Altium Limited: CSR, CSV, and Sustainability Strategy

Introduction

Altium Limited is a computer software company specializing in software for electronic products. The company's software products are built for enterprises, teams, individual engineers, data management, FPGA design, and PCB (printed circuit board) implementation. Altium Limited is one of the leading software development companies for businesses, and it is on a mission to transform product design and development. It is invested in improving the skills and education of its workforce to ensure it achieves that mission. Altium Limited believes in the concept of sustainability and is known for the diversity of its workforce.

Altium's Corporate Social Responsibility

Altium Limited's corporate social responsibility (CSR) approach is the corporate shared value (CSV) approach. This approach has allowed the company to integrate its values and systems to achieve its set CSR goals. CSR is a theory that asserts that companies have philanthropic, ethical, legal, and economic obligations. According to CSR theory, corporations must seek success in the economic, environmental, and social domains. One of the most influential theorists in the field of management was Archie Carroll. According to Carroll, society has philanthropic, ethical, legal, and economic expectations toward organizations. Carroll developed the CSR pyramid to explain his conceptualization of CSR, arguing that CSR obligations ought to have an order of priority. The first obligation of corporations is economic responsibility, followed sequentially by legal, ethical, and philanthropic responsibilities. Carroll argues that a corporation can only move to the next obligation after completing the first (Carroll, 2016).

Altium is a software development company whose environmental impact is relatively small. That impact is primarily attributed to the consumables and the energy the company uses at its PCB manufacturing building, its research and development centers, and its offices. According to the business, environmental sustainability is an important consideration when making decisions about where to rent office space. For example, the building where the company's Sydney office is located has a 4-star water rating and a 5-star energy rating according to its national built environment rating system. The company's headquarters in La Jolla, California, has been awarded an Energy Star rating by the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency). The company's other U.S. offices incorporate multiple innovations designed to make them energy-efficient, including sensors that turn off lights when rooms are unoccupied (Altium Annual Report 2020).

To ensure that its employees have a safe and conducive work environment, Altium Limited has developed and adopted work guidelines and fair labor practices. Because it is a growing organization with multiple offices in many locations worldwide, Altium has a diverse workforce. Its employees range in age from 18 to 74 and come from a wide variety of backgrounds. This workforce diversity ensures the company has all the perspectives it needs to target and appeal to various markets and submarkets. The firm is committed to its workforce and believes that developing its employees will gradually improve its operations. Altium has established labor guidelines and practices to make its workplace as respectful as possible. The corporation is committed to building and sustaining a safe environment for its employees in all its offices and facilities. Acts such as human trafficking, forced labor, and slavery are strictly forbidden in all of the company's operations worldwide. Altium is also committed to preventing occupational accidents and injuries, and it constantly motivates staff to take good care of their health and well-being (Altium Annual Report 2020).

Altium has offices in the Chinese cities of Beijing and Shanghai. Because of this, the corporation received an early warning about the devastating effects of what became known as COVID-19. The company's swift response in China became the foundation for its employee health, safety, and risk mitigation plans. According to Altium Limited, the corporation was able to minimize disruptions by improving communication, which also helped ensure that its employees and teams across the globe continued to work and felt fully supported. Improved communications among individuals and teams at the company included enhanced virtual meetings and intranet communications (Altium Annual Report 2020).

Because of COVID-19, the health and well-being of the company's employees have remained a priority. The company has worked to revise its work guidelines to minimize health risks while maintaining productivity. To address COVID-19 and future diseases, the company developed a comprehensive disease policy that serves as a guide for management and employees on handling infectious diseases with minimal disruptions (Altium Annual Report 2020).

Strengths and Weaknesses of Altium's CSR and Sustainability Approach

In the business world, the factors that lead corporations to pursue corporate social responsibility goals are often similar. Once companies decide to pursue a CSR agenda, they must draft a plan to move forward. Such plans are usually developed in collaboration with suppliers, managers, employees, nonprofits, and other stakeholders to ensure consensus and success (Geethamani, 2017). The management of Altium Limited is committed to sustainability. A sustainability-based management approach focuses on developing structures and practices for long-term environmental, social, and economic success — an approach that is increasingly popular in the face of the many modern challenges in the corporate world (Singh, Srivastava, Garg & Khanduja, 2019).

1. It minimizes corruption, bribery, and the exploitation of labor. Altium Limited has established fair labor policies and measures to ensure that employees work in an atmosphere that is safe and productive. These policies and measures apply to all of the company's offices and facilities worldwide. The firm is committed to ensuring all its workers are treated with respect and that no form of human trafficking, forced labor, or slavery occurs in its operations. To ensure no form of child or forced labor takes place on its premises, the company has implemented preventive measures across all its locations. The company is also committed to conducting business in a manner that complies with all anti-corruption laws in California and around the world, as well as with global anti-bribery standards. Altium Limited has its own anti-corruption policy that guides employee activities to prevent corruption and bribery. These policy principles and standards are regularly promoted through mandatory employee training sessions.

2. Wider community benefits. This corporation believes that sustainability is best achieved by giving the next generation of workers the education and tools they need to innovate. Because of this belief, the corporation runs two official projects to empower workers. First, it provides design tools of professional quality to student engineers through its Altium Academic Program. Second, it provides select startups with the tools they need to move forward through its Altium Launchpad. These programs have enabled the company to support individuals and small startups with the resources they need to forge ahead. During the early 2020 Australian bushfires, the Altium community in Australia and the United States donated funds to support those who were badly affected (Altium Annual Report 2020).

1. Increased bureaucracy and monitoring costs.

2. The criteria for reporting vary significantly, making it difficult to evaluate success accurately.

Altium Limited is a firm believer in its people and their importance. The corporation believes that sustainability will come from empowering its employees, and for this reason, the company gives its employees the tools and resources they need to provide solutions and innovate. Specifically, the company invests in curious, innovative problem-solvers and those who want to perform better. According to Altium, when its employees work together with partners, communities, and customers, the company finds better ways to deliver great results. The company's empowerment drive has turned its employees into strong believers in the company's mission and has made them active contributors to improving its work practices and environments (Altium Annual Report 2020). This is one of the key reasons why job satisfaction is high at the company.

Conclusion

Altium has the vision to revolutionize the electronics manufacturing industry. The company is already miles ahead of many of its competitors, having introduced revolutionary software such as Altium 365, which it hopes will provide a robust platform for its many clients. The platform has been well-received by the industry, and there is hope that it will continue to grow in popularity. Altium is integrating several approaches — including CSR and CSV — to improve its standing in the market. This strategy is making the company increasingly prominent in the electronics design industry. The company hopes to gain dominance and take a leading position in revolutionizing the electronic design industry.

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