Today's guest blog is brought to you by Tracy Sims, senior advisor for Lilly’s global corporate responsibility programs and health care access.

Today, FSG Social Impact Consultants announced that its Shared Value Initiative has been accepted by the Clinton Global Initiative as a CGI 2012 Commitment to Action.

FSG’s Shared Value Initiative, which Lilly is a proud to be affiliated with, brings together leaders from companies, civil society, and governments to build a strong and more engaged global community around shared value knowledge and practice. Shared value is a powerful tool that, when well applied, can create competitive advantage for business through innovative business practices while also playing a role to resolve complex social issues, such as those related to health.

The concepts underpinning shared value are well articulated in several Harvard Business Review papers and have been discussed deeply worldwide. Ideas flowing from these papers and discussions have been critical to inform those of us who want to be a practitioner of the concept. The ideas inspire analysis and action to find new, sustainable, high-impact ways to engage and solve issues – for instance, how to better care for those who have diabetes in developing countries. Ideas, however, are never enough. The ability to thoughtfully transition an idea to an objective then strategy and then to tactics is difficult on a country let alone global scale. Weave in the interests of diverse stakeholders, competing opportunities, and modest resources to implement and you now have a real puzzle.

Lilly has partnered with FSG to resolve the puzzle at each level; objectives, strategy, and most importantly, tactics. We’re working to apply shared value approaches in places such as in India, South Africa, Mexico and beyond. Together, we have witnessed the powerful opportunity shared value provides to make real and sustainable change. For Lilly, that includes leveraging our knowledge and expertise in partnership with others to improve health care systems in developing countries and to even reimagine how our products can be better tooled for people who often lack basic resources.

The Shared Value Initiative plays a critical role in informing and advancing powerful, problem solving concepts, against complicated global issues. Further, it will share best practices to ease the pathway for those who want to leverage refined concepts specific to their organization’s capabilities. We are eager to continue our shared value journey and to being a vital member of the Shared Value Initiative.