4/5/2006

Just finished reading Business as Unusual by Anita Roddick, the founder of the Body Shop. Indeed, her business and philosophy were unusual, if not outrageous to the standard of corporate world. The book showed that the Body Shop was arguably the best example of for-profit company with social responsibility blood ran within. In fact, it was or she was so into social responsibility that it got the stockholders worried that the Body Shop may forget the bottom-line of generating profit.

I learned a lot about social responsibility through this book, among others are:
- Campaigns for non-animal testing, which is the trademark of the Body Shop
- Supports to help find the missing persons all across UK by posting the pictures of those persons on its trucks
- Campaigns to improve the living quality of women from all over the third-world countries through direct purchase of products that it sold
- Campaigns to fight against AIDS. One of the banners in Castro St, SF: Use a condom or masturabate. This poster undoubtedly made its American CEO very very nervous

The most interesting was her view on differences between doing business in the US and UK or the rest of the world for that matter.
1. She argued that the Body Shop shoud be urban, wild and eccentric, hence it did not fit in the mall-culture that is so adored in the retailing heaven US. Yet, I could find the Body Shop in every single mall that I have visited in the US. I guess, when you are in Rome, do what Romans do

2. Initially, she was not used to the concept of never-ending sales in the US. She had since adjusted to this culture coz I've just bought a bowl of mangue body scrub on sale

3. She was shocked to discover how much American businessess spent on advertising

This book is a must-read for any aspiring entrepreneur.