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8. Make an impact together with your customer
8. Make an i pact to ether with your custo er
The fifth building block of the B Corp standard asks you the following questions: • Does your organisation encourage customers to engage in circular/conscious business? • Does your organisation work together with customers and suppliers to create an increasingly more circular chain? • Which niche in society do you contribute to, together with your customers and suppliers?
With this last building block, B Corp completes the proverbial circle. By being aware of the entire chain and the role, responsibility and exemplary role you fulfil towards customers and suppliers, you make an impact with your business model. You fulfil a pioneering role. The slogan of Greyston Bakery is a wonderful example:
Theoretical perspectives
As far as we are concerned, making an impact - together with the customer - starts with having a clear idea of the value proposition your business model offers. In this chapter, we will explore your business model together, using the book Business Model Generation (Osterwalder & Pigneur, 2010) as a source of inspiration. The search helps you to incorporate the insights thus gained in and/or assess them against the business model you advocate. It is not surprising that the B Corp standard focuses on the functioning of your business model.
Focus on customer and market
To get a good picture of the customer and the market, we recommend answering the following six questions.
1. What do your customers look like? Start by finding out what your customers look like, literally and figuratively. What drives your customers, especially in terms of conscious business? Is their ambition similar to yours, or is there still some missionary work to be done?
2. In what ways do you interact with your customers? By finding out which communication channels you use with your customer, you can also see the possibilities of convincing them of your conscious ambition. Does the customer read your ideas on the website, in your newsletter and in your client presentations?
3. Who are your top 10 customers? And then a step further: who are your top 10 customers? Do these customers reflect your ambitions, or did they happen to you? This is how you find out which customers you have contact with and about what, the turnover you realise with each customer, and of course this will allow you to explicitly identify any opportunities for increasing the significance of your business model - together with these customers.
4. How have you segmented the market? The next question is about how you have segmented your market, starting with the seemingly simple question: what variables are on the X and Y axis? Consider variables such as: turnover, profitability, interest in conscious entrepreneurship, interest in the vision of your company, social impact, etcetera.
5. Are you focusing on a niche in the market or a niche in society? And then comes the million-dollar question: does your business model start from the old niche in the market and are you going to use the B Corp standard to reduce your organisation's negative impact on society and expand its positive impact? Or will you take it a step further and start with an impact business model by fully focusing on a “niche in society”? Which of the 17 UN development goals do you want to contribute to?
6. What benefit will your product/service bring to the customer? On the one hand, you answer this sixth question in a classic sense by listing the benefits of your product or service. From B Corp's point of view, there is a clarifying question: To what extent does your product or service deliver multiple value to your customers in a social, environmental, societal and/or economic sense?
Matching internal organisation to ambitions
The next step is to apply the images of the market and the customer to the workings of the internal organisation. This involves the following six questions.
1. What areas of concern do you solve for your customer? Whereas the previous question focused on the benefits, this question focuses on the customer's concerns. From the perspective of the classic business model, this may relate to how your service and/or product prevents “pain” for the customer. For example, an administration office relieves the pain of the entrepreneur who does not enjoy doing his administration. In line with conscious entrepreneurship, a reformulation of the question is appropriate in this case: which difficulty does your customer experience if he also wants to start creating multiple value? And how can your business model help alleviate or prevent these difficulties?
2. What value does your organisation deliver to customers? In this eighth question you combine the insights into a clear value proposition for your customer. For example, the value proposition of Eshuis Accountants and Advisers, formulated as an ambition reads: "We help our clients to be more successful, so that they make an impact on the social and economic position of the region". The second part of this ambition, in particular, expresses the focus on conscious entrepreneurship.
3. What is the motto your work is based on? It's even better if you can formulate the intended value proposition more clearly. Here are a few conscious examples: • Crystal clear water. In every ocean, from every tap | Dopper|. • Together we make 100% slavery-free the norm in chocolate | Tony's Chocolony | • 1 million drops |Asito | • Because everyone deserves warmth, protection and dignity | Sheltersuit |
These and the previous two questions will also help you determine whether your organisation's mission and vision are B Corp proof.
4. What process have you set up? As we mentioned in chapter 8 on ecological value, it is important to map your business process in order to identify the starting points for more and more circular, social and societal entrepreneurship.
5. What is required for a properly functioning work process? This is where you bring into focus staffing, accommodation, machinery and information you need in order to make your business model work. This is also a useful exercise to determine where there is room for improvement from a B Corp perspective.
6. What does the business model look like? And yes, conscious businesses also exist to make money and preferably in a conscious way. With this concluding question, you get a clear idea of what the business model of the organisation looks like. For inspiration, the following question: Which organisation earns the most money, A or B?
Organisation A
Focused on maximum profitability and shareholder value
Focused on becoming the most popular brand possible
Focused on selling as many products and services as possible
Focused on maximising market share
Focused on minimising costs
Organisation B
Focused on maximising well-being for all stakeholders
Focused on being a good employer for its employees
Focused on being a good partner for suppliers
Focused on providing as much value as possible to customers Focused on being an honest company
It should be clear that type B organisations create more value in the long term, as shown by the research detailed in the book "Firms of endearment, second edition" (Mackey & Sisodia, 2014).
B Corp: what does the standard require?
The B Corp standard also offers a number of practical insights for making an impact with customers, which we will briefly discuss below.
Make an impact through your business model
Decide how you can make a social, ecological or societal impact with the products and/or services you provide. Or as stated before, look for a niche in society rather than a niche in the market. The Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations can be a source of inspiration in this respect. And if you manage to express this in a value proposition for your customers, you will have made significant strides in using your "business as a force for good".
A business model can be defined as follows:
“A business model describes how an organisation, or network of organisations, wants to create value for its customers, for itself and for other stakeholders”. From this definition, it is immediately clear that value creation is the key concept in the description of a business model.
We also see this reflected in the various methods for (re)designing a business model. After all, the key issue is the value that is created for customers and stakeholders and how this value creation can be realised. Value appears to be a multiple concept. It is not only about the value for customers and the revenues for the provider(s) of a product or service. It is increasingly about the broader impact on people, ecology and society and how to deal with this in a conscious manner. This is also referred to as sustainable business models, i.e., business models that create economic value, as well as social and ecological value. One example is business models for the circular economy aimed at closing raw material cycles and preventing waste.
Dr. Timber Haaker, Professor of Applied Science in Business Models
Work with and on passionate customers
As described in chapter “Value for society”, you create social impact when an organisation has passionate employees and therefore passionate customers. The B Corp standard asks the following questions: • How is customer satisfaction/enthusiasm measured and mapped? • How does your organisation make it clear to customers that you aim to achieve positive impact?
The higher your customers rate you and position, the more enthusiastic they are about your organisation and the products and services you provide.
Applying the Net Promoter Score in daily practice is an excellent method to improve customer satisfaction. You can calculate the NPS after asking your customer the following question:
How likely is it that you will recommend us to a friend or colleague? The customer can give a score from 0 to 10.
Source: Adapted from Gallup, The Next Discipline
"Can't imagine doing without you" "You are the perfect match for me!
"I am proud to be your customer "I am treated with respect
"I am treated fairly
"A deal is a deal
"I am sa s ed
Inte rity
Trust
"You are irreplaceable "I love telling others about you"
"Your brand matches me! "You are part of my daily work"
"Problems are solved promptly
"You inspire con dence
"My basic request is being met
Next, the results are applied to the following three groups: • Promoters: respondents who have given a score of 9 or 10. They literally promote your organisation, making them active ambassadors; • Neutral: respondents who have given a score of 7 or 8; • Critics: respondents who have given a score ranging from 0 to 6. These customers will certainly not actively promote your organisation. You run the risk of them advising friends and acquaintances against using your organisation.
Work for conscious customers
Looking at your client portfolio, to what extent do you work for conscious clients? For example, do you consciously choose to carry out assignments for civil society organisations or do you choose to do the most profitable job for a major corporation?
Your clients' data is in good hands with your organisation
It is important to realise that even the smallest of your actions or those of your employees can affect your company's image. One example is the degree of care you take with the data you collect about your customers. In other words, are you complying with the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)?
Complete the circle
In Chapter 4, “Mission, Vision and Governance”, we started by looking at your organisation's mission, vision and governance. In subsequent chapters you looked at the extent to which you add societal, social and ecological value. This chapter we check how you can further develop your business model in collaboration with your customers.
e exive monitoring Discovering the niche in society
Further development of the business model Assessing value(s)
Be accountable
As the figure above shows, “reflexive monitoring” is an important step in the B Corp cycle. As this book has undoubtedly shown, it is not merely about hard facts and figures. It is also about the experiences you have and the dilemmas you are faced with. By being actively accountable to all stakeholders, you create a dialogue about the impact you make and learn how you are perceived by others.
