Memo Report: Future-Proofing Business Strategies for Long-Term Success

Desklib provides past papers and solved assignments for students. This report examines future-proofing strategies for business.

Intra-Organizational Communication (Memo Report)
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Executive Summary
Subject Matter
This memo report gives a clear view of future proofing a business organization. Steps needed to
make the organization future ready is discussed in the report in details.
Methods of Analysis
To find out the features which can make an organization future ready, the whole article is
analyzed. It can be found that there is a need to be socially responsible to achieve future success.
Findings
In the Findings section, it is found that nowadays students who are looking for job prefer jobs
which are future ready and sustainable as they are eco-friendly and thinks about the next
generations.
Conclusions
It gives the overall view of the report and concludes what steps are needed to be followed by the
organization to future proof itself.
Recommendations
In this section, a recommendation is given about the practical steps which business organizations
should follow over time to achieve future sustainability and become future proof.
Limitations
It discusses how this memo is unable to explore other sources of information to get an even
better perspective about future proofing the organization.
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction..................................................................................................................................4
2. Subject Matter..............................................................................................................................4
2.1. Social License.......................................................................................................................4
2.2. Sustainable Business.............................................................................................................4
2.3. Benefits of Purpose-Led Business........................................................................................5
2.4. Practical Steps.......................................................................................................................5
3. Methods of Analysis...................................................................................................................5
4. Findings......................................................................................................................................6
5. Limitations..................................................................................................................................6
6. Conclusion and Recommendation...............................................................................................6
References........................................................................................................................................8
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1. Introduction
This memo report gives a clear idea of what future-proofing an organization is. It discusses what
steps should be taken by organizations so that they can be future ready and get an assurance that
they are able to continue their business in the future as well (Wilson, 2016). They have to be
socially responsible, and ready to change their whole process of working according to the needs
of the customers. That is why they need to find a precise purpose to carry on the business and
make a practical plan to implement it, so that idea becomes reality fruitfully.
2. Subject Matter
2.1. Social License
In order to survive, a company must have Social License, which means getting continuous
acceptance from not only the stakeholders but also the consumers, suppliers as well as the
normal people, specifically the whole planet. With the social license, a company is more eligible
to sustain in the market. When the concept is incorporated in an organization, it creates an
uncertainty in the outcome which is completely unnecessary (Cui, Jo, and Velasquez, 2016). It
also creates a complexity in the principles of the organization, which makes the operation
complicated. The reason behind the above-mentioned problem is that in the private sector, the
social expectation is changing fast with time. There is an utmost need to find out the new social
purpose of running a business or else any other source of funding. Capitalism mainly depends on
two facts- the self-interest of the people or else the benefit of the society.
2.2. Sustainable Business
In the present time, whenever an organization is taking an approach to allocate its capital they
are taking more responsible decisions, thinking about the future generation as well as the planet.
These kind of decision making are increasing and accelerating. Many companies are taking the
path of using low carbon resources, such as HSBC, Aviva etc, among which BlackRock is
currently the largest who supplies sustainable Exchange Traded Fund (ETFs). Australian super
fund HESTA is working to put an end to the tobacco use at the UN general assembly (Campbell
et al., 2015). Another example is the Olam International of Singapore, which had put a
negotiation forwards that it will cut down their interest rate if the operations of the industries it
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funds meet some environmental, social and governance (ESG) targets. All these examples are
proof of how thinking about society and environment helps an organization to build a sustainable
business and financial systems and make profits.
2.3. Benefits of Purpose-Led Business
When an organization decides to operate based on the purpose, then automatically it is able to
grow. The growing of the organization depends on its size and age as well. If an organization is
big and old, then to understand the need of the consumers and changing the whole process of
work accordingly takes lots of resources and time. On the other hand, it is easy for small and
medium-sized enterprises to implement new values and objectives, change the whole structure of
the organization and introducing new systems as well (O'Brien and Cave, 2017). It helps those
organizations to meet the changing needs of the consumers easily. For example, the HuskeeCup
is a kind of reusable cup and the organization in Australia do it in the farm level and reduce the
waste at its minimum. They have introduced a cup exchange program, called the HuskeSwap,
which they collect and recycle.
2.4. Practical Steps
If an organization thinks of future proofing itself then they should follow some steps. The leaders
of the organization must find out a few important issues and based on that take necessary steps,
which is why taking fewer issues and prioritizing them is necessary. After finding the issues,
there is a need to make a value creation model, which will give a clear perspective about the
interest of the stakeholders (Hudson, 2017). After the value creation model is made, the
organization focus on the creation of social value proposition, which gives the answer to the
question- why the organization is working. The employees understand what they are working
for, customers also get a reason to buy the products and the shareholders plan to do business with
the organization in the long term. All the previous steps need the most important element,
communication, to work efficiently as nobody can work unless they know about it and
understand the whole matter.
3. Methods of Analysis
For this memo report, an analysis had been done on the “Why your board needs to implement a
future proofing strategy”. The whole article is analyzed, to find out the purpose behind doing the
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research. After analyzing the article, it can be found that it is based mainly on future proofing a
business and the ways it can be done. Some of the factors on which it depends is the Social
Licensing of the organizations which can be achieved by making the organization more socially
acceptable (Wilson, 2016). To do so, the organization have to think of the society and its people,
so that they not only just make profits but upgrade the whole society as well. They can make a
sustainable business organization if they keep on upgrading according to the needs of the
consumers, and make other organizations follow the path. If the business are made based on
some socially and environmentally accepted and needed purpose then it will create a way for the
organization to sustain in the future. However in order to make the plan fruitful, there is a need to
communicate the whole process to its stakeholders as well as the consumers.
4. Findings
A survey which was done by TD Ameritrade in the year 2018, found that almost 60 percent
millennials think that if they invest after fulfilling the criteria of ESG principles, then they are
more likely to make profits. On the other hand, in the same survey, only 36 percent of the baby
boomers think the same. A study done by JP Morgan in 2018 as well, found that in the present,
investments which are more socially responsible are becoming mainstream. A Harvard Business
Review study done in 2008, found that most of the companies in the USA who had an aim to
make a sustainable business had performed above average in the financial market that year.
Recently a study had been done by Stanford Graduate School of Business, which found that,
among the MBA graduates of North America and Europe, 90 percent prefers to work in those
organizations which are more committed of being socially responsible.
5. Limitations
The limitation of the study is that it is unable to take into consideration any other article which
may be relevant to the topic and that is why unable to gather more information regarding the
topic. It is possible to make use of all the information provided in the article if the whole memo
would have been written in more details.
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6. Conclusion and Recommendation
From the above discussion, it can be found that, in the whole world, the way business was
conducted is changing. That is why the way business had been managed needs to change. Only
then can a business be future proof. The most important factor upon which the sustainability of a
business depends on is its socially responsible decision making. Apart from that, the eco-
friendly way of conducting business will directly impact its sustainability, as the chance of
conduction of business in the future will increase. Moreover, the small and medium enterprises
are more able to change according to the needs of the consumers and provide them with the
products and services which they need. It can be recommended that the organization needs to
take some practical steps to sustain in the market. The management of the organization should
make and prioritize some of its important issues and work on it accordingly by building a Value
Creation Model and creating a Social Value Proposition.
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References
Campbell, B., Khachatryan, H., Behe, B., Dennis, J. and Hall, C., 2015. Consumer perceptions of
eco-friendly and sustainable terms. Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, 44(1), pp.21-
34.
Cui, J., Jo, H. and Velasquez, M.G., 2016. Community religion, employees, and the social
license to operate. Journal of business ethics, 136(4), pp.775-807.
Hudson, S., 2017. 'Future proofing'the indigenous business sector. Policy: A Journal of Public
Policy and Ideas, 33(2), p.3.
O'Brien, J. and Cave, A., 2017. The Power of Purpose: Inspire teams, engage customers,
transform business. Pearson UK.
Wilson, V., 2016. Research methods: Content analysis. Evidence Based Library and Information
Practice, 11(1 (S)), pp.41-43.
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