CSR, Corporate Social Responsibility has always provoked conflict within myself. During our corporate visit at the pre departure briefing, all the fellows the companies that they would be partnered with in our respective countries. Around 10 other fellows and I will be working with KPMG in Rio de Janeiro, Delhi and Shanghai, so we all visited the KPMG headquarters in London. For around an hour, we had a fantastic question and answer session with Richard Hamilton, a director at KPMG and responsible for CSR. He talked passionately and honestly about CSR, admitting that many companies do abuse it, using it as a PR exercise, using the example of bankers at Goldman Sachs digging ditches and painting schools. Richard showed us all how these bankers could instead use their skills and experience to say, provide micro financing for small businesses in developing countries free of charge, where their services are probably worth 100 times that of painting a school. Interesting point I thought! Changed my view slightly on CSR.
A fellow Fellow, Alex then asked Richard a challenging question: "We have always been taught that the sole priority for businesses is profit maximisation, is CSR another way of simply maximising profits?" (It was somewhere along those lines)... I can only vaguely remember Richard's response, something about long term profits, but I remain unconvinced. The million dollar question would have been: "Would KPMG use CSR if it damaged their long term profits, if they could be more profitable without it?". Nonetheless, I do feel slightly more positive about CSR in some Western companies, especially since Richard underlined that CSR was not a "bit on the side", but integral to KPMG's business strategy, which is especially understandable in Audit, Tax, Corporate Finance and Consultancy.
However, I still have a fleeting feeling that CSR is simply a clever form of 21st century capitalist business warfare. I felt vindicated when I asked Lord Hastings (he talked to us for 45 minutes at KPMG) directly, whether CSR increases profitability. Amazingly, he replied with a simple "yes". On the other hand, I was fairly impressed with how KPMG has kept a low profile, not flagging up the fact that it is "socially responsible". I left, not fully convinced. I am sure that I wasn't the only one.
However, to see people like Richard working so diligently and passionately in order to ensure that KPMG has a positive effect on society did challenge my previous views. When the 100 Fellows regathered, we obviously discussed the corporate placements, with some convinced about its honesty, whilst probably more were in the grey.
One interesting fact I learnt from other Fellows was that Tata gives away 66% of it's profits to the local community. Surely that is more than profit maximisation! I have a feeling that CSR is a deep and complicated web, with most companies using it as a PR exercise, whilst a few are truly altruistic. We shall see, the increasing power of the East, with a more utilitarian than individualistic business philosophy may (hopefully) prove me completely wrong! Anyway, we depart for
China in 5 days for truth, answers and a life changing experience, yallah!