IIMA students visit mandi as part of course

As part of the ‘Experiencing Live Action of Business (ELAB)’ course, some students from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, got their lessons at the sabzi mandi for about three months from September to November 2017. 

The course is intended to simulate an authentic business life cycle for students. 

Being offered for the first time at IIMA, the course was supported by the institute’s startup incubator, Center for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE). 

As part of it, groups of 4-5 students were provided a maximum seed fund of Rs 25,000 to start a small venture and grow it over three months.    

One of the teams decided to visit the Jamalpur vegetable mandi to work at streamlining the supply chain. 

“The team saw the potential to make profits by reducing the number of steps in the vegetable supply chain. The business started with procuring vegetables from wholesalers and distributing them to vendors. A typical day for the team started at 4 am when they would go to the mandi to buy vegetables. From 5 to 7 am, the vegetables were sorted at a rented warehouse. By 8 am,  they were distributed to vendors. The idea germinated when the team realised that vegetable vendors buy not from wholesalers but retailers outside the wholesale market,” said a student who was part of the venture. Over 40 people signed up for the course.