Driving Sustainability to Business Success

The DS Factor -- Management System Integration and Automation

M. Jayne Pilot

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781118356937
• eBook ISBN: 9781118416938
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Management
• Index: Business

Efficient, compliant management systems pave the road to sustainability through integration and automation

The book addresses the many definitions of sustainability and why CEOs need the links between sustainability, business value, and performance. Business leaders are committed to leading the way, and the book outlines the support of a management system structure and business principles that will drive the accomplishment of their mission. Stakeholder demands on CEOs include many challenges. Investors are assessing companies for financial performance. The shrinking talent pool of employees is looking to work with organizations that support social, environment, and economic operating practices and principles.

Great leaders are those that ask questions, who are creative to drive innovation for growth of their company. The Assess-Reflect-Act section on international business principles defined in the book will ask you as the leader thought provoking questions to stimulate action within your organization to bring people, processes, and technology together for business success.

Leaders need to transition to smart decisions that are data driven. The company's management system structure is important to build a strong framework for business process operations and automation for global competitiveness. Topics include:

• Business plans vs management systems
• Management system frameworks: standardization, ISO standards: Quality — ISO 9001, Environment — ISO 14001, OHSAS 18001, Integrated Management Systems
• Three Steps for Process Development: Identify, Insure, Improve
• Focus for the Organization: Compliance Costs, Best Practices, Strategic Planning
• Support — Resources: Innovation, Engagement, Succession Planning
• Data as a Valuable Resource
• Operation: Process Risks, Management System Control Plan, E-commerce, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Green Awareness-Eco Design, Automated Controls, Cloud Computing
• Performance Evaluation — Monitor, Measure, Analyze, Audit, Management Review
• Competitive Landscape

The constant need to improve internal processes and move toward business sustainability and quality standards is a major stressor for governments and businesses. With one-third of the workforce retiring in the next five to ten years, the need has become more immediate, and the focus has shifted to building a strong framework for business process operations and automation for global competitiveness. This book provides a roadmap to efficient, compliant systems, showing businesses how to build toward sustainability goals and capture key knowledge of the employees involved in the process.

PART I
Business Sustainability

The United Nations outlined on its website that “sustainability calls for a decent standard of living for everyone today without compromising the needs of future generations.”

We are all partners in maintaining sustainability of our world’s quality, environment, health, and safety management, impacting billions of people around the world. Global adversity trends include: food scarcity, depletion of natural resources, major climate change, water quality, extinction of animals, quality control on products, and globalization—carrying out business around the world.

The role of companies has been changing, especially in developing countries, where it is crucial for businesses that enter into these marketplaces to go beyond their core business lines and help to improve education, protect the environment, and address poverty and human rights, and, as a result, enhance their reputations and business models.

Many industries have been criticized for their lack of sustainability practices for some time now. In response, governments are implementing new legislation and regulations to provide accelerated changes in areas related to climate change, energy conservation, and the health and safety of workers.

Companies at first viewed the “green” movement as a threat. Today “going green” helps companies stay out of the “red” with actions taken to reduce consumption of energy and alternate methods for energy and management of resources. This is what I call the green sustainability movement. Companies are showing the world that they are credible sustainers of our world. Al Gore’s documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, moved many CEOs and has been credited with raising international public awareness of climate change and the environmental movement.

The TED Talks daily video podcast on YouTube is another resource that has impacted millions around the world. A young girl, Maya Penn, was featured on TED Talks (February 2014). She started her first company when she was eight years old. Many CEOs can learn a lot from this young entrepreneur, who values not only creativity and innovation but also her responsibility to the planet.

There are many definitions of sustainability. From reports outlined on sustainability, many companies are evaluating what this term means to them. Part I in this book, focuses on the terms for sustainability and the focus of top business leaders in this area. For sustainability to assist an organization it needs to provide value to the company; that is why I look at the definition of sustainability first, then in Part II, I move to the principles that can make a business successful with the support of an integrated management system that meets international standards in order to operate in the global marketplace, as described in Part III.

CHAPTER 1
CEO Study on Sustainability

An excellent report called “The UN Global Compact-Accenture CEO Study on Sustainability 2013, Architects of a Better World” is one of the world’s largest CEO studies on sustainability to date. It had more than 1,000 top executives from 27 industries across 103 countries discuss a new global architecture for businesses contributing to global priorities.

Peter Lacy, CEO Study Lead and Managing Director of Accenture Strategy & Sustainability Asia Pacific, outlined in the introduction that sustainability has become established on the leadership agenda of almost every leading business.

He wrote that “This year is a unique opportunity to take stock as we stand at a crossroads in the global economy. Business leaders are committed to leading the way, but will require greater ambition and wider support as they work to align sustainability impact with value creation, and markets with sustainable development outcomes, such that business leaders can truly become the architects of a better world.”¹

Refocus of Business Leaders—Top Priorities

Business leaders are refocusing, and the report shows that two thirds of responding CEOs outlined the following top three priorities for the future success of their business:

1. Growth and employment: 64 percent
2. Education: 40 percent
3. Energy: 39 percent

Link between Sustainability and Business Value

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Table of contents

• Cover
• Series
• Titlepage
• Copyright
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• PART I BUSINESS SUSTAINABILITY
• PART II PRINCIPLES FOR DRIVING BUSINESS SUCCESS
• PART III INTEGRATED MANAGEMENT SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATION: THREE STEPS
• About the Author —M. Jayne Pilot
• Index
• End User License Agreement