Arts & Business
Beyond sponsorship – why businesses need the arts
by Mary Trainor, director, Arts & Business NI
ponsorship and investment are the most common ways in which businesses engage with the cultural sector. But the nature of the relationship between culture and commerce is changing. We all know that arts
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sponsorship can increase brand awareness, grow a brandʼs
reputation and strengthen ties within a particular community. Investment is relatively similar in that it is about financial benefit to the business. However, as businesses strive for sustainable development; cope with the speed at which the business environment is changing and create a flexible, agile and intuitive organisation, the Arts are becoming increasingly important to the business framework.
Within a modern, competitive, sustainable 21st century business, the Arts have a much richer role to play, as the artistic process, its features and qualities inform products and services adding a premium price to them. The Arts are an asset, a resource and tool for developing knowledge and other intangible assets, which differentiate a business and provide a unique edge to the operation.
Many organisations are still stuck with the traditional 20th century scientific management principle of an efficient, task‑ driven, controlled machine. The new management principle for the 21st century must incorporate and develop a valuable, proactive and adaptable human system. Organisations must now equip workers with not only the ʻknow howʼ, but also the ʻknow feelʼ – the energy and passion, the emotion and spontaneity. Businesses must use these human qualities to navigate the new business landscape, inspire new designs, increase sales and generate income.
The key is unlocking the potential of this broader relationship with the Arts and Arts & Business will help you do that. Arts‑based initiatives (ABIs) are not just about delivering training programmes. They impact on people on a rational and emotional level; the results diffuse from the individual to the team, through to the organisation and ultimately to the public domain (in which the individual lives and the business operates). Professor Giovanni Schiuma, an expert on knowledge assets, organisational behaviour, performance management, intellectual
capital and organisational learning, who has worked with Lloyds TSB, McDonaldʼs, Accenture, Shell and the Italian government was commissioned by Arts & Business to look at what business outcomes the Arts can achieve. His research identified nine key categories of ABIs which, as organisational value drivers, can affect varying degrees of change at both people and organisational level.
At the lower end of the impact scale is entertainment; a common benefit of the traditional sponsorship arrangement, with a transient impact on both the organisation and its employees. The primary driver of this ABI is pleasure and although the impact is not long‑lasting, it does drive satisfaction levels and can stimulate people.
Business transformation, however, at the opposite end of the impact spectrum, occurs when people within an organisation change their beliefs, attitudes, behaviours, working practices and the organisation develops its workplace, culture, environment, and procedures and routines. Just 60% organisational change initiatives succeed in achieving their objectives and one of the biggest challenges facing an organisation is having its staff on board. The Arts, well‑known for establishing a new culture within society, can do so within a business.
When people are inspired and energised to accept and prompt change, organisational renewal can be driven forward. ITV, for example, used an ABI to support its transformation when, as a result of merges with a number of different companies, they needed to build a new common culture and vision across the whole organisation. Simply talking about new values was going to be meaningless in delivering behavioural and cultural change; but using a programme of forum theatre workshops, their staff were made to reflect on the organisationʼs behaviours and absorb the new vision into their own day‑to‑day practices by analysing their own behaviours in a safe and non‑stigmatising environment. Arts & Business is ideally placed to advise and support businesses in developing these new kinds of collaborations and help you realise the potential of an arts partnership by identifying opportunities and forging new partnerships that last and prosper.
To help you to get the most out of your relationship with the Arts and culture call our Business Development Team on 028 9073 5150.
www.businessfirstonline.co.uk
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