Food commodity trading
An operating system for a food commodity trader
A consolidated operating system with supplier and pricing databases, email-driven draft capture, RFQ tracking and three-tier access, replacing a combination of spreadsheets and email.
- The situation
- A specialist trader managed its purchasing through shared spreadsheets and email. Supplier pricing arrived by email and was re-entered by hand, requests for quotation were tracked informally, and there was no clear separation between what staff could view and what they could amend.
- What was built
- A consolidated operating system through which the team manages its daily operations. Supplier and pricing databases sit at its centre. Incoming supplier pricing is parsed into draft records for review, so that a buyer confirms a price rather than transcribing it. Request-for-quote management tracks which suppliers have responded, supplier discovery identifies new sources, and role-based access separates the administrator, manager and user roles.
- The outcome
- Pricing that previously resided in an individual's inbox now sits in a database accessible to the whole team. Draft capture removed the manual re-entry step, and the access controls allowed the operator to delegate parts of the system to staff without granting full access.
The situation
A specialist trader in food commodities managed its purchasing through shared spreadsheets and email. Supplier pricing arrived by email and was re-entered by hand into a pricing sheet. Requests for quotation were tracked informally, and there was no clear separation between what a junior member of staff could view and what they could amend.
What was built
A consolidated operating system through which the team manages its daily operations, with supplier and pricing databases at its centre.
- Email-driven draft capture. Incoming supplier pricing is parsed into draft records. A buyer reviews and confirms a price rather than transcribing it, which removed the re-entry step and the errors associated with it.
- Request-for-quote management with response tracking. Each request shows which suppliers have responded and which have not, so that nothing is overlooked.
- Supplier discovery. New sources are identified systematically rather than relied upon from memory.
- Three-tier access. Administrator, manager and user roles separate what staff can view from what they can amend.
The outcome
Pricing that previously resided in an individual’s inbox now sits in a database accessible to the whole team. The operator was able to delegate parts of the system to staff without granting full access to all of it.