Reshmandi won best emerging social enterprise award from Business Mint

Bangalore : The people of India are obsessed with silk. They love the material of silk and are fond of the fashionable attires made of silk. They love the fineness in its quality, and since it is produced in the home country, its quality is guaranteed. Silk for India’s people is one of the most sought after materials that us the best choice for occasions and is expensive, that represents the class. The fiber is natural, soft, lustrous, and shiny. The Indian economy has a trade deficit of this material. Hence, as a result, production is utilized completely, and also the fabric and its yarn are imported.  

Saurabh and Mayank planned to start something around the supply chain of Natural Fibres.

They very well researched the different aspects of the Handicrafts and Handloom industry. They researched all possible angles, but were sure about a few things. They wanted to remain in the Supply Chain game and wanted to bring technology to the untouched natural fibre industry. Since they both belong to the technology background, they planned to stay in the digitized supply chain. They further planned to harness technology to produce transparent, robust, and inexpensive solutions for silk’s supply chain.

Taking help from the Central Silk Board, Ministry of Textiles Reshamandi brought together farmers together to give them market linkages. The digitized setup helped farmers fetch better price through scientific testings, precise advisory and reduced logistics costs.

Now, you know how the concept of Reshmandi cracked their mind, and since then, they are performing great in the industry. Mayank had the idea of conceptualizing the supply chain when he was in NIFT Mumbai. It was he who discovered that the supply chain of finer fabrics has issues in India, and he desperately wanted to fix them so that the fabric doesn’t cost much.  

While doing projects for his educational stream, he realized that there are much bigger potentials in sourcing things directly from the producers. Traders earn huge profits in between, and this is how the cost of things go up. Reshmandi currently is operating with more than a hundred farmers and more than 50 active clients who are buying from the venture. It was an exciting journey which gave immense pleasure to the owners.  

The Silk Market in India has flourished over the years and continues to grow at almost 4-5% year after year. Even after gaining so much popularity, the industry is still unorganized. Reshmandi is a venture that is helping the silk supply chain of India turn into a digitized one. It also helps to create an ecosystem for both sericulture farmers and silk reelers. The output capacity of silk is enhanced considerably via inputs that are highly grain inputs.  

The primary aim of Reshmandi is to connect the huge network of farms directly to the reeler community via several techniques used. A few of them include fair pricing, scientific testing, optimized logistics, etc. Hence, it efficiently provides predictive sales figures to the reelers. The sourcing hubs of this venture are currently located in and around Bangalore, but they aim to expand more in around ten more clusters by the end of 2020.  

Although, because of the pandemic since economies are slicing, almost every industry has suffered huge impacts. The silk industry is no less, and imports and exports are among the businesses that suffered the most.  

Mayank is a NIFT gold medalist with over 13 years of experience in the cross-domain. He has helped several media houses and other businesses carve out digital experiences. His exposure to the Handloom Sector is immense. Saurabh, on the contrary, is a seasoned architect of software with almost 14 years of experience. He has completed a bachelor’s degree in computer science and holds ten patents. They both have collectively founded Reshmandi, the first platform that digitally focuses on helping the fiber industry. The company is effectively working with sericulture farmers and helping them to provide a tech-enabled supply chain. Reshamandi is currently pre incubated with NSRCEL, IIM Bangalore as part of their launchpad program.

Their intervention is considerably helping to reduce the overall cost of silk sarees for retailers and consumers. The organization aims to work with many more farmers to enhance the quality of silk produced in the home country and enhance value realization.  

After recognizing the immense efforts put in by some creative minds, the Business decided to nominate the venture in the Business Mint Nationwide Awards 2020. It was listed in the Best Emerging Social Enterprise category and was presented with the same award.  

Reshmandi (Shapes Services Pvt. Ltd.) The proud owner of this award is recognized as the best company that works towards digitizing the silk Supply Chain. The jury collectively decided to praise the efforts and achievements of Reshmandi for doing such a commendable job.