Who are companies for? Are they just for one group of people, such as shareholders, or do they earn their legitimacy by serving many different groups of people at the same time?

In this issue of International Commerce Review, Nestlé CEO Paul Bulke provides one clear perspective. The foundations of sustainable success lie in creating shared value – and the trick is knowing how to do so in an integrated, systemic way. Thus, Nestlé food products don’t only aim to taste good, they also seek to deliver health and wellness. 

The process of making them provides jobs and, if organized properly, environmentally
sustainable economic development. And if this is done well, the net result is consistent delivery of shareholder value too. Understanding value chains in these terms has far-reaching implications for the whole industry.

These words summarize the context of this issue. The Consumer Goods Forum (CGF) is now the largest consumer goods organization in the world. Its reach and inclusiveness are truly breathtaking, and if it can help all of its members to work together more effectively, it can make a big contribution to solving the many global challenges we face.

The contribution of the International Commerce Review is to ask the leading voices in the industry to articulate these new challenges, mobilise the best brains in the academic world to help develop answers to them, and report on pioneering success stories.

Core areas include the challenges, opportunities and pitfalls in collaboration and cooperation between organisations, across borders and between consumers, retailers and suppliers.