Small businesses: ‘Khareed’ launches procurement automation solution

KARACHI: UAE-based business technology firm Khareed has launched a first of its kind e-procurement solution specifically for small and medium sized businesses in Pakistan, with the aim of helping companies streamline their procurement processes and reduce costs.

While e-procurement solutions are not new, most existing solutions have been designed mainly for large corporate enterprises, whose size and scale makes the heavy investment viable. These solutions are also complex, and require extensive user training.

Khareed’s Prism Professional e-procurement solution, in contrast, is priced and designed with the capacity and needs of small and medium-sized businesses in mind. Khareed is also unique in being able to connect companies electronically to vendors—from hardware wholesalers on Brandreth Road to merchants on Beadon Road— effectively automating the procurement process and minimizing manual work. “Unlike large companies, small businesses have a lower frequency of procurement, and cannot afford a dedicated procurement team,” explains Khareed CEO Haroon Sethi. “However, that doesn’t mean they cannot benefit from procurement automation or transparency solutions; there is still a huge saving potential and that matters perhaps even more for small companies.”

Based on two years of procurement transaction data, Khareed estimates that inefficient procurement costs companies nearly 10% of the total value of their procurement. “If you are sending someone to the market 5 times a month to source and purchase different products, the cost to you of the employee’s time and conveyance alone will be about Rs. 5,000 per month,” says Sethi. “On top of that, you have no way of knowing whether or not the person is quoting the lowest rates to you.”

Khareed’s e-procurement solution enables small business owners to requisition any product they need from the local market, and receive 3 or more competitive quotations from vendors. Buyers are free to contact vendors directly and negotiate further. Khareed’s vendor network includes retailers and wholesalers across more than 3,000 product categories, and the company commits to providing its users a 10x return on investment in terms of time and money saved.

Further details can be found on Khareed’s website https://khareed.pk/procurement

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