The mix of business owners, SMEs, HR managers, and CEO's had gathered to hear renowned arts and business expert, Professor Giovanni Schiuma, give his insights into how the arts can be used to enhance value-creation capacity and boost business performance.
"Tonight is about seeing things differently," said BASA Board member, Gianni Mariano at the Forum's onset - and Professor Schiuma, along with Nando's co-founder, Robert Brozin, and Matchboxology's founder and MD, Paris Pitsillides, delivered on that promise with presentations that gave special insight into how the art-business nexus can transform organisations and create shared value.
Professor Schiuma's first-ever South African presentation of the ideas contained in his seminal book, The Value of Arts For Business, centred around the notion of Arts-based Initiatives (ABIs). "These are organisational interventions that use one or more art forms to address business needs," stated Professor Schiuma.
The current director of the Innovation Insights Hub at the University of the Arts in London also outlined what he has coined "the six Es of success". "Experience, energy, emotions, engagements, ethics and the environment are what I call the six E's of success in business, and arts plays a part in all of these," he said.
Professor Schiuma's theoretical outline, which included a post modern management paradigm and his impact assessment tool, the Arts Value Matrtix, was supported by practical examples in the South African context in the presentations by Brozin and Pitsillides.
Brozin outlined the role that visual arts has played in Nando's recent evolution - most potently in its international roll-out.
Using the examples of the site-specific artwork by contemporary South African artist Kilmany-Jo Liversage aka Orda for Nando's Maryvale in Washington DC as well as the BASA Award winning Coming to the City mosaic in Nando's Kings Cross, London restaurant, Brozin admitted that a great deal of Nando's art engagement was gut-feeling. "I do know that when you walk into one of our restaurants with art on the wall, it feels good and the chicken tastes better," Brozin said, later adding, "To me, seeing the arts as part of CSI is sad. Using the arts in business must be sustainable."
"It's not easy, for business" Pitsillides acknowledged during the Q and A segment of the Forum, following a stimulating presentation on the varied work with the arts that Matchboxology has implemented for different clients over the past several years. "But using the arts for clients like Levis has shown time and time again that it can be done to great success."
Business and Art South Africa is committed to continuing this conversation and working with business to develop case studies and research in a South African context. BASA also offers bespoke support and opportunities to it's business members wanting to engage more rigorously with the arts in their business practice.
For more information contact: az.oc.asab@ofni or 011 447 2295
About BASA (NPC):
Business and Arts South Africa is an internationally recognised development agency which incorporates the arts into, and contributes to, corporates' commercial success. With a suite of integrated programmes, Business and Arts South Africa encourages mutually beneficial partnerships between business and the arts in order to grow SHARED VALUE. Business and Arts South Africa was founded in 1997 as a joint initiative of government and the business sector, as a public/private partnership.
