MetalJunction.com offers three-way solutions to corporations

Our Corporate Bureau
29 May 2003

New Delhi: MetalJunction.com, a joint venture of Tata Steel and Steel Authority of India (SAIL) is ready to offer e-based procurement and selling solutions to corporations that are ready and willing to accept change.

MetalJunction.com Pvt Ltd managing director Viresh Oberoi says Tata Steel and SAIL have achieved considerable savings and greater efficiency in procuring and selling via MetalJunction.com.

Origins
1999: the year when the dotcom boom was at its peak and e-commerce was the new buzzword doing the rounds was the time when Dr JJ Irani, managing director, Tata Steel and Arvind Pande, chairman, SAIL, had a spate of offers to join domestic and international e-commerce platforms for the steel industry.

Rather than joining any ill-conceived dotcom, SAIL and Tata Steel independently set up internal e-commerce taskforces to study the various e-commerce models that had sprung up during the dotcom boom of the late '90s.

These two taskforces came to identical conclusions, that whilst e-commerce is definitely the way forward, it would make more business sense for two or three of the largest players in a similar industry or region to come together and consolidate their e-commerce plans on a common platform not just for their mutual benefit, but also for the benefit of the entire steel industry and thus, MetalJunction.com was born.

Strategic shift in focus
Since the dotcom bubble burst in 2000, companies operating in the business space of providing procurement and selling services have had to reinvent themselves to survive and grow in line with market needs.