The document summarizes research conducted by Group 01 on prospective suppliers' distribution strategies and how an organization called think can leverage the insights. The research involved surveying 32 suppliers about their existing online channels and interest in a new portal. Key findings were that 72% of suppliers lacked an online portal and 70% were interested in one. Suppliers with a portal saw significantly lower debtor days. The document recommends think position itself as an industry leader and focus its marketing on reducing debtor days and invoices through its user-friendly portal.

1. Group 01 –
Ankit Sinha
Arun Palaniappan
Chaitali Karnik
Shuyaasha Misra

2. Objective
A research on prospective suppliers:
1. Their current distribution strategies – online vs traditional.
2. Functionalities and benefits enabling adoption.
3. Parameters think can leverage to develop marketing
strategies /infographics.
Research Problem
To conduct a market research on what suppliers need, and
how think can use these insights to make them early
adopters.

3. Background Information
think is an organisation which provides
e-procurement, SaaS based solutions
that:
- Re-engineer
- Innovate and
- Enhance
procurement initiatives for its clients.
It offers services such as data cleansing,
3-way matching system, as well as a
comprehensive travel management
system.

4. Research Question
Our research centered around
the question :
“Do you have an
online selling portal of
your own or a third
party website? And if
not, would you be
interested in coming
on board on one?”

5. Literature Review
- Four cycles for e-procurement market
: Advantage, Choice, Cost,
Replacement.
- Key Drivers for successful solutions :
Speed of implementation, Quick ROI,
High User Adoption, Ease of use.
- The concept of SUM: Spend under
management, which leads to
supervised spending and controlled
costs. It allows the company to have a
select few suppliers and spend volumes
only with these suppliers leading to
gains via volume discounts.

6. Literature Review
Average
debtor days
7.3
days
Of
organizations
indicated
cutting costs
as #1 priority
53%

7. Research Concept
Questions asked :
• Rate the effectiveness of their existing
distribution channels.
• Select the factors that they wish to improve in
their current online distribution strategy.
Information regarding invoicing and debtor
days.
• Factors determining success of an online
distribution strategy.
Theory Propositions
Develop
measures &
sample
Collect
Data
Analyze
Data
Implications
The logic of research process:

8. Research Design
- Convenience sampling technique.
- Sample size of 450.
- No. of respondents – 32.
- Conversion rate – 7%.
- Small to medium range of organizations.
- Supplier annual turnover less than 20 mn.
- Indian and Australian suppliers targeted.
- Industries – IT, Healthcare, Hospitality,
Retail, Manufacturing, Real Estate.
- Survey floated by means of phone, email,
as well as social platforms like LinkedIn,
SME organizations (SMEA, ASSA, SBA).

9. Data Analysis
No online
portal
72% Looking for
an online
portal
70%
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30%
Stock turn-over
Increase profit
Sales conversion percentage
Reduce accounts receivables
Increase in number of customers
Importance of factors for Online Distribution
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
Minimal
Investment
Analytics User Interface Ease in
reconciling
invoices
Functionalities affecting choice of
Online Distribution

10. Data Analysis
We used Discriminant analysis to predict the suppliers’ interest in signing up
for an online distribution channel.
Y variable:
Data for
signing
up(Yes/No)
Company
turnover
Average
debtor’s
days
Target
Market
Availability
of Portal
No. of
invoices
raised
• The result showed that the
demographic factors were out of
significance range and the
psychographics factors were highly
significant.
• Hence we can model an equation
based on them to predict correctly
with a 78.1 % confidence.
Test of function Wilk’s Lambda Chi-Square df Sig
1 .331 20.998 6 0.002

11. 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14
Duplication
Descriptor differences between…
Difficulty in follow ups
Customer Losing Invoices
Debt Collection
Online Portal vs Problems faced
Yes No Online portal
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
<14 15-30 31-60 61-90 91-120
Online Portal Availability vs Debtors Days
No Online portal Online Portal in place
Data Analysis
Problems faced for suppliers with an
online portal vs suppliers with no online
portal.
• Debt collection #1 for both
• Customer losing invoices #2 for
suppliers with no online portal
• Duplication #2 for suppliers with
online portal
Chi-square test run between online portal
availability & debtors days.
Findings:
• Significantly different
• Up to 75% reduction possible in debtors
days by having an online portal

12. 0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Healthcare Hospitality IT Manu &
Construction
Retail
Industry wise factors important to business
No of distribution channels Revenue Customer loyalty
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
3.5
4
4.5
5
Revenue Profits No of clicks
Effectiveness of current online portal
Own website Third Party
Data Analysis
On analyzing the type of online
portal against an effectiveness
rating of 1-5, Revenue was rated
lowest by respondents with a third
party online portal
On analyzing supplier’s industry type
against factors that are important to
their business (on a scale of 1-7), IT rated no
of distribution channels lowest &
Hospitality rated customer loyalty to be
the highest

13. Porter’s
5
forces
Threat of
new
entrants
Threat of
substitutes
Bargaining
power of
buyers
Bargaining
power of
suppliers
Degree of
rivalry
Business Analysis
TenderSearch, RS etc.
Own/Third party
websites
Lesser power – new
market
Small suppliers
Nascent market

14. Recommendations
• Think Procurement should assume the role of industry
leaders and adopt an aggressive content strategy.
• Materials on industry best practices, resolving issues of
procurement managers etc should be used as marketing
material and distributed via social media channels such
as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn
• Use improvement in debtor’s day and number of invoices
per month as the crux of their marketing strategies.
• Think has a very user friendly interface and it should
leverage as its USP in the market.
• Highlight advantages of the 3 way matching process.

15. Thank You