Business to the Buddha

Tag: interdependent co-arising

  • The Business, the Buddha and both…







    The Business
    What is business? Trade is the underlying concept of business and exchange of one thing for the other is trade. Earlier trade was based on barter system. Later, with the introduction of the concept of money, more sophistication was added to trade e.g. business. Based on a very basic definition of business, I can say life is a business, you trade relations; in fact you trade pretty much everything in life. On a tangent, even the so called most emotional feeling a human being has e.g. love, seems like a trade in today’s depiction of art. Though, love is a sacred feeling which should not be a trade.

    The Buddha
    Here, I want to state I am neither a Buddhist nor supporting Buddhism (any -ims for that matter), I am just associating the business to the longest lasting systems (which are generally religion) in the world. I may write on Islamic banking in future or stories of Jesus. The idea is to keeping eyes and ears open to learn that is how I could relate to Business and the Buddha, and still learning. I found words of wisdom of the Buddha relating to many places in businesses be it Singapore, Western world, India or other places, and that is what Business to Buddha made sense to me.

    … And the business and the Buddha
    There is relationship between business and the Buddha, in future the businesses would be more evolved and we would have more than profits in our mind. I got to watch this Video of Money Control earlier and this is one such instance where we might see an evolution in corporate thinking process. I will take an example on ‘interdependent co-arising’ (a concept of Buddhism) in some future blog. This video is on “Business Sutra” broadcast on CNBC, the link of the same is here relates to the same concept. Indian Walmart – the Big Bazaar – has a dedicated Chief Belief Officer (Dr Devdutt Pattnaik), we might see more involvement of ‘perhaps not belief‘ but social causes in business e.g. CSR.

  • Ideate – Save the sinking ship







    Prof Mankad said in our class ‘there seems to be possibility of double dip’ while teaching us macroeconomics. I have written on this in my blog at times. At times question comes in mind, why not using concepts of one field to the other the way we do it in TRIZ (The theory of inventive problem solving). I recalled a news shown on NDTV (it was shown in 2008 somewhere in Aug-Nov). I remember this news because it was unique and I rarely watch TV(:)). So, here comes use of TRIZ to tackle the economic crisis in a non conventional way. I am sharing the idea with a hypothetical scenario.

    As an everyday ritual Vijay logged on to his mail box, amongst others the mail from HR stared back at him. Feeling the heat of economic crisis the company was in process of layoffs. How many Vijays have the same stories to recount? How this time can bring us together and make us more innovative to reckon with the challenge – this challenge is not questioning us only on one front of economics but also on cultural and creative fronts?

    Employee-employer relations are unlike marriage where a pair takes an oath to live together, and share all the grief and joy. In this tough time each should support other for survival and future growth and say – “yes! We are for each other”. It has been proved important and useful in the Japan after the World War II. Lately, a group of ex-workers of a mill bid to revive a dead mill; Garware Nylons Ahmednagar. All the workers joined hand for revival of the mill. In this successful bid the sense of belonging was such that the families of ex-employees even-handed over their jewelery and large sums from their provident fund. Way back in 1996 instead of shutting the mill down, if the management and the workers had come together and decided to make a plan to save the mill on a model of a marriage by surviving in the tough time, they might have come up winning and everyone might have lived happily.

    In recent week there was news in FT that EU is considering bailout in some forms. Bailout is a ‘self-mutually exclusive’ option that is – bailout is needed in the toughest time but it is ill-advised as it is ‘passing-the-buck to taxpayers’. Government needs to bail out various industries; however, the companies may misuse the amount. In such case questions are asked that – How to make companies accountable for the same? When to loan, how to loan and how to gauge the performance of the waived organization?

    Bailout can be tackled when government separate this option of bailing-out upon condition of time and space i.e. conditional separation of amount of money offered, accountability of use of money, time-to-time checks and balances. Separation of assets and liabilities can be one more initiative and offering incentives other than monetary could be other.

    Additionally, if we attentively look around we can learn from nature too. Birds fly in flocks, why? Because flocking helps conserve energy, defends against predators and facilitates orientation and communication. Energy is everything involved in the business – various resources, money and time – it needs to be conserved. Instead of salary cut and layoffs companies can take loans from employees, offer shares or bonds to the employees to generate money. This not only can engender trust in teams but also can invigorate teams to work for their own company. Are you keeping those many Vijays in your team? Are you willing to take on the challenge by sticking together, being creative and innovative to carve success over the slump to ply in the present to fly in the future?

  • Collaboration in logistics and supply chain management







    We all are on a path of evolution. We evolve, systems evolve, technology evolves… everything evolves.
    We were discussing in supply chain management, how cost can be reduced, how inventory is managed and how transport can be efficiently managed. The part which attracted me to write that here is ‘collaboration’ amongst distributors, suppliers, transporters and businesses. Resources are pooled and thus efficiencies are improved by collective transportation.
    Our professor suggested to us that until two decade back organizations used to have many suppliers in their procurement database. Reason – companies were Price sensitive. Slowly companies switched/switching to single or less suppliers. Even the quality management of supplied material is also moved to the supplier. I think that is called supplier development (evolution of suppliers). The reason to do this is supplier and the manufacturer is working in unison and both have incentive – growth. I reflected on the concept of interdependent co-arising, together everyone grows. When the costs are controlled with better quality, this could be transferred to the customers, and companies can become more competitive. Further, this process helps everyone – supplier gets business (helps his employees), companies get better cost control (more profit) and customer gets quality at economic pricing.
    This blog is going through its third update. There were few examples I missed earlier. I found in my diary one was – a manufacturing company started buying steel from the steel companies not only for itself but also for its suppliers. This gave the company – good quality and competitive pricing because of volume buying. We have evolved and so the businesses consider suppliers as partners in business. Therefore, businesses partner with supplier and rely on them.
    I was asked by someone; prove this in practical life that businesses are using Buddhists concepts. I said many times businesses are using that, however unknowingly. This idea was again a concept of interdependent co-arising.

  • 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.

  • Why this title?







    First thing first, why this title to the blog? Does Business and the Buddha sound ok together? Is there any connection? Let me explain origin of this thought and why I see there is relation between business and the Buddha.

    I was reading a book – old path white clouds, walking in the footsteps of Buddha – by Thich Nhat Hanh. There were many lessons of Buddhism in the book. One which stuck to me very profoundly was – interdependent co-arising. My interpretation of the concept in layman’s terms is – we all grow when we help each other to grow whether it is our subordinates or our competitors.

    “When Ferrari and Honda run on the racing track competing for the first spot, they are not eying at the first spot, they are racing to offer best product to their customers.” The Buddha’s teaching on ‘Dependent co-arising’ teaches me this. “Each one of us is a rung of a ladder to the other and vice versa, hence for self development and moving higher up, one’s ladder should be strong enough, even one’s competitors.” I believe this will be the extension of P&G’s present approach of Connect & Develop in future; working on various fronts with the competitors such as IPR – strategically innovating – besides others.

    What I feel is as we evolve as humans further, such philosophical concepts will come in our main stream without our conscious knowledge. We studied a case in our marketing course recently, launch of Z3 (BMW car) with the New James Bond movie Golden Eye. This was again a case of interdependent co-arising. How many knew about this?

    Effectively, the title of business to Buddha looked apt to me. The other reason for the same was – these two seemingly different concepts encompass almost everything on which I would possibly write on the blogs. Therefore, I selected the title with its caption – Everything from earthly and unearthly. The blog would be my thoughts from physical to metaphysical all. I trust I will be able to keep pace with life and still take time to write some or the other things on the blog.