Today, let us get acquainted with Miss Shannon and her homegrown business of jewelry making. Shannon is a van life enthusiast. She loves traveling across countries in her camper van. She lauds her home on wheels and has multiple online businesses for a living. The prime source of income, however, remains her jewelry-making business. Shannon collects sea glass from some specific beaches on her continent and uses it to create her jewelry pieces. The other raw materials such as her wires, strings, loops, crystals, stones, studs, etc. are picked up in bulk from various locations across the globe whenever she travels there or ordered online from there in case of an urgent requirement. She has tried and tested the local and global manufacturers and thus, finalized her final sources for raw material. Shannon creates her packaging and the material for the same is also purchased by her in the same manner. Many businesses across the globe follow this kind of business model.

When the pandemic locked up the world for a good two years, businesses such as Shannon’s faced tremendous back brunt. Shannon personally had to give up on her van life, settle down in a house, and change her lifestyle. She could not visit the beaches for her sea glass collection as she was locked up in one country. The halt on the mail and other services blocked the raw materials from reaching her in time. Though she had inquiries online for new jewelry pieces, she was unable to fulfill them due to a lack of means and postal facilities. Several enterprises, big or small, across industries too faced this severe dilemma. Though the products and services saw a surge in demand, the materials required to produce them were either not found or had become expensive or rare. The transportation of the same too was hindered. It was during this period that the way businesses carried out their operations was severely altered. They had to reverse engineer their business models and day-to-day functions to accommodate crises better.

Localization of Supply Chains: 

The need for change started with the idea of buying and selling locally. Companies had been looking at good quality, cheap rates, great deals, and importing raw materials from around the world for production. However, with the logistics slowed down, the businesses realized the importance of ‘finding local’. Hence, post-pandemic several automobiles, clothing, food, etc. manufacturers are trying to form supply chains locally. The 5-star rated preferred geo-mapping app of the Microsoft AppSource, Maplytics could aid efficiently in tracing and plotting the local producers on the map for convenience. The convenient ones could be picked and optimized routes could be easily plotted to reach them quickly.

Promoting Online Sales:

A lot of travel was involved pre-pandemic for lead generation, client meetings, client onboarding, and so on. This involved a lot of investment in terms of fuel, money, time, etc. The working from home conditions highlighted that businesses could be done and decisions could be implemented from the closed walls of the home as well. Hence, now the percentage of companies stressing on online sales has increased tremendously. A major part of the new clients is now being achieved through online strategies. Many businesses have re-engineered their product installation processes as well, such that, the reps can resolve the issues with remote access or the users can follow directions and do it themselves. Several paint companies, furniture giants, and exotic food sellers have introduced their DIY kits which the users can follow and implement without assistance and the reps can be summoned only when absolutely essential.

Maplytics could be used to plot potential clients around the current location of the rep. Meeting schedules too could be fixed up in advance with time and availability checked. This could help in being more prepared and precise in selling or offering solutions. The sales territories could also be created virtually over the map and the reps could be allotted their respective territories for the ease of doing business.

Finding Local markets:

The Alphonso mango sellers from the Konkan region of India have been following a fixed export plan for years now. During the pandemic, their exports were affected, however, they found markets locally. The profit margins turned out to be low but the produce was sold properly. In their quest to make a sale, these sellers also discovered potential markets in terms of jam makers, pulp makers, mango sweet producers, and so on! The pandemic is over but these markets have lived on and prospered. Many pharmaceutical industries too found their buyer base in their own backyard during the trying times. Using Maplytics some of our pharma clients today are designing targeted marketing campaigns for their local buyers and their local markets along with their regular exporter markets.

Promoting Empathy and Awareness:

Big organizations were known to have facilities such as employee insurance, medical group insurance, employee provident funds, annual retreats, paid medical leaves, cultural activities, celebrations, etc. Pandemic has jolted up the smaller employers too and made them more empathetic. The working hours are now in check, regular medical check-ups are promoted, facilities to entertain the employees are now been scheduled seriously, the various insurances have been put in place, special facilities are being provided to the traveling employees, and more!

Maplytics could offer a helping hand in this as well by keeping a check on the traveling employees to assure their safety. The enormous trucks carrying explosives or expensive goods too could be routed safely. The traveling reps could be free to search and find hotels, restaurants, gas stations, cafes, airports, etc. of their choice on the map while being on the go and use them to solve their purpose from their current location.

The pandemic in general has mellowed down the business runners and the employers and made them more empathetic towards each other as also reiterated the uncertainty of life. Huge enterprises and small businesses such as Shannon’s have slowly started getting on track but, saving finances and goodwill/ good karma for the hay days has become the new priority for all. Team Maplytics too relates to this changing nature of the businesses across industries and offers unhampered support with its product features and services.

To explore Maplytics further, do have a look at our Blogs and Video Library. Also, write us your mapping needs at crm@inogic.com and get a free demo and a Q/A session scheduled especially based on your requirements.

Until then,
Happy Mapping!