Seven out of ten Cable & Wireless business units have now appointed someone with specific responsibility for community involvement, according to the company’s first report on its global community involvement activities.
The Cable & Wireless in the community report also shows that the telecommunications company has 18 staff working full time on community activities, and that its community expenditure during 1999/2000 was £7.2million ($10.5m), which represented 0.18 per cent of pre-tax profits. The largest part of the cash spent in 1999/2000 went to Europe and the Middle East. In the two previous years the Asia-Pacific region had benefited most.
The equivalent figure for 1998/9 was £5.7m.
A survey of 35 C&W business unit managers showed that eight believed the company’s community involvement policies had visibly enhanced the reputation of the company, six felt they had strengthened relations with government, six said they had produced favourable media coverage and three felt they had improved staff performance. The remainder pointed to benefits in areas such as market access and policy development.