What I am going to share today is very different from what you all have heard so far!!!
It’s basically about the lessons I learn from those businesses which we don’t even recognize as business or probably get ignored by us.
I am talking about the biggest business environment in the world.
And giant organizations, businesses, classify it as the unorganized and informal sector.
During my continuous travel from one city to another, I realized that they are more organized than any of the Sensex or Nasdaq listed companies.
In India, around 80% of the labor force is employed in the informal/unorganized sector, and around 50% of the GDP is contributed by this sector.
And mostly on every business matrix, they beat most big businesses.
Let me share three lessons that I learn from these businesses and make them stand out from large corporates.
#1 Equal distribution of profit: In Kolkata, I saw “idly on wheels”, they serve idly @ 10 rupees per piece and the owner/vendor keeps only 2-3 rupees from it while the remaining 7-8 goes to the supply chain people who wash the utensils, people who grind it, the auto walas who delivers it. All of them get equal distribution. But when you have the same idly in 5* for @ 200 rupees bulk of the money is kept by the establishment and only a small % of the money goes to the entire supply chain.
#2 Degree of power of decision making: In Jaipur, I met Rajeev, a 19-year boy selling roses for 15 rupees at the roadside that he purchases at 7 rupees. He sells it at a 50% profit margin, but he gave me a discount of 50% because he liked my face. Have you heard the same thing in any of the big marts or large businesses? They just can’t give a discount to anyone by looking at their face. Even if the marketing manager wants to give 5% discount he needs to take permission from the board by the time the business opportunity is gone.
#3 Agility You can see these days many street vendors are selling Ganesh puja products but they can’t sell these products for the entire year. They have to change their entire supply line, change their pitch, change their product mix, and change their market segment. Everything changes for them more than 10 times a year. On the other hand, big businesses take more than a year to even make and implement a small change.
You know common things in all 3 stories, they don’t know about customer relationship management but they know family relationship management.
Basically, with this speech, I am here to ask something from you,
Please don’t worry it’s not your money.
Whenever you see them, if possible Just give them some small suggestions which help them to orbit shift their businesses or support them by at least considering buying from them.
Because at this time we don’t need 1000s of companies worth billions of dollars but we need billions of companies worth 1000 dollars.
The main lesson I learn from them “is how people can survive with even 10,000/- a month and live happily. “
