ITC's echoupal: An Overview

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ITCs e-Choupal An Overview
Kuttayan Annamalai Sachin Rao University of
Michigan Business School
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e-Choupals An Overview
Sanchalak
ITC
Village
VSAT/ Internet Information Flow
ITC Local Hub
Samyojak Physical Flow
Agricultural Best-Practices, Weather, FAQs
Prices
Produce
Virtuous Cycle
Aggregated demand for inputs
Agricultural Inputs
Information from the trenches
Ideas for new products and services
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Farmers Gains

• Access to information
• Empowered decisions
• Improved agriculture
• Economic benefits through lower transaction costs
  and process efficiencies
• Served with dignity
• Knowledge bundled sale of goods and services
• Co-opted in product design
• Hope for a brighter future

4
ITCs Gains

• Lower procurement costs
• Direct interaction with farmers - Control on
  quality supply security
• Low cost distribution channel
• Access to market intelligence

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Role of Technology

• Allows ITC to communicate with a million farmers
• Enables real time information access
• Price discovery
• Captures farm-level intelligence
• Improves productivity through agricultural
  education
• Orchestrates network that makes e-Choupal
  possible
• IT enabled network of partnerships
• Agricultural research centers, input
  providers, banks, agents, and farmers