Technology is the best way to reach out to the rural parts of India and most of the FMCG and retail giants are making the best use of it.
The Indian FMCG Marico is one of them who is using a mobile technology wisely to arm its field representatives in their procurement processes.The company procures large quantities of sunflower seed which is used to produce the product sunflower oil.These seeds are basically obtained through imports as well as the domestic procurement.Traditional markets well known as Mandis falls under domestic procurement.In the process, it covers almost 80,000 acres of farmland spread across seven states.
The executive vice-president and head-supply chain and operation development, Marico says since these farmers were in remote areas, reaching them was a problem so they came up with a system that could not only help the representatives in locating the farmers but also allow us to monitor them.
To accomplish this, The IT team at Marico developed a mobile-based application for Nokia 5235 series handsets.The company gave these GPS-enabled phones to 120 of its field representatives, with mapped routes.This helped the representative to get the exact route which saved their time a lot.
The other advantage of this application is, it can also get a real-time data from farmers.Images of crop and soil taken from the camera are used for the monitoring progress of contract farming, seed information and weather condition.Since the data is available online so the company can make use of it in analyzing which helps in taking decisions quickly.
Earlier it would take 10-15 days to get addressed any query by agronomist but with Mobile phones, it is easier and now query can be solved within 24 hrs. " added mahajan.
Marico has also set up a management information system (MIS) that connects all its distributors. “This is based on re-order level at distribution. It keeps a track of the inventory at all our distributors. If the system senses that a distributor’s stock is replenishing, it automatically generates a sell order,” says Mahajan. The system has covered 80 percent of Marico’s distributors.
Following Marico now most of the FMCG are experimenting similar technologies to reach to rural india.
The Indian FMCG Marico is one of them who is using a mobile technology wisely to arm its field representatives in their procurement processes.The company procures large quantities of sunflower seed which is used to produce the product sunflower oil.These seeds are basically obtained through imports as well as the domestic procurement.Traditional markets well known as Mandis falls under domestic procurement.In the process, it covers almost 80,000 acres of farmland spread across seven states.
The executive vice-president and head-supply chain and operation development, Marico says since these farmers were in remote areas, reaching them was a problem so they came up with a system that could not only help the representatives in locating the farmers but also allow us to monitor them.
To accomplish this, The IT team at Marico developed a mobile-based application for Nokia 5235 series handsets.The company gave these GPS-enabled phones to 120 of its field representatives, with mapped routes.This helped the representative to get the exact route which saved their time a lot.
The other advantage of this application is, it can also get a real-time data from farmers.Images of crop and soil taken from the camera are used for the monitoring progress of contract farming, seed information and weather condition.Since the data is available online so the company can make use of it in analyzing which helps in taking decisions quickly.
Earlier it would take 10-15 days to get addressed any query by agronomist but with Mobile phones, it is easier and now query can be solved within 24 hrs. " added mahajan.
Marico has also set up a management information system (MIS) that connects all its distributors. “This is based on re-order level at distribution. It keeps a track of the inventory at all our distributors. If the system senses that a distributor’s stock is replenishing, it automatically generates a sell order,” says Mahajan. The system has covered 80 percent of Marico’s distributors.
Following Marico now most of the FMCG are experimenting similar technologies to reach to rural india.
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