Press Release

• Buyers get global price transparency for 550 million electronic components
• Procurement processes shorten from days to minutes
• Sourceability digitizes traditional distribution model and sets course for growth

Berlin, November 15, 2018 - On behalf of the US independent distributor Sourceability LLC, the Berlin-based digital agency Turbine Kreuzberg has developed a global live trading platform for the trade in electronic components. For the first time, 'Sourcengine' creates global transparency for buyers regarding availability and prices of all electronic components and accelerates the research and ordering process. It enables the distributor to make the leap into the digital world as well as to grow continuously within a 400 billion dollar market that was previously analogue and strongly regional.

Transformation of a conservative business model
The live trading platform has been available globally since October 2018. Buyers can now search 550 million different articles from around 1,400 suppliers worldwide (as of February 2019) via Sourcengine. Five million items can already be ordered, and within the next two years it is expected that 40 to 50 million products will be available for order. All product information can be queried with just a few mouse clicks and prices and availability can be compared in real time. With the new platform, the distributor was able to reduce the query of unit prices from days - or even weeks in the case of very large orders - to a few minutes. The time savings enable Sourceability's account managers to provide their customers with the information they need more quickly and also to further expand new customer business. The live trading platform thus enables Sourceability to scale its entire business model. Buyers also benefit from significantly more efficient ordering processes that enable more comprehensive orders to be processed in a shorter time. In addition, manufacturers and suppliers can offer products globally, contrary to the regional focus that has been the norm up to now.

"My vision is to create global transparency in the trade of electronic components as well as the complete automation of price comparisons and supply chain management. Sourcengine has the potential to fundamentally change other industries as we expand our product portfolio and broaden our logistics infrastructure," says Jens Gamperl, CEO and founder of the Sourceability Group.

From fax to automated platform
Founded three years ago, the company initially operated in the traditional manner: Sourceability employees received product inquiries from customers, in some cases still by fax, and determined the lowest prices and associated delivery times from up to 50 portals worldwide. Customers received the desired information in the form of a list and were then able to order from the distributor. To generate 50 to 100 orders, Sourceability employees had to research up to 100,000 articles. The biggest challenges in the development of Sourcengine were the high number of articles and the extremely dynamic price developments and referential dependencies within the ordering process.

The teams from Turbine Kreuzberg and Sourceability also had to bridge very different specialist areas, languages and time zones during the project development. Thanks to effective communication, a middleware specially developed for connecting suppliers and customers, and a highly agile working method, the ambitious large-scale project was able to go into operation on time.

Selection of the implementation partner: Adaptation and experience
For the implementation of the live trading platform Sourcengine, 17 providers were asked internationally. The decision was made in favour of the Berlin digital agency Turbine Kreuzberg, as they were able to adapt requirements quickly and translate them into programmatic necessities. As a certified Spryker agency, Turbine Kreuzberg also has extensive experience in the development of large online marketplaces and also has the necessary human resources to offer the development of such a large-scale project - and to implement it on schedule.

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Infographic Case-Study Sourceability
Case Study