Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) having been facing a dark future, with falling margins stemming from rising borrowing and fixed costs and lengthier operating cycles being some of the issues that small and medium-sized companies have been facing of late. As the FED continues its path towards monetary policy normalization, the margins will only get tighter. Companies are in dire need of making efficiency gains elsewhere to offset the impact of narrowing margins.
RepuX is looking to address the issue faced by SME companies across the world. The blockchain platform will allow businesses to sell anonymised data for RepuX tokens and perhaps more importantly, provide a secure forum where SME’s are able to upload business statistics to enable developers to create necessary algorithms and introduce artificial intelligence systems that can provide the much-needed efficiency gains small to medium size companies need to be able to compete against the larger companies who have access to the necessary funding to keep such development capabilities in-house.
The basic concept is for SME’s, who are in need of technological upgrades, to upload their data safely, securely and anonymously on to the RepuX platform.
Developers can then purchase the data from a particular company with RepuX tokens to develop the necessary customized programming and then sell the programming back to the SME.
RepuX will also have a rating mechanism in place to ensure that there are no reputational concerns for SMEs looking to take on a particular developer work.
There are certainly huge benefits to be made. It was more than a decade ago when Tesco supermarkets in the UK introduced a new vertical collaboration strategy to streamline the supply chain process using information technology. The introduction of Continuous Replenishment (“CR”) provided Tesco with the ability to submit stock orders intraday through a central batch processing unit that submitted the order at the moment an item was purchased in one of its stores. The CR program provided better inventory control and reduced stock holdings, not to mention the more efficient use of logistics and speedier sock replenishment. The technological advancements made a significant contribution to Tesco’s market share, rising from a lowly 13% to just below 30% since the introduction of the CR system and other advancements introduced to make efficiency gains to keep ahead of the competition.
Such an enhancement for an SME would certainly be a game changer, with SME’s being offered access to IT resources through the RepuX platform that would normally only be available to large companies.