Take Sol to bring 10,000 FMCG distributors online

Take Solutions, a technology enabled solutions firm focusing on Supply Chain Management (SCM) and life sciences, expects to automate secondary sales management systems of five companies in the FMCG sector and to bring about 10,000 distributors of these companies online in the next one year.

Sridharan Sivan, managing director, Take Solutions, told Business Standard that the company was currently in the process of automating the system for 2,000 distributors of an FMCG company and was hoping to implement such solutions for five more companies that include, Britannia, Parle and MTR.

For the automation of secondary sales management processes like inventory management, purchase management and claims management, among others, each FMCG company is expected to spend at least $1 million to start with.

He said that the FMCG sector in the country had become more mature and companies had realised the importance of automating supply chain beyond clearing and forwarding (C&F) level.

Sivan said that Take Solutions firmly believed that the efficiency of enterprises would be achieved not just by streamlining the internal processes, but streamlining its eco system and its processes, which include distributors, transport operators and warehouse operators, among others.

"We are one of the few companies that provide solutions, that cover the full value chain, both for enterprises and service providers," he added.

He said that the company was projecting itself as a provider of solutions to increase the penetration level and the topline of the company, and not as one providing solutions to cut costs.

Stating that the company's solutions were numerator-driven and not denominator driven, he said that Britannia had reported a phenomenal growth in topline by automating their second sales management in the last two years.

Dwelling in detail on the company's solutions, he said companies used to forecast based on some events that happened in the past and try to get some trends and start pushing the products into market. "But we are now getting more real time and our data analysis, which is part of the solution offering, will focus more on understanding the operational efficiencies in the entire value chain," he added. However, he stressed that Take Solutions' products were not fighting against ERP, but were complementary solutions.

Take Solutions, which hopes to end this fiscal with a revenue of $20 million, has set a target of $ 100 million in the next three years.

The company, which currently employs around 400 plus, is likely to double the headcount in a couple of years. "Last year, we had about 200 plus. This year, it has crossed 400 and it may be doubled in the next couple of years," he added.

Headquartered in Singapore, the company has its SCM technology centre and global delivery centre in Chennai. The life sciences domain excellence centre is located in USA.

Apart from this, It has business development offices in India, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Malaysia, Bahrain and USA. The company has seven products in the SCM space.