O4S : Supply Chain Automation Platform for Manufacturing Companies
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The supply chain management market was valued at $18.7 Billion in 2020, and is projected to reach $53 Billion by 2030. Alongside, India's manufacturing sector recorded huge improvement in recent years. O4S is among the emerging startup which is looking to invest significantly in technology to be able to scale up as per the demand in these industry. O4S provides SaaS solution for Manufacturing Companies to digitize and automate their supply chain.
Lets know more about O4S startup, founders, business model, growth, and the startup story.
O4S - Company Highlights
| Startup Name | O4S |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Gurugram, Haryana |
| Industry | Supply Chain Automation and Traceability. |
| Founded | 2017 |
| Founders | Mr. Divay Kumar and Shreyans Sipani |
| Total Funding Raised | $9.4 Million |
| Website | www.o4s.io |
O4S - About
O4S - Industry
O4S - Founders and Team
O4S - Idea & Startup Story
O4S - Mission and Vision
O4S - Core Beliefs
O4S - Name, Tagline, and Logo
O4S - Business Model & Revenue Model
O4S - Products & Services
O4S - USP
O4S - Startup Launch and Growth
O4S - Challenges Faced
O4S - Funding
O4S - Advisors and Mentors
O4S - Competitors
O4S - Tools Used to Run Business
O4S - Recognition and Achievements
O4S - Future Plans
O4S - FAQs
O4S - About
O4S is a Supply Chain Management startup founded in 2017 by Divay Kumar and Shreyans Sipani. O4S provides SaaS solution to digitize and automate their supply chain.
The company headquarters' is located in Gurugram, Haryana while it has regional offices in Hyderabad, Mumbai, and Bengaluru. In the last two years, O4S has expanded its operations across Middle-east and southeast Asia, and is planning to further expand its geographical presence in North America. Weâve added 30 new large enterprise customers in past 1 year including likes of AkzoNobel, Mondelez, Orient Electric, Polycab India among others.
O4S - Industry
Experts foresee huge opportunity in Supply Chain market. Reportedly, the Global Supply Chain SaaS market is expected to grow to over $20 Billion by 2025 with a CAGR of over 20%. O4S is witnessing high traction and demand and looking to invest significantly in technology to be able to scale up as per the demand. For market expansions, delivery and supporting global customer base the startup would be looking at the next investment round, i.e. Series B as soon as in 2022.
O4S - Founders and Team
Divay Kumar (CEO) and Shreyans Sipani (CTO) are the founders of O4S. The co-founders of O4S were college time buddies who were enthusiastic about bringing a change in supply chain management with their knowledge of technology. After completing their chemical engineering from Thapar University, they joined different organizations which are a prominent name in their respective industries. They both were doing good in their respective careers yet not satisfied until they started off with their Startup Idea which is now known as O4S. Since the beginning they were aligned and distributed their responsibilities according to their expertise. While Divay took the charge of CEO and worked on the strategic plans to reach prospective clients and business expansion, Shreyans became the CTO, and focused on the design and development of O4S platforms.
Divay Kumar (CEO) and Shreyans Sipani (CTO), both completed their B.Tech in chemical engineering from Thapar University together. Divay has over 8 years of experience in the consulting industry, with deep knowledge and understanding about analytics, business and growth strategy. His past instinct was with Fractal Analytics, and EVI.
Shreyans has more than 8 years of experience in the IT industry with expertise in design and development of mobile-based applications. In addition, he has in-depth knowledge and considerable experience pertaining to product strategy and design. He has worked along with various project managers to understand the changing market dynamics and then incorporating those changes to a product. He has worked with Lybrate for a considerable time period.
Shreyans being the head of the technical department of O4S is continuously engaged in building and upgrading the companyâs platform designed for supply chain management. While Divay, responsible for overseeing the companyâs business growth and strategy. He has diligently taken initiatives that have helped the organization expand consistently through geographical expansion, strong partnerships, and fundraising.
O4S - Idea & Startup Story
The inception of any start-up ignites with an innovative idea that is designed to optimize the existing processes, usually through technology. The story of O4S is somewhat similar, Divay and Shreyans (Co-founders of O4S) who were college batch-mates never in their student life thought that someday they will embark on a journey together. The journey that will not only make a difference in the industry but also generate a great deal in bringing a revolution in supply chain management within the unorganized trade in India. Together, they brought a blueprint to reality by utilizing their past experiences and analytical bend of mind.
O4S - Mission and Vision
O4S was incepted with a vision to integrate advanced technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Machine Learning (ML) for practical applications in Supply Chain Management. The manufacturing industry has a fairly complex supply chain with millions of products moving through various nodes and parties every single day. Moreover, the industry experiences a high dependency on manual operations. Thus, making Automation, Digitization, and Transparency in Supply Chain a need for the hour to optimize and bring high levels of efficiency.
So far, these initiatives required significant change management and capital investments. O4S is on a mission to disrupt and democratize the use of advanced tech by integrating the Software as a Service (SaaS) Platform while ensuring the lowest investment of money and time, and a high return on investment.
O4S - Core Beliefs
O4S believes technology advancements can be democratized and commercialized at low cost to hundreds of enterprises. They invest highly in research and development of the new forms of IoT and other deep tech applications that can adapt across industries such as FMCG, Agri Inputs, and Consumer Durables, and bring out the value that was theoretically envisioned. For instance, Industry 4.0 is a highly discussed concept around the globe, but its implementation has not been easy so far. They have adapted O4S platform to bring their theoretical benefits of Connected Manufacturing into proven practical applications. O4S is currently empowering smart manufacturing for 300+ manufacturing plants across 10 countries with a significant checklist covered for Industry 4.0 standards.
O4S - Name, Tagline, and Logo
While the company originated with product serialization through a Unique Identification (UID) enabled by O4Sâ built-in technology MARKâ˘, the founders quickly grabbed the opportunity to strengthen the pillars of the business to offer its solutions to end customers. Through a web/mobile-based application Original4Sureâ˘, O4S helps consumers verify their purchases by scanning its highly secure UID. While Supplytics⢠helps in tracking product movement right from manufacturing facility until it reaches in the end customers. Moreover, O4S has also introduced a trade promotion application called Gynger, which allows manufacturers to disburse and track trade promotion schemes meant for retailers.
The real reason behind the foundation of O4S was the concern the founders had for the grieving issue of mass spread counterfeit products, which led to thousands of people losing their lives due to negligence and greed. As per the Automotive Component Manufacturers Association of India (ACMA India), counterfeit spare parts are directly or indirectly related to 20% of road accidents. Various newspapers, magazines, and media have been covering this issue, but the real action was somewhat missing. On the quest to understand the root cause of the problem, they figured out that the primary issue lies deep within the unorganized and opaque supply chain in India. These factors together formed the basis of the inception of O4S. Divay and Shreyans then left their respective jobs to pursue their plan of streamlining supply chain processes in an orderly manner without overlooking the consumersâ best interest.
After a series of experiments, they finally came up with an effective solution to build safe and reliable distribution supply chains for companies. Initially, the company started off with product serialization wherein the company focused on assigning a Unique Identification (UID) QR Code to every individual product, just like the Aadhaar Card QR Code, but for products. Then they introduced a product verification web and mobile-based application that scans a given QR code to check if it is authentic or not. Further, the same UID is now being tracked across the supply chain of brands to improve the visibility and traceability of products across the distribution channel. Through these measures, the company is able to reinvent the loyalty of retailers and consumers with brands.
O4S - Business Model & Revenue Model
Unlike traditional ERP systems, O4S is a Software as a Service (SaaS) solution that does not require businesses to invest huge sums of capital in creating an IT infrastructure. O4S offers a suite of easily scalable cloud-based software and mobile apps to be used as a service for features such as product serialization, consumer verification, retailer loyalty program, and inventory management, among others. O4Sâs solutions are hosted on a cloud infrastructure where businesses pay a monthly fee based on the transactions for various modules. O4S allows businesses to cater to their distributors, retailers, and customers worldwide, without limiting their scope to any specific region or country.
O4S - Products & Services
O4S SaaS based supply chain solution relies on UID serialization right at the product manufacturing level using proprietary IOT technology. Using this UID to interact with different products, O4S helps bring warehouses, distributors, retailers, and consumers on an easy to interact, mobile app-based platform. The companyâs solutions are built on product serialisation powered by technologies such as Machine Learning (ML), and Internet of Things (IoT).
- MARKTM (Manufacturing Automation Reconciliation Kit) is the core product of O4S. It integrates O4Sâ cloud-based random UID generator with manufacturing industrial printers. This module is the basis of allocating a unique identity to a product, registering its multiple layers of Packaging BOM (bill of material) and recording of all product manufacturing details.
- SupplyticsTM helps businesses track product movement right from when it leaves a manufacturing facility, across Carrying and Forwarding Agents, Distributors, across all channels till it reaches a retailer.
- Gynger is O4Sâ retailer and influencer engagement platform. This solution primarily helps brands track their products across the final leg of the supply chain. The product is primarily a Trade Promotion Management app that engages retailers and influencers by incentivizing them to maximize sales of original products. An additional benefit of this integration is building a supply chain resistant to infiltration by counterfeit products through improved inventory visibility and seamless flow of information across the distribution channel. Increased visibility across secondary and tertiary sales is crucial for manufacturers to plan, manage and optimize supply chains by reducing losses due to wastage and maximizing efficiency of available resources.
- Original4Sure empower consumers verify their purchased products by scanning O4S's highly secure UID using their mobile phones through a web/mobile-based application.
O4S - USP
O4S provide an easily deployable SaaS solution to help organizations and businesses gain visibility into their supply chains thus helping them take critical business decisions. The Track and Trace system by O4S allows companies across industries to improve visibility into their supply chain particularly during secondary sales and tertiary sales. The system additionally helps curb counterfeiting. With the âTrack and Traceâ capability, companies can also look to resolve other challenges such as:
- Real-time Visibility: Companies can get a consolidated view of consignments in real-time and in accordance with the geography. They can then leverage the information accordingly for driving important business decisions.
- Product Movement: With increased insights about product movement, companies can better manage their warehouses with just-in-time ordering. Through complete knowledge of the supply chain, managers can get a better idea of when orders might need to be replaced.
- Inventory Efficiency: At the retailersâ end, tracking would make it easy to initiate and undertake timely returns for unsold or damaged stock items. Hence, companies have increased understanding of their inventories at a localized level.
- Consumer Profiling: By empowering the consumers to verify the authenticity of the products, the tool actively collects consumer data and analyses it to extract actionable business insights.
O4Sâ value proposition lies in the fact that they use technologies such as Machine Learning, and Internet of Things (IoT) to integrate into an existing ecosystem. The solution is easy to deploy (mobile app based), incurs negligible capital expenditure (SaaS) and does not cause disruption to existing way of functioning.
O4S - Startup Launch and Growth
The founding team comes from this sector, and has reached out to various industry key opinion leaders, experts to formulate their understanding about existing problems and possible solutions for Supply Chain Visibility. Post inception in 2017, O4S commercialized the product in early 2019 after testing through their minimum viable product with the industryâs leading enterprises through small pilots. Pilots were thoroughly supervised to enable O4S to do multiple pivots ensuring smoother onboarding and quicker results. Since O4S is the first mover in this space, weâve a huge responsibility to set the right expectations and build trackable KRAs for this genre. Weâve an aggressive approach in testing their hypothesis so weâre constantly adding an innovative array of features to the solution.
Automation enables enterprises to bring efficiency and reduce manual dependencies. O4S is enabling enterprises to bring high visibility and automation across their manufacturing facilities, warehouses and secondary sales. Their unique selling proposition has helped the team outperform and get through the pandemic phase. O4S stands out among other players in the segment with its ability to offer advanced analytics and reporting tools to businesses that are accessible via a web dashboard. Moreover, it helps brands in maintaining a healthy engagement with its distribution partners while allowing them to keep their supply chain procedures under constant check. The statement can be very well backed up with added 30 new large enterprise customers in past 1 year such as AkzoNobel, Mondelez, Orient Electric, and Polycab India, among others.
Rishabh Rathi
O4S - Challenges Faced
Choosing what to build and when has been one of the major challenges for all teams. Supply Chain is a huge domain, and weâve the vision to become the Super SaaS for Supply Chain Automation in the near future. Implying, weâre keen to add multiple solutions for the broken parts and gaps that are not currently addressed in the market. The team do intense due diligence before deciding to build a module or feature by estimating its impact and scalability. Weâve a highly experienced deployments and product team that maintains a strong feedback channel with their customers.
O4S - Funding
O4S has raised $9.4 Million funding from several investors like- Think Investment, Venture Highway, startup Buddy, and more.
| Year | Stage | Amount | Investors |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | Series A | $6 Million | Think Investment, Venture Highway |
| 2019 | Pre Series A | $3 Million | Venture Highway, Amit Singhal, Subhrakant Panda, Bikram Singh Bedi |
| 2017 | Seed Funding | $400 K | Venture Highway, Startup Buddy, and Nirav Chokshi |
Rishita Jain
O4S - Advisors and Mentors
O4S team of advisors comprises well-known industry leaders such as Vishal Sikka (Ex-CEO, Infosys), Amit Singhal (Ex- SVP, Google), Neeraj Arora (Ex- Chief Business Officer- WhatsApp), S.K Gupta (Ex-JK Corp), among others.
O4S - Competitors
The SaaS startup do not have direct competition in the market. However, O4S has a few indirect competitors such as Optel Group, PharmaSecure, Bizom, Anaplan, etc. O4S have been a fast mover, to build its place in the industry with several giants such as Infosys, Wipro, Accenture, and other large system integrators. O4S believes itâs the drive and passion of the team to build a disruptive solution that makes O4S stand apart.
Arijit Karan
O4S - Tools Used to Run Business
O4S team has redeemed premium subscriptions for tools/platforms utilized by different domains and a few for organization-wide communication. To name a few tools, they have purchased subscriptions for Slack, Asana, G-Suite, Figma, Marvel, etc.
O4S - Recognition and Achievements
Awards Received by O4S:
- Origin Innovation Awards for Supply Chain & Retail Startup; presented by Technode Global (2020)
- Best Startup/Emerging Company in Agriculture; presented by Ray Consulting (2021)
- Listed as Best Startup to work in 2020; published by HR Sutra (2020)
- Listed as Indian Agritech Startup to watch out in 2020; presented by Inc. 42 (2020)
- Recognized as ââMost Innovative Supply Chain Visibility Technologyâ by NASSCOM (2018)
O4S - Future Plans
With the product-market fit established, weâre aggressively looking to expand across new geographies such as Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Thailand, among others. These countries hold tremendous potential for digitized and automated products. Further, weâre also looking to incorporate an office in the USA to partner with companies for compliance traceability across North and South America.
O4S - FAQs
When was O4S founded?
O4S was founded in 2017 by Divay Kumar and Shreyans Sipani.
Who is the founder of O4S?
Divay Kumar and Shreyans Sipani are founders of O4S. Divay Kumar serves as CEO of O4S and Shreyans Sipani serves as CTO of O4S.
What is total funding raised by O4S?
O4S has raised $9.4 Million funding at different stages of funding.
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