Happy Contribution

Passing through Lal Bahadur Shastri Marg better known as lbsmarg and crossing one of Central Mumbai Suburbs..

…on 4th August for a meeting

…approx 11 45 am

…my eyes wandered the several stand alone old format shops…jewellery, paan shop, restaurant, hardware shop, utensil, cloth shop, etc. my eyes were thirsty to find a single shopkeeper with a smile amongst approx 30 shops that went pass by..

… None of the shops were in good shape with positivity, …footfalls of customers…

I got down and asked few of the shopkeepers as to how is business coming along? Some of them did reply and then some of them shrugged off in frustration.

The replies were as follows (translations) …new formats are fooling customers but the customers are happy being fooled …what can we do, the business is like this only …we can’t reach out the customers and force them to come to our shops …somehow things will change …we have done business in this manner and it has always succeeded and the new way of doing business ( new retail formats ) will die some day and customers will come back.

Cut to now some scenes in a place where I live…Thakur Village…a busy residential suburb of Mumbai.

….shopkeepers here have tweaked their business model…so a “cash and carry” has transformed into a larger retail format than the erstwhile Kirana/ grocery shop…local medical shops have increased their product range outside of just medicines and now offer discounts to customers on their long term purchases…

…doorstep delivery from them is winning their way …the local hardware shop is now more agile and timely in offering the service …small sized formats of McDonald, subway, peter England, etc are doing well.

…I have had equal set of questions with these shopkeepers and their replies are

…when times change, we need to change with time else much like the time that passes is dead…we shall be dead soon …when God has blessed with mind, we should use it …we would never know the outcomes of our actions if we don’t chose out of the options and stay put with the current state of affairs …we believe in proactive actions …we believe in reaching out to all stakeholders (many of you if you are not aware that these shopkeepers have financiers who are different from organised lenders so they renogiated the terms with their lenders…they renegotiated with their vendors for quality,different credit terms…they revised their financial models with loyalty program’s, acceptance of credit cards, etc…some of these shops have fixed + variable salary for their employees …they have better internal communication with wide scale usage of mobile …we have cut down our time chatting with the neighbouring shops over flimsy issues rather we discuss how to build referral business and what business models are working for each other …when we are idle, we curiously and aggressively look for improvement

The summary is that some of the changes that these small time shopkeepers did or realised were commonly accepted sense and they applied it.

Simple Proactive Thinking.
Simple Proactive  Actions.
Extraordinary Results.

The saying goes: When times are tough…the tough gets going I would like to just add that from here on the world is going to be even more challenging, more complex, more testing, more demanding. I am referring to the super dynamic velocity of change that is happening in the world in all aspects. If somebody is losing out the opportunity to test himself by hiding behind shields of excuses or favours from anybody, then sooner rather than later, the world is going to exit the person. Because for staying, surviving, thriving in this world…facing things is not an option…it’s a compulsion staring at you.

It’s coincidence that on this beautiful day of Janmashtmi/ Lord Krishna birthday celebration…his emphasis on proactive, consistent, persevering karma and duty is so profound and relevant.

Happy Yearning for Contributing Everyday. Happy Contribution.