How SaaS startup Sourcewiz's automation tools helping companies achieve higher profits

Post Covid pandemic, the world is looking at diversifying the manufacturing base. That has created a new wave in the sector, popularly known as China+1. India with its huge talent base and natural resources, is trying hard to emerge as the next manufacturing base for the world. Sourcewiz, a business to business digitisation platform is one startup which has come up with a SaaS product to automate sales and marketing functions for the manufacturers. It is also currently building a market place which will help companies to get new export orders from buyers across the world. Founded in 2021 by Divyaanshu Makkar, Vikas Garg and Mayur Bhangale; the company is also planning to solve the problem of working capital faced by Indian manufacturers. In a conversation with the Bizz Buzz, Divyaanshu Makkar said the company already has more than 500 customers and the company has set up office in Abu Dhabi with plans to enter the US soon as it plans to create a marketplace for Indian exporters. The company will also enter into segment of helping exporters in seamless procurement of goods through its digitisation efforts in coming years

Sourcewiz is operating in the manufacturing sector, which is plagued with many problems in India. What are your assessments of the sector? Why did you choose to enter the manufacturing sector?

Broadly, we want to be part of an industry which will have significant impact on economy. We wanted to do something impactful. We think that India's era for manufacturing has arrived. Everyone is looking for new sourcing destinations. China+1 across the world is becoming real. We tried to look at the challenges faced by the manufacturing sector. We saw three-four challenges. That was the trigger how we developed our strategy. One key challenge, factories in India run in a haphazard way. These don't have the necessary tools to run the factory in a seamless way. The use of machine is very less. It is a lot more handmade. It means unless you manage everyday project really well, you could see a lot of delays in shipments. Every shipment delay costs the company a lot. At the same time, it also spoils the country's reputation as a reliable sourcing destination. Reliability in terms of quality promised to customers along with the timeline is the key thing. We realised that this was missing as there were no tools to run the factories in a seamless way. Everything is running on pen and paper. So, the software is a key component for how they run the factories.

The second challenge we saw was related to funding. Compared to China, where a lot of subsidies, supportive banks with credit facilities, India doesn't have that kind of supportive ecosystem. So, financing is a key issue that needs to be solved. Third is related to factory's own supply chain. Procurement of raw materials takes a lot of time. It has a reliability issue. So, supply chain of many Indian factories is broken. Last problem is that India is not a well-known source of exports. It is new. If you go to a lot of buyers in the US- especially operating in the mid-market space, they don't know what goods are available in India, they don't know how reliable it is. So, marketing India as an export destination should be done as there is a big gap there.

After finding out the problem areas, what were your next steps? Is the SaaS platform part of solving the problem of automation in Indian factories?

After finding out the concern areas, we developed the software product first. Now, we have entered into the space of getting new demand. As part of this initiative, we have opened a new GCC office in Abu Dhabi. We are taking the factories to that region. We are planning to launch our US office soon. After that, we will work on the working capital issues along with the allied problems.

Can you throw some light on Sourcewiz's SaaS platform? How does it work and how many customers you have as of now?

Currently, we have our SaaS platform, which is being used to automate factories. We now have 500 paid customers on this platform. We are adding around 100 customers each month. We are automating large factories. Basically, we are automating the sales and marketing functions. Most of the factories operating in apparel, shoes, home decor and many more, share their catalogue with potential buyers in trade shows or such events. Buyers will choose from those products and place orders. It is a manual process. These copies are also stored in hard disks. So, giving the right product as per customer's choice becomes a difficult task as every time seller has to go and find those products from hard disk and then show those to customers. So, what we do is that we save those products in our system.

Once the buyer sends his requirements, our AI-powered software will create the catalogue and send it. This process of creating customised catalogue as per customer requirement takes less than 15 minutes. That is one tool we have. Moreover, sellers go to the trade shows. Sellers can't take all their products to trade shows. It will be very difficult to carry all products to these shows. In those places, buyers typically have a lot of queries. Usually, sellers show specifications of the product from a paper catalogue. What we have done is that we have enabled these with QR coding. Once you scan it, all specifications are provided. Also, the lag between turning a prospective buyer into a real buyer is reduced. So, the sellers have more wallet share of customers. Now, we are also developing a software for project tracking. That used to be done on pen and paper. We have digitised the whole thing now.

When you say that the company will find new demand, does it mean that Sourcewiz is creating a marketplace for Indian exporters?

We are creating a marketplace. The exporters who are digitised with us, will be able to generate more inquiries through our platform. Our offices will help them to get more demand. We get a fee for the transactions. There are many buying agencies but they do it for very large buyers. A lot of mid-sized buyers struggle to get goods at time. We are only bringing people who have already been there in the SaaS platform. We know the problem that comes up in building the marketplace. Because, we need to digitise everything for handling big volume of orders.

In general, we are looking at creating four verticals. One is software, second is market place, third is giving access to credit to Indian exporters and the last one is helping Indian exporters to procure material seamlessly. We launched our SaaS product in January, 2022 and we already have 500 customers.

Are you adequately funded now? How big is the team now?

We have around 50 people now. As far funding is concerned, we have raised funding round led by Matrix Partners India. We have raised a seed round from Blume Ventures and Alpha Wave Global in October last year.