Livestock online marketplace “Pashushala.com”: standardizing unstandardized operating procedures

Abstract

Learning outcomes

It enables students to understand and design a business model canvas, design standard operating procedure (SOP) for very unorganized business operations and also devise base pricing for vendor negotiation.

Case overview/synopsis

Mr Gaurav Chaudhary, chief executive officer and Founder of Pashushala.com, established a first-ever Livestock online marketplace in India, leveraging the penetration of internet users in 2019. Pashsuhala.com evolved as an all-inclusive ecosystem that offered an innovative business model by bundling financial aid, logistics, veterinary and insurance solutions to its buyers and sellers. While every other aspect seemed to have had fallen in place, Gaurav was not convinced with the everyday handling of the cattle especially during transportation. Transporting cattle was the most challenging task tempered with issues such as changing weather conditions, stock density, lack of training on handling cattle while loading and unloading, long journey hours, feeding and watering procedures and many more for which Gaurav had to depend on the logistics partners. Gaurav was in a dilemma whether to have his own fleet armed with trained personnel for transporting the cattle or to streamline the existing operating procedures into SOP to be followed by logistics partners. If he continued with logistics partners he also had to work on standard costs i.e. fixed and variable costs incurred during the transportation of livestock. The case deals with business concepts such as supply chain risk management in the livestock sector, SOPs for a very unstructured and unpredictable ecosystem, pricing strategies and business model canvas.

Complexity academic level

Masters in business administration (MBA) and Executive MBA level.

Supplementary materials

Teaching Notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

Subject code

CSS 9: Operations and Logistics.

Citation

Sharma, A.J. and Bhat, S. (2021), "Livestock online marketplace “Pashushala.com”: standardizing unstandardized operating procedures", , Vol. 11 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/EEMCS-09-2020-0336