This article has been contributed by Atul Anand, Director – Business Strategy (Industrial & Logistics), XRE Consultants.
First thing First, how I see blockchain is as a collection of blocks (because it is a collection, hence it is called blockchain) which are encrypted in a particular manner and are irreversible (means you can add but can’t amend or delete), and these blocks are stored at multiple locations at the same time in the network. This way records become tamperproof. This is a boon for supply chains that need pointed information for every step in the journey of product/information.
Revolutionary & Transformative
Blockchain technology adoption in the supply chain is bringing revolutionary & transformative changes in supply chain management. Drawing from my experiences in India and the broader APAC region, I have seen firsthand the profound impact this technology can have on enhancing transparency, efficiency, curbing fakes, and building trust within supply chains. Blockchain is making the supply chain more resilient than ever.
Transparency
Transparency, a somewhat illusionary word in supply chain, is now finding its true meaning where the users can see complete transparency & visibility by adopting blockchain technology and thus removing the mistrust from the stakeholders. Blockchain addresses the transparency challenge by creating a decentralized and immutable ledger that records every transaction. This transparency ensures that all stakeholders have access to the same information, fostering a culture of trust and collaboration.
In overly complex & fragmented supply chain like in India, the implementation of blockchain has been a notable change. For example, Blockchain technology has affected positively, the agricultural sector by enabling farmers to track their crops from the farm through the consumer’s table. Such advanced traceability guarantees the delivery of fresh and genuine products to the consumers thereby improving their confidence in what they consume. Furthermore, it provides farmers with useful information concerning the market requirements and prices of its products and thus helps make the right decisions and improve performance.
Blockchain Users Around the World
Automation
Blockchain automates processes which reduces the need for human intervention, eliminating human errors that result in a reduced need for manpower, administrative cost is reduced, transactions become efficient, and automation streamlines operations & thus overall efficiency increases & cost reduces.
In the APAC region, for example in the electronics industry supply chains span multiple countries and many a time use intermediaries, adoption of blockchain in procurement reduces lead times, lowers procurement costs, reduces lead times & eliminates the need for intermediaries, real-time visibility increases efficiency & lowers the cost.
Trust & Security
Trust being a critical part of any supply chain’s robustness is a winning block brought upon by blockchain with conviction. The distributed database characteristic of blockchain ensures that no single one can muffle & has control over the entire supply chain, thus reducing the risk of fraud and manipulation. Each transaction is securely recorded and cannot be altered, providing an irreversible record of the product’s journey.
In India, fake & counterfeit goods are a great concern, blockchain has proven valuable apparatus in combating fakes and counterfeits. For instance, in the pharmaceutical industry, blockchain has been used to track the movement of drugs from manufacturers to consumers, ensuring that only genuine products reach the market. This not only protects consumers but also helps legitimate businesses keep the trust of the customers & their reputation and business volumes.
Blockchain technology brings great bonhomie & collaborationamong the stakeholders in the supply chains. Being the source of truth for a particular supply chain instance, blockchain ensures that all collaborators have access to the same information, eliminating misunderstandings and disputes. This improved collaboration leads to more efficient and effective supply chain operations.
Supply chains often involve multiple stakeholders with varying levels of technological sophistication because of geography positioning, and technology adoption of blockchain has helped better collaboration. For example, in the automotive industry, blockchain has been used to coordinate the production and delivery of components, ensuring that all parties are aligned and working towards the same goals. This has resulted in smoother operations and improved product quality.
Blockchain in Supply Chain- Challenges & Way Forward
In the future, blockchain technology has the potential to become an “Operating System” for supply chains but it is not free of challenges. There are several issues on regulatory compliances, scalability & interoperability to make blockchain technology widely accepted & adopted. However, the sun is shining bright on blockchain technology as more technological advancements are coming along & awareness about blockchain technology is increasing exponentially.
Let me touch on some of the concerns of blockchain technology. For me, many of the challenges are easily resolvable & superficial to an extent. However, listening to the critique makes technologies robust and going forever.
The ability to handle Mammothness of transactions in the future is a cause of concern as it is feared it might result in slower processing times & higher associated costs. However, it will be sorted by enhancing the technology to build blockchains.
Integrating blockchains is not easywith different systems & platforms. It is a cause of concern because different partners in blockchain use different systems & protocols. It makes integration complex, time-consuming & costly. However, as we see large benefits of blockchain technology, in the future, I hope to see some common protocols that will make integration easy.
Regulatory hurdles as countries don’t have standard regulations & complicate the implementation of blockchain in international supply chains.
High Consumption of energy in blockchain technology adoption raises concerns about the environmental impact & there is a need to work on this front to take this negative notion about blockchain.
Like every other data, data privacy & security is a rightful concern. Putting the ever-evolving layers of security on data is of paramount importance.
Lack of knowledge about the benefits of blockchain among the stakeholders creates doubts about blockchain technology and this results in a lack of adoption.
In conclusion, blockchain technology has the potential to transform supply chain management by enhancing transparency, efficiency, trust, and collaboration. Drawing from my experiences in India and the APAC region, I have seen how this technology can address the most pressing challenges in supply chain management. As we continue to explore and harness the power of blockchain, we can look forward to a future where supply chains are more transparent, efficient, and resilient.
On 16 September 2024, the supply chain management company Delhivery announced that it has formed a partnership with Teamglobal Logistics to provide ocean freight services, with a particular emphasis on both inbound and outbound logistics. With the strategic partnership, Delhivery will be able to provide its Less than Container Load (LCL) service to more than 120 countries. In return, Delhivery will be able to provide in-land services of its Part Truckload (PTL) shipping solution within India to Teamglobal through its more than 18,700 pin codes, as stated in a statement released by Delhivery.
Using a combination of land, sea, and air means of transportation, Teamglobal Logistics is the largest LCL operator in the country. They provide transportation services between all of the major international cargo centers.
Partnership Provides an Integrated Solution
According to the official statement, the cooperation offers an integrated solution to the usual problem that Indian firms face when they have to deal with multiple service providers in order to arrange the transportation of their cargo from their origins to worldwide destinations and vice versa.
According to Delhivery, this also tackles the challenge that businesses face when trying to find a service provider on a national basis to meet their ground transportation needs.
According to the company, the fully integrated network of express and freight solutions, which is supported by technology-enabled tracking and an in-house regulatory clearance centre, would be beneficial to the growth of enterprises that are interested in engaging in international trade.
Leadership Remarks
Delhivery’s Senior Director of Global Operations, Navneet Khandelwal, expressed that the firm is overjoyed to have formed a collaboration with Teamglobal, a company that is at the forefront of the Less than Container Load shipping industry. Delhivery plans to pass on the benefits of this partnership to its enterprise and small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) customers across India.
Teamglobal’s Vice President, Sujit Baral, noted that Delhivery’s vast coverage ensures that Teamglobal’s service is available in practically any inland point in India via the largest Part Truckload network. This allows Teamglobal to provide its customers with an exceptional experience throughout the final mile of their journey. Firm is looking forward to the relationship because it has a common ground for striving for process improvement and providing customers with technology-enabled experiences.
Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved bySupplyNote.
The global food and beverages market grew from $6,729.54 billion in 2022 to $7,221.73 billion in 2023 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7.3%. In businesses specific to the F&B industry, customer service is of the utmost importance. And to offer highly valued services, the F&B industry needs to strengthen its supply chain networks. Thus, there is an upsurge in demand for supply chain management in the F&B industry. Along with advances in technology, the supply chain industry is evolving.
SupplyNote provides a full-stack platform for the entire supply chain management process. It helps Food and beverage businesses with inventory management, vendor management, and logistics supply chain needs.
SupplyNote – Company Highlights
Startup Name
SupplyNote
Headquarters
Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India
Industry
SaaS, E-Commerce Platform for Food Businesses
Founder
Kushang, Nitin Prakash, Harshit Mittal, and Abhishek Verma
SupplyNote is a B2B SAAS platform for F&B businesses that provides a platform for end-to-end management of supply chains with an integrated marketplace.
Talking about the long-term vision of the company, its aim is to become the backbone of the F&B supply chain by evolving into a one-stop solution for all supply chain needs – software, service, and marketplace.
In the short term, the idea is to provide a marketplace where merchants can discover suppliers for their raw materials and transact with them, orders from which will be fulfilled by SupplyNote.
SupplyNote – Industry
The global food and beverages market is projected to reach $9,225.37 billion in 2027, experiencing a CAGR of 6.3% from 2023.
The industry has been operating its supply chain using traditional methods (pen and paper) and needs a digital transformation, which SupplyNote intends to bring in. Every F&B outlet suffers noticeable losses due to inventory mismanagement, procurement flaws, etc. For a business that runs on major fixed costs, it becomes more important than ever to maintain the margins. Following the major blow from the pandemic, they observed an accelerated tech disruption in the industry. Therefore, they believe that five years down the line, the industry will be completely digitized in terms of operations.
SupplyNote – Founders and Team
Kushang – Co-founder and CEO of SupplyNote
The founding team has Kushang (CEO), Nitin Prakash (CPO), Harshit Mittal (CTO), and Abhishek Verma (COO). They are a bold, intrepid, highly passionate group of tech-loving geeks, foodies, change-makers, doers, and entrepreneurs who are committed to empowering F&B businesses with technology & innovation.
Four friends from IIT Kanpur came together to build SupplyNote, with Kushang leading the idea, Harshit Mittal leading the technological development, Abhishek Verma leading the Business Operations, and Nitin Prakash leading the Product. During the final year, Adcount Technologies Pvt Ltd was incepted (parent company of SupplyNote).
The company currently has a strength of 75, and they believe in flexible work culture. More than the hours spent in the office, they care about making progress toward the goal. They work as hard as they play. They like people who like to take on challenges and ownership, who are competitive and yet they care about nature. Most of the team comprises foodies. And they love sports.
SupplyNote – Idea and Startup Story
SupplyNote was formerly known as Adurcup. AdCount Technologies was originally founded in 2015 by IIT-Kanpur alumni Kushang, Abhishek Verma, Harshit Mittal, and Nitin Prakash with the idea of monetizing paper cups. Over the period, the company built its network of merchants and started dealing in a variety of supplies. The company was using its own software, which was developed in-house, for managing its supply chain, when a client discussed the requirement of such a solution for their inventory management purpose. The team customized the software as per the client’s requirement, and that gave birth to SupplyNote in 2019, a platform that is actively being used across not less than 2000 outlets today.
SupplyNote – Name, Tagline, and Logo
SupplyNote Logo
The name itself is made up of two words, Supply-Note, which essentially means noting down the supply. They discovered that inventory management isn’t digitized yet in a major part of the F&B industry in India. As they started the mission of digitizing the supply chain, they came up with the name that means recording the inventory data—SupplyNote, for short.
The logo of SupplyNote might look like an arrow pointing towards the top (that signifies growth), but it’s more than that. That arrow is made up of two letters, S and N, which are the initials of Supply-Note.
The tagline of SupplyNote is ‘Fix Your Supply Chain,’ enabling companies to expand into new geographies faster by eliminating the hassle of building supply chains or discovering suppliers. SupplyNote has already solved those challenges for them, making it much easier for companies to scale and explore markets. Hence, the logo represents growth—in numbers, in business, in every aspect.
SupplyNote – Products and Services
SupplyNote is an ecosystem of software and services for the management of Supply Chain for F&B businesses. It has 4 products under its umbrella:
The Point of Sale Solution: Having an exclusive strategic partnership with Posify, SupplyNote offers its customers a platform for the management of sales, such as billing, kitchen management, table management, rider tracking, web ordering, and more.
The Inventory Management / Supply Chain Management Software: Integrated with Point of Sale, SupplyNote IMS takes in the data of sales, and its advanced algorithms break down the sold items into the raw material that has been consumed and updates the inventory in real-time. It also helps with the management of suppliers, the generation of purchase orders, sales orders, and more.
The Fulfilment Services: SupplyNote helps merchants and vendors transact with each other without worrying about operational challenges, as SupplyNote offers warehousing and logistic services (dry and cold) to fulfill supply chain needs.
The Marketplace: A product of SupplyNote that helps merchants discover suppliers and transact with them, getting more options and flexibility on price, payment terms, quality options, and more.
SupplyNote – USP
SupplyNote is the only full-stack platform for supply chain management, as all the other companies are only solving a part of the supply chain and not the entire supply chain.
The clients pay a subscription fee for using the SAAS, while they pay per usage for their fulfillment services. In the marketplace model, they only charge for the fulfillment of delivery (storage and transport) currently and do not charge any commissions from either party.
SupplyNote – Acquiring Clients
Back in 2015 when the company was incepted, the strategy for the acquisition of clients was Feet-on-Street. The team went from door to door, proposing the offerings of the company at that time and built its network of clients. Later, they got great clients who gave us referrals for other clients and word on the streets picked up gradually. Further, in 2019 when SupplyNote was launched, they already were doing business with over 300 clients that showed interest in the software and some of them even turned out to be the first users.
SupplyNote is solving various challenges related to the supply chain and they reach out to every F&B business to discuss the problems they are facing, further contemplating how SupplyNote can solve it for them.
For 100 to 1000, their approach was more linear, with their teammates reaching out to all businesses in the nearby area and pitching them with their propositions. However, as it reached the mark of 1000, they started marketing and taking up branding initiatives, spreading awareness around the significance of digitizing the supply chain, the cost that a good Inventory management software can save, and much more. They are also tying up with companies to provide multiple value propositions to their clients to retain them longer.
SupplyNote – Challenges Faced
One of the earlier products of AdCount Technologies Pvt. Ltd. was Adurcup, an e-commerce platform that was supplying various raw materials to F&B businesses. The challenge was the disorganization of the entire F&B industry at the time, and digitization was yet a foreign concept within the Industry. That is why they decided on solving that challenge, and discovering a bigger opportunity.
SupplyNote – Growth
Since April 2020, the company has grown 12X in GMV and has become the second-largest F&B Supply Chain Company in India (By GMV).
SupplyNote – Funding
SupplyNote has successfully raised a total of $4.7 millionin funding across seven rounds from a diverse group of investors. Among the recent investors are Cogniphy and DSP Family Office, and other notable investors include LetsVenture, SucSEED Indovation, Soonicorn Ventures, Venture Catalysts, SOSV, Artesian VC, and more.
Here are the details of SupplyNote’s funding rounds:
Date
Funding Round
Amount
Lead Investors
July 12, 2023
Series A
$2.3 million
Artesian VC, Venture Catalysts
October 20, 2022
Series A
—
—
October 28, 2021
Seed Round
$1.2 million
Venture Catalysts
October 21, 2021
Seed Round
$667K
—
September 10, 2021
Convertible Note
—
—
October 21, 2020
Seed Round
$600K
Artesian VC, SOSV, Venture Catalysts
February 22, 2020
Seed Round
—
MOX (now Orbit Startups)
SupplyNote – Advisors and mentors
SupplyNote Advisors and Mentors
Yogesh Bellani, William Bao Bean, Vikram Upadhaya, and Apporv Ranjan Sharma are the mentors and advisors of SupplyNote.
SupplyNote – Tools Used in The Company
They use many tools within the company like- Zira, Asana, and Slack to manage work, and Google Suite for emails, meetings, calendars, docs, slides, and sheets. They use Figma for designing, Hubspot as their CRM, MixPanel, and Google Analytics for data analytics and insights, and more.
SupplyNote – Future plans
They are planning to launch a new kind of marketplace in Delhi NCR which they will be expanding across the country shortly.
FAQs
What is SupplyNote?
SupplyNote is a B2B SAAS platform for Food & Beverage businesses that provides a platform for end-to-end management of the supply chain.
Who is the founder of SupplyNote?
Kushang, Nitin Prakash, Harshit Mittal, and Abhishek Verma are the founders of SupplyNote.
When was SupplyNote founded?
SupplyNote was founded in 2019.
What is AdUrCup?
SupplyNote was formerly known as Adurcup – one of the earlier products of AdCount Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by C&S Wholesale Grocers.
In the fast-paced life we live, completing even the basics of jobs becomes rather challenging. Grocery shopping is a job that we need to make time for. Fortunately, with the boost of the retail industry, finding a reliable grocery outlet is no longer a tough task.
C&S Wholesale Grocers is a grocery supply chain that operates in the US. The company services nearly 7700 supermarkets, independent chains, and military bases. As per Forbes, in 2021, the company was the eighth-largest privately held company in the United States.
Dealing with various products, the company has crossed all hurdles to achieve success. Let us have a look at C&S Wholesale Grocers and their journey so far.
Based in Keene, New Hampshire, C&S Wholesale Grocers is a wholesale grocery supply service. The company was set up as a small grocery store in 1918. C&S Wholesale Grocers is considered the leader in supply chain management.
The company offers services to other supermarkets, independent stores, etc. in the form of wholesale procurement, pricing, marketing, category management, merchandising, advertising, business, accounting, engineering, and store design.
C&S Wholesale Grocers operates in the Grocery wholesaling industry. As per the data shared by Marketresearch, the global wholesale market was wroth around $45672.6 billion in 2022.
As opposed to other industries, the Grocery wholesaling industry has shown slower growth. Between 2018-2023 the sector rose by 1.1%. The industry is affected by the number of households. The more the number the higher would be the sales of the industry.
C&S Wholesale Grocers – Founders and Team
C&S Wholesale Grocers was launched in 1918 by Abraham Seigel and Israel Cohen in Worcester, Mass. At that time, it was set up as an independent grocery provider.
Abraham Seigel
Abraham Seigel and Israel Cohen joined hands to fulfill the latter’s desire to have a wholesale supply of their own. They set up a 5000 sq. ft. Three-story Worcester warehouse that dealt in 1200 grocery products.
Israel Cohen
Israel Cohen with his family
Israel Cohen was the founder of the C&S Wholesale Grocerscompany. He started his career in the wholesale grocery industry in the early 1900s. When working in Worcester for $25 per week, he thought he could make more profit.
C&S Wholesale Grocers – Startup Story
One of the company’s owners Israel Cohen was dissatisfied with the $25 per week he was earning in a supermarket. He decided to launch a wholesale delivery system of his own. Along with his companion Abraham Siegel, he set up C&S Wholesale Grocersin 1918. The company’s name was taken from the founders’ surname alphabet.
They set up a 5000 sq. ft. warehouse where 3 workers managed the delivery of around 1200 products. The need to have a well-defined distribution system became more evident with the rise in population.
Israel Cohen realized that their customer’s opinions held the most importance. While other distributors stocked the products as per their wishes, C&S Wholesale Grocers talked to the customers and kept their opinions in mind. This increased the company’s reputation among customers giving them a solid footing in the industry.
C&S Wholesale Grocers – Mission and Vision
C&S Wholesale Grocers’ vision statement is as has been mentioned below:
We work as one team.
Every person matters.
We’re tenacious in fulfilling our commitments.
We challenge the status quo.
We continuously make our work environment and communities better.
The company aims to take its customer’s opinions rather seriously. Their mission statement is as follows:
“Our mission is to consistently deliver the very best service and value to our customers..”
C&S Wholesale Grocers – Name, Tagline, and Logo
The term C&S from the company name “C&S Wholesale Grocers” is taken from the initials of the founder’s surname, Abraham Siegel and Israel Cohen.
C&S Wholesale Grocers uses a unique red and white logo to promote its brand. In the logo, both C and S seem intertwined with each other. The logo signifies the synchronization of the customer’s needs with the company’s mission to deliver quality groceries on time.
C&S Wholesale Grocers – Business Model
C&S Wholesale Grocers Website
C&S Wholesale Grocers is a company that deals in wholesale grocery distribution to supermarkets, grocery stores, chain stores, military institutions, etc. They supply various products, including fresh produce, meat, dairy products, seafood, health, beauty products, general merchandise, etc. Some stores that the company provides products to include names like Stop & Shop, Giant of Landover, Giant of Carlisle, Pure Harmony, Safeway, and Target.
Apart from the above, the company also has its own brands that it owns and licenses. These include Best Yet, Piggly Wiggly, Tippy Toes, and Exceptional value. The other services the company provides are wholesale procurement, category management, pricing, marketing, advertising, etc.
C&S Wholesale Grocers moved into retail operations after it acquired Grand Union Supermarket chain in 2001. Post that, they merged with many other stores only to sell them further.
The revenue for C&S Wholesale Grocerswas $30 Billion in the last quarter. The company has 17,000 employees. This makes it an average revenue of $17,64,705.
C&S Wholesale Grocers- Employees
Apart from offering competitive salaries, the company offers multiple benefits to its employees. Benefits like comprehensive medical plans, flexibility in choosing a dental plan, savings on basic eye care costs, paid vacations, retirement plans, tuition assistance, adoption assistance, employee perk, discounts, etc are provided by them.
C&S Wholesale Grocers – Challenges Faced
C&S Wholesale Grocers faced many issues post their association with A&P supermarkets. The deal was to provide them with groceries during the winter holidays. However, the company was not prepared to handle the bulk of the work. The issue was that the time to complete the order was limited.
The company needed to increase its productivity and number of employees to rise up to the challenge. Apart from that, they have to deal with increased fuel prices. Their work involves transportation, and if fuel costs rise, it impacts the margins of operations.
Severe weather is another problem that C&S Wholesale Grocers has to deal with. Flooding roads, transit systems, railways, etc., impact the transportation of goods. As they cannot modify the weather, they would have to boost the algorithms that trace the weather changes and locate warehouses that can be affected.
C&S Wholesale Grocers – Funding and Investors
The company received a grant investment from New York State on 2nd May 2014. The amount was greater than $ 5 million, which was a massive break for C&S Wholesale Grocers.
C&S Wholesale Grocers – Mergers and Acquisitions
Some companies that C&S Wholesale Grocers has merged with are shared below.
Acquiree name
Money
Year of announcement
Olean Wholesale Grocery Operative Inc
–
2018
The Grocers supply company
–
2014
Piggly Wiggly Carolina Co
–
2014
BI-LO
–
2005
Grand Union
–
2001
C&S Wholesale Grocers – Growth
C&S Wholesale Grocers has progressed in the form of expanding its network. They have around 7700 supermarket stores in 2021, rising from 7500 in the 2020 year. The revenue increased from $25 Billion to $30 Billion in 2021. This was commendable in a competitive industry like grocery wholesale.
C&S Wholesale Grocers – Advertisements and Social Media Campaigns
C&S Wholesale Grocers has not ventured into creating any new commercials of late. However, in 2019, they released a series of ads that showcased the company as an ideal workplace.
Each commercial showed the company as a family-oriented warehouse. There were testimonials from the existing employees that showcased the company’s unique workplace policies.
C&S Wholesale Grocers – Awards and Achievements
Some awards received by the company are:
Seven Seals Award in 2012 from the Department of Défense and New Hampshire Committee for Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve.
In 2010 C&S Wholesale Grocers was named the Business of the year by the Keene Chamber of Commerce.
The Food Marketing Institute awarded them the Wholesaler Innovator of the year, Feeding America’s Grocery Distributor of the year, and the national Neighbourhood Partnership award the same year.
C&S Wholesale Grocers – Competitors
C&S Wholesale Grocers has established itself in the Wholesale grocery market. Its competitors are:
Giant Eagle
Spartan Nash
Imperial Distributors
Kehe Distributors
Winn Dixie stores Inc
United Natural Foods
Mc Lane Company
US Foods
Sysco
C&S Wholesale Grocers – Future Plans
C&S Wholesale Grocers has always tried to make the process of distribution simple. It aims to increase transparency and flexibility in its supply chain processes.
The company has deployed a unified supply chain and planning technology from partner Relex Solutions. By doing it, the company aims to enhance the customer experience and focus on high growth.
In the future, C&S Wholesale Grocers wants to incorporate technology to transform the company’s operations. With AI and Machine learning, the company intends to use its operation platform to monitor traffic and identify suitable distribution routes.
FAQs
Who is the current CEO of C&S Wholesale Grocers?
The current CEO of C&S Wholesale Grocers is Mike Duffy. He took over the reins in 1989.
Which industry does C&S Wholesale Grocers operate in?
C&S Wholesale Grocers operates in the Grocery Wholesale industry.
What are some of the other brands that C&S Wholesale Grocers has?
C&S Wholesale Grocers has Best Yet, Piggly Wiggly, Tippy Toes, and Exceptional value brands.
Who are the founders of C&S Wholesale Grocers?
C&S Wholesale Grocers was founded by Israel Cohen and Abraham Seigel in 1918.
What are some competitors of C&S Wholesale Grocers?
Some competitors of C&S Wholesale Grocers are Giant Eagle, Spartan Nash, Winn Dixie, and Imperial distributors.
Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by O4S.
The supply chain management market was valued at $18.7 Billion in 2020, and is projected to reach $53 Billion by 2030. Alongside, India’s manufacturing sector recorded huge improvement in recent years. O4S is among the emerging startup which is looking to invest significantly in technology to be able to scale up as per the demand in these industry. O4S provides SaaS solution for Manufacturing Companies to digitize and automate their supply chain.
Lets know more about O4S startup, founders, business model, growth, and the startup story.
O4S is a Supply Chain Management startup founded in 2017 by Divay Kumar and Shreyans Sipani. O4S provides SaaS solution to digitize and automate their supply chain.
The company headquarters’ is located in Gurugram, Haryana while it has regional offices in Hyderabad, Mumbai, and Bengaluru. In the last two years, O4S has expanded its operations across Middle-east and southeast Asia, and is planning to further expand its geographical presence in North America. We’ve added 30 new large enterprise customers in past 1 year including likes ofAkzoNobel, Mondelez, Orient Electric, Polycab India among others.
O4S – Industry
Experts foresee huge opportunity in Supply Chain market. Reportedly, the Global Supply Chain SaaS market is expected to grow to over $20 Billion by 2025 with a CAGR of over 20%. O4S is witnessing high traction and demand and looking to invest significantly in technology to be able to scale up as per the demand. For market expansions, delivery and supporting global customer base the startup would be looking at the next investment round, i.e. Series B as soon as in 2022.
O4S – Founders and Team
Divay Kumar and Shreyans Sipani – O4S Founders
Divay Kumar (CEO) and Shreyans Sipani (CTO) are the founders of O4S. The co-founders of O4S were college time buddies who were enthusiastic about bringing a change in supply chain management with their knowledge of technology. After completing their chemical engineering from Thapar University, they joined different organizations which are a prominent name in their respective industries. They both were doing good in their respective careers yet not satisfied until they started off with their Startup Idea which is now known as O4S. Since the beginning they were aligned and distributed their responsibilities according to their expertise. While Divay took the charge of CEO and worked on the strategic plans to reach prospective clients and business expansion, Shreyans became the CTO, and focused on the design and development of O4S platforms.
Divay Kumar (CEO) and Shreyans Sipani (CTO), both completed their B.Tech in chemical engineering from Thapar University together. Divay has over 8 years of experience in the consulting industry, with deep knowledge and understanding about analytics, business and growth strategy. His past instinct was with Fractal Analytics, and EVI.
Shreyans has more than 8 years of experience in the IT industry with expertise in design and development of mobile-based applications. In addition, he has in-depth knowledge and considerable experience pertaining to product strategy and design. He has worked along with various project managers to understand the changing market dynamics and then incorporating those changes to a product. He has worked with Lybrate for a considerable time period.
Shreyans being the head of the technical department of O4S is continuously engaged in building and upgrading the company’s platform designed for supply chain management. While Divay, responsible for overseeing the company’s business growth and strategy. He has diligently taken initiatives that have helped the organization expand consistently through geographical expansion, strong partnerships, and fundraising.
Shreyans Sipani – The co-founder of O4S at India Technologu Week
O4S – Idea & Startup Story
O4S Team
The inception of any start-up ignites with an innovative idea that is designed to optimize the existing processes, usually through technology. The story of O4S is somewhat similar, Divay and Shreyans (Co-founders of O4S) who were college batch-mates never in their student life thought that someday they will embark on a journey together. The journey that will not only make a difference in the industry but also generate a great deal in bringing a revolution in supply chain management within the unorganized trade in India. Together, they brought a blueprint to reality by utilizing their past experiences and analytical bend of mind.
O4S – Mission and Vision
O4S was incepted with a vision to integrate advanced technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Machine Learning (ML) for practical applications in Supply Chain Management. The manufacturing industry has a fairly complex supply chain with millions of products moving through various nodes and parties every single day. Moreover, the industry experiences a high dependency on manual operations. Thus, making Automation, Digitization, and Transparency in Supply Chain a need for the hour to optimize and bring high levels of efficiency.
So far, these initiatives required significant change management and capital investments. O4S is on a mission to disrupt and democratize the use of advanced tech by integrating the Software as a Service (SaaS) Platform while ensuring the lowest investment of money and time, and a high return on investment.
O4S – Core Beliefs
O4S believes technology advancements can be democratized and commercialized at low cost to hundreds of enterprises. They invest highly in research and development of the new forms of IoT and other deep tech applications that can adapt across industries such as FMCG, Agri Inputs, and Consumer Durables, and bring out the value that was theoretically envisioned. For instance, Industry 4.0 is a highly discussed concept around the globe, but its implementation has not been easy so far. They have adapted O4S platform to bring their theoretical benefits of Connected Manufacturing into proven practical applications. O4S is currently empowering smart manufacturing for 300+ manufacturing plants across 10 countries with a significant checklist covered for Industry 4.0 standards.
O4S – Name, Tagline, and Logo
O4S Logo
While the company originated with product serialization through a Unique Identification (UID) enabled by O4S’ built-in technology MARK™, the founders quickly grabbed the opportunity to strengthen the pillars of the business to offer its solutions to end customers. Through a web/mobile-based application Original4Sure™, O4S helps consumers verify their purchases by scanning its highly secure UID. While Supplytics™ helps in tracking product movement right from manufacturing facility until it reaches in the end customers. Moreover, O4S has also introduced a trade promotion application called Gynger, which allows manufacturers to disburse and track trade promotion schemes meant for retailers.
The real reason behind the foundation of O4S was the concern the founders had for the grieving issue of mass spread counterfeit products, which led to thousands of people losing their lives due to negligence and greed. As per the Automotive Component Manufacturers Association of India (ACMA India), counterfeit spare parts are directly or indirectly related to 20% of road accidents. Various newspapers, magazines, and media have been covering this issue, but the real action was somewhat missing. On the quest to understand the root cause of the problem, they figured out that the primary issue lies deep within the unorganized and opaque supply chain in India. These factors together formed the basis of the inception of O4S. Divay and Shreyans then left their respective jobs to pursue their plan of streamlining supply chain processes in an orderly manner without overlooking the consumers’ best interest.
After a series of experiments, they finally came up with an effective solution to build safe and reliable distribution supply chains for companies. Initially, the company started off with product serialization wherein the company focused on assigning a Unique Identification (UID) QR Code to every individual product, just like the Aadhaar Card QR Code, but for products. Then they introduced a product verification web and mobile-based application that scans a given QR code to check if it is authentic or not. Further, the same UID is now being tracked across the supply chain of brands to improve the visibility and traceability of products across the distribution channel. Through these measures, the company is able to reinvent the loyalty of retailers and consumers with brands.
O4S – Business Model & Revenue Model
Unlike traditional ERP systems, O4S is a Software as a Service (SaaS) solution that does not require businesses to invest huge sums of capital in creating an IT infrastructure. O4S offers a suite of easily scalable cloud-based software and mobile apps to be used as a service for features such as product serialization, consumer verification, retailer loyalty program, and inventory management, among others. O4S’s solutions are hosted on a cloud infrastructure where businesses pay a monthly fee based on the transactions for various modules. O4S allows businesses to cater to their distributors, retailers, and customers worldwide, without limiting their scope to any specific region or country.
O4S – Products & Services
O4S SaaS based supply chain solution relies on UID serialization right at the product manufacturing level using proprietary IOT technology. Using this UID to interact with different products, O4S helps bring warehouses, distributors, retailers, and consumers on an easy to interact, mobile app-based platform. The company’s solutions are built on product serialisation powered by technologies such as Machine Learning (ML), and Internet of Things (IoT).
MARKTM (Manufacturing Automation Reconciliation Kit) is the core product of O4S. It integrates O4S‘ cloud-based random UID generator with manufacturing industrial printers. This module is the basis of allocating a unique identity to a product, registering its multiple layers of Packaging BOM (bill of material) and recording of all product manufacturing details.
SupplyticsTM helps businesses track product movement right from when it leaves a manufacturing facility, across Carrying and Forwarding Agents, Distributors, across all channels till it reaches a retailer.
Gynger is O4S’ retailer and influencer engagement platform. This solution primarily helps brands track their products across the final leg of the supply chain. The product is primarily a Trade Promotion Management app that engages retailers and influencers by incentivizing them to maximize sales of original products. An additional benefit of this integration is building a supply chain resistant to infiltration by counterfeit products through improved inventory visibility and seamless flow of information across the distribution channel. Increased visibility across secondary and tertiary sales is crucial for manufacturers to plan, manage and optimize supply chains by reducing losses due to wastage and maximizing efficiency of available resources.
Original4Sure empower consumers verify their purchased products by scanning O4S’s highly secure UID using their mobile phones through a web/mobile-based application.
O4S – USP
O4S provide an easily deployable SaaS solution to help organizations and businesses gain visibility into their supply chains thus helping them take critical business decisions. The Track and Trace system by O4S allows companies across industries to improve visibility into their supply chain particularly during secondary sales and tertiary sales. The system additionally helps curb counterfeiting. With the ‘Track and Trace’ capability, companies can also look to resolve other challenges such as:
Real-time Visibility: Companies can get a consolidated view of consignments in real-time and in accordance with the geography. They can then leverage the information accordingly for driving important business decisions.
Product Movement: With increased insights about product movement, companies can better manage their warehouses with just-in-time ordering. Through complete knowledge of the supply chain, managers can get a better idea of when orders might need to be replaced.
Inventory Efficiency: At the retailers’ end, tracking would make it easy to initiate and undertake timely returns for unsold or damaged stock items. Hence, companies have increased understanding of their inventories at a localized level.
Consumer Profiling: By empowering the consumers to verify the authenticity of the products, the tool actively collects consumer data and analyses it to extract actionable business insights.
O4S’ value proposition lies in the fact that they use technologies such as Machine Learning, and Internet of Things (IoT) to integrate into an existing ecosystem. The solution is easy to deploy (mobile app based), incurs negligible capital expenditure (SaaS) and does not cause disruption to existing way of functioning.
O4S – Startup Launch and Growth
The founding team comes from this sector, and has reached out to various industry key opinion leaders, experts to formulate their understanding about existing problems and possible solutions for Supply Chain Visibility. Post inception in 2017, O4S commercialized the product in early 2019 after testing through their minimum viable product with the industry’s leading enterprises through small pilots. Pilots were thoroughly supervised to enable O4S to do multiple pivots ensuring smoother onboarding and quicker results. Since O4S is the first mover in this space, we’ve a huge responsibility to set the right expectations and build trackable KRAs for this genre. We’ve an aggressive approach in testing their hypothesis so we’re constantly adding an innovative array of features to the solution.
Automation enables enterprises to bring efficiency and reduce manual dependencies. O4S is enabling enterprises to bring high visibility and automation across their manufacturing facilities, warehouses and secondary sales. Their unique selling proposition has helped the team outperform and get through the pandemic phase. O4S stands out among other players in the segment with its ability to offer advanced analytics and reporting tools to businesses that are accessible via a web dashboard. Moreover, it helps brands in maintaining a healthy engagement with its distribution partners while allowing them to keep their supply chain procedures under constant check. The statement can be very well backed up with added 30 new large enterprise customers in past 1 year such as AkzoNobel, Mondelez, Orient Electric, and Polycab India, among others.
Choosing what to build and when has been one of the major challenges for all teams. Supply Chain is a huge domain, and we’ve the vision to become the Super SaaS for Supply Chain Automation in the near future. Implying, we’re keen to add multiple solutions for the broken parts and gaps that are not currently addressed in the market. The team do intense due diligence before deciding to build a module or feature by estimating its impact and scalability. We’ve a highly experienced deployments and product team that maintains a strong feedback channel with their customers.
O4S – Funding
O4S has raised $9.4 Million funding from several investors like- Think Investment, Venture Highway, startup Buddy, and more.
Year
Stage
Amount
Investors
2021
Series A
$6 Million
Think Investment, Venture Highway
2019
Pre Series A
$3 Million
Venture Highway, Amit Singhal, Subhrakant Panda, Bikram Singh Bedi
O4S team of advisors comprises well-known industry leaders such as Vishal Sikka (Ex-CEO, Infosys), Amit Singhal (Ex- SVP, Google), Neeraj Arora (Ex- Chief Business Officer- WhatsApp), S.K Gupta (Ex-JK Corp), among others.
O4S – Competitors
The SaaS startup do not have direct competition in the market. However, O4S has a few indirect competitors such as Optel Group, PharmaSecure, Bizom, Anaplan, etc. O4S have been a fast mover, to build its place in the industry with several giants such as Infosys, Wipro, Accenture, and other large system integrators. O4S believes it’s the drive and passion of the team to build a disruptive solution that makes O4S stand apart.
O4S team has redeemed premium subscriptions for tools/platforms utilized by different domains and a few for organization-wide communication. To name a few tools, they have purchased subscriptions for Slack, Asana, G-Suite, Figma, Marvel, etc.
O4S – Recognition and Achievements
Awards Received by O4S:
Origin Innovation Awards for Supply Chain & Retail Startup; presented by Technode Global (2020)
Best Startup/Emerging Company in Agriculture; presented by Ray Consulting (2021)
Listed as Best Startup to work in 2020; published by HR Sutra (2020)
Listed as Indian Agritech Startup to watch out in 2020; presented by Inc. 42 (2020)
Recognized as ““Most Innovative Supply Chain Visibility Technology” by NASSCOM (2018)
O4S – Future Plans
With the product-market fit established, we’re aggressively looking to expand across new geographies such as Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Thailand, among others. These countries hold tremendous potential for digitized and automated products. Further, we’re also looking to incorporate an office in the USA to partner with companies for compliance traceability across North and South America.
O4S – FAQs
When was O4S founded?
O4S was founded in 2017 by Divay Kumar and Shreyans Sipani.
Who is the founder of O4S?
Divay Kumar and Shreyans Sipani are founders of O4S. Divay Kumar serves as CEO of O4S and Shreyans Sipani serves as CTO of O4S.
What is total funding raised by O4S?
O4S has raised $9.4 Million funding at different stages of funding.
ATHUL C K
