Coronavirus: Bengaluru-based company enables safety solutions for businesses

Supply chains across the world have been disrupted in the wake of the unprecedented coronavirus pandemic. This is also a time when sectors like healthcare and pharma are seeing a monstrous spike in sales.

At this point, disruption in supply chains can greatly affect the healthcare ecosystem, which is fighting a life-and-death battle to combat the coronavirus, and needs a steady flow of essentials, including sanitisers, masks, gloves and other surgical products.

This is where companies like PinkBlue.in come in.

Founded in 2016, the Bengaluru-based company aims to achieve the twin goals of digitising and automating supply chain processes of small and medium businesses (SMBs) to ensure that hospitals and pharmacies are well stocked with medical supplies.

The company has partnered with over 300 brands across the country, mainly for the supply of medical equipment and products.

ALSO READ

Coronavirus: What ails the Indian supply chain, why we are in trouble, and how to fix it

COVID-19 initiatives

The lockdown imposed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in March rocked the business world. At that time, while the healthcare system was facing shortage of medical supplies, the company decided to come up with a more efficient base of supply chain solutions, says Valliappan Kumarappan, Co-founder and CEO of PinkBlue.in.

The demand didn't end at hospitals and pharmacies, says Valliappan. "The real work started a few weeks into the lockdown. We realised that even corporates and startups wanted sanitisers, masks, and other products as they also need to take care of safety and hygiene protocols once they resume their activities."

Currently, the platform has tied up with manufacturing units in Karnataka to meet the huge surge in demand. “This is the time to establish new partnerships in case existing partners are facing issues. We have been quite open to collaborating with a bunch of newer players, to ensure minimal impact on our supply chain, be it in procurement, logistics or technology.”

Pinkblue.in is also supplying medical products to companies like Rapido, Rolex and Box 8, and sees huge scope in Indian retail market in the coming times.

"Our aim is to provide large-scale solutions to corporates looking at significant consumption of these products."

The company is also in touch with industry experts to roll out standard operating procedures (SOPs) for different sectors to ensure that companies are genuinely taking steps to mitigate the effects of the virus.