Happy Village, Happy Society & Happy Business
The Village Buddha is a unique programme that aims to build a strong relationship between Business and Society, to create a ‘Win-Win’ for both. This programme promotes the concept that business and society are integrally inter-connected and inter-dependent.
CII launched the first of its kind Village Buddha programme in 2014, to foster sustainable growth of both, villages (society) as well as Industry through systematic and systemic change. This programme helps to build skills to Jump into the Fishbowl (visit the villages), observe life in the villages, apply tools to deepen insights and build a new mindset to support societal development in a holistic and sustainable manner.
The Village Buddha Modules are held in a very innovative classroom at the TVS Institute for Quality and Leadership (TVS-IQL) at Thattahalli Village, Bengaluru. Today the Village Buddha Community stands expanded to 116 Industry change makers from 25 companies including Anand Group, Bosch, Dalmia Bharat, JCB, Maruti Suzuki, Tata Chemical and TVS Motor, to name a few.
Three Principles
The programme is built around three principles:
a. Today’s unsolved problems of the society are tomorrow’s business opportunities
b. Society can be best improved through systematic and organized initiatives
c. Business & Manufacturing/Services capability will enhance if business organizations work with society
Structure of the Programme
The Village Budhha programme is delivered as two independent modules, the details of which are as follows:
Module A: Holistic Village Transformation: A Systematic Approach : Module A is the erstwhile Module 1 and Module 2 combined. It leads to a holistic engagement of business with villages. This module, successfully conducted in June 2015, led the participants to a better understanding of the village ecosystem and its future direction. It also enabled them to practice tools for improvement of the village and formulate a proposal for the holistic development of the village for their own company. Highlights of the module included onsite visits to villages, the Five Step Discovery Process (FSDP) and semantics, village entry strategies, ALKA model for direction of change in village, village development planning for daily management, and infrastructure for village development. It was clearly established that it is important to view village development as a holistic rather than an isolated activity (e.g. education, health etc.).
Module B:Holistic Emerging Market Development
Module B the erstwhile Module 3 is focused on creating rural enterprises with villages. Module B, successfully conducted in March 2016, helped participants generate business ideas and plans to address the problems of the society. They productively engaged with rural communities to identify and develop inclusive growth businesses and implement inclusive business ideas. The programme focused on The “Seven Step Emerging Market Business Development Process” which includes the ‘Rural Fishbowl’ technique for user insights and opportunity scanning, devising breakthrough social ventures, validation of the concept, shaping the business strategy, financial planning, rollout scheduling and stakeholder and investor communications. From Module B emerged business ideas ranging from providing solutions to day to day problems to those directed at meeting future needs of the villagers. Participants found “10X Mushrooming by Cooperatives”, “Eggs of Prosperity”, “My Home My Skills”, “Science on Wheels for Farm Buddha”, “Something Fishy”, “Sparkling Cold Bath”, as interesting ideas to work upon. The Village Buddha programme is further strengthened by research based case studies. The Village Buddha research team is currently working on a new publication “On the Path to PROGRESS – The Journey of Three Villages” sharing their wisdom about the Holistic development with the community.
Announcement for Next Batch
Mostly Mid to Senior level executives of companies looking for holistic development of the rural community will benefit from participation in this programme. Announcement for the dates of Village Buddha Module for 2016-17 and the launch of the new “Village Buddha Learning community” will be updated shortly.
For more information contact :Avinash Lohia, Counsellor, CII Ph :0124- 4014084/4014057; Email:avinash.lohia@cii.in