“A new capitalism”: Salesforce CEO, Marc Benioff makes a case for the business of business to change
Decoding the NYT feature
In an op-ed for the New York Times, Marc Benioff articulated the need to finance significant causes and to lower general attitudes toward profiteering. The feature comes days ahead of the release of his biography, Trailblazer.
Among other things, the article impressed upon numerous issues like inequity, bureaucratic inertia, and evolving new-age business principles.
Here’s a breakdown of the article and the issues it touches.
Benioff Lays it out - Capitalism has some issues
The op-ed strung together a multitude of concerns. Foremost, it asked for a shift in focus from shareholder return to stakeholder return. Also, it expresses a desire to formalize the “Purpose Of A Corporation” statement ( a move that comes on the heels of the Business Roundtable meet).
To this end, Marc suggested that it be necessary for public companies to display stakeholders. Further, he referenced loopholes in the Equal Pay act to illustrate that companies shouldn’t wait for ques from peers to do good. He even cited the company’s failings and subsequent initiatives and corrective measures.
Later parts of the op-ed took on tech leaders for opposing regulations on privacy, and don’t shy away from making references to political inaction either. He also mentions research to show that a higher purpose doesn’t hurt the bottom line.
Finally, he made a case for higher taxes by juxtaposing the budgetary requirements needed for addressing inequity with the national deficit. Both, Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, have put forth similar ideas among other industry leaders.
- Outmoded business 101
In an interview with Fortune magazine, Benioff lamented not learning aspects of responsibility through business school.
It’s consistent with the NYT feature, where he points to stakeholders. He mentions how they don’t identify with businesses bereft of broader missions, while those that do, outperform their peers.
- Diminishing Social Returns
To ground his arguments, the Salesforce CEO points to how support for capitalism has dropped, as shown across surveys.
Although, it doesn’t come as news since older business models have stopped providing for some time. Even more, they’ve left gaping disparities and reduced buying power in their wake.
The ‘Business Roundtable’ angle: Repurposing or Workaround?
For context, Big-tech has dropped the ball every step of the way, with gross privacy violations blowing up in their faces.
And that trust deficit runs deep. With Wall Street taking so much heat, one can’t help but look at the events of the Business Roundtable against the backdrop of the presidential elections in the current run-up to 2020.
That aside, mission statements and statements of purpose that come from associations have their problems. They tend to be country-specific and don’t always account for a globalized region of operation, which is usually larger. Bad actors could always move operations to escape jurisdiction.
Even so, the stance Benioff takes speaks to the state of business in general and is far-reaching.
Operationalizing Higher Purpose
The perception of a ‘higher purpose’ among businesses, is a part of the feature that strikes a chord with most industries. It pits antiquated business-101 with coming-of-age business models that operationalize value systems. The latter is what op-ed evangelizes.
As an admitted benefactor of capitalism, Benioff states that businesses can do well while doing good. He should know. His company, Salesforce, exemplifies this through the 1-1-1 model.
And that’s still something, as current societal problems stem from outdated business approaches that incorporated values as a corrective, face-saving measure.
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