What Are the Fundamental Purposes of Business and the Responsibilities Assignment

What Are the Fundamental Purposes of Business and the Responsibilities of Strategic Leaders - Assignment Example the consuming public, reference will not only be made to those who patronise the products and services of particular businesses but all other people who in a way may be affected by what a business entity does. It is not surprising that in the 1970s, Milton Friedman saw the sole purpose of business as making profits but with time, this changed to a much holistic responsibility of creating and keeping customers by Peter Drucker. Based on the dynamic needs of society by the years, it will strongly be accepted that today, the primary purpose of business is to solve peoples problems. This is certainly an all-in-all purpose that comes with a lot of implications for doing business. First, it implies that people are the real focus for doing business. With people being the real focus of doing business also, it is not just about creating business around people and taking opportunity of them but then engaging in a shared-responsibility that ensures that the people also benefit from the business (Porter & Kramer, 2006). There are a number of theories and concepts that have been used in literature to explain the form of shared-responsibility between businesses and the people. One of these is the concept of sustainability. Under the sustainability framework, businesses are expected to be functional from three major perspectives which are economic, social, and environmental (Porter & Kramer, 2006). As far as economic su stainability is concerned, the old school of thought on the purpose of making profit can be said to be applicable. In the remaining two which are social and environmental however, businesses are deemed to operate in a way that makes them useful to the larger society and the environment surrounding them (Wolfe, 2011). Because of the change with the purpose of businesses, the responsibility of the people behind the wheels of any typical business has also changed very significantly. Today, it can be said that the primary responsibility of senior leaders is to