FINPoint - Panorbit | Think Digital

A Project that gave more than it took!

Empowering Rural India’s Small Businesses

Project Overview

FINPoint was conceptualized with the intent to bring technology that consolidates the unorganized business sector effectively. This was done by empowering entrepreneurs from even rural areas with the best of inventory management and digital logistics in a very approachable package.

Our research into this sector showed us an information gap and a need for effective digital shift. So, we built our own product FINPoint – A simple to use billing and inventory software for small businesses. With the help of FINPoint we wanted the rural businessmen to learn and follow the new-age methods of billing and inventory management

Scope of Services

Usability Research

User experience
& Interface Design

Product Architecture

Front-End
& Backend development

Testing & Validation

Launch

Timeline

1st
Month

User Research
& User Flow

2nd
Month

Product Design
(UI & UX)

3rd
Month

Architecture building
& Backend development

4th
Month

Front end
development

5th
Month

Testing
& Validation

6th
Month

V1 release
to initial users

Timeline

Scope of Services

Usability Research

User experience
& Interface Design

Product Architecture

Front-End
& Backend development

Testing & Validation

Launch

Timeline

Project Goals

Empowering Rural business and the unorganized sector with accessible technology

Considering a country like India whose GDP depends a lot on the afore mentioned sectors, we required to tap into the immediate need of the hour – that is level the competition platform by empowering the technology deficient sector with approachable and accessible solutions. Digitization of Inventory management and logistics is still a major concern for these strata of the Indian business and commercial sphere.

Problems

DE 1

Lack of digital literacy

The dominance of computers and the internet penetration and adoption has been gaining momentum throughout the past two decades in India and the trend of technology adoption by businesses and service sector has seen an exponential rise. This will trickle down into the third tier and rural demographic too, but complete adoption would require more than just usage of computers and internet resources. They would benefit from technology that is directly made for them.

Unorganized sector

A considerable section of the businesses and the revenue generated in India is dependent on unorganized business practices that are functional through traditional methods of logistics and management. A level of structure could be brought about with the help of empowering these businesses with the help of technology.

DE 2
DE 3

No one point solution for POS and inventory

A large number of businesses don’t benefit from the internet and digital solutions that enable them to bring all their processes under one proverbial roof – contributing to the unorganised nature of these enterprises. Just bringing the PoS solutions and inventory management in a single package would consolidate structure for a majority of these businesses.

Accessibility to the internet

Internet penetration to a lot of these demographics is picking up pace and incentivizing quick adoption of the digital services is pertinent in today’s climate. This would contribute to expediting the provision of internet technology to the more remote locations of the country.

FINPOINT Case Study picture

Our Solutions

Simple and easy to understand UI/UX

FINPoint tackled lack of digital literacy by providing an intuitive and easy to understand UI/UX – training on this was also given which even contributed to the introduction of internet technologies to a distinct section of the target demographic.



Offline invoicing

Internet deficient sections of the target demographic were given a lot of emphasis with the option of offline invoicing and operations. Connectivity is not stable in a lot of the locations where FINpoint was deployed and offline functionalities had to be devised that could run without much intervention from the users.

Integrated platform for POS, inventory management, and store dashboard

PoS support that connected seamlessly with the logistics and operations, enabling single point interactions. And combined with an easy to approach and use factor, FINPoint was designed with digital accessibilty in its core.

Mobile app for decision makers

An easy-to-use mobile app for the decision-makers ensured the availability of a majority of the core capabilities of managing a business effectively.

Our Process

1.

The first step was to understand the current process of the small-scale businesses. The application was not just a systemic change rather, it was a behavioural change. We interacted directly with the shops and sat at the billing counter for 3 weeks to understand the current system effectively.

2.

Using the learnings from current user behaviour and working with the industry experts, we managed to device a simplified solution that offers an easy transition for the users from on-ground to a completely digitized mode of functioning.

3.

Offline support and functioning was of prime importance. We had to build the module in such a way that the applications work without internet with the data being synced to the server regularly.

4.

We built a desktop application on Electron while the backend was done on Python Django.

5.

The application is entirely hosted on AWS.

6.

An android application was also devised to ensure the stakeholders are updated on-the-go ensuring smooth transition from previous modes to a completely digital mode of functioning.