The eChoupal has provided the services that increase efficiency of all stakeholders along the value chain. These services have been offered through the website, which encompasses the sense of "community". The website includes real-time weather information and forecasts; best practices of farming approaches; crop information; market information; panel-like experts on general questions and customized questions; and relevant news. The new services have completely reengineered the old supply chain, leading to significantly reduce inefficiencies that were evidenced in several interfaces along the chain.
ITC has introduced information technology into agricultural business in India. . The eChoupal kiosks have been set up to facilitate a new supply chain. This new technology-integrated supply chain has addressed several difficulties in the past. The following sections will lay out the inefficiencies of the traditional supply chain management; describe the ITC eChoupal Initiative; and analyze how eChoupal enhances the soybean supply chain. The future platform will also be discussed.
Traditional Soybean Procurement
There are several inefficiencies occurred in the traditional supply chain. First, the only means for price discovery is at the mandi. Although farmers might forecast the price from the previous days, they cannot know the real price in advance before they reach the mandi. In this way, they have to incur considerable amount of logistic costs. Without real-time information about price and demand, farmers cannot make effective decision about when/where/how much to sell or produce. Since the selling price is not discovered before reaching the mandi, the farmers earn low profits or are even in deficit, leaving them in...
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...uence their farming practices through eChoupal’s information website.
Since they have the physical networks set up through wide areas, ITC may want to apply the concept of eChoupal to some other products as well in order to exploit the economies of scope. They can leverage the e-Choupal procurement to improve efficiencies of other products.
In the future economy, the agriculture business would be largely driven by consumer needs. The demand for variety would increase. The physical network of eChoupal will be strategic locations where they can grade and route customized supplies to meet the variety needs. Furthermore, ITC may need to have the ability to trace the origin of the products. Having the e-Choupal set up, ITC can easily integrate future consumer’s needs into the eChoupal network. The eChoupal has provided a solid business platform for the future.
Local rather than global and small rather than large, the increase in these less conventional manners of production can be seen in the increased abundance of farmers’ markets, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), and community gardens. Farmers’ markets are common areas where farmers meet on a regular basis and sell various fresh produce directly to the consumers. The number of farmer’s markets between 1994 and 2014 has increased from around 2,000 to 8,000 (ers.usda.gov). Farmer’s offers an aesthetic that Walmart cannot provide—the opportunity to be personable. The consumer is able to see who grew the food, ask how it was grown, and will not be dazzled by fancy packaging or advertisements.
Alibaba is a large online and mobile marketplace for consumers, suppliers, and investors. The firm’s mission is “to make it easy to do business anywhere” (Alibaba Group, 2016, para.1). This is done by providing technology and services to aid consumers, suppliers, and other participants to conduct trade globally (Alibaba Group, 2016,
First of all and the most important element of the effective supply chain is information technology. High information technology effic...
With the purchase order system, the company creates a contract with the farmers. With a Purchase Order, the farmer agrees and guarantees to sell a set quantity of farm produce to Thomas Foods for an agreed price over an agreed period of time. The system allows the company to hedge against price increases and as well ensure that they have a constant supply of farm produce to supply to their customers at all
There are several trends within the agriculture industry causing it to progress. Advance technology (production, information, transportation), increasing reliance on information, importance of controlling economic resources, understanding how to direct human resources, understanding consumer demand, recognizing the integration of businesses, identifying the impact of concerns about the environment, food safety, food availability and food cost and appreciating the implication of globalizations are all trends that increasing the production of agriculture (Trends in Agriculture — Agricultural Law and Management, n.d.) In order to continue to be an advancing industry they must have valuable leaders within the field of
For example, business management Gardenia and Massimo branded bread. Almost all of manufacturing management from Gardenia bread factory using information technology systems. Manufactu...
Coolcargo and Frito-Lay implemented technical solutions for agricultural-products transportation following customers’ requirements. Coolcargo developed a transport-system for maintain fresh asparagus at controlled temperature from production site in Thailand to final destination in UK (UOL, 2013). Frito-Lay developed a global agile supply-chain for manufacturing and distributing salty-snacks to end-customers that allows processing agricultural-products in less than 24 hours for flavor guarantee (PepsiCo, 2013).
According to Wisner & Tan (2000), supply chain management was used in wholesaling and retailing. It was described the integration of logistics and physical distribution function with the goal of reducing delivery lead time. Manufacturers and their suppliers can reduce cost, improve quality and delivery timing. Supply chain management is related with purchasing strategy, logistics, supplier integration, value chain management, supply base management, strategic supplier alliances, lean manufacturing, Just-in-Time (JIT), and supply chain synchronization. There are some benefits in a successful supply chain management. Supply chain management can reduce response time across the supply chain,
In India every year about Rs. 50,000 crore worth of food produce is wasted. This is mainly because of the non-availability of proper infrastructure for storage and transportation of food products. McDonald's is committed to providing quality products and also supporting other Indian businesses. For this purpose McDonalds spent a few years setting up a unique Supply Chain, even before it started first restaurant in India. The McDonald’s supply chain is very critical and multi-layered. There are two categories in food ingredients supply, Tier-I and Tier-II suppliers.
Supply Chain Management is the science that improves the ways companies use raw materials to make a product or service and deliver it to the customer. Every product that reaches an end consumer is the result of a cooperative effort between several organizations. This means companies need to manage their product, not just inside of the business walls, but the path that their product takes to reach the final consumer. If companies only focus on their product and do not follow its way to the market, many inefficiencies may occur in the companies supply chain (Baltzan 2014). Businesses who cooperate in a successful supply chain are linked with one another and allow an easy flow ...
The Internet allows companies to increase and strengthen their presence on the market, offers possibilities for market development and increases sales, improves services for customers, allows companies to change a potential custo...
By adopting the value chain into a manufacturing company, it will gain efficiency, effectiveness, reduce the product cost and improve continuously. For example, Toyota has implemented Toyota Product System (TPS) integrated information system with the business process which allowed the company to be more efficiency, effectiveness and reduce inventory cost. (Toyota
Coyle, J., Langley, C., Gibson, B., Novack, R. and Bardi, E. (2008).Supply Chain Management: A Logistics Perspective. 8th ed. Cengage Learning, p.366.
The sales of fruits and vegetables require special marketing method because such produce have ripening and storage issues unlike grains. So, various marketing methods are required for quick and effective sale of such produces, through middleman or on-farm stall, or quick set up in the local market to get the produces. Many large cities often have a central produce market that takes in the fruits and vegetables and supplies them to the local supermarkets and restaurant so that they can be sold off quickly. The development of ripening technologies and refrigeration has reduced the problems with getting produce to market in good condition. The commercial agriculture has a six contains key
Optionally a full report of an abstract or a newsletter containing only headlines can be ordered. These emails can be featured with hyperlinks that users can follow to access the full content on companies’ website. Hence, environmental reporting has to be fine tuned according to different information needs of various target groups. Thereby, internet-based push and pull technology is an efficient tool. They enable companies to offer online reporting on demand and to provide individual environmental information. For better performance of supply chain, it is important to maintain environmental information because of increasing competition between different competitors. The whole business process is content between manufacturers, suppliers and intermediate trade form, called supply chains. To keep these supply chains effective, better and profitable, information has to be exchanged freely between the participating business partners. The intended stable partnerships imply extensive communications along the whole Supply