Profitable corporate responsibility

think: act CONTENT

2006

Business reinvented

"It’s not just good deeds, it’s good business." This disarmingly simple statement underlies an astonishing success story. The program in question is reaching around 10 million potential customers in 12 countries. It has won the company a string of awards and put a lossmaking business line back in the black.

We are talking about "Reinventing Education", a program launched by IBM in 1994. Over the past 11 years, the group has invested USD 75 million – three quarters of this sum in employee work time – to help schools exploit the benefits of information technology. Having begun in the USA, "Reinventing Education" has since spread to Australia, Vietnam, Brazil, China and Germany. According to IBM’s own information, the program has so far reached over 100,000 teachers and some 10 million schoolchildren.

The program has, perhaps naturally, given IBM good grades among schoolchildren and teachers. It has also been showered with accolades, awards and top slots in corporate social responsibility (CR) rankings. But that is far from all. "Reinventing Education" has also become a commercial success. Schools assisted by the program go on to buy more IBM products. As a result, the IT group’s school equipment line is now a profitable business – after spilling red ink for 11 years. Also, IBM can effectively use schools as a test bed for innovation. For example, "Watch me! Read", an electronic reading aid developed as part of the program, is now part of commercial school software packages.