This deck previews the IRG Impact Study for a CMO audience in Sydney. It starts from the position companies now find themselves in, caught between accusations of doing too little and of doing too much, and offers a practical roadmap for moving from shareholder primacy to value creation for all stakeholders.
The study behind it combines more than 250 CMO-led C-suite interviews with a social AI hypertrend analysis of 120,000 items, across 52 markets, five C-suite functions and seven country deep-dives.
Key findings
- Stakeholder value creation correlates with revenue growth. Companies scoring higher on delivering sustained value for all stakeholders report stronger topline growth against six direct competitors over the last three years.
- The two groups differ sharply on whether they see stakeholder value creation as an opportunity at all, at 90 percent against 50 percent.
- The gaps on the fundamentals are wider still. Understanding stakeholders runs at 76 percent against 17 percent, engaging them at 64 percent against 9 percent, and representing them in decision making at 61 percent against 3 percent.
- Fear shapes behavior. Companies keep a low profile, with 29 percent limited by the fear of being accused of greenwashing or wokeness.
- The study reports a 65 percent increase in CMO influence, an 11 percent figure alongside it, and a 48 percent increase in CMO tenure.
Ground the work in people
The first driver is grounding the company in a human-first view, which means understanding stakeholders in real detail rather than in the abstract.
The healthcare example shows the scale that implies: millions of people in the target population, tens of thousands of employees and affiliates, and thousands of patients, boards, donors and community leaders, each with specific needs across care areas.
Reimagine the role of the company
The second driver is reimagining, worked future backward toward an aspirational role for the company. Long term focus separates the groups at 70 percent against 23 percent.
Pride in the company’s purpose follows the same pattern, at 90 percent against 26 percent. The deck insists this is corporate purpose rather than brand purpose, and not a new brand program or advertising campaign.
Purpose is only useful when it decides things. Where purpose guides all strategic decision-making the split is 71 percent against 7 percent, and the deck describes purpose working as a strategic filter rooted in company DNA.
Focus the strategy
The third driver is a holistic strategy with adaptive change. It requires prioritizing stakeholders and defining value for each one, where the gap is 71 percent against 7 percent.
Two harder requirements sit alongside it: the courage to define what to stop, and addressing short term issues inside the context of the long term growth story. Measuring intangibles is treated as an unresolved KPI problem.
Organize for interdependence
The fourth driver is organizing around interdependence, where working interdependently splits the groups at 67 percent against 7 percent. The first application is internal, across functional silos.
External connection is measured against industry peers, non-governmental organizations, and government and public institutions.
Inside the company, empowerment is pushed toward the edge. Whether colleagues closest to stakeholders are empowered to act for the business splits the groups at 71 percent against 23 percent.
Unleash the leader
The fifth driver is unleashing Da Vinci leadership, expressed through the Da Vinci leader profile and through partnering across the C-suite.
The partnerships are specific: with human resources on the employer brand, with strategy on the vision, with investor relations on communication, and with the chief executive on a launch or listing.
The case for the shift
The value argument rests on the move to intangibles, cited from Ocean Tomo as a rise from 17 percent to 90 percent of market value.
Scope and limitations
The correlation between stakeholder value creation and revenue growth is drawn from 651 respondents and compares self-reported growth against direct competitors, so it establishes association rather than cause.
Source
This page summarises CMO Impact Strategies: Driving More Humanized Growth, by Institute for Real Growth, Saïd Business School, Oxford Future of Marketing Initiative, November 14, 2023.