mjunction eyes 49% jump in turnover

mjunction services, a joint venture between Steel Authority of India (SAIL) and Tata Steel, is eyeing a 49 per cent growth in transactions to Rs 12,000 crore this financial year.

Viresh Oberoi, managing director, mjunction services, said, around Rs 3,500 crore would come from metaljunction, which is the world's largest steel e-marketplace. buyjunction, the procurement platform, would account for an equal share.

In 2007, transactions were at Rs 8,053 crore, largely led by new launches autojunction.in and straightline.in.

straightline.in, the e-retail initiative of mjunction services, is in the process of widening the scope of e-retailing in the construction materials market. Oberoi said, there was no website dedicated to serve the construction industry.

"All construction materials are purchased through traditional offline route due to supply chain inefficiencies and lack of transparency," he said.

Straightline plans to leverage this opportunity.

As a step in this direction, straightline today announced its tie-up with Lafarge India.

The marketing tie-up with Lafarge is initiated through a pilot programme, which has been started in Kolkata and Siliguri. The tie-up would be scaled up in the eastern region, where Lafarge happens to be the largest selling cement brand.

Straightline would also create an e-sales channel for Patton, which would start with e-retailing plastic tanks, rigid PVC pipes and SWR pipes from its portfolio.

Oberoi said, "The concept of e-commerce is evolving. We have transformed the traditional steel and coal supply chains selling over five million tonnes of steel and 20 million tonnes of coal online. With straightline.in, we will provide an efficient and convenient electronic platform for small and large customers living in urban and rural areas to source directly from reputed manufacturers avoiding value destroying middlemen."