We have recognized the importance of creating a ” Circle of Trust” at Eko.
It is quite possible that trust may be an important element in the business of some other startups and they may get inspired by our thinking. With that in mind we have made the first version of our document available for free download ( no registration required) from our website.
We believe that the “Circle of Trust” will be an important part of our model though some of the external people we have shown it to are skeptical. We are also not sure whether the document is well presented and easy to understand.
For those of you who are interested please download, read and let us know what you think?
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Hindi-Chini Bhai-Bhai in ’62 was also a Circle of Trust. So, was a millenia of getting screwed by any Tom, Dick and Harry from Oversea’s or Over the Hindukush.
The Average Joe’s Law works by ‘Guilty until Proven Innocent’, Small wonder the Lady with the Taraazu has a Blindfold over her eyes.
Business is by Reason. Trust is by Blood. With a promise of Meri Financial Azaadi, Hardly an offer one can’t refuse. Make sense?
Thanks for the comments.
Karthik employees are only one part of the circle of trust.
We wanted to communicate that Eko is not for everyone. It will reward good guys and punish bad guys.
We spent time on this because we see getting this right as one of our critical success factors.
One of the main reasons that PayPal suceeded was that it solved the very complex problem of making it easy for the good guys and tough for the bad guys better than anyone else.
Sanjay,
Though i didnt go through in detail on the circle of trust document,
me too echoes the same view as that of Karthik. That is the “circle of trust”, as you call in your value chain are basically a matter of personal ethics and values. How successful the strategy will depend how eko implements the same especially with outside partners in the value chain, like for example relationship officers. Anyway from a customer’s point of view, such an initiative by eko may create a feeling of quality service and trust.
Moving a li’l from the post and coming to the service which eko is planning to launch, I hope by now atleast a few of you who has been following up eko closely might have got a clear picture of the services which eko is planning to offer.
Initially when sanjay announced his plans for eko, i thought of it as a mobile payment solution like a paymate or an Mchek based on USSD platform (becuase of the back ground of Abhishek & Abhinav in Six Dee. Anyway eko is much more than that. Though i don’t want to go further on the service which eko plans to offer i think apart from eko , two other companies are also planning to offer similar services one being alittleworld. ( yes the company which developed mchek), They are piloting a branch less banking solution using technology developed by NXT semicondutors using RFID smartcards and mobile phones and the third one is converge-I (ahem…a startup in which am a co-founder) which is working on a innovative transaction platform which uses biometrics under the brand name touch2pay.
India with over 300 million bank accounts and one of Asia’s lowest ATM ratio of 23 ATMs per million offers a huge opportunity for alternative branch less banking solutions especially in the rural areas.
For all this type of services to evolve trust is an important factor especially among the consumers and it will be the biggest challenge these companies will be facing in acquiring customers. So i think this could be one reason why Eko might have decided to think on these lines and come up with a “Circle of Trust” document.
Hi Sanjay,
Just wondering what is the thought process that went in your mind while formulating this corporate bible?
What is the target audience for the document? Is it everyone in the “circle of trust”.
I personally found the document too preachy and was not able to appreciate its relevance to a startup.
A lot of case studies in the end are basically a matter of personal ethics and values and I don’t think an organization can do much to change that.
As you are vastly more experienced than I am, would love to hear your views on this. Look forward to learning from them.
Cheers
Karthik
Interesting. I would suggest:
1) Get more examples which apply to your industry (porn viewed by contractors is probably not what you are as likely to see as Mindtree) Also the examples provided by Mindtree are more of a story that one would like to read (I understand you’ve used your own words to render their stories) but I would like to see a story which will apply to you often (wilful default or not harrassing your consumers etc.)
2) I think you need to be much much more specific. saying that you would consider “terminating” a customer for “repeated difficulty in using the system” is ultra ambiguous and makes for extremely bad interpretation. (page 7)
Also, page 11: “Trying to game incentive plans” should be elaborated, and so should “Defaults cross allowable threshold” (If I understand this right, defaults are not the relationship provider’s problem and if you’re looking at defaults as a percentage of amount lent the instant way to reduce default RATES is to lend more money)
3) Tax avoidance. Evasion is illegal, avoidance is not just legal but encouraged. You might want to specify what you will not provide (like no medical reimbursements or no conveyance allowance or LTC or such) which gives a clearer picture of what you will want to avoid and what you will not. For instance, giving food vouchers is also a form of (legal) tax avoidance, but you may fine with that.
All in all I hope this exercise of creating this document is worth the time you spent on it.