Cost Delivery
A normal sight to see is how people buy groceries; Yes, that is exactly what I was doing. As usual trying to haggle a bargain with the local vegetable seller, Sharadha Ma. Now Sharadha Ma and I go way back. I mean my mother bought stuff from her, and now me. So in essence, she has been selling vegetables for a loooonnggg time.
It just struck me as how she can sustain her business day in and day out for more than 2 decades now despite the advent of supermarket chains and online stores. However, here she was, with a smile on her face and still ok to give discounted prices. So that’s when I offered Sharadha Ma my question.
“How do you do it Shardha Ma? You are still in business”
Sharadha Ma smiled, wiping the sweat off her forehead. She said, “Oh Dia Ma, I have seen you for a long time as a child and look at you all grown up and asking me questions ” - then narrated her story. Sharadha Ma came from a very humble background. Married off at an early age to a man who was a daily wage worker. She had 2 sons whom she was able to give a decent education. However, with the kids all grown up and jobs not coming by for her sons or husband who used to be a daily wage worker. The income they both brought was enough to sustain the family. That’s when Sharadha Ma did some introspection. She looked at the issue from different aspects.
The Problem
Wasted effort: She used to go sell vegetables door to door from 8:00 AM until Noon, because she had to cook for her family and couldn’t start before 8:00 AM.After 11:00 AM she hardly sold anything even though she was doing her rounds because no one was home. This essentially meant she was toiling hard with no returns.
The Lazy: She started seeing that her sons did have a day job, so were getting lazy and if there is one thing Sharadha Ma couldn’t take was, the young should never be idle or it will ruin their minds.
Late Payments: Her husband was a daily wage worker. He was a man good in carpentry. But every time he worked, his payments were always either late or was not paid at all. He would spend hours at end with a commitment for a payment. However, by end of day the Malik would defer the payment. He was unable to do any other work with all his energy lost.
The Bottom Line
Sharadha Ma had her problem right down the middle. It wasn’t just the competition killing her. It was her effort not being channeled in the right direction, sons were idle due to the lack of opportunities to match their skill and lastly her husband’s efforts unable to reap its benefits.
The Solution
1. Make your effort count: To solve her first problem Sharadha Ma, started her day earlier, she was out of the house at 5:00AM, this meant that her door to door sales started by 6:00AM. She figured out that all she needed to do was target 1 big apartment complex. She did exactly that. She went door to door covering more houses between 6:00AM and 9:00AM than she ever did when she did half a day city tour.
2. Get Up Lad: Since she was starting early from home, she needed help in the Kitchen to cook for her family. She taught one of her sons to cook and not only was he doing it well he started doing it faster than she did. She gave her second son another basket of vegetables and another apartment complex.
3. No Free Meal: As difficult as it was her husband stopped his daily wage, because they had suddenly found avenues where the returns were better. Over time they were able to make a decent amount to rent a shop to sell vegetables. Her husband did all the interiors himself. He would start his day every day at 3:00AM to buy fresh vegetables from the wholesale market. So, by 5:00AM both the shop and 2 baskets were full of fresh vegetables. He then ran the shop the whole day along with one of his sons.
4. New Opportunities:
a. By doing the 3 above, Sharadha Ma and family found themselves having time to spare. Sharadha Ma was done with her door to door selling by 9:00AM. After which she would come to their shop to help, because slowly but surely their shop was getting bigger and soon they were selling not just vegetables but also groceries.
b. Thanks to her kids who had a basic education, they were exploring new ways to sell, and it was their idea to expand. All the while one of the sons still cooking.
c. Her husband was a much more confident man now. He never gave up on the shop and his day till date starts at 3:00 AM. He does take a nap in the afternoons when business is slow.
Hearing all this took the breath out of me. Because, what Sharadha Ma did was what we were trying to do here at work. Sharadha Ma as wise as she was had just figured out Cost of Delivery (CoD) based on which made some wise decisions to improve the same. Let’s see how…
1. Utilization:
a. She found that her effort utilization was bad because of her timings. She was burning effort, but to no avail So she tweaked it.
b. She also found that her sons were completely un-utilized but were still living off her thereby burdening an already troubled purse string. She corrected it by cross training one of them by teaching them to cook and the other to sell vegetables. The sons did study but selling vegetables to start with helped them get on their feet and then look at what they can do better with their education.
2. Hour Wise Reporting:
a. As a family they were able to see where they were bleeding hours - effort going down the drain. Her husband was using his hours valuably. Instead of doing unpaid work he was working for the family which made a huge difference (Contribution to Practice) His contribution helped them plan their day with the stock they had.
3. Non-Billable Hours:
a. Her wasted hours going door to door covering streets rather than one apartment complex, her husband’s unpaid labour was all plugged. They were making smart use of their hours. Making it count.
The above is what Cost of Delivery (CoD) is all about. There are organizations putting in so much effort to get this right. The biggest asset to any organization is its people and unless a firm’s people feel ONE with the organization CoD cannot be achieved. To make it count not just for the firm but for everyone. I couldn’t find a better example to help send this message across. Sharadha Ma’s story is a one of pure grit, effort and channelizing effort in the right direction. Her story awed me and am hoping it will awe you too. However, we don’t need to look far for an awe-inspiring story. We need to look only within at ourselves
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