Corporate Digital Responsibility


SAVAS Corporate Digital Responsibility

Background:

We have all grown up hearing about Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) for quite some time now. It actually started gaining popularity in the 1960′s when the corporate leaders started to think how they could contribute to the society on which they are depending upon for their own existence. Some did it solely to give back to the society with genuine intentions, some to gain popularity and some did it purely as an eyewash to cover up the exploitation of natural resources they indulged in. Whatever the reason, what started as contributing to the society for mere branding purposes (majority of the cases) have grown to the next level where some companies have taken the CSR initiative very seriously and have hired dedicated teams whose sole purpose is to just focus on CSR activities and come up with new and innovative initiatives. Even so, there are a few companies whose sole business is to give CSR ideas to bigger corporations and even own the execution piece for them. All this has evolved as people have evolved and alongside the conditions in which the companies used to operate evolved.

Times have changed and we are now witnessing the Digital Explosion. I call it an explosion since it took less than a decade for more than 50% of the world’s population to get hooked to. More than 70% of the companies across the world today, considering both the under developed and the developed nations put together are depending on Digital Technology in one way or the other. The percentage is more than 90% in developed countries and growing very fast. Being an Indian and born in an era of technological milestones being achieved I consider myself to be lucky to have witnessed this evolution that is going to change the world as we know it. In 1970s people had only Radios as a source of mass communication and information gathering, then came the Television that took the country by a storm and then the mobile explosion and now the Internet that changed the perceptions of people and the way we look at things completely. These days, we get to see vegetable vendors in crowded markets brandishing smartphones in their hands who until a decade back lacked basic attire to wear.

The higher penetration of Internet gave rise to Digital Media as a strong media option and why not when the entire global community irrespective of the race, origin, age, religion and ethnicity are embracing it. Marketers have always been attracted to a medium where they could reach a larger target audience. Digital media was rightly opted for marketing purposes and therefore called Digital Marketing. The adoption has happened so vastly unlike any medium before. The availability of digital technologies has enabled dynamic targeting possible which until a few decades back was considered unthinkable. The marketer also gets a vast pool of analytical data post the campaign launch which can be used as market intelligence for future campaigns that follows. Digital Media has not only opened up a new industry and a new source of employment opportunities but has significantly contributed to the global economy. More importantly, Digital Media is playing an all important role of educating the masses with valid and legit information they seek. This has enabled scores of people across the globe to learn new things and to increase their standard of living in a way suitable for them. This overall has contributed to the increased earning potential of individuals globally and has also reduced the economical gap between the developed and the developing countries to an extent.

As for the corporate community Digital Media has become one of the most used medium for communications these days. The age old Telegraph has been completely stopped in the era of video chat. Emails have replaced the traditional postal service and have decreased the decision making time to marginal fractions comparatively. Accessing emails on smartphones these days is just the icing on the cake. The circulation of the print version of the newspaper has started to diminish and therefore we see a trend where almost all of the major newspaper publishers are investing heavily on their online versions. Some of them have started to build applications to make both the print and digital to coexist. A classic example would be ‘The Times of India’ coming up with the Alive mobile application that can show the video related to the printed news. Also, now a days’ the video conferencing facilities have cut short the travel cost of corporations significantly. Digital Media for corporations is a bed of roses for sure, but there are thorns that come with the roses.

All these developments have happened and our corporate community are yet to come up with a Corporate Digital Responsibility policy that addresses the pros and cons of the digital technology and its use and abuse effectively. We as consumers of products and services offered by corporations get to see about the data confidentiality in a fine print on the corporation’s ‘privacy policy’ statement and there ends the story. The digital explosion and its use in corporations deserves much beyond a mere mention in the ‘privacy policy’ of corporations. The time has come to start thinking and working towards defining policies exclusively for digital data management.

This article is the first of many such attempts to address the gaps in our current corporation practices towards owning and managing the digital data and propose a meaningful policy driven initiative that will increase the digital awareness within all the stake holders effectively.

To be continued....

What to expect in the next Blog?

How is Corporate Digital Responsibility different from Corporate Social Responsibility?

How do we define Corporate Digital Responsibility?

The Need for Corporate Digital Responsibility


Prrashanth SAVAS author

About the Author

Prrashanth H Nagaraj is the Founder and Managing Director of SAVASInc. He comes with around 16 years of professional experience across multiple industries such as Engineering, Banking, Insurance, IT, ITES and Digital Media. He is graduated in B. Eng. from University of Mysore and has a MBA degree, specialized in International Business from the University of the West of England, UK.