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Janani is a non-profit organization in Bihar that "leverages private sector resources to supplement public sector service delivery". In plain speak, their mission is to provide the means for planned parenthood for low-income rural Biharis. Abortion, especially that of the unsafe variety is rife in Bihar. Janani offers a means to do it safely. They have two ways to do this; clinics and rural centers.

Janani ran into some difficulties when they began operations. They did not recruit an adequate number of doctors to help them run the centres. Doctors that did come on board, charged more for abortions than the prices mentioned in the radio advertisements that attracted these poor clients. Since the margins on condoms were terribly low, shops were not interested in stocking them. They tried to establish as many centers as possible in towns and failed to garner support. In short, there were many economic and operational issues in running Janani.

So what has all this got to do with McDonald’s?

To build a viable business model, Janani followed the same principles that made McDonald’s a success. In essence, it solved the problem of replication.

• It franchised operations
• McDonald’s does not select cooks. They select people who can run businesses. Janani did not recruit doctors. They selected franchise operators. Doctors worked in these franchises.
• McDonald’s trains people to run businesses. These guys train the burger flippers, the cash managers and the janitors. The training is uniform. Consequently, the standard of service is uniform. Janani did the same!
• They carried out quality inspections, have standardized checklists and sent back the feedback to the corporation. They have various versions of the "mystery shopper".
• Regional/District managers who visit every franchise and check quality. This is in addition to the quality inspections. Thus it ensures, accountability from above (regional managers) and from below (mystery shoppers, quality inspectors)
• There are "religious” aspects of big successful companies – e.g. Home Depot employees “bleed” orange. To be a McDonald’s manager, it requires a certain level of hatred of Burger King. People at Coke care deeply, very deeply about losing 1/10^th of a point of market share to Pepsi. Janani is a social enterprise and it matters that each employee “bleed” the value of this social enterprise. And they do!
• Additionally, for a non-profit, it is delivery that counts. As long as the donor-charitable foundation is satisfied that its funds are being used in a diligent manner, it will take the burden of providing the capital. Therefore, Janani concentrated on operational excellence.

The results were outstanding.

Janani is a well functioning organization with a dedicated professional team. They think of out-of-the box solutions to solve problems. The organization structure and incentive scheme is based on competition and performance. They do market research to gauge the reservation price of customers & determine price elasticity.

The benefits of McDonaldization. Of planned parenthood. In Bihar.