Bafco starts every business day online with Tejari

The company considers the Tejari online marketplace to be the eBay of the Middle East region for B2B transactions. Bafco has also made Tejari its primary platform for modern business communications and transactions.

In 2008, Bafco participated in large tenders announced on Tejari's B2B portal involving a total of around $3m. Despite the current economic slowdown, Bafco has been very busy and in June of 2009 alone they received 60 invitations for tenders. The company has also participated in another twelve auctions for government and other public projects.

"Bafco joined Tejari in 2001 and we have seen real growth for the system. We now consider the Tejari portal as an eBay for B2B transactions in the Middle East region. Being part of Tejari meant that we needed to adapt to the latest methods of getting project leads and ensuring best pricing without sacrificing quality. Tejari's is a platform for modern communications where you have the chance to participate within a community of businesses eager to serve one another,"

commented Ms. Yasmin Shaikh, eAccount Manager at Bafco.

Bafco's proactive way of doing business takes the company around the world to offer the finest and richest products and to be able to create practical workplaces for their customers. Since the company is in the retail office furniture and interior design business, much of its staff's time is devoted to creativity.

"My role with Bafco was created because of Tejari, and without it, I would not be even here. Nowadays Tejari helps us to penetrate the large projects in the UAE and across the GCC region as well. All governmental projects have huge potential for Bafco. We also see a huge direct time savings for buyers who use the marketplace since searching for the right suppliers manually is a very time consuming task. With any project we participate in we provide the best possible rates in a straightforward manner that is beneficial for both parties", adds Ms. Yasmin Shaikh.

Bafco also actively works with its online showroom on the Tejari community portal by making frequent updates of its company profile and product details. This requires two persons from the Bafco company staff on a regular basis to run and handle all of the tenders and auctions that the company participates in via Tejari's online marketplace. Ms. Shaikh even anticipates needing a greater number of people involved to offer the best proposals and expertise to Bafco's online customers.

"We still handle only 10% of all our operations online, but this amount already makes a massive contribution to our company's sales results. We appreciate the help of newly-implemented services from Tejari's portal like "multiple users accounts" and SMS tender notifications. Also, we expect that in this coming year our total percentage of online operations will grow and sales results may even double despite the global economic situation,"

explained Ms. Yasmin Shaikh.