Digital Inclusion Team - Digital inclusion and CSR in the UK's private sector
Client challenge
The Digital Inclusion Team, within the Social Exclusion Unit of the UK Government, manages a programme to ensure socially excluded people benefit from the innovative use of information and communication technology (ICT). As part of these efforts, they were mapping programmes and initiatives in the UK currently trying to reach excluded groups through the application of ICT. Having identified a gap in their knowledge – namely a limited understanding of private sector non-IT vendors, the Digital Inclusion Team commissioned Article 13 to provide research and benchmarking expertise as part of this project.
What did we do?
Article 13 produced a list of companies to be benchmarked from amongst the FTSE 100 and other multinationals which have a presence in the UK, as well as a list of criteria for carrying out the benchmarking exercise. This list was further refined by means of an initial trawl of websites and published (annual and CSR reports) reports. Results were summarised and reviewed to identify the companies undertaking the most interesting activities to be investigated further.
In the next phase, a senior Article 13 consultant conducted key informant telephone interviews to draw out further details on the types of initiatives addressing social exclusion within UK organisations, their drivers and business case for implementation, use of ICT (and reasons for its application), communication channels and the impacts and benefits these initiatives are having. Article 13 also sought to identify whether the programmes addressing social exclusion through ICT were managed within the CSR programme or another part of the organisation, as well as any learnings that were emerging.
Findings from the benchmarking exercise and key informant interviews were summarised in a report, which was presented to the client along with cases studies of the ten companies found to have the most interesting activities involving ICT application. An approved version of this report has been published on the Article 13 website with a link to it from the Digital Inclusion Team’s web pages. In their commentary to the published report, the Digital Inclusion Team recognised the value of Article 13’s research in demonstrating that there is “little activity addressing how ICT can provide a win-win for a disadvantaged group and a service provider or enterprise”.
Innovation PLUS
Article 13’s use of insight research and tapping into its extensive networks enabled a number of little known or reported initiatives to be uncovered. These initiatives and the emerging themes which were extracted from these examples gave the client a useful steer to continue their work on digital inclusion.
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