INTRODUCTION
Nowadays, India is among one of the fastest growing country and emerging market in the world. The agriculture sector of India has contributed a lot in the country’s growth and now without this sector; no long term economic growth plan can be developed.
The agriculture sector, which was operated manually few years back, has a lot of complications. The farmers didn’t have any facility in order to be aware of the current market situation, there fore they created a place called Choupal.It was a place for meeting like a forum where farmers informally assembled in order to share and capture information with each other.
ITC is the company which has a vision of providing attracting initiatives regarding the growth and maintaining competitiveness of the entire value chain system of agriculture. IT also has the aim offacilitating the farmers with advanced technological systems and that was the biggest challenge they had to face in order to provide something valuable to that industry
QUESTION 1
FACTORS THAT DRIVES ITC’s MOTIVATION FOR CREATING e CHOUPAL:
For building such a plan which could have a material impact upon the economy of the country through agricultural reforms, ITC needed information regarding the current supply chain / value chain system. The information they gathered appraised many facts. The farmers were unaware from many quality and desirable ideas which helped them in producing quality outputs, and also protecting their farm crops from damage. The consequences of it were that the farmers had to bear losses from inferior quality outputs selling them at impaired value.
The middleman like Commission Agents had created many problems for both the farmers and the purchasers like ITC. In the prior years, the process of getting the crops like soybean in the market involved many disruptions like after reaching the markets (Mandi) farmers had to wait a lot in order sell their product at the correct price.The team of Commission Agents sent by the government started the selling process through auction which showed a random result that some farmers earned profit while most of them had to bear losses. Commission agents also did not pay immediately to some farmers,which meant selling them at 2 to 3 days credit.
Having lack of updated information regarding the markets, their process and conditions like whether the market has bearish or bullish trend, along with weather conditions helped them to generate quality inputs and protect them from any damage.In addition,being aware of the right time to enter into the market was also one of the important factors helped them in generating quality inputs.
All these were the factors which became the motivational factors for ITC in order to create something valuable, something that will provide a solution to the above uncertainties, something which will bring harmony in the market (Mandi), which provided them and the farmers with total condition of the market (Mandi) and about supply chain activities. Therefore, both the farmers and ITC could make some valuable profit that would shift their life from the misery to comfort and the answer they found is to create e CHOUPAL an interface that provides them with updated information.
QUESTION 2
OLD AND NEW PHYSICAL AND INFORMATION FLOWS IN THE CHANNEL:
OLD PHYSICAL FLOWS AND INFORMATION FLOWS:
In early years, farmer did not have any kind of facility available to get them aware of the current conditions. Therefore, they created a place meeting called CHOUPAL in which they share many forms of information with each other. The flow of information in the old system was too slow and also the information was very limited. If a farmer had any information or any news regarding the current or future prospects of the market (Mandi) he had to travel back again a huge distance about 50km to 60km to reach others, for example ift he prices of their crops (soybean) or if there were any new rules and regulations from the farmer, who was out of sight (Mandi), could make some benefits.
From the purchaser’s side, due to the slackness of the current system, they were unaware of the information regarding the farmers and their fields. In order to be aware of farmers’ intents they needed a team that was sent to the field for observation.
The physical model of the flow in the old supply chain model includes several activities. It includes three different platforms that are field, market and factory. The farmer produced crops and loaded them in the trucks or tractors, and then supplied them to the market (Mandi). After that they were sold sold at auction through Commission Agents, and then from Commission Agents different companies such ITC purchased crops for their production. The involvement of Commission Agents without any rules and regulation made it hard for both the company and farmers to earn an acceptable profit................................
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