Godrej Group: Shared Value Strategy Development

Case Overview

FSG helped Godrej Group create a Shared Value strategy so that the company could have greater impact that would benefit both society and the bottom line.

The Godrej Group is a $3.3 billion global corporation founded in India that has been eager to increase its social and environmental impact. The company’s leaders and members of Godrej family have always maintained a strong tradition of philanthropy and a commitment to employee welfare, and the company has engaged in many CSR (corporate social responsibility) activities. However, these CSR efforts historically have been sub-scale and decentralized across the company’s many business units, and as a result, were not reaching their full potential to create significant impact. Godrej engaged FSG to help create a Shared Value strategy so that the Group could create more meaningful and measurable impact that benefited both society and the company’s bottom line.

FSG developed for Godrej a strategic plan designed to enable the firm to identify distinctive ways to create social impact that aligned with the company’s assets and business opportunities. Given that Godrej was involved in 24 different businesses—from real estate and security to industrial engineering and appliances—FSG first conducted focus groups with each business unit to get their input into developing the vision for the plan. Meanwhile, FSG benchmarked CSR activities of peer Indian companies to understand Godrej’s relative strengths and opportunities for improvement and innovation. FSG also facilitated group brainstorming sessions to generate high-potential ideas for how the company could create Shared Value, and how they would prioritize the ideas. FSG aggregated and analyzed the high-priority ideas and categorized them to develop a three-pronged vision, and facilitated the company leaders in developing specific 2020 goals, as well as intermediate goals for 2014 and 2017. From that, FSG created a road map and an action plan.

Results & Recommendations

FSG facilitated the development of Godrej’s three-pronged vision for creating Shared Value, which the company branded into a campaign "Godrej Good & Green." The three core tenets of the vision included:

• Ensuring Employability: By 2020 Godrej would train 1 million rural and urban youth in skilled employment in areas that overlap with business interest
• Creating a Greener India: By 2020 Godrej would achieve zero waste, carbon neutrality, positive water balance & 30% renewable energy use
• Innovating for Good & Green: By 2020 Godrej would have a third of its portfolio of products and services comprising Good and/or Green products measured by revenue

FSG also developed further strategy recommendations for how to implement each of the three prongs of the strategy.

About the Godrej Group

The Godrej Group is a multi-business enterprise with cumulative annual revenues of more than US$3.3 billion with interests in FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods), real estate, industrial engineering, appliances, furniture, security, and agri-care among others. Founded in India more than 100 years ago, Godrej today employs over 20,000 people across 60 countries.