Sourcemap

LEONARDO BONANNI: Hi, everyone. I'm Leonardo Bonanni. I'm the founder and CEO of Sourcemap. We are the supply chain transparency company. So we help multinationals get to the bottom of their supply chains, map where all of the raw materials come from, and make sure that the way their suppliers are behaving lives up to the standards that they have in terms of social practices, environmental practices, and customs compliance.

The key problem that we're trying to solve for companies is the lack of data that they have in their supply chain management databases. And so most of our customers have invested millions of dollars in ERP databases by SAP, Oracle. But none of that money went towards mapping out the end to end supply chain.

So they have tons of data about their internal operations and their direct suppliers. And almost no information on their global operations. And where their secondary, tertiary suppliers might be operating and what kinds of risks they're exposed to.

And so we fill that gap by using a completely different kind of database technology. Instead of a relational database, we use NoSQL databases basically like social networks. And so our customers, some of the biggest multinationals in the world, they will invite their suppliers into the network.

Their suppliers will invite their suppliers. And within a matter of weeks, a major multinational company will finally have a database of not just its direct supply chain, but also the thousands and thousands of suppliers in their indirect supply chain.

Our customers have tremendous amounts of data about their suppliers but nothing about the rest of their supply chain. So they come to Sourcemap and they upload all the data they currently have. What they buy, who they buy it from. And that's when the process begins.

It's kind of like a LinkedIn for the supply chain. Suppliers get invited. They provide information on where they buy their raw materials. Those suppliers get invited. They provide information to validate those relationships. All the way until we reach the farms and the mines where the raw materials are actually extracted. And where often many of the biggest risks in the supply chain actually lie.

Once we've mapped out the whole network and registered all of these suppliers, keep in mind, this could be thousands or tens of thousands, or sometimes hundreds of thousands of different entities coming together to supply one brand. Then we maintain connections with them.

And we can go both ways. If there's something that happens, like a disruption like this past one caused by COVID, that means we can reach out to all of them and see who needs help, who's maintaining operations, and who needs to change things in order to get back up to speed.

Now, we have two kinds of customers. Those that have very big supply chains. So you're talking big agricultural consumers, like a Mars Inc. or a Ferrero, or a Hershey. And we have another kind of customer, which are those with a very high turnover in their supply chain.

And here we're talking about companies typically in the apparel space, electronics, where every time they launch a new product, they might potentially have a completely new supply chain to go along with that product. And so whether the number of suppliers is just too great to manage using off the shelf techniques, or whether the turnover in the suppliers is just too great to manage them outside of the cloud, these are the companies where we can very quickly deploy our network for supply chains.

And have all of those vendors registered, and have them all updating their information in real time, so that our customers end up with a very clear, accurate, up-to-date picture of their global supply chain from end to end. Supply chain transparency is a transformation of the organization.

Very few times do we see a company that already has an organization made to deal with supply chain beyond the first tier. And so we're looking for partners. And we work very well with companies that are ready to invest in their supply chain data. That are ready to invest in understanding their global footprint.

And they're ready to create what's called responsible sourcing, which is a way of rewarding suppliers, not just on the basis of cost and the ability to deliver goods on time. But also on other standards that those suppliers are going to hold up, that are reflecting the values of a brand. And so we end up working very often with integrated supply chain organizations that are looking to digitize and that are looking to add information, add data to their decision making process.

As an MIT founder, it is great to be part of STEX25. We've worked very closely with MIT sponsored companies at every stage of Sourcemap development, from the very initial idea at the Media Lab, all the way through the idea that's already being implemented by major industry around the world today.

And being part of this group, and having the connections to not just industry in the US, and not just MIT sponsors, but also industry around the world means a great deal to us. Because this is an innovation journey that we're going on with our customers.

We realized a lot of companies have inherited technology that is years or decades behind where they want to be. And part of what we've done, and be part of this community at MIT, is to help know what industry wants and where it's going. And also provide all of the tools that it needs to get from A to Z.

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