What We’ve Learned Analysing Sweden’s 50 Largest Corporations
Welcome to the Inter Business Index 2017
The Inter Business Index 2017 report is about the future of business; about who will be a force to be reckoned with. We have set out to explore what will happen when companies shift from a narrow focus on the bottom line to measuring value creation in all the relationships surrounding the business.
The analysis covers Sweden’s 50 biggest companies. It shows that many are doing amazing work, and that we are moving towards a new corporate reality where the past decades of sustainability efforts are starting to pay off. A larger number of companies are ready to do far more than ever before to create a brighter tomorrow.
But the frontrunners have made an even greater leap — they have transcended sustainability. They are setting a new standard of holistic value creation.
What’s beyond sustainability?
It is about our future: Agenda 2030 brings us 15 years forward but many companies are looking at a horizon even farther into the future. Now is the time to grasp how companies can do business in a way that takes on our shared global challenges, as engines of change.
It is about the financial valuation of corporations: There are a number of factors that are not considered today because they seem too complex, too difficult, too soft and too complicated to bring into the calculation. But in an interconnected world this is a risk. We simply lack the ability to see the companies for what they are. We need new tools to make assessments of multidimensional value creation.
It is about business opportunities: Those who can systematize strategy and leadership based in a complex understanding of value creation will have a head start towards tomorrow’s business.
How does Inter Business Index Contribute?
Inter Business Index exists to drive the conversation in a new direction — transcending sustainability into holistic value creation. We shine a light on interconnected factors that so far are unaccounted for.
Our work is based on peer reviewed research, and on collaboration with experts and thought leaders from all over the globe. The index is co-created by the knowledge lab Inter Business Initiative and the assessment company Ibx.
What the the Inter Business frontrunners teach us
1. Being successful in sustainability has moved the frontrunners beyond traditional notions of “sustainability” into a new understanding of their core business as a vehicle for multidimensional value creation.
2. By standing strong in purpose, the frontrunners have mobilized the momentum to leap from one single issue to a complex understanding of issues as being interconnected.
3. From sure to clear: the frontrunners have made a shift from a focus on being right to being transparent and in motion. This means that they can openly share and have a dialogue about the challenges they face and the improvements they are making.
How does the Inter Business Index work?
Based on published research, the Inter Business Index uses a unique tool, Ibx Insight™, developed to measure and analyze the core skills that indicate a company’s ability to create holistic value.
The four key skills that are measured are:
- Purpose is the company’s guiding north star, a key to understand value creation in the future.
- Empathy represents the ability to feel with all people throughout the value-chain.
- System approach shows the ability to understand place, interconnectedness, possibilities and responsibility in both local and global systems.
- Transformation is about innovation, learning, resilience and creativity in a rapidly changing world.
The analysis draws on publicly available data and interactions.
This is an excerpt from Inter Business Index 2017, ranking the 50 largest corporations in Sweden. Based on published research, the Inter Business Index uses a unique tool, Ibx Insight™, developed to measure and analyze the core skills that indicate a company’s’ ability to create holistic value.
Download full report and find out which Swedish corporations are the frontrunners in business beyond sustainability — the ones that have the ability to lead with the skills needed to create value in multiple dimensions.
The Inter Business framework is built on extensive qualitative research, resulting in not only the Index itself, but also a sound methodology for the framework that have been published in Journal of Management and Sustainability and European Social Innovations Review.
The Inter Business Index is presented by us, Inter Business Initiative, and Ibx, who offers tools to measure and manage, as well as insights on, business beyond sustainability.
