Business must have a social purposeAt the launch of the Chambers Ireland CSR awards today I was talking to someone who works in CSR about the current economic situation and she made an observation that I thought worth sharing. I’m not going to name the lady as it was a private conversation and I didn’t ask her permission at the time. She said that business needs to have a social purpose and has to be actually selling a service or product that is useful for society, not just money being sold to make more money. I’m always banging on to my students that business must have a real purpose beyond making money. In the projects that they do for me they have to show me that they really understand the purpose of their particular business. (By the way I think Charles Handy is very good on this. His book The Empty Raincoat was first published in 1994 but the thinking is highly applicable to our current situation). There was a similar problem with the dotcom crash of 2000 – if you don’t understand how something is useful and why somebody will pay for it, it probably isn’t and they probably won’t. A pity that this lesson didn’t stick that time! Add a CommentYour comment will appear once it has been approved. |