Question if from the book: Crafting & Executing Strategy: The Quest for Competit

Question

Question if from the book: Crafting & Executing Strategy: The Quest for Competitive Advantage: COncepts and Cases: 21e. Authors: Thompson - Peteraf - Gamble - Strickland. Question from the end of Chapter 9 - Assurance of Learning Exercise #3: Based on information provided in Illustration Capsule 9.3, explain how Warby Parker's CSR strategy has contributed to its success in the marketplace. How are the company's various stakeholder groups affected by its commitment to social responsibility? How would you evaluate its triple-bottom-live performance?

Case Study: Since its founding in 2010, Warby Parker has succeeded in selling over one million pairs of high-fashion glasses at a discounted price of $95—roughly 80 percent below the average $500 price tag on a comparable pair of eyeglasses from another producer. With more than 25 stores in the United States, the company has built a brand recognized universally as one of the strongest in the world; it consistently posts a net promoter score (a measure of how likely someone would be to recommend the product) of close to 90—higher than companies like Zappos and Apple. Corporate responsibility is at Warby Parker’s core. For each pair of glasses sold, the company provides international nonprofit partners like VisionSpring with a monthly donation of glasses; with Warby Parker’s support, these partners provide basic eye exams and teach community members how to manufacture and sell glasses at very low prices to amplify beneficial effects in their communities. To date, VisionSpring alone has trained nearly 20,000 people across 35 countries with average impacts of 20 percent increase in income and 35 percent increase in productivity. Efforts to be a responsible company expand beyond Warby Parker’s international partnerships. The company voluntarily evaluates itself against benchmarks in the fields of “environment,” “workers,” “customers,” “community,” and “governance,” demonstrating a nearly unparalleled dedication to outcomes outside of profit. The company is widely seen as an employer of choice and regularly attracts top talent for all roles across the organization. It holds to an extremely high environmental standard, running an entirely carbon neutral operation. While socially impactful actions matter at Warby Parker, the company is mindful of the critical role of its customers as well. Both founders spent countless hours coordinating partnerships with dedicated suppliers to ensure quality, invested deeply in building a lean manufacturing operation to minimize cost, and sought to build an organization that would keep buyers happy. The net effect is a very economically healthy company—they post around $3,000 in sales per square foot, in line with Tiffany & Co.—with financial stability to pursue responsibilities outside of customer satisfaction. The strong fundamentals put in place by the firm’s founders blend responsibility into its DNA and attach each piece of commercial success to positive outcomes in the world. The company was recently recognized as number one on Fast Company’s “Most Innovative Companies” list and continues to build loyal followers—both of its products and its CSR efforts—as it expands.

Explanation / Answer

The Warby Parker has used its CSR efforts to contribute to the visual well being of communities through conduction of basic eye examination of people through partners and creating livelihood for thousands by providing training and support, and thereby lifting their standards of living. The company shows its resolve for environment and society by voluntarily evaluating its performance towards different stakeholders like environment, employees, customers, governments and communities. By forming strategic partnerships, adopting methods like lean manufacturing to reduce costs and customer centric approach to make the buyers happy and creating a positive word of mouth that generates referrals, the company works hard to make the customers satisfied and earning profits for its shareholders. As a result, it is deemed as one of the most economically healthy companies and enjoys the patronage and loyalty of its customers and he society it works for.

It can be seen that it has achieved excellent triple bottom line performance ( People, Planet and Profits) by excelling on all three aspects, the society, environment and economic growth.

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