Tradeshi Limited, a software and digital media firm based in Dhaka, has partnered with Alibaba.com, the Chinese ecommerce giant, as its Global Service Partner for Bangladesh to promote local export-ready enterprises through digital marketing and e-Commerce, said a statement sent out to Future Startup.
The announcement came in an event that took place on September 28, 2016, was hosted by Tradeshi executive team. Honourable State Minister for ICT Zunaid Ahmed Palak was present at the event as the chief guest.
Co-founder and Chairman of Tradeshi Limited Rajib Hossain, Co-founder Managing Director of the company Shadab Parvez and President of e-Commerce Association of Bangladesh Rajib Ahmed were also present and spoke at the event.
Jack Zhang, Alibaba.com's Director of Strategy for B2B, who spoke at the event via a video message, said that Alibaba has a plan to create and empower more than 5,000 SMEs in Bangladesh within the next 3-5 years to enable enterprises to do cross-border trade via e-Commerce.
Under the partnership Tradeshi will develop digital export marketing capabilities of Bangladeshi small and medium enterprises (SMEs), educate them on digital marketing and ecommerce, enable them to leverage global online platforms to communicate their products and services and will provide content services to Alibaba Gold Members and develop Alibaba's Bangladesh Channel (bd.alibaba.com) and organize training Workshops for SMEs.
Addressing the event, the state minister of ICT said that the initiative will propel the e-Commerce revolution in the country. Palak said the promotion of digital business is a strategy of not only Bangladesh but also the whole world.
Rajib Hossain, Co-founder, and Chairman of Tradeshi said only 10 percent large companies control over 80 percent of the country’s total export. But the share of SMEs in the export is insignificant. “As our company has become the local partner of Alibaba.com, we will support the diversification of business as Alibaba.com services and products are very diversified,” he added.
Tradeshi has an extensive plan to work with SMEs in the country. The company plans to work for capacity-building with SMEs and manufacturers on B2B digital marketing, business development, and eCommerce in Bangladesh by organizing training and workshops.
It also aims to build technology infrastructure linkage by forging and developing mutually beneficial partnerships with leading online platforms like alibaba.com and Strikingly.com that cost-effectively and quickly establishes the online brand presence to attract international buyers.
Besides, the company plans to conduct SME-focused tradeshow and networking events for non-traditional markets such as Africa, South America, Eastern Europe and Russia, East Asia and Asia Pacific.
Alibaba.com, the Chinese ecommerce giant, is a pretty familiar name in Bangladesh business space and has been used by a handful of successful Bangladeshi SMEs, large manufacturers and traders for over a decade for export promotion.
In recent years, Alibaba has been paying serious attention to Bangladesh market as part of its current aggressive international expansion plan. A couple of months ago, the company announced that it is considering a plan to start operation in Bangladesh. It has already started to locally pursue clients in Dhaka and this partnership with Tradeshi might as well be the beginning of something big from the company.
