CSR: New Business Opportunities Through Social Commitment.
Republished from Juan’s – Business with Common Sense
by Juan Villamayor
14/02/2012 at 13:45 Leave a comment
Poster “Don’t stop, come to the Raval”The recession is hitting Spain very hard. We are reaching an unemployment rate of almost 25% and many small business have to close.
However, there is room for good news and hope too. In Barcelona, several bars and shops located in the district of Raval have started a very nice initiative to offer products and services to unemployed people at lower prices ,with discounts of up to 50%. This initiative takes place on Tuesdays, a traditionally quiet, slow day for business.
These small bars and shops are showing social engagement and, at the same time, they have found a new business opportunity. They are not only attracting customers on a slow day like Tuesdays, they are also revitalizing the neighborhood with their promotion: the street is also more visited the rest of the week. At the end of the day, everybody benefits from it: the businesses, the unemployed people and the neighborhood.
This is a very good example of how SMEs can benefit from CSR in terms of the generation of new business opportunities. Pure shared value creation. Business With Common Sense.
One of the bars offering the promotion
Thanks for sharing, Lavinia!
Juan, what you wrote truly reflects what i vision as a WorkEcology. While Barcelona is a place of stress, it is a reflection of the stress that is global. I think in the US we don’t speak the truth about employment and unemployment because unemployment is tracked in a view of jobs and those unemployed in a traditional market. EU – Germany, Spain and other places for years have spoken honestly about employment that does not protect the idea of a full employment model of the past.