2021 was a year of development, and following the Covid rollercoaster, things have been reset to some extent, said Suhel Motiwala, Director, Met Asia Group. “Covid-19 had slowed down the business and we noticed that volumes increased and got back on track starting 2021. At Met Asia Group, we always believe in maintaining good relations and we managed to add many clients and suppliers based on our relations.” In terms of volume, he said they doubled the numbers, mainly due to their efforts to approach different regions of India.

Major highlight

One of the biggest highlights was that for business development purpose and to extend their social network, they managed to travel over 120 days within India and had one-on-one meetings with more than 75 companies, said Motiwala.

“While meeting different companies, we realised that there any many points that an indenting agency or supplier needs to address. At the same time, there is a communication gap between all three. We have added those pain points to our ‘to do’ list of 2022 and we will set up process to handle those. Considering the heavy competition in the industry, curing the pain points of the supplier and buyer is the only way to grow rapidly,” he commented.

What makes them a leading service provider? Motiwala said, “the commitment of service and surety makes us a leading service provider. Even during the world-wide issue of containers and deliveries, we managed to expand our clientele the reason is the service and our response time.”

They work closely with clients, end users and yard owners, and we are deeply aware of their pain points, he noted, adding that they try to solve these issues and provide total comfort in doing business with them. “This strategy has helped us to maintain our clientele. Since day one the clients that have joined us are still with us.”

Indenting is not an easy business model to adopt and the number of indentors is also increasing at a rapid pace especially in India. In Saif’s view, “Indenting appears to be attractive, especially going by the way indentors present themselves in their community and friend circle. It attracts other sector businesspeople to turn towards indenting.” However, he said over the past five years, about 0.1 percent have been successful in establishing themselves in this sector. They are adept at maintaining relationships and retaining their client base, he stated.

The Supplier Services the company provides include the following: The biggest issue for suppliers is to predict selling price and demand price from the buyer’s side. Met Asia provides real time rates to suppliers, so they can do easy buying locally and sell to them. They have a dedicated account manager for each supplier who is available 24/7and always active based on the supplier time zone; Once the sales contract is done, this deal is in their safe hands; Right after a sales contract, they take over entire communications to get the loading done; Confirming Draft documents within 12 hours’ time of receipt; Tracking of entire shipment; Check quality of material via pre-inspection inspector camera picture to loading pictures; All total payment follow-ups and ensure documents are released on time; The company takes responsibility for the entire transaction which includes getting documents released on time. They also maintain records of the transaction.

“We have seen cases where buyers have not released cargos that went for auction. This will never happen in our case. We always ask new suppliers coming on board that they do only one transaction with us and enjoy our services. Then they can take a call regarding future transactions,” said Motiwala.

Looking ahead

For the 2022, Met Asia is running a campaign to visit each buyer who is buying 10 containers or above per month. Their team has planned the schedule for visits to various states of India, he noted.  

Their internal systems and process are getting upgraded day by day and it will be as fast as light to get and receive updates from International Market to delivering local market. “We are working on live rates formula, where from IST 8.00 a.m. to 8.00 p.m. the whole Indian buyers’ community will receive the latest rates of physically traded products live on a single platform, and they will be able to purchase from it and they can even trace their shipments directly from their mobile application,” said Motiwala.

On their vision moving forward, he said they believe those who provide the best service will sustain in the long term. “And we are constantly working in that direction to provide the best services. Overall, I see a great future of Met Asia Group. Lots of new clients have been added to our portfolio and the market has positive vibes. At present we are focusing on building and expanding our client network of both buyers and suppliers. We aim to work in that direction aggressively for the next one year.”

Contact Met Asia Group: Suhel Altaf Motiwala: +91 8690 478147 Saifullah Altaf Motiwala: +91 99785 29444 Email: business@MetAsiaGroup.com