(Contributed photo)
MANILA – The Philippine Council for Industry, Energy and Emerging Technology Research and Development (PCIEERD) has provided a PHP3.5 million grant to startup Packworks for the development of an app that would help sari-sari store owners and suppliers in their inventory needs.
"The app, which would be downloadable for free, would provide (real-time) inventory visible to both the supplier and manufacturer. This would help suppliers know which products are fully stocked, so they would only bring products that are fast-moving," PCIEERD Executive Director Enrico Paringit told the Philippine News Agency in an interview on Thursday.
He explained that in the provinces, there are trucks that deliver the supplies to sari-sari store owners.
"We're talking about hundreds of sari-sari store owners. Sometimes, they don't accept product deliveries if they are still fully stocked," Paringit said.
Thus, the app would help truck delivery drivers to have a more strategic way of delivering the products per area.
"It would be easier for them to do the supply replenishment if the information system is centralized," he said.
"Likewise, the store owners could tell them in advance what to bring," Paringit said, adding this has been a typical logistics problem.
Packworks offers a business-to-business fast-moving consumer goods marketplace for sari-sari store owners.
According to a news release, the startup firm will develop a machine learning-powered precision marketing model that will offer store owners customized recommendations on sellable products.
Paringit said the funding was via the Startup Grant.
"We saw the benefit of the project not only to the startup firm but also to sari-sari store owners by delivering precise marketing system that utilizes data from the mobile app," he said.
The app, he added, will not just inform the suppliers which products are sellable in particular areas, but will also advise the store owners which products are on promo.
"The main social benefit of this research project is achieving higher levels of economic productivity through data-driven technologies upgrading and innovation," he said.
Paringit said the research project would run for 18 months, and would involve face-to-face engagements with sari-sari store owners; app development; machine learning model development; and the rollout and validation. (PNA)
