MMK Trading House celebrates 15th anniversary
On 6 November, MMK Trading House marked its 15th anniversary as an authorised representative of Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works across Russia. The company’s main function is to sell MMK Group metal and steel products warehoused in Russia’s regional markets and neighbouring countries.
According to Grigory Shchurov, the director of MMK Trading House, the company plays an important role in MMK’s sales as it is a key element in the implementation of the plant’s Focus on Customers strategic initiative, which is aimed at improving logistics, developing digital sales channels and increasing the percentage of just-in-time sales. MMK Trading House is essential to achieving these aims through its proximity to customers and its ability to provide maintenance and logistics services.
Having begun operations with five warehouses in the Volga and Ural regions, MMK Trading House now has locations in 36 Russian cities and nearly every federal district, including new locations that opened in Izhevsk and Vidnoye, near Moscow, in 2023. With total space exceeding 435 thousand square metres, the company’s warehouses are state-of-the-art facilities equipped with all the necessary loading infrastructure. MMK Trading House is also implementing a Smart Warehouse project, which enables real-time inventory accounting and analysis, the use of a bin location storage system, monitoring and oversight of incoming and outgoing metal and steel products, optimisation of business processes and document management, and analysis of the workload of warehouse employees.
Processing and modifying rolled steel products is an important aspect of MMK Trading House’s operations that enables it to respond in a more comprehensive and flexible manner to customer needs while also adding value to metal and steel products. The company has the capacity to cut rebar, produce expanded metal sheets and slit coils. Since the beginning of 2023, five additional rebar straightening and cutting machines with a combined capacity of up to 1,500 tonnes per month and a machine to produce expanded metal sheets with a capacity of 100 tonnes per month have been put into operation in Shchelkovo.
The further development of retail sales is one of the company’s priorities. A pilot retail site opened in Magnitogorsk prior to the large-scale rollout of the company’s retail warehouse network in 2021. The experience gained from the pilot was used to develop rules, regulations and instructions that cover every process, from warehouse site selection to the sale of metal and steel products. As of today, the company is operating 16 retail sites, 12 of which opened in 2023.
Another key focus for MMK Trading House is the creation and development of digital marketing channels. In April 2021, MMK launched its corporate marketplace, MMK Market, which enables consumers to purchase products – from a box of nails to large consignments – directly from MMK Group companies without intermediaries, at wholesale prices and in a convenient format. Retail customers can pay by bank card, through the Faster Payments System (FPS) or by account number. In addition, legal entities can make purchases on credit with the use of financial instruments offered by marketplace partners.
The volume of sales made through the digital platform is doubling every year. On average, more than 6 thousand tonnes of products are sold on the electronic platform every month, with new customers registering every day. The company is expanding the marketplace’s functionality and improving service quality and order fulfilment speed. In early 2023, MMK Market was among the winners of the Project of the Year competition held by the Global CIO professional community: it won in the Best Industry Solution category for Metallurgy / Continuous Production / Mining.
The Company is currently developing a mobile application, automating its buyer verification process and developing a full-featured auction module. As part of the further development of its online sales platform, MMK plans to create accounts for cooperative members, implement and support new financial instruments, introduce new payment methods, offer automated calculation of delivery costs and create a claims service.
Over its 15-year history, MMK Trading House has become one of the country’s leading metal and steel trading networks. The company and its divisions are regularly among the winners of annual competitions held by the Russian Union of Metal and Steel Suppliers for metal and steel sales companies, warehouses and service centres.