Pai’s Bakery was a 30-year-old family business based in Belagavi, in the southern Indian state of Karnataka. The owner was working on a sales territory realignment plan in response to complaints from the company’s sales team. Sales representatives claimed that their wages were not proportionate to their efforts and that productivity was hampered by poor territory planning and restrictive business policies. The Pai’s Bakery owner wanted to address the sales representatives’ concerns and improve the company’s relationship with all retail outlets to achieve key business objectives. Based on these priorities, she prepared a realignment plan for the sales territories. However, she was surprised by the negative reaction by the sales representatives, who opposed the new plan. Pai’s Bakery had to find a mutually beneficial path forward immediately to avoid serious damage to the company’s business operations.

In May 2019, project managers with the Bihar Rural Livelihoods Promotion Society (Jeevika) in Patna, India, met to consider their role in creating farmer producer companies (FPCs) that helped poor agricultural producers access markets and receive fair prices for their produce, mainly litchi fruit. The creation of such producer companies was not a spontaneous process but often required a catalyst to harness community-based networks. While Jeevika, a project supported by the Government of Bihar and the World Bank, had been successful in alleviating poverty among those at the base of the economic pyramid, the project managers were now reflecting on the way forward for the producer company. Their overarching aim was a comprehensive understanding of the effects of their efforts on the community and the key variables affecting the sustainability of their efforts. They were aware that they could not support the community indefinitely, and they needed to consider how best to empower the producers to do this work on their own once Jeevika was no longer available. What new capabilities would farmers need to develop over time? How would the relationships between farmers and other stakeholders change when support from Jeevika was reduced or removed?