CSR is gaining more and more importance in the business world. The companies with a good CSR strategy in place have a distinct competitive advantage. Consumers prefer products and services by socially responsible organisations even at a higher price. The companies have started to have CSR budgets to leverage this trend. However, many times the impact created by CSR programs does not reach its potential because of various glitches.

In his 2011 book charting the history of corporate social responsibility, the academic and futurist Wayne Visser divided CSR into five ages: greed, philanthropy, marketing, management, and responsibility. Each age related to a particular stage for companies: defensive, charitable, promotional, strategic, and systemic. As we enter 2018 I am convinced that a new age of CSR has begun. It is known as the intelligence age and the corresponding stage is the cognitive era, when machines are deployed to radically transform and improve CSR processes. While ethics, sustainability, the multi-stakeholder model, and CSR have gained in popularity, problems with the management, effectiveness, need, and efficacy impede progress.