I have long admired UPS for its continuous improvements in customer value. With a mission to “synchronize the world of commerce by developing business solutions that create value and competitive advantages for our customers,” the world’s largest package deliver company has emerged as a leader in supply chain management services and less-than-full truckload shipping. These additions enable even the smallest of companies to compete with the big boys without distribution issues precluding ever being considered. Indeed, UPS is one of the reasons barriers to entry have fallen in many industries. UPS argues that logistics (the planning and control of the flow of goods) is intricately linked to sustainability, as the goal of logistics is to use the least resources to transport items from one place to another. In a one-page advertising spread in last week’s Wall Street Journal UPS touts its efforts…
Business Model Innovation and Sustainability
For decades, corporate social responsibility has been managed by most CEOs as a Pubic Relations activity, financed through philanthropy and Marketing Department budgets, rather than as a core principle guiding decision-making. What a loss to companies, consumers, the environment and communities. Those few companies who were early adopters of sustainability as a business practice versus messaging opportunity gained attractive financial and market position advantages. Fortunately, “The times, they are a changing.” A recent Accenture-UN Global Compact report states that sustainability is moving from the sidelines into senior leadership team meetings where sustainability issues will influence corporate decisions on capabilities, processes, systems, in fact the entire supply chain. “According to the survey, A New Era of Sustainability – UN Global Compact-Accenture CEO Study, 2010, the global economic downturn did little to dampen corporate commitment to sustainability, in fact it seems to have done the…