“Understanding the needs of a business is the starting point of any project.” John Williams.

Right now, in the middle of the cost of living crisis, you want to understand how things are for business. It’s important you have empathy with the people you want to build partnerships with. Running a business is more challenging than ever. Many business leaders feel overwhelmed. To get their attention it is important to show you understand and then offer a simple solution to one or more of their challenges.

Below we describe five problems companies are facing.

The battle for talent

One of the greatest challenges is the recruitment and retention of employees. The battle for talent has never been so competitive. The post pandemic landscape has added a challenge, because employees’ needs and wants have changed. By 2025 it is expected that 75% of the global workforce will be millennials (forbes.com). Companies need to to adapt their working practices, environments, and cultures to meet the demands of this generation. On the whole, millennials want to work for companies with a purpose that goes beyond just making money. They want to feel good about their work because it is making a positive impact on society.

We recommend offer corporate partners and prospects the opportunity to authentically demonstrate their purpose through a shared purpose partnership. This will show their employees why they are such a great company to work for.

Engaging employees

It is a shocking statistic that only 11% of employees in the UK and western Europe feel engaged at work. (Gallup, 2021). People are the most important resource in a company and yet they are often neglected.  Employee engagement is the greatest priority for most companies. Disengaged employees are less productive, the quality of their work suffers and they sometimes spread negative messages about the company. When we consider that 85% of employees in the UK and western Europe are not engaged at work and 18% are actively disengaged (Gallup 2021), we begin to understand the scale of this challenge.

We recommend you demonstrate how your partnership opportunity will engage a companies employees, by giving their people opportunities to help create a better society.

Working conditions 

Companies are having to operate with much smaller operational budgets, whilst balancing the need to support employees in the cost of living crisis. Health and well-being is priority,  especially during this time of uncertainty.

We recommend you show how your partnership opportunity can help a company demonstrate its commitment to creating a healthy, supportive and inclusive workplace.

Supply chain issues

The war in Ukraine has caused major disruption in companies’ supply chains. Also the price of oil and gas has risen sharply, which is impacting energy-intensive sectors. With increase costs for essential parts and materials, many companies are facing a cash flow crisis.

We recommend that you use a cause related marketing strategy to help support companies that need to increase pricing. By introducing a charity donation with higher pricing, they are able to show the customer the same value for money as well as being more being purpose driven.

Partnerships not delivering value

In a recent survey 63% of respondents said they, “want CEOs to take a stand on key societal issues, with income inequality, racial equality and climate change the top issues identified” (JUST Capital, 2021). Unfortunately, many charities partnerships which are created take these issues are failing to deliver real value for the business. This means business CEOs see charity partnerships as a drain on resources, rather than delivering genuine commercial benefits. And in difficult times company CEOs increase their focus on the bottom line.

We recommend you show how your partnership opportunity will deliver commercial value for your corporate partner or prospect, by helping them with their reputation, employee engagement and/or sales.

We hope this blog helps you understand the challenges companies are facing right now, and gives you the inspiration and insight to seize the significant opportunities in the cost of living crisis.