Question

• What is specifically meant by sustainability, i.e., what is being sustained, in the firm’s mission or value statements?
• What are the firm’s specific sustainability goals and how are they measured?
• What specific strategies, tactics, or a practice does the firm employ to achieve its sustainability goals?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the company as it relates to sustainability?

Answer 1

Sustainability in simple word can be expressed as maintain and enhance. It can be a process or performance, relation, values etc.,

In an organisational context sustainability means quality , If a firm is able to sustain its growth, profit making , cost reduction .The word sustainability is associated with long term and commitment As a mission or value statement of an organisation is more focused on its commitment to the environment, society and the stakeholders and all these forces would like to hear how an organisation is maintaining their commitment and performance and growing from there in a long run .Als the the word Sustainability associated with economics means profit, revenue and growth ,planet means environment and the people means value culture and commitment.. No stake holder will be interested if an organisation had achieved something in a particular period they are more intersted in the way they had done it the process capability behind the same as this only will get them a sustainability

A firm can have economic sustainability goals - Such as making profits means giving maximum returns to its employees and stake holders, thes can be measured by its financial reformance .

Another sustainability can be towards wuality of the product or service or customer experieance the same can be measured through specific customer satisfactions surveys or feedbacks

Another sustainability is towards the process implementation this is measured by six sigma and other quality measures.

The ssustainability towards the environment and society can be measured through  the amount spend on environment protection or towards social service .

The Mission and value or goals of an organisaion is to be communicated from top to bottom that the first step a firm used to take to get a sustainability. Then planning in all aspects as financial HR and all other parameters involved, making specific quality circles, Cross finctional teams, time boinded gorals , periodic reviews feed back and corrective actions are the major steps to be taken towards this, TQM , the total wuality management is a major tool that can be practised for a sustainability in an organisation, Sharing best practices, Kaizen , the cntinous improvement and Six sigma and other projects are also supporting a firm to overcome issues and make sustainbility .

Strengths

The image of an organisation - image of a socially commited or envirnemnt friendly or eithical or profit making etc.,

Robust vision and goals - Long term and sustainable plans for actions is important

Strong menagement team - The senior managment team should be able to drive these from the front

Robust systems and process - The firm should belive in systems and process and not person oriented

Commited employees - impementaion level will be strong if the employee commiement is high

Core values of the group - The firm should believe in eithics and should have some core values

Sound financials - Should have the financial capability to build the performance.

Weakness

Lack of long term plan or visionary goals- this is the first step towards performenace.

Lack of focus on system and process - rather depend on individaul capabilities, this will collapse if one individaul is changed or removed

lack of commitment and ethics - those firms will not try for a long term success and would be planning for some gimmicks or unethical practices there by making profits.

lack of communication and trust - From the top to bottom the language spoken in an organisation must be the same in order to get a sustainabiity other wise the people at the bothe ends will have a disconnect .