Proud Lancastrian Andrew McNair is the founder of Buynex, the cloud-based B2B procurement platform. Buynex is designed to connect buyers, suppliers and logistics partners in one simple ecosystem, removing the traditional friction and fragmentation of traditional procurement systems. Here, he discusses how procurement tools need to change to support SME growth, instead of stifle it.

I didn’t set out to build a procurement platform. I set out to survive as a growing business.

Before Buynex, I ran an independent packaging supply company. Like many small and mid-sized businesses, we weren’t short on ambition, customers or ideas. What we were short on was time, clarity and access to systems that actually worked for companies our size.

Procurement, in particular, was a daily frustration. Suppliers were spread across emails, spreadsheets and disconnected platforms.

Pricing was opaque. Deliveries were tracked manually. And the software supposedly designed to solve these problems was either prohibitively expensive, overly complex or built with large corporate procurement teams in mind.

A system built for scale, not growth

Over time, a pattern became hard to ignore: procurement technology hasn’t evolved with SMEs in mind. It has evolved around scale, contracts and compliance. That works well if you’re a large organisation with dedicated teams, but far less well if you’re a growing business trying to move quickly, manage cash flow and compete in crowded markets.

The result is an uneven playing field. Smaller businesses are often locked out of fair pricing, limited in supplier choice and forced to spend disproportionate amounts of time managing processes that should be straightforward. This isn’t a failure of effort or capability – it’s a structural issue.

Rather than accept that reality, I started by looking at what needed to change within my own business. We stripped inefficiencies out of our operations, outsourced where it made sense and adopted cloud-based tools that people could use immediately, without training manuals or consultants. The impact was significant. We became leaner, faster and more profitable, delivering almost the same turnover with far fewer resources.

That experience changed how I thought about procurement altogether.

Giving procurement a makeover

It raised a simple question: what if procurement technology were designed around how small and mid-sized businesses actually operate, rather than asking them to behave like scaled-down versions of large corporates?



For me, three issues needed addressing:
First, access. Too many SMEs are excluded from high-quality suppliers or fair commercial terms because of scale or contractual barriers.
Second, complexity. Procurement is still fragmented across systems that don’t talk to each other, creating inefficiency and slowing decision-making.
Third, trust. Open marketplaces can offer choice, but without accountability and standards, they often leave buyers exposed to inconsistent quality and unreliable service.


These challenges aren’t unique to packaging or consumables. They’re visible across multiple sectors, particularly among businesses selling through platforms like Etsy, Faire or Not On The High Street, where growth depends on reliable supply chains that can adapt quickly.
Buynex emerged from these observations, but the bigger point is this: procurement needs to stop treating SMEs as an afterthought.

Better support for SMEs

If we want a resilient economy built on innovative, growing businesses, we need systems that are accessible, transparent and designed for the realities of smaller teams. That means fewer barriers to entry, clearer visibility across supply chains and technology that works out of the box.

My motivation wasn’t to disrupt procurement for the sake of it. It was to remove the friction that holds capable businesses back. Because when procurement works properly, it doesn’t just save time or money. It gives growing companies the confidence to scale.
And that’s something our economy needs more of.