EPC major Larsen & Toubro (L&T) on March 7 announced the launch of L&T SuFin, an integrated e-commerce platform for B2B industrial products and services.
SN Subrahmanyan, CEO and MD of L&T, said there was a critical need to digitalise supply chains to enhance the overall global competitiveness of Indian industries, as India aspires to become a $5-trillion economy.
“With the launch of L&T-SuFin, we take yet another leap in our digital transformation journey, building on our legacy of trust and deep understanding of the ecosystem. We are confident about L&T-SuFin transforming the B2B marketplace for industrial products. Making it easily accessible, convenient, and transparent, even for the customers in and beyond Tier I and II cities, thereby enabling a level playing field and inclusive growth for all businesses,” Subrahmanyan said.
This platform draws on 80 years of experience to empower businesses, especially MSMEs, to enable them to source their industrial supplies pan India, digitally and cost-effectively, a company statement read.
What does L&T-SuFin offer?
L&T-SuFin hosts a selection of industrial products over 40 categories as well as financing and logistics support from vetted partners, the company said.
For sellers, the platform is designed to reach out to buyers across categories pan India. It will provide them with a complete ecosystem of seller tools, delivery and negotiations on a single platform.
L&T-SuFin will host KYC-verified sellers and buyers vetted by L&T and guarantee a last-mile delivery to over 15,000 pin codes.
The platform will provide working capital to MSMEs from a large array of banks and other financial institutions at attractive interest rates.
The platform will also provide an online transaction facility for trading products and enabling services with a payment and settlement mechanism that will aid traditional enterprises to take on their newer digital-native competitors.
Digital Moves
The move marks another digital step for L&T after it launched engineering and technology knowledge platform L&T EduTech last year.
“With digital technologies at the core, L&T-SuFin is poised to transform traditional supply chains and creating a win-win situation for suppliers and buyers,” the company added.
The Indian manufacturing ecosystem was facing “significant inefficiencies in the industrial supply chains” and relied heavily on resources such as B2B directories —digital or otherwise to fulfil MSME’s sourcing needs, it said.
“These traditional supply chain issues have resulted in challenges in the domains of maintaining business continuity, revenue or inventory optimisation and manpower deployment,” it added.
