TM collaborates with Tenderin to digitalise its procurement process

• Allows TM to purchase general office supplies for its business operations
• Provides TM with digital procurement without compromising the corporate governance

TELEKOM Malaysia Bhd (TM) and Tenderin Sdn Bhd (Tenderin) recently signed a collaboration agreement for the realisation of Lapasar, one of TM’s ‘Go Digital’ initiatives to transform its traditional procurement process to a digital platform.

Lapasar is an online Business-to-Business (B2B) procurement platform developed by Tenderin, a local start-up company, that allows TM to purchase general office supplies for its business operations. Lapasar offers comprehensive e-procurement activities for business organisations such as TM by providing an online and on-the-app purchasing platform with the convenience of real-time price comparison function and other functionalities such as ‘shopping-cart and checkout’ functions, commonly used in Business-to-Consumer (B2C) marketplaces.

Lapasar also provides TM with digital procurement without compromising the corporate governance, while increasing efficiency and convenience of procurement operations within a controlled environment. TM is the first company in Malaysia to experience and benefit from this application and this digital initiative is set to improve the productivity of TM employees via simplified and faster procurement process.

TM chief digital officer Ahmad Azhar Yahya and chief procurement officer Mohamad Mohamad Zain signed the collaboration agreement on behalf of TM while Tenderin was represented by chief executive officer Thinesh Kumar and chief operating officer Lakshman Das. The signing ceremony was witnessed by TM acting chief executive officer Bazlan Osman.

Commenting on the collaboration, Bazlan said, “This collaboration demonstrates TM’s openness and willingness to support technology start-up companies like Tenderin, by working together through the journey of testing and refining digital solutions and innovations.

“This is among our continuous efforts to enhance our operations and efficiencies, including procurement processes with an e-procurement platform such as Lapasar. We are indeed excited to become the first company in Malaysia to benefit from this application. It is worth to note that we have recorded a reduced cycle time for Procure-to-Pay and Delivery processes by 80% with Lapasar.

“With the use of Lapasar, the manual Purchase Order (PO) issuance and approval have been eliminated, and the purchase of supplies made via online at cheaper prices, have resulted in noticeable cost savings at our end. All these are in line with TM's Performance Improvement Programme 2018 (PIP2018) to improve our cash flow and increase our productivity.”

Bazlan further elaborated, “As Malaysia’s Convergence Champion, TM is urging more technology start-up companies in Malaysia to work with us in delivering an enhanced digital lifestyle not only for our employees but also for the Rakyat, in line with our vision, “To Make Life and Business Easier, for a Better Malaysia”, all enabled by Digital.

“This collaboration is also in tandem with TM’s aspiration of ‘Going Digital’ as we move beyond connectivity into new value added digital and smart services. We will continue to offer relevant convergence propositions via the five pillars of Smarter Living, Smarter Businesses, Smarter Cities, Smarter Communities and a Smarter Nation.

“Under our ‘Go Digital’ aspiration, we are also embarking on a holistic approach covering customer experience, process optimisation and new business opportunities. This entails building a digitally aware and smarter workforce that acts as a catalyst to the digital transformation of TM, thus empowering Malaysia’s digital economy,” Bazlan added.

Meanwhile, Thinesh shared, “We are proud to partner with TM and appreciate its acceptance and vision for the implementation of this new procurement concept, transforming traditional procurement to digital. TM saw us as a procurement partner and the first who bravely take the leaps to make a change and to go digital. In an age where purchases are made with a click of a button, corporate procurement should also be as simple as that and this is where Lapasar aims to digitise and simplify procurement processes.

“Lapasar also works as an aggregator for vendors to ensure we are able to offer wholesale prices for supplies offered on our platform. In an era of globalisation, business owners are thinking about cross border selling and we also encourage local vendors in Malaysia to start thinking of selling their products to the neighbouring countries via our platform,” added Thinesh.

Initially implemented in pilot stages, TM has started utilising Lapasar since October 2017 for online purchases of Office and Pantry Supplies for Klang Valley area and its scope was later expanded further to nationwide in March 2018.

Recently, Lapasar has introduced the Lapasar apps which can be downloaded by TM’s business units and subsidiaries from Google Play, App Store or TM digital apps hub, hub@TM.

With the collaboration, both companies will be exploring opportunities towards creating better savings, increasing efficiency and providing more opportunities to local vendors to grow their business further, throughout the country via digital, hence delivering an integrated digital lifestyle for TM and Malaysians.