Procol : Optimizing Agri Procurement Management
Studies suggest that agriculture is one of the largest sectors in India with over 600 million Indians dependent directly on the agriculture sector contributing close to 17 percent of India’s GDP. CPOs of organizations are beginning to realise that digital technologies play a key role in procurement operations in the food/agricultural industry. The key advantage of adopting procurement technology solutions is that it is more cost efficient and scalable at the same time. Having intelligent systems enables companies to automatically analyse and optimize all the expenditure from a single place. However, the Indian market is still at a very nascent stage for mass adoption. The current scenario within most procurement organizations is that they do not possess a digital strategy, much less a structured roadmap defining the next actions. Additionally, there are no full stack solutions for this market.Recognizing this as a niche market segment, New Delhi headquartered Procol with its team of technically adept professionals have built one of India's first fully networked supply chain solution. “Procol is uniquely positioned for Food retail, wholesale, FMCG, kitchen-based companies. For anyone who deals in sourcing large quantities of commodities and services, we are the go-to place for providing all services under one roof,” informs Gaurav Baheti, Founder and CEO of Procol. Gaurav and the cofounder of Procol, Sumit Mendiratta, hail from a background of Computer Science and Product Design. The duo have worked alongside for some of the renowned product companies like Google New York, Zomato, OYO and they understand what it takes to build next-gen technology products.
The team at Procol conducted a market study and realised that buying agricultural commodities is not an easy task especially when certain items have multiple varieties to choose from and volatile prices to begin with. Most organizations that purchase the highest volumes of commodities still run their operations manually. Coming to the fore, the state-of-the-art software enables companies to control their procurement supply chain
through a suite of mobile applications which connects everything at one place for holistic viewing. Gaurav explains, “Buying agriculture commodities is not like buying an expensive phone where you’ve got the brand, standard specs and so on. Rice, for example, has over 40,000 different known varieties and no set nomenclature to identify them. Our software helps enterprises streamline their commodity supply chain.”
It is designed with a host of features such as the availability of real-time prices on mobile, ability to create dynamic contracts, record quality checks, auto-generate POs and manage supplier samples. “Procol is not just a procurement software; it is a terminal where buyers and sellers log in every single day to make their trades. It’s connected with real-time commodity prices, news feeds and private communities,” elaborates Gaurav. In addition to the aforementioned features, the implementation of the solution also increases the employee productivity drastically by ensuring 100 percent transparency, tracking deliveries and invoices, digitizing documentations and assuring super-fast communication.
The company has gained a strong foothold in this market and is working with several large-scale food companies within India where the products are currently in the beta version. The company envisages penetrating deeper into this market as it continues to deliver its innovative and fully networked supply chain solution.
“Procol is uniquely positioned for Food retail, wholesale, FMCG, kitchen-based companies. For anyone who deals in sourcing large quantities of commodities and services, we are the go-to place for providing all services under one roof”
It is designed with a host of features such as the availability of real-time prices on mobile, ability to create dynamic contracts, record quality checks, auto-generate POs and manage supplier samples. “Procol is not just a procurement software; it is a terminal where buyers and sellers log in every single day to make their trades. It’s connected with real-time commodity prices, news feeds and private communities,” elaborates Gaurav. In addition to the aforementioned features, the implementation of the solution also increases the employee productivity drastically by ensuring 100 percent transparency, tracking deliveries and invoices, digitizing documentations and assuring super-fast communication.
The company has gained a strong foothold in this market and is working with several large-scale food companies within India where the products are currently in the beta version. The company envisages penetrating deeper into this market as it continues to deliver its innovative and fully networked supply chain solution.
