Case #4: Competitive Advantage
An effective corporate volunteering program will give your company a competitive edge - Here’s how:
Invisible Advantages
The competitive advantage of a company is less about what’s produced and more (much more) about how it's produced. That’s because every company has two kinds of resources to work with when producing goods and services: tangible resources and intangible resources.
Tangible resources are things like desks, machines, buildings, raw materials, and staplers. Intangible resources are anything that cannot be touched or shoved in a drawer. Tangible resources are sometimes hard to come by and yet they can usually be accessed by competitors given enough time and money. (Read more here.)
While most of us think about tangible resources when it comes to business, (after all, everyone needs plenty of paperclips) they are not the greatest factor when it comes to competition.
It is a company’s intangible resources that are instrumental in achieving competitive advantage.
Why?
Intangible resources are a bit trickier for competitors. They are valuable, rare, socially complex, and in many cases, almost impossible to replicate. Things like brand image, team dynamics, innovation, human capital, reputation, and corporate culture fall into the intangible category. If you’re wondering about the value of these resources compared to, say, paperclips, think about Zappos and Apple.
The Employee Factor
Most intangible resources have a direct connection with employees. So it makes complete sense that developing employee ability to perform is a highly valued tactic toward increasing intangible resources. Businesses investing in employee development can expect to see gains in performance, organizational commitment, and innovation.
Beyond the skills gained by the employee, training programs indicate that the employer is willing to “invest in its human capital that both builds employee capabilities and increases their degree of job satisfaction.” (Read more here.) Ultimately, employee development is essential if companies hope to adapt and develop within a constantly changing business environment.
Employee Volunteering & Competitive Advantage
It is difficult, if not impossible, to prove a direct relationship between a company’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices and financial performance. Yet it can be demonstrated that there is an indirect relationship through the accumulation and utilization of intangible resources. This is because companies that have Corporate Citizenship programs like employee volunteering are more capable of “generating intangibles such as innovation, human capital, reputation and culture.” The resulting “accumulation of human capital derived from socially responsible practices can become a source of competitive advantage and result in improved financial performance” (read more here).
Starting or Improving Your Employee Volunteer Program
If you’re interested in increasing the competitive advantage of your company we highly recommend considering employee volunteering as part of your strategy. Here are some articles that will get you on the right track.
What kind of employee volunteering program does your company have?
If you want an engaging employee volunteer program, you'll need to make it 3 dimensional. Here's how.
How to find your influential employees who volunteer and let them lead your program
The key to meaningful impact for your employee volunteering program
10 essential elements for your employee volunteering and giving program
The competitive advantage of a company is less about what’s produced and more (much more) about how it's produced. That’s because every company has two kinds of resources to work with when producing goods and services: tangible resources and intangible resources.
Tangible resources are things like desks, machines, buildings, raw materials, and staplers. Intangible resources are anything that cannot be touched or shoved in a drawer. Tangible resources are sometimes hard to come by and yet they can usually be accessed by competitors given enough time and money. (Read more here.)
While most of us think about tangible resources when it comes to business, (after all, everyone needs plenty of paperclips) they are not the greatest factor when it comes to competition.
It is a company’s intangible resources that are instrumental in achieving competitive advantage.
Why?
Intangible resources are a bit trickier for competitors. They are valuable, rare, socially complex, and in many cases, almost impossible to replicate. Things like brand image, team dynamics, innovation, human capital, reputation, and corporate culture fall into the intangible category. If you’re wondering about the value of these resources compared to, say, paperclips, think about Zappos and Apple.
The Employee Factor
Most intangible resources have a direct connection with employees. So it makes complete sense that developing employee ability to perform is a highly valued tactic toward increasing intangible resources. Businesses investing in employee development can expect to see gains in performance, organizational commitment, and innovation.
Beyond the skills gained by the employee, training programs indicate that the employer is willing to “invest in its human capital that both builds employee capabilities and increases their degree of job satisfaction.” (Read more here.) Ultimately, employee development is essential if companies hope to adapt and develop within a constantly changing business environment.
Employee Volunteering & Competitive Advantage
It is difficult, if not impossible, to prove a direct relationship between a company’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices and financial performance. Yet it can be demonstrated that there is an indirect relationship through the accumulation and utilization of intangible resources. This is because companies that have Corporate Citizenship programs like employee volunteering are more capable of “generating intangibles such as innovation, human capital, reputation and culture.” The resulting “accumulation of human capital derived from socially responsible practices can become a source of competitive advantage and result in improved financial performance” (read more here).
Starting or Improving Your Employee Volunteer Program
If you’re interested in increasing the competitive advantage of your company we highly recommend considering employee volunteering as part of your strategy. Here are some articles that will get you on the right track.
What kind of employee volunteering program does your company have?
If you want an engaging employee volunteer program, you'll need to make it 3 dimensional. Here's how.
How to find your influential employees who volunteer and let them lead your program
The key to meaningful impact for your employee volunteering program
10 essential elements for your employee volunteering and giving program
Be sure to check out the other blogs in this series:
2 comments:
I find it quite remarkable sometimes when companies choose NOT to take actions that are shown to have beneficial effects on their most valuable assets (people).
Humans, it seems, want to do work that is good for others and are happier and more satisfied when they do. As companies see that doing work that helps society makes their employees perform better, they'll soon start to see how doing the right thing in society is also the right thing for the bottom line.
Bradley Short
http://www.businessearth.com/category/blog
http://www.twitter.com/businessearth
I agree Bradley.
We're seeing more and more companies beginning to understand how 'doing the right thing in society is also the right thing for the bottom line'.
Cheers,
Chris
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