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ESG (Environmental, Social, and corporate Governance) reporting is a major challenge on the agendas of most organisations.

Global pressures are increasing on a daily basis. The recently adopted Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) will subject 50,000 firms in the EU to obligatory disclosure within the next five years.

In June 2023, the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) finalised reporting standards for adoption in 2024.

Aside from regulations, businesses face additional pressure from investors, supply networks, and external stakeholders.

It can all seem a little overwhelming.

But that’s no reason to rush. It is critical to learn to walk before you run when implementing good ESG reporting.

ESG reporting might become more of a tick-box exercise rather than giving meaningful value to the organisation if it is rushed.

ESG Reporting does not have an easy remedy – it must be done purposefully and robustly, which can take time.

Furthermore, a large business that is reporting for the first time and must do so across several locations may have logistical challenges with data collection and integrity. If rushed, this can result in inconsistent or incoherent reporting.

Want a tried-and-tested method for getting things started? Continue reading.

Follow our six-step approach.

Review our six stages below before moving forward with implementation and reporting.
Consider the following questions and ensure that you can answer them all:

1. Why does your company require ESG?

2. What is most important to your company and its stakeholders?

3. What ESG data are you currently collecting?

4. What ESG data is missing in your organisation?

5. Who is in charge of collecting both existing and missing data?

6. What is your process for gathering data and converting it into information that is simple to grasp and apply?

If you’re having trouble answering any of the above questions, you might want to download our e-book 6 Steps to getting started with Sustainability ESG Reporting.

Slow and steady wins the race.

It is critical to address the logistics and operations of how you will collect data while doing ESG reporting.

Whether you’re working with a service provider or developing your own internal approach, perfecting things on a smaller scale slowly and spreading success will pay off in the long run.

Make a Gantt Chart as part of the project for one location or site in the business.

Set a deadline for reporting in one location, as well as review dates for how things are doing.

Working through the roll-out in one location with regular reviews allows you to think about:

•  What worked well for our company throughout implementation?

•  What didn’t work on this site for us?

•  What should we do differently in the future?

•  Are there any gaps or problems in the way we collect data that we should address?

• After completing the process at one location, reflecting on performance, and determining best practises for your firm, you can begin implementing reporting on additional sites.

Finally, by the final site, each location will be operating in a manner that is appropriate for the specific micro-culture of that business location. Most significantly, establishing and setting up reporting inside new teams will become a standard activity, making ESG reporting easier as the organisation evolves.

If you only have one location, you may find it useful to begin with one ‘pillar’ of ESG and, as previously stated, test, review, and refine as you go.

Establish a reporting technique.

Without outlining a clear justification for setting targets, organisations risk creating an illogical and inconsistent approach to ESG reporting.

Our best advice? Begin with a materiality assessment to get to the heart of what you’re trying to accomplish.

Once you’ve determined that, develop SMART goals for those material concerns, which are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time bound.

You may then establish what data you need to acquire and the appropriate methodology to assist you do so if you have clear, measurable goals and KPIs.

SustainIQ has created procedures for over 150 different reporting categories, simplifying that element of the ESG reporting process for you. 

Schedule a call with us to discuss how we might assist you

The phrases ESG (Environmental, Social, and corporate Governance) and sustainability are sometimes used interchangeably, which is understandable given their close relationship and the fact that ESG is increasingly being used as an acronym for corporate sustainability. 

Let’s look at the parallels between the two and try to explain the growing trend of adopting ESG even when it isn’t related to investment reporting.

The relationship between ESG and sustainability

Both ESG and Sustainability have the same overarching goal: to enhance business practises while reducing any bad effects on the environment, and to gain favour with investors, customers, and regulators in the process.

Both involve three pillars: they both focus on environmental and social issues, although the G in ESG stands for governance while the third pillar in sustainability is economic. When it comes to sustainability, the problem is that the definition has been weakened, and usually overused and applied primarily to environmental concerns.

For example, in KPMG’s 2020 report ‘The Time Has Come,’ only three aspects of sustainability reporting are focused on – biodiversity, carbon reduction, and the SDGs – hardly a broad definition and potentially adding to companies’ confusion about what they should cover when addressing sustainability.

Then there are the large consulting firms that use the two together as a kind of catch-all perpetuating the notion that they’re interchangeable.

However, there are several important distinctions to be made.

Understanding ESG

ESG is a framework for corporate governance as well as investing. It derives from a rising awareness of the need for greater accountability and an emphasis on non-financial reporting among investors. The acronym was originally used in the 2006 United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) report, which included the Freshfield Report and “Who Cares Wins.”

Although some regard ESG as a development of what firms may have previously referred to as Corporate Responsibility (CR), it adds rigour in the form of investor scrutiny and public reporting that CR lacked. It also demands corporations to publish their substantial impacts, whereas previously, CR was more of a separate programme of activity carried out in addition to day-to-day operations for many organisations.

ESG criteria are more detailed in terms of scope, benchmarking, and data disclosure, and it is the term preferred and used by financial markets to assess and make responsible investments.

Understanding Sustainability

Sustainability has various definitions, but at its foundation, it is about conducting business in a way that serves current requirements without jeopardising future generations’ needs. Newcastle University’s version is “Enough. For everyone. Forever” and this resonates because of its simplicity.

Sustainability is linked to John Elkington’s concept of the triple bottom line, which states that a company’s success should be measured not only on financial or economic criteria, but also on its social and environmental benefits.

In recent years, the concept of business sustainability has evolved and managed to wrap itself in a degree of haziness along the way. Recently, more organisations have embraced the clarity and structure that they believe ESG provides in favour of the word sustainability.

Fundamentally, the two are so inextricably linked that whether or not it matters which term is employed is often a wholly subjective decision.

Which one is best for my company?

If you work with investors or your company is valued in financial markets, ESG is the way to go. Because that is the language used by the investment world, it makes sense to employ it. However, be careful that doing so creates the assumption that you will measure, report, and be evaluated on your material environmental, social, and governance challenges.

According to some observers, such as Forbes, the idea is that by accepting sustainability as a core value, you may then choose to report on it using the ESG pillars. It would be great news if it were true, if attaining sustainability was at the heart of all ESG frameworks and reporting. Others, however, think that the term’s broad use obscures its meaning and allows asset managers and others to appear to be devoted to sustainability and stakeholder value while their view of ESG may be considerably narrower.

SustainIQ, one of our partners, has created a data platform to assist businesses in measuring and reporting on their overall sustainability commitments.

We will continue to discuss ESG and sustainability as two sides of the same coin, and we will use our knowledge in this area to help clients who wish to be more specific in their language.

Whatever term you want to use, SustainIQ’s all-in-one reporting platform will help you streamline reporting, saving you time and money while boosting the quality of ESG and sustainability data.

Contact us today to learn more about how the SustainIQ platform might help you!

Microsoft Project Operations is a comprehensive solution designed to help businesses manage their project-based operations more effectively. Here are five key business benefits of using Microsoft Project Operations:

Streamlined Project Management: Microsoft Project Operations provides a centralized platform for project planning, execution, and monitoring. It enables project managers to define project tasks, allocate resources, set timelines, and track progress in real time. This streamlined approach improves project visibility and control, leading to better decision-making and increased project success rates.

Resource Optimization: Efficient resource management is critical for project success. Microsoft Project Operations allows businesses to effectively allocate and optimize resources across projects. It provides visibility into resource availability, skills, and capacity, enabling businesses to make informed decisions when assigning resources. By maximizing resource utilization, organizations can reduce costs and improve project profitability.

Enhanced Collaboration: Collaboration is essential for project teams to work together seamlessly. Microsoft Project Operations facilitates collaboration by providing a centralized platform for team members to share project-related information, documents, and updates. It enables real-time communication, document sharing, and collaboration on tasks, fostering teamwork and improving productivity.

Financial Control and Profitability: Projects often involve complex financial aspects, such as budgeting, cost tracking, and invoicing. Microsoft Project Operations offers robust financial management capabilities, allowing businesses to effectively manage project finances. It enables budget tracking, expense management, revenue recognition, and invoicing, helping organizations maintain financial control and improve project profitability.

Business Intelligence and Reporting: Data-driven insights are crucial for making informed business decisions. Microsoft Project Operations provides comprehensive reporting and analytics capabilities, enabling businesses to gain valuable insights into project performance, resource utilization, profitability, and other key metrics. These insights help organizations identify areas for improvement, optimize processes, and enhance overall project delivery.

In summary, Microsoft Project Operations offers several business benefits, including streamlined project management, resource optimisation, enhanced collaboration, financial control, and business intelligence. 

By leveraging these capabilities, businesses can improve project outcomes, increase efficiency, and drive overall operational excellence.

If you’d like to find out more, please reach out via email [email protected] 

In a professional services organisation, project management faces several unique challenges. Here are five main challenges commonly encountered:

Client Engagement and Communication: Maintaining effective communication with clients is vital in professional services project management. Clients often have high expectations and require frequent updates and collaboration. Balancing client demands, addressing concerns, and managing client satisfaction throughout the project can be challenging, particularly when working with diverse clients who have varying communication styles and preferences.Having project performance insights available on demand can significantly ease this workload and allow the PM to focus on impactful communication and management.

Resource Allocation: Professional services organisations often have multiple projects running simultaneously, with limited resources available. Allocating the right resources to each project becomes a significant challenge. Ensuring that skilled personnel are assigned to the appropriate projects, considering their availability, expertise, and workload, requires careful planning and coordination. Resource wellbeing and retention is a key priority, and a system to support a well-balanced workload is critical to support this.

Scope Management: Managing the scope of projects is crucial in any organisation, but particularly so within professional services where profitability is driven by billable time. Invariably clients will request changes or additional deliverables throughout the project lifecycle, leading to scope creep. 

Project managers need to effectively communicate project boundaries and manage client expectations to prevent scope creep, which can impact timelines, budgets, and overall project success. Presenting change requests early in the project set a precedence for the ongoing project governance. 

Documentation and Knowledge Transfer: To support the project managers and technical leads it’s crucial that project documentation such as statements of work and functional specifications have adequate detail. Without this, it makes the management of scope and preservation of budget and timelines practically impossible.  

Additionally, as typical projects will involve various team members, and new people may be added to projects mid-flight, it’s crucial to have evolving documentation such as lessons learned, process changes and all other project related documentation preserved and available in an easy to access manner.

Ensuring effective knowledge transfer and maintaining comprehensive project documentation help in improving future project performance and reducing reliance on individual expertise.

Time and Money: Professional services organisations typically operate within strict deadlines and tight budgets. Managing multiple projects with different timelines requires meticulous planning, prioritization, and effective time and task management. 

Most importantly, ensuring project margins by assigning budgets to a task level, and tracking time consumed against those budgets is essential to the profitability of a professional services organisation. A solution to help manage the project tasks, and allow easy updating of time and status by all project resources will make the life of a project manager much easier, and drive margin and revenue in the right direction!

The solution

Critical to successful project management is the utilisation of a Project Management solution, like Dynamics 365 Project Operations.  

Project Operations connects sales, resourcing, project management, and finance teams in a single application to win more deals, accelerate project delivery, and maximise profitability.

If you’d like to find out more, please reach out via email [email protected]

Many pharmacies are still using legacy systems that were developed nearly 20 years ago; they are slow to run, difficult to update, and have obsolete functionality.

Pharmacies today require technology that enables them to provide excellent customer service while also adhering to complex legislation and regulations.

They are, however, unable to migrate to more competitive technology because they are trapped in a cycle of reduced IT capabilities and rising costs, as outdated technology requires ongoing investment to remain operational.

To reduce costs and remain competitive, pharmacies must invest in unified and flexible solutions that are easily upgradable and meet the current and future needs of digital pharmacies.

Breaking the circle

To future-proof their business, pharmacies must decide to begin investing in new technologies. The good news is that this process can be completed in stages and gradually. 

The first step is to develop a pharmacy-specific digital transformation program.

Digital transformation

Defining future scenarios and developing a business development strategy are two of the most difficult aspects of pharmacy management.

During these stages, management must visualise potential scenarios, choose the preferred one, and then decide how the company plans to make that ideal future a reality. This can be a challenging task.

To define the vision, a digital transformation program must be implemented, which entails implementing cutting-edge digital solutions to handle processes with the goal of becoming a modern pharmacy.

Defining goals and benefits

The business processes in the pharmacy industry are extensive, critical, and highly regulated.

Many retail pharmacies strive to keep up with rapidly changing consumer behaviour trends to satisfy new generations of shoppers who expect convenience and 24-hour shopping and services online.

Before deciding on a new system to replace aging or obsolete systems, it is critical to clarify all of the investment’s essential benefits and goals.

The digital architecture must support all critical processes efficiently and modularly so that your software solution can be easily implemented and maintained.

When looking for new software solutions, you should look for three things:

  1. Assistance with and automation of routine pharmacy processes.
  2. Well-managed and scalable integration technology for connecting to national databases, data sensors, external sources, and so on.
  3. The ability to improve services and maximise revenue opportunities by utilising pharmacy operations data.

POS transactions, for example, can provide valuable insights into consumer behaviour, loyalty management, upselling opportunities, category management, and so on.

A pharmacy that analyses its data using business intelligence functionality can use this information to automate processes and generate insights that will help it compete.

How to establish a digital transformation program?

Creating a reference group of internal subject matter experts is a good way to get started with this type of program.

When developing use cases for the future solution, these experts can provide valuable feedback.

This team should consist of the most knowledgeable employees who are also extremely motivated to change.

The objectives should be quantifiable and achievable through the implementation of a new management system.

Goals that a pharmacy chain might set include:

  • Within four years, double the number of stores.
  • Increase the number of loyal customers 300% in three years.
  • Reduce the transaction time for dealing with prescriptions from six to four minutes.
  • Within six months, integrate all of our consumers’ shopping channels (eCommerce, physical stores, and mobile app).
  • Within three months, implement prescription handling on the mobile app.

If the digital goals are defined in a concrete and tangible manner, calculating the ROI for the required investment should be relatively simple.

The benefits of the digital transformation program can then be linked to the corporate vision and key performance indicators (KPIs) to visualise how the benefits will be realised and thus document the business case for investing in a digital pharmacy program.

Our pharmacy technology team has enabled pharmacy chains all over the world achieve their digital transformation objectives.

Contact us to learn how pharmacy-specific solutions from LS Retail and ProStrategy can assist you in meeting your objectives.

Six Steps to an Executable Data Strategy

Data has become an essential tool in today’s business landscape. However, taking advantage of your data requires a long-term and – most importantly – an executable strategy. 

The problem that many businesses have is not the lack of data, but how to make proper business sense of it. Data is being collected in myriad ways, yet according to one report, only 32% of data available to enterprises is used.

An executable data strategy seeks to avoid such waste and aims to define the technology, processes, people, and rules required to manage your information assets.

Building a data strategy is vital to remain relevant, competitive, and innovative in today’s ever-changing world. Only by acting on your data will you meet business goals and unlock operational efficiency, process optimisation, and crucially, faster real-time decision-making.

Here are our six steps to creating an executable data strategy for your organisation.

Step 1 Understand business objectives

Instead of gathering data for data’s sake, start by examining your business objectives. Once you understand these, they need to be aligned with your data strategy. Only you can understand your objectives and so it’s a time to reflect on your long-term goals.

Remember, data only has value when it has a function.

Step 2 Discover Current State

Discovery is performed through a series of interviews and documentation reviews. 

The initial discovery sessions are intended to catalogue the current state of data assets, data platform technologies, and any current data use cases. Once this is captured, the next step is to identify any gaps or challenges and then create a prioritised list of potential future use cases. 

Step 3 Data Governance

How you govern your data today, and into the future, is vital. As data platforms, and the ability to extract insights will develop and mature, it’s important to have a data governance program in place to react to their evolution.

Yet a balance has to be struck. Over-engineering such a program may slow down progress and limit business value. Therefore, assessing the core data governance capabilities of your organisation is crucial.

Step 4 Technology

The value which you get from your data is, unsurprisingly, driven by technology. For example, while we all use and depend upon Excel for many data tasks, there is a need to have a central system which ingests all your data and can analyse it properly.

This central system must support detailed analytics, is accessible to key stakeholders, and the data model which is being used can evolve in line with business needs.

Furthermore, where the data does not exist today, thought must be given to how data gaps will be filled e.g., can it be calculated or estimated?

Step 5 Skills and Capacity

A key factor that holds organisations back from becoming data-driven organisations is people. Technology can only go so far without the required human support. A data strategy will only be useful if it reflects the processes related to creating, sharing and governing such data. Also, the strategy will introduce more data and its analysis, and potentially new technology.

This requires a thorough examination and appraisal of the existing skillsets in your organisation and the potential to upskill key resources or hire new staff.

Step 6 The Executable Data Strategy

The above steps will lead to your data strategy and ultimately how your organisation will create a strategic advantage through the use of data. At a high level, the data strategy will detail the data platform architecture and how it is delivered, the data governance model, and the implementation roadmap.

While a data strategy is obviously about benefiting from your data, it’s also about building a culture within your organisation that appreciates the benefits of data-driven analysis and decision-making. 

It’s this cultural shift that will pay dividends in the long run.

For more information, get in touch with ProStrategy via email [email protected]