ITC E-Choupal: Case Of Indian Business
ITC e-CHOUPAL
Summary
India is a country that has a substantial stake in the agriculture sector and the fact that this sector alone is home to 72% of the population and employs around 60% of the population is enough to understand that Indian economy cannot grow without considering the needs of the agriculture sector. Agriculture has always been at the heart of the Indian economy but throughout India’s post independence history it has been a center piece for politics rather than empowering the farmers through proper tools, training and platform. ITC Limited’s International Business Division (IBD) tried to eliminate the very inefficiencies in this sector to some extent and was rather successful.
By 1999 ITC’s IBD was lagging behind its other …show more content…
Before this the farmers had no other means of price discovery because of physical and legal constraints as selling outside the mandi were legally prohibited. ITS was able to convince the government, aided by the transparency of the whole procedure, of the potential benefits of the initiative and hence modify the law to allow trading of a few agriculture commodities outside the mandi. The whole initiative was built on trust. It did not constrain the farmers to sell their produce to ITC but it enabled their decision making through convenient and accurate price discovery sitting at home without having to the mandi with all their produce.
The physical architecture of ITS e-Choupal was based on having a web kiosk within a walking distance (approximately 5 kms) and a hub within the driving distance. The hubs were the places where the farmers could bring in their produce, get it weighed on computerized scales and get paid immediately along with the reimbursement of the cost of travelling and bringing in the produce to the hubs. The processing facility also had a soil testing lab where the soil samples provided by the farmers were analyzed and farmers were given choice to choose the fertilizers according to the analysis of the …show more content…
Some countries may not have the concept of village as is traditionally understood in India, while in others the legal constraints might make it difficult to implement even the basics But the underlying feature of e-Choupal was the relationship based in trust that ITC developed with the farmers before being able to leverage the opportunity. As for any other country outside India it will have to build a relationship of trust while trying to leverage technology to eliminate the
Summary
India is a country that has a substantial stake in the agriculture sector and the fact that this sector alone is home to 72% of the population and employs around 60% of the population is enough to understand that Indian economy cannot grow without considering the needs of the agriculture sector. Agriculture has always been at the heart of the Indian economy but throughout India’s post independence history it has been a center piece for politics rather than empowering the farmers through proper tools, training and platform. ITC Limited’s International Business Division (IBD) tried to eliminate the very inefficiencies in this sector to some extent and was rather successful.
By 1999 ITC’s IBD was lagging behind its other …show more content…
Before this the farmers had no other means of price discovery because of physical and legal constraints as selling outside the mandi were legally prohibited. ITS was able to convince the government, aided by the transparency of the whole procedure, of the potential benefits of the initiative and hence modify the law to allow trading of a few agriculture commodities outside the mandi. The whole initiative was built on trust. It did not constrain the farmers to sell their produce to ITC but it enabled their decision making through convenient and accurate price discovery sitting at home without having to the mandi with all their produce.
The physical architecture of ITS e-Choupal was based on having a web kiosk within a walking distance (approximately 5 kms) and a hub within the driving distance. The hubs were the places where the farmers could bring in their produce, get it weighed on computerized scales and get paid immediately along with the reimbursement of the cost of travelling and bringing in the produce to the hubs. The processing facility also had a soil testing lab where the soil samples provided by the farmers were analyzed and farmers were given choice to choose the fertilizers according to the analysis of the …show more content…
Some countries may not have the concept of village as is traditionally understood in India, while in others the legal constraints might make it difficult to implement even the basics But the underlying feature of e-Choupal was the relationship based in trust that ITC developed with the farmers before being able to leverage the opportunity. As for any other country outside India it will have to build a relationship of trust while trying to leverage technology to eliminate the