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we are undergoing the most profound
reassessment of the role of Commerce in
society in 150 years the mid to late
Victorian era was the last time we saw
as significant a change indeed it's one
of the reasons many the brands that we
know and trust and love today retail
brands consumer brands were founded in
that era an urbanizing population
detached from the ability to buy goods
directly from producers needed brands
trustworthy intermediaries to help them
trust the food Sainsbury's founded less
than a mile from here they put their
name over the door they said quality
perfect price is lower and their
business was born of milk adulteration
scandals where milk had been adulterated
with an arsenic and was literally
killing people so I think it is as
profound as that I'm not sure that there
is much evidence that corporate
behaviors got materially worse in the
last 5 10 15 years these things tend to
be progressive over time but I think our
ability to see it to spot it to hold it
to account to have conversations about
it as consumers greater than it's ever
been and I think that there have been a
number of very high-profile instances
where businesses have wrapped themselves
in clothes which turned out not to be
true and if you think about the current
debate about the users of our data it's
very focused on the big international
largely American tech companies but this
is true more widely of corporations
using data people thought the deal when
they handed over their data if they
realize that indeed is what they were
doing was very different from what
they're now discovering the deal to be
that's very untrustworthy behavior on
the part of the corporations that
acquired that data has been acquired
under false pretenses I would argue and
it's being used against not with and for
the consumer so I prefer to think as the
challenge being corporations having to
work with the consent and support of the
society and the communities that they
serve and that's much more about trust
than it is about fairness
although of course behaving fairly
undoubtedly
leads to trust but the nature of
competitive business will always leave
too unfair outcomes for some people when
a corporation makes a decision to make a
number of people redundant unfair to the
individuals involved yet for the
survival of the corporation the wider
group of people that work within it and
the communities that that Corporation
serves it might be the fairest decision
even though many of people impacted by
it won't feel that it was fair and
that's why I find the world sometimes
quite unhelpful in arriving at the right
decision but I think that the change is
profound and I think that this
conversation is incredibly important and
I don't recognize the idea that
corporations exist to maximize profit I
think that in the long run if you do
that you will not maximize profit you
because you will lose the ability to act
either through the general consent of
consumers or through legislation we'd
see more corporate legislation in the
last 10 to 15 years than in the previous
hundred and 50 years now if that doesn't
tell you that the legislature and of
politicians have kind of worked out the
only people held in lower esteem than
them are business people so picking on
business people is not a bad thing to do
if you're a politician and held in
pretty low esteem as a starting point -
I mean my sense is that you know if you
if you wanna have your CEO of a company
like you were at Sainsbury's then you
are involved almost explicitly in
recognizing that there is a balance to
be struck between the demands of
investors to maximize profit but also
your loyalty to your customers their
loyalty to your workers a loyalty to the
communities that you serve I guess my
question is that if you are merely an
investor you don't have that loyalty
your focus is upon the returns upon the
money invested and and that's the
tension that I'm from that's true but in
a public company investors can buy and
sell the shares at almost no friction
cost and of course they can buy
themselves to a position to have a view
whether it be through asking for a seat
on the board or ultimately and buying
more than 50% of the company and
therefore control
and directing it you know clearly when
you have a dispersed shareholder base as
we did in same speech 120 or so thousand
shoulders are your going to have you
know every view you could possibly have
in the room but that's where it comes
back to communication and demonstrating
the decisions that you're taking are in
the round field of well-being of the
corporation we announced our sponsorship
at the Paralympics heralded I think
largely with hindsight is an exceptional
piece of corporate responsibility in
2009 for at least a year if not longer
the only question I was ever asked by
shelters is why I was wasting the
company's money on a flight of fancy and
the answer was because you don't
understand our business the colleagues
that work in it and the customers that
we serve and the communities of which
we're part and the things that our
customers are worried about if you think
being involved in sponsoring the pattern
but is a bad idea
you just don't and we as the leadership
of this organization of doing and we
profoundly believe it's the right thing
for the business to be doing now
eventually that view changed but it
changed largely only when evidence was
available and that's why in the end it
can't be the thing about algorithms I
couldn't disagree more because
ultimately the decisions today that have
the biggest Delta for corporations more
than has ever been true are those that
are taken where the numbers can't take
it for you because if you only take the
decisions that numbers take for you then
ultimately you must lose you have to be
prepared to take decisions that have a
point of view that's why purpose is
important because that's the definition
of your point of view
and that's why values are important
because they are if you like the
signposts in that decision-making the
ground on which you intend to tread and
also the ground on which you will not
tread
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