Unn

Abstract

This report aims to provide a detailed and comprehensive understanding into the conceptualization, design, development and output of an application that has been developed as part of my final year project.

The purpose of the application is to provide a cost-effective, easily accessible and sustainable solution for providing a platform for both consumers and suppliers to deal with each other for food supplies (and other consumer good products). The application named ‘Unn’, ultimately aims to eliminate the barriers that have long existed in the supply chain for food produce that prevent the direct dealing between the suppliers and consumers. These barriers were traditionally created due to some practical reasons relating to logistics issues that made it virtually impossible for suppliers and consumers to know who and where the other one existed. But with the recent onset of technologies, greater adoption of mobile services across sections of the society, an opportunity has been created to get rid of the barriers and bring greater cost effectiveness to the supply chain of food supplies. These are the opportunities that the application has capitalized on.

Unn has been designed on a multi hand model approach whereby each entity, i.e. the consumer, the supplier or the governing body makes use of the application in a simple and independent way with great flexibility. For the consumer side, the buying behaviours and the household habits of the target audience was kept in mind while designing the interface and features to ensure a smooth transition from the traditional buying from cash and carry stores to using Unn. For the supplier side that consists of both farmers and consumer good companies, the design was such that they need not divulge from their current selling strategies (promotion, discounting, bundling, etc.) and are able to adopt this application without any modification to their existing selling model. On the whole, it was ensured that the design leads to a fair, quick and transparent system that prevents exploitation of the consumers and promotes healthy competition amongst the suppliers.