practice
will improve my work and will improve my own and expert abilities.
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