When an oil company transforms its marketing to focus on health and improves its market share, and when a leading bank becomes carbon neutral and insists that the people it lends to also be taking measurable steps to reduce their carbon footprint, you know the world of business is changing. Marico and HSBC are not exceptions. They are becoming a part of an increasing brigade of businesses who are changing their business model to become more sustainable. Their focus on creating a social impact while meeting and improving bottom-line is not restricted to a few CSR projects that they might initiate. It’s about changing business process and weaving in the social impact within the fabric of the business itself. At the NHRD annual conference that’s happening in Mumbai even as I write this piece, there are only two key thoughts being discussed at the conference. To be more Inclusive and to be more Sustainable. It’s what the keynote speakers spoke on and it has been the underpinning of every concurrent session.
The big question to ask is…are today’s organizations prepared for this big shift that’s sweeping across, or are they still struggling to understand the gravity of these words and not entirely sure how they can adapt their business models to this New Normal. In my view the biggest challenge is bringing about a change of mindset among today’s leaders, for it’s their will and clarity of thought that will bring the rest of their organization up to speed. And this change of mindset needs to come from experiential learning and mentorship from those who are ahead in the maturity curve. Perhaps its time our B-schools and organizational design programmes in corporations take a relook at their programmes and address this with the urgency it deserves.
The fact that BMW Foundation managed to get a buy-in from 200 of their top global leaders to assemble in India for 3 days to talk about this subject should be a good indicator of the behaviour organizations are demonstrating to not just survive but have a competitive edge in the future.

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