ANITA Lobo and I go back a good 16 years. 1998, Mumbai. I was a news-desk intern. She home-delivered eggs, breads and groceries. My rented apartment housed an old piano. Sometimes, she would take a break to play. She was allowed use of this piano since childhood by the matriarch of the family, when the building was a bungalow, and the members not split in apartments.
Lobo’s Vienna Store is a Bandra landmark, standing on Hill Road for 60 years. Fenced in by prime real estate, the ageing shop has soot-covered walls, fading signage, and a constant steam of loyal, aged customers, buying their daily bread.
As the outsourcing-telecom-coffee shop-realty boom altered cityscapes, builders started pressuring Lobo to move out. New-age departmental store chains approached with aggressive offers. And a surprise enemy was already at the gates: More people owned cars. Huge traffic snarls at the junction outside the store began a slow kill. Bonnets were literally grazing past the breads. It deterred elderly customers, a large chunk of the clientele. Business dipped.
Lobo had no choice but to fight the knock. She decided to mobilize the neighborhood. After all, the traffic nightmare affected everyone. Protests gathered momentum. Petitions were filed. Complaints registered. When the traffic police department cited lack of manpower, Lobo ingeniously offered to become a volunteer traffic warden. In three months, she was trained and certified.
Now, all Lobo does is step out of the shop and man the junction every time a bottleneck threatens to form.
In her jugaad approach, Lobo has nailed the germ of what has evolved in India Inc as Corporate Social Responsibility (wp): Engage and safeguard the community to protect your business bottom line.
[creativ_pullright colour=”red” colour_custom=”” text=”Big Indian wp operations primarily focus on conflict resolution. Much as Lobo keeps a constant watch on her road, corporates too ensure that in areas of operations, the community remains undisturbed.”]
A traditional bottom line is simply a company’s measure of profit and loss. Today, however, companies world over assess performance based on the Triple Bottom Line (TBL): Profit, People Account (measure of social responsibility in operations) and the Planet Account (measure of responsibility towards the environment). Only a company that produces a TBL is taking stock of the full cost involved in business. Say, a mining company posts profit. But its operations have polluted water bodies around its factories. The government has been left to make exorbitant amends. Obviously, the company’s takings are no reflection of the overall loss.
Big Indian wp operations primarily focus on conflict resolution. Much as Lobo keeps a constant watch on her road, corporates too ensure, that in areas of operations, the community and the environment remains undisturbed. Any violation could mean disgruntled labour affecting productivity, dharnas stalling projects, compensation demands for environmental damages, court battles, the Doomsday list is long.
So, their wp departments offer the local communities empowerment in the form of education, livelihood solutions, health & nutrition, and infrastructural development.
Only, the exercise does not have to be approached like a grim obligation, as is the case with many emerging wp departments, in a flurry to comply with the New Company Law. A robust wp team can ideally guide a company towards a sturdy TBL.
Lobo told me over coffee the other day, ‘‘To survive in business, you need support of people around you. This coffee shop, it will go in three years. I have seen so many disappear. That’s why I happily manage the neighbourhood traffic, and they keep my old shop running.’’
