SCM update

Been doing a lot of research in the rural supply chain space and it is clear that no one is doing what we are doing. Which really sucks for me, cause I've built a career on plagiarizing from the web. What am I supposed to do now?

The supply chain project is huge, and there is no way we could solve it in my short time here. Instead I've narrowed my scope down to just the delivery aspects of the entire supply chain. I've mapped out a (very) high level diagram of the Drishtee process. It's a pretty simple process.



I am focused on the red box and all the integration that comes with it. (CCE = Call Center Executive)

There are 3 basic hardware solutions -
1) Cell phone paired with a mobile printer
2) 5-7" netbook linux laptops paired with a mobile printer
3) Mobile POS terminals (with built in printers)

The links are just examples of the kinds of products we're looking at. The netbook option is really not viable, given that laptops have sucky battery life. And also, given the harsh conditions in rural India (think monsoons), I just can't see any laptop cutting it.

The best case would be a Mobile POS terminal, because it's just one handy device. But they can be relatively expensive, compared to the cell phone solution. Specially if we want to get a foreign brand - import duty really sucks. The device also has to be user friendly, and the cheaper POS terminals dont come with good input interfaces. The cell phone solution is clearly the most flexible, and given that our requirements are not tied down it is easy to go for the cell phone product that is cheap and so ubiquitous. Lots of small tradeoff's, and we don't really have the time to run a good due diligence process. It's going to have to be a hypothesis based approach. Risky, but I feel fairly confident that we'll be able to pick a good hardware solution.

The challenge will be what is the best approach to developing this solution. Bringing all the verticals on to this single platform will be interesting. I think we're going to have to leave microfinance out for the first phase. Their needs are so completely different that it would be silly to force their requirements in for phase 1. I'm also wary of developing the solution internally. I think the tech group is probably qualified to build the integration with the back end systems, but developing the secure communication infrastructure and a client app might not be the best use of the Drishtee tech team (specially if the client app is on a 3rd party mobile POS terminal). The appetite to outsource aspects of the project is pretty low. I've got to figure out how to make the case for this. It is true though that the budget and timeline increases if we invite external partners in. I also think that there are generic secure communication channels out there that we should just leverage. These are being used for mobile payments etc. We'd have to adapt it for our needs, and there are partners out there who want to include us in their communication environment.

My other big concern is the lack of an overarching program plan. I've defined the narrow scope of my project, but it fits into the larger SCM program and while there is a vision (which others can articulate), there is no high level plan for how to achieve this vision. This really makes it difficult to assess tradeoffs in the long term. For example, in parallel to the SCM process is a separate cash settlement process (which has a bigger impact on microfinance). We could be doing some intelligent design right now to quickly automate some of our cash settlement challenges. There are a lot of moving pieces to this puzzle, and I just don't feel like I've got a handle on the big picture yet. Unnerves me.


PS: My field visit to Sultanpur UP this week to observe the Education and Microfinance delivery processes was postponed. I've come down with a mild case of Delhi belly. It was going to happen sooner or later. I'm a little bummed - was really looking forward to going back into the field.