QUESTION 1

A
Sustainability
The current model of Aarogya is not sustainable due to the following
reasons:
→ The women entrepreneurs are still very dependent on us for
contacting the manufacturer for sanitary napkins, its packaging,
transportation marketing and other aspects.
→ The model does not create enough profits for the entrepreneurs
to sustain their livelihood on it.

Alternative approach
For this, the team shall have to work in such a way that the women
become independent and our interference is eliminated from the
working of the model. The detailed approach taken to achieve
sustainability is explained in Question 3.

Time takes for expansion

Currently the model takes about 2 months for expansion because of
several steps that are undertaken. These steps have been discussed
below:
✓ On ground demand and need assessment surveys
✓ Finding and training women entrepreneur
✓ Premarketing
✓ Launch of Aarogya via a health camp
✓ Community sessions
✓ Personal interactions and feedback mechanism
✓ Expansion and market penetration

Alternative approach
To reduce this time taken for expansion, we can modify the steps
corresponding to on ground demand surveys and identification of
women entrepreneurs. We can adopt a strategy where the existing
women entrepreneur nominates another prospective woman
belonging to a different area, considering all the requirements of the
model. If the need be, we can even devise incentives to motivate an
existing entrepreneur to connect us with another woman. This shall
create a chain and will reduce the time taken for expansion.

Another approach can be collaborating with NGO s who can connect

us with prospective women entrepreneurs already identified by them.
This shall too reduce the time taken for expansion.

Relationship with stakeholders

Project Aarogya maintains a good relationship with its stakeholders
and takes care of their needs. Overall, we can ensure efficient
stakeholder management in Project Aarogya by the following ways:
1. Regular interaction with the stakeholders via call or video
conferencing and offline visits.
2. Educating the women entrepreneurs about matters relating
to menstruation through online and offline approaches, like,
sharing content over WhatsApp groups, offline workshops, and
interactive sessions, all this to keep them motivated and
interested in the working of the Aarogya model.
3. Giving bonuses on festivals like Holi, Diwali etc. .
4. Employment of at least 20 more women entrepreneurs,
providing them with an income increment of 150%.
5. Assisting them in opening bank accounts if they do not
already have one.
6. Provide financial assistance in case of health emergencies, if
required after properly analyzing the situation.
7. The stakeholders can even be offered medical insurance at
cheaper prices by collaborating with insurance companies.

.
Third party collaborations
Currently, we have third party collaboration with our manufacturer of
sanitary napkins(soothe), Packagers (NGO; Satchit) and had several
more collaborations, like, with DSP office north district etc.

Additionally, we can collaborate with the following people to ensure

greater brand building:
 Professional mentors who can guide us upon the expansion
and diversification prospects.
 Professional doctors to increase our credibility and suggest
expert medical advice to the women dealing with any problem
relating to her menstrual cycle.
 Medical insurance companies which can provide insurance to
our stakeholders at cheaper rates.
 Approach media houses, newspaper publications, TV
channels, websites, Instagram pages etc. more extensively
to cover our story on their respective platforms.
 Collaborating with transportation agencies to facilitate easy
and cheap transportation and delivery of our products.
 We can also collaborate with small scale distributors in
different areas for improved reach and sales of our product.

Demand avenues tapped and approaches followed

The current model taps the following demand sources
Currently we have 5 operational areas and 10 women entrepreneurs,
with 2 more areas identified ( shakti shalini and Delhi cantt )
Areas of operation
After identifying an area where there is lack of menstrual hygiene
among the women living there, a survey is conducted and following
the analysis of which demand is created and our pads are sold
through the woman entrepreneur. The approach to tapping them can
be improved by reducing the time taken for expansion and increasing
profitability.
Retailers and distributors
Most of our revenue comes from supplying in massive quantities to
retailers and distributors. The current approach of tapping these
demand avenues through NGO collaborations (such as Artha),
online and offline demand tapping etc is suitable and needs to be
done more extensively to increase sales.
NGOs
NGOs are tapped by us to fulfil the pad requirements of the women
associated with the NGO and even look for a prospective women
entrepreneur there. The current approach of tapping NGOs via
emailing and calling and visiting is suitable and we can continue the
same approach.

B
Aarogya earns most of its profits from sources of demand other
than its areas of operation. To make the areas of expansion more
profitable, we can neither increase the price, considering the
affordability of our target population, nor is it desired to decrease the
remuneration of our entrepreneurs. Hence, the first thing to realize is
that Project Aarogya is a model driven by volumes.
To increase the volume of the sales and profit made in a particular
area, we can take the following measures;
❑ Identify areas with a large population. If we expand to
smaller areas, the sales ought to be fewer. Expanding in areas
with a large population can help us increase our sales as well
as make a community of women who can together make the
model sustainable.
❑ We can incentivize the women users in areas of operation for
purchase of Aarogya Sanitary Napkins by eBay of offering a
deliverable along with the product. The deliverable can be a
packet of detergent, internet data pack etc.
❑ The cost of transportation is a huge cost currently being incurred
by the project. An effective method must be devised to minimize
this cost such as a permanent collaboration with a
transportation agency or multiple collaborations with local
courier services.
❑ Currently, we spend a lot of time expanding in one area
identified by the team and do not focus on looking for another
potential area simultaneously. If we continuously search for
 new areas of expansion and hold a team accountable for it, it
will help us impact more areas which in turn will generate more
profit.

C
Expansion and diversification strategy
The following will be an effective expansion strategy to scale up our
operations, considering the possibility of online functioning in the next
year.
1. Identification of a potential area with a large population
through NGOs.
2. Conducting an awareness session with the women of the area,
imparting general awareness about menstruation as well as
highlighting our aim and working.
3. Going ahead with the women interested in becoming
entrepreneurs and providing them the required training.
4. Create a WhatsApp group with the women as a common
platform of communication and have regular offline visits to
them to educate them more about menstruation as well as make
them feel connected to the organization.
5. Interact with them on a regular and individual basis to obtain
feedback and know about any issues they are facing.

As for diversification, we must undertake extensive research on

new prospects such as hybrid packaging, cloth pads, providing
telemedicine healthcare services to the rural population by
collaborating with companies engaged in this business,
However, in my perspective, there is a lot of scope in the current
model and our efforts should be more focused towards expansion,
rather than diversification. More priority should be given to
increasing profits from the current areas of operation,
maximizing sales to retailers and distributors, and looking for similar
demand avenues which benefit society.
Regardless, the research on diversification in biodegradable packaging,
intimate healthcare products, telemedicine services and other avenues
must continue as it will be desirable to diversify in future after
achieving a reasonable scale of operations.

QUESTION 2
Execution Plan of increasing the online presence, brand value and
customer engagement of Aarogya
To increase the brand value,
- Focus on Unique selling points
To organize various online and offline campaigns around our USPs to
tell our target consumers the reasons for preferring Aarogya products
over the others. Like, our eco-friendly aesthetically pleasing
packaging, profits of our women entrepreneurs, menstrual awareness
etc.
- Emphasis on customer feedback
We should focus on customer reviews and feedback. Encourage them
to leave feedback by offering some incentives, such as discounts, to
leave reviews. Reviews and feedback are imperative to building our
brand name. They tell you what works well and what can be improved,
I.e., they work as advisers. Good reviews can also encourage your
future customers.
- Maintain the quality of the product
The quality of our product shall never be compromised as brand equity
depends on quality.
Apart from these, building brand value, online presence and customer
engagement is very crucial for Project Aarogya. We can take the
following steps for the same:
• Post quality content from all our social media handles and
optimize the content according to the platform.
• Optimize and update our website on regular intervals.
 • Approach radio jockeys/Instagram influencers/print and
digital media for interviews describing the working of our
project.
• Contact Instagram pages which post about entrepreneurship
and small initiatives and focus on social aspects.
• Reach out to websites which publish articles and blogs
regarding social entrepreneurship, lack menstrual hygiene
in women, and small startups.
• Tap newspaper and magazine media houses for publishing
about our project.
• Collaborations with media personnel such as TV News
Channels will help us in brand building and increase the reach
of our product.
• Collaborating with professional mentors who can guide us
upon the expansion and diversification prospects.
• Collaborating with professional doctors to increase our
credibility and suggest expert medical advice to the women
dealing with any problem relating to her menstrual cycle.
We can even use following ways can be used to increase the traffic
on our website
- More frequent upload of our blogs on the website and
usage of keywords will enable us to get a better ranking on
search engines.
- Inviting guest blogs for Aarogya via our social media handles.
- Approaching freelancers for better search engine optimization
(freelancers are a more affordable option).

Some online and offline campaigns that we can conduct during the
year can be as follows;
• Conducting pad distribution drives in collaboration with NGOs
or any government body, in poor and needy areas.
• Organizing awareness sessions as well as health and
community camps in rural/slum/outskirt areas to promote
healthy menstruation practices and remove the stigma and
myths related to periods.
• Performing Nukkad Nataks to increase awareness.
• We can also organize various online campaigns, such as, men
and menstruation, the myths of menopause, change makers
 etc., these are the main stream topics and would catch attention
of a large no. of viewers.
• We can do an offline open mic event for fund raiser campaigns
in local areas, this could also be a student centric thing.
• In another online campaign called PeriodThings , we can
motivate our users to share from any queer thing (Eg; I try to
cook when I am on my periods) to a craving they experience
while on their periods.
• As part of an online campaign called PeriodSurprizes we can
share weird and surprising facts about periods with our audience
( Eg- The sound of a woman’s voice can change during periods!)
• Also, we will try to collaborate with societies like NSS, Enactus,
WDC, CRY etc., in their social drives and campaigns to expand
our reach and contacts.

QUESTION 3
Sustainability is the goal of the operations and the entire team must
work together to achieve it.
➢ To make the model sustainable we can follow the approach
explained below
• Where there is a group of multiple women entrepreneurs, they
can be organized in the form of a Self-Help Group under which
the women will take charge of all the operations independently.
• As the women will be organized, one elected woman from the
group will be the leader of the community. She will be
responsible for
• Taking monthly orders from the women and recording the
number of pads respectively required by them. .
• Ordering the pads in bulk to reduce the cost incurred in
transportation.
• Receiving the order and making the payment to the
manufacturer.
• Distributing the order received to the women, based on their
order requirement and payment made.
 • As remuneration to the leader for this work, each member will
contribute Rs. 50 or such amount as earlier decided in the
group.

➢ Another way of making the model sustainable is to tap an NGO,

collaborate with it and the women user group associated with it
to undertake the entire working of the project.
• This could be done either with the Satchit NGO, who have been
involved in the process for a long time now. We can start by
minimizing our intervention and by training the women group of
the NGO in various domains of the project (mentioned below).
• Or we can tap and engage a new NGO into the Aarogya model,
collaborate with its management, either to help us locate a new
women self-help group or engage its own women group into the
model, train them accordingly and pass on the entire working to
them.

The goal of sustainability cannot be achieved overnight and the team

will have to train the women in numerous aspects such as
• Procuring pads from the manufacturer
• Packaging
• Inventory management
• Marketing
• Maintaining regular supply
• Making and receiving payments through different online and
offline modes.
Making project Aarogya sustainable will not be an easy task, but with
constant efforts and teamwork we can surely make this happen as
soon as possible.