Chief information officers are failing to seize the opportunity to play a bigger role in corporate social responsibility initiatives across their organisations, according to new research.
The survey of 150 organisations in France, Germany, the UK and the US by analyst AMR Research found most spending on corporate social responsibility (CSR) is around social (33 percent), environmental (27 percent) and responsible sourcing (26 percent).
Some of the key drivers for this CSR investment are regulatory compliance, strengthening the corporate brand and reputation, business opportunities, customer satisfaction — and even moral imperative.
But Nigel Montgomery, director of European research at AMR, said the data and information needed to prioritise CSR investment and measure its impact is currently spread across organisations in disparate systems and databases.
Montgomery explained: "If you asked CIOs what keeps them awake at night, it wouldn't be this. Very few companies are getting information out of their enterprise resource planning [ERP] system to help with CSR. How can you measure your carbon footprint when you have no method of measuring the data?"
Jeff Legg, head of IS at chemical company Scott Bader, said IT departments also have a role to play in contributing to CSR targets such as reducing carbon footprints and increasing energy efficiency across the company.
He said: "One of my aims is paperless trading, getting information on the desktop without paper, standard reporting tools so that information is easily available on the desktop, switching PCs off overnight, and reducing the air-conditioning used for hardware."
Abbey Ling, an assessor at GoodCorporation, a for-profit company that runs a CSR accreditation scheme, said CSR is rising up the corporate agenda as organisations realise there are business benefits.
She said: "People are realising competition-wise it's good to be seen as an ethical business. It's something you integrate into the company and is core to the way you work. It's not a one-off initiative. Companies shouldn't have huge corporate social responsibility departments trying to get people to do stuff."
Travis White, senior vice president of marketing at ERP vendor Lawson, which sponsored the AMR Research report, agreed. "I do believe there are some companies doing it as a marketing programme... but companies are now seeing there are very good business reasons for investing in CSR initiatives," he said.
White said Lawson is also planning to integrate reporting capability on CSR issues such as energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, customer privacy complaints and workforce diversity into some of its ERP and business intelligence tools by the end of the year.
Talkback
Wouldn't it be great to cut-costs while furthering corporate social responsibility?
SplinterRock, Inc. has created an interesting avenue for companies to benefit non-profits monetarily without spending any additional money. With SplinterRock's affinity program (www.SplinterRock.com/nonprofit), SplinterRock will give 30% of its (recurring and non-recurring) revenue for the business that is referred to SplinterRock by a non-profit, back to the non-profit.
SplinterRock, Inc. is a consulting and telecom brokerage firm. It’s network of consultants work with enterprises to assess their telecom and technology needs. It then has carriers and service providers submit quotes to bid for the enterprises telecom and technology services. (SplinterRock has business relationships with over 100 different carriers and service providers.) The bidding process (as well as SplinterRock's aggregate volume) often results in more aggressive quotes than the enterprise would find going to a carrier directly.
For bringing new business to the carrier, SplinterRock is paid by the service provider. Most often this is a residual commission on the monthly recurring charges billed to the enterprise. In the case where the enterprise was referred to SplinterRock through a participating non-profit, SplinterRock will give 30% of its commissions to the non-profit.
Let me give you an example of how this works. Recently, a member of a local non-profit heard about this program, and referred the name of aRecently, a member of a local non-profit heard about this program, and referred the name of a technology decision maker for a regional merchandiser headquartered in Chatsworth, CA with an active webstore. This merchandiser was looking for server hosting and managed services for their webstore. SplinterRock engaged the decision-maker by presenting him with several competing quotes from top-name hosting providers and helped to negotiate pricing and services. The merchandiser ultimately signed a three year contract with RackSpace, Ltd., of San Antonio, TX. Now, because the original referral came through the affinity program, SplinterRock will be giving several hundreds of dollars to that local non-profit each month for the next three years and as long as the merchandiser remains with RackSpace.
The beauty of programs like this one is that it is a win-win all around. The enterprise often ends up paying less for services that it will pay for anyways. The service provider gains new business and a new client. And the non-profit receives a stream of steady funding.