Shared Value In India

Mark Kramer, co-founder and Managing Director of FSG, is a world-renowned shared value expert. He is the author of influential publications on shared value, catalytic philanthropy, collective impact, strategic evaluation, and impact investing. Mark also leads the research on many of FSG’s publications and regularly publishes in Harvard Business Review and Stanford Social Innovation Review. He is also the co-author of the leading ‘Creating Shared Value’article published in Harvard Business Review in 2011.

The Summit scheduled for Friday, 20 November 2015 will include interactive panel discussions, keynotes from national and international shared value experts and opportunities for networking.

Know more about the Shared Value Summit 2015.

Fortune’s Change the World list

Leading global business magazine, Fortune, has recently launched its Change the World list. The list features top 51 companies that address social and environmental challenges through their core business strategy.

A joint team from Shared Value Initiative and FSG, a nonprofit think tank led by Mark Kramer and guided by Harvard professor Michael Porter, made more than 200 submissions for the list.

Fortune considered four criteria for listing the companies: degree of business innovation involved, the measurable impact at scale on an important social challenge, the contribution of the shared-value activities to the company’s profitability and competitive advantage, and the significance of the shared value effort to the overall business.

The goal of the list is to shine a spotlight on instances where companies are doing well as a part of their profit-making strategy.

Click here to read more about Change the World list.

Jain Irrigation Systems

Jain has built its business by improving the livelihoods of 5 million small farmers in India. Jain began selling micro-irrigation systems in 1986 when it recognized that the technology used in industrial agriculture could be adapted for local growers, whose tiny landholdings were traditionally watered by rain or blunt flooding techniques. As Jain’s “More crop per drop” slogan promised, yields increased dramatically—50% to 300%, depending on the plant—as did farmers’ incomes. And Jain continues to boost both in other ways as well: It has introduced more viable crop varieties and trained farmers on more productive growing techniques, such as high-density planting for mangoes. The company also branched into solar water pumps (electricity is often scarce on the farm), financing, and food processing so that there is a ready market for these farmers’ wares. The company, the world’s second-largest seller of drip-irrigation systems, now does business in 116 countries.

Novartis

In 2006, Novartis set out on an ambitious plan to bring dozens of essential medicines—basic remedies to fight diarrhea, parasites, nutritional deficiencies, and respiratory ailments—to rural India. From a philanthropic standpoint, the goal was laudable, but Novartis wanted it to be sustainable: It had to stand on its own as a business. The challenge? Health education was low, doctors were scarce, and distribution channels were non­existent. Novartis brought in physicians—who have treated nearly a million patients since 2010—and raised awareness of the critical need for hygiene in preventing infection. Just 31 months after the launch of Arogya Parivar (“healthy family” in Hindi), the venture broke even. It’s now being rolled out in Kenya, Indonesia, and Vietnam.

Unilever

As the globe’s third-largest consumer goods company, Unilever has a reach few corporations can match. More than half of the agricultural materials Unilever uses now come from sustainable sources and it has helped train 800,000 farmers to grow crops responsibly. In 2009 the company stopped issuing earnings guidance to keep short-term profits from driving strategy. While some shareholders have fretted about the bottom line, Unilever says its most sustainable products (including Dove and Lifebuoy soaps and Ben & Jerry’s ice cream) are now its biggest growth drivers.

Cargill

In India, a country where 194 million people—and 40% of children—are malnourished, cooking oil matters. The staple product is found in 99% of Indian homes, making it one of the most surefire weapons to fight the country’s scourge of malnutrition and fend off the host of issues—from blindness to vulnerability to infection—that come with it. That’s why it was meaningful when Cargill, which sells more than a half-million ton of edible oils in India each year, began fortifying its products with vitamins A and D in 2008. Siraj Chaudhry, CEO of Cargill Foods India, saw nutrient enrichment—a $1 million annual investment—as a competitive advantage. Consumers and, more significantly, competitors were swayed—most cooking oil in India is now fortified. “It has been a catalyst for the whole industry,” says Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition’s Greg Garrett.

Get Involved

Join the SVII community and share your success story or ask the doubts. Organizations can be partners/members of SVII through our various membership schemes. They can be a part of the growing network of ‘change makers’ & ‘thought leaders’. The membership is across five tiers, and you can learn more about it by visiting the website or writing to us.

Please visit https://sharedvalue.in or email us at nayan.bhatnagar@sharedvalue.in