These days, I sleep less and dream more. I dream about building a business that will be profitable and scalable, but built upon the concepts of positive value creation in the domains of people and planet.
Well, many see this message has already been diluted beyond recognition. Plenty of businesses and their promoters trumpet going green and being socially responsible, but most of those produce and promote products that are unhealthy both for the people and the environment.
So, what do I mean by ‘conscious’? I believe whatever the business produces – be it a product, service or waste, it is not harmful to the environment and is enriching as well.
And by the phrase “socially responsible”, I feel organizations should positively impact the health and livelihoods of all their key stakeholders – customers, suppliers and employees.
Today, just a handful of for-profit organizations around the world are generating overall positive value across both these dimensions; And I have not come across any in the startup stage that has been able to effectively balance social responsibility and business health.
I have been working on establishing a new venture for the past 12 months, whose business concept itself is built over conscious, socially responsible ideas – i.e. promoting sustainable lifestyle among urban middle class by providing them with information/access to products that are eco-friendly while those products provide livelihoods to many small and marginal producers.
One thing has struck me over this time how important it is to get as many of the stakeholders understand and embrace the concept and vision
- It requires a lot more than the promoters pushing their vision and setting efficient business practices
- It requires more than the employees buying into the organization’s culture and policies
- It requires buy-in, trust and cooperation from end producers and suppliers to create a positive image
- It requires buy-in, support and even some level of involvement from the customers to generate energy across the ecosystem
I realize dreams alone cannot build successful organizations. It also requires leadership, execution and to get as many stakeholders onboard. It also requires many people collaborating to design and implement efficient processes across the value chain.
I believe our fairytale venture has a chance to be real and have a happy ending.
Let me know what you think.
Narayan K Murthy | narayan@goodseeds.in | +91 970.449.6664 | http://www.goodseeds.in
Reblogged this on goodseedsindia.
True every stakeholder needs to believe in the vision and generate value for themselves and everyone. However for everyone the goals are different.
The situation is that in any business, balance is achieved between stakeholders by pulling decisions in their favor and CEO/Founder is one who plays the role of providing the balance. Certain business’s are more customer friendly or market pressure forces them to be but less employee friendly, some are more people friendly but shareholders are not happy, some do not believe in their responsibility to society. It depends on how and who is defined as your stakeholders. Market dynamics also play a role. Getting people and partners who share same values is key to success.
Ideally the business must be able to create an ecosystem wherein everyone is collaborative and people inherently believe that increasing the sum will increase their share. What constitutes the sum has to be same for all. Stakeholders must be like a ring which defines the ecosystem and at every interval, the ring expands to generate more value.
Nice thoughts.
We are promoting GoodSeeds as a community where all the stakeholders are the part of the community. By stakeholders, I include, consumers, producers, aggregators, investors and the promoters. The community approach helps any stakeholder to play more than one role (e.g. a producer is also a consumer).
In a growing market, where there are many small players coming up, I see significant distrust and lack of collaboration for the fear of being taken advantage of. This is an area we need to focus on.
Being profitable means each stakeholder in this model should realize value. Right now, I see a few subsidizing their value to benefit others.
I am sure this fairy tale will have a happy ending. People are becoming aware of advantages of chemical free world and finally that is what will sustain life on this planet earth.
An example of whole village growing organic stuff is
http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/agriculture/organic-cultivation-learning-from-the-enabavi-example/article5045359.ece
All the very best in all your endeavors.
Thank you.