Here’s what you expect a CEO to say upon the announcement of a corporate social responsibility initiative.
As CEO of DELMIA Quintiq, it’s a great honor to partner with the World Food Programme (WFP). DELMIA Quintiq aims to make people’s lives better with the technology we create, but rarely do we get the chance to do so in such a meaningful way. This is more than just another CSR initiative for DELMIA Quintiq. It’s about bringing food—the most basic of needs—to those who need it most.
Totally true.
And of course, there’s WFP’s supply chain puzzle, which speaks directly to DELMIA Quintiq’s passion for solving puzzles. When the logistics people over at WFP told us about their supply chain, in all its scale and complexity, I knew our partnership was meant to be. Imagine, on average, 80 million people in 82 countries benefit from 3.2 million metric tons of WFP food assistance every year. On any given day, WFP operates an average of 70 aircraft, 20 ships and 5,000 trucks.
Also, totally true.
No doubt WFP is a great organization doing important work, with a supply chain puzzle DELMIA Quintiq is uniquely suited to solve.
So why not write a large check, handover 1,000 user licenses and walk away knowing DELMIA Quintiq has done its part to make the world a better place?
Why instead are DELMIA Quintiq employees donating their precious time to the World Food Programme? (DELMIA Quintiq the corporation covers all expenses and licenses: DELMIA Quintiq employees are donating their time to cover project hours.)
The answer is simple. Community. We are a community of smart, talented people and we want to share our talents with the world. We as a community agreed that we should be doing more for the world. And then, we reached a consensus on the WFP partnership and we—not I, not the board—made a joint commitment to support it. In fact, an overwhelming 90 percent of colleagues voted yes to partnering with WFP.
The energy I’ve seen around this project is I believe partly due to my colleagues’ sense that this is “our project”, not mine, not the company’s. And the generosity I’ve seen, with more than fifty percent of employees donating their working hours to the project in just the first few weeks of the donation drive, has confirmed all of the good things I believe in the people I work with. In that same community spirit, every hour donated holds the same value, whether it’s donated by a receptionist or the CEO, meaning every hour donated translates into one hour of work for a consultant or developer implementing the WFP solution.
So, yes, I’m proud to partner with WFP to support their goal of #ZeroHunger. And I’m equally proud to be a member of the DELMIA Quintiq community that has made the WFP project possible.
Find out more about DELMIA Quintiq’s partnership with WFP and follow the progress of the project here.
