The Kountable Trade Cloud is a portfolio of applications designed to enhance your global trading capabilities by bringing your trading business into the cloud, magnifying the collaboration of your team and enhancing your expertise with Kountable’s trade network and talented and experienced trade consulting professionals. Kountable’s Trade Cloud is a global collaboration engine combining deal sourcing and structuring, financial approvals and controls, group chat, document management and viewing controls, KYC approvals and controls, project management capabilities, Treasury Cloud, e-signature, legal support and controls, cloud reporting, analytics, and portfolio management capabilities. The Trade Cloud is what makes Kountable unlike any other solution for your business. Funding happens because of the Trade Cloud, suppliers plug in because of the Trade Cloud, and banks, funds, and governments work directly with Kountable because of the Trade Cloud.
We extend these capabilities to our members at all levels because the Trade Cloud makes you better at what you do. The capabilities that come through this collaboration engine help you move from Network to Pro to Premium and grow your business exponentially at every step. Network membership will allow you to access learning resources on how the Trade Cloud works, see many opportunities offered through the network and upload business information and trade documents through our apps to experience what is required to submit a trade. However, to actually trade on the platform and use Kountable's trading services, including the services of our Trade Consultants, you will need to have a Pro or Premium (trading level) Membership. Access to Kountable Capital Solutions (Pro and Premium only) also starts with securely uploading your trade into the Trade Cloud through either the mobile or web app. The good news is, it only takes a few minutes to do and our Trade Team can get started working on your project right away!
This technology was built to bring transparency to a critical set of non-digital business processes and turn a “no” into a “yes” and then a “let’s do it again.” Kountable can do what no other company can do because we are not processing loans based on banking regulations or individual credit scores. Instead, we’re funding technology-enabled global trading transactions managed by a talented global team. That is the mission of Kountable’s Trade Cloud.
Whether you’re new to Kountable or one of our top Premium Members you should know that we are laser focused on the trade. Kountable’s platform exists to get projects done — we finish the job. One of the ways we keep that focus and continue to deliver successful outcomes with our top members is the way we select the projects we support. The opportunity feed is a hand crafted set of opportunities selected by Kountable’s global team. Some of these are tenders that we sift through and aggregate into the feed for your convenience. Sometimes you’ll see special opportunities in the feed that we custom built with the Kountable Global Network. These opportunities are only available to our Pro and Premium members, though Network members can see them and choose to upgrade if they would like an opportunity to work with us on one of them. To give you a peek behind the scenes, here are some of the key questions we ask when curating the Opportunity Feed.
1. Who is the customer? (the specific End Customer)
This is probably the most important question we ask. Finishing the job means getting paid. We know that some customers are more reliable than others and we want to be sure that our network is populated by some of the largest and most reliable customers in the market. Smart traders know that those two criteria—large and reliable—don’t always go together, so we look at both.
2. Who is the supplier?
This is the next most important question. What we’ve learned from years of interacting with banks is that this is often the question that disqualifies customers from bank financing. Local banks have good insight into large End Payers and often bank some of those Tier 1 customers. However, banks rarely have insight into the global supplier network required to do the kinds of projects we do together, and this question scares them. Kountable’s Trade network, Source Assist and Treasury Cloud are all features of your membership that help to manage this risk. In addition, we at Kountable want to be known for delivering top quality goods to the market on time, in full, and at competitive prices and want you, our members, to be known for it too! Let’s face it, rejection for quality can be a killer and is something we all want to avoid. Finally, we want to be sure the supplier will deliver on time. After all, time is money.
3. What “sector” does the project fall into?
This question may not seem as obvious or it may seem to be satisfied by the first two. After all, if your specialty is healthcare and you’re delivering testing kits from Standard Diagnostics to a major national healthcare buyer (like KEMSA in Kenya or RBC in Rwanda) this one is solved. Sometimes it’s not that clear though. Sometimes you’re buying computers and sensors to install a water monitoring system for the World Bank. Is that technology, water, or environment? The reason "sector" is important is that Kountable Capital Solutions is a network of capital providers looking to fund your projects: Most of them look for projects within a specific sector to match a funding criteria often called a mandate. One of our capital providers only funds healthcare deals in Kenya, another may only fund women, a third may be focused on energy projects. We know how busy you are and want to promote projects through the opportunity feed that match the mandates of our network of funders.
Remember when a CV used to be something you worked on every few years and then printed out on fancy paper when you needed it for an interview? Nowadays with platforms like LinkedIn and other digital media, your CV is constantly updated and you have a publicly available chronology displaying who you worked for, what you did, and maybe even how well you did it. For our members it’s not usually who they worked for (they’re entrepreneurs after all) but who they worked with.
The resume of our members is defined by who their customers are, who their suppliers are and how well they execute their trades. When we learn that one of our new members buys from Cisco and sells to Standard Chartered we have an indication of the type of supplier they are by the quality of their partners.
Kountable Trade Network can leverage your existing trading history to enhance your global visibility. Thousands of companies are looking for distribution partners in your market. They may not know how to source the right demand, what the import laws are, how customs and duties work or even where to start. They’re out there looking for partners like you to become their “smart hands” to help with technology installations, to be their “eyes and ears” to help with understanding dynamic local demand and translating why what works in their market will or won’t work in yours.
Kountable’s technology platform captures the experience and the trading network of our members and leverages that capability to bring them closer to innovation, quality, commercial terms, and higher pricing tiers than they could capture outside of our network. We’ve delivered this value to our Pro and Premium Members by connecting them with Fortune 1000 healthcare companies, innovators in smart cities, and global suppliers that will ship to your market on commercial terms because of the reputation of The Kountable Trade Network.
Kountable is building the trust network for global trade and its members can rest assured that everyone that they do business with inside of this network has been evaluated by our KYC and AML specialists to ensure the highest levels of trade integrity. The Trade Network is built to bring strength, opportunities and resources to your business that are only possible through trusted collaboration at scale. It's a new way for you to gain advantages in your trading business that you can't access on your own.
From our inception, five years ago, Kountable has set out to bring the best practices to our members through all facets of their trade projects from bidding and sourcing, through building projects optimally for efficient and profitable execution. Our members have won more contracts, made more money and gained the confidence to set bigger goals by working with our team to improve their trading acumen. Trade Tips are how we share these best practices, helping ensure you're seeing every way to put together the best trade projects, to reduce risk and uncertainty, minimize avoidable problems and keep as much money in your pocket as possible. As a network, Kountable is also constantly plugged into conversations about trade all around the world and can bring tips for how to succeed in today's rapidly changing environment that you may not hear elsewhere.
The Kountable Treasury Cloud is an extension of the Kountable Trade Cloud. International trade requires the synchronization of operating milestones, financial events, currency management and sound financial controls.
The Kountable Treasury Cloud consumes the data that you and your trade consultants put together when packaging your project and transforms it into a set of standing instructions that Kountable’s treasury team will execute against. The financial events of a trade are a set of payables that we call advances.
In managing your payables, Kountable Treasury Cloud:
- Ensures that all of your trade payables are going to approved entities
- Executes payables only after certain operating milestones have been achieved, to get the maximum value for money by not deploying capital into a trade any earlier than is required
- Manages all currency requirements and can pay suppliers in USD, GBP, EUR, as well as currencies local to your market and region
- Can leverage the commercial capabilities of our global banking infrastructure to ensure you’re getting competitive rates and that you have the necessary liquidity to see your trades through to a successful completion.
Payables are only one side of a trade. Kountable is with you to finish the job and ensure we collect from your end customers, settle all outstanding balances, execute any necessary currency conversions and retain as much margin as possible for you. The account control capabilities that Kountable has built through our network of banking partners provides the governance and infrastructure required to earn support from Kountable Capital Solutions network of funders. Treasury Cloud is automatically activated for all trades done on our platform by Pro and Premium Members.
Our trade consultants have seen over $1,000,000,000 of trade proposals come through the system and engaged with over 2000 different businesses discussing international procurement. We have nearly 24/7 coverage with team members in San Francisco, The Hague, Nairobi and Kigali. All of us are collaborating through Kountable’s Trade Cloud to bring quality goods and services to you and your business. We have purchased from 26 different countries including the United States, France, Germany, UK, Turkey, India, China, Thailand, Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa and more. All of this adds up to a level of experience and expertise that becomes a part of your extended team when you join Kountable as a Pro or Premium Member. Here are some of the questions our trade consultants LOVE to answer:
What are the right incoterms to get from my supplier?
How do I negotiate commercial terms?
What if my contract is in local currency but I have to source in USD or EUR?
Can you help me find a qualified clearing agent? How about a freight forwarder?
How does Kountable’s process impact VAT and other taxes?
How can I best manage a long-term framework contract?
I heard Kountable can help me scale: Can we do more than one project at once?
Can you help me find a better supplier?
What does it take to build a winning bid?
The questions change but the answer always seems to be some version of “We've got this.”
Our trade consultants love making your businesses work better. Their dedication to your success doesn’t end with the work day in your market. Our global team members support each other to support your business, managing a round-the-clock global workflow across trade structuring, project management, purchasing, delivery, settlement, and compliance. Our cloud-based system of record makes all of this possible and allows us to work closely with you and your team to help you succeed at the speed and reach of digital global trade. Pro Members will have access to our Trade Consultants through the secure chat feature of the Kountable App and on WhatsApp, where we can get the best person connected with you to help with whatever you're inquiring about. Premium Members have a dedicated Trade Consultant in addition to the above who will act like an extended member of your team for all things trade related to make sure you get the most out of every advantage Kountable has to offer and to help you plan the growth of your trade related business and see how Kountable can help you reach your next level goals.
One of the advantages of uploading all your trade documents to the Trade Cloud is that you will be creating a reliable and secure source of data about your trade activities that you can draw on for insights on how you're doing and how to grow and improve. Pro and Premium members can access reporting to help with business planning, tax reporting, marketing, etc. Our business intelligence can help you better understand how you make money and how to optimize future opportunities by seeing your real numbers in a way that's very difficult to track on your own.
We'll also share insights from the aggregated data of the Kountable community of entrepreneurs so you can see trends and benchmarks that come from your peers. We're always on the lookout for how to help our members navigate challenges, capitalize on opportunities and succeed by doing what you do best.
Kountable Source Assist leverages the strength of the platform to get our members access to terms and suppliers that are otherwise inaccessible. For Premium members, Kountable assumes responsibility for researching, evaluating and communicating with suppliers on behalf of our members, saving them valuable time and ensuring that each project is matched with a high-quality, reputable supplier capable of meeting the demands of the End Customer. Pro members may also benefit from our existing relationships with industry-leading suppliers to minimize turnaround time, ensure responsive service, and offer discounted pricing on the product and logistics to maximize profits on each deal. Kountable Source Assist makes our members’ bids more attractive, and enables them to better fulfill each contract once it’s won.
Protection from the unpredictable: Despite all of our collective best efforts coming together—your expertise and determination, our global team and knowledge, technology, reporting and collaboration—things don’t always go according to plan. That’s when you need quality insurance—insurance that you can count on to pay when things go wrong. Kountable aggregates the global demand of all of our members for insurance and builds global relationships with some of the world’s top carriers. We’ve worked with Allianz, CNA, AIG and Lloyds on freight coverage and are building relationships with ATI and Euler Hermes for credit insurance. Kountable Insurance Solutions brings these tier 1 insurance providers into your trades so your customers know that your process is institutional grade.
In addition to protecting you against risk, did you know insurance can increase your margin? Yes, funders price trades based on risk. Uninsured trades or trades insured with low quality providers are perceived as higher risk. When funders perceive more risk they charge more for their money to protect themselves. Insurance can be a virtuous money making cycle: protect your business and your cargo, protect your funders and their money, get better pricing, make more money, repeat.
