Komachine is aiming to change the way B2B commerce and procurement is done in the Asian industrial machinery sector by creating an online platform to connect buyers and suppliers. After gaining traction in the Korean market the startup has ambitions to become the leading industrial machinery internet platform in Asia.
The global machine industry size is estimated to be worth 649 billion USD in market size and is expected to grow to reach $835B by 2027. However, this extremely vital sector is still surprisingly mostly offline based. While industrial machines might be a topic unknown to most of us because learning about them sounds complicated and best left to executives in heavy industry manufacturers. Most people are content to live a happy life without knowing much about it.
But when you consider that industrial machines are involved in some way or another for almost all of the products and services we consume, you realise that we can’t survive a single second on the earth without machines in our life. Nearly every product and service we are buying and using now are made by machines. Despite that, not many people are interested to explore this 649 billion USD industry which affects nearly every aspect of life.
Industrial Machinery: ripe for digitisation
Surprisingly, the machine industry has always been operating completely offline. For over 50 years industry data has been locked up in offline databases leading to opaque supply chains and limited access channels for suppliers and buyer discovery due to various reasons. To understand why the industrial machines sector has still not moved towards online platforms one has to understand the nature of the industry in Asia.
More than 90% of suppliers in Asia are small to medium enterprises SMEs (Small Medium Enterprise) which are mainly operated by the executives from the older generation aged roughly 40~60 who are not native users of online platforms and used to conducting business offline. While there is a fairly decent knowledge of technology within the industry, most businesses have typically not invested the manpower and resources required to excel at digital marketing.
Also read: How the construction industry got “smart” and cleaned up its impact
The Industrial Machinery industry consists of companies engaged in the manufacturing of basic power and hand tools, hardware, small-scale machinery and other industrial components. A study of the nature of transactions in the industrial machinery segment reveals that it is characterised by:
- Custom Orders: Unlike consumable products, machines and machine parts are usually ordered in customised deals which require business to business communications and negotiations.
- Complicated transaction processes result in a long drawn contracting and fulfilment period with higher demands of cost and time.
- Within the overall Asian market communication in English has traditionally been a barrier between buyers and suppliers based in Korea and Japan.
Korea: an industrial manufacturing powerhouse
The Korean economy has traditionally been based on the manufacturing industry. A wide range of manufacturing sectors such as Electronics & Semiconductors, Automotive, Ship Building, Construction & Engineering, Petrochemical, Medical, Steel and Machining segments together make up a significantly large share of the economy.
Approximately 20,000~30,000 companies in the machine industry sector in Korea generate more than 40~50 billion USD for the economy every year. However, the lack of English language online marketing channels has held back the industry from expanding business to more countries in Asia.
Komachine is transforming the offline Korean machine industry by building a comprehensive industry database, streamlining communications and transactions and providing custom marketing tools to help maximise online marketing results for more than 3,000 Korean machine suppliers.
As a result, in only 3 years since its launch, Komachine has completed 1,700 transactions worth 30 million USD, thereby connecting 500 machine suppliers with 700 global buyers from 110 countries since 2019. Due to the effect of the pandemic leading to a spike in demand for digital business processes, transaction volume has grown exponentially since the outbreak of COVID 19.
Komachine: connecting industrial machinery buyers and suppliers
Komachine is the number one internet machine Industry platform in Asia currently, connecting more than 3,000 machine suppliers with 100,000 global buyers from 150 countries every month. The chief benefits of the platform are providing online marketing channels to global and domestic machine suppliers and transaction services for global buyers.
With 20 years of experience in machine and parts trading, Komachine founder Charlie Park has built a unique online trading process and system for machine and machine parts, making buying and selling much faster, safer and easier. The platform has helped many companies overcome their initial doubts on how industrial products priced between 1,000~5,000,000 USD can be traded online without physical meetings or offline verification.
The platform has also instilled confidence in users to execute industrial trading online by simplifying complicated processes in terms of quotation, invoice, purchase order, payment, production, inspection and shipping and reducing the dependence on extensive documentation.
Also read: ASEAN’s first smart shopping cart technology is transforming the offline shopping experience
With over 1.2 million visitors as of June 2021, more than 70 multinational companies are major customers. Companies like ABB, LS Mtron, SK Telecom, Sony, Boeing, Shell, Kia, GM trust Komachine as their source to procure industrial machinery. Komachine has the largest number of multinational customers listed among Korean startups, winning multiple industry awards as validation of its contribution to the growth of the Korean industry.
Komachine was awarded the presidential award and ministry awards in Korea and won several international startup competitions like Echelon Singapore and TECHBBQ in Denmark.
In addition, 15 patents have been awarded to Komachine for industrial platform business in database and transactions.
Komachine is today the fastest-growing industrial platform ready to rapidly expand in Asia. Unlike other B2B platforms, Komachine is focused on being a result-oriented platform, providing optimised marketing services and easy trading services for both suppliers and global buyers. For any machine suppliers needing to market their services in Asia, Komachine is the right destination and buyers get great value as they can purchase any machines and parts across Asia.
– –
This article is produced by the e27 team, sponsored by Komachine
We can share your story at e27, too. Engage the Southeast Asian tech ecosystem by bringing your story to the world. Visit us at e27.co/advertise to get started.
The post B2B platform Komachine on a mission to transform the industrial machine industry appeared first on e27.