Thinking Beyond Customer

THINKING BEYOND CUSTOMERS  for SUSTAINABILITY

(brief note)

-Dr Subhash Rastogi

dr_rastogi@btbt.co.in

Director, BT & BT Mgt Consultancy P Ltd, Hyd., India

BUSINESS AS USUAL OF RECENT PAST:

Ever since the business era started, all industries have primarily focused all their efforts, ideas, creativity, resources etc. in producing Products and Services, which were primarily taking care of the two most important Stakeholders in the business. Foremost are the Investors, who invest their money in the business (May be proprietors, banks who’ve invested in capital in form of loans, various types of shareholders, other investors).  The other are the Customers, for whom they create and sell the products and services. Any problems with any of these will normally result in possible failure and closure of the business itself.

This led to lots of problems for other important stakeholders, who are equally important for sustainability, for example, Society & the Government. Let us look at the recent problem of extremely high pollution incidence in Delhi, which alarmed people all over the country and forced people living in similarly dense, polluted urban areas to take the problem more seriously. The problem is still not resolved and a lot of people in Delhi got affected and have faced both short-term illnesses and long-term health hazards due to the rising levels of air pollution.

1. The Farmers in the neighboring State Haryana, burnt their dry plants enmass, after taking out the grain, as that was easiest and most suitable for Investors enhancing their margins due to low cost. This was also convenient to the Customers, as this kept the cost (and hence the price) of the produce) low. However, the damage it did for the Delhites was tremendous, but Farmers were not bothered. Of course, later Judiciary came to rescue the public, by forcing Farmers not to burn their agricultural waste.
2. The Diesel Truck Fleet Owners, kept on polluting the air by continuing usage of inefficient decades old vehicles, and also adulterated fuels, to have greater margins for Investors and lower costs for the Customers. They never bothered about the Society, and became a part of the problem that Delhites are facing today, and many others will too, soon in cities like Mumbai, Kolkata, Bengaluru etc.
3. Many Industries are circumventing steps necessary to prevent pollution of air, water and land merely to save costs on elimination and disposal of industrial waste and increase their returns for Investors and maintain low costs for the customers

All this and many other similar cases, have made Delhi a hell to live, and now Government, Judiciary, Activists are woken up to take care of other important Stakeholders like Society and Government. The same problems are seen for Holy River Ganges pollution.

Unfortunately great management concepts like Business Process Re-Engineering (BPR) also focus ONLY on Customers, and not Employees and Business Partners, unless there is legislation on few things.

Of course, the IT boom in India, with the 20% year to year growth for almost 16-17 years, made Employees as important stakeholders in IT companies, as the cost of Employees were almost 50% of the revenue. In few industries (specially Automobiles), Business Partners (specially as Tier 1 and Tier 2 suppliers) became very important Stakeholders, for the survival of the Auto Industries itself.