Tag: Business

Congratulations, Sukhi for being shortlisted for WeAreTheCity’s Rising Star Awards

Post author By Ram Krishnna Rao
Post date May 28, 2018

It gives us great pleasure to inform you that our co-founder, Sukhi Jutla, has been shortlisted for WeAreTheCity’s Rising Star Awards.

They received a record number of entries this year (over 1,200!), with every single category being oversubscribed with amazing nominations from across the UK and Northern Ireland.

Well done Sukhi on getting through to the shortlist stage and on all your achievements to date, you should be exceptionally proud to make it into the final 10 in your category!

Please support Sukhi’s nomination by casting a vote for her which will help to continue to shine the spotlight on #femalefounders from #diverse backgrounds! Just click on the link below:

https://risingstars.wearethecity.com/rising-stars-shortlist-2018/entrepreneurs-startups-2018/

You can read the official PR Release here from WATC:

PRESS RELEASE

Embargoed until 8.30AM 14 May 2018

WeAreTheCity Rising Star Awards 2018

WeAreTheCity shines the spotlight on 200 remarkable women as part of their Rising Star Awards shortlist

WeAreTheCity are proud to announce the shortlist for their 2018 Rising Star Awards.

The Rising Star Awards, now in their fourth year, are the first to focus on the UK’s female talent pipeline below management level. Through these awards, we will celebrate 100 individual female contributors that represent the leaders and role models of tomorrow. We hope that by raising the profile of our shortlist and winners, we will also encourage organisations to consider how they strengthen the development of their female pipeline in the future.

The 200-strong shortlist showcases remarkable women within the UK from across 20 categories representing different industries/professions. An example of the amazing women shortlisted this year are; Georgia Shiels, Racing Driver, Georgia Shiels Racing; Madeline Pizzoni, Helicopter Pilot, British Army and Krystal Archer, DJ & Social Entrepreneur, SuperFoxx.

The Rising Star awards also include a Company of the Year award, which recognises the achievements of a company who can demonstrate that they are actively supporting and developing their female talent pipeline through initiatives, training, development programmes and/or internal employee relations groups. Shortlisted companies this year are Barclays, J. P. Morgan and Sky.

The awards will continue to celebrate Rising Star Champions, recognising the efforts of senior leaders who are actively supporting the female pipeline, included in this year’s shortlist are Chris Stylianou, COO, UK & Ireland, Sky and Dr Shola Mos-Shogbamimu, Lawyer and Equality Campaigner.

Recognising that careers for women may follow different timescales, the Rising Star Awards do not have any age restrictions included within the criteria guidelines. WeAreTheCity feels it has a responsibility to ensure that female talent, regardless of age and background, receives the necessary support and skills to transition into key decision-making roles within our organisations.

Chris Duncan, Managing Director, Times Newspaper Ltd, said “It has been a tumultuous year for gender politics across the world, and programs that nurture the next generation of female talent have never been more important. We at The Times and The Sunday Times are delighted to continue to support the Rising Star Awards to recognise the tremendous work being done by the next generation of leaders across British industry. We would like to wish this years shortlisted individuals the very best of luck.”

The 2018 awards are headline sponsored by The Times and The Sunday Times. Category sponsors include an array of leading FTSE 100 companies and industry leaders: 3M, Accenture, Aon, Barclays, Bloomberg, CMI, CR-UK, EDIT Development, EPAA, Jobbio, JHPR, Kier, Lloyd’s, Lloyds Banking Group, Northern Trust, PedalSure, Royal Navy, Reed Smith, SAGE and Sodexo.

Vanessa Vallely, Founder of WeAreTheCity, said, “The calibre of entries this year has been truly exceptional. I am so excited to meet our shortlisted individuals at NewsUK to celebrate their success. Every one of these women should be extremely proud of their achievements. They are key contributors to their industries and outstanding role models. I wish them the very best of luck in the final round of judging.”

All shortlisted individuals will be invited to celebrate their achievements at an event hosted by NewsUK on 6 June. The 200 women will now face the final judging period and the public vote. The overall top 100 winners will be announced on 18 June 2018.

The winners will then be celebrated on 12 July 2018 at a prestigious evening reception and awards ceremony at NewsUK in London alongside our judges and sponsors.

The public are encouraged to cast their votes of support for our shortlisted nominees via risingstars.wearethecity.com

@WATC_Updates , Rising Star, Vanessa Vallely

WeAreTheCity, https://www.linkedin.com/company/wearethecity/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/vanessavallely/

Written by CEO & Founder, Ram Krishnna Rao

Tags Author, B4B, Blockchain, Business, Entrepreneur, Female, GoldJewellery, MarketOrders, Marketplace, MO, Online, Platform, SukhiJutla, WATC, WeAreTheCity

MarketOrders News

Why the Gold industry needs to wake up to the reality of blockchain technology

Post author By Ram Krishnna Rao
Post date April 30, 2018

I walked into the newsagent to get some water and nibbles as I was driving a long way to visit one of my customers on the outskirts of London. It should have been an uneventful occurrence to grab a bottle of water when my eyes darted to what I thought was an ATM machine. But this was no ordinary ATM.

It said ‘BITCOIN ATM Machine’

I instantly looked at the shop owner and he smiled back and said,’ I know what your thinking’ as if he had read my mind!

I am a passionate advocate for blockchain technology and recently qualified as an IBM Foundation Blockchain Developer to quench my growing thirst for how this technology suddenly became more mainstream and the ways in which it is already disrupting traditional industries. (see my last post where my co-founder Sukhi Jutla, became the works, first author, to have a book published on the blockchain.

http://s752989504.websitehome.co.uk/get-women-fintech-interview-marketorders-coo-co-founder-sukhi-jutla/

I continued to look at the Bitcoin ATM machine as I had heard about their existence but till now thought it was the myth. I didn’t realize people were using cryptocurrency to pay for their water bottles already!

Though blockchain tech is relatively new (it’s under a decade old), I am a newcomer to this industry but it’s changing so fast already. I have recently begun to get really inspired and excited about the way this technology can bring about huge changes especially in making things move more efficiently. In the gold industry, this means more transparency in the supply chain process as well as in confirming the origin of products.

So thought I was surprised to see my first Bitcoin vending machine, it certainly won’t be the last time I will see it. Perhaps next time, I may even pay for my bottle of water with a cryptocurrency!

Written by CEO & Founder, Ram Krishnna Rao

Tags B2B, B4B, Bitcoin, Blockchain, Business, Cryptocurrecy, FinTech, Gold, Jewellery, MarketOrders, MO, NewTech, Online, Platform, technology

MarketOrders News

MarketOrders produces the World’s First #1 Bestselling ‘Blockchain’ Author

Post author By Ram Krishnna Rao
Post date April 16, 2018

History was made at the 2018 London Book Fair when our co-founder, Sukhi Jutla, became the World’s First #1 Bestselling ‘Blockchain’ Author!

As well as being the co-founder and COO of MarketOrders, Sukhi is also an author and an advocate of the blockchain.

This week at the London Book Fair, Sukhi spoke on a panel about how the publishing industry would be shaken up with the introduction of blockchain tech. She also talked about the opportunities this would offer authors and why it was important to take part in this discussion now. Because blockchain is not disrupting industries tomorrow…its happening now.

Sukh is also the co-author of the official Blockchain For Books White-paper that talks in more detail about how blockchain will disrupt the traditional publishing arena and was launched at The London Book Fair which is attended by over 5,000 people from 60 + countries.

The London Book Fair is the global marketplace for rights negotiation and the sale and distribution of content across print, audio, TV, film and digital channels.

We are very excited and proud of Sukhi whose book, Escape The Cubicle: Quit The Job You Hate, Create A Life You Love, is the first book to be published on the blockchain. This means you can purchase the book with cryptocurrency.

Blockchain removes the need of a middleman…and that is also what MarketOrders advocates! Our platform allows gold jewellery retailers to purchase the products they need directly from the manufacturers and suppliers.

Being able to purchase directly from the source means you can get better prices and access to more products. The middleman no longer can inflate the market price or control what products can go to the market.

Watch this space as MarketOrders will also be releasing some exciting news about how we are going to use blockchain to better serve our customers.

You can read more about Sukhi’s coverage on being the World’s First #1 Bestselling ‘Blockchain’ Author in the article covered by the prestigious Publishers Weekly where she made the front page during the London Book Fair:

https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/international/london-book-fair/article/76592-london-book-fair-2018-meet-the-world-s-first-1-bestselling-blockchain-author.html

You can check out Sukhi’s book here: https://amzn.to/2GX3nWJ

Written by CEO & Founder, Ram Krishnna Rao

Tags Author, Blockchain, Business, Connecting, Entrepreneur, Female, Fin-Tech, MarketOrders, Marketplace, New-Tech, Online, Platform, Retailers, SukhiJutla

MarketOrders News

Q& A with the founders of Marketorders

Post author By Ram Krishnna Rao
Post date April 9, 2018

Today’s blog is a quick fire Q&A with the Founders, Ram and Sukhi. They talk about what MarketOrders does, how they came up with the idea of digitising the gold trade industry and the defining moment that changed it all.

Tell us what your business does in fewer than 25 words:

MarketOrders in an online marketplace helping to connect independent jewellery brands directly to manufacturer’s around the world to source the best products at the best price.

How did you come up with the idea?

The founders have been in the gold jewellery market for over 15 years and saw how inefficient and archaic the processes and systems are in the gold industry where it is still run in a very traditional manner and only 4% of transactions occur on-line.

We found in our previous business that we were still taking orders manually and found there was no online or curated destination for jewellery retailers to be able to source the products they needed. So we decided to help the retailers by accepting multiple small orders from many retailers and aggregating their orders. This aggregated order was then sent to the manufacturer who could accept larger orders and give us bulk discount savings. These savings are then passed back to the jewellery retailers.

Without MarketOrders, small retailers cannot access the products and prices the large manufacturer reserves for larger orders and clients. And the manufacturers also benefit by getting more orders from more customers. MarketOrders allows a more efficient way to manage the supply/demand issues that many small retailers and SMEs face.

photo credit: https://pixabay.com/en/dropshipping-oberlo-shopify-3264486/

What makes your business different from the competition?

MarketOrders is the only online curated destination for the gold jewellery industry where every step of the process is online. Our customers, the retailers, can order products online, pay online and the products are delivered to their door.

All our competitors are still working in a hybrid version where only some of the processes are on-line and the rest is very manual and hence time-consuming which can lead to a lot of delays.

By bringing the entire supply chain online MarketOrders is able to bring greater visibility to the supply and demand of gold jewellery products. We can also collate data and use those insights to help our customers. For example, retailers can track which products sell the most at certain times throughout the year and we can even use this data to do predictive orders.

Who are your clients/customers? How many do you have?

MarketOrders is a 2-sided marketplace so we work with both the jewellery retailers (SMEs) and the manufacturers.

Currently we serve retailers based in the UK and work with manufacturers abroad (Hong Kong, Singapore & Dubai).

Our focus is on serving the gold, diamond and precious metals jewellers in the B2B space.

photo credit: https://pixabay.com/en/jewelry-necklace-diamond-ring-3213722/

Key moments

What’s been the most challenging thing about starting your business so far?

The gold industry is extremely traditional and operates largely off-line. The only way to break into this market is by trust. It took us years to build solid relationships with manufactures and retailers. This took a lot of time and effort to develop but was worth it. Because this is the only way to really understand the problems your customers are facing.

Gold is an emotional product; people use it to look beautiful or use it as an investment for their security, so there is a huge amount of trust involved in every transaction. You need to prove that you are providing gold of a premium quality, be very clear and open as to where it is sourced from and to be able to deliver the products on time. So building that deep trust with each one of our customers had to be done in person and was challenging as it took many years to do.

What was your breakthrough moment?

When we realised we could aggregate multiple small orders from multiple retailers and aggregate them to a larger singular order so the manufacturer could accept the orders and give us bulk discount savings. This solved 2 problems; allowing smaller retailers to access these large manufacturers and get more designs and products at a lower price and also allow manufacturers to increase their capacity utilisation as their machinery was often left idle as they needed minimum orders to produce the products. For the first time, the gold industry was now on-line and had an on-line presence.

What is your goal for your business?

To create the largest and most trusted marketplace for the supply and provision of gold and associated products and take it to an IPO.

Written by CEO & Founder, Ram Krishnna Rao

Tags AggregatedOrder, B4B, Business, Connecting, GoldJewellery, Manufacturers, MarketOrders, Marketplace, MO, Online, Retailers, SMEs

MarketOrders News

Why is the B4B model so important in today’s digital consumer world?

Post author By Ram Krishnna Rao
Post date April 2, 2018

Mobile technology and the Internet have empowered consumers in a way that they are now more informed about market offers than the retailers trying to sell to them. Changing their minds or switching providers is now as easy as clicking a mouse.

The combination of commoditization and the empowered customer makes it even more important to have a Consumer Centric Culture where the experience of purchasing is just as important as the product that has been purchased. (Check out the last post to learn more about the Consumer Centric Culture).

Therefore, business owners must be able to buy the products they need in order to customise their customer’s requirement and be able to compete effectively in todays ‘experience economy’.

photo credit: https://pixabay.com/en/computer-laptop-business-office-3246121/

From B2C to C2B

Today’s era is no longer B2C but C2B. The consumer drives the transaction. Therefore, the B2B concept of “Make, Ship, Sell” is no longer applicable and is instead replaced by the B4B concept which allows retailers to buy “On Demand”.

The B4B model encourages manufacturers to stop thinking about how they can sell more products and start thinking about understanding and actively working with retailers to arrive at a specific end result. Manufactures should be working for retailers, not the other way around.

Applying the B4B concept, MarketOrders built the platform to bring “visibility of supply and Demand” for both retailers and manufacturers by “Digitization” of the entire gold jewellery industry by centralisation. A central network platform will successfully help to map out customer needs and desires which will help retailers to practice and implement a customer centric culture in return.

MarketOrders will help retailers to discover what their customers want, create greater density with designs and selection, a transparent system and increase the ability to tap into global sellers directly and faster, which will allow speed to market.

Now, using the B4B concept, business owners will be surrounded with a customer-inspired culture. In today’s digital customer era, creating a customer centric culture is and should be a top priority for all businesses, especially independent small retailers, in order to thrive in today’s customer first world.

The future is centralisation

Centralisation allows data and insights to be collected from every transaction. These insights can help grow the business of the participant on the platform with greater engagement to their customer closer. The building of technology embedded on the MarketOrders platform is focused on customer experience and the customer focus is at the heart of the snowball effect.

When you add the B4B concept with a centralised network, we will help small businesses to be in better control of their success at scale.

photo credit: https://pixabay.com/en/jewelry-manufacturing-manufacturing-1381501/

Why does the gold jewellery industry need centralization?

By centralizing the supply chain in the gold jewelry industry, it gives both retailers and suppliers a greater level of visibility in terms of where to source the best products they need.

The B4B model allows the technology to be built around the customer and helps small business owners understand their customer needs. For once, there will be the ability to see buying trends within the gold markets and this data can be used to generate deep insights for retailers to help drive their business success through better decisions making. These data based insights will drive greater adoption for more business growth and ultimately lead in helping achieve targeted business outcomes.

What do you think of the rise of the B4B economy? Post your comments below.

Written by CEO & Founder, Ram Krishnna Rao

Tags B2B, B2C, B4B, Business, Digital, GoldJewellery, Jewellery, Manufacturers, New-Tech, Online, Retail, SMEs

MarketOrders News

PRESS RELEASE

Post author By Ram Krishnna Rao
Post date March 5, 2018

We are thrilled to announce the co-founder and COO of MarketOrders, Sukhi Jutla, has been nominated for The Asian Women of Achievement Awards.

The Asian Women of Achievement Awards, in association with NatWest, is pleased to announce the full shortlist for 2018. From women working to fight human trafficking to a powerlifting champion and an expert in the reproductive health of astronauts, the talent of this year’s line-up is astounding. The full shortlist celebrates candidates from all over the UK and with heritage from North Korea, Lebanon, China and India. The nominees are a shining example of the trailblazing work of Asian women in Britain today.

This year’s Asian Women of Achievement Awards will take place on Wednesday May 9, 2018, at the London Hilton on Park Lane.

The Asian Women of Achievement Awards showcases phenomenal Asian women across the UK and celebrates the valuable impact they make to British life. The awards play a key role in redefining the contribution of Asian women; and informing a new, positive, pro-diversity debate. Well done Sukh! We at MarketOrders are thrilled you have been shortlisted for this amazing award!

To see the official press release please click here. (link to the attached press release)

>>http://www.awaawards.com/our-alumni-category/2018/

#AWA2018 #awaawardsuk #AsianWomenofAchievements

Tags AsianWoman, Author, Business, EscapeTheCubicle, Founder, GoldJewellery, MarketOrders, Marketplace, New-Tech, Startup, WomanEntrepreneur

MarketOrders News

How Retailers benefit from using MarketOrders platform?

Post author By Ram Krishnna Rao
Post date February 26, 2018

MarketOrders is a revolutionary B4B (Business-for-Business) platform providing independent jewellery retailers with a cheaper and better way to buy gold jewellery products & services through a disruptive eCommerce marketplace where orders are aggregated and sent to the manufacturer to secure bulk discount savings.

MarketOrders is branded as a retailer champion, delivering a better and fairer
way to buy products and services.
> Provides control – I order what I need, I feel that I am the boss.
> Saves money – cheaper than buying from wholesaler.
> Saves time – fast, intuitive and mobile first.
> Convenient – use it anyplace, anytime.
> Trusted – vetted marketplace.
> Transparent – clear how MarketOrders makes money.