The Outsider (Outsider #1) ✔️

Chapter 47 : Portal Proposal

As Daniel was walking back to his room, his Marketing Head followed him.

"Sir, why are you so anxious about agro this time?"

Daniel entered his cabin and indicated his Marketing Head to follow. They sat at the desk and Daniel looked at him. He had been with the company for 2 years now and knew his job very well. Daniel decided to open up to him.

"You see, the government has a lot of money. Till now we all knew how the Imperial Government wasted money and how the corrupt businessmen and the Nobles took all they could. Companies like ours just struggled to get things done. But I have witnessed the power of money and we have a chance to leverage it.

"You know our deal with Techredulous? You know who owns that company? Princess Rosemary Grant, from the Royal Family. The company already has millions of dollars of funding even before they started, purchased one of the most coveted pieces of technology in the VR world. There is no level playing field in this world, my friend. Power and connections are what decides success at the top.

"But there is one change. The new Crown Prince is serious about change and reforms. Through Techredelous, we have a chance to reach him. He will be willing to spend the government dollars on us if we can convince him that we are able to solve problems. That is the new thing. He wants problems solved, and he has identified Agro as the place where change is needed. If we can impress him with our solution, he will throw money at us."

"Can we showcase a concept instead of a product?"

"Like what?"

"We take the problem that the kid said today. We make a presentation on how Tech can be made use of to let the farmers find their buyers. Break the middle layer... Every trader country may hate us, but if done right, we will be the leaders of a new market."

Daniel thought for a bit and replied, "Give me a solid concept, something we can showcase. Not something that will be discussed for ever in the ivory towers, but something that will change things at the ground level. We need to make an impression."

"Sir, you remember we have a warehousing software... The one we made for L6 Supply Chain Corporation?"

"Yes, I remember. How does that help in this case? You want to show them warehousing? How does that help Agro?"

"No Sir, we have something more. We have an asset management system, by which the warehouses are mapped, it also gives us how much space is there in which warehouse, which one has what type of facilities... We had worked on a second module for them by which we were to put their trucking fleet into the grid and show the sales team how soon they can move the goods to other warehouses or to the customers? They never approved that, but we have done a bit of work on it.

"If we put it as a multi-vendor portal grid, replace department and zones with warehouse owners, we can allow owners across the country show how much space they have, what price they will charge, let the truck owners show their truck fleet...Farmers can find out which truck is close by and how much they will charge to take goods to the warehouse and how much it will cost to store it.

"Instead of showing the information to a small sales team, the information can be seen by the public at large, but mostly at potential customers. The customers can contact the truckers through the portal asking them to transport goods, they can rent warehouse spaces to where the trucker will take the goods."

It was an interesting idea. For most companies, the information on space and fleet availability was trade secret, what they used to ensure that they command the market. This portal proposed to show it all the customer. The customer would be able to decide who has the ability to service him and who has excess space, who or which city does not have space.