Business Diplomacy and Strategy in a VUCA World and a Time of Democratic Backsliding

The last two decades have witnessed a migration of business diplomacy and public affairs from the instrumental/tactical to the strategic level. Thus, business diplomacy has become a key element of business strategy in the short-medium but also in the long term.

On the one hand, in the short and medium term, business diplomacy is a fundamental element to understand the environment in which we manage business operations.

Today more than ever, as the circumstances in Ukraine remind us, companies constitute an international actor immersed in a globalized reality and whose supply chains, logistics and activity depend on highly volatile political and geopolitical elements whose understanding is not lectured in business schools.

Companies not understanding the actors, factors and dynamics that determine international relations are doing business blindly. Not having the ability to understand and interact in a multi-level multi-stakeholder dynamic is to risk making decisions that can endanger not only the profitability of the activity but also the very survival of the company.

On the other hand, in the long term, business diplomacy has the potential to generate competitiveness.

Being able to identify the way in which companies contribute to the common good, to societal progress and to sustainable development models, can be transformed into capital to turn business plans into competitive projects at an international level. Companies that incorporate the necessary mechanisms to identify this valued social contribution will be able to be extraordinarily competitive thanks to an increase in their communication capacity, talent and investment attraction and strategic partnerships.

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Speaker: Iñigo Arbiol (University of Deusto, Spain)

Sponsor: RCC.