The Humans in the Q-commerce Supply Chain

This case explores the operational model and human labour behind India’s booming Quick Commerce (Q-commerce) industry, with a particular focus on picker-packers in dark stores. Through interviews conducted with a manager and picker-packers in a dark store in Bengaluru, and with the recruiters of a Human Resource Company involved in hiring such workers and industry insights, MBA students are encouraged to evaluate the sustainability, ethics and scalability of the work model in the Q-commerce sector. The case culminates in a managerial dilemma around how to structure workforce strategy in this space.

Learning Objectives

The learning objective here is to analyze stakeholders in India’s Q-commerce labour market-founders and investors, staffing firms, workers, and the state-and their conflicting interests. It also examines low wage workforce models, and their impact on worker security and mobility while situating all this within broader trends like jobless growth, surplus labour, and weak regulation to assess sustainable and ethical labour practices.