How Arisinfra’s AI tech platform is powering growth for construction SMBs
Arisinfra has built a technology platform with AI capabilities that enables the sourcing and supply of construction materials through a digital process with very little manual intervention.
The construction industry can be viewed as a chaotic sector where the crucial component of sourcing materials is generally unorganised, where one is not sure of either the supply or the quality. It is such a scenario that Arisinfra Solutions aims to change, leveraging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI).
Mumbai-headquartered Arisinfra Solutions, founded in 2021, has built a proprietary technology platform called Cara, which has digitised the entire construction materials supply chain to act as an enabler between buyers and suppliers.
“There are inefficiencies in the supply chain, and we built a digital platform that ensures reliable supply, transparent pricing and smooth documentation. All this happens at scale,” says Ronak Morbia, Chairman and Managing Director - Arisinfra Solutions.
Construction materials account for 50-60% of the cost of a building structure. This is a segment which has multiple vendors who are largely small and medium businesses (SMBs) relying on manual operations.
Arisinfra wanted to change all this through technology. Morbia himself comes from a family which is in the business of distributing stone aggregates, giving him better insights about this industry.
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According to Morbia, the challenge was in creating a platform which could source, transact, and deliver construction materials while also maintaining quality.
Arisinfra’s AI platform covers the entire lifecycle of the construction materials, starting from sourcing up to the point of delivery. Be it the supplier or the buyer of materials, the entire process is digitised.
Morbia says the majority of their suppliers are SMBs, and they use WhatsApp to place their quotes digitally. In addition, Arisinfra digitises any required paper documents, which are stored on the cloud, making it easy to retrieve them anytime they want.
In addition, Arisinfra’s digital platform also tracks the movement of construction materials, ensuring that deliveries are on time. The company also gets visibility on the production capacity and supply of the vendors.
This has created a win-win situation for both the suppliers and buyers of construction materials. The suppliers are assured of steady demand, and the buyers don’t need to worry about managing multiple vendors, which helps them save on time and costs.
Morbia says their AI platform captures all kinds of data on a constant basis, which gives them high visibility of the entire supply chain. For example, they can easily identify who is an efficient supplier and enter into exclusive agreements, assuring them of a steady business. This, in turn, helps the credit profile of the supplier.
“Our technology has helped us to scale in a short period of time by keeping a track of every metric where our system is constantly learning the behaviour of the supplier,” says Morbia.
Today, Arisinfra does about 800 deliveries each day, with just two to three physical delivery documents, with the rest of them being digital. It has supplied over 1,000 pincodes across the country, accounting for about 17-18 locations.
“Technology is the heart and brain of our business,” says Morbia.
However, he adds that their business runs on a mix of human intelligence and technology. Given their background in the construction industry, they have teams on the ground to monitor the quality of the materials.
The company’s technology platform enables transactions across all categories of construction materials, be it stones, sand, chemicals, steel, etc.
Arisinfra also does project-based services where it manages the entire design to implementation of construction projects for the developers.
Arisinfra also plans to open its technology platform to customers and vendors so that they can monitor all the information on a real-time basis to create a more unified network.
As part of its future plans, Arisinfra plans to build a deeper relationship with select manufacturers and also double down on technology with the goal of automating the process as much as possible. Also, it plans to expand its project services portfolio.
Morbia says this business is all about having the networks and generating goodwill, which in turn leads to more orders. “There is enough business for everyone,” he remarks.
Edited by Jyoti Narayan