Sri Sathya Sai Guidelines for Important Organisational Issues – Part 2 (Expenditure)

...Continued from Part 1 

Unnecessary Expenditure

If proper steps are not taken at the initial stages, later, problems will find their way stealthily into many business organisations. For example, in the Coimbatore region, they started a number of cotton textile mills. If one has to manufacture cotton textiles, there should be humidity in the atmosphere and as such, the climate in Coimbatore may not be suitable for textiles. In such conditions, they are even ready to get special types of machines to overcome the climate challenges but are not prepared to relocate the factory to another suitable place. Mill managements look only for ad-hoc solutions (methods and means) to safeguard their own interests and profits. However, the arrangements made to create the required climate in an artificial manner turn out to be prohibitively expensive. When companies create humidity by artificial means, the cost of production is sure to increase. 

The owners do not keep their surplus revenues in banks out of the fear that the government will come to know about their wealth and as a result, they would be required to pay taxes. They continue to finance the rising costs through bank loans instead of retained earnings so as to give false signals to the world that they do not have enough funds to self-finance future investments. Increasing production costs coupled with high interest paid on such artificial loans for debt servicing, cave into companies’ profit margins. The root cause of this entire complex situation is improper understanding of culture and as such, its proper understanding and earnest compliance would assuage the problems. 

In our culture, we believe that there is only one God. The diversity happens from one entity. In a particular house, various people such as father, mother, brother-in-law, son, daughter and daughter-in-law may be residing. All of them will function under the control of one master. The reason for this kind of conduct is that there is cohesiveness (interpersonal tie) among them. They have clear role definitions and they work synergistically. If there is proper understanding and unity, there will be less difficulties in adapting to the demands of the environment. Today, the deficiency lies in the fact that they are not able to figure out what sort of relationships ought to be there in a family. As such, we have to make a beginning primarily by developing proper and effective communication among different members of a family, which should be extended to the members of the society and later the world, the whole process of which puts the pre-requisite of pure thoughts. The thoughts that you entertain, the words you use and the actions you indulge in, exert a significant influence not only on your current life, but also on your successive lives to come. 

Continued in Part 3…

Source: Management of Organisational Issues, Chapter 6, Man Management: A Values-Based Management Perspective