Trust - a source of competitive advantage

http://www.ifb.org.uk/
This week’s IFB national conference has the theme Trust: A source of competitive advantage. Our view is that family businesses are uniquely placed to be at the forefront in the drive to revive trust in UK business.

Progressive family firms place great importance on a clear set of values, such as:

• Entrepreneurship - having a can do attitude

• Respect for People - fostering a strong workplace environment

• Social Responsibility - engaging with local communities

• and Sustainability - taking responsibility for the environment

Combine these values with a sense of stewardship, of being in business to succeed in the long-term and we have created a solid foundation for Trust. And this is of course Trust in the widest sense with all stakeholders; customers, employees, the supply chain, the public and indeed Government.

Knowing how family firms are perceived by the British public is important so the IFB commissioned a YouGov survey– over two thirds of the public recognise the important role family businesses play in economic growth and employment (68%) and almost two-thirds believe family businesses provide better customer service than other types of business (62%) – a key measure of trust in a business.

Sector firms of course, have to deliver strong business performance, but there is a growing and understandable pressure from society to broaden the measurement of success, beyond profits alone.

The benefits of a high trust organisation are immense: highly trusted companies can maintain strong levels of employee morale reducing staff turnover, absenteeism and associated costs. Their brands can achieve high trust status with the consumer. Mars and Beaverbrook the Jewellers are two family firms speaking at the IFB conference on how they are achieving strong trust.

But family firms have their challenges, such as;

• Improving decision-making, both at the owner and the business level through more robust governance

• Ensuring that the transition of ownership between generations is planned and doesn’t disrupt the business

• Making sure there is no glass ceiling for employment opportunities for non-family employees and being open to ideas and innovation

What we see is that the best family firms are embracing these challenges while building and sustaining high trust organisations.

Social enterprise - building the Big Society

http://www.ifb.org.uk/
I witnessed social entrepreneurship in action last week when the IFB participated in a Business in the Community event visiting charities and social enterprises in London’s East End. The event showed how business can bring benefit to their own organisations, as well as wider society, by getting involved in these activities.

Social entrepreneurs are people who use their entrepreneurial can-do approach and creative mind to set up organisations that deliver social or environmental benefits and help change lives and society for the better. And among the enterprises I saw in the Seeing is Believing programme was Shepresa that offers support to Albanian’s who have fled violence or persecution to seek asylum in our country. There was also Bikeworks, in Tower Hamlets, which provides a range of cycling related services, including vocational training for people from homeless and other challenging backgrounds.

The leaders of the organisations are alumni of the School for Social Entrepreneurs (SSE) in Bethnall Green, an organisation at the forefront of this sector in terms of education. We saw first-hand how businesses can engage in the work that SSE does developing leadership and other business skills in budding social entrepreneurs.

This is all about putting, what David Cameron called, the Big Society into action - the Government has made a specific commitment to encourage social enterprises. There is a huge role for business to play, working with social enterprise to bring benefits back to our organisations through greater employee satisfaction and learning as well as strengthening social capital generally.

Family businesses can get involved in supporting social enterprise in a number of ways including investing in it and including it in the firm’s supply chain. There are also ways of involving employees, including offering opportunities for secondments, or providing mentoring to social entrepreneurs, as well as pro bono advice and expertise.