They are hiring weather forecasting agencies, in-house experts and data crunchers to prepare for logistics and demand disruptions due to weather events such as unseasonal rains, extreme heatwaves and milder summers or winters.
Food delivery platform Swiggy has tied up with an external weather forecasting agency to predict climatic conditions even on a hyperlocal basis to ensure deliveries are not disrupted. The food aggregator also has a dedicated team that works to keep its riders informed on a real-time basis.
Rival Zomato, which also owns the instant grocery delivery app Blinkit, has weather forecaster and analyst Navdeep Dahiya on its rolls so that its riders have access to crucial weather-related forecasting. “To mitigate weather-related disruptions to business, we provide additional monetary incentives to delivery partners,” a Zomato spokesperson said. Those making a certain number of deliveries during rainy spells can enter a contest and earn rewards.
Ensuring on-time deliveries
“We have enabled lower drop distance, so that delivery partners don’t have to cover lengthy distances during difficult weather,” according to the Zomato spokesperson.Weather-related challenges range from ensuring on-time deliveries and predicting demand fluctuations accurately to inventory management and managing out-of-home consumption channels.After a mild summer in the north that dampened sales of air-conditioners and refrigerators as well as beverages and ice-creams among other seasonal products, the region is facing heavy rain that has disrupted farm supply chains and sent prices soaring.
Online deliveries of essentials and medicines came to a standstill during the wet spells. Platforms such as Swiggy, Zomato and Blinkit stopped delivering in unserviceable clusters.
“We observe inconsistent rain patterns even within smaller geographical clusters, so our riders need to be kept updated on a real-time basis,” said a Zomato executive who did not want to be identified. “During the intense heat waves and severe fog-like conditions, we follow the same strategy.”
Heavily summer-dependent categories like soft drinks, ice-creams and ACs are resorting to de-seasonalising and managing inventories through shorter production cycles so that there are no unsold stocks leading to losses.
Beverage maker Coca-Cola’s global chairman James Quincey said in an earnings call on Wednesday that the company now has “an all-weather strategy” that it follows with its bottling partners.
Adding that the growth outlook for India is intact though the market was unfavourably impacted by unseasonal rains in the June quarter, Quincey said: “I am encouraged that our all-weather strategy, working together with our bottling partners, has delivered strong second-quarter results.”
Core elements of the strategy are home stocking of beverages and stepping up trade discounts during extreme climate conditions so that trade channels continue to push the product, a bottling company executive told ET.
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