Corona Virus is a mother of all disruptions for all business. Call it a wake-up call to a new world. As for our personal life, it has unplugged many joys and everyday comforts from our lifes.

One example of disruption heard from the local news was about the slump in the demand of milk by MILMA. With excess litters of milk in hand, MILMA was running helter-skelter to find a taker. And to make things worse, Tamil Nadu was not willing to take our excess milk and process it into milk powder. Later with political influence Milma managed to get TN to accept the milk. Why all this trouble!

Also, in another related news, many small milk producers where throwing away milk on the road as a protest against MILMA for not taking their produce. What a waste!

While this Corona virus lockdown was totally unexpected, there were few things this disruption should teach many business, especially the milk supplying and distribution firms like MILMA.

Few things which came to my mind.

1. Instead of depending on other state for converting milk to milk powder, Kerala should have factories to do the same. If we can start a big factory, then smaller units ( Private or run by MILMA) should be in operation to convert milk into milk powder or other products from milk.

2. Give training to local producers to convert milk into ghee/curd/paneer/condensed milk/milkpowder/butter, etc. This sort of knowledge transfer at grass root level will help them to covert their excess milk supply to something which can be sold later.

3. Create training videos, posters, articles and upload them on the website

4. Each collection centre should double as a training centre.

5. Make posters on how to milk cow in the right way. Tips on how to increase the production of milk. All these tips can be posted on social media.

6. Create Whatsapp group in each community so that tips, video material could be shared with them. Also grievances could be heard.

7. Each collection centre should act as the data collection centre, which will collect the contact information of each seller ( Name, phone#, address). This will help MILMA to contact them with newsletter, new training material, etc. Also a column on the size of milk produced or supplied by each person. This way, a person in the central office will have the data on the big suppliers, and region wise data of supplies.

8. One thing lockdown has brougt in was the disruption of supply chain for many produce and packed goods. For instance, I called many shops for Amul Fresh Cream. None of the shops had a packed which was required for making and teaching cakes online.

In this lockown situation, if Milma had fresh cream, it could have easily supplied and sold its stock to all the stores. It would be a windfall profits for Milma from such Supply Chain disruptions! Also, Unsalted butter available was from Milky Mist. Where is Milma?

I’m not sure, what’s the reason behind Milma, not making packed milk like Goodlife from Nandini, Fresh Cream like the one made by Amul, or set curd ( big bucket), Condensed Milk, etc.

All this info in a mobile app will help the management team to view instantly the places with excess supply, or places with shortage, etc.