Unilever to automate procurement contracting with SaaS tool from Moglix

Fast-moving consumer goods major Unilever has automated its procurement contracting system by integrating a tool developed by online business-to-business (B2B) industrial goods marketplace Moglix.

The tool called iCAT, short for intelligent contracting automation tool, is a cloud-based software solution that consolidates and automates large volumes of contracts, Moglix said in a statement. The Noida-based company claims that iCAT will make Unilever’s contracting process collaborative, efficient and accurate for its clients.

For Unilever, which has more than 1,500 procurement professionals, operating at over 100 countries and managing $20 billion annually, processing contracts at such a scale was time consuming and effort intensive. This led to long turnaround time for the procurement team and reduced operational efficiency.

"After multiple attempts to solve the problem with other partners, implementation of iCAT with Moglix has been a gamechanger for us, as it has automated and streamlined our contract management process across geographies. The solution has paved the way for procurement to embark on our digital transformation journey,” said Dhaval Buch, chief procurement officer of Unilever.

iCAT provides 360-degree visibility of contracts across the organisation, opening possibilities for deep-level predictive insights and analytics for improved decision making and supplier management, the statement added.

“Contract management is the heart of procurement. It was exciting to work with Unilever and standardise and consolidate their contract management process that has saved time and effort. Large organisations like FMCG, auto, pharma and chemical can use iCat platform to unlock great savings by consolidating their contracting process. Further, emerging technologies like machine learning and blockchain will be leveraged to draw actionable insights from the data in order to make the process transparent and compliant," said Rahul Garg, founder and chief executive of Moglix, in the statement.

Moglix

Run by Noida-based MOGLILABS Pvt. Ltd, the company procures industrial products such as fasteners, industrial electricals, pneumatics and more. It largely caters to the manufacturing sector, focusing on customers in automotive, metals, mining, and fast-moving consumer durables.

Moglix was founded in August 2015 by Rahul Garg, the former Southeast Asia head of Google’s Ad Exchange services division.

The firm last raised capital early this month from Kalyan Krishnamurthy, the CEO of homegrown e-commerce major Flipkart. The sum was not disclosed.

Prior to this, in December 2018, it raised $23 million in a Series C funding round led by existing investors Accel, Jungle Ventures and the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation.

The total amount of capital the firm has raised till date is around $41 million.

Moglix was part of the first cohort of startups incubated by SAP Startup Studio and supported by Bernd Leukert, member of the executive board at SAP.