blur attracting more and more large consulting firms

E-commerce, the sale of products and services through an online platform, has taken off in recent years, with the blur Group’s blur platform facilitating the offering of more than 8,500 client projects to just under 60,000 service providers. Not only are many of the engagements from high class clients, but consultancy firms like KPMG, Deloitte and Accenture too are increasingly using the service.

Buying products online has for a long time now been part of the wider sales ecosystem, with the general title of e-commerce. With hundreds of billions of dollars moving through the services economy businesses provide to each other, new online ecosystems have sprung up to provide ‘s-commerce’, that is, facilitating the sale of services online.

blur is an online platform that facilitates the purchase of services in a streamlined environment that is designed to reduce bureaucratic overheads. The platform allows users to in essence replicate the RfP process in an online environment: create a project outline, which provides details about what needs to be done and a budget for the work. blur then shortlists a number of candidate service providers that each make a pitch for the project. Users subsequently select the winning pitch and the blur platform facilitates the (legal) exchange and financial settlements between the parties. The whole services transaction can be done through online and mobile channels.

So far 8,550 projects have been submitted on the platform, with a total value of more than $400 million. And as it stands, 57,810 service providers are open to offering their services to new projects. Service providers extend over the whole gambit of player size, with from small businesses to larger international consultancy firms like Deloitte, KPMG and Accenture. In recent months the interest from the supply side has taken off, according to stats from blur, with more than 2,000 professional services firms joining over the past 12 months.

Projects come from a variety of potential clients, from small start-ups looking for service providers able to supply five videos that explain their new services for £20,000 to projects from large international businesses like Amazon. The online giant for example recently used the platform to find a locally based PR and communications consultancy to promote their new shipping service, while construction group Kier used blur to source one of the UK's top digital printing agencies.