IFFCO: Mobile Manuring

Started in 1967, IFFCO is one the largest multi-cooperative
societies with over 40,000 cooperatives under its umbrella. It has got a
turnover in excess of $2 bn and has plants spread over India at five locations.
The entire activities of distribution, sales and promotion are co-coordinated by
Marketing Central Office (MKCO) at New Delhi with the assistance of the
marketing offices in the field. In addition, essential agro-inputs for crop
production are made available to the farmers through a chain of 158 Farmers
Service Center.

Being a leading cooperative organization in India, IFFCO's
production is supply driven and not demand driven. This necessitates warehouses
to be prepared for unexpected supply of fertilizers in terms of micro planning
for the storage and the distribution and it continues to be a big challenge for
IFFCO.

IFFCO has been at the forefront in adopting IT and telecom
technologies to develop and implement integrated information and decision
support systems including areas of production, dispatch, material, finance and
HRD. It also has a campus-wide area network with email and Internet facilities
for communication.

Until now, IFFCO had no mechanism by which information could be
automatically sent out to the warehouses after the uploading of the material on
the wagons/trucks. Information was communicated verbally over the phone
resulting in high missed rate. To plug this loophole, IFFCO wanted a
communication solution that was cost effective and fully automated.

The company was looking for a solution that uses mobile channel
for delivering the information. They considered a two-way communication over
mobile channel. The company wanted complete integration with the existing system
with a secure means of information transfer and scalable architecture for future
requirements. The solution was ValueFirst's Velocity, an SMS suite to send SMS
in a complex database environment to fulfill any customer need related to SMS
transactions in an automated or a manual mode. This offered enterprise-wide user
licenses with ability to manage users and SMS credit.

The solution allowed the wagon number and upload details to be
sent as an SMS to the destination region in-charge. After the
receipt/non-receipt of wagon/truck, the in-charge sends that information from
his mobile phone. Weekly MIS on supply are also sent to the top management.

The SMS gateway solution from ValueFirst simplified the process
of conveying information, bringing tangible benefits to IFFCO. The company is
planning to expand the scope of services for other functions including
production and HR.

Sudesh Prasad

sudeshp@cybermedia.co.in