Words like business ethics, value-based management seems pretty old fashioned today. What was murmur in the corporate world is reaching a crescendo: “Not just profits, the very exigencies of professional management are incompatible with the demands of social responsibility.” The case for value-based management is best enhanced when exemplified through successful practice and more persuasive if the practitioners has made a conscious and deliberate choice. Alacrity Foundations Private Limited (AFPL) provides a living case study for a discussion on value-based management.

AFPL emerged in 1978 out of the conviction that it is only value-based management that can build an enduring institution and influence social development. Its larger-than-life Corporate Mission Statement therefore reads: “To try and prove that organised business when deeply committed to values, is the best equipped to lead society to a better quality of life”: Given the extreme contradictions in India, Alacrity saw two immediate tasks to be undertaken: “to promote the moderation of rights amongst the privileged and to ensure that the underprivileged are provided with the basic necessities of life”.

In 1984 the company entered two areas of basic needs: Urban Housing and Energy Management and Conservation. In a world where profit is the sole index of a sound business, Alacrity’s entry into housing with its commitment to totally accounted transactions, responsible pricing, quality and uncompromising adherence to rules, appeared both unconventional and foolhardy. The viability of its philosophy and strategy is evident from the leadership role it has acquired within a decade in the housing field and in the discipline and stability it has brought to Real Estate Development.

The Buildings Division has emerged as the single largest builder of residential flats in Madras. In the Energy Management field, the Electronics Division has secured a 40% share of the market in South India for its voltage protection equipment, and has set several standards. Its brand name “KRYKARD” has become a by-word for quality, durability and enduring service. Both the divisions have now become independent business entities viz. Alacrity Housing Limited and Alacrity Electronics Limited. Health Care and Education have been identified as areas of future business.	Comparision between Central Public Works Department (CPWD) and Alacrity Housing Limited (AHL), cost of construction projected for 1994 (rates in Rupees/square foot)
	CPWD plinth area rates for 4 storey RCC buildings, derived for 1994 from 1992 rates	363.25
	Ahl's corresponding rates for identical features	352.00
	AHL's rates for same construction with additional "AHL's Standard Features"	375.00

The overall business handled by Alacrity is today worth Rs. 100 crores per annum. Alacrity’s rapid growth reconfirms the adage that “It pays to be honest”. The goodwill that it commands in the market highlights the potential that exists in influencing social development through value-based business practices. This assessment does not as much rely on the figures on the company’s balance sheet, as on the stead-fast adherence to a corporate philosophy that visualises a vital role for business within the socio-economic milieu of an developing country like India. But if for some, the physical impact in the market place is the ultimate touch stone, the figures are no less impressive.

Amol Karnad, chairman and managing director puts the success story in perspective: “Our courage was not in doing things differently – most individuals are capable of that. Our courage was in being accountable not only for the different things that we did but also for how we did them. We were not rebels rejecting convention and tradition because we found it convenient to do so or because we found it convenient to do so or because we had no other basis for drawing attention to ourselves. We were a group with a mission, with the motivation, drive and the discipline to pursue the same in the face of odds and failure. It made us irresistible as members of an organisation and as a business. The products and services that followed in my opinion had to be outstanding and successful. “I see this as a law o nature”.

A radical departure from the principles of standard management and enuciation of the principles of value-based Management is the outcome of Alacrity's philosophy and work.
	Standard Management	Value-Based Management
Purpose	1. Promotion of markets for goods and services	1. Promotion of a corporate culture that engenders the good life.
Purpose	2. Leading contribution to society's economic prosperity	2. Leading contribution to social culture of peace, health and hapiness
Measures of progress	1. Economic wealth	1. Human dignity
	2. Economic profit	2. Human credibility
	3.Materials satisfication	3. Human integrity
Process	1. Ends justify means	1. Means guarantee ends
Process	2. Ethics subordinate to economics	2. Economics subordinate to ethics

Alacrity has vindicated through practice that success is a law of nature when an ethical mission is pursued with zeal, motivation and discipline. What does Alacrity have to offer? “What ‘ism’ have we here? Altrustic entrepreneurism? Repackaged socialism? Gift wrapped humanism?” Amol Karnad answers: “Labels at this stage can only seen pretentious. So we prefer to simply call it Alacrity’s own exciting search for the good life”.

The search for the good life starts from the premise of the ‘self’. Mercifully, the cliched social service approach of improving ‘others’ living conditions because ‘our’s’ is good is given the go by. Instead Alacrity’s philosophy starts from the ‘selfish’ premise of one’s own good life and strikes at the realisation that an individual quality of life is inextricably linked to the quality of life of the society in which he/she lives. Alacrity’s Corporate Philosophy takes off from this vantage point. An alliance is bonded between business professionalism that can create immense material wealth in the world and values, ethics and social responsibility that can ensure justice peace and collective good life.

When Gandhiji espoused the concept of Antyodaya, his idea god deified and was placed on the pedestal of impractical idealism. A professional business organisation today has recognised the happiness of society as a whole, the good life of the last man as its ‘selfish’ motive. It is a voyage of hope. For as the graffiti by an unknown student of 60’s says “Hope is the celebration of those who struggle.”

Durganand Balsavar (AHL)
The income from housing of Alacrity Housing Limited (AHL), for the financial period ending 31 st March 1993 is Rupees 84 crores. By July 1994 AHL is believed to be close to completing 103 projects including 1850 apartments constituting a built-up area of 91,30,00 square feet, spread over 30 localities in the city of Madras. (Based on information supplied by AHL).