The true purpose of business can be derived from Dharma of man. The Dharma of man is to realize the Divinity within everything and to serve the Divine by serving His creation. Hence, running a business can be seen as an opportunity to serve the Divine by serving society. Business cannot be run in isolation as it depends on several stakeholders in the society for smooth functioning. Therefore, the Dharma of Business should be Stakeholder Welfare Maximization. In this context, the new business philosophy can be: “Business should not only work for bringing quality initiatives for customer satisfaction alone but also for adding value to the stakeholders, so as to have a balanced and quality give and take.” The general argument put forth by businessmen is—one cannot satisfy all stakeholders equally. The solution for this is: Business should follow principles of Dharma in its course of operation. To achieve this, the organization must focus predominantly on one stakeholder—the employees. If every employee of the organization follows his Dharma, it would lead to overall satisfaction of all the stakeholders. Ancient Bharatiya culture always stressed on business following the Atma Dharma which is universal and eternal. This would lead to long-term sustainable growth of business.

Business started in ancient times with the motto ‘mutually sharing the excess’, popularly known as the barter system. When A produces wheat but cannot weave clothes, and B weaves clothes but cannot produce wheat then A will part with excess of wheat he has in consideration for clothes from B. As currency crept in there was no need to exchange goods because with the help of currency anything could be obtained. This led to greediness for obtaining more and more currency to grow rich. Further, this greed led to trade being driven with the prime objective of profit maximization. But is this profit maximization the ultimate goal of any business?

This is the common question that needs to be addressed by the corporate sector. The main reason for lack of prime goal in business is due to lack of knowledge of the prime goal in life (“Dharma” of life) i.e., man is not clear about the very purpose of his existence. Therefore the critical question to be answered is: “What is the Dharma of Man? And hence what is the Dharma of Business?” This core issue serves as the foundation on which this study is based.