Business As Unusual: The Journey of Anita Roddick and the Body Shop - Hardcover

Roddick, Anita

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0722539878 ISBN 13: 9780722539873

Publisher: Thorsons, 2000

Synopsis

Anita Roddick is one of the world’s most outspoken, controversial and successful businesswomen. Business as Unusual turns the tables on the way society looks at business and forges a move toward greater corporate responsibility and accountability.

“In terms of power and influence, you can forget the church, forget politics. There is no more powerful institution in society than business, which is why I believe it is now more important than ever before for business to assume a moral leadership. The business of business should not be about money, it should be about responsibility. It should be about public good, not private greed." Anita Roddick

Business as Unusual charts the progress of Anita Roddick and her company The Body Shop through the last decade. It also looks at the parallel growth of vigilante consumerism and predicts how businesses can evolve in the new Millennium.

Ranging from personal issues – such as self-esteem – to wider political issues like the human rights abuses associated with globalisation, Roddick offers her own vision for dealing with the demands of ethical business. Roddick believes we should never underestimate the power of public pressure to create change, from the boycott of Shell in 1995 to the battle of Seattle at the World Trade Organisation Conference in late 1999.

Roddick argues that waves of public consciousness are steadily forcing corporations to re-evaluate their actions. By expanding the concept of the entrepreneur and the language of business and business ethics, we can compel the corporate world to change.

She talks openly about :
· The ‘greed culture’ of the 90s
· The Body Shop vs. Shell
· Trade Not Aid: Pleasures and pitfalls of trading with indigenous communities
· Taking on the US – The Body Shop in the states
· Creating community both within and outside the workplace
· How to campaign for human rights in the business environment
· Women and business

About this title

Review:

Funky Business paved the way; "Traditional roles, jobs, skills, ways of doing things, insights, strategies, aspirations, fears and expectations no longer count. In this environment we cannot have business as usual. We need business as unusual." And here it is, though a guided tour through the past decade at the Body Shop is probably not what the Swedes had in mind.

Since its inception in 1976, the Body Shop has pioneered socially responsive business practices and challenged the nature of the cosmetics industry. Success transformed it into a household name and by 1987, Anita Roddick had accepted the Confederation of British Industry's award for Company of the Year. Naturally, that's when things got tricky--in consultant-speak, the Body Shop reached adolescence. Business as Unusual gives the impression that throughout the 90s, just about everything that could go wrong did. Organisationally, the enterprise had spiralled into a complex and inefficient mess--"a lego set from Hell" in Roddick's words--with a bottom line under pressure from competition happy to mimic the packaging and ethos for their own cut-price ethical chic. Most damaging of all was the spate of negative press the Body Shop received during the mid-90s from commentators queuing up to question their values and practices. By the end of the decade, redundancies and change were high on the corporate agenda as the Body Shop restructured (with "kindness") in an attempt to reinvent the brand for the new millennium.

It all makes for an engrossing business history, but Business as Unusual is not just about the Body Shop. It also serves as a checklist to the major causes and campaigns of the 90s. Much of it is self-evident--"no company can afford to waste valuable brain power simply because it's wearing a bra;" the planet is precious; greed is bad--and the worthiness does occasionally grate, but elsewhere the Body Shop's activism stands out as a shining example of the good that can be achieved through orchestrated pressure. With her unique brand of pumice-stone politics, Anita Roddick has done the unusual and shown that success does not have to come at the expense of a conscience.

Business as Unusual has its faults but it makes a thought-provoking read and shows that Anita Roddick has lost none of her passion for change. Her ethics may stink, but it's of peppermint, tangerine and cocoa butter. --Iain Campbell

Review:

“Most CEOs aren’t fit to lick peppermint lotion off Anita’s feet.”
The Observer

About this edition

• Publisher: Thorsons
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0722539878
• ISBN 13: 9780722539873
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304