Not only did around 80 Bain staff invest directly in the company when it raised its first funds in January, but staff in some of Bain 's local European offices have been allowed to take leave from their regular work to help smartmission get to market. Whereas GloMediX focuses on savings from purchases of medical supplies, smartmission wants to provide electronic purchasing for almost all hospitals ' needs. The logic seems compelling. Mr Gromball's idea is that purchasing of almost all these things can be done electronically through a single marketplace. An online intermediary such as smartmission can do several things that neither hospitals nor their suppliers could achieve on their own.
Suppliers can then offer a larger range of goods, as well as reaching more potential customers.
Just by bringing them all to a single platform we can introduce real efficiencies. Both smartmission and GloMediX will charge users for transactions, but they have different strategies. GloMediX will take a fee from suppliers for all items ordered through its system, while buyers will pay a subscription charge. Smartmission will tailor its fees to reflect how much money a supplier has saved. Mr Gromball thinks that they will be happy to pay his company a fee of one-third of any saving.