According to sources in the CII, a large number of SMEs do undertake CSR activities but these were one-off efforts that delivered no long term benefit and did not fit in with the overall growth or basic business plans of the SMEs.
As a result, the satisfaction level associated with such efforts was very low.
At the same time, most SMEs found that getting professional expertise or advice for their CSR programmes were both time consuming and expensive in its own way.
Many units were looking for sound CSR advice and needed a cost-competitive solution that would fit into the company's activity and image, deliver the satisfaction of long term benefits to both company and beneficiary and perhaps in the process assist business growth.
In the short term, said the source, this meant immediate advice or programme guidance on a meaningful CSR exercise, while in the medium term it meant having employees with CSR-oriented training to develop and execute CSR programmes with broad management objectives.
Management objectives could be either purely philanthropic or could be symbiotic, depending on the outlook and approach of the promoter, the source clarified.
The CII programme, to be offered through the Gurgaon-based JK Business School, would cover 30 SMEs this year.
It was launched in 2007, and in that year SMEs like Munjal Showa, JK Technosoft and Omaxe were covered, said JK school Director-General Reena Ramachandran.
Under this CII-JK CSR programme, alliances with the targeted SMEs would be worked out in parallel with focused student training on CSR issues by CII experts with special guidance on SMEs.
Business school second-year students would serve as the foot soldiers for the SMEs and identify strategic CSR opportunities and promote them, particularly in SMEs who were failed in their prior attempts.
CII would identify SMEs where CSR activities had not succeeded earlier and give them the chance to engage themselves in CSR activities with the business school assisting the companies in execution of recommendations, mostly made by the students and their guides after intensive study of the SMEs and their activities.
Ramachandran admitted that CSR had been added as a part of curriculum at the JK Business School as it would make the management students more attractive in terms of employment potential during placement season.To integrate this programme with the mainstream and cover more SMEs in future, the JK school had added CSR as a part of curriculum in management courses.
Both SMEs and students would get practical experience about CSR activity. Under the programme, they will also get to know problem solving and mid course corrections if the CSR programme ran into problems or posed a problem for the SME's core activity or image.
The focus would be on helping the SMEs build a positive image and encourage the social involvement of employees, which in turn could help develop a sense of loyalty for the organisation.
CSR activities would also help bond employees as a team and bond them better with the SMEs, which in turn would help reduce attrition and create a dedicated workforce proud of its employer despite its smaller size.
Industry experts here, associated with CII, claimed CSR activity by SMEs also helped in improving employee efficiency, a big problem in SMEs.
As a new challenge, CSR activity enhanced the functions performed by the human resources team in the SME and boosted the morale of employees by involving the humble shop floor staff into the high profile CSR exercise as an equal with many other stakeholders.
It gave employees at all ranks recognition for services, built closer links with suppliers and in specific cases, helped suppliers understand issues in association with the SME management team and with customers.
In the longer term, SMEs could benefit from CSR-related gains in health management and sanitation, technical innovations, waste management and ongoing education.
CII would arrange lectures by eminent practitioners and experts with outstanding achievements in CSR activities in the past for students of JK Business School.
On its part, the school would act through student groups formed keeping in mind gender balance, academic and family background, and representing all the regions of the country to deliver a truly national focus, said Ramachandran.
Set up using a JK Education foundation grant of Rs 80 crore on 10 acres in Gurgaon, the JK school claimed to be the first to have a eco-friendly campus designed for optimum utilisation of energy and water resources using energy efficient buildings, a water harvesting system and solar powered hot water module under advice from the Centre for Environment Education (CEE).
Ramachandran said that with the aim to promote balanced representation from all states and cross-cultural diversity, the foundation offered regional scholarships for all the regions of the country. While in an effort to develop international focus, it had made Chinese language compulsory in its existing two year MBA course.
