"Cleaning Up"

“Corporate social responsibility” often means leveraging the concern (or guilt) of the affluent on behalf of those less fortunate: Sell to first-world consumers and redistribute some of the profits to address third-world problems. But a case has been made for a different strategy that involves selling to the poor themselves. In a speech last month, for instance, Harish Manwani, the chairman of Hindustan Lever Limited, pointed to his firm’s marketing Lifebuoy soap to India’s sprawling underclass as an example of its efforts to bring “social responsibility to the heart of our business.”

Hindustan Lever is a subsidiary of Unilever, the packaged-goods giant (it owns brands including Dove and Ben & Jerry’s) that was formed in 1929 by the merger of the British soap maker Lever Brothers and the Dutch food company Margarine Unie. Global brands seem like a recent phenomenon, but Lever was already operating around the world when Lifebuoy entered the Indian market more than a hundred years ago. Another thing that existed a hundred years ago and is still around today is a large number of preventable deaths.

In his speech, Manwani focused on deaths caused by diarrhea-related diseases (the World Health Organization estimates such illnesses kill 1.8 million people a year) and noted that better hand-washing habits — using soap — is one way to prevent their spread. For several years, the World Bank has been involved in initiatives with multinationals, including Unilever, to address the issue.

Hindustan Lever’s Lifebuoy campaign, however, is not philanthropy; it’s business. Throughout its long life, the antibacterial soap has been positioned as a health-and-wellness product: a 1902 ad in Harper’s promised “this wonderful cleanser and purifier” was “the enemy of dirt and disease.” That “core proposition” remains, says Punit Misra, the marketing manager who oversees Lifebuoy and other skin-cleansing brands for Hindustan Lever. Perhaps the most significant change to the product itself in recent years has been the introduction of smaller, and thus cheaper, bars: a half-size, 50-gram bar, for five rupees (about two ounces, for roughly 12 cents), was introduced in the early 1990s. (The small-package approach is now used by many companies in developing markets.) More recently, the packaging was made “more contemporary” by replacing the “strapping young man” on the package with an image of a couple and their children, Misra says.

And five years ago, the company introduced a campaign called Swasthya Chetna or “Glowing Health,” which, boiled down, argues that even clean-looking hands may carry dangerous germs, so use more soap. It began a concentrated effort to take this message into the tens of thousands of villages where the rural poor reside, often with little access to media. “Lifebuoy teams visit each village several times,” Manwani said in his speech, using “a glo-germ kit to show schoolchildren” that soap-washed hands are cleaner. Manwani says this program has reached “around 80 million rural folk” and added that “sales of Lifebuoy have risen sharply.” The small bar has become the brand’s top seller.

C. K. Prahalad, a University of Michigan professor (and Hindustan Lever board member), uses the India Lifebuoy story as a case study in his 2004 book “The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid,” which argues that the profit motive can be a powerful force in addressing global poverty issues. Building a campaign around a well-known product like Lifebuoy can be effective precisely because even the world’s poorest citizens can be “brand conscious.” (Hindustan Lever’s Misra agrees, saying that such consumers will stick with a brand they trust, because “money means that much more to them.”)

Still, is this really the right place for the profit motive? Hindustan Lever’s position is that profitable responsibility is the point. “If it’s not really self-sustaining,” Misra says, “somewhere along the line it will drop off.” Prahalad makes similar points. “The question that comes up all the time is: These companies are pushing consumption, but what we need is livelihood improvement,” he told me in an interview. But preventing illness also means a family might avoid a potentially devastating loss of several days’ work. And ultimately, he says, campaigns like Lifebuoy’s Swasthya Chetna should be evaluated not ideologically but by their impact on the global poor. “The alternative,” he said, “is needless death.”

(The New York Times, June 10, 2007)

More Moore

Michael Moore and Blogger's Confessions (Usher Style)

Michael Moore's new movie "Sicko" about the American healthcare industry premieres in Europe in the fall. If you're traveling to the US this summer, you could to catch it as early as June 29.

Here's another story about Moore you might not have heard.

Now...

"These are my confessions
Just when I thought I said all I could say
My resume shows I got to get /
one more thing out of the way


Even though this blog may occasionally make me as a blogger sound green, social justice oriented etc., that's really not the whole picture. My history includes a stint in a New York investment banking team that did deals with managed care organizations, the same firms and CEOs that Moore attacks in "Sicko." Honestly, I have to be the one of the only Net Impact members in the universe that gets totally worked up while reading about Darfur or watching a movie about Edith Piaf who's also worked for a company providing military avionics and another that pitches managed care mergers. Talk about a split personality. There are no other major skeletons in the closet, though.

Okay, fine. There were those board memberships at Talisman Energy, Halliburton, and TJ Group.

In a sense, the reason these issues get me so fired up is having been there and seen some of this stuff up close. Many guys did not leave the office on 9/11 even despite bomb alerts at Grand Central because "defense companies are going to be on fire, man." (...? - Honey, look at me. I have ovaries. And a womb. And I'm wearing a skirt. I know that's rare here unless you're a secretary, but do I look like a man?)

Senior managers talked passionately about raw material prices, life insurance trends and yield curves without mentioning the dead in the city. There was callousness on a level I'd never seen before. It changed my life. As far as managed care goes, even not having seen more than a trailer for "Sicko", it's pretty clear to me Moore is doing the right thing and chosen to raise awareness about an urgent issue. Mr Moore may get a lot of criticism, but looking at it from both sides of the fence, I absolutely know which side I'm on and strongly believe Mr Moore is on the side of the people for whom the healthcare industry exists in the first place: patients, not shareholders.

This was one of the deals done by the group that employed me. (It's old news now in fast-changing managed care. Trigon was bought by WellPoint.) Now, I could say I had no idea what I was getting into (that would be true), I could claim I was assigned to that group (sort of not true, I had befriended a colleague who I still keep in touch with), I could say that I had no choice (yeah, right), but I guess I can't. For a time, I wanted to see Wall Street. Also, I'm from Finland. Most Finns have no idea what American healthcare insurers do or how the system works. "Keeping administrative costs down and keeping health plans competitive" sounded good to me. Besides, my employer's health insurer wasn't hurting me in any way, so there were no negative personal experiences whatsoever. In fact, the bank even paid for everyone's Lasik surgery, worth (if memory serves correctly) about $12,000 each. (When the market melted, they stopped this practice though.) Anyway, at the time the bank had probably the best combination of healthcare plans any company anywhere could ever have. I, for one, am still thankful. Thanks to the bank's private health plan, I have 20/20 vision again.

The job was no picnic, though, but that's a subject of a whole different confession (Usher didn't do Pt. 3, I just might.) I left New York and soon after befriended a New York ER doctor on my travels. We kept in touch. He told stories about people whose only healthcare providers were the emergency medicine doctors and nurses. It was interesting to start reading up on things. We talked about medical malpractice insurance (I had participated in a pitch for a nearly bankrupt med-mal business) and how a lot of doctors could no longer afford to practise because their insurance costs against potential lawsuits were prohibitively high - in the hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. There were over 40 million uninsured Americans. Doctors were being squeezed and bullied by insurers and outrageous litigation. Patients were being denied payments by insurance companies. It was quite incredible; as a Scandinavian, you easily take universal healthcare for granted. I began to realize that for the little while that I had spent as part of the American workforce, I had been part of an exclusive group of elite workers and as such, I had received elite benefits. Had I continued, I never would've seen anything different (of course assuming I would've kept ploughing ahead on that same road.) I would've thought everything was just fine.

And then it hit me: why did the financiers orchestrating healthcare mergers never talk about doctors, nurses or patients? Not once. It was as if we operated in a wholly separate universe.

The only answer that seemed in any way credible was that it really didn't matter to us. Nobody even pretended to care. Managed care corporate finance was a business where deals were done one step removed from the CEO who talks to lower level executives who talk to the claims experts who talk to doctors and patients and maximize corporate profit by denying treatments and reimbursements.

Now, there are certainly many things I want to do in life - besides getting a dog. For much of it, money is necessary. Heck, I wouldn't mind vacationing on Mustique one day. But if I don't, I don't really care. And my bottom line is that I sure as hell am not willing to get there by profiting from humanitarians or other people's suffering.

Of course, my former colleagues might laugh at this. I will never forget going to work one mid-week morning from the church. Now, I'm not religious, but sometime in my second year I started volunteering at a Park Avenue church homeless breakfast on my way to work. I didn't tell anyone at the office, I just went. So I got to work that one morning, and my colleagues were just hanging out, laughing. One joked to another, "Buddy, go feed the homeless or something."

I'd like to say this was the turning point that made me resign and change course. Not really. I left the city I love most in the world, but I still went back into finance for a while, unsure of what I wanted to do. Instead of Che Guevara badges and hemp clothing, I still wore heels and the damn pantyhose. I did a bunch of other things. But then I started working at a hospital.

And come to think of it, Che was a med student :) ...

Can't wait to see this movie.

Trailer:

Clip from the film:

Interview:

Entertainment Industry 101: From Humps and Lumps to Greater Meaning

It's too bad we can't draw flowcharts on Blogger, but try to picture this.

Universal Studios, like Universal Music, was until recently a subsidiary of Vivendi. We recall Vivendi/Universal Music/A&M were behind the masterful My Humps.

To service some debt a few years ago, Vivendi had to sell a majority stake of Universal Studios to GE. (You with me?) All three are looking for new blockbusters.

Now GE+Vivendi/Universal Studios have picked up a new movie called "The Peaceful Warrior." The trailer is below. The storyline is: a chance encounter with a stranger changes the life of a college gymnast ("Movies aid search for "greater meaning"" from Yahoo! news.)

It is nice if a particularly moving filming gets people thinking, and it's good entertainment, too. The business model here, though, is spelled out below by one of the companies' representatives: creating a market in transformational films.

There are a few question marks. General Electric, the owner of the company that distributes Peaceful Warrior used to produce nuclear weapons. Vivendi reaped gains from My Humps.

Additionally, although General Electric is no longer involved in producing nuclear weapons, the company owns GE-Aviation / Smiths Aerospace ("We Bring Technology To Life", a twist on GE's motto "We Bring Good Things To Life.") Although it's not clear how much of Smiths Aerospace's business comes from the defense market, much of their avionics no doubt go to the military. I once worked for a similar firm (oh, yes, I did and it's a looooooong story) and it was mostly manned by ex-military selling to the military.

Any one of us could read the Bible online, or perhaps the Dhammapada, available for free. But it wouldn't generate revenue. Quoting Reuters,

"Despite the marketing challenge, Fogelson sees further opportunity in the growing audience for such transformational films. "I think there is absolutely a viable and powerful business model in making and distributing films for this audience," he said. "I think it starts with knowing there is a large enough and very passionate audience that can be found and spoken to and served. Whether it can expand beyond that I think is entirely a function of what kind of product is created.""

LSV energiaseminaari

Lääkärin Sosiaalinen Vastuu ry järjesti marraskuussa energiaseminaarin, jonka asiantuntijoina olivat mm. ydinfyysikko Säteilyturvakeskuksesta, säteilyvammoihin erikoistunut lääkäri, Greenpeacen edustaja ja uusiutuvien energiamuotojen tutkija VTT:ltä. Jos aihe kiinnostaa, presentaatiot ovat netissä.

LSV on lääkärien vastine Net Impactille. Amerikkalainen "No Free Lunch" -porukka on myös eräs muoto terveydenhuoltoalan aktivismista. Lääketeollisuuden etiikastahan ollaan puhuttu vuosien varrella suhteellisen paljon, esimerkiksi siitä kuinka lääketeollisuuden koulutustilaisuudet ja "lahjat" vaikuttavat lääkäreiden käyttäytymiseen ja heidän määräämiensä lääkkeiden tyyppiin ja määrään. Yleensä sponssaus alkaa jo lääkiksen aikoina. Esimerkiksi nuorten lääkäreiden stetoskoopit ovat (käsittääkseni) Suomessakin usein lääkefirmojen sponsoroimia. (Hyvä stetoskooppi maksaa 100-200 euroa.) "No Free Lunch" kannattaa lääkärien ja lääketeollisuuden tiiviin siteen eriasteista proaktiivista rajaamista, kuulakärkikynistä ja stetoskoopeista lounaisiin ja golf-outingeihin.

Scabies on a Viking Line Cruise Boat

Aftonbladet reports of the scabies on Viking Cinderella cruise boat, where twenty crew members have been infected with the small parasite. Scabies spreads readily, causes great discomfort and itching in patients, and requires medical attention. Incubation period for the bug can be several weeks, so it is not possible as yet to determine how widely the parasite has spread.

Viking Line is a listed company whose margins have been shrinking in recent years. Intense competition between the various ferry lines crisscrossing the Baltic has made headlines several times over the past few years.

Not sure, but this begs the question, is scabies spreading because the boats are being improperly cleaned due to cost cutting?

Generally speaking, the trouble is that as margins tighten, cruise lines must cut their costs somehow, and cleaning services are often the first that get cut and squeezed, presumably not least because maintenance isn't revenue-producing and the obvious effects of reducing resources in maintenance do not show in the short term. It's easy to cut something that doesn't add to your bottom line. But as always, sweeping a problem under the rug and pretending it doesn't exist won't work for long.

The maintenance industry illustrates many other potentially problematic issues. Labor rights are relatively weak for part-time janitors, and the work is seen as low prestige. Oftentimes the jobs are held by minorities, creating a complex mix of issues around a low-status job becoming associated with a certain economic or social group or class. Turnover is high, training is seldom thorough, employee commitment to the job tends to be low, and workers may become demoralized due to their status, low pay, and the pressure of having to get the job done in the shortest possible length of time. Major problems that are brewing may be obvious to insiders, but only surface in the media when the symptoms become too obvious to cover up.

The only problem is, this industry is far from insignificant. Keeping places like cruise boats clean is obviously essential for ensuring passenger safety and eradicating health risks, considering the total number of passengers residing in the same quarters month after month. As black and white as it may sound, it seems on some level to be about trade-offs between financial results (for investors who may not use cruise ships anyway) and the conditions provided for the people who actually work and travel on these boats and sleep in the bunks.

I'm just wondering: now that privatization and outsourcing are popular, what will happen if hospitals, schools, nursing homes and daycare centers start outsourcing maintenance services? Will patient, elderly, student or child health be at risk?

Viking Line outsourced its cleaning services to SOL Siivouspalvelut, a local cleaning services provider, several years ago. The only real news available on the internet was a broken link to a SOL press release, but the employees who do the cleaning on Viking Line ferries are employees of SOL -- many of them students, immigrants and (other) part-time workers.

What seems wholly unacceptable is the lack of transparency. According to Helsingin Sanomat, it took the Viking Line ferry company a month to report of the situation.

Scabies isn't life threatening, but it's an extreme annoyance. Whoever catches scabies needs to do a complete floor-to-ceiling clean-up in their primary residence and use a topical agent for several weeks to kill the infection in their body. Garments and all bedding must be washed thoroughly, lest one wants to keep getting reinfected.

In a healthcare setting, nurses protect themselves with disposable clothing from head to toe when working with patients who have scabies. I just wonder what kind of protective equipment the cleaning staff on Viking Cinderella are wearing, and how Viking reimburses its employees for the discomfort and hassle of being infected.