We orgnanized a company introduction and networking event on Thursday 29th August in Deliberi K7, Helsinki. The guest speaker for the event was Mr. Marko Jäppinen, marketing manager, Suppilog. The event attracted members both from our own chapter and the neighbouring capital region chapters. We also had the pleasure of having a few non-JayCees participating in the event.
Automised sales platform, centralized purchases
During the event Mr. Jäppinen presented Suppilog, a 2012 established Vantaa based technology concern focused on optimising, and revolutionizing, the wholesale trade. Suppilog provides a B2B multi supplier platform thorugh which buyers can make all of their purchases in a centralized fashion. For the suppliers the platform offers automatised processes that cover the different aspects of wholesale trade – orders, logistics, invoicing and reclaims.
Revolutionizing the wholesale trade
While Uber has revolutionized the logistics of people, not much have happened to the logistics of physical goods, Mr. Jäppinen comments. The wholesale process has stayed almost unchanged since the dawn of wholesale. Manufactureres send goods to distributors and wholesalers. They in turn supply goods to resellers, which sell the goods to end customers. Mr. Jäppinen states this is what Suppilog is about to revolutionize. Their platform narrows the gap between sellers and buyers by making transactions and logistics more time and cost efficient.
Branching out to the Chinese market
Although their main focus is in Finland, Suppilog has also experimented with the Chinese market by introducing their platform to the local companies. They participated in a project where Finnish food products was delivered to China. While they got good experience, it will require diligent brand awaraness building and local presence for this kind export activity to really take off, says Mr. Jäppinen. This is due to for example the differences between Finnish and Chinese consumer habits and tastes. Another key issue for the Finnish food producers is to start co-operating and branding – it’s super hard to conquer the Chinese markets if the resources, volumes, know-how, co-operation and the attitude towards the tough Chinese markets is low. Suppilog –platform can automatise the business processes, but cannot take the full responsibility of the exports on behalf of the Finnish brands interested of Chinese markets.
