In business world today, Corporate Social Responsibility is gaining currency as never before. 0rganisations are working with missionary zeal to give back to the community, thereby having a great impact on the lives of millions of people around the world. Today, companies realize the value of being a contributing force behind positive development for the community and the country at large. They are extremely responsible and sensitive to the demands of a community. There is a passion to take a step beyond business.
However, it is also to the point to underline the fact that CSR activity also makes good business sense when it comes to venturing new markets and creating new prospective customers.
A look at the companies with good work in the CSR front indicates that CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) activities can result in a better performance and generate more profits and growth. However how a company perceives its CSR responsibility depends on various factors such as the markets in which it operates, its line of business and its size. In recent years CSR has become a fundamental business practice and has gained much attention from the management of large international companies. Whilst so far CSR was mainly promoted by a number of large or multinational companies, it is now also becoming important to small national companies.
A company’s long-term success can only be achieved for the present and the future in healthy social surroundings with a positive reputation in society. Companies must have the value of caring and sharing ingrained in their values framework.
India has huge needs that require significant investment in terms of volunteer hours, funds and overall management. Sharing is our Indian culture and we must continue to do our part in these endeavours.
Today CSR initiatives are not just limited to random acts of charity, rather it is moving towards giving back to society as a responsibility. It has been proved that a strong CSR program can not only give a company the much needed competitive advantage it seeks but a chance to go beyond their regular business objectives. Carefully designed CSR programs that effectively leverage the company’s core competencies can help organizations evolve into responsible and reliable contributors to societal wellbeing.
Here we present how the companies are focusing their CSR efforts to be socially responsible and at the same time making business sense out of this.
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Ganesh Guruswamy,
VP & Head of Design Operations, India Design Center,
SanDisk Corporation
In 2013, Sanjay Mehrotra, President & CEO of SNDK committed to the vision of celebrating its 25 years anniversary with the launch of campaign to give back to our communities worldwide called Celebration Through Service (CTS). Our goal was a lofty one – to have 100% volunteer participation of SanDisk’s employees. They would not only be giving the organizations and causes they volunteered with the gift of their time (we asked for a minimum of 3 hours per employee minimum. The SanDisk Foundation would match every volunteer hours performed at $45/vol. hour. Worldwide, the overall result was 16714 volunteer hours performed and more than USD$890,000 donated to organizations providing critical services to our neighbours in need.
The SanDisk Foundation is aimed at achieving the following goals: To strive for excellence and efficiency in conducting our community grant making, volunteer and corporate social responsibility activities, to achieve maximum impact by responding to non-profit agencies' greatest needs, to be recognized as a philanthropic leader in locations where we have a significant presence.
Our mission is simple - to reflect the values, orientation and commitment of SanDisk to be exemplary corporate citizens with the global community. We also believe in partnering with other corporate towards such causes and make the CSR footprint larger.
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Sonali De Sarker,
Director Human Resources,
NetApp India
NetApp as a company believes in giving back to the community and empowers its employees to be responsible citizens of the community. Through, its Corporate Social Responsibility program, called VTO on the Go! (Volunteer Time Off) NetApp enables its employees to take five days of paid leave (40 hours) per calendar year, to volunteer their time for social causes they are individually passionate about. The employees can volunteer their time with any nonprofit organization to assist in causes like disaster relief, elderly care, environment sustainability, education for children in orphanages, career guidance for youth in government schools and providing medical care to the terminally ill. Globally, NetApp’s charitable contributions in cash, in-kind and volunteer time off programs were valued at $4.9M for FY 13.
NetApp’s ‘Volunteer Time Off’ is a unique benefit that empowers its employees to make their own choices on how and when to contribute and give back to the community. Employee testimonials substantiate that participating in this program has benefitted them at a personal level and makes them feel proud to be a part of NetApp.
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Rajeshri Thapa,
Sr. Mananger – OD & Training,
Cyberoam Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
As an Indian organization with a global presence we firmly believe in our core values of Transparency, Integrity and Empowerment. These values are a way of life for all Cyberoamites; hence they have rightly named the CSR Arm as “Prarambh – The wind of Change”. Keeping these values in mind our employees themselves drive all CSR initiatives; be it blood donations camps in association with Prathma, where we collected 400+ bottles of blood or our value based education initiative. This initiative create general awareness in educational opportunities and broadens the horizons of the underprivileged children. We have so far 150+ students registered for this activity. We have conducted more than 10+ CSR programs in this financial year. With the intent to give back to society, Cyberoam has been aggressively structuring its CSR program. Coming up are initiatives like “Traffic Awareness Campaign”, “Green Earth Initiative”, “Child Abuse Awareness Campaign” and many more. We are fuelling the fire within the Cyberoam team to do good with our initiatives like the “Joy of Giving Week”, “Tree Plantation Drives”, “Blood Donation Camps”, “Value Based Education Drives”, “Traffic Awareness Campaigns” etc. Our team is diverse yet united in its vision and goal through our Corporate Social Responsibility Program.
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Chandrasekar Krishnamurthy,
Vice President, Global Services,
EMC India Center of Excellence
For EMC CSR is beyond financial funding. It is embedded in our DNA. We have maintained a continued focus on children and education and are focused on creating a change in our immediate community. Our School Adoption Program is a hugely successful program. Under this program, we have adopted Government schools in the Whitefield area of Bangalore and assist in infrastructure and academic support to the schools.
For us CSR is all about empowering the community in which we operate by enabling the children with the power of knowledge. It also entails creating sustainable programs for the benefit of the children which have a long lasting impact and can be owned by the community at a later stage ensuring the longevity and the success of the program. Most importantly it involves making our employees the ambassador of our company's CSR efforts and initiatives which ensure a deeply committed and passionate group of dedicated volunteers who are dedicated to a cause for life.
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Manju Dhasmana,
Community Affairs Manager,
Microsoft India
Microsoft has an enduring commitment to fulfill our societal responsibilities and serve the needs of people in communities worldwide. Less than 20% of youth in India have a secondary education. Through the Microsoft Community Affairs program, Microsoft works to create a digitally inclusive society by forging partnerships with governments, non-profit organizations and businesses and providing youth essential IT skills and tools. Microsoft’s corporate citizenship efforts, YouthSpark – Project Jyoti has been on the forefront to achieve Microsoft’s vision of helping India realize its potential since 2004.
Microsoft’s community investment efforts are focused on increasing digital inclusion and bringing the benefits of technology to underserved people worldwide. Some of the initiatives are - The NGO IT Program; Give for Youth; Through the Technology for Good initiative, we donated $795 million in software globally to more than 70,000 nonprofits; The Community MAR (Microsoft Authorized Refurbisher) Programme; Employee Volunteer Program (EVP) and Giving Campaign (GC)
Microsoft in partnership with Oxfam responded to the flash floods that hit Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka in September 2009. The response programme was implemented across 5 blocks and covered directly the poorest of the poor and the worst affected 13,000 households in the interior, inaccessible areas of the states. Overall, Microsoft and its employees have contributed approximately INR 10 million in support of various disaster response efforts in India.
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Jayanthi Sethuraman,
Head, Marketing,
Fujitsu India
The Fujitsu Way, the corporate philosophy of the Fujitsu Group, advocates that "Through our constant pursuit of innovation, the Fujitsu Group aims to contribute to the creation of a networked society that is rewarding and secure, bringing about a prosperous future that fulfills the dreams of people throughout the world." We strive to fulfill our responsibilities to society by putting this philosophy into practice.
For the Fujitsu Group, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) means putting the Fujitsu Way into practice to address a variety of social issues and contribute to a sustainable, networked society. This requires us to focus not only on financial results, but also on operational excellence through sound corporate governance, and the integrity of the ethical, social, and environmental aspects of business.
CSR at Fujitsu is practiced by implementing the Fujitsu Way. In all its business activities, by implementing the Fujitsu Way in light of the expectations and needs of multiple stakeholders, the Fujitsu Group contributes to the sustainable development of society and the planet. This ensures a strong synergy between business needs and our CSR initiatives. Our CSR initiatives focus on the five priorities below. In addressing these challenges, we demonstrate a commitment to responsible business operations as a global ICT company.
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Sunil Kripalani,
Senior Vice President – Global Sales & Marketing,
eScan
eScan, being a security solution vendor, has been constantly redefining the Information Security landscape by developing advanced and innovative technologies and solutions which not only provide security to digital devices and IT infrastructure but also ensure security to data.
Not only this, but with various activities such as road shows and cyber security awareness campaigns, we try to connect with IT users and help them update themselves with the current scenario of cyber security landscape and also impart them with knowledge that will help them to be safe. We also engage with our customers in discussions through various forums, blogs, etc. In this era of social media, eScan has its presence across all major social media platforms through which are constantly in touch with IT users. Through the means of this, we keep them posted about latest cyber security news, tips and tricks and lot more.
Being an IT security solution vendor, the Term ‘Corporate Social Responsibility’ for eScan is idea wherein we strategically plan voluntarily activities in order to contribute to a secured digital life to the IT users and help them have a better and a cleaner computing environment.
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Subroto Das,
Director – South Asia & India,
WD India
WD values the contributions made by the community in making the brand what it is today. CSR at WD is an intrinsic part of our value system and is deeply rooted in our corporate culture. We are socially and environmentally aware and take steps to ensure that we contribute for the betterment of the same. In 2013 WD joined hands with fashion guru Prasad Bidappa and The SMILE Foundation, a national level development organization, for ‘Ramp for Champs’, to sponsor the education of 125 underprivileged kids for a year. The initiative brought together some known faces of the entertainment and fashion industry to promote the cause of education for kids of underprivileged families in India. In the past as well, WD had initiated tree plantation drives and joined forces with its partners and the SMILE Foundation to celebrate Diwali with underprivileged kids.
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Ranjita Menon
APJ Giving Manager
Dell India
Dell Powering the Possible, our CSR program, is our commitment to put technology and expertise to work, where it can do the most good for people and the planet – making possible today what was impossible yesterday.
Youth Learning through access and skills acquisition, helping accelerate treatments for pediatric cancer, responding to disasters and supporting our team members’ own engagement with other community groups they care about.
Employees have the option to either support Dell’s 16 strategic partners in India or volunteer with a charity they prefer to support. Team members are also invited to nominate their preferred charity for a Dell strategic grant, and of Dell’s current 16 partners in India, four were recommended by employees. Dell also has social ‘intrapeneurs’ who in addition to their professional responsibilities manage their own charities in their personal time.
Dell has been engaged with the community through its various initiatives, and the culture of Giving is very strong within Dell. We have awarded grants to many charities in India, supported disaster relief efforts, matched employee donations, provided back-end support to facilitate volunteer engagement such as a robust online platform for team members to record their volunteer hours, and raise funds for their charities.
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Ranjit Nambiar,
Director, Sales, South Asia,
HID Global
HID has begun their green initiative to reduce print waste with the concept of “Going Green with HID”. HID Global has been working with strategic alliance and Advantage HID Partners to combine product innovation with sustainability principles to enhance their competitive advantage. With HID's Secure Print Authentication solutions, employees can print documents only when they have authenticated to the printer with their HID credentials. This helps organizations reduce the amount of paper, toner and electricity used on a daily basis, saving money and helping reduce printing-related waste
We have continuous improvement facilitators that identify all of the various areas for process improvement by tracking the use of materials and energy consumption to refine recycling programs for materials such as aluminum, glass, cardboard, chipboard and paper, and instituting new policies for energy conservation.
Our efforts have assisted disadvantaged children by providing community support and donations for schools supplies to underserved schools, toys for impoverished children; donations for funding pediatric cancer research; and other sponsorships, donations and community support for children in need. Overall, our aim is to improve the lives of children and adults who are less fortunate than others, and we believe our various contributions and participation in the aforementioned programs (and many more) continue to make a significant positive impact on the community.
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Sandeep Arya,
M.D.
Amtrak Infosystems Pvt. Ltd.
Philanthrope, a division of Amtrak, is a non profit, non commercial organization striving to make the most vulnerable communities safer from natural and manmade disasters through awareness, preparedness and mitigation. The organization has been working in partnership with government organizations, and Corporate Sectors in conducting programmes on training and capacity building, Community Preparedness, School Safety, Knowledge building, urban risk reduction etc.
The organization aims at making Every person aware of the simple yet essential basics of tackling emergency situations - be it the first-contact response in calamity-hit areas or the emergency handling of accident victims or critically ill patients.
Philanthrope comprises of highly qualified doctors, disaster management experts, educationists, entrepreneurs, researchers, parliamentarians and media professionals working towards the goal of making every Indian prepared to tackle emergencies.
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Radhika Kalia,
Head Corporate Public Relations & CSR
Panasonic India.
At Panasonic India, Corporate Social R esponsibility is the commitment of businesses to contribute to sustainable development by working with employees, their families, the local community and society at large to provide “A Better Life A, Better World”.
The 5Cs of our CSR Policy are - Committed to, Contribute to the Indian society, Continuously engaging, Community in order to foster, Coexistence and inclusive growth.
We strive in working towards inclusive growth as part of our commitment towards society. To ensure this, we are committed to community contributions, philanthropic partnerships, and in helping tackle social issues. Combining this with our organisational imperatives, we have devised a four-year strategy to bring alive our corporate social responsibility (CSR) vision. In terms of the initiatives undertaken for the community and the society, the year 2013 saw us engage in a number of activities to further strengthen the Panasonic brand. Some of the key initiatives are - Community Health Project, Education, Livelihood, Women’s Empowerment, Scholarship, Young Learner’s Programme, 100 Thousand Solar Lanterns Project and Panasonic Football Academy for Young Athletes
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Mamtha Sharma,
Country Manager, Corporate Citizenship & Corporate Affairs,
IBM India
One of our pilot programs, CSC just completed 5 years in December. Since its launch in 2008, the program impacted lives of more than 140,000 million people across the globe, through skills and capacity building.
Apart from CSC, IBM works towards the overall development of the society, be it Education, Agriculture, Women empowerment, Disability, LGBT and uses innovative concepts like On-Demand Community and Skill-Based Volunteerism where employees are given the freedom to choose the area of their interest for voluntary work. For the Millennial generation, which comprises most of their workforce, this works as an incentive where they are encouraged to participate in activities that make work life meaningful. This kind of work with NGOs, local communities, other IBMers is a golden opportunity for both the internal and external stakeholders who benefit from it.
The Citizenship Country Manager ensures that the IBMs vision of being an essential institution to the world is reflected in all the initiatives that we undertake. The globally developed programs are implemented by partnering with the local NGOs to make our programs relevant in the local context. Employee engagement is a critical part of our CSR work and we ensure there are high impact programs that provide opportunities to the employees in India to engage and contribute to the community.
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Kunwer Sachdev,
Founder & MD
Su-Kam
In the first phase of our CSR initiative, the company started its CSR activities with a self-sustaining rural-based solar energy initiative. The program facilitated the much-needed basic amenity of electricity to the villagers of Haryana.
Currently our CSR focus lies in Mental Health and Giftedness. Our vision is to provide professional support to the families of people suffering from personality disorders, with special emphasis on Borderline Personality Disorder. We have also created a website called http://www.helpbpdindia.com// to educate people about BPD, its symptoms and mode of treatment to be adopted for it.
We shall be tying up with some prestigious organizations to spread awareness about the disorder to the families of the BPD patients and encouraging researchers to write more on the subject. We aim to have the biggest ever summit on Borderline Personality Disorder in India where researchers, practitioners, and other esteemed people from the field of psychology will meet to discuss about the ongoing research about the subject, and how to provide help to the families of BPD patients.
In the area of giftedness, again we wish to involve a lot schools especially the untapped government schools. We are working on developing specific Gifted Education Programs catering to individual needs of the gifted children.
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Ruchika Batra,
Director
Samsung South West Asia
At Samsung India, our social responsibility program places substantial focus on providing quality education to underprivileged children in the country. Samsung is in the process of setting up Samsung Smart Classes at Navodaya Vidyalayas in different parts of the country. The Samsung Smart School initiative uses Samsung products like the Smartboard and laptops/tablets to enable students to access digital content and create an interactive environment in the classroom, thereby improving the quality of education being provided in these schools. We are also partnering with ITIs to enrich the quality of the Course Content relevant to our business.
We also offer our employees opportunities to engage and participate in our CSR programs. For example, in November last year we had a group of employees from Samsung headquarters in Korea volunteering in India for a period of three weeks, as part of the global Employee Volunteer Program. During these three weeks, they set up a Samsung Smart Class in a village school in Tamil Nadu, carried out repair work in schools in Tamil Nadu and Delhi, conducted medical camps, taught school children physical education and hygiene, etc. Several of our CSR initiatives are also in the vicinity of Samsung manufacturing plants; not only is this an extension of our commitment to the communities in which we operate, it enables our employees to be more closely involved with our programs.
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Umang Bedi,
Managing Director, South Asia,
Adobe Systems
We at Adobe believe in the power of collaboration to create change. A few examples of our commitment:
Global Giving Programs: The Adobe Foundation directs its grant making to two main focus areas: Creativity and Community.
Adobe Youth Voices (AYV): Adobe Youth Voices is Adobe’s global initiative to increase creativity in education and is funded by the Adobe Foundation.
Product Donations: We donate a selection of our most in-demand products to qualified nonprofit organizations/NGOs worldwide.
Sustainability Programs: We’re primarily focused on the following three areas: Energy Conservation, Green Building and Waste Reduction.
To date, Adobe has completed approximately 150 energy efficiency and waste reduction projects; Installed Bloom Energy Boxes at our San Francisco and San Jose sites which has replaced 50% and 30%, respectively, of our grid power consumption with renewable energy; achieved 100% waste diversion at our San Jose headquarters and San Francisco workplaces, with 15 other sites achieving over 90%; LEED certified an impressive 70% of all our workplaces square footage by the end of 2013; Raised our CDP rankings to 97 from 93 in 2012 placing Adobe on the Leadership Index.
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Rita Soni
CEO,
NASSCOM Foundation
NASSCOM Foundation-the social arm of NASSCOM, is a non-profit organization that is building an ecosystem to bring to fruition – Technology For Good. NASSCOM Foundation has designed a series of programs which facilitate responsible business, promote ICT solutions for development, empower NGOs with technology and to influence policy making through thought leadership. Divided into three main areas (eNGO, Member Companies and Social Enterprises), the range of programs covers nearly all the arenas for technology to be used for good.
eNGO – BigTech (philanthropy program, encouraging technology companies to donate their products and services), BigBridge (hardware donation program, that provides NGOs access to refurbished computers with licensed software, donated by IT companies, thereby helping them responsibly manage e-waste) and ConnectIT (training of NGO staff and government officers in IT skills and tech projects)
NASSCOM Members program includes Business Responsibility Forums or BR Forums, MyKartavya, Disability Initiative and Impact Sourcing whereas the Social Enterprises program includes Skills Initiative & National Digital Literacy Mission, NASSCOM Knowledge Network & Libraries and NASSCOM Social Innovation Honours or NSIH.
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Jagdish Mahaptra,
Managing Director for India and SAARC
McAfee
At McAfee, we are constantly searching for new ways to keep everyone safe online.
As part of our global initiative to fight cybercrime, we provide programs, resources, tips and links for everyone to use. McAfee helps school children, as well as parents and teachers, learn about cyber safety, cyber security and responsible online behavior. We also offer social media security tips, advice on how to protect smart phones and mobile transactions and resources for victims of online crime.
In Australia and across Asia, we have developed a Cyber Education (Cyber Ed) Program, which is delivered to school-aged children and adults by McAfee staff volunteers. It is focused on teaching young people to become safer and more secure computer users.
In India, this program was rolled out in February 2013 where McAfee Employees were trained to deliver the Cyber Ed training to school students. Through this volunteer program, McAfee employees have already trained 3000 school students PAN India and we are expanding this steadily.
At McAfee, our mission to provide world-class security products, services, and support rests on a foundation of ethical business practices and dedication to corporate responsibility around the world. We want to be the change agents of the industry.
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Suresh Vaidyanathan,
Head, Corporate Communications & Brands,
Huawei India
As a leading ICT solutions provider, Huawei has the vision of enriching life through communication. We offer our expertise, experiences, and innovative technologies in ICT while focusing on CSR through bridging the digital divide by ensuring that all people can experience basic communications and information services; protecting the environment is a core strategy of Huawei that focuses on providing the most competitive and efficient end-to-end green ICT solutions; continuously focusing on supplier CSR management, safe operations, social contributions, caring for employees, and stakeholder communication.
At Huawei India, we are committed to becoming a truly sustainable organization meeting the triple “P” bottom-line (people, planet, profit). The company is actively involved with trying to promote equal access to telecommunications and in helping to bridge the ‘Digital Divide’ between developing and developed nations through running CSR projects in regions such as Africa and western China.
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S. Tripathi,
Finance Director,
Prabhat Telecom
Working for the empowerment of the society is a way of life at the Prabhat Group. Our chairman believes, "society is an important stakeholder in the development of any organization". Keeping in tune with the business expansion the Prabhat Group has adopted the term 'Society Empowerment' instead of Corporate Social Responsibility. Empowered livelihoods are the demand of all social as well as business initiatives in the Group. Prabhat Group is a responsible corporate citizen, and strives to give back to the community in its own way.
The main objective behind the Society Empowerment initiatives of Prabhat Group is to bring technology and diversified products and services to impact the life of the soci ety. The company endeavors to make a positive contribution to the community by supporting a wide range of socio-economic initiatives. Keeping in mind the Group guidelines and the objective mentioned above, we have identified and implemented many Society Empowerment initiatives since our inception.
Through our core activities of investment and operation, our business has major and multiple impacts on developing economies and people. Through purposeful action, we have adapted our business model, not just to avoid damage, but to unleash greater development impacts, while still being driven by commerce. This in turn has more impact than conventional CSR.
To Conclude…….
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has come a long way in India. The Companies Act 2013 has opened up exciting avenues for CSR in the country. India is among the first few countries to have such a mandate and we look forward to seeing the kind of impact the new laws will bring. We expect to see more companies taking up CSR programs seriously, paying more attention to the activities they support and the impact these bring. The passage of the revamped Companies Bill in the Rajya Sabha brought in a new regulatory stance towards corporate social responsibility (CSR) in India. A CSR policy speaks of how a company will not only comply with legal and ethical standards, but also engage in further social or environmental cause in the local and ultimately global community.
In recent times, increasing attention has been given to the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR),that has not only become a legislative agenda but is also increasingly becoming a crucial business function. The business community is coming to recognize the strategic value of being more responsible and is therefore to aligning products and business relationships to have social and/or environmental impact. From infrastructure, education, healthcare, rural sector upliftment all the areas are likely to see a corporate India impact.
It is heartening to note that the corporate sector is spending its time and resources for social and environmental development, and we hope more organizations will take up CSR in future. CSR is surely going to be an enabler for all round development of a nation, be it economic, social or environmental.
