In August, nearly 200 Business Roundtable CEOs dominated the news cycle declaring the purpose of a corporation is to deliver value to all stakeholders, not just shareholders. They may have also catalyzed the risk inherent to corporate purpose in this new social landscape with a web-empowered public auditing ALL of a company’s actions, not just its self-selected, carefully curated positive examples.

“Purpose washing” has become a thing. And the backlash of getting outed when actions do not meet high-minded purpose statements disrupts business and erodes value.

Regardless of where in the world you find yourself, regardless of the place where you start, opportunity can be open for all in the digital economy. But it requires skills to be successful, and while they don’t pretend to know or have all the answers, SAP’s cross-enterprise approach to building opportunity, inclusively and sustainably, is an example of an integrated strategy that benefits the business and all of its stakeholders.

September 18, 2019 /3BL Media/ Armed with their skills, experience, and intentions to make the world a better place, eight professionals from SAP, WE Communications, and Niagara Bottling joined together to form the first ‘Corporate Champions of Education’ pro bono team and arrived in Colombia for a month of service, putting their expertise to work with local nonprofits that share a mission to improve educational outcomes.

Leading companies are now more deliberately leveraging leadership and employee engagement to generate sustainable social good. It’s an answer to the question, “How does business shift to meet the changing demands of investors, employees, customers, and communities to meet business and social standards?” For years we’ve known that leadership and employee engagement are important, of course, but they are no longer sufficient to compete in today’s business landscape.