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In 2008, even the most convinced defenders of traditional business strategies had to realize, painfully, that the world is experiencing a fundamental process of change; a paradigm shift that is driven particularly by the potential of emerging markets. Two billion new consumers and such enterprises that have positioned themselves already successfully shape and coin such markets through their patterns of demand and expectations.
The fundamental shift of power between international
economic actors and regions requires a global prosperity sharing that
will ultimately need to rest on universal binding ethical guidelines,
trust and transparency in order to worldwide ensure economic stability
and sustainability for enterprises of all sizes. Many multinational
corporations recognized early on that this trend will be irreversible,
and therefore joined the Global Compact. Subsequently, however, more
and more small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have also come to
recognize the urgent need to adopt new structural positioning
approaches. A key challenge for such enterprises is to move from
focusing merely on products, to a more comprehensive process
responsibility together with their cluster partners.
An
important example is the health business sector which is being
decisively altered by the developments in biomedical therapies.
Biomedicine is particularly dependent on research, technology
development and ethics, and therefore demands a special degree of
transparency, trust and compliance in joint projects on a global scale.
It is for this reason that GEISTER Medizintechnik, for example, joined
the UN Global Compact with TIMA support in 2008. By doing so, it has
given itself a globally valid ethical reference framework for its
business activities. Such a framework of reference is equally essential
for MNCs asSMEs: when any enterprise voluntarily commits itself to the
ten GC Principles, increases transparency and accountability in its
communications, enhanced trust among employees and partners is also
extended to clients, external stakeholders and consumers. Further, when
employees live up to these values in practice and thus take over
ethical responsibility in the second degree of the process, persons and
values turn to drivers for necessary in-time adjustments to challenges,
to risk-measurers with top sensibility for misguided developments and
to motors of outstanding business performance. Through this investment
in human capital continuous outperformancein economic finance will be
guaranteed.
All this is to be organized,
compliance evaluated and certified by an independent source. For this
reason, in 2008 TIMA entered into a cluster cooperation arrangement
with TÜV Rheinland, based on its protected TIMA GC Cluster Model for
Prosperity Sharing. As the service provider for a successful company
re-modeling, international clustering and risk avoidance in
globalisation processes, TIMA manages and documents company
restructuring, thereby ensuring socialacceptance. TÜV Rheinland with
its especially developed STAR Programme handles evaluation and
ertification. This way, the documentation of each entrepreneurial step
and result will be ensured, and transparency increased.
 In
conclusion, TIMA International and TÜV Rheinland in and through their
joint activities will also strengthen the UN Global Compact
credibility: by increasing transparency in their own and their clients‘
projects, and in all steps towards realising the Ten Principles,
voluntary commitments are guaranteed to be realised in practice, rather
than remain declaration of intent – a win- win for all. Dr. Martina Timmermann
Dr. Achim Georg Deja Dr. Martina
Timmermann and Dr. Achim Deja, TIMA Global Compact Cluster – Win Win for all, in: Global Compact Yearbook 2008, Münster:
Macondo, 2009, pp. 112-113.
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