Thanks Gib. I think for large corporates with purpose there will always be a need to innovate around strategy that’s the way they will grow core and support the disruptive stuff. The challenge is how to experiment and stretch the business model in parallel - not usually a core competence.
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Our third and final question today:
Q3: What are some of the examples of how companies are working to proactively embed social innovation into their businesses at a systemic level?
What about co-creating with non-business stakeholders such as NGOs etc. Are you doing any of that @dfdezalvarez ?
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@MaggieDP So, here in Ireland where I am based, the government is doing public consultation on policy-- pretty much all new things coming out. The recent consultation on Social Enterprise was… ‘interesting’… really laid bare, IMHO, the broad spread of understanding (and misunderstanding) of ‘social’ and ‘enterprise’ among the myriad influencers, stakeholders, practitioners-- even some who have been ‘in the business’ for years! uff. work to do on definition and much more than just words…
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It’s a case of influencing at the highest level to instiutionalise social mindset at the very core of the organisation. Use the power to feed through the rest. Your right though, it’s a chicken-egg situtation and conundrum. For now, focusing on the top will help to shift policy / bonus structures / performance review metrics - it will be systemic to help free up those in middle management who do care
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Hi All, sorry to be so late, had some technical issues logging in. Have been following the rich discussion. My question might be a little of topic. I have a hard time reading up all replies, so quicky. I work in healthcare and have launched a few ventures. It’s not so much about the innovative idea’s and capabilities. We have plenty. But if the venture needs to sustain within an existing business, that is where the difficulty starts. Any tips or trick to increase business ownership for social inclusive business?
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A3:
Well, we’re told that the folks here at Pearson are rather humble but allow me to evangelise a bit of the great work that Pearson employees and partners are doing to proactively embed social innovation in a way that benefits Pearson and its customers but also society and the planet. Let’s start with vision, purpose and strategy. Social Innovation – and Sustainability in the slightly wider lens—is integrally embedded. Not an add-on, not a ‘nice to have’, but fundamentally part of the vision, purpose, and strategy of the company. To get deep into what this entails, set a side a bit of time and dive into our latest Sustainability report, which was just recently published: https://www.pearson.com/corporate/sustainability.html and also dig into our current Sustainability Plan: https://www.pearson.com/corporate/sustainability/our-2020-plan.html
I shared a link in the Answer above to the TMI (Tomrorow’s Markets Incubator)—here that one is again: https://www.pearson.com/corporate/sustainability/sustainability-stories/tomorrows-markets-incubator.html , but you can also go a bit deeper into some of the featured initiatives within TMI here: https://vimeo.com/261154406 and https://vimeo.com/261154026 , or also get a broader perspective on the TMI methodology and how it works: https://youtu.be/ASzpd3G1LrE
Especially as today is #WorldRefugeeDay, I am also particularly proud to mention @Pearson ’s Every Child Learning initiative in partnership with @save_children and the Jordanian Ministry of Education. Here is a a short video about the initiative https://youtu.be/fKvO4XnP6Vo , and have a view of @Pearson and @save_children social media today for the latest: https://twitter.com/pearson/status/1141677196286812160
Beyond Pearson and our esteemed colleagues from the other companies here in the panel discussion today, there is amazing work underway that doesn’t get the visibility nor the engagement and support that could help scale and increase impact significantly. I want to acknowledge and thank Business Fights Poverty, The League of Intrapreneurs, Business Innovation Facility and many others who do a brilliant job supporting, advising, connecting, accelerating, evangelizing the people, the organizations and the work that is transforming business, society, and the planet.
I encourage you to stay engaged and find ways to actively become involved in new and more impactful ways, which might even include sharing wat you’re doing or what’s happening in your own organization and/or network. As the saying goes, “Knowledge is power!”, and we have a powerful network of passionate, innovative people and organizations that are sustainably improving society and planet. You’re very welcome to join us in this lifelong pursuit of learning and collective progress!
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Thanks Gib. Your book is resonating with me. We need to manage burnout and ensure those of us who are trying to champion change aren’t the ones to suffer the most. Would love to chat further on this
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The Global Compact has long been a leadership initiative focused on deriving commitments from CEOs/C-suite executives to integrate responsible business practices into their core strategies and operations. We’re at the point now where CEOs are expected to at least consider sustainable development and social impact as an important part of the company’s long-term goals. However, our data shows engagement at the middle and junior manager levels is extremely low. We need to be doing more to tap into the young professional base (aka future business leaders) and identifying ways for companies to encourage intrapreneurship. The talent is there, but the tools/resources for them are not.
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The complexities of social challenges requires collaboration. Establishing an ecosystem that supports collaboration is key. Social entrepreneurs can bring a diversity of perspectives, capabilities and connections to the table, making them strong partners for social intrapreneurs.
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I think there’s definitely a semantic challenge in here in terms of what do we really mean when we say innovation? Do we have a shared understanding of what that is. I’d suggest there are three types:
Status quo innovation - doing the same thing faster, cheaper, or with a more technological interface
Disruptive innovation - changing the relationship between customer / stakeholder and business
Transformative innovation - systemically changing the power relationships between an industry and society
Most often businesses feel comfortable doing the first but calling it the second. Very rarely will a business be willing to engage in deeply transformative (systemic) innovation which requires big changes, deep adaptation, ceding power and accepting losses.
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A3: The most obvious example is probably Danone and I’m a great admirer of the social innovation culture they’ve developed through Danone Communities and their social investment fund.
I also admire the work Barclays has done to nurture intrapreneursip. Many companies are doing their own internal innovation challenges – Unilever under their new CEO Alan Jope and Compass strategy have just finished a big internal innovation challenge …
@clive.allison is better placed to comment on that
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@gibbulloch In the Ecosystem Guide I think this co-creation is captured as the Culture of We - is that right @MaggieDP
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We have started looking at this which is very exciting and I think you will be seeing a lot more of it, not just from Barclays but industry wide. A lot of the investment banks are partnering up with NGOs or supranational institutions to develop products that target one specific challenge, whereby banks provide the capital and the NGOs provide the validation. Even better if you involve a client, that’s when you get attention from the top!
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Glad the book is resonating @hamzahsarwar Happy to connect offline
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@paul.ellingstad @deborahkap spot on, on the time issue, and “day job”. I like the twist on professional development and preparing future leadership with social innovation experiences
This is a lot of how we have worked with the League of Intrapreneurs:)
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Fully agree and that’s what we’ve been doing at the Global Compact for the past 19 years. But we also recognize that we need to also be forward looking at the next generation who will be setting social and institutional norms. It’s about having both top down and bottom up approaches.
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To address the challenge of working with partners to embed opportunities for impact Unilever is working with partnership structures to support social enterprises with investment and the close links to corporate strategy they need to grow and succeed. Two examples are:
- the TRANSFORM initiative we co-founded with the UK Government, following the launch of the SDGs in 2015. It combines investment of time, cash (small grants) and people into social enterprises in developing and emerging markets to scale models that help solve recalcitrant social issues, specifically for low-income households. We currently have 40+ projects in 11 countries. Many of these are linked directly to our business strategy, such as around WASH.
- ADVANCE initiated in 2018 with a grant from Unilever, is a collaborative sub-fund of Global Innovation Fund (targeted at $20m) to catalyse new growth in line with the Sustainable Development Goals and unlock market opportunities across partner’s businesses in four shared areas: Resilient and inclusive value chains: Universal access to basic services: Sustainable land use and production: Economic inclusion and equal opportunities: ADVANCE is managed by Global Innovation Fund on behalf of the funding partners and makes investments at the $0.5-3m level to help social enterprises which have proven viable business models transition to scale. We are open for more corporate partners to join us.
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@NielsBuning, increasingly I see VC’s and corporate venturing teams investing in such venturess… there is a lot of innovation in business model allowing such ventures within co’s to tap into external funding… the key is getting your own finance and investment folks to play ball and at least try new models rather than maintain status quo process & policy. Do you have a strong champion/sponsor at exec level?
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Interested to hear this point @Nkiru_Chiemelu. I’ve been quite encouraged by some of the grassroutes initiatives that are engaging people lower down the corporate hierarchy. Have you come across the League of Intrapreneurs? or Circle of Young Intrapreneurs for example?
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