(MENAFN- Khaleej Times) Businesses must be innovative and entrepreneurial about people and their communities just as they are about profits, Shaikh Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, UAE Minister of Culture, Youth and Community Development, said on Wednesday.
In his address at the second Annual Dubai Global Convention on Business Excellence organised by the Institute of Directors, India, or IOD, Shaikh Nahyan urged businesses to nurture "attitudes and actions that go beyond financial support for established charitable institutions, vital though those contributions are."
"I am imagining biggest social entrepreneur as a hugely exciting and promising element of a truly successful business," the minister told a gathering of delegates and guests that included ministers from India and Mauritius. Ajit Singh, Indian minister for civil aviation, was the chief guest at the opening ceremony.
The event, themed "Business Excellence: Key for Achieving World-class Performance," has been designed to bring together eminent thinkers, business leaders, policy-makers, change agents, business excellence experts and academicians.
Shaikh Nahyan said the UAE has become a favorite destination for entrepreneurs from all over the world. "But implicit in our government's steadfast support for business entrepreneurs is an expectation that they will devote some of their immense imagination, talent, energy, and skill to the bottom line that is the people whom they employ and the people among whom they live and work."
The minister stressed that no country can thrive if its only social entrepreneur is its government. "No government employs the majority of its country's entrepreneurs. Most of a country's entrepreneurs lead the businesses and corporations that fuel the country's economy. When those business entrepreneurs become innovative social entrepreneurs who themselves create social value, a country will be rich beyond belief." Stressing the importance of social entrepreneurship Shaikh Nahyan said governments, the biggest social entrepreneurs of the respective countries, need the help of businesses.
"Although governments by their very nature are irreplaceable social entrepreneurs, we must acknowledge that all governments have their limitations. Governments have finite resources and relatively few of the country's innovative entrepreneurs," the pointed out.
Shaikh Nahyan urged businesses to ask this question: "How can our company become a positive force in the lives of young people?" He said, "imaginative and innovative answers to that question would lead to an entrepreneurial project that would enrich the community.
And such a project competently completed would, of course, be a grand advertisement for the company". Shaikh Nahyan reminded the gathering that as leaders of business, "you and your organisations have both power and influence in the communities within which you operate.
The common good is best served when your power and influence are exercised with enlightenment and strong evidence of social conscience. Implicit is the understanding that socially responsible action will help business improve their performance".
"I am certain that you agree with John D. Rockefeller who said that 'every right implies a responsibility; every opportunity, an obligation; every possession, a duty'."
Delegates at the session reviewed different approaches and models for achieving business excellence and considering what changes might be needed to address contemporary challenges and opportunities. At the two-day event, Golden Peacock Awards for Business Excellence in the categories of both global and national will also be conferred.
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