New Products – Dutch Uncles

What Are The New Products and Services In Agritech?

Anju Nambiar — Wed, 31 Mar 2021 00:35:05 +0000

The Agritech sector is all charged up. Not only are funding and investments coming in from all sides, the perception of what farming and agriculture has typically been like has dramatically changed in less than a year. Now when you think agriculture, the image of a debt ridden farmer with his hands praying upwards for the rains no longer comes to mind.

Agritech’s powerful combination of technology and innovation has managed to make the troubles of the Agriculture sector a thing of the past. Add to that, the changes in policies that work to the benefit of farmers are proving to be beneficial for Agritech start-ups. The Agritech sector has seen some of the most innovative products and services including but not restricted to Farming Technology solutions, B2B agriculture marketplaces, farm-to-fork produce, etc.

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The AgriTech sector is growing rapidly with new products and services to choose from, this year.

New products and services in Agritech

Agritech platforms

Pre and post-harvest agritech platforms are a new product on the block. They are technology solutions that integrate the movement of food and agricultural commodities along the supply chain.

These platforms are essentially full-stack products for the entire supply chain of commodities, right from production to distribution, and everything in between.

Farm-to-table Online store

The next innovative product/solution in Agritech which start-ups can consider is a ‘farm-to-table’ online store. This idea essentially bridges the gap between farmers and direct consumers, enabling farmers to directly list their produce like raw rice online which consumers can directly place online orders for. This full-fledged online store service is ideal for farmers to list their high-quality produce targeting direct consumers without the hassles of collaborating with middlemen. Doorstep delivery, online tracking are great ways to enable the farm-to-fork concept.

Agrochemicals Products and Manufacturing

Becoming an agrochemical company is a good idea for Agritech start-ups since specialty products supply is currently a viable option in this sector.

Although the cost of chemical prices are visibly high, there are a number of agrochemical companies already making profits owing to optimal conditions for growth.

Herbicides and Fungicides are great products to showcase. Due to the steady demand for these products in the growing Agritech sector, they have been flying off the shelves and are sure to see high sales. Dhanuka Agritech, an Indian Agrochemical manufacturing start-up is an example which achieved a growth rate of 125% in 2020.

Mobile Pick-Up Stations

Mobile Pick-Up Stations (MPS) for supply is a solid product/service idea in Agritech which MSMEs can consider. MPS are a Farmers – to – Business (F2B) concept which offers sustainable pick-up solutions for fresh farm produce right from the farm gate.

MPS is a sustainable idea which is also a farm-to-table concept, but instead of end consumers it reaches the produce to food businesses like restaurants and F&B retail companies.

The MPS business model is already being utilised by ‘Agrowave’, a Delhi NCR-based Agritech start-up which has managed to raise $700,000 in a Pre-Series A funding round.

What’s in it for me?

AgriTech start-ups in India are winning funding and solving problems of rural farmers through technology and innovation. This is the apt time to create your own AgriTech business since sustainable solutions are the need of the hour.

With all the new products and services we’ve read so far, you can pick up on the most interesting ideas and add value through your own venture.

Farmers assistance by offering advisory or tech marketplaces are brilliant ways to capitalize the already expanding technology penetration among rural farmers.

Bringing the traditional farm supply chain to a digital setting is a great direction to take as an AgriTech enterprise with technology available to hold your hand along the way.

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What are the New Products and Services in Travel and Hospitality?

Shalmoli Sarkar — Sat, 27 Mar 2021 08:35:04 +0000

It has been a year since the camera in the closet is waiting to capture new photos. The dust has settled on the luggage bags. The passport is waiting to get stamped again. With travel restrictions announced, wedding banquet halls booking and business conferences cancelled, 2020 has caused severe jolts to the travel and hospitality industry due to covid-19.

The Federation of Associations in Indian Tourism and Hospitality (FAITH), has estimated the industry’s losses for FY21 to ₹15 trillion because of the pandemic, which is a threefold increase from ₹5 trillion loss estimated in March.

Although vaccination drives are on, and the apprehensions of travelling in the pandemic are gradually easing amongst people, the industry is yet to pull its socks to revive and reach the growth momentum of pre-covid levels. The pandemic has altered consumer behaviour, which has given birth to new traveller expectations. The expectations will be based on –

Safety: both perception and reality will matter
Health: Government will introduce mandatory checks
Hygiene game to be strong.
Those brands will be considered winners who will not compromise on delivering quality.
Value for money: Travel and hospitality businesses should not find this to be an opportunity to charge exorbitantly, thus the new mantra to be good value for good money.

The travel and hospitality industry to stay afloat in such grim times need to up their game by bringing innovations in their product and services.

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The Federation of Associations in Indian Tourism and Hospitality (FAITH), has estimated the industry’s losses for FY21 to ₹15 trillion because of the pandemic, which is a threefold increase from ₹5 trillion loss estimated in March.

Implementing Speech analytics in Travel and hospitality

The travel and hospitality industry is people intrinsic, thus poor customer service will cause blunders here. Few customer complaints handled poorly will shift the customer loyalty in no time. Thus, the implementation of speech analytics in aviation and hospitality will aid in determining the customer demands and expectations from customer care representatives and set benchmarks of best customer handling practices. The speech analytics tool records the conversation, analyses the words, phrases, and tones used by both customer and customer care to generate better insights. The tool reduces the average handle time, which increases productivity and customer satisfaction.

Redefining business travels and work from home

Where work-from-home model guarantees comfort within the home environment, but the interference of daily house chores at times interrupts the working. Therefore, hotels can redefine themselves to be ‘collaborative hotels’ for the remote working employees who come for business travels. Hotels can provide quiet and peaceful workplaces for remote teams to work solo. Such hotels will be located near worker’s homes.

The subscription model in Travel and Hospitality

The subscription model in hospitality is not new, but hotels and travel companies can design subscription models based on the number of monthly travels that a particular job role requires. For instance- a job role like sales professionals, medical representatives, travel writers, etc. requires extensive travelling. Hotels can offer a subscription-based model that will charge a one-time fee in which the employee can make a particular number of visits and stays monthly or quarterly. Hotels and travel companies in collaboration with the corporates can come up with an attractive stay and travel subscription model plans.

Data-driven analytics and recommending better

Travel systems generate a ton of data. Leveraging the travel data by predictive analytics helps businesses to create services based on consumer insights and expectations. A smart data strategy allows to understand the demographics of new travellers and their choice of price points that will help travel and hospitality business to design loyalty packages, budget accommodation, shared-ride facilities, offer gluten-free room menus to customers following a diet, promoting honeymoon packages to those recently engaged or budget flight options for college students. It strengthens the recommendation game, for instance, a budget traveller looking for cheap flights is likely to book economical hotel stays, with analytics businesses can understand behaviour and recommend relevant products and services, which will drive sales and increase revenue.

New Travel Packages

Since, international holidays and country trips have taken a backseat, the work from home model has made life mundane. Travel companies can utilise this monotony of life, to create new holiday packages based on experiences or hobbies which people have long forgotten like going to cycling hikes, fishing, sailing, walking tours, nature villages, road trips, near city travelling, etc.

What is there for the travel and hospitality startups?

The use of technology and people experiences will help the digital-first travel and hospitality chains or startups to remain resilient in such dark times. Startups operating in this sector need to infuse flexibility in every decision so that you can prepare for the challenges ahead to understand a customer well and bring new services and packages to increase revenue.

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The Toughest Question During Ideation: What Product You Want to Make and What Industry You Want to Be In?

Chayanika Sen — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 10:35:05 +0000

Ideation is the most vital part of any business. It is a process where you think about problems and ideate solutions to solve those problems. Ideation can be done through a series of ideation techniques like sketching, brainwriting, brainstorming, prototyping, worst possible ideas, and so on.

Ideation is the most interesting and challenging phase for any startup. It is interesting because you can explore different avenues and develop a wide range of options that you can explore. At the same time, it is challenging because you need to narrow down your choices to come up with the most viable product.

According to d.school, ‘An Introduction to Design Thinking PROCESS GUIDE’, “Ideation is the mode of the design process in which you concentrate on idea generation. Mentally it represents a process of ‘going wide’ in terms of concepts and outcomes. Ideation provides both the fuel and also the source material for building prototypes and getting innovative solutions into the hands of your users.”

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Mentally, ideation represents a process of ‘going wide’ in terms of concepts and outcomes.

Why is ideation important?

Ideation is a critical phase that helps you to:

Ask the right question with the focus on your users to innovate solutions that your users will absolutely love.

Get past the obvious questions, drive your team to focus beyond the obvious.

You have a large number of quality ideas to choose from.

Each team member gets the opportunity to bring out his/her perspective so that you have a large variety of innovative options.

Do we really need ideation?

Don Norman, the Grand Old Man of User Experience, takes us a step backward and helps us think about why we need to challenge assumptions. He reinforces us to ask stupid questions and provoke our present understanding. He mentions that it is not at all stupid to ask stupid questions.

“You ideate to transition from identifying problems to creating solutions for your users. Ideation is your chance to combine the understanding you have of the problem space and people you are designing for with your imagination to generate solution concepts. Particularly early in a design project, ideation is about pushing for the widest possible range of ideas from which you can select, not simply finding a single, best solution.”

What questions to ask during an ideation session?

Ideation is the most critical phase for any startup, and every startup needs to start with this phase when you ask what product you want to make and what industry you want to be in. This is the toughest question to answer during your ideation process.

Know that you want to build a product and enter into a new market not because you think you have a great product but because your customers absolutely love it. Remember, your solution is going to solve someone’s frustrations at once.

Deciding the industry and the product you want to build

Most startup founders think that they have an amazing product idea, and once they make the product, people will come and turn into loyal customers or users. But unfortunately, that is not the case. First, you need to identify if there is really a need for your product? Here is a quote from a failed founder. “I realized that essentially we had no customers because we were working to make a doctor’s office amazing, while all the doctors wanted were more patients.”

Thus, for your startup to succeed, you need to identify your target market. Do you know that most startups fail because the founders created a product that had no market need? So, it is necessary to identify the market you want to be in. How do you decide which markets you want to be in? Here are some deciding factors that would help you to get started asking the right questions.

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Ideation is about pushing for the widest possible range of ideas from which you can select, not simply finding a single, best solution.

Start by asking who?

Ask who is your target audience to better profile your target audience. Remember, you are asking them questions to better profile your target audience. So, your who questions need not be restricted to only the obvious questions like gender, age, or marital status, especially if these parameters are not going to affect the product usage. You can leverage web analytics, surveys, and interviews to find the answer to your question.

The next question to ask is what?

The ‘what’ question is super effective in identifying the target market. For example, what is the purchasing motivation of your product? Or, what are the frustrations they face? Answering such questions would help you narrow down your search.

When?

Knowing ‘when’ helps you to determine some important factors, especially if your product is seasonal or time-dependent. For example, if you’re into SaaS – B2B industry, the decision-makers might be interested in speaking to you before and at the end of Q4. If your target audience is students, session time can play some important role, and so on.

Where?

Where are your potential customers? Where are they looking for solutions? Needless to say, customers are no longer looking for solutions only in the physical space. So, it is important to know where are your potential customers spending most of their time? Is it social media, search engines, forums, or online shopping platforms?

The most important of all – the why

Answering the why question is often the most difficult one, but knowing the answer to ‘why can help you build the most profitable and scalable business.

Know your competitors

It is rare for startups to come up with a product or solution that is not there already. While your idea might be unique, know that you will be a part of an existing industry. So, you need to understand how you will position your industry, what your differentiator will be. To know this, it is important to analyze your competitors and understand what they are doing.

Connect with people

While making assumptions and competitor analysis can give you some ideas, it is important to understand what people are actually thinking. Connecting and talking to people can help you get first-hand insight. Interviews and focus group discussions are some good ways to get started with connecting with people.

Promising ideas in the Post-Covid era

The novel Coronavirus has wrecked enough havoc on the lives of millions of people across the globe. The pandemic has completely changed the business scenario and how work was done. As the vaccine drive is on and businesses are slowly limping back to normalcy, several businesses are thriving because they found opportunities amidst challenges. If you’re planning to start your startup, now is the best time to do so. Here are some ideas that are going to flourish in the post-pandemic world.

Ecommerce

The pandemic has completely changed the retail scenario. As the adoption of the internet has seen a rapid rise in the country, more consumers prefer online shopping. Be it food, groceries, medicine, people are relying more on online platforms. So, if you are into the doorstep delivery business, you can see a lot of traction in the coming days.

OTT Platforms and Online Gaming

Since the lockdown started in the country and social distancing has become the new normal, over the top media or OTT platforms are gaining high popularity. As other physical recreational hubs stay close for an indefinite period, online gaming fills the vacant. So, this is another area that you can ponder on.

EdTech

Online education has been the only mode of education for the last year. Although there is no replacement of schools and colleges, online education has been the need for hours when everyone is speaking about practicing social distancing. Amidst this chaos, the Ed-Tech industry sees a surge in India, and it is a good time to forge in this segment.

Health and wellness

With a worldwide health emergency, many startups are investing in this industry. Be it online medicine delivery, eHealth, online consultation, there are different business ideas to explore in this field.

FinTech

As consumers and B2B companies move towards cloud-based solutions, Fin-Tech sees a good amount of traction in the post-covid world. In fact, a new report by Fleishman Hillard predicts that Fin-Tech is going to be instrumental in the global economic recovery.

SaaS and Remote Working Tools

As remote working is becoming the new normal, the SaaS industry sees a high surge. Different SaaS tools and remote working tools are seeing high traction in this volatile market.

What product do you want to build?

Once you know your target market and what industry you want to be in, the next obvious question is which product to build. For example, if you have decided to explore the eCommerce industry, what will be your offering? Once you decide on the industry you want to be in, identify your target audience’s problem. Understand their frustrations and think about how you can solve their problem with your unique solution.

Market research is an investment

Simply put, market research helps you to gather the information that you can use to make the most desirable product. It also helps to identify a specific section of the market that you want to target. Market research also helps to identify the geographical areas where you want to launch your product. It gives you enough information about the industry, the industry’s growth, what technological developments are affecting the industry, what areas are declining, and so on. The market research also helps you gain insight into what the consumer is behaving like, the purchasing power, and how much sales volume you can expect. The market research also gives you insights into your competition.

Know the market trend

Knowing the industry you want to venture into, is not enough. You need to understand the current market trend and if the users will desire your product. For example, if you want to enter the eCommerce industry, you need to sell products already in demand. For example, if you’re into fashion, then peel-off face mask is a product that sees a rise in sales across Google Trends and Amazon in 2021.

According to search data from Keywords Everywhere, the term “peel-off face mask” received 30,000 searches per month, with the phrase “face peel” receiving another 27,100 searches per month, variant “charcoal face mask” receiving 41,000 searches per month, and “facial mask” 81,000 per month. Now, isn’t that amazing to be armed with such data to make an informed decision?

Key takeaways

Identifying what product you want to make and what industry you want to be in is a long way. While making assumptions, you need to gather concrete data from multiple sources to understand if your assumption is correct. Once you are convinced, apply your inputs to launch your idea into a product or solution. But your task doesn’t end there. You need to review it constantly and be open to change if the need be.

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Challenges You Should Consider Before You Expand Your Business Through New Products

Preeti Verma — Thu, 25 Mar 2021 10:35:05 +0000

So, you have decided to expand your business? If yes, then it is a good decision! But before expanding in to the new horizons, you will have to test the waters first. Expansion is one of the essential parts of any solid growth strategy. It is important to expand into new sales channels and leverage your operations. On the same time, it is also important to expand your product lines with new products to achieve the sustainable growth to fuel the business further.

Planning and executing a growth strategy to develop new markets and expand your business before your current market flattens out will surely help your business survive tough times. Also, it could give you a considerable edge in the market. However, growing businesses may face a range of challenges. As a business grows, different problems and opportunities call for different solutions. What worked a year ago might not be the best approach today.

Recognising those problems and overcoming the common pitfalls associated with growth is important. And this is if you need your business to grow and thrive in the future. It is crucial to ensure that what steps you take today shouldn’t create additional problems for the future. Effective leadership will help you in making the most of the opportunities, and creating sustainable growth for the future. Here are the few challenges and mistakes that most commonly affect growing businesses. Let’s discuss those in detail what you can do about them.

Staying Afloat in The Market research is not something that you do only when you launch your business. Business conditions change time to time, so your market research should be continuous as well. Else, you run the risk of making business decisions based on out-of-date information, which can lead to business failure.

The more you succeed, the more competitors notice and react to what you do in the business. A market-leading offer one day may be no better than average a few months later. Unfortunately, your loyal customers can be quick to shift gears and find alternative suppliers, who can provide them a better deal. This is a bitter truth but that is how the business ecosystem work.

As products and services age, sales growth and profit margins get contracted. Time to time market research or a research before launching new products will give you a clear perspective. An idea where your products are in customers’ lifecycles can help you work out how to maximise overall profitability. At the same time, you need to invest in innovation to build a stream of profitable new products to market.

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Effective leadership will help you in making the most of the opportunities, and creating sustainable growth for the future.

Understand Market Information and Recent Trends to Launch New Products

Information that are published can provide useful insights into market conditions and recent trends. As a growing business, your own experience can be even more valuable. You should build up an in-depth information of what customers want, their market behaviour, and your best marketing approaches that work well with customers.

Customer interaction on frequent occasions pays off. Taking the time to talk to key customers help in a big way. Your suppliers and other business partners can be important sources of market information. You should encourage your employees to share what they know about customers and the market. Effective IT systems can also make it easier to share and analyse key information such as customers’ purchasing behaviour, and preferences.

Furthermore, you can also extend your research to test customer reaction to new products. This you might do it yourself, or use a freelance researcher or market research agency. This will give you a quick reaction on your new products. This can be done on spot, or through digital platforms.

Revisit and Update Business Plans

The plans that you made for your business a year ago do not necessarily will make sense for you today. Market conditions continually change, so you need to revisit, update and upgrade your business plan regularly. Stay abreast by updating your guide charts to keep up with the market.

As your business grows, your strategy needs to evolve to suit your changed circumstances. Let’s say, after a time your focus may change from winning new customers to building profitable relationships and maximising growth with existing customers. Existing business relationships often have greater potential for profit and can pump in reliable cash flow. Newer relationships may increase turnover, but the profit margins may be lower, which may not be sustainable. At the same time, every business should to be cautious to new opportunities. There are obvious risks to relying solely on existing customers. Diversifying your customer base spreads those risks.

However, following the similar business model is not the only route to growth. There are other strategic options such as outsourcing or franchising that can provide better growth opportunities. It is important not to consider your current success means that you will automatically be able to take advantage of these opportunities. Every major move requires planning in the similar way as a new business launch.

Ask yourself whether new ideas suit your strengths and your overall vision of where the business is going. Always keep in mind that every new development including launching of new products brings with it changing risks. It is worth to consider regularly reviewing the risks you face in your business and developing contingency plans.

Cash Flow and Financial Management to Plan Launch of New Products

A healthy cash flow control is important for any business. For a growing business, cash constraints can be the biggest factor limiting growth and overtrading can be risky. Making the best use of your capital should be the key element in business planning and assessing new opportunities. With limited resources, you may need to pass up promising opportunities if pursuing them would mean starving your core business of essential funding.

Every element of working capital should be carefully controlled to maximise your free cash flow. Effective credit management and tight control of overdue debts are essential. You may also want to consider raising financing against trade debts. Good stock control and effective supplier management generally become important as businesses grow. Holdings of outdated stock may become a problem that needs periodic clearing up. You may want to work with suppliers to reduce delivery cycles, or switch to suppliers and systems that can handle on time delivery.

Planning ahead helps you to foresee your financing needs and arrange required funding as well. For growing businesses with new products, bring in outside investors to provide the equity needed to underpin further expansion can also be considered.

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Making the best use of your capital should be the key element in business planning and assessing new opportunities such as launching new products.

Problem-solving Solutions

New businesses often run-in perpetual crisis mode. Each day is a new challenge, which brings in an urgent need to resolve. The management spends most of their time in troubleshooting. But with the growth of your business, this approach simply doesn’t work. While a short-term crisis is always urgent, it may not matter nearly as much as other things you could be doing. Spending your time soothing an irritated customer might just help protect that one relationship. But instead focus on recruiting the right salesperson, who can lay the foundations of substantial new sales in the coming years.

With the growing business, you must also prepare yourself for new problems and new priorities. Let’s say, your business might be increasingly at risk unless you take steps to ensure your intellectual property is properly protected. If you are focusing on individual marketing campaigns, you might need to devote more capitals to develop your brand.

Recognising the key drivers of growth is a good way of understanding what to prioritise. A disciplined approach to management focuses on leading employees, developing your management team and building your business strategy. Instead of treating each problem as a one-timer, you develop systems and structures that make it easier to handle those problems in the future.

The Right Infrastructure

All businesses produce bank on large volumes of information such as financial records, interactions with customers and other business contacts, employee details, regulatory requirements and so on. And it can become a daunting task if not done without the right systems.

Responsibilities and tasks can be delegated as your business grows, but without solid management information systems you cannot control business effectively. The larger your business grows, the harder it is to ensure that information is shared and different functions work together effectively. Putting the right infrastructure in place is an essential part of helping your business to grow by launching new products.

Documentation, policies and procedures also become increasingly important. The informality that might work with a handful of customers is not practical in a growing business.

You need proper contracts, clear terms and conditions, effective employment procedures and so on. Many growing businesses find using established management standards one of the most effective ways of introducing best practice.

Quality control systems can be an important part of driving improvements and convincing larger customers that you can be relied on. Investing in the right infrastructure is an investment that will pay off both in the short and long terms. You benefit every day from more effective operations. If you ever decide to sell the business, demonstrating that you have well-run, efficient systems will be an integral part of proving its value.

Right Skills, Right Attitudes

Entrepreneurs are the driving force behind creating and growing new businesses. The abilities that can help you launch a business are not the same as those you need to help it grow. It is important not to fool yourself into valuing your own abilities too highly. The chances are that you will need training to learn the skills and attitudes required by someone who is leading growth.

To grow your business, you need to learn to delegate properly, trusting your management team and giving up day- to-day control of every detail. It is too easy to stifle creativity and motivation with excessive interference. As the business becomes more complex, you also need to develop your time, management skills and learn to focus on what is important.

As your business grows and you launch new products, you may need to bring in outsiders to help. You’ll want to delegate responsibility for particular areas to different specialists, or appoint a non-executive director or two to strengthen your board. As you start tackling a new opportunity, someone who has experience of that activity can be vital.

For many successful entrepreneurs, learning to listen to and take advice is one of the hardest challenges they face. But it may also be essential if you are going to make the most of your opportunities. Some recognise their own limitations and appoint someone else to act as managing director or chairman.

Open to New Changes

Complacency can be a major threat to a growing business. Assuming that you will continue to be successful because you have been doing good in the past is unwise. Regularly revisiting and updating your business plan can help remind you of the changing market conditions and the need to respond to them.

An up-to-date plan helps you identify what action you need to take to change your business and the way it operates. Let’s say, rejig suppliers who can grow with you and meet your new priorities. As your business grows, consistent quality and reliability may be more important than simply getting the cheapest offer. Renegotiating contracts to take account of increased volume.

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