Business Case Scenario Quarter Final Submission - Submitted By : Himanshu Ahuja - From Team Edison

1. “Department-wise Problems and Solutions”
Marketing (Principles: Customer-Centricity, Sustainability Solutions, Affordable
Offerings, and Superior Customer Experience)
1) Fostering Idea of Sustainability-based Consumption : Eating Freshly Grown
foods has high benefits to our bodies
As people in India are still not inclined towards healthy eating habits, it is an issue
before marketing department to create awareness and build health-consciousness
amongst the target audience. Running targeted online and offline campaigns focused on
creating awareness about the benefits of consuming fresh produce can immensely help
in fostering this idea
2) Threat from local vendors and app-based services offering fresh farm produce
Stiff competition from local vendors and digital app-based delivery service providers is a
threat for the business. Providing similar customization and pricing options as those
offered by the competitors while constantly improving the quality standards is the key
to win over the competition. Further, collaborations can also help to kill the competition
and grow in the marketplace
3) Falling number of subscriptions
Introducing reward-point system and loyalty programs is the solution in this case. Make
the customers feel appreciated with the complimentary offerings and other sales
promotion offers
4) Focus of Omni-Channel Marketing Activities (Offline + Online)
A judicious blend of online and offline channels to promote the product can help
consumers get a superior customer experience. Moreover, use of targeted sensitizing ads
rather than direct promotions is the key. Arrangement of exhibitions and sample
offerings can also create a strong demand of the products
IT and Business Analysis (Reduced TAT, Superior Quality, Internal Efficiency, and Cost
Minimisation)
1) The problem of 6 hours of Turnaround Time (TAT)
Manual labor for harvesting, packing and sorting takes another 2 hours, which can be
minimized using automated machines for accelerated sorting and packing. Companies
such as Fresh Plaza, Unisorting and Unitec provide semi-automatic and fully-automatic
machines to conduct the sorting and packing of items in a much reduced time, and can
pack 1000 pouches per hour. Moreover, tractors and mechanized harvesters can help in
quick harvesting of crops from the farmland, instead of spending an hour there.

2. 2) Quality Considerations
Fresh Grower needs to invest in setting up small refrigeration units wherever it intends
to operate. It can store a specific amount of farm produce according to what the Machine
Learning models recommend. The freshness of the vegetables and fruits will have to be
ensured and therefore, the refrigeration units must be equipped with IoT sensors to
track the ambient temperature, relative humidity, and the pressure inside the
refrigeration units. The sensors will transmit important real-time data to a backend
database over a 4G network once every hour. The backend system will keep a track of
the environment parameters and will alert whenever the parameters have an anomaly.
3) Inventory Management and Cost Considerations
Based on historical order data, the ML models will recommend how much farm produce
must be harvested the next day and how much should be stored as a buffer stock. This
will ensure that Fresh Growers store only minimal amount of farm produce in the
refrigerators for those orders that arrive at odd times during the day. The entire data on
environment parameters, available inventory, and payments will be stored in the
database and will be made available in the MIS Reporting Tool.
4) Elimination of Redundancies and Inefficiencies
MIS Reporting Tools will help to visualize which processes are taking unnecessary long
times and how lead times can be reduced. This will help eliminate the wastage of
inventory, overproduction and defects. Moreover, the Finance team will be able to see
how cash outflows and inflows look like. The Marketing team will be able to visualize
which channels have contributed to the new and repeat orders, and which platform they
are arriving from. The Urchin Tracing Module (UTM) in the URLs used to place the
orders will help in tracking of marketing campaigns. Therefore, the marketing team will
be able to bring efficiencies to its marketing campaigns and portfolio of channels to drive
omni-channel strategy.
Finance (Enhanced Profitability, Controlled Risk, Better Returns, and Revenue
Producing Accelerated Offerings)
1) Less Profit Margins
As per the information supplied in the case study, the company is generating on an
average 30 INR as its profit margins per household order (INR 200 - INR 170), which
seems to be too less. The company must try to reduce the dependency on farmers and
must try to figure out ways to integrate backwards in the supply chain in order to
control and reduce the cost.
2) High Risk of the Owner

3. As it‟s a self-financed organization (owner has invested Rs.10 Lakh from his savings
as initial capital), there is a chance of huge business losses to be borne by the owner
as he is bearing all the risk. There should be judicious mix of debt and equity into
the company to diversify the capital structure and minimize the risk for the owner of
the business. This would be even more helpful in case of the expansion of the
business.
3) Expansion of Subscription- based delivery to subscription-based order
In order to increase the business sales revenue, the company must expand the scope
of its subscription-based delivery to subscription-based order selection. This will help
consumers to not only get additional services but also place regular customized
orders through apps with a click of a mouse.
HR (Motivation, Training, Development of Workforce, Stakeholder Management, and
Employer Branding)
1) Motivation of Field Workforce:
There are a lot of field workers involved in the procurement and delivery of fresh
produce. The efficiency of such workers plays a very important role in ensuring the
least turnaround time (TAT) in fulfilling the orders. Relevant motivational
techniques, majorly monetary incentives, need to be leveraged in keeping the
workforce interested in their respective jobs. Giving them timely performance-based
incentives and providing them with necessary capabilities play a pivotal role in
achieving the relevant targets.
2) Training and Development of Field Workers
Providing the field workers with required training and development from time-to-
time will help them in their career progression. A detailed plan of training and
development activities need to be chalked out and implemented to yield higher
productivity and lower TAT.
3) Changes in Selection Plan
The HR should focus on hiring contract labors/casual workers/temporary staff and
must frame their compensation strictly based on performance. This will not only help
in higher performance levels but will also help in cost savings for the company as a
whole.
4) Stakeholder Management
Another major concern for the HR department is the stakeholder management,
which includes relationship with suppliers and distributors of the company. As a
Business Partner, the company must bring in incentive plans for farmers, for
carrying out demand-based harvesting, so that their interests get aligned with that
of the company and it becomes a „Win-Win‟ strategy for both the parties. Not only

4. this, the HR must think to create new job positions on the field that can ensure
direct supervision over all the agricultural activities. This will bring in quality
control of the produce and will help the organization to achieve its USP on a
sustained basis.
5) Employer Branding: Last but not the least, the HR department must strictly
focus on establishing the brand equity of the company as an employer to retain
the workforce and build its goodwill in the market. This will not only help in
reputation management of the company but will also help to withstand stiff
competition from local suppliers and app-service providers. This can be done
through social media marketing, offline channels, testimonials, web presence
highlighting the sustainability goals of the company.