Redesigning the Swine Industry Supply Chain: A B2B e-Marketplace Platform

Some of the ultimate goals of supply chain management in the livestock industry include linking farmers to markets easily and reducing risks and uncertainty among both producers and buyers. In the Philippines, some smallholders or small-scale livestock farmers specifically, on the swine industry, has challenges in selling directly to to wholesalers and retailers so, they tend to rely on middlemen resulting to lower profit due to the high commission asked by those traders. Similarly, the wholesales/retailers also depend on middlemen as they find difficulty in looking for qualified suppliers that can meet their demands. The risk factor for the transmission of African Swine Fever (ASF) disease may come from traders therefore, these buyers and sellers need to have an alternative mode of fulfilling their business transactions safely and more profitably. This paper presents a conceptual framework for business to business (B2B) e-marketplace on swine transactions that resolves the current supply chain issues. The Design Thinking methodology were used in this study focusing on the four phases namely Empathize, Define Ideate and Prototype. During the Empathy phase, current experiences and challenges by the sellers (small scale swine farmers) as well as the buyers (wholesalers/retailers) were identified through interviews and focus group discussions. Further discussion led to uncovering the problems and issues in the Define phase. Then, a proposed solution to resolve these issues was conceptualized during the Ideate phase which includes the salient features that the app should contain then, a mock-up model was made in the prototype phase. The B2B conceptual framework can help smallholders to boost their sales and increase their profitability. It will also aid the swine farmers to plan for their production as the app will provide information about their sales and the demand of the market. The wholesalers/retailers can also benefit from this platform as they can easily source from various buyers that can supply their requirements. They can even have lower costs of transactions since the delivery can be done through the partner delivery service providers.