Having spent over half a century where my predominant influence was the western world, I had grown up believing in the innate supremacy of what we believed was the developed world. I suppose that our history of conquest and Empire was bound to lead to such a superior view of the world.
Even when it came to business, where I learnt my skills firstly as a senior manager in a multi-national and later as a Chief Executive of an organisation committed to improving the performances of SMEs, I did not see the need to challenge the principles of business. It never occurred to me that the military type system developed at the time of the industrial revolution may not be the only way.
In later life I have developed into an International Business Consultant and suddenly found myself working in countries where the rules didn?t always seem to fit. My first experience of this came when I was training people to provide business advice to people in African villages. I remember doing a session on market research one morning and was proud of my performance. However, I was brought back to earth at coffee break by a woman that pointed out to me that market research was fine in a developed western economy. However, she pointed out that if a man in the village could only wood carve and he needed to feed his family it was no good telling him that there were already enough wood carvers in the village!
My next challenge to my business beliefs came when I went to work in an Eastern Bloc country and worked with centres where the mines had closed. Here was a situation where the heart of the village had been removed and there was a need to replace that heart. It meant developing many SMEs as there was no real opportunity for inward investment in the countryside.
Here the major challenge was to convince and energise people to want to run their own businesses. I was faced with communities where capitalism had been frowned on and where parents would probably find it more acceptable to find out you were gay that they wanted to become capitalists! I also realised that the academic side of business was not the stuff of entrepreneurship. The problem in this country was that they had been brought up in a society where the first choice was education, the second was a job and the third, which followed very quickly, was a trip to the mines. So everyone wanted to study business planning but no one wanted to take entrepreneurial risk.
So by now I have discovered that the strands of business planning may well provide a loose support structure to a business, but that entrepreneurship was much more about the person than about the documentation. Entrepreneurship was about inspiring people to try rather than putting in processes that may well destroy the calculated risk.
But my biggest challenge to my business knowledge came when I began working the predominantly Muslim country of Turkey. Whilst the society is secular, the majority of the population are committed Muslims.
Now the first thing to point out is the environment in which I came into this work. I came from the United Kingdom where there was a clear dislike and fear of many of the immigrant groups. In my own town of Oxford there were attempts to stop speakers on the minaret of the local mosque as it might indoctrinate young children into Islam! Having lived around mosques for some while, I still find it impossible to understand the daily chants so goodness knows what a six year old white English child would understand from it!
Secondly, of course, we had experienced 9/11, 7/7, Bin Laden and the rise of the Taliban. The false images of the majority of Muslims with people?s theories about female suppression, male domination and unfair and draconian punishments for crimes were borne out of ignorance that rapidly migrated into fear.
So my first surprise when dealing with the local businesses was that the customer service was of such a high standard. If you went into a restaurant, for example, this was not a ?have a nice day? type of experience, this was more of the waiter actually gifting you part of the meal such as dessert or coffee and petit fours. It was also apparent that when you went a second time the staff would remember you from the first time.
This was not only true of restaurants, however. The little electrical shop would remember you and ask genuine questions about how you were settling in and clothes shops would remember your size from last time without having to ask.
What was even more interesting was that, whilst I had known about haggling over prices, I had not expected to arrive at a counter and to be offered discount without asking. I remember one occasion in particular where, upon approaching the till to be told that given the products totalled 198TL, if I increased it to 250TL, then I could have a 50TL discount. This meant that the other 52TL worth of shopping could be obtained for 2TL. This proved more problematic than we thought as my wife kept choosing things that turned out to be ? buy 2 and get one free?. Eventually it took six things at 16TL to get over the magic 250TL. In other words, for the mathematically minded, we paid 14TL total for six items at 16TL each!
Not only did this seem to me an unnecessary thing to do, I could not help trying to think of a shop in the United Kingdom where an assistant on the till would have bothered to tell a foreigner rather than simply ringing the 198 through and sending them on their way.
The next thing that struck me was that shops were inclined to be grouped together. For example, all sports shops were together on the top floor of the shopping mall, all shoe shops were together, all women?s fashion shops were together on the same floor and so on. Whilst this may well? be good for people like me with an aversion to spending hours walking around shopping malls, it did seem to fly in the face of competitive marketing. Moreover, what can all those marketing companies spend their time on if not to make you go to one shop rather than another!
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The more that I examined businesses in different countries the more my good old western business model seemed to disappear. Yes I was experiencing excellent customer service, but I had also seen market research and traditional marketing disappear together a number of the other competitive necessities of the western business such as location and product differentiation.
But as with the British Charge of the Light Brigade in 1854 off into the business valley I charged. My role was to improve the performance of SMEs and I was going to show them how developed countries of the world did it. But in no time at all I was brought up short as I pointed out to a business man that with some significant changes he could make enough to retire to the Bahamas! His response was immediate; why would he want to do that! I asked him what he did want and he said that he wanted to be a good Muslim.
This has led me on a journey of discovery that has made me realise the arrogance of the West, the ignorant fear of the West, the obsession with material possessions and the refusal to look and to learn from others that we deem less developed than us.
I started by looking at our own western business models and, like so many people these days, I started with a trip to Google. Sure enough, the wonders of Wikipedia gave me a plethora of business models. No less than twenty-six businesses models appeared under the revenue model category. However, all of them were competitive models. All relied on beating the competition.
I started to realise that we in the west believe that a confrontational business model is the way to run a business. In simple terms, we need to get in first, knock out all potential competitors by taking them over, destroying them or reducing them to such a small market share that they are irrelevant.
I realise that some people will argue that there are cases of co-operation within western businesses, but that is often more of a strategic alliance to shut out others or else it produces a cartel that allows for greater revenue through again eliminating the competition.
Suddenly, it began to dawn on me that the ubiquitous business plan was not being used to ensure that true business aspirations were met and risks reduced; the business plan had become a battle plan that was used to gain funding for the battle ahead. Perhaps my earlier analogy of the Charge of the Light Brigade was nearer the truth than I realised!
The next step on my search was to understand how we managed to develop this confrontational model and that search took me back to the industrial revolution. Up until that point businesses were much more cooperative with villages and communities working together for the good of all.
With the industrial revolution business moved away from cottage industries to mass production. But with mass production came the need to organise large numbers of people in an efficient way. Unfortunately the only people with previous experience of such organisation were the army and hence the modern business organisation was born. Whilst I? do not subscribe to the view that it was from the army that we got the title ?general? manager, if you examine the hierarchical structure of the modern business from CEO to worker it bears a striking resemblance to that found in the army.
I am not saying that the organisational structure is necessarily bad in itself. Indeed, many Muslim businesses adopt a similar organisation. However, the danger from the original structures coming from the military is that the only logical business strategy that was adopted was a military one. All that happened was that capture or destroy was replaced by takeover or eliminate from the market.
What I find particularly significant is that many of the military words have found their way into the business vocabulary. Certainly words such as hostile takeover, asset stripping, strategy, proxy fight and Business Empire are not the words of cooperation!
And yet, only a few paragraphs back I referred to the fact that most Muslim businesses have a similar hierarchical structure and yet they don?t have the same aggressive approach to business. So I then set out to try and understand their approach to business and my starting point had to be to understand my client?s view that he wanted to be a good Muslim.
I asked him what he wanted for his business and he explained that he wanted a business that would provide sufficient for him and his family, one that would protect the livelihood of his workers and one that would contribute to the community.
As a Muslim he understands that the measure of success is not how much wealth you have but that you have sufficient to provide for your family. Unlike so many in the west they are not concerned with material wealth in the way that we are. If they invite you into their house it is because they want your company and they want to entertain you. In the west we often invite someone for dinner in order to show off the new car or the new building extension.
This does not mean that people do not have nice cars or I-phones, but they don?t make a big deal of it. The I-phone just happens to be the latest phone that the phone company is giving out with a contract and as for the car; don?t be surprised if they offer to lend their new car to you when you comment on it. I have been offered the use of a brand new Mercedes for the week only two days after the person took delivery.
Another important part of Islam is the lack of status within the company. It is as important to a business owner that he protects the livelihood of the shop floor worker as much as that of the senior managers.
This providing for all of the family also means that the business owner looks to provide in the future as well as in the present. Because of the lack of interest in material wealth it is of no consequence to leave money as an inheritance. It is far more important to leave a means of continuing to earn and live through leaving a good business and a home.
Another important part of the Islamic faith is the belief that people should work and provide if they are able to do so. Therefore, it is more important that a person works than the job they do. Therefore, doing a job well, whether cleaning the streets or working in a bank, is considered part of being a good Muslim.
One thing that affects the way that people conduct business is the belief that they will be punished if they hurt or harm their neighbour. This belief is what allows people of similar businesses to open up next to each other and not to be put into competition with each other. I know of one jewellery area, for example, where, if the person has made sufficient for the week they will send you to another shop they know may be struggling.
Whilst there are doubtless many other aspects of Islam that have a bearing on the way people conduct their business, the other one that interested me was the need to take part in ?Zakat?. This is about giving 2.5% of what you earn to others. This begins to explain the desire to give some parts of a meal for free or to offer discounts back to the customer. But this charitable giving on its own is not the only form of giving that they take part in.
It also accounts for the attitude of a business I was working with where the owner was proud to state that they were constantly in the top ten tax payers for the region. Where in the west, tax avoidance is a way of life, here the owner was proud of the contribution that they could make to the community.
Islam also talks about informal charity as well as the formal ?Zakat?. This does not necessarily mean that one has to give material wealth or though it can do. For example, it could involve contributing to the building of a new mosque. However, it could also include smiling and be pleasant.
So now I begin to understand the motivation and mentality of the Turkish business. Yes they want to succeed; yes they want to provide for their families; yes they want to look after others; yes they want to give to others and yes their smile and friendliness is part of their belief and entirely genuine.
This is a business model that does not rely on confrontation and one where I have found true clustering initiatives can work successfully. But the proof of a successful model comes in the performance. As the western world struggles to cope with the economic crisis, here are a few statistics that may give weight to my argument that perhaps the business schools and business gurus should get rid of their fear, challenge the Empire Model of business and look East young man, look East.
Turkey Data
-????????? 15 largest GDP in the world
-????????? Turkey?s credit rating one of a few in the world notched up two notches to B++
-????????? Public Debt 48.5%
-????????? Turkey manufactures over half the TVs made in Europe and 18% of white goods
-????????? 6th largest car producer in Europe and 15th in the world
-????????? 4th largest shipbuilder in the world
-????????? 2nd largest in the Top International Constructors list in the world
-????????? Recent 13% rise in exports to European Union
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The story that puts all of this into perspective is the one about the Turkish man that lived by the coast in Izmir. A western businessman was on holiday there and used to watch the Turkish man come down to the beach each day and sit and read his paper. About mid-morning he would get into his boat and go fishing. He was good at fishing and would return around lunchtime with a good catch. Some would be to feed his family whilst the rest was sold to the local fish shop. Then he would return to his seat on the beach.
The businessman watched this and eventually, after a few days, he struck up a conversation. ?You are really good? said the businessman. ?Indeed, you are so good that you could make a good business out of what you do. If you were to start earlier and fish longer you would soon have enough to buy a second and third boat and to hire more fishermen. In no time at all you could have your own fish shop, your own processing facility and a good fish restaurant.?
The fisherman listened carefully and eventually replied, ?What you say has certain logic, but please tell me, once I have done all of this what would I do??
The businessmen looked at him in amazement. ?Why, once you have achieved all of this you would be able to sit on the beach, fish when you wanted to and relax when you wanted.?
The Turkish man smiled and went back to sitting on his seat on the beach to read his paper before deciding when he wanted to go fishing today!
The moral of this tale is ? Do you live to work or do you work to live?
Source: http://www.bheard.biz/the-alternative-business-model
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