Let there be disorder!

A man offered to pay a sum of money to his twelve-year-old daughter if she mowed the lawn. The girl went at the task with great zest and by evening the whole lawn had been beautifully mowed – well, everything except a large uncut patch of grass in one corner!

When the man said he couldn’t pay the sum agreed upon because the whole lawn hadn’t been mowed, the girl said she was ready to forego the money, but would not cut the grass in the patch!

Curious to find out why, he checked the uncut patch. There, right in the centre of the patch, sat a large toad. The girl had been too tender-hearted to run over it with the lawn-mower.

Where there is love, there is disorder.

Perfect order would make the world a graveyard!

~ (Anthony de Mello)

Who is good for your business?

Performance in simplistic terms is a function of two key factors – ability and willingness!

Ability to perform is something to do with physical constraint of an individual like that of lifting 200 kgs of weight, fasting for 21 consecutive days, Singing for 48 hrs, working for 80 hrs a week, etc…

Willingness to perform is to do with the inherent interest to contribute – cheerful compliance to the job!

If one is willing, they can find ways to build the ability to perform. However, lack of willingness can only guarantee below par results – irrespective of the latent ability!

Who is good for your business – highly willing but not so able guy or highly capable but not so willing type? 

It depends on what is your business – if it is people centric, keep and invest on the first type and shamelessly weed out highly capable but not willing ones! They might be best suited for political parties, I guess! They will add lot of weight, as long as someone can lift them!

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Frugal Luxury as a product/service strategy!

It is surprising to see how many people associate frugality with poverty, cheap, affordability (or lack of it!).

Instead, it is refreshing to see frugality as associated with – novelty, value for money, fit for purpose. True power of avoiding waste! That’s what Frugal supposed to mean!

Be it  Frugal Healing,  Frugal Engineering or  Frugal Product/Service Strategy, the focus is on cutting everything unwanted/ not essential and offering no compromise on use/ application.

Luxury on the other hand is an indulgence rather than a necessity! It is associated with the quality believed to be possessed by something that is excessively expensive!

Given the most unpredictable nature of our current global economy, ever-changing consumer behavior and necessities around cost reduction, quality improvement and reduction in time-to-market, it is useful to adopt Frugal Luxury as the product/ service strategy.

Frugal Luxury as a theme can influence creation of products & services that will be novel, fit for purpose with a value for money approach but provide the best user experience and loyalty. This will also make the company offering this product / service innovate a lot more rapidly, be efficient and care for the eco-system!

This can also help shift the operational focus of companies from cost, quality and time pressures to growth, profitability and business sustainability priorities.

Be it  TATA NANO, HLL’s Frugal Innovation, HUL’s  Pureit, or  A Little World  the theme is simple – Frugal Luxury! The objective is preserving luxury of user experience at no extra cost than required! This benefited the customer and more than that the company itself! A true Win-Win!

Indulging in Frugality helps in immediate, short, medium and long run!

Focusing on Frugal Luxury while proposing, pursuing and promoting sustainable product/service strategy will soon be a necessity irrespective of the target – be it the always   emerging markets or currently struggling developed nations!

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