I often wonder what the world would look like without entrepreneurs. I have a deep conviction that companies and their owners create value for society simply by carrying out their daily work. Creating and owning a company renders you a feeling of fulfillment and a strong sense of freedom and wellbeing; the latter is also felt by and is benefiting coworkers, clients and even your own family.
What would the world look like without entrepreneurs? What would Sweden look like without people like Jan Stenbeck, the creator of a number of companies in fields like telecommunications, media and space technology. Stenbeck wanted to change things; he wanted to challenge the status quo of many monopolies. He undermined monopolies in the media industry lending Sweden a more pluralistic media landscape. With the launch of the newspaper Metro in 1995, Swedes received its first free daily which today is read by more than 1.3 million Swedes. Contrary to what academics and others argued at the time, Metro did not undermine the rates of literacy with their free model, they in fact did the opposite by offering a free quality newspaper to people that wouldn’t buy one.
Entrepreneurs in general contribute to society by making our everyday lives better. They create innovations and improve the quality of existing structures. By pushing the boundaries through competition and collaboration with other companies they lower prices and make products and services previously the privilege of a few, affordable to many more.
Companies creating better value are more attractive
With that said – can companies offer more toward the positive development of society while at the same time continuing to make money? My experience is that companies and owners who are always changing, and who are striving to find new, better ways to create value for their stakeholders become more attractive and more competitive than those who do not share that perspective.
Some examples of how through our business we can make society a little better at the same time that we make ourselves more competitive:
United Minds, Prime’s analysis and strategy company, conducted for several years the newspaper Aftonbladet’s public opinion barometer in Sweden. A couple of years ago, several wise colleagues suggested that we invest a little time in development and begin to share the raw data left over from these studies. Aftonbladet liked the idea and let us go on. This now has given students and researchers the opportunity to access free material for their own data processing, and gives us the opportunity to receive feedback that can make our analysis better and more accurate. It also increases the credibility of our analysis as we openly subject our interpretations to competing ones, which in turn is likely to increase our focus on drawing the most relevant conclusions from our data.
When we conduct projects for our clients, we often try to make our starting point some societal problem that our client could contribute to solving. One example of this is a project called “Vac from the Sea”, which we created together with Electrolux’s internal communication operation: we collected plastic from the ocean to put more focus on the islands of plastic in the marine environment, and simultaneously improved the conditions for Electrolux to raise the proportion of recycled plastic in their green vacuum cleaners.
Attracting top talent through a rigorous process
For more than 10 years now, we have carried out a recruitment day one or twice a year where we test super-talents who apply for the chance to undergo tough tests in everything from craftsmanship, strategy abilities and problem solving capacity. In the beginning, we only tested those we planned to hire full time, but once we had seen the fantastic results we got when we systematically worked to attract and select talent, we started to test even our interns before we accepted them. Because the quality of the talent that came in was so good, we decided to pay those who had previously been considered interns so we could make real demands and test them more seriously. Now the old internship period is replaced by an hourly position, which helps our consultants when the work load is at its peak, and gives talents a paid opportunity to see if consulting is for them. We now sell talent forward to our clients, who appreciate the quality assurance they receive through our talent process, while at the same time getting us part of the costs of our recruitment process covered.
Entrepreneurship has enormous intrinsic value. If you, as a business owner, try to do everything in your ability to hone your offering to all stakeholders, then you will manage to create a lot of value for them, and for society. In addition, it is more fun to try to do things this way. As Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos has said: “Work hard. Have fun. Make history.” This is an inspiring approach to business and life that perhaps can make the world a little better, and make you a little happier.
Carl Fredrik Sammeli
Founder of Prime & Member of the Weber Shandwick Global Leadership Team
Carl Fredrik Sammeli is the founder of the world leading Swedish PR agency Prime and a member of the Global Leadership Team of the international PR agency network Weber Shandwick. Fokus magazine chose Sammeli as the 85th most politically influential person in Sweden in 2014. He resides with his family in Cape Town since 2012. For more on Carl Fredrik Sammeli, click here.
This blog text is a shorter version of a prior text, based on Sammeli’s article Value Creation published in Mercury Magazine. If you wish to read the complete article, you can download it here.
Prime is a part of the international PR agency group Weber Shandwick – Ahjo Communications is the Weber Shandwick’s Finnish affiliate agency. Prime and Ahjo Communications cooperate frequently sharing industry insight and experience.
