A global leader in the insurance and asset management business, AZA had risen to the top ranks in terms of corporate social responsibility (CSR) as well. In 2015, the French-based insurer led the industry on a number of corporate social responsibility and sustainability indexes. Not content to rest on these laurels, AZA transferred its CSR team from the department that included the Communications function to a newly created department combining the Strategy, CSR, and Public Affairs functions together, to further integrate CSR into the core of the business.

AZA’s business had grown rapidly over the previous decades. The company was formed in the 1980s through the merger of a few mid-sized French insurance firms. From the beginning, AZA’s CEO John Bébar aspired to build the first global insurance brand. The company made a series of acquisitions in the 1990s, including companies in the United States, Europe, Africa, and Asia. AZA was hailed in the business press for savvy deal-making. The company took over struggling franchises and utilizing its strong balance sheet, technical expertise, and abilities in product innovation, managed to turn around their acquisitions. Over time, AZA also branded the companies under the AZA banner, assembling a global brand piece by piece. While William Castel replaced Bébar as CEO in 2001 and the company faced economic headwinds, AZA continued to produce strong returns.

In 2011, the company announced Ambition AZA, a five-year strategic plan to grow the company. The plan called for harvesting slow-growing businesses in mature markets, investing in emerging markets, and reducing the company’s overall cost of operations. Under the strategy, AXA made significant acquisitions and deals in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The company became the leading foreign insurance provider in China and a player in the Indian market. By 2015, AZA employed 157,000 people across the globe, serviced over 100 million clients, enjoyed a €50 billion market cap, and managed over €1,000 billion in assets. According to Interbrand, AZA’s was the leading global brand name in insurance, and also the leading "green" insurance brand.

Throughout its growth, AZA’s leadership had maintained an interest in corporate social responsibility, and many AXA employees believed that CSR was in the DNA of the organization. During 1980s, Bébar set up a number of organizations to bring business leaders together to tackle social problems and engage in philanthropy. Inside AZA in 1990, the company created AZA "Hearts in Action" to encourage and support community engagement by employees, and in 2002 it established the Group’s first "sustainable development" function.

But it wasn’t until 2009 that the company created a formal CSR strategy. Following an internal study that argued that corporate responsibility was a key strategic area for the company to pursue, AZA’s first global CSR action plan was launched. Under the direction of Arthur Steen, AZA’s CSR team created a proprietary CSR metric for the company, which was adapted for each of the company’s major operating activities. This metric allowed AZA leadership to assess the company’s CZR work and provided a framework for individual units to formulate their own CSR goals. The CSR team’s work also helped AZA become more visible within the larger CSR community and led to the company’s success on ratings metrics constructed by various outside organizations.

In September of 2015, the CSR team's success led AZA leadership to transfer it from the department that included the Communications function to the department comprised of the Strategy Management and Social Affairs functions. This new integrated department was baptized "Strategy, Sustainability, and Social Affairs." The reorganization inspired a reconsideration of how ASA monitored and measured its CSR efforts. The metrics Steen and her group had constructed were adapted from outside ratings agencies, notably using the Dow Jones Sustainability Index methodology created for investors. As part of the company’s strategy apparatus, Steen and her team were now looking to create new CSR metrics that tied CSR work more closely to ASA's operations and growth. To do so, Steen would have to identify CSR issues of particular concern to the company, examine how addressing these CSR issues would add value to the company (e.g. by fostering innovation, by reducing costs), and then create metrics that would capture a business unit’s success or failure in addressing the CSR issue.

Creating new metrics was a tall order but would be another step to establishing CSR inside ASA. Eventually, the company aspired to produce an “integrated report” that would define the Group’s next strategy for the 2021-time horizon, measured by a set of metrics reflecting in an integrated way the financial, but also the social and environmental, value created by the company.

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The three questionsanswers narrative of the case above are 1 Commitment to environmental issues is now a pillar of the companys overall strategy because 2 AZA has learnt that the company benefits from ... View the full answer