Business to the Buddha

Search results for: “social enterprise”

  • Business and Humanity

    The visionary thinks beyond his company or his immediate profit. He thinks of the larger good. And, that is what makes him different. There is no place for labor exploitation and harassment of workers in such an enterprise

    I have been thinking about both Business and Humanity repeatedly. The above quote was one that caught my attention. This blog was due in Sept 2014. Yes a lot of things come in mind and thus ideas get spread, and forgotten at times.

    I revisited this title with reference to an interesting news of recent past – Donating the milk of human kindness. This kind of businesses and business ideas impress me a lot. There are a lot of social enterprises that work on the balance between Business and Social good. I have written a couple of blogs on social enterprise earlier. At times it is very difficult to survive in competitive markets with such a cause. There may have been a lot of other companies that probably we (I) might not know and were wound up due to financial crisis. When such closures happen, I start questioning myself again – what is the purpose? Why we work? and many other such leading questions. These points make me wonder many a times, that perhaps when we did not have the concept of money, humans were valued more. With Humans, human values were respected more. With human values, we probably were more caring, just and welcoming.

    The other thoughts going on in my mind were – my recent vacation to Ganpatipule and a video clip of actress Mahira Khan which is going viral of late. In Ganpatipule I visited “Prachin Kokan” a tourist attraction there. It is a place to know about how was Indian social fabric in past, for those who have never lived in Indian village or are kids growing up in tier-1 or tier-2 cities in India it could be a place to know how was our society. Though caste system was depicted there, I could not find a mention to “untouchables” there, so I may be able to write on what was wrong in past – compared to what we learnt in schools. In that museum I could relate to business and humanity working together in historic India – such as a bangle seller would not take money from a baby girl of village. At the time of the girl’s marriage, father of the girl will give this bangle seller gold coin or something. I wonder if we were less ambitious (perhaps driven less by wealth) – as a society – during those times. I could relate this museum and that society to gratitude.

    Gratitude, made me connect to the opinion and viral video clip of Mahira Khan. In this video I felt that if this actress had problem with India she should have refused working here. Though the interviewer is talking more in the clip, but if a person has so much issue with a whole country he or she should just keep oneself away from them isn’t it? This shows a person being opportunistic and thankless. This thought makes me go round to business. The actress is doing business, by acting in Indian movie. Agreed! The question again comes back – can we club or say compromise – “business and humanity” and “business and our self-respect” and “business and our values”?

    Quote – Business Standard article – Buddha at Work

    Disclaimer – author has not seen/visited the website of BabyChakra (referred in the donating the milk of human kindness), nor is related to the company.

  • Inclusive growth

    We’ve seen that socialism had it’s problem, capitalism is no less culprit. I’ve been thinking about both together and have written about it. Regularly I asked this questions of how to two of my MBA professors – Prof Harkant Mankad and Prof Arun Ramanathan. Prof Ramanathan suggested me to read functioning of Nordic countries – heavy tax but less social security. Once I shared this logic –

    Socialism & CapitalismIf we look at both simultaneously we see some good and some not so good practices. Socialism had social benefit at center but execution sucked. On the other hand capitalism has profit at center and execution is better, and also capitalism largely never considered social good as one of the concerns.

    The very bird-eye-view (yes MBAs use this kind of jargon) solution could be – What is we bring social benefit and profit together at center and use execution efficiencies of capitalism around? The profit does not necessarily become – extracting whatever available consumer surplus is there with consumer. Take an example of social entrepreneurship, that is one good approach. Here, I do not intend to say every business should be like that. Also, yesterday I tweeted and updated on LinkedIn – If you want to be social entrepreneur, remember funder of social enterprise has impact in mind+heart & investing in head, so impact weighs higher! those kind of initiative can help in inclusive growth.

    I see that PPP – Public Private Partnership – can also be great boon for inclusive growth. However, greed has created more problem in the Indian context than giving us Inclusive Growth.

    Take an example of MNREGA, it has been failing, benefits are not reaching where they should. How can political parties be kept away from execution? Politicians asking for bribe in such cases is nothing but extortion. How about giving the executioner tax benefits to get involved in it and ask for accountability? Audit Done periodically by people (an independent body monitoring). The people affected and benefited can vote for continuation or stopping that company from involvement. So this can be kind of election on performance of NREGA.

    What I think is – people want a respectable life and not bread thrown at them condescendingly. Inclusive growth is possible when we think more like a combination of socialistic -capitalistic society.

    This way we’d be capitalist but in a socialist manner where besides profit, social uplifting would be a core of philosophy and growth.

  • For Profit Businesses

    Businesses are made for profit making, is there a question in this assumption or argument? For the time being, I am assuming there is no doubt about the argument that business exist for making profit.

    I have been thinking about the topic of “measuring growth” I wrote recently. People may say there are businesses as “Not for Profit Businesses”. This concept of “Not for Profit” in many cases is about reinvesting profit in business rather than giving dividends to the shareholders/investors.

    There are other businesses which are “social enterprise”, I wrote on such businesses with reference to a book “I have a dream”. These are businesses which exist for making profit; however their primary reason of existence is social upliftment with moderate profits. I wanted to ask myself – why not all For Profit Business be like that?

    In my previous career engagement, a couple of times I had a chance to meet CMO of a big Mutual Fund house. In one interaction he told my boss – “you do X, Y and Z; Calculate your cost; add your 20% profit on that and charge me. I need this X, Y and Z done.” This statement was very liberal to hear. I had seen many organizations trying to squeeze their service provider. Thus the statement became a guide for me to think about such clarity and about fair co-existence. I relate the same to the previous post of “measuring growth”. When I tried understanding Islamic banking and asking the feasibility of the system, I saw contrary view points. I read somewhere Islamic banking does not call “interest” (on debt) as interest whereas terms it as profit sharing (say 20%). So there may be businesses so clear and there could be predictability in cost, profit and growth of business and economics.

    This kind of approach is very simple. However, the above case is very simplistic and everything (many things) would become very predictable – how would finance experts – involved in complex transactions and certificates  – would be able to manipulate market? There can still be demand and supply gap and market may run into a relatively predictable and stable equilibrium.

  • Business Value system – Integrity

    “Integrity is very important in GE and the fastest way to get fired in GE is ‘NOT sharing knowledge/information’.”

    I have seen mission, vision and value statements of many companies. Occasionally, I have seen a word which seemed alien to me in that – integrity. I was wondering on the concept of Integrity and how it relates to business value system in the cut throat competitive world? I asked this question to Dr Ianna Contardo my professor of global business strategy and Associate Dean of the SP Jain Center of Management GMBA in Dubai. I had a brief nevertheless holistic discussion on the same. Her answers to few of my questions reinforced my approach on Business to the Buddha.

    In her opinion integrity is – unifying abstract projections of the wholeness of the identity of the being. It relates to how we behave and act in the world, align to the commonsensical approach that we are a ‘continuation of humanity’.

    This definition of integrity seemed very humane to me and therefore less business oriented. My apprehensions also echoed from the questions few people have earlier asked me, how social and commercial aspects can go hand in hand e.g. business to the Buddha. So I asked, can you please elaborate on ‘continuation of humanity’. She said – we are parts of the whole, that turns our life meaningful and transforms our existence into a multifaceted thinking, diverse interdisciplinary environments with its reach on bountiful examples of doing good through business. The statement reverberated (especially – we are parts of the whole) again to Buddha’s lessons to me. Moreover, it connected to the business very effectively.

    Then how to associate competition with integrity, how to respond to competition? There is no turning back on the values for a business and if integrity is one it also applies to fulfill expectations of all the stakeholders (including the competitors). Integrity plays a balancing role in creation and the future of business would be balance between business and humanity. CSR, social enterprises and NGOs are the initial first few steps towards the same.

    Poetically, she referred to a song and summed up – In a way, integrity represents the tipping point, the fulfillment of this prophecy whereby once you think of yourself as an accomplished ruler you will end up in the misery of solitude. On the other hand, if you walk your talk and you are that integral part of the whole, you do get to fit. Strategically, enhancing the experience of the Buddhist approach to existence is common to that of using your know-how in business. If you do engage with the rights and wrongs, learning will take place.

    What lesson I take out of this discussion was – integrity is not just a word in the dictionary of business it is actually getting into the business value system. As we are progressing in time the concept is becoming prominent and businesses are also evolving as humanistic institutions.

  • Collective Materialism – likely future of economy!

    I have written about socialistic capitalism or capitalistic socialism. When I say that I simply mean that we would move our economies and businesses in a direction where there would be a balance. It would be a kind of middle path where enterprise would exist at the same time there would be a concern for the society and social development. Take an example of corporate social responsibility (CSR), however the word CSR would become more of a practice than a statement in annaul reports. The reason for the same would be – we are all connected. If I do not earn how would bank generate savings? If banks do not generate saving how would they offer loan and so on. In terms of Buddhism it is similar to interdependent coarising.

    In more sophesticated words the tripple bottomline would be the corporate mantra in future enterprise. I thought of an example which could be the model for this concept of triple bottomline. I happen to read corporate philosophy of Sahara India Parivar – “Collective Materialism”. This company is very interesting and different – it calls itself a family and everyone is a worker first. According the the website of the company the philosophy of collective materialism is as follows –

    “In any human relationship, it becomes imperative to take into consideration the materialistic aspect of life – we do so but by giving it second priority.

    The first priority is given to emotional aspect and with perfect blending of materialism with emotionalism results in continuous collective growth for collective sharing and caring, that gives an impetus to our philosophy.”

    On a lighter note collective materialism is not what Government of India doing – filling pockets of few select few (so it is collective and materialism both) Sahara shree – Subrato Roy – deservers the credit for this philosophy.

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