Submitted by: Submitted by amrishkumar
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Pages: 2
Category: Other Topics
Date Submitted: 03/31/2011 11:08 PM
ITC Group is a large diversified company with interests in tobacco, hospitality industry,
and more recently in consumer goods. The International Business Division (IBD) of the ITC
Group is responsible for procurement, processing, and export of agricultural commodities
including soybean, wheat, shrimp and coffee.
Over the past few years ITC-IBD has created an IT-enabled rural channel (called e-choupal)
that today touches 2500 villages. Until now this channel has primarily been used to drive
enormous efficiency in the procurement of commodities resulting in value creation for both
the company and the farmer. In addition the channel has created enormous social value by
making Internet penetration and global commercial engagement possible in a part of the
world where infrastructural, economic and social limitations had made these impossible
Last year a team of Michigan MBA students worked on a project w/ Prof. C.K. Prahalad to
understand and document this network. A brief write-up based on this report is attached1
.
This year, ITC approached us with a project to assist them in the next stage in the
evolution of the network which will attempt to leverage the procurement infrastructure
towards rural distribution of consumer products. Distribution is currently limited to a few
agri-inputs. ITC-IBD, however, is now exploring expansion of distribution capabilities to
include a broader range of products tailored to rural Indian conditions. The objective is to
reach rural markets with populations of approximately 5000.
The attached document gives a brief overview of the e-choupal system. I have also enclosed
an article that appeared in NY Times. Since most of the audience may not be familiar with
the e-choupal system, I will focus on presenting the highlights of this innovative IT-enabled
channel. The following questions will allow you to focus your thoughts on the e-choupal
system and how we could use to for teaching / research.
1. What...