by Fronetics | Jun 6, 2018 | Blog, Content Marketing, Leadership, Logistics, Marketing, Supply Chain, Talent
Organizations that promote corporate social responsibility (CSR) are reaping the benefits of their good deeds, including increased brand awareness and employee satisfaction.
Corporate social responsibility is a hot topic these days. Generally speaking, it’s a pretty broad term to describe how a company is working to improve its community. Companies can demonstrate CSR in lots of different ways, including donations, employee volunteering, implementing environmentally safe processes, and more.
These efforts, whether large or small, say a lot about your organization. Companies that consistently demonstrate their commitment to CSR initiatives are recognizing their ability to help their community and acting on that knowledge.
[bctt tweet=”55% of consumers are willing to pay more for products from socially responsible companies.” username=”Fronetics”]
And the public is taking notice. 55% of consumers are willing to pay more for products from socially responsible companies. What does that mean for you? It means that corporate social responsibility is as good for your community as it is for your own brand.
Here are four major benefits of corporate social responsibility.
4 benefits of corporate social responsibility.
1. Increased employee satisfaction
The way a company treats its community says a lot about how a company treats its employees. People that feel respected and supported in their jobs are often more productive and satisfied at work. Giving your employees opportunities to volunteer, especially during working hours, creates a sense of community within your organization, as well as a connection to the surrounding community. Employees will gain motivation and pride in their work through these personal-development opportunities.
Employees that are actively involved in the community are also acting as brand ambassadors. The more engaged and invested they are in your organization, and the greater community, the more productive they will be. In fact, companies with highly engaged employees saw 21% better business profitability. What could be better than happy employees promoting your brand while helping their neighbors?
2. Improved public image
In today’s digital era, companies that demonstrate corporate social responsibility are gaining exposure — and praise — for their involvements. Your brand’s reputation can only benefit from good deeds in your community. Think about it: Consumers feel good when they buy products and services from companies that are helping their community.
Don’t miss the opportunity to publicize your CSR initiatives and spread the word about your community involvement. Tweet, post, and share your social programs. Letting the public know about your good deeds will only work to increase your brand’s public image.
3. Increased customer loyalty
In a 2016 Neilson survey, 56% of participants said “a brand being known for its social value” was a top purchasing driver. And 53% of participants said “a brand with community commitment” was a leading purchasing driver.
Customers are more likely to be loyal to your brand if your corporate values align with their personal ones. What’s more, millennials — the largest population, over baby boomers, by 2019 — are driving the market these days. According to Forbes contributor Sarah Landrum, millennials prefer to do business with “corporations and brands with pro-social messages, sustainable manufacturing methods, and ethical business standards.” CSR programs work to showcase your corporate values and demonstrate that team work, community involvement, and engagement are at the top of your core values.
4. Increased creativity
Want your employees to start thinking outside of the box? Want to increase innovation in your company? CSR initiatives encourage your employees to try new things and get re-energized about their jobs.
Through this social involvement, employees will feel empowered to start contributing to the bigger picture. They might come up with new ideas about products or internal processes or innovate new problem-solving solutions. When you demonstrate your company’s values and passions through community giving, employees will feel encouraged (and supported) to develop new and better ways to do their jobs.
CSR is a win/win.
A commitment to corporate social responsibility is no longer optional. Companies need to understand that CSR affects their internal (employee engagement, productivity, turnover rate) and external (increased sales, customer loyalty, brand awareness) growth. By creating and participating in CSR initiatives, companies have the opportunity showcase their core values and create trust among your employees and your buyers.
What corporate social responsibility initiatives have you implemented?
Related posts:
SaveSave
by Jennifer Hart Yim | May 30, 2018 | Blog, Content Marketing, Logistics, Marketing, Supply Chain
Larger societal changes are affecting the way companies are planning their Supply Chains of the future. Here are the five biggest fallacies in supply chain management right now.
This guest post comes to us from Argentus Supply Chain Recruiting, a boutique recruitment firm specializing in Supply Chain Management and Procurement.
Lots of things are happening in Supply Chain Management. The field is becoming more digital, with end-to-end planning and blockchain technologies transforming the way products are coming to market. It’s becoming more strategic, as companies integrate their Supply Chains and use them as a source of competitive advantage – instead of just a back-office function. Larger societal changes are affecting the way companies are planning their Supply Chains of the future – everything from the looming arrival of driverless cars, to consumers’ demands that companies be more socially responsible.
We’ve written about quite a few of these topics ourselves. They’re exciting. They’re impactful on business. And – most relevant for us at Argentus as a recruitment company – they’re changing the talent picture by transforming the skills that Supply Chain professionals need to succeed.
[bctt tweet=”A new article in Forbes, “The Biggest Supply Chain Fallacies,” by Supply Chain researcher and beat writer Steve Banker, challenges a few of the assumptions underlying current supply chain management trends.” username=”Fronetics”]
A new article in Forbes, “The Biggest Supply Chain Fallacies,” by Supply Chain researcher and beat writer Steve Banker, challenges a few of the assumptions underlying these trends, and calls out some of the conventional wisdom that’s taken hold in the field.
We wanted to take the opportunity to discuss and respond to some of Mr. Banker’s points (because who doesn’t love a little bit of controversy?) as well as to throw it to our readers for further discussion. Whether you agree or disagree with some of Mr. Banker’s arguments, they’re thought provoking to say the least.
So here are the biggest fallacies he sees in the field right now, as well as our thoughts:
Fallacy 1: Blockchain will make everything traceable in Supply Chains, leading to greater supplier transparency.
We’ve covered Blockchain quite a bit in recent months. In short, companies are using Blockchain’s distributed ledgers to form a public record of where goods come from, allowing consumers to trace goods in the supply chain. The goal is to make the origin of goods more transparent, allowing companies to prove that goods haven’t come from workers under abuse or unsustainable sources.
Why This Might Be a Fallacy: According to Banker, Blockchain doesn’t solve the “garbage in, garbage out” problem that goes along with big data. His point: if a supplier lies about the provenance of a good at the point of origin – say, a farmer pretending beef is grass fed if it’s not – it doesn’t matter how transparent the Supply Chain is from that point forward. He says that Blockchain won’t eliminate the need for other kinds of certification in the Supply Chain, and we tend to agree – but does that mean it won’t be useful? No.
Fallacy 2: Corporate Social Responsbility initiatives improve a companies financial performance.
We’ve touched on Corporate Social Responsibility (or CSR) when discussing the annual Top 25 Supply Chains list with Gartner’s Michael Massetti. More companies are raising expectations of environmental sustainability. Some massive companies have pledged to eliminate excess waste in their supply chains entirely in the coming years, and there’s a lot of talk that sustainability helps the bottom line by improving sales and lowering costs (e.g. fuel).
Why This Might Be a Fallacy: Banker points out that companies shouldn’t assume that CSR efforts will necessarily improve sustainability. In his eyes, they’re good for society – but they have less financial benefit in business-to-business-selling industries (where customers won’t pay a premium for sustainable goods) and developing economies.
Fallacy 3: There’s a shortage of truck drivers – a threat to the Supply Chain stability – because young people don’t want to drive trucks.
The Logistics industry press has been writing a lot about a shortage of truck drivers, with a lot of anxiety about how the demographics of truck drivers are skewing older and older.
Why This Might Be a Fallacy: Banker is responding to the prevailing wisdom that says the truck driver shortage comes from millennials wanting other careers. He retorts that the median truck driver salary of $42,553 is the reason why young people don’t want to go into the field, and that the industry should raise drivers’ wages if it wants to attract applicants – instead of waiting for driverless trucks which, in Banker’s opinion, are father off than they seem. He cites data from the American Trucking Association that wages have risen between 15 and 18 percent from 2013-2017, and says this should mean that the shortage will be overblown.
Fallacy 4: Improved forecasting will always lead to lower inventory levels.
This one is a bit of a sacred cow in the world of Supply Chain analytics. Everyone knows that demand planning isn’t completely foolproof, but these forecasting solutions are improving with the advent of machine learning and other technologies.
Why This Might Be a Fallacy: Similarly to #2, Banker wants to put a bit of a pin in the hype about forecasting. He wants to challenge the assumption that better demand forecasts will always lead to lower inventory levels. In his mind – and we tend to agree – some things are still unpredictable no matter how advanced the forecasting technology. For example, if a recession hits unexpectedly, demand will be way lower than expected and you’ll likely have tons of excess inventory.
Fallacy 5: Companies who have functional excellence will always win.
Banker challenges the assumption – or “trap” as he calls it – of privileging any function’s Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) over the success of the Supply Chain ecosystem as a whole. Better reporting and data have made for an increased reliance on KPIs to maximize performance in areas like Sourcing, Logistics, Manufacturing, and Sales.
Why This Might Be a Fallacy: According to Banker, if you rely on excellence in any particular function’s KPIs, you risk hurting another function and the overall business. For example, if a company is measuring their Procurement function on price, and they source materials based on price without emphasizing quality, this can harm manufacturing will still making it look like Procurement is succeeding.
Banker argues that companies who take a more holistic approach – through processes like Integrated Business Planning (IBP) – will win over companies who prize excellence in any particular function. From our perspective, this is something most companies recognize they need to do, even if they aren’t always successful at executing it.
Whether you agree or disagree with any of Mr. Banker’s assertions, we still think it’s always valuable to question conventional wisdom and hype.
Please check out the original article, and then we want to hear from you! What do you think about any of these topics? Is Mr. Banker right, or is he barking up the wrong tree?
Related posts:
SaveSave
by Elizabeth Hines | May 29, 2018 | Blog, Content Marketing, Current Events, Data Security, Data/Analytics, Manufacturing & Distribution, Marketing, Strategy, Supply Chain
While information-heavy companies employ entire teams dedicated to cyberattacks, American factories have quietly been growing more and more susceptible.
It’s been eight years since the widely publicized Stuxnet virus was released to wreak havoc on its unsuspecting victims. Are we in a better place now to deal with a highly sophisticated next-generation Stuxnet-style attack?
[bctt tweet=”Information heavy companies have entire teams dedicated to cyber defense, while American factories have been left more and more susceptible.” username=”Fronetics”]
Most experts say no. In fact, studies suggest that manufacturers, in particular, are increasingly vulnerable to cyberattacks. While information-heavy companies have grown to employ entire teams dedicated cyber defense, American factories have quietly been growing more and more susceptible.
Time to Pay Attention
Ransomware attacks, in which hackers use malware to encrypt data, systems, or networks until a ransom is paid, are alarmingly common. According to a recent report from Radware, 42% of global companies have dealt with this kind of attack. That number has been steadily rising. The number of companies reporting financially motivated attacks has doubled in the last two years.
Manufacturers — if you haven’t been paying attention yet, it’s time. This summer, about half of the organizations targeted by the sweeping Petya ransomware cyberattack were manufacturers. The recent WannaCry virus actually forced a Honda plant in Japan to halt production.
And there’s a bit more: The Wall Street Journal recently reported on what they call a new type of cyberattack that targets factory safety systems. Hackers who attacked a petrochemical plant in Saudi Arabia last year specifically focused on a safety shut-off system.
Is the WSJ right? Is this a new trend? Will hackers begin targeting control-system computers that manage American factory floors, chemical plants, and utilities on a more regular basis? Maybe.
There are plenty of theories that even the most crippling ransomware attacks like Petya and WannaCry are, at their core, motivated by something other than money, namely sheer pleasure in chaos and disruption. The potential damage to factory production and safety systems is growing. Now is the time to wake up and pay attention.
Factories Growing More Susceptible
Factories and manufacturers are at a heightened risk for a few coinciding reasons.
The complexity of our supply chains is a liability. With parts and materials from diverse and sometimes changing sources, as well as networks that can span all phases of production, our supply chains are large and constantly adapting and, because of this, extremely vulnerable.
The intensity of the manufacturing schedule raises a second issue. Many manufacturing facilities run around the clock, and halting factory production for testing is often cumbersome and costly.
The third reason is, of course, the byproduct of a manufacturing sector that has become steadily more data-driven and dependent on information technology. As manufacturing has steadily merged with technology to create the Industrial Internet of Things, we too have unknowingly created a space in which hackers see the potential for massive amounts of under-protected data, equipment, networks, and intellectual property.
How Can We Prepare
We’ve all heard the mantra, “The first step to solving any problem is admitting you have one.” A core concern has been the manufacturing sector’s inability or unwillingness to face this growing threat.
A report summary issued through a joint venture between MForesight and the Computing Community Consortium warned, “There’s a widespread failure to reckon with the risks.” The report recognizes that solving the issue will be long-term and complicated, but offers a few suggestions, including wide-reaching efforts to increase awareness, collaboration with trusted third-party partners, and cybersecurity research and development.
In the shorter term, maybe this can help. Last year the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) released a Cybersecurity Framework Manufacturing Profile that provides a roadmap to managing cybersecurity and reducing risk to your manufacturing systems.
But I think Sridhar Kota, professor of engineering at the University of Michigan, hit the nail on the head in his article entitled A Plan for Defending U.S. Manufacturers from Cyberattacks, when he wrote: “Cybersecurity needs to become a deeply ingrained part of every manufacturing company’s culture — embedded in management decisions, workforce training, and investment calculations.”
The risks to manufacturers are growing from all-too-common ransomware attacks to sophisticated Stuxnet-style assaults targeting our safety systems. Its’s time that we in the manufacturing sector think of cybersecurity, and cyber defense, in absolutely every decision we make. To do otherwise is reckless.
Related posts:
by Fronetics | May 21, 2018 | Blog, Logistics, Strategy, Supply Chain, Talent
Millennial talent seeks employment opportunities with companies that promote transparency, technology, excellence, and social change.
We write often about the supply chain talent gap and how supply chain companies should be proactively recruiting millennials to join their companies. So a recent Harvard Business Review article, which talks about how companies that “young people find dull” (like electrical distributors and manufacturers) can make their businesses seem “cool,” seemed particularly relevant.
While we adamantly disagree that the supply chain isn’t cool, we do think it’s important that logistics and supply chain companies think strategically about recruiting millennial talent.
Millennial talent and the vision thing
According to a new study by strategy firm Department26, “Transparency is the millennial standard operating procedure in the workplace.” Honesty and security are top of mind for this generation that came of age just as the country plunged into The Great Recession.
[bctt tweet=”Beer kegs and ping pong are nice, but millennials are more impressed with leadership that sets goals and delivers on them. ” username=”Fronetics”]
Beer kegs and ping pong are nice, but millennials are more impressed with leadership that sets goals and delivers on them. They want to know how their role contributes to the organization’s success, and they want to know the effort they’re putting into a job is worth it.
“Setting them up for success means regular check-ins, both positive and constructive feedback as a rule, and structured mentorship,” write the authors of the Department26 study.
People say millennial talent doesn’t work for money, and it’s true that they’re not motivated by salary alone. Younger employees want meaningful work that enhances their personal growth.
They also want flexible work rules that show an employer respects and trusts them. Sharing details of your strategic plan or examples of how your HR policies reward personal initiative can help millennial talent see your “boring” business in a new way.
“The thought of not being granted flexibility in exchange for hitting performance metrics is absurd to millennials, and it’s a concept that’s diametrically opposed to the freedom they crave,” the study concludes.
Talk tech
Logistics or trucking can sound dull to the iPhone generation — until you paint a picture of forward momentum and innovation that might surprise them.
Automation, robotics, autonomous vehicles, blockchain, drones and the Internet of Things (IoT) are reshaping the industry. Companies like Amazon, Pfizer and Wal-Mart are experimenting with new technologies to reduce costs, boost productivity, and improve handling performance.
“Wearable technology could soon become a standard must-have in the logistics industry,” according to a recent story in The Business Journals. “As these technologies continue to carve out their role in the global logistics industry, we’re likely to see previously unimagined levels of optimization — from manufacturing to warehousing to delivery.”
Find ways to change hearts and minds by exposing young people to the realities of today’s supply chain. If they think it’s boring, it’s because they really don’t know what it is.
Be the best damn supply chain company anywhere
People want to work for “the best” — the most innovative, the most profitable, or the most admired brand — in every industry. Workers are proud to say they work for a company recognized as being the best at what it does because it says they’re the best, too.
Even millennial talent that has never thought about a career in logistics might reconsider if they’re being recruited by an industry leader.
Celebrate excellence at your company. Promote the awards you’ve won. Share customer testimonials, positive media coverage, and community recognition with prospective recruits.
It also helps to do well by doing good. This is a generation that trusts business, not government, to create positive social change. “Millennials are hungry for a work culture that inspires them. At a macro level, companies should communicate clear plans that reflect their core values,” says Department26.
HBR author Bill Taylor summarizes these sentiments well: “What [millennials] value is the chance to join companies that make a difference and where the work brings out the best in them.”
How is your company recruiting millennial talent?
Related posts:
by Fronetics | May 2, 2018 | Blog, Content Marketing, Customer Service, Logistics, Marketing, Social Media, Strategy, Supply Chain
A new study shows that businesses that reply to customer reviews receive better ratings overall than those that do not respond.
I’ve written before about the rising popularity of B2B user review sites and how supply chain and logistics businesses can use them to increase organic traffic and lead-to-sale conversion rates. B2B buyers are increasingly considering user reviews when making purchasing decisions. That’s great for business — when the reviews are good.
But what if you get bad reviews?
[bctt tweet=”Bad reviews don’t necessarily spell disaster — but they do mean that you should incorporate a response plan into your overall marketing strategy. ” username=”Fronetics”]
A brand new study published in the Harvard Business Review (HBR) shows that businesses that reply to customer reviews get better ratings overall. This means that bad reviews don’t necessarily spell disaster — but they do mean that you should incorporate a response plan into your overall marketing strategy.
Replying to reviews is an important part of online reputation management — which is especially crucial in the B2B space, where companies live and die by their reputation. So how does responding to reviews improve your online reputation?
A study in why to reply to customer reviews
To examine this question, Professors Davide Proserpio and Giorgos Zervas looked at tens of thousands of hotel reviews and responses from TripAdvisor. What they found was that “when hotels start responding, they receive 12% more reviews and their ratings increase, on average, by 0.12 stars.”
While 0.12 may not seem like a lot, in the scale of TripAdvisor’s 5 star system, where ratings are rounded to the nearest half star, it has a significant impact on customers’ perceptions.
Proserpio and Zervas found that “approximately one-third of the hotels we studied increased their rounded ratings by half a star or more within six months of their first management response.”
Improved ratings are related to management response
So why is it that the hotels started to get more and better reviews when management started responding?
The researchers examined every facet of the data to rule out other factors that would undermine causality, and found that in fact “improved ratings can be directly linked to management responses,” rather than improvements made to facilities or services.
To explain it, the researchers make the analogy of eating at your favorite restaurant and your meal arrives late. You complain to your dinner companions, but when the manager checks in seconds later and asks how everything is, “for a moment, you consider complaining, but instead choose to avoid confrontation and focus on enjoying the rest of your meal.”
Essentially, by humanizing your presence on review sites, you discourage potentially awkward online interactions.
The researchers conclude, “While negative reviews are unavoidable, our work shows that managers can actively participate in shaping their firms’ online reputations. By monitoring and responding to reviews, a manager can make sure that when negative reviews come in — as they inevitably will — they can respond constructively and maybe even raise their firm’s rating along the way.”
Do you always reply to customer reviews on user review sites?
Related posts:
