Road to Interest-free Economy: Power of a singular bold step

Today is major day in life. It is so because one firm has decided to give up earning interest on funds of its employees, and to adopt halal way of making profit. It is an HR firm that outcourses thousands of low-level employees to companies. Its clients gives it a large sum of money for its employees as 'gratuity'. Because of inflation or salary increases the reserve for gratuity gets low (I can explain if you want in comments section). This is what they call short-fall. To meet this short-fall they need money, which is earned by putting that alrge sum in bank, on which they get interest. This is haram. Although the firm never used the interest for itself, but nonetheless it earned interest to make up for its shortfall in money. But this is no excuse for the company to indulge in such haram a transaction as earning interest or riba.

The point of mirth and shukar (gratitude to Allah) is that I pointed out this 'moral ambuity; to CEO, who has a deep relation with me, as he explained me what I have explained to you about gratuity and all that stuff. And although I'm no employee or board of directors, he was moved saying he 'has been caught red-handed'... He is a man of action. He took a bold step and is ready to make things in conformity with Sharia'.

Long story short, CEO immediately called his CFO and asked him to suggest new, 'healthy' ways to get out of it. As a first step, he has ordered to shift millions of money from bank deposits to 'current account' on which the depositor gets no money/interest/profit. That is huge, actually. Till December they'll have to come up with ways to earn profit on millions of rupees. It can be risky, nay, clearly it is. And here CHANGE MANAGEMENT is involved. This is a major paradigm shift. Some key people in the organization are disturbed by this decision. And I fear a covert resistance that may undermine the project. Here we're not left alone. Alhamdulilah, there's a vast body of literature on change management. It tells all about this science, what change means, how do people in organizations can react to it, how to implement a successful change program, what pitfalls to avoid, etc., etc.

One important book has been written in the cultural context (2 Cs) of Pakistan by former Dean of my university's school of management. It's called, simply, Managing Change, by Dr. ZIQ. (Managing Change is both a text-book in which frameworks are given to solve case-studies, each theoretical chapter is followed by case-studies of purely Pakistani companies.

I am rambling too much! Because. I feel so indebted to Allah that a few words of mine have seemingly changed substantially business life of a firm. I've been asked to propose solutions and not just pin-point messy problems... So... Tomorrow after jumma prayer I intend to meet one of my professors who'd guide me to alternatives, inshaAllah! For you, if you're Muslim business-student or -man, it's your duty to help your brother in faith by suggesting brilliant ideas for profit-earning ventures. Judgment criteria: We always need every year more than 1.7m in our reserves to pay the gratuity of employees in order to meet expected short-falls. If you've problems understanding, please mention inshaAllah I'd clarify.