Weaving Social Consciousness into Corporate Identity - Community Value Drivers
Karen Chiang is Managing Partner of Ibbaka. See her skill profile on Ibbaka Talent.
I find it appropo that as I write this post on Community Value Drivers, we are approaching Labour Day, which pays tribute to the contributions and achievements of workers. Labor Day originated in the US during one of American labor’s history’s most dismal chapters at the height of the Industrial revolution when, on September 5, 1882, 10,000 workers took unpaid time off to march from City Hall to Union Square in New York City. A decade earlier in December 1872, here in Canada, Labour Day can be traced back to a parade in support of the Toronto typographical union strike for a 58-hour work week. Here is another rumour associated with Labour Day. Some believe that wealthy elitists created fashion rules to exclude new money, one of these rules was not to wear white after Labour Day.
I find myself personally blessed as Ibbaka continues to allow me to work with some great companies. Companies who have shaped the way in which we think about value and how value is measured. Traditionally, in the business world, particularly in the realm of B2B, the emphasis has been on economic value drivers. We founded Ibbaka at the end of 2015 and as we helped firms think more about how they serve their customers, we started to introduce the concept of emotional value drivers which we tied to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs in 2016. Our research had found it difficult to frame B2B pricing without an understanding of the emotional dynamics at play.
Ibbaka introduced the concept of community value drivers with a handful of corporations in 2018. From then to now, we can see that weaving social consciousness into corporate outcomes has become increasingly important across all industries. Community value drivers are a powerful way to frame our priorities. They provide a reference for the impact we have on the wider community.
Ibbaka has been working with BD since the date of our inception. BD is a global medical technology company that is advancing the world of health by improving medical discovery, diagnostics, and the delivery of care. It is a company that continues to touch countless lives. I distinctly remember listening in on an interview with one of BD’s corporate strategy and innovation leads. She was sharing with us that cervical cancer is one of the most preventable cancers in the world and that no-one should die of cervical cancer today. Yet 275,000 women die from this form of cancer each year. The eradication of disease is a key example of a health and well-being community value driver. When you think about the loss of life, the disruption to families that illness can have on an individual, and then multiply this across the population, the impact of saving human lives has a tremendous impact on society as a whole. For healthcare companies like BD, enabling health and well-being is a key value driver that they deliver and it is core to the identity of what they as a business.
Did you know what the safest way is to ride an elevator? According to an elevator technician, the safest way is to use the stairs! For those of us who are dependent on riding the elevator to get to our offices or to our condo units, we are especially thankful for the work that Technical Safety BC does to keep our community safe. Everything Technical Safety BC does has the safety of British Columbians in mind. They work with industry and the public to reduce safety risk through permits, licensing, enforcement, education, and research. At the backbone of their service is an understanding the risks to our province’s technical systems. Technical Safety BC maintains the infrastructure, tools, and systems to manage and improve safety. As a community, we want to have peace of mind. Our homes are a place of refuge and we want to be assured that our natural gas and propane appliances, boilers, and refrigeration systems are safe. We expect that when we take a train we will reach our destination safely. If we take our families to the amusement park, we love the thrill of the rides and trust that they are maintained properly. Security and safety is a key community value driver as we all want to be sheltered from physical or mental harm.
Jensen Hughes influences both health and well-being as well as security and safety for its customers. Keeping patients and staff safe is their highest priority. As we imagine, healthcare facilities have been stretched given the effects of COVID-19. When surge events such as natural disasters occur, our healthcare facilities need to have a plan in place to deal with the influx of patients. Jensen Hughes is in the business of enabling healthcare facilities to be better prepared for, respond to, and recover from emergency and surge events. Jensen Hughes also supports safety in the area of manufacturing. Certain manufacturing processes require the use of hazardous materials and these materials need to be stored safely. With the legalization of cannabis operations, there is a need to prevent hazardous fires during the manufacturing process. There are also unique hazards associated with each phase of pharmaceutical manufacturing. Jensen Hughes helps to keep our world safe.
We were thrilled to work on a project with ChildHealthBC. This organization developed the program, Appetite to Play. This is an initiative that helps early years providers, those who are responsible for and work with our young children ( 0 to 5 years olds), with resources to promote and encourage healthy eating and physical activity. This program is targeted at the very young with the hope that fostering good health including healthy lifestyles, physical, mental, and social wellbeing at this stage will carry through for the rest of their lives. This program also creates a positive impact through education. Education is another important community value-driver. ChildHealthBC and its Appetite to Play program are providing education and knowledge towards the betterment of society.
The above is just a snapshot of examples in our portfolio. Now I’d like to summarize all seven of the community value drivers we’ve identified working with our customers. I’ve summarized a description for each and provided some examples in the table below. You can also read how we weave community value drivers into value-based pricing.
Example Community Value Drivers for Value-Based Pricing
I invite you to think about how your organization is weaving social consciousness into your corporate identity and to share some of the community value drivers that are impacting those around you.
As a footnote, those of you who know me well, I will continue to wear white attire throughout the year.
