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Tips for making globalization work for your company:

Companies once held accountable only for the direct, contractually specified or regulated consequences of their actions now find themselves responsible for alleviating hunger, disease and more: issues as disparate as environmental sustainability, the spread of HIV/AIDS and child labor in sub-Sahara Africa. Thus it is easy to see that our increasingly interconnected world demands strong corporate leadership to strengthen governance, harness economic potential, alleviate global poverty and improve human conditions.

While some companies have made major strides in addressing important globalization and development challenges, overall, these achievements simply do not stack up against the scale of change needed for real progress. Around the world 10 million children die of preventable diseases every year before age five; 77 million children don't attend school; and more than 1 billion people lack clean water. In the poorest countries less than 10 percent of the 6 million people who need anti-retroviral medicines get them.

So what should be the role of business? What is the responsibility of corporations to address poverty and underdevelopment, to help disadvantaged communities where they conduct their business, manufacture their products and employ workers? What should global companies be doing?

• As engines of growth and sustainable development, business can help people's lives through innovation, investment and creation of decent jobs and development of affordable products and services—especially those that meet basic needs such as water, energy, nutrition, healthcare, housing and education—while leveraging their core business expertise and realizing commercial success
• Invest in improving society and addressing global challenges beyond traditional philanthropy. Too often philanthropy is used as a form of public relations; "writing the check" to promote a company's image through high-profile sponsorships. To respond to competing pressure from investors, governments and activists, companies should approach their corporate giving strategically to improve the business climate and infrastructure in the places where they operate.
• Leverage other resources as well, devoting not only money but your capabilities and relationships to solving development problems, such as in-kind donation of employee expertise for training and also cause marketing—engaging customers in both awareness of and funding for some of these development needs.
• Use your natural strengths—create products and markets—to stimulate development in emerging economies where future business growth opportunities are the greatest. You can and should provide access to economic opportunity through jobs, property ownership, access to credit, and access to new technologies and training.
• Work with NGOs to tackle specific development concerns. Each partnering group or organization contributes a unique perspective on the problem and plays an essential role in finding and implementing a solution. NGOs provide corporations with sophisticated knowledge and expertise about specific social, economic and environmental issues. They furnish indispensable access to and information about "the actual situation on the ground" in local communities where corporations have established markets. Corporations, on the other hand, provide NGOs with the influence, flexibility and financial resources to get things done.

Responsible conduct must increasingly become the guiding principle in overall business strategies. For private enterprise, international development is increasingly regarded as the "quid pro quo" for globalization and market expansion. Companies that heed the call for alignment of their social and philanthropic missions with their core business strategies will succeed far into the future. Those that don't won't survive.