Offering various combinations of a wide range of products and services, the FMCG distribution industry is one of the most complex industries to operate in. The industry is on a continuous journey of transformation, where the simplistic approach of “more of the same” does not serve as the key growth driver anymore. Distributors in Asia, particularly in emerging markets, continue to evolve and grow despite the key challenges they are facing, which necessitates distributors evolving their business models to turn such challenges into growth opportunities.
Among these challenges, the increasing trend of “Disintermediation” is the biggest, the level of competition is rising and evolving to new forms and formats, and demand for an omnichannel model is moving swiftly from the B2C into the B2B market. This is also coupled with a witnessed trend of “Consumerization” of B2B customer expectations. Distributors who want to succeed must therefore establish a unique value that can be utilized as a Unique Selling Proposition to retain current and attract new principals.
Basamh Trading Company (BTC) is one such player in this space, having been a key contributor in providing the Saudi community with quality products, for both international and local brands, for more than 7 decades. “Basamh” is a family name that is valued and respected by all key Saudi retail players. With 75 years of Saudi market experience, Basamh Trading Company possesses go-to-market capabilities backed by a successful track record of brand building. At BTC, they strive to be the Expert-of-Choice for prospective and current employees, customers, and principals.
The firm develops its expertise and maintains its status across Go-to-Market pillars through a continual experimenting and learning mindset facilitated by technological advancement. However, to the management, they see people as the key enablers to achieving their vision; hence cultivating the BTC culture, which is driven by leaders who walk the talk. The leadership team of the Basamh Trading Company has a combined FMCG experience of more than 100 years across leading multinational, regional, and local businesses with entrepreneurial experience and is manned by more than 750+ proficient employees.
“We build our business strategies based on a clear operating model that ensures the right level of clarity of cascading choices that starts from a joint understanding of strategic goals and cascades all the way towards the right GTM model, and the enablers needed for the model to deliver on those goals.
One key principle we are always aware of and keen to apply is the outside-in verses inside-out design. We always design our strategies and plan based on brand and market requirements,” comments Mustafa Farouq, Managing Director, Basamh Trading Company.
Delivering Quality Moments of Value Since 1948
Basamh Trading Company was founded in 1948 by the late Ahmed Saeed Basamh. Between 1955 and 1976, the company acquired distributorship rights for several key global players, including Nestle, SC Johnson, and General Mills, and then continued to build partnerships with key multinational and regional leading brands. BTC further strengthened its relationship with SC Johnson by forming a manufacturing joint venture to serve the local market with locally created quality brands. To build on their brand-building expertise, the owners ventured to create their own brand Goody, which is now a market leader in four categories in the food industry.
With the evolution of the full-service distributorship model, BTC pioneered the Saudi market efforts to establish business entities that offer its clients fitfor- purpose services in the areas of sales, IT business solutions, logistics, merchandising, and HoReCa. Over the years, BTC’s business grew from merely a couple of hundred of thousand SAR to close to 2bn SAR, making BTC in 2021 Saudi’s 3rd biggest distributor in the food industry and 4th biggest overall FMCG distributor.
“We are a family in the business of delivering quality moments of value. At BTC, we believe in family; family with our customers, shoppers, principals, and employees. Every day, we play a critical role in creating meaningful moments of value for more people in the kingdom. This is why, we celebrate our rich heritage and presence, while we pledge to continue disrupting the industry to generate unmet value for our stakeholders at every moment of truth.
Basamh Trading Company promises to build on our solid foundations, add incremental solutions, and transform the industry as we know it today. That is because we are a family in the business of providing quality moments of value to our consumers, with quality brands they love and enjoy; to our shoppers, with the right variety available wherever they shop; to our customers, with cuttingedge, disruptive B2B solutions; to our principals, with a seamless operation that enables brand building; to our people, with opportunities to learn and grow; and to the entire community we operate in,” emphasizes Mustafa Farouq. He further adds, “I am grateful for every single role I assumed during my journey starting from the very front-line role of a van sales representative where I acquired my obsession with fundamentals to the more strategic leadership roles.”
Basamh Trading Company promises to build on its solid foundations, add incremental solutions, and lead the transformation of the industry as we know it today
One of Basamh Trading Company’s key strategies is to turn its business model from a simple “Distributor” model to a “Modular Go-to-Market Solution Provider”. In this way, the firm is developing its principals’ access to receive fit-for-purpose GTM solutions while also establishing experience and knowledge across key GTM pillars and activities. This is to say that the firm offers services in S&OP Management, warehousing, transportation, key account management, direct sales and delivery, separate sales and delivery, merchandising, and trade marketing. The market will experience tremendous development, attracting more participants to the industry, and new trends will emerge with the acceleration the firm seeks toward Saudi Arabia’s vision 2030 implementation.
Mustafa Farouq, Managing Director, Basamh Trading Company
Possessing more than 26 years of business management experience, Mustafa Farouq started his career at Procter and Gamble where he spent 22 years in multiple roles in the sales and marketing domain across the Middle East, Africa, and Central and Eastern Europe. Mustafa also had a short stint with the Consumer Electronics industry after which he assumed his current responsibility as the Basamh Trading Company Managing Director.
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