CSR

CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

• Teach India Campaign of Times of India
• Birla Group leprosy campaign
• J&J employee welfare campaign
• ITC and HUL rural welfare campaigns
• Tata’s all round community campaigns
• Cadbury environment and Education
campaigns
 What is CSR?
• Also known as:
Corporate Responsibility
Responsible Business
Sustainable Responsible Business
Corporate Social Performance.
 CSR
• Its all about “Good Corporate Citizenship”

Doing well.
“Giving back something to the society in return
of what you make out of it.” – J N Tata

Corporate (organisation)
Social (community – business or non business)
Responsibility (duty)
 CSR Strategy
• Corporates expected to do well – bottomline

• Support social issues:

1. Philanthropy (Birla Temples)
2. More than philanthropy today – a philosophy,
and business strategy
3. Practice – with internal support, and passion
• Commitment by business to behave ethically and
contribute to economic development, improving
quality of life of employees, community and society at
large.
• CSR emphasizes obligation and accountability to
society
• Part to of the company’s mission and vision
• Encompasses the economic, legal, ethical and
discretionary (philanthropic) expectation that society
has of organisations today.
 Case for doing some good
“Corporate Social Responsibility is a
commitment to improve the community well
being through discretionary business practices
and contributing of corporate resources.”

“Corporate social initiatives are major activities

undertaken by corporates to support social
causes and fulfill commitments to the society.”
• Trends:
Increased giving
Increased reporting
Establishing of a Corporate Social Norm to do
good (brand it)

• Shift:
From obligation to strategy!
 Why CSR?
• Customers and Investors expectation to
behave responsibly
• Consumer awareness about green and ethical
consumerism
• Legislation on sustainability, codes of practices
• Globalisation and adoption of “best practices”
for consumer and legal acceptance
• ADDS VALUE
 Why CSR?
• Enhanced image and reputation, and clout
• Increased sales and market share
• Strengthened brand positioning
• Ability to attract, retain and motivate
employees. And customers
• Increased appeal to investors and financial
analysts
 Challenges in doing good
• Choosing a social issue
Supporting and helping image and business
goals
How important is the issue, government, and
industry
How exclusive it will be for us

• How it will give us Publicity in our addressing the issue

Mileage. Visibility
 Developing and Implementing the
Programme Plan
• Budget/Monetary resources
• People – Corporate Communications
Department and others
• Justification of expense. Benefit (ROI)
• Exit strategy (if required to)
 Admin and Reporting CSR
CSR projects/campaign may be administered via:

• Special section or department

• PR department
• HR department
• Directly CEO and/or Board of Directors
 Options for Doing Good
• Cause Promotion – sponsorship of programmes
• Corporate Social Marketing – sustainability,
development and implementation
• Corporate philanthropy – charity, donations,
grants in cash or kind
• Community volunteers – employees and others
• Corporate practices and interests -- internal
• Infosys, Wipro, Tatas
• Stan Chart and TCS Marathon on the 16th
• AIDS, Drunken Driving, Condoms (Balbir
Pasha)
• Disaster relief – earthquake, floods,
epidemics like Swine Flu
Increasing awareness and concern for Social
Cause
• Persuasive communication. Image building
• Creating awareness and concern
• Persuading people to donate time, money and
non-monetary resources
• Persuading people to participate and support
the social cause and events
• Educating people to work things for
themselves
 Corporate Benefits
• Strengthens Brand Positioning
• Builds traffic and customer loyalty
• Creates brand preference among and in target markets
• Provides customers ways to contribute and participate in
the cause/s
• Provides employees opportunities to be involved in
something they care about
• Create partnership and bonds with people and markets
• Strengthens corporate image and reputation – good
corporate citizen
 Corporate Benefits
• Good to do business with!
• Good to work in!
• Good to invest in!
 Potential Concerns in CSR Programmes
• Visibility for Corporate (gets lost?)
• Takes away the focus from core business.
• Sustainability of the programme and promotion
• Tracking ROI – difficult
• Getting swamped with requests for contributions
• Time and involvement – fatigue and loss of interest
• Replicating of promotion by others and removing
competitive advantage
• May appear cosmetic, without genuine social
benefit
• Business not equipped to handle social
activities
• Limits the ability to compete
 Key to Success
• Developing partnerships
• Incorporating and emerging visibility (image)
of corporate brand
• Working out a way to measure and track
results and impact
 Key to Success
• Selecting an engaging and relevant issue
• Aligning with corporate mission and business objectives
(internal and external)
• Motivating employees and their making a real difference
• Whole hearted commitment at all levels. Avoid promises
you can’t fulfill (not a marketing exercise)
• Develop programme goals and tangible outcomes –
demonstrable
• Ensure key stakeholders are aware, engaged and involved
 When to consider CSR?
• When company has easy access to the target markets
• When cause or issue can be connected and sustained
by company and its brands
• When the opportunity exists to contribute
underutilized in-kind services
• When employee involvement will support the cause
and motivate employees
• When there is co-branding opportunity and impacts
the target group/markets
 Typical CSR Campaigns
• Health issues – AIDS, smoking, cancer, swine
flu, organ donation
• Injury prevention – safety, accidents,
encouraging preparedness
• Environment issues – energy, water, wildlife
conservation
• Community involvement issues – rural
development, human rights, infrastructure
 Developing a CSR Campaign
• Conduct a situation analysis
• Select and define the target audience
• Select and finalise the project/issue
• Set the objectives and behavioural change
required (quanti and quali terms)
• Determine barriers and motivations to
behavioural change in the target markets
• Develop a complete implementation plan with
a marketing mix (4 Ps)
• Assign responsibilities among employees –
targets/kra’s
• Develop a plan for monitoring, feedback and
evaluation
• Find funding resources and fix budgets
 Developing Employee Volunteering and
Contribution Plan
• Develop guidelines for involvement
• Determine type and level of support -- and
time
• Develop a plan for training and assesment
• Develop an internal communications plan
• Develop a recognition (reward) plan
Best Practices for a CSR Programme
Philip Kotlar and Nancy Lee

Choosing Social Issues to Support

• Choose only a few social issues to support
• Choose those that are of concern in communities where you do
business, if possible
• Choose issues that have synergy with your mission, values, products
and services
• Choose issues that have potential to help your business goals:
marketing, increased productivity, cost reductions
• Choose issues that are of concern to your key consituent groups:
employees, customers, investors, corporate leaders and government
• Choose issues that can be supported over a long term
Selecting Initiatives to Support Social Issues
• Select initiatives that best meet business objectives and
goals
• Select initiatives that meet priority needs for the cause
• Select multiple initiatives for a single cause, adding ones
missing for current cause efforts
• Select initiatives representing most potential for strong
community partners
• Select initiatives where you have a history of experience,
and will leverage current resources
Developing and Implementing Programme Plans
• Form internal, cross functional teams to develop plans
• Include community partners in plan development
• Establish clear objectives and measurable goals
(outcomes) for the company
• Establish clear objectives and goals for the cause
• Develop a communications plan
• Identify and plan for additional strategic inputs
• Get top management buy-in
Evaluating Efforts
• Determine and fix purpose and process of feedback and
evaluation
• Monitor and measure report resource outputs
• Measure and report outcomes for the company based on
initiative objectives and goal
• Measure and report outcomes for the cause, based on the
initiative objectives and goals
• Monitor status of social issues that the initiatives are supporting
• Allocate adequate resources for measurement and reporting –
including people and timing
• These guidelines must be developed and
undated appropriately in the short and long
term.
• As always, executive management approval
and enthusiasm for these will be critical to
their usefulness. The ultimate scenario would
be that they actually own the guidelines and
embody a passion for doing the most good.
 Readings/Examples
• IDEA Case study
• Drunken Driving case
• Economic Times Awards this year.

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