1. The business, as described in the session
- FMCG wholesale distributor in Kochi, 60 staff, 4 delivery vehicles, around 180 orders a day.
- Orders arrive on three WhatsApp numbers (owner, sales, dispatch) and by phone.
- Tally Prime for accounts and stock; a Google Sheet for daily sales; a separate sheet for routes.
- Owner approves every purchase order above ₹20,000 ($235) personally.
2. Where the hours go
Assumption: a loaded staff cost of ₹25,000 ($295) a month, about ₹150 ($1.76) an hour, 50 working weeks a year.
| Manual task | People | Hours / week each | Hours / week | Cost / year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Re-typing WhatsApp orders into Tally | 2 | 9 | 18 | ₹1,35,000 / $1,588 |
| Chasing order changes and confirmations | 2 | 4 | 8 | ₹60,000 / $706 |
| Evening sales / collections sheet for the owner | 1 | 9 | 9 | ₹67,500 / $794 |
| Stock count reconciliation (sheet vs Tally) | 1 | 6 | 6 | ₹45,000 / $529 |
| Owner approving routine purchase orders | 1 | 5 | 5 | ₹37,500 / $441 |
| Total | 46 | ₹3,45,000 / $4,059 |
Error costs (wrong dispatches, duplicate entries, missed changes) are not included here; in the real session we estimate them separately from your returns and credit-note data.
3. Opportunity Map
Ranked by hours recovered per week against build effort.
| # | Opportunity | Hours / week | Effort | Indicative cost | Weeks |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | WhatsApp order intake → Tally sales orders | 26 | Low | ₹3–4.5 lakh / $3,500–5,300 | 4–5 |
| 2 | Daily owner dashboard + 7 a.m. summary | 9 | Low | ₹1.5–2.5 lakh / $1,800–2,900 | 2–3 |
| 3 | Purchase-order approval rules | 5 | Medium | ₹2–3 lakh / $2,400–3,500 | 3–4 |
| 4 | Barcode stock counts synced to Tally | 6 | High | ₹5–8 lakh / $5,900–9,400 | 6–8 |
4. Recommended first pilot
WhatsApp order intake → Tally sales orders
- What gets built: customers order through a WhatsApp Business number; a form or a parser captures item, quantity and delivery slot; the order is confirmed back automatically and posted to Tally as a sales order; dispatch sees a live list.
- Success metric (written into the agreement): at least 80% of daily orders enter Tally without manual typing by week 5, measured over 10 working days.
- Price: fixed, ₹3.6 lakh ($4,200), 4–5 weeks, Discovery Sprint fee credited.
- Expected payback: 26 hours a week ≈ ₹1,95,000 ($2,294) a year in staff time alone, before error savings — roughly a 22-month payback on hours, faster once dispatch errors fall.
- Walk-away clause: if the metric is missed at week 8 after a parallel run, the final 30% of the fee is not invoiced.
5. What we would need from you
- A WhatsApp Business API number (we set it up; Meta charges per message — current pricing).
- Read/write access to Tally Prime on your server or Tally on cloud.
- One person in dispatch as the day-to-day contact for the parallel run.
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