Abstract

India-based online seller of tea, Teabox, was founded by Kausshal Dugarr (Dugarr) in 2012. Dugarr wanted to sell tea fresh rather than dried up tea. Usually, tea that was plucked from the tea gardens was dried, processed, and stored, and reached the consumers only after several months. Dugarr was looking at taking tea to the consumers directly from the growers. This called for an overhaul of the existing supply chain. Teabox disrupted the 200-year-old Indian tea industry and changed the tea supply chain from a long 5 step process to a leaner 2 step process. Teabox vertically integrated the tea manufacturing process and was directly involved from manufacturing the tea to selling it to customers. In the process, Teabox emerged as the only vertically integrated tea business in the world.

Learning Objectives

The case is structured to achieve the following Learning Objectives:

• Understand the benefits of supply chain integration
• Understand the supply chain of the Indian Tea industry

Keywords

Teabox; Lean Supply Chain; Vertical Integration; Supply Chain Integration; Supply Chain Overhaul; Farmers to Consumers; Supply Chain Disruption