Walmart helping MSMEs in Recovering Costs, Proving R&D during Pandemic
The pandemic has forced several companies to shut down their manufacturing operations and reinvent their business model entirely. Amidst the troubled times, Walmart has been helping MSMEs (micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises) in India to recover costs and providing them with much-needed R&D (Research and Development) to find the alternate points of revenue to ferry ahead.
Sarangi Creations is one such enterprise that mainly supplied fabric and textile goods, had a major export to the European markets. After the European markets were closed (way before in India) due to Covid-19, the company faced a challenging situation of large amounts of raw material fabrics sitting in the storage. However, with the support of the Walmart Vriddhi Programme, her company took upon the task of manufacturing those raw fabrics into PPE products (masks, etc.) and then sold them in the market. Babita Gupta, Founder of Sarangi Creations informed that had it not been for this development, she would have to sell the raw fabric as scrap by kilos. Reportedly, the company has been able to recover 90 per cent of the costs involved. Besides, the company has been able to fulfill the salaries of the workers. ‘It is a great achievement,” Gupta said.
What is Walmart Vriddhi Programme?
In operations since December 2019, the Walmart Vriddhi programme has been working with MSMEs to grow their businesses. They provide the firms with mentorship, information about new demand trends, market research, technical knowledge, advice on financial schemes, and business operations.
Again, similarly, as India went into a nationwide lockdown, another firm Shree Shakti Enterprises which dealt in kitchenware had to close down all manufacturing operations – four units in Sonipat and Haryana were shut. Rahul Bajaj, Director, Shree Shakti Enterprises, had the idea and started building handwashing stations that would work through a foot pedal. With the help of Walmart Vriddhi’s technical and commercial support, the prototype was then launched.
Available in different sizes, Bajaj has received 1,250 orders for his hands-free handwash stations from various industries, public and government institutions, which helped to achieve up to Rs. 1.15 crore in sales during the lockdown. In properly structuring out the supply chains, Walmart had been helping with providing the needed R&D along the way. Bajaj said that though our sales have gone down, however, our understanding of business management has improved because of the Walmart. Shree Shakti Enterprises is currently working on building an automatic foot sanitizer and sensor-based machines.
