Business Advice

Changing Lives Through Business

10/09/09

By Brian Chernett

Life Changing is a phrase heard several times a night on TV at the moment. It is usually related to 'reality' television programmes as far apart as X Factor and Dragon's Den. It is also heard in Police accident reports as 'life changing injuries'. It has become just another clichéd phrase but I did wonder if what we do in business could also be considered to be life changing? And if it isn't, should it be?

Business is about satisfying market requirements. It is about meeting a need or want in away that satisfies the customer...

...and makes profit for the supplying business. But is that all it is or should be? Should it have values? Business Values like integrity, fairness and quality as well as personal values and social values? If you know me, or read these columns regularly, I suspect that you won't be surprised to hear that think that values are important to business. I believe that businesses can play a role in improving lives and banishing suffering and that, where they can, they should do that.

Can I ask you, my reader, a question? Why do you do what you do? Presumably you are there to meet a perceived market need, otherwise why are you in business. Does what you do also change lives? I'm thinking here of your customers, your staff and indeed your own life. Does it also add value to the wider world by, for example, respecting and supporting the environment?

We are all familiar with the bottom line in business, with the need to make a profit. In recent years, more businesses, including some of the largest, have begun to commit to a 'triple bottom line' taking account not only... continued on page two >

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