Social innovation and benefits

Exactly a decade ago, the Nobel Prize committee awarded the year’s peace prize to Muhammad Yunus, a Bangladeshi social entrepreneur together with the Grameen Bank. The world, through the prestigious honour recognized their contribution of pioneering the concepts of microcredit and micro finance. It had helped and continues to help a huge percentage of population out of poverty by making them economically self sufficient. A brilliant social innovation, it breathed in a new air to the existing social entrepreneurship system.
Social innovation involves creating, developing and implementing new practices where the beneficiaries are not just the company but society and its people as well. Today, these innovations are helping to untangle the problems around us with new solutions. From United States where President Barack Obama launched the Social Innovation Fund, to Japan, where, following the 2011 tsunami and nuclear disaster, social innovation is serving the country’s rebuilding efforts, the world is waking up to the role of social innovations in making prosperous societies. Closer home, Arab World Social Entrepreneurship Program (ASEP) pioneered by Ashoka is focusing on enhancing social innovations to create and enhance social entrepreneurship ecosystem in the UAE and the Gulf region.
A truly prosperous society is one with interwoven strands of economic prosperity and social prosperity. Societies with economic opulence are truly prosperous only if those benefits are availed by everyone in the society. Social and economic schemes have to work in concert for sustainable prosperity and self-reliance. This requires active participation of the organisations along with other stake holders. Many companies, realising the importance of social entrepreneurship are now investing heavily in social innovations. The fundamental steps to take the plunge are -

• Social initiative should be the expression of the company’s mission. Determine the social action that are in tandem with the company value system, that your product or service can aid.
  
• Establish frameworks like conditions and time frame. Work with the various stake holders as you build prototype and implement the pilot programmes in the society around.
  

• Incorporate social innovation into the company’s ecosystem so that the employees get involved. Organisations achieve the best results by allowing the stake holders inside and outside the company to collaborate and innovate.
  
• Social innovations should grow to match the needs of the society they serve. Scaling up and scaling out the innovation to solve social problems can also lead to new business opportunities for the company.
  Social innovations should be applied from margins to mainstream and to every strata - health care, education, nutrition, environment, sanitation, knowledge, social inclusion, housing among others. From self-help health groups to Wikipedia, microcredit to consumer cooperatives, zero carbon housing schemes to community courts you can witness the examples of social innovation where new ideas immensely improve peoples’ lives.
  Social enterprise can be a key aspect of economic diversity and development too. Many companies use social innovation, as a double-edged sword, to not only improve the world but to gain a competitive advantage too. Instead of just focussing on profit maximization, spreading out the business to the realms of social innovation can help you to impress a positive influence in the minds of your customers and employees, which in turn will help in revenue growth. Companies can get maximum results from social innovations when they operate it as a part of a system including employees, competitors, NGO’s, customers, investors and policy-makers.
  Unfortunately, not many countries have a decent action plan for social innovation that is equivalent to the strategies for innovation in business and technology. There is a long way to go for social innovations to be treated on parity with commercial innovations. Across the GCC, social and environmental needs have at times been drowned in the frenzy of economic surge of the past two decades. A pinch of creativity, innovation and goodwill would go a long way in ensuring the area’s forward march, along with the world’s.
  

Community focus - the need of the hour

The times are ever so changing. Communities that once provided the cohesiveness with its support, protection, cooperation and the camaraderie, have slowly waned into alienated individuals. The change in jobs, life styles and technology have shrunk the life of people into the four walls of their houses. But technology, with its global connectivity, has also ensured that people are, today, aware of the problems faced by humanity around the world. Of late, more and more people are becoming increasingly cognizant of the pressing social issues of their communities and are eager to engage with them.
This changing environment has urged the companies and businesses to interact with the communities, locally and globally. People, today, demand that businesses actively take up an extended role in solving the social problems. Awareness of the relevance of corporate social responsibility(CSR) has been growing in the GCC over the last 10 years. But survey reports and studies by Dubai Chamber of Commerce indicate that, in the organizations of the area, there is significant gap between organizations’ acceptance of CSR and ability to implement these initiatives.
At this juncture, the traditional approach to community engagement by businesses will no longer be adequate. The companies must force themselves to explore new and innovative CSR strategies to replace traditional philanthropic programmes. The programmes also must advance, adapt and appeal to the local needs of the communities. There are various ways for businesses to collaborate with communities. These include sponsoring a community event, offering company products as gifts, mentorship programs, employee volunteer programs, scholarship programs, environmental initiatives and many more alternatives by which they can reach out to the people around
The effects of focusing on communities are multifold. It includes-
Customer loyalty and building customers base : Many studies on the subject hint that customers tend to purchase products/services from businesses that are supporting the causes that they believe in. A solid customer base, crucial to any business, can be developed by getting involved in community-based activities. It will, over a period of time, help in establishing customer rapport and loyalty.
Sales growth and increase in revenue : Harvard Business School research found that companies with efficient CSR practices outperform their counterparts over the long-term, in stock market as well as accounting performance.

Many factors like customer loyalty, brand visibility and networking are directly associated with increase in sales and revenue. 
 
Brand awareness, credibility and networking : Brand awareness, marketing, increasing the visibility of your business and building its credibility among the customers are some of the key aspects of sustainability in this highly competitive world. Getting involved with the local community is an excellent way to achieve this. Interacting with people help in creating new opportunities and giving you feed back about your business. Ideas to create effective promotion strategies, improve product/services, increase customer retention and much more can stem out of these interactions.
Employee satisfaction : Volunteering in the local communities is credited with having positive effect on the lives and careers of the employees. Employees of companies with CCI (corporate community investment) initiatives are committed to their employers, according to a University of Bath study. Encouraging employees to be part of the community engagement programmes stands to help in employee retention.
The time is always right to get involved in community linked activities. Many programmes like ENGAGE Dubai (which is part of an international network of businesses and community organisations that collaborate to develop healthy and sustainable communities by facilitating employee volunteering in their local communities) are already in place to promote the connect with the local communities. The end results are increased revenue, loyal customers, happier employees and stronger communities. It is a win-win situation, gratifying to all involved. Along with impressing the socially empathetic consumers and employees, you will also be the change the present-day world needs.