Last year, Mitsui, and SourceSage announced a new partnership that would expand the use of ecommerce solutions in the plastics raw materials industry with a pilot test in Vietnam, "Ecoplass".
SourceSage recently sat down with Kok Hui, Manager from Mitsui Performance Chemicals Team to discuss this new partnership and what it means for their customers when it comes to procurementf. Here is our conversation.
(1) SourceSage: What is your role at Mitsui and how are you involved with Ecoplass?
Kok Hui: I am in charge of the sales of polymers, and my team is part of the performance chemicals department. Not just handling plastics raw materials, for example, we also handle the resins, which is raw material for the soles of the shoes.
On the side, I am also involved in the Ecoplass ecommerce project, which aims to facilitate the online trade (i.e procurement and sales) of plastics raw materials, starting from Vietnam (which is a growth market in this sector). As an organization, we came up with the idea of Ecoplass and to implement it first in Vietnam because of the lack of infrastructure including logistics which affects SME buyers who want to buy from large distributors.
"Secondly, there are a lot of inefficiencies in traditional distribution of plastics which I believe can be resolved with a ecommerce solution with a local large partner like Anphat and a tech partner like SourceSage."
(2) SourceSage: Do you think such ecommerce solution can be expanded to other countries besides Vietnam?
Kok Hui: We have seen a lot of success in countries including China, where you see good payment infrastructure and high acceptance of ecommerce solutions, including in B2B chemicals. This trend extends to other countries in Asia because most of the population are mobile enabled today, which has leap-frogged across traditional laptops and desktops. Hence, I believe such trend will spur the adoption of ecommerce platforms. We have started in Vietnam with the aim to build a success use case, and then replicate in other countries.
(3) SourceSage: Do you think the buyers of a typical chemicals ecommerce platform which tends to benefit most are usually the SMEs and what are the key value propositions to them?
Kok Hui: First of all, I think the target audience is not just SMEs, although it is obvious SMEs can reap benefits from buying from large distributors. Because of Covid, many companies are also rethinking their manufacturing and distribution models, including localization. Having a digital platform not only allows them to understand the local market more, but also for all segments of customers to obtain timely market information.
(4) SourceSage: What are the ongoing key challenges facing the Ecoplass platform and how will you be solving them?
Kok Hui: In B2B platforms, for example, the person who is authorized to make the purchase versus the person who accesses the platform may be different. Hence, such delegation of authorities to be incorporated in the process flow and (user behaviours) on the platform is not easy to overcome.
B2C versus B2B platforms are different in nature. For example, in the past, B2C-type platforms such as Amazon faced initial issues because consumers prefer to buy based on brands they trust and also items they can physically see and touch. However, in B2B, things tend to be more traditional where reputable distributors/manufacturers who start platforms don’t need to face trust issues as their existing customers are already familiar with who they buy from and also the type of products they usually buy. Hence, we don’t have similar initial trust issues like Amazon in the past.
"The remaining issues for us to overcome are to tackle their internal processes, convince the customers that we can provide them with different benefits and to change their behaviors. Once we are able to prove the above points to the users, we can get them to transact online. I believe we have a headstart and the issues for B2B will be easier to overcome as compared to B2C ones."
(5) What do you think will be the key features that will make a difference to make Ecoplass ecommerce platform a success in terms of adoption and online transactions?
Kok Hui: Over the past few years, there are many new technologies that have emerged, like blockchain and smart contracts. People have started to look at electronic LCs and also online communication tools like Zooms and Teams. These tools didn’t exist in the past, but many of the tools are still very much fragmented at the moment. Furthermore, the main communication tool right now to communicate offers to customers is still email in which enterprise users will still need to manually cut and paste information from various channels onto emails. This could result in a lot of mistakes. It seemed to me that many of the new technologies don’t really integrate with a main communication tool. If we consider ecoplass as a form of communication tool which can integrate with new technologies, we can achieve more efficiencies than emails and reduce the amount of potential mistakes, especially in the case of communicating with multiple customers at the same time.
(6) SourceSage: What is your aspiration for Ecoplass?
Kok Hui: My aspiration is that such types of platforms can be adopted company-wide, especially for those teams handling daily trades. As mentioned earlier, this can greatly reduce the number of potential mistakes. Although there may exist client-facing challenges, we can start by having such platforms as a back-office tool to increase internal efficiency. Furthermore, we can also use such platforms to collect data from clients and the interactions. All these could result in interesting insights which we can use to serve our customers better.
SourceSage: Yes, I agree, SourceSage does a lot of data analytics, including product recommendation, and price trends, which greatly increase customer experience.
(7) SourceSage: What is your comment on SourceSage involvement in Ecoplass?
Kok Hui: Your team has been fantastic so far, which I initially didn’t expect. You didn’t stop at just developing the platform. This is because usually tech companies wash their hands off after handing over the platform. There was a lot of bouncing off of ideas between both parties, which shows that both of us are committed to the ultimate success of the platform.
"I really appreciate that you have been walking with us throughout the journey. I want to take this opportunity to thank you and your team."
(8) SourceSage: Lastly, what are your words to companies looking to digitize as well?
Kok Hui: First of all, be prepared to face resistance. But I believe that we are on the right path because we are at the tipping point where there are good technologies and solutions out there. It is not possible to stay the way it is over the next 10 years in this traditional space, and I hope someone else can find success like us.
SourceSage: Lastly, we urge more like-minded companies to step up and collaborate with Mitsui to share experience and knowledge and achieve success in digital transformation together.