AMUL, a Dairy Cooperative of Gujarat, India, was founded in India in 1946 and is the initiator of the White Revolution in India. The organization was formed to eliminate any exploitation by intermediaries by starting their own co-operative to take control of milk procurement, processing, and marketing. It is managed by Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd. (GCMMF).
Amul is known for implementing innovative business strategies during the pandemic. Let’s take a look at them.
New Product Development - A noticeable rise in demand for products containing herbal ingredients such as haldi, tulsi, and others was observed during the pandemic (Gupta,2020). Since, little knowledge and no certain treatment was available to fight against the virus, immunity boosters took a high-demand in the market. AMUL has released a series of products containing ingredients like haldi, tulsi, and ginger before pandemic but they gained immense popularity during COVID-19. AMUL adapted a strategy to cater the customer demands. It released a series of products with immunity boosting properties such as Haldi (turmeric) ice cream, Ginger Milk, Tulsi Milk, Haldi Milk and others.
Technological advantage- Artificial Intelligence in Supply Chain Management has completely transformed the workflow (Golwelkar, 2020). The need to create a platform that involves the functions carried out by all structures in the supply chain is a necessity. It includes sources of primary data such as manufactures, suppliers, retailers, shippers, distributors and customers. AMUL has a complex supply chain. Therefore it incorporated with IBM in 2009 to create a thorough roadmap of its supply chain.
Benefits for employees - The COVID-19 pandemic significantly decreased work opportunities for skill workers, daily-wage labours and even contract labours. To support and motivate the employees in difficult times like the pandemic, AMUL took a series of steps to improve employee satisfaction. Incentives were provided my AMUL to the contract workers, drivers, retailers, distributors and sales executive officers for working during the pandemic (Dharmalingam et al., 2021). In lieu of the pandemic, Amul decided to transfer $590,000 to milk farmers associations, a number which is 7.78% higher than the last financial year (Biswal,2020). As per the Chairperson of AMUL, after announcement of the lockdown, workers did not show up for work.
Evolving with E-commerce - COVID-19 restrictions forced the consumers to stay indoors and brought about a sudden change in the nature of shopping. Consumers had to make a shift from offline to online amid the pandemic. Rising insecurity and safety concerns among major part of the population led to rise in number of people ordering groceries and other essential commodities online.
