Project overview
A major challenge in India is providing market-relevant skills and meaningful jobs to a young and growing population. Skill training has helped equip youth with relevant work skills, but the shortage of well-paying and aspirational jobs has contributed to under-employment in India.
Enter Blowhorn, a full-stack logistics platform that connects customers with mini-truck drivers through a website and mobile app.
Since coming to market in 2014, Blowhorn has made the fragmented intra-city logistics market (estimated at $10 billion) more efficient. But, more importantly, it has provided market-relevant training and aspirational jobs to underprivileged youth in more than 30 cities in India.
How it helps
Over the last decade, 150 million young people have entered the job market in India. In the same period, 60 million jobs have been created. Micro-entrepreneurship is critical to address this gap in supply and demand. Blowhorn’s innovative model provides an opportunity to overcome the problem of unemployment and underutilization among low-income youth in the logistics sector.
I knew for a fact that the problem was not the lack of supply of truck drivers, but the lack of a common platform that would aggregate and bring together the very fragmented market of mini trucks. If this model could work well in transporting people with Uber and Ola, then it could work for goods transport as well.
Mithun Srivatsa, Blowhorn Founder
Partner drivers can now use their mobile phone to access work orders or follow the most optimal transport route to their destination, improving capacity and income in the process.
In addition to the innovative technology solution, Blowhorn also has a strong people focus. Partner drivers receive customer services training — making it possible for them to move from product transportation to product delivery, which can enhance their income.
Blowhorn’s rapid growth beyond India’s large cities validates the scalability of their business model. In addition to creating a sustainable base of drivers with high-loyalty rates, the company continues to attract and retain large corporate clients.
By organizing and skilling this informal sector of micro entrepreneurs, Blowhorn is enabling aspirational jobs and meaningful careers for underprivileged youth within the logistics industry. And it has already increased the income of drivers on its platform by 20-25 percent.