www.capgeminisupertechiesshow.com Capgemini Super Techies Show Season 2: The Marico Challenge Presentation

1. The Marico Limited Challenge
Use technology to enhance the effectiveness of procurement
planning

2. The Facts
• An Indian consumer goods company providing products and services in the
areas of Health and Beauty
• The organization holds a number of brands including Parachute, Saffola, Hair &
Care, Nihar, Mediker, Revive, Manjal, Kaya Skin Clinic, Livon, Set Wet Zatak,
Fiancee, HairCode, Eclipse, Xmen, Hercules, Caivil, Code 78 and Black Chic
• Marico's brands and their extensions occupy leadership positions with
significant market shares in a number of health and beauty areas
• The company, in recent years, has been known for its foreign acquisitions in
countries such as South Africa, Egypt and Singapore

3. Background on Challenge
•
Marico Ltd. presents a ‘true’ business challenge from a data collection,
collation and analysis perspective
•
The company seeks a new-edge technology solution to estimate the arrival of
their main raw material—‘Copra’ (dried meat of the coconut)—in the market
and also allow usage in other applications

4. Background on Challenge – Copra tracking
process
•
Copra is the raw material for making coconut oil, traded in various
marketplaces in Southern India
•
Availability of copra is related to the yield of the coconut crop and the drying
process
•
Agricultural representatives periodically visit farms to record the maturity
stages of fruits
•
The data recorded is used to estimate the yield across the region and also the
time of arrival of copra in markets
•
Prices are determined by demand and supply dynamics. Hence, forecasting of
the copra availability in markets enables better procurement planning

5. The Problem
The current process of counting coconut fruits on trees is timeconsuming, based on observation, subjective, hunch- and experiencebased and with a very high margin for error
This impacts the quality of the data, which in turn, can lead to nonoptimal decisions on procurement

6. The Challenge Statement
Suggest a solution that helps Marico Ltd. leverage the PDA
currently being used to capture data to also perform image
capture
The images so captured need to be scanned using technologies
similar to object-detection algorithms in such a way that the
same code can be reused for similar applications in future —
This would help in reuse and protection of investment in the
technology

7. The Challenge Statement - Details
• The images so captured need to be stored for future reference
• The algorithms developed should be capable of real-time analysis based
on objects identified and recorded
•
The application should be compatible with smartphones, running
Android 2.2 and higher
• The only dilution to the challenge is that image analysis can be done
offline on the stored images; however, the accuracy has to be at least
50% higher than that of real-time image analysis

8. Important Points to Remember
• The image analysis and copra prediction solution developed
should be significantly better than the current manual methods
• The traditional methods of acquiring this information have been
highly cost-effective and have withstood the test of time
• The solution developed should be speedy— it should not take
more than 10 seconds to generate data
• The image analysis and detection algorithms should be integrated
into an:
(a) Android application
(b) .Net-based portal

9. Important Points to Remember
• The solution developed has to be simple and intuitive, since the
users of the application would be mostly semi-literate
• The image analysis and object detection has to be at least 90%
accurate
• Hence, the solution needs to be fast and scalable

10. Important Points to Remember
• The solution developed has to be simple and intuitive, since the
users of the application would be mostly semi-literate
• The image analysis and object detection has to be at least 90%
accurate
• Hence, the solution needs to be fast and scalable