The roots of corporate sustainability: the art of managing innovation and relationships by illycaffè

Innovation translated into quality and networking translated into knowledge transfer became, in fact, the main drivers of sustainability, enabling illycaffè to incorporate environmental and social concerns within a strategy of corporate sustainability (CS). This strategy produced interesting results in Brazil in terms of company growth, but now management had to assess illycaffè’s sustainable strategy against the impact of several factors, including the CS strategies of competitors and market reaction in the long-term. They also had to determine whether their own strategy was robust. Was illycaffè’s CS strategy really a key differentiator in the coffee industry supply chain?