Operations Management – BigBasket.com (BigBasket), an online grocery store in India, saw a 900%surge in orders within a span of one month in April 2020.

UpdatedDecember 13, 2024

Q.4 Case study
BigBasket.com (BigBasket), an online grocery store in India, saw a 900% surge in orders within a span of one month in April 2020. This was during a time when the entire country was under complete lockdown to curb the spread of the deadly Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). COVID-19 was spreading across the globe like wildfire from the beginning of the year 2020. Since it was a contagious disease with no treatment in sight, there were global restraints on travel and any kind of movement. The first case of COVID-19 in India was reported in January 2020. By March 2020, India was well in the grip of the deadly virus. The Indian government sprang
into action and declared lockdowns and curbs on travel. Initially, the lockdown was declared for 21 days, ending on April 14, 2020. But it was extended several times. The lockdown, however, allowed essential services including delivery of medicines and groceries to function. This case study examines Operations Management – BigBasket.com strategies during this unprecedented time.

The year 2020 was marked by a pandemic that affected the entire world. COVID-19 spread to almost every country across the globe. By May 06, 2020, more than 3 million people had been affected globally by the virus and there were 258,394 reported deaths. India reported 49,436 people infected and 1,695 deaths.

COVID-19 was a communicable disease caused by the coronavirus. People infected with the virus experienced respiratory illness. Covid-19 was closely related to the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), which had caused havoc in several countries earlier. COVID-19 was different from SARS and MERS in that the scope of disease was wide. Around 80% of people had mild symptoms whereas there were also many infected people who showed no signs of the infection. This made it difficult to control the spread of the disease.

By May 2020, the total number of people affected globally by COVID-19 was 4,943,000 and 6.5% of them were reported to have died. On January 30, 2020, India’s first COVID-19 case was reported. The infected person was a student from Kerala who was studying at Wuhan University and had come home for the vacations. Initially, the virus was detected only among those who had returned from China. But soon people with a travel history to Europe also started reporting the disease as the virus had several European nations in its grip. Experts believed that lockdowns were an effective way to curb the spread of COVID-19 but there were also concerns regarding the lack of preparations regarding the supply of food, medicine, and other essential items under the lockdown. Since there was no
prior information about the lockdown, supply chains were broken, leading to concerns regarding the livelihoods of many people. BigBasket, an online grocery delivery service in India, was launched in the year 2011 by VS Sudhakar, Hari Menon, Vipul Parekh, V S Ramesh, and Abhinay Choudhari. Headquartered in Bengaluru, its key investors included Alibaba, Helion Venture Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, Abraaj Group, and LionRock Capital. The convenience and wide range of products that came with online shopping helped BigBasket in increasing its customer base. It also introduced services like BBDaily which worked like a subscription service for daily delivery of eggs, milk, bread, and other essentials. Through robust operations management, BigBasket.com ensured timely deliveries despite the challenges.

Its major competitors included Amazon, Grofers, and Flipkart. BigBasket decided to suspend its services from March 24, 2020, after many of its delivery executives complained about being beaten up by police as well as harassed by some local goons. On March 25, 2020, BigBasket put up a notification on its website stating, “Dear customer, we are not operational due to restrictions imposed by local authorities on the movement of goods in spite of clear guidelines provided by central authorities to enable essential services. We are working with the authorities to be back soon to improve Operations Management – BigBasket.com.” With the threat of the virus looming large, there were lockdowns across the country and humongous uncertainty on what the turn of events would be, going ahead. With so much uncertainty, people resorted to doing everything from bulk buying (Exhibit III) to online shopping (Exhibit IV) to ensure their safety and to brace themselves up for difficult times. Due to the surge in demand and some governmental restrictions, BigBasket had a huge backlog of orders. It needed more delivery executives to clear the backlog. The delivery executives of BigBasket stated that the company was toiling to gather resources to drive vehicles and to bring goods from warehouses, which is crucial in operations management – BigBasket.com during such crises.
Question:
(10 × 2 = 20)

Elaborate use of business process re-engineering to manage a crisis.

What are the importances of supply chain collaboration?

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