LEADING IN UNCERTAIN TIMES – 5
Part 1 of 2
Amul: the little girl who beat the giant crisis
When the Prime Minister announced the nationwide lockdown on March 24, Rupinder Singh Sodhi was among the millions who rushed out to buy whatever they could to stock up for an uncertain future. All he could get from the nearest milk booth were two small packs of curd and a pouch of butter milk.
The first thought in his mind was not how to pacify his wife. But how to reassure a substantial portion of India’s 1.2 billion population that they would continue to get their daily milk and other milk products, regardless of the lockdown. He quickly shot a video and shared it, assuring the country just that. After all, Dr R S Sodhi was the Managing Director of the Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation Limited (GCMMF), the owner of Amul brand.
A mammoth chain, a delicate product
Dairying and animal husbandry are the source of livelihood for around 100 million milk producer families of India. This sector contributes around 28% to the agriculture GDP and 4.5% to the national GDP. With an annual production of 188 million metric tons per annum worth ₹8 trillion, milk surpasses the combined value of wheat and paddy produced in the country.
Every day, GCMMF collects 21 million liters of milk from 3.6 million farmers, spread across 18,600 villages and transports this milk to 84 dairy factories, located across the country. Amul products (fresh, chilled, frozen and ambient) are then transported through four distribution highways to 200 warehouses. From these warehouses, the products are moved to thousands of distributors and then to more than a million retail stores, scattered across India. If those numbers are not enough to indicate the size and complexity of the supply chain, bear in mind that milk is a perishable product.
From cow to customer
The B2B world is dependent on a strong supply chain. It is no different for Amul which depends on the “C2C (cow to consumer)” and the “B2C (buffalo to consumer)” supply chain.
As the king of this sector, Amul, the billionaire brand did not sit back and wait for the crisis to clear. Instead, they were quick to act and nimble on their feet. They never lost sight of their customers.
How did a co-operative, thoroughly dependent on a robust supply chain, keep up its growth and the morale of its members, while all around them huge corporations were struggling to stay up? It is an interesting story full of lessons for all of us.
Read more in Part 2 of this story.