When Saksham Agrawal's mother got an asthmatic attack one night, he had to rush to get an inhaler. But it was quite a task to find the particular inhaler they were looking for. This was just one of the many challenges he witnessed in times of emergency. There was another incident when his friend urgently needed an insulin injection, but couldn't find the particular kind. There were several other instances like people embarrassed to ask for contraceptives or women being embarrassed to ask for sanitary products. There was something about the customer-seller relationship that was not convenient when it came to pharmacies.
So after completing his Bachelor's in Pharmacy, Saksham and joined the SRM Innovation and Incubation Centre where he established his startup 'SureLocal' Blueheartcare Pvt Ltd. The platform is basically intended to boost sales, but also make retailers understand customer behaviour, demand and satisfaction, things that most local retailers might not really analyse. "With Surelocal, they will be able to manage all the things a big company can do from acquisition to retention of customers without much effort," says Saksham.
One of the challenges, Saksham says, is that while customers have moved on to digitalisation, local retailers haven't. They can't compete with organised retail chains. He goes on to say that local pharmacies protesting to shut online pharmacies is not logical and instead, they need to upgrade themselves to improve customer engagement and survive in a competitive market.
So what happens when retailers use the Surelocal platform? "It will help them have better patient-pharmacist interaction and counselling. We advise them on what methods care community pharmacies should follow. There will be more customer engagement, just like using an e-commerce platform," he concludes.
