Microsoft: Bringing Technology to the Aging Population

The main purpose of this case is to show how difficult it is to integrate corporate responsibility in the core business processes of a large corporation, even when the business case is strong and approved by the (strong and charismatic) leadership. In particular, it shows how important is the internal collaboration between “CSR specialist” and “product specialist” groups, as well as the collaboration and support of external stakeholders (vendors and developers, in this case) to gain the sufficient amount of internal political support to drive the internal change processes to a successful conclusion

The case is divided in two parts:

• Part A presents the evolution of the efforts to develop new software products for the aging and disadvantaged population from the late 90’s up until 2006. The process starts with a concern related to a lawsuit brought on behalf of disabled users of Microsoft products and a promise by Bill Gates to address this issue, and continues with a failed attempt led by a small group in the marketing division to convince the product groups to develop software features addressing this specific customer segment.
• Case B details how some of the set-backs and resistances were successfully handled by the combined efforts of Microsoft managers located in very different units of the organization, but moved by aligned purposes.