scoutbee offers free Covid-19 emergency supplier searches for critical medical supplies

As the world gets to grips with the health and humanitarian emergency resulting from the spread of the coronavirus (Covid-19), the knock-on economic effects have also been stark. In an increasingly global economy, we have seen how fragile some supply chains have become.

scoutbee as a solution has a specific capability for rapid global supplier discovery, so when coronavirus began to cause pharma and medical supply shortages, we knew we should help. Our team quickly built a simple tool so organisations with great need could gain rapid access to our supplier insights, in order to help with shortages of critical supplies. The free service provides help to organisations performing emergency sourcing of critically needed medical equipment and supplies including surgical masks, hazmat suits, swabs and tubes etc.

Until 30 April, organisations (such as NGOs, public bodies, local and national governments and healthcare providers) struggling to source urgently needed supplies can make a request for our AI powered supplier search at scoutbee Covid-19 Emergency Supply Chain Support. The problem many NGOs face right now is that the peak demand is concentrated on a handful of suppliers that can be found on Google. We are working to spread the demand broadly to help ease the situation.

AI can really help in this crisis. Traditional procurement methods are not transparent and awfully slow. The search and validation for a supplier would often take two or three weeks. The Covid-19 crisis makes it clear how vulnerable the old system is when time is pressing. Ourplatform uses a real time analysis of terabytes of global supply chain data to significantly speed up the RFP-process. This will help the organisations in need to find suppliers 75% faster while keeping resources for the search low.

NGOs and Public Organisations can utilise scoutbee without charge to find back-up suppliers to cover core category demands by doing the following:

• Visit scoutbee Covid-19 Emergency Supply Chain Support
• Select a product from a continually updated selection of categories. (If a product is not on the list, please use the contact form to request it)
• Complete the form with contact details
• Within 48 hours scoutbee will provide access details to its platform and next steps
• Get in touch with pre-qualified suppliers
• Share this information with others in need of the same support

After visiting the website and selecting a product from a continually updated selection of categories, within 48 hours scoutbee provides access details to its platform and next steps for accessing suppliers. Users then get in touch with qualified suppliers directly. Users can email us for support at help@scoutbee.com.

The coronavirus situation worldwide has become a clear example of how AI can help deliver information to those in need rapidly. Digital scouting technology is used to support many types of organisation in the following ways:

• AI-driven data collection delivers the widest range view on suppliers at high speed
• Stronger decision making about supply options with unified data
• Rapid collaboration with suppliers on a digital platform
• More time for the really important tasks

We can already see the impacts of scoutbee’s supplier insights on users being able to target the right supplies at speed. For example, in a number of the latest sourcing cases we see that Chinese suppliers are now having capacities again and can readily deliver. On the same cases, we observe that more Indian suppliers are becoming unavailable. For a government in recent days, we were able to facilitate the demand of several thousand breathing masks, protective suits and gloves, which were requested from us within 48 hours.

Headquartered in Berlin and Washington DC, scoutbee’s smart procurement technology is most often utilised by major multinationals including Audi, Airbus, Caterpillar and Bosch, as well as more than 90 other companies worldwide, to provide them more confident strategic sourcing and purchasing decisions.

Do you know an organisation in need of help? Please do spread the word. Together in our communities we overcome the challenge of Covid-19.

Lakestar, one of Europe's leading VC's, is a partner of Campden Wealth. Lakestar has recently invested into Scoutbee.

Lakestar is one of Europe’s leading venture capital firms investing in technology companies led by exceptional entrepreneurs. Early investments included Skype, Spotify, Facebook and Airbnb. Since raising a first fund in 2013, Lakestar manages an aggregated volume of more than €1 billion across three early stage funds, and more recently a growth fund.

The company has expanded and broadened its portfolio and holds investments in the likes of Opendoor, Oscar, GYG, Glovo, Sennder, Eigen, FiveAI, Revolut and HomeToGo to name a few. Lakestar has presence in Berlin, Zurich and London.

Lakestar helps companies to identify new markets and expand into them rapidly, with a focus on the US and Europe. The team advises and supports portfolio companies in business development, recruitment, technology and marketing. The investments range from early stage companies to those in their growth stage.

Visit us on LinkedIn and our website www.lakestar.com.