COVID-19 has brought about tremendous change to our economic and social fabrics. Businesses today face a new reality, one that should put sustainability at the forefront of their strategies.

Resilience during these unprecedented times will largely be shaped by a company’s sustainability, which is not defined by its corporate social responsibility (CSR), but rather by how well sustainability is integrated into the larger business strategy.

Financial and risk management alone cannot guarantee resilience, an organisation’s values and culture, its organisational and learning structures, its digital infrastructure and the agility in deploying innovative solutions are key factors in resilience.

This webinar will highlight the pivotal role sustainability plays during socioeconomic instability and touch upon the various elements that organisations should be addressing. This webinar will also use real-life examples to demonstrate the value of embedding sustainability into business strategy and the importance of having a multi-stakeholder approach, starting with employees’ well-being.

Some of the points that will be addressed in the webinar include the following:

• How the global health pandemic of COVID-19 redefined resilience
• The death of CSR and the rise of the stakeholder approach
• Sustainability as the driving engine for innovation and growth

A business’ reputation is one of its most valuable assets, but also one which is not often considered a formal management tool. Managing a business’ reputation effectively is a way to build trust amongst its stakeholders, resulting in increased attention and patronage. For small businesses, who have limited fiscal resources, managing their reputations is a sure-fire way to leverage existing and new customers – as well as new opportunities for growth and long-term value creation. The question then becomes: how can MSMEs build their reputations and entrench reputation management as a part of their internal governance processes? 

This webinar will aim to:

• Situate reputation management and stakeholder engagement from a governance perspective,
• Identify how MSMEs can undertake activities to build trust with their stakeholders, and
• Discuss the best methods to instil reputation management across most of a business’ processes to improve business outcomes.

Crisis management for institutions often starts with an evaluation of any impacts, followed by mitigation processes. However, it is also essential for institutions to revisit their company cultures and see if formal and informal processes are equipped to rise to the challenge. This is particularly important in the present, seeing as how the COVID-19 pandemic has led nearly every business to adapt internal processes in order to continue operations. So how can institutions manage working through a crisis by reworking their culture in a time of rapid change?

This webinar will aim to:

• Evaluate what Gulf Region institutions are doing to manage through the current crisis,
• Understand the necessity of changing an institution’s culture and practices during times of crises, and
• Offer solutions for companies and their leaders to try new strategies to revitalize their company cultures for resilience during a crisis.

Digital communications have become a ubiquitous pillar of business processes. The multitude of resources available for businesses to begin a strategic digital communications strategy are numerous and often staggering. For MSMEs, in particular, digital communications can seem expensive, out-of-reach, or sometimes irrelevant – but this is far from the case. So why should small businesses pivot towards the increased adoption of digital communications strategies, and how? More importantly, how does a digital communications strategy play into a business’ governance and overall stability? 

This webinar will aim to:

• Understand what a digital communications strategy is,
• How MSMEs can adapt their extant communications processes to “go digital” for improved business outcomes and strengthened governance, and
• Give viewers a chance to engage with the webinar facilitator about why digital communications are essential in this day and age.

Across the private sector, investors make calculated decisions supported by reliable data and a guiding team to ensure the effectiveness of their investment prior to deploying funds. Philanthropic investments should be treated the same way, if not with higher precaution, as it is high-risk capital.

While private personal giving continues to be an important source of financing for grantees and beneficiaries in the region, these actors are now giving through an increasingly diverse range of family foundations and social investment initiatives, including established foundations, new philanthropic ventures, as well as corporate vehicles. Further, there has been growing discussion around the sustainability and effectiveness of regional philanthropy, heated by the desire to optimise the scale and impact of giving.

This panel discussion will address the necessary factors for the continued growth and expansion of strategic giving across the Gulf Region.

More specifically, it will answer the following questions:

• What is strategic philanthropy?
• Is institutional philanthropy essential to the growth of strategic giving in the Gulf Region?
• What do donors need to enable more structured philanthropy?
• What impact does structured giving have on the scalability and sustainability of philanthropic projects?