Ritesh Bharti

BMS (Finance)

Shaheed Sukhdev College of Business Studies

1.

Business Model- Farming as a Service (FaaS)

 Manufacturing & selling seeds

 Farm insights
 Crop Pricing APP

Characteristics-

 B2C
 Value chain- Pre-production to Production to Post-production
 Requirement of several department
 A well trained and efficient workforce
 Tie up with different outsourcing companies
 Own software maintenance team for farm insight & Crop Pricing App

Scaling of business- Factors to be considered

 Manufacturing of Seeds
o Automated plants
o Constant upgradation of quality
o Proper optimization of manufacturing capacity
 Workforce
o Hiring or to be outsourced as per the demand and need (for farm insights and
Pricing app, most of the employees (field workers) can be outsourced because these
tasks happen only in the beginning and end of the crop season)
o Proper training
o Retention of employees
 Tech upgradation
o Constant upgradation of APP considering UI/UX, security and other factors
o Constant maintenance of APP servers
 Customer
o More acquisition of customer to scale up the business
o Customer service
 Upgrade as per the need
 Available in ease
 A large team (hired or outsourced)

2.

Dependent Variable

 Volume of sale of seeds

 Cost of production
 Conversion rate of farmers into customers for farm insights and crop pricing APP
 Hired or outsourced employees
  UI & working of APP
 Quality of seeds
 R&D costs
 Optimized & efficient use of assets outsourced or available within the company
 Customer service

Independent Variable

 Farmers
o Number of farmers in a particular region of the company
o Economic condition
o Nature of farmers (Conservative or open to changes)
o Land size holdings
 Climatic conditions during the crop season
 Natural disasters like flood, drought, etc.
 Govt. policy

3.

AgTech should add Production Assistance service in its business model. This will include

 Equipment rentals - Provide equipment services, typically including the operator

Reason- This will help farmers in optimizing their crop production, better & efficient use of
tools to boost up production of crops
 Labour services - Provide unskilled labour or skilled labour for value-added services
Reason- Many a times the required trained workers are not available, their quality is not as
required, this will help in bridging the gap
 Utility services - Offer irrigation and off-grid power services
Reason- Due to unseasonal climatic changes and other factors, it is necessary to provide
adequate amount of water to crops, company can offer this service to farmers

Most of these services can be outsourced and won’t increase the fixed costs for the company.

4.

Agtech should go for these two approaches-

 Scale up the existing business, utilising the same products and the same
distribution channels
o Factors affecting
 Reliable farmers data
 Number of farmers in a particular region of the company
 Economic condition of farmers
 Nature of farmers (Conservative or open to changes)
 Land size holdings
 Manufacturing capacity of seeds
o Costs
 Farmers acquisition cost- data, advertisement
 Financing of new manufacturing capacity of seeds, if needed
 Employee hiring cost& regular wages to be paid, training cost
  Cost of scaling of technical infrastructure
o Viability
 Customer perception towards business after successful
implementation with existing customers
 Less outreach of scientific methods of farming to farmers

 Add new Production Assistance services to its portfolio

o Factors affecting
 Better quality of equipment
 Availability of adequate number of Outsourcing agencies or
recruitment agencies for Operators
 Skills and training of Operators
 Availability of labour during the required time period
 Number of farmers in a particular region of the company
 Economic condition of farmers
 Nature of farmers (Conservative or open to changes)
 Land size holdings
o Costs
 Farmers acquisition cost- data, advertisement
 Cost of equipment to be purchased or outsourced
 Cost of operators to be hired or outsourced
 Cost of imparting training to operators
 Cost of labours to be hired or outsourced
o Viability
 Many a times the required trained workers are not available, their quality is
not as required, this will help in bridging the gap
 Lessen the cost for farmers as some are unable to afford buying of
heavy machinery

5.

Yes, there is synergy available.

FarmToFork Pvt ltd can use AgTech existing business to introduce new business and enhance its own
supply chain of products being delivered to customers.

Let’s understand what synergy is available-

AgTech- Primarily helps in initial farming stage to end, selling of crops

FarmToFork- Sells groceries & Household items

Synergy- Crops & groceries can be directly purchased from farmers using the Crop Pricing APP, these
items procured can be processed and sold on FarmToFork.

 Create a new stream of revenue

 If food processing unit is outsourced, no fixed cost is involved.
 Huge cost of middle part of supply chain between manufacturer to seller is removed, hence
cost optimization.
Benefit to Agtech-

 Acquisition of more farmers on their platform

 Introducing new business segment
 Offer better prices to farmers by analysing the current selling price
 Increase in goodwill of AgTech by Word of mouth, hence more Customer Acquisition