Social Responsibility

The social landscape is increasingly more reputation driven. Consumers and investors are starting to consider, in their support for investment criteria, an organisation’s social strategies. The combination of these two groups paying attention to social issues can create a disastrous picture for organisations who ignore the idea of social reputation management. While more investors are looking at how companies perform on issues such as human rights or the ethical conduct of global supply chains, their ability to scrutinise social issues such as labour relations on a day-to-day basis is hampered. Consumer expectations for quality products has increased in recent years, and data breaches have also been a social concern, with that trend showing no indication of slowing down. Social issues have taken on a new level of importance in the public sphere, requiring organisations to exercise the utmost care to address legitimate issues and avoid a public relations disaster and potential legal liability.