Can you outsource manufacturing to a distributed field force?
Is that even possible? That is what our customer thought when we suggested this in response to a query by him.
A few months ago, when Covid-19 started, my company, Brisk Olive, was conducting India-wide skilling programs for adults on behalf of a social foundation.
During the delivery of the service, the Covid-19 virus hit the country. And that is when the head of the foundation asked me, “Can you suggest someone who can quickly manufacture 10,000 masks for us?” And I answered, “Well, we could do that.”
Here’s how we planned and executed the task successfully:
Step 1: Earmarking the field force. We identified households with stitching machines, sent them the mask design, and asked them how many they could make per day. Then we asked them for a paid sample and asked them to share photos of the manufactured masks. A paid sample assures the distributed field force that you mean business! Once we saw the samples, we shortlisted our outsourced team, making sure to have reserves up our sleeve.
Step 2: Then we appointed, as QA representative, the most experienced and strict quality assurance guy from our distributed field force. And we promised him an amount per mask approved and a penalty per mask rejected.
Step 3: We purchased the raw material – cloth and elastic bands and dispatched it to our distributed field force.
That is it! We had the masks ready in no time. It was a win-win for our client, for us, and for our distributed field force!
With the added great feeling for our client, that they had not only gotten masks made but that these had been made by families of veterans in a remote area – and had provided them a source of earning!
Businesses that have a desire to carry out large tasks but don’t have the means or the required manpower to fulfill the task can always outsource these types of tasks without the added headache of employing new people.
Taking something across a country like India – or the world, for that matter – is usually a huge challenge. It requires massive resources. For products, this is tough. For services, the challenge is greater, as good services must maintain strict service level quality standards across the scale. If such services are outsourced to a company like Brisk Olive then it seems less tough and doable.
Brisk Olive is a unique organization that helps businesses and organizations expand their operations across India. It does this through India’s largest field force of 25000+ trained and hand-picked ex-soldiers, across all 741 districts of the country.
