Perfecting an App that Empowers Women Entrepreneurs in Rural India to Build Thriving Local Businesses

Rebuilding the System

Based on the Voice of the Customer (VOC) data they gathered from entrepreneurs and Sales Coordinators (who assist the entrepreneurs), Net Solutions set out to build a powerful app that would make product selection, ordering, and distribution easier for everyone involved.

The following are some of Net Solutions’ achievements with the new app.

• Greater Usability Leading to Higher Sales: As mentioned above, the app had a low adoption rate among entrepreneurs, which meant they ordered most of their goods based on the recommendations of suppliers. Ideally, the company wanted to empower the entrepreneurs to select products from a range of possibilities based on local market demand.
  
  Once the entrepreneurs began using the more user-friendly app, they got used to browsing and ordering products, placing orders whenever they wanted. The new app was enthusiastically embraced by both the entrepreneurs and sales coordinators as demonstrated by the high usage rate.
• Connecting Entrepreneurs with Sales Coordinators: The company’s Sales Coordinators assist entrepreneurs, when needed, in the ordering process. The reporting mechanism on the new app empowered sales coordinators to reach out and assist entrepreneurs any time they faced problems. This further increased sales by giving entrepreneurs the guidance they needed, when they needed it.
• Superior Order Tracking: On the previous app, it was impossible for distributors to track orders from entrepreneurs and square those orders with their own inventory records. This made it difficult and tedious to track deliveries, and the whole system was prone to errors.
  
  The back-end system built by Net Solutions solved this problem by collating orders such that distributors could view, consolidate, and approve them. When inventory was insufficient to complete an order, the system would notify entrepreneurs and Sales Coordinators via app notifications. It also provided followup notifications after distributors updated their inventory information.
  
  The new system not only solved ordering issues—it provided the infrastructure to extract meaningful data and produce helpful reports for the distributors covering performance, volume, consumption, and more.
• Expanding Product Offerings: The new app’s strong adoption rate and the continued success of the program inspired the company to give entrepreneurs access to more than just their own products. That’s when they brought additional partners on board, sellers who would increase the range of products that entrepreneurs could offer to their local market.
  
  With this in mind, Net Solutions added a feature allowing vendors to create and upload product catalogs. They also modified the app so entrepreneurs could switch between vendors—adding products from different vendors to get the perfect mix of products for their stores. Net Solutions also updated the distributor’s interface to help them better track orders and manage inventory.