Case UnderstandingFresh Growers is Pune based company that procures and delivers fresh farm produces. The concept is named Farm- to-Table delivering the produce within 3 hours from farm to dinning table. However, the original model takes 6 hours for delivering the orders. Challenges were faced in marketing, convincing farmers to sell goods to fresh growers instead of its traditional practices. It follows a subscription-based model and the number of subscribers increased due to lockdown impact. But afterwards there is considerate decrease in the number of subscribers since 2020-21 quarter 3. The company wants to expand its business to at least 3 metro cities in the next 2 years and wants to meet its current and future expansion goals by developing business models and business process reengineering.

BCS Solution SummaryThe management information system for the reporting of all the logistics and transportation would be beneficial in understanding the overall delivery of the process in terms of profit/loss, customer analytics, strategic management, database management, analysis of the market/industry and various IT tools for automating the whole reporting process and creating business reports for targeting new clients/customers, filling the gaps in the demand and supply. It would include all the operations including financial, administration, logistics, customers, performance analysis and bottlenecks.

Solution

Management Information System is important to keep a track of the day-to-day activities. It could be used to draw insights of the overall operations, logistics, market data, clients, financial analysis, building business models, etc.

The proposed MIS would include a real-time analysis of the logistics and fast-tracked reporting capabilities that would be covering from the point of origin to the point of consumption data. This would help in identifying the improvement or weak areas of the chain to integrated them for achieving cost effective alternatives. The key features would include the following:

• Business analysis for the comprehensive logistics system.
• Interactive interface for all the transportation and logistics dashboards to keep record.
• Analysis of delivery routes and the delivery performance for fleet management.
• Easy standardization of all the logistics reports.
• Periodic analysis of the business i.e., daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly in a standardized format.
• Comparisons of the company performance, per delivery profit/loss analysis.
• Business continuity analysis in case of unprecedented times like accidents and breakdowns.
• Industry and competitor analysis, customizable information dashboards according to the changing business requirements.

The sample of MIS for logistics reporting:

This system could be used for tracking the performance and database at different places (existing city Pune and other potential cities) at the management admin portal. It could be used for comparing the performance across different cities.

The whole MIS is divided into 4 step analysis:

• Selection of the product by the customers.
• Procurement which includes the forecasting, purchasing, ordering and receiving from the farmers.
• Distribution which includes warehousing, packaging, processing the orders.
• Transport to the end customers.

Management principles used:

Agile methodology would be used to implement the components in the MIS i.e., the delivery performance, customer analytics and competitor analysis along with power BI in sprints and test them in a phased wise manner. This would help in the continuity of the process without any dependency on other systems.

Risk analysis is important as the plan would be in compliance with the market need gap analysis. Launching in a new place, competitors, industry disruptions etc. would be taken into account.

Business Intelligence could be used to analyze the quarterly analysis comparing to the past reports. It would help in making strategic decisions and identifying bottlenecks in the process.

Security analysis for the cloud. As the data would be available in the cloud database there are security measures which should be incorporated. Blockchain could be used for such management.

Business continuity plans for unprecedented times such as system breakdown, accidental disruptions in the system, power failures etc. to keep the systems accessible and functional for the business.

Real-time performance tracking would help in changing the system process according to the changing requirements.

Technologies:

AI/ML/IoT to understand the needs of the customers and provide a seamless user interface for the customers for ordering through apps. Providing recommendations based on previous ordering. Chatbots for customer service and feedbacks.

Signal processing in order to live track the orders both for the company as well as for the clients/customers.

Benefits:

• Accurate data availability for apt business decisions.
• Increase in the transparency of the operations which helps in identifying the bottlenecks.
• Easy competitor analysis in order to make better strategic decisions to maintain an upper hand in the industry.
• Continuous improvements by comparing the decision parameters incorporated in the company.
• The information available to the top management at one place for all the logistics.
• Identifying the opportunity areas to strengthen the business.

ConclusionThe proposed system is a one stop solution for all the business analysis. It will improve the transparency among the company and its clients/customers which will enhance their customer experience. The MIS could also help in identifying the bottlenecks in activities and reduce the delivery time from 6 hours to 4 hours while improving the efficiency of the sorting cleaning and packaging; transport to consumer's place activities. It will help to find the places which are exceeding the demands to supply and vice versa, filling the gaps and increasing the market share and number of subscribers. This system will give a detailed analysis of the overall activities to be performed, their status and costs which would help the company sustain in the long run.