Pantavanij looks to expanding its e-procurement

Sasithorn Ongdee

The Nation

Pantavanij, a market leader in Thailand's e-marketplace and e-procurement solutions services, will add listing premium products to e-catalogues for online bidding as its new service in June.

"We see the market potential of premium products," said CEO Tri Kanchanadul, adding that online bidding would make it easier for corporate clients to seek such products in large numbers.  

He said it's hard when companies try to find, for example, the same green premium product T-shirts from different suppliers.

With seven years of experience as an e-marketplace operator, Pantavanij finds a way so that all suppliers who are interested in bidding are able to provide the same premium products required by a single client.

"I'm now working out with suppliers to create a standard for making the same thing when they have orders," Tri said. For example, if there are orders for green T-shirts,  suppliers must provide the clients with the same shade of green and the same standard sizes. The company can pool many bids for the same required products out-sourced by different buyers so that the transaction management fee can be saved, translating into a lower product price. 

Pantavanij was initially established with the idea of e-procurement outsourcing by the country's six largest conglomerates: Bangkok Bank, Siam Commercial Bank, Siam Cement Group, True Corporation, Benchachinda Holding (formerly United Communication Industry), and CP Group.

Currently, Pantavanij is 90 per cent owned by companies under CP Group and 10 per cent by those under Bangkok Bank.

The company specialises in procurement of products such as office equipment and materials, computers and peripherals, machinery spare parts, chemicals, and fuels for manufacturing. 

After investing more than Bt400 million baht in software and technology over the past few years, Pantavanij will next focus on knowledge development, Tri said, adding that the company's competence is human knowledge built on top of technology. The company this year will invest about Bt10 million to B20 million for technology.

Pantavanij now has 40 out of a total

of 200 staff responsible for procurements for other firms.

Tri said Central group, as one of Pantavanij's clients, has changed from using an auction service to a procurement solution service, boosting cost efficiency.

"Many companies in Thailand have sought outsourcing due mainly to the economic downturn," said Tri.

Pantavanj now has more than 10 active clients who use solutions services, 100 outsourcing clients, and more than 4,000 active suppliers out of a total of 10,000.

This fiscal year, Bt240 billion in funds, out of a total Bt404 billion budget in government investments, are required to use electronic processes compared with Bt180 million the previous fiscal year.

Pantavanij expects its revenue to increase by 40 per cent this year, above last year's Bt170 million. Almost 90 per cent of this will come from private sector transactions and the rest from government deals.

Last year, the company provided online bidding for investments totalling Bt33 billion. Of this amount, e-auctions were valued at Bt7 billion.