Srijana proudly mentions that Organic Online has put itself in a market leadership position for bringing only trustworthy, local, fresh and healthy products, traditional homemade food, natural grooming products, and green vegetables. Through Organic Online she prioritizes customers' health and their satisfaction which acts as a significant source of motivation for her. Organic Online is developing unique products to solve the dietary problems faced by urban populations due to their unhealthy lifestyles, especially for children, working women, and health-conscious persons. Srijana shares “We use our grandmother's traditional food and long-lost homemade herbal remedies to enhance a healthy lifestyle.” Organic Online will be celebrating its 4th anniversary in July 2022.

Disaster Experience

While Srijana has personally experienced various disasters, she shares that as for her business the ongoing pandemic COVID-19 affected the most. COVID-19 is the biggest disaster of our generation which has traumatized almost all of us. Firstly, her business sells healthy food items, it limits her to a niche market.  To add to this, the whole supply chain got affected when lockdown took over which automatically slowed down the business. Her team works with farmers from more than 22 districts, who send products to Organic Online for sorting, packaging, labeling, and delivery to the customers.  However, while her business was reviving from the situation, Srijana simultaneously looked for opportunities to expand her business to next level which led her to promoting her business under Udhyami Utthan Campaign.

“Fostering Resilience of Women-Led Businesses (including home-based women producers) and Consumers” is a project being implemented by Thulo.Com and Enterprise for Management, Economic Reform, and Gender Equality (EMERGE). The project is supported by United States Agency for International Development (USAID)’s Tayar Nepal - Improved Disaster Risk Management Project and also contributes to Udhyami Utthan (UU - https://udhyamiutthan.com/about-us/ ), an entrepreneurship empowerment initiative.

Experience as a Project Beneficiary

Becoming a project beneficiary has  been a great learning experience for Srijana. Before attending  the sessions on BCM and BCP, she was oblivious to the circumstances and had no plans to address any kind of disaster occurrence.  Through the training, she has particularly learned about assigning respective roles and the early measures to be taken for disaster management. She is planning to build BCP in detail with all the lessons learned from the sessions. Along with  her team she is  starting raw materials inventory management, production unit management, and logistics management while also making plans to do insurance for the production unit and logistic units for  prevention of fire hazards and road safety. Simultaneously, she plans to  focus on the marketing segment because she has now realized that her company needs more marketing and word of mouth triggers sales. 

Since Organic Online operates online, digital literacy lessons  had a tremendous effect on her perspective about the power of social media. She shared “I had been trying to create a social media plan for brand building. Though Organic Online already has a social media presence (Facebook and Instagram) and website, the digital literacy training has given me a new perspective on strategies of building a brand, for instance, sharing stories to generate goodwill and trust which will enhance the company's brand.” 

Srijana shares that while the banking and insurance sessions were very informative, she has already received the women entrepreneurship loan from a bank and is now considering insurance for the production unit and logistic unit.

Future Plan

Srijana intends to sell at Thulo.Com  even after the project. She believes, “Direct to consumer (D2C) business model enables us to know firsthand reviews from the customer. More importantly, it is hassle-free with no layers of middle agents, ensuring more profits for the producers. Lastly, it leverages producers to get to the masses with the help of e-commerce marketing.” 

Srijana Pradhan is the chairperson/co-founder of Organic Online in Maharajgunj, Kathmandu.

Visit her Online Shop at Thulo.com/uu

https://thulo.com/index.php?dispatch=companies.products&company_id=761