Sustainability Nears a Tipping Point: Full Report

What is happening to the sustainability movement within the business context? The third annual Sustainability and Innovation Executive Study by MIT SMR and the Boston Consulting Group has three important findings: 70% of respondents say that sustainability has a permanent place on their management agendas. Many respondents also say that their sustainability activities are adding to their companies’ profitability. Moreover, companies that are reaping rewards from their sustainability activities have, at a much higher rate than others, changed their organizational structure, their business models and their operations to support more sustainable business practices.

The report is based on survey data from more than 3,000 corporate leaders in 113 countries and on 29 in-depth interviews with industry experts and academic scholars. The resulting snapshot of sustainability-related practices offers a glimpse inside a worldwide phenomenon that is affecting a broad spectrum of activities: from what consumers eat and wear to how businesses select supply chain partners.

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Analytics: The Widening Divide

With the digitization of world commerce, the emergence of big data and the advance of analytical technologies, organizations have extraordinary opportunities to differentiate themselves through analytics. The majority of organizations have seized these opportunities, according to this study, "Analytics: The Widening Divide," by the MIT Sloan Management Review and the IBM Institute for Business Value.

Fifty-eight percent of organizations now apply analytics to create a competitive advantage within their markets or industries, up from 37% just one year ago. Significantly, these same organizations are more than twice as likely to substantially outperform their peers.

To understand how organizations are using analytics today, we surveyed more than 4,500 executives, managers and analysts from more than 120 countries, to see how they are using new analytical tools for making decisions and creating entirely new opportunities.

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Sustainability: The "Embracers" Seize Advantage

This report on the second annual Sustainability & Innovation Global Executive Study by MIT Sloan Management Review and The Boston Consulting Group reveals two distinct camps of companies: "embracers" — those who place sustainability high on their agenda — and "cautious adopters," who have yet to focus on more than energy cost savings, material efficiency, and risk mitigation.

The report identifies seven specific practices exhibited by embracer companies, which together begin to define sustainability-driven management. These include the need to move early, even if you don't have complete information; to be authentic and transparent both internally and with the external stakeholders; and to work aggressively to "de-silo" sustainability, integrating it throughout company operations. The practices of the embracers may be providing a snapshot of how the management future will look.

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Analytics: The New Path to Value

Some executives remain overwhelmed by today's "data deluge" 60% still say they "have more information than we can effectively use." But research now shows that leaders of the smartest organizations have moved past "overwhelmed" and are capitalizing on increased information richness and analytics to gain measurable competitive advantage.

How are they doing it? In what ways are top-performing companies exploiting data that their competitors are not? What new management practices are emerging as organizations figure out how to know more about their businesses?

To answer these questions and more, the MIT Sloan Management Review in collaboration with the IBM Institute for Business Value conducted a global survey of nearly 3,000 executives, as well as in-depth interviews with leading researchers. This MIT Sloan Management Review Special Report explores how the smartest organizations are embedding analytics to transform insights into action.

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