Web-based trading company, gsmExchange.com has been commissioned by Vodafone to develop a business-to-business platform to improve the operator's purchase and distribution of mobile handsets worldwide. The platform should be available globally this year.
Vodafone reckons this intra-company Vodafone Spot Market Trading Platform will help it gain a competitive edge by ensuring that all its operating companies can deal with unexpectedly high demands for particular handsets through an internal exchange or inventory channel. Vodafone operating companies that find themselves over-stocked will use this site to promote their stock to other Vodafone operating companies around the world.
It works very much like a Commodity Stock Exchange, where offers and requests are matched up, and buyer and seller can agree on the terms, and conclude their transactions, quickly and efficiently online and within hours.
The gsmExchange is the brain child of its Managing Director Essam Bishara, who recognised the need to link players in the handset distribution chain - network operators, distributors, retail outlets - in the late 90's. Now the gsmExhange.com has over 20,000 members worldwide and about 500,000 handsets per day are placed on the site.
In addition, the volume of data generated provides gsmExchange's clients with unique insight into the workings and trends of the wholesale mobile handset market.
'We have hit a key milestone in our development,' commented Bishara, 'a distributor can integrate their systems with the platform, ensuring that all their offers and price lists are automatically updated for Vodafone operating companies' benefit'.