B2B Food Marketplace SupplyMe Opens eCommerce Site in UAE

Online B2B marketplace SupplyMe, which connects local food suppliers with food service businesses, is rolling out in the United Arab Emirates, Tradearabia.com reported.

The company works with numerous businesses like hotels, restaurants, cafes, supermarkets and more, according to the report. Its focus is on helping companies in the food and beverage industry transform digitally.

SupplyMe allows suppliers to list their products, get new customers, and have access to sales-related activities and more flexibility on promotions or price models, the report stated. In addition, SupplyMe offers a secured platform that uses less paperwork.

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) allow businesses to identify purchase patterns and make the process of placing repeat orders easier, according to the reported. For customers, the benefits include a simplified buying process that cuts out phone calls and various kinds of paperwork.

“Despite being one of the oldest industries, the food and beverage industry hadn’t changed much according to the times,” said SupplyMe Co-Founder and CEO Igor Nikolenko in the report. “However, the shift in consumption and purchasing patterns witnessed in 2020 led to B2B food industry embarking on its journey to embrace innovation, going paperless, and be more efficient.”

He added that the industry is boosting and reconfiguring operations with the aid of new technology, per the report.

“The app can help businesses to tap into new and difficult-to-reach markets, prioritize customer service, lower operating costs and increase the bottom line,” he said in the report.

“Technology, particularly as a communication tool, is an integral part of everyday life for millennials,” said SupplyMe Co-Founder and Chief Operations Officer Husam Bardawil in the report. “B2B buyers favor omnichannel communication methods for quick and instantly gratifying information. [Ninety-four percent of] buyers prefer to complete their B2B purchase online without a sales representative. Hence the demand for online marketplaces will accelerate in the future, giving buyers the option to self-serve online … through a single web-based platform.”

In other B2B news, trade document automation company Conexiom has rolled out its cloud-based automation tool to automate documents for companies’ order-to-cash (O2C) and procure-to-pay (P2P) needs.

Read more: The Conexiom Platform Automates More Supply Chain, AP Business Tasks

With Conexiom, businesses can automate document processing by pulling data from purchase orders, invoices and more and configuring it into data usable in the company’s system.