The Silicon Review - Best Business Review Magazine 10 Best Startups of the Year 2019 Asia | Page 18

COVER STORY
In The Spotlight
Zeemart is Transforming the F&B
Industry with Digital Disruption of the
Supply Chain
T
he digital revolution
presents entrepreneurs
with unlimited
opportunities to solve a
wide range of problems
and thereby disrupt or create
markets. With easier access to
capital from private investors and
support from government bodies
that recognize the value of start-ups
in fueling job creation, the cliché
“the best time to start-up is now”
seems truer than ever before.
However, as any start-up founder
will tell you, success doesn’t come
easy. Most founders flounder. For
every success story, there are
hundreds of start-ups that fold up
within two years. Understanding the
distinguishing features of successful
start-ups and their founders, who
manage to beat the odds stacked
against them, is priceless for any
entrepreneur.
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Towards that end, we are thrilled to
present two young and successful
entrepreneurs from Singapore,
Neeraj Sundarajoo and Keith Tan,
who’ve not only given wings to their
idea but gotten it to soar in just
two years. The duo is a rare breed
of startup founders who have been
able to repeat their entrepreneurial
success. Their second startup
Zeemart, founded with a vision
to transform and empower
F&B businesses through smart
technology and digitalization, is
JANUARY 2019
now recognized as one of the hottest
startups from Asia.
Zeemart simplifies procurement
for F&B businesses with a powerful
and seamless order and invoice
management platform that enables
buyers and suppliers to connect
and transact with one another in
an easy and transparent manner.
With an interface designed to
facilitate ease of use (and remove
potential barriers to change) and a
powerful suite of features, Zeemart
is enabling F&B businesses to
manage their discovery, purchasing,
invoice management and vendor
collaboration from a smartphone.
Zeemart founders,
Neeraj Sundarajoo
and Keith Tan spoke
exclusively to
The Silicon Review.
Below is an excerpt.
Why Zeemart?
We homed in on the Horeca (Hotels,
Restaurants & Catering) industry,
specifically the B2B side, where
a startling statistic caught our
attention: 50% of restaurants shut
shop within the first 3 years. We
learnt that food costs account for
about one-third of revenues, leading
us to study the entire food supply
chain deeply, right from sourcing
and procurement. We discovered
that a lot of the processes were very
manual, opaque and offline which
led to inefficiencies, wastage and
higher costs. This was a fairly big
problem to solve with the potential
to make a huge impact with the right
solution. Our quest to address this
problem is the genesis of Zeemart.
What teething troubles did
you encounter?
Like most startups, our initial
roll out of the platform had a few
hiccups. Our product is a critical
part of a restaurant’s business
operations and therefore we can
ill-afford to fail. Helping business
owners overcome any resistance
to change was an important area of
focus for us. There was an instance
when our team went to collect
barrels of beer for our restaurant
customer as the supplier failed to
deliver it in time for a long festive
weekend. In hindsight, going the
extra mile to serve our initial
group of customers was immensely
beneficial. They overlooked some
of the early bugs and glitches in the
system and stuck with us seeing
our commitment to get things fixed
quickly.
What makes you confident
that Zeemart can succeed
in such a dynamic and
competitive marketplace?
In the highly competitive world
of technology-driven startups,