When the fact of being small does not mean small impact

Back in High School and during my degree, I have been taught that the main aim of every business is to make profit. Of course, there is no doubt that making money is necessary to sustain businesses in the short and in the long term. However, I consider this premise a very basic one, one with lack of ambition and aspirations. Maybe it seems contradictory having in the same phrase profit and lack of ambition, but bearing in mind a phrase of Peter Drucker, life is more than breathing, and doing business must go beyond making profit.

Nowadays, humans are creating and living a new global environment characterized by rapid change. Flexibility and adaptability into this changing world are the key challenges but also the solutions for companies to “manage” their stakeholders: attract talented people, satisfy customers and shareholders, and choose the most suitable suppliers according to the business preferences.

Big companies have a big impact on employment, wealth and investment, but also pollution for a country. Though, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are as well, impact generators. In a worldwide basis, these small pieces of the big economic puzzle, the SMEs, account for around the 90% of the total firms. So, they cannot be avoided when talking about both positive and negative impacts locally, nationally and globally.

SMEs have become “micro-multinationals”, driven by the need for speed and flexibility in a worldwide job and consumer markets. This international atmosphere together with the Internet, make companies more vulnerable in terms of public information availability, but this fact opens a window for opportunities in order to build and spread trust among their stakeholders. Already created SMEs and also new ones, must take an advantage of this new reality.

Having in mind the word “manage” that I used at the beginning and looking at its definition “to be ​responsible for ​controlling or ​organizing someone or something, ​especially a ​business or ​employees”, is fair to reconsider the connotation it has as an unilateral approach. When it comes to taking into account your employees, the monologue must change into a conversation. Something that grows thank to both parts and helps companies’ culture to be more consistent and trustful.

Despite the fact that being responsible and taking care of employees or local communities is not something new, the increasing level of expectations from stakeholders in relation with companies’ behaviour, is the key factor that oblige firms to accomplish the promises they make. Nevertheless, if you want to build trust, be coherent and walk the talk, the first thing you have to do is to focus inside your company. In every company, employees are the pillars but also the façade of the firm, but in SMEs few people become the key players for the sustainability of the business. Having worked in an SME I have understood that if you want to succeed, there is no space for a clash of driving values between employees and the company. This example of coherency makes easy for the business to grow aligned in one unique direction. Moreover, in many cases, SMEs born to solve a problem or a need located in an specific area or that occur to the founders. Is because of this that, in many cases, mission, vision and values came before the birth of the firm itself, and they are the main drivers from the beginning of the SME.

Employees lives go beyond the need of oxygen to survive, so in terms of their career their expectations and needs go further profit generation. So, what they want from their job? They want to create an impact by doing good. And it is exactly the path that SMEs must want to follow.

Fátima Enríquez Lago, student of the International Master in Sustainable Development and Corporate Responsibility.

No hay comentarios / 20 Mar 2016 por Fátima Enríquez Lago
IMSD / CSR, employees, SMEs

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