Track2Realty Exclusive: Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a new concept in the Indian real estate and companies are going through the learning curve. Some are adopting it with greater amount of conviction, while for others it is an emerging necessary evil.
However, smart realty companies have found out the benefits of CSR both in terms of engaging their stake holders as well as brand enhancer. But this understanding is missing among the realtors for whom tangible ROI is the driving force, finds Track2Realty Brand X Report.
A real estate company organises painting competition and media is bombarded with press release as if the world will change due to this concern for giving something back to the society. Another realty company takes a moral high ground with clean the city kind of sweeping drive for a day.
Some other companies organise school for the children of construction workers, more due to the compelling need to make the labours stick to it, and media is made to believe the realty company is a benchmark of socially acceptable corporate entity. Welcome to the world of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in the Indian real estate.
Another developer, when asked, boasts of a blood donation camp for a day as his CSR effort. What is even worse example is that realty companies often get into CSR for fulfilling mandatory provisions and/or tax adjustments than any real concern for the society. CSR definitely means different things to different realty companies and hence Indian realty fails to link CSR strategy with their overall brand image.
The corporate social responsibility in the Indian corporate sector has, of late, made inroads as a strategy and brands are slowly but surely shifting their focus to broader and deeper issues surrounding sustainability, accountability and governance concerns. It is in general believed that while a local brand can take a selective and partial approach in the formulation of CSR strategy, a global brand strategy should be defined from a multidimensional and multi-stakeholder perspective.
This brand strategy, however, fails in the Indian real estate that is predominantly a local business but is increasingly striving to be seen in global markets. The realty companies have yet failed to formulate CSR strategy that enhances brand image either from a local perspective or glocal (global & local) objective.
What probably deters the realty companies from CSR, even though they agree that ‘doing good’ is good for business, is that the exact return on investment for CSR programmes remains hard to measure. However, experience from other industries suggest that companies that make CSR a core pillar of their global contact center outsourcing operations, for example, directly impacts their employee morale, agent tenure, the health of the communities where they work, and importantly, their customers’ bottom-line.
Another deterrent is that the nature of the business of real estate is very individualistic, whereas one of the first things to do when considering a CSR program is to think about your CSR partners. Working with local organizations can lend credibility to your efforts while increasing local exposure and overall community goodwill.
…to be continued
