KUALA LUMPUR: Axiata Group Bhd
’s wholly owned subsidiary Axiata Business Services Sdn Bhd has signed an exclusive licensing agreement covering the Asia region to offer small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) and larger enterprises a digital business matchmaking service to meet buyers and suppliers that are a perfect match for potential commercial opportunities.
Axiata Business Services operates under the brand Xpand, and Koble Inc is a leading global business-to-business matchmaking platform,
In a statement, the company said the Koble platform enables business professionals to discover, connect and facilitate business deals with buyers and suppliers around the world. The Koble platform combines the power of social networking with the intelligence of anonymous and artificial intelligence (AI)-powered matchmaking to improve relationship management for both qualified buyers and sellers looking to grow their businesses.
Xpand will bring localised versions of Koble to businesses within the Axiata markets and around Asia. Working with Axiata’s market leading mobile operators, amongst them Celcom Axiata Bhd in Malaysia and XL Axiata in Indonesia, Xpand will offer the Koble platform to businesses in this region. Axiata operators will bundle the Koble platform at an attractive price exclusively for its enterprise customers and will be the first to rollout the service in this region.
Xpand’s exclusive partnership of the Koble platform further extends to Qorus Mobile Alliance markets such as Singapore, India, Thailand, Vietnam and Philippines, where it will work with the consortium of leading operators to offer the service.
“With the mission to meet the complex and sophisticated requirements of businesses, Xpand is focused on bringing new and cutting-edge enterprise communications solutions to Asia.
“This exclusive Asia-wide licensing partnership with Koble is one step forward in fulfilling our role in providing access to businesses in this region to a global market and helping them expand their business reach,” Xpand CEO Asri Hassan said in the statement.
“In connecting our network of enterprise customers with the Koble platform, we will enable them to engage with each other online for business opportunities, while also opening the door for them to a trillion dollar opportunity of supplier contracts with Fortune 500 companies already on the borderless platform anywhere in the world,” he added.
Koble founder and CEO Fabrice Saporito said the milestone collaboration was the first for Koble and marks its entry into the Asia market.
“We’re beyond excited to partner with Xpand to bring our B2B social network to hundreds of enterprise customers in Asia,” Saporito said.
“It’s hard to overstate how much of a landmark event this is for Koble as we instantly gain distribution to one of the largest professional user bases across Asia. Nearly one out of every four business professionals globally calls this region of the world home today, and they are increasingly demanding a professional network for growing their businesses rather than just their careers,” he added.
Celcom Axiata will be first to market Koble in Asia in September 2018. The Koble platform, accessible on the web at Koble.com, and through the iTunes App Store and Google Play Store, is currently used by companies such as GE, Oracle, Harley Davidson, AXA, Sprint, Carlsberg and thousands of SMEs seeking to do business globally.
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