[Case Study]: Metroline

Metroline’s principal business is the provision of bus services, providing London, one of the world’s busiest cities, with a fleet of 1,200 buses carrying 250 million passengers each year. Metroline is a wholly owned subsidiary of ComfortDelGro Corporation; the world’s second-largest listed land transport company.

Why Market Dojo?

Metroline is one of Market Dojo’s longest standing clients having first started with MD back in 2011. The company were searching for an eSourcing solution to cut down their costs when running complicated tenders.

Nikolas Phiniefs is the Head Buyer for Metroline and his position within the company is as a supporting role predominantly for the engineering department. However, his expertise expands into several other areas of the business such as Facilities, Operations and Scheduling.

Having checked out a number of eSourcing tools back in 2011, the decision was made for Metroline to start using the Sourcing Dojo software on a pay as you go basis.

“We felt that Sourcing Dojo was, and still is, an intuitive system that helps run tenders in a much smoother way. The Sourcing Dojo system provided more control and a central base for running tenders and we saw that there was a lot of potential there for what we wanted to do as a business.

At the time we had a look around for suppliers, but felt Sourcing Dojo was what the business required. The Sourcing Dojo system was not overly complicated and we wanted to run tenders efficiently and quickly.”

As the Sourcing Dojo tools have developed over time, so has Metroline’s use of the various features and functionalities.

“In the past, we would upload spreadsheets and use the tool that way, but as we’ve developed we’ve started using the tool to create our lot structure. We used to very excel based, we would upload a spreadsheet for suppliers to download, fill in the data and re-upload, but we are now seeing the advantages of using lot templates.”

How the relationship has developed

After feeling the benefits of the tool for almost two years, in 2013 Metroline decided to start running the software on an annual basis rather than the business’ pay as you go model, and in 2017 they upgraded to Market Dojo’s enterprise solution. This consisted of enabling multiple users, and multiple tools such as: Quick Quotes, SIM Dojo as well as Contracts Management and Savings Tracking through MD’s partner Per Angusta.

At the time, the company were actually toying with the idea of seeking an alternative P2P type solution, so what was it about Market Dojo that turned the tide?

“As the business was developing we looked at the market to see what else was available, but naturally, with Market Dojo being the incumbent supplier, we also approached them to see what they could offer, and they came back and displayed the aspects that they had developed within their tools.

On further investigation we saw that the pricing offered by Market Dojo was competitive, the broader range of capability was definitely favourable and all the things we wanted to look at were featured. It was a competitive offer from Market Dojo which is why we decided to continue using Market Dojo. It wasn’t just pricing that was competitive, it was everything else that was being offered. We felt this was a good partnership going forward.”

With the introduction of tools such as SIM Dojo, Metroline have been able to streamline their compliance processes.

“Compliance is a very important factor within our business. Metroline is owned by a Singaporean company called ComfortDelGro who audit us regularly. Having that ability to show the auditors how we manage our suppliers, how we obtain the pricing, where we store the data and documentation, which businesses we approach, how we run a tender, is great from an auditing point of view because the information is easily extractable.

We know the information is there in Market Dojo and we know we can show at an instant what we have done. It is the same with the tenders. We have documents that need to be signed by the supplier such as confidentiality agreements. Those are our forms which we require the bidding supplier to sign. These documents can be loaded onto the tender, the suppliers can download them, sign them and re-upload the documents onto the tender on Sourcing Dojo. This means we can show different stages of the tenders.”

The greatest win that Metroline have felt from using Sourcing Dojo is the ease of which they are now able to carry out everyday tasks and the simplicity of the tools when running various processes, such as RFI’s and Tenders.

“What Market Dojo has provided us with is the ease of use. We are starting to see that we can use tools such as Quick Quotes for more and more different parts of the business which we have done, but we believe there is even more to do. Ultimately the greatest benefit is the ease and simplicity.”

On top of this, the company have also made some great savings across the board.

“We believe through tendering correctly and properly through Sourcing Dojo, we have saved 4 or 5% on company spend so far.”

Our Partnership

The Market Dojo and Metroline partnership has been a vital one to Market Dojo, with users of our tools often suggesting updates and features to make their lives easier and that of other users too. Metroline has been a key player in helping us to develop our tools by doing just that. With their suggestions, we have adapted several features of Quick Quotes, for example implementing the ability for suppliers to upload and download documents within the tool.

“It has been a working partnership. The things we felt would be really beneficial, have been implemented, which has been great.”

We are looking forward to our continued relationship and Partnership with Metroline and implementing any more changes and features to continue allowing their progressive success.