CAUX Initiatives for Business

RECENTLY HELD EVENTS

6th Biennial CIB International Conference held in January 2016

The Official Report

The 6th biennial conference of Caux Initiatives for Business (CIB) 2016 was held at Asia Plateau, the Initiatives of Change (IofC) conference centre in Panchgani, India. The conference focused on sustainable growth through business. Sustainability in this context means a series of actions that results in the creation of an environment for economic growth on a long-term basis. It is built on Trust. Trust over a period of time leads to Faith which would then lead to Loyalty, Allegiance, Team Building, Community Development and ultimately Nation Building. Sustainability therefore cannot be a short-term goal.
Unfortunately, too many business organizations find that it is much easier to use unsustainable short-cuts such as deceptive and corrupt practices to gain short term goals. Business has to look at its larger purpose and reflect on its calling for its greatest role. Such a conscious purpose is oriented in contributing to the good of the “whole” and sustenance of the “whole” which would build sustainability on the long run. We need therefore to make a concerted effort to learn from the businesses, cultures and countries that have led the way in the past by showcasing sustainable models over the years and replicate them. These models sustain a characteristic of consciously integrating their business operations with Values and Ethics.

CIB 2016 Official Report

Through the Eyes of a Delegate

CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) is much more than donating two per cent of profits to social causes (mandated under Indian corporate law), concluded Sarosh Ghandy, at the end of the sixth biennial CIB conference (Caux Initiatives for Business), held in India from 22 to 26 January. The venue was Asia Plateau, the Asian centre of Initiatives of Change in Panchgani, Maharashtra. Ghandy, a former Tata director who is the moving spirit behind the CIB conferences, said that CSR should be seen as repaying back to society what business has taken from society. ‘CSR is not philanthropy but what business has as its due to society. It is not a PR gimmick,’ he said.
It was an appropriate note to strike at the end of the five-day conference on the theme of ‘Making business an engine for sustainable growth’. It brought together CEOs, Managing Directors and senior executives from across India as well as from Japan, Kenya and elsewhere.

Through the eyes of a delegate by Mike Smith

CIB Round Table in Mumbai

“There must be a conscious shift from emphasis on targets to excellence. Targets are automatically achieved if one focuses on excellence,” shared a Managing Director of a company at the CIB Round Table in Mumbai hosted by Siemens Ltd. on November 27, 2015. Read further what 39 delegates from business and industry had to deliberate on when the discussed the theme, ‘Is business ready to change itself, to change India”.

CIB Round Table in Bengaluru

“Is Business Ready for Change Itself, to Change India,” was the theme of the CIB Round Table held in Bengaluru on October 30, 2015. The event got off to a start, with a few delegates and this rapporteur stranded in the famed traffic of Garden City turned Tech City. In an encore of the CIB Round Table two years ago, a serene campus in the north-western part of the city was the chosen venue, with Kirloskar Electric Co. Ltd. graciously hosting the meeting as well as the lunch thereafter. Continue reading the report.

CIB Round Table in Pune

“How can we translate from an environment of leadership by example to a system of leadership by design – one that itself creates more good examples?” asked Farhad Forbes, Director, Forbes Marshall Pvt. Ltd. who graciously hosted the event that this report covers. This was a thought he had picked up while in a program at Stanford and which he so honestly shared, “we’re still struggling with.” This and other such profound statements were heard by the 37 men and women who participated in the CIB Round Table deliberations that took place at the Forbes Marshall Hall in Pune on September 25, 2015. Read the full report