OfBusiness is moving beyond the conventional role of a B2B commerce intermediary. The IPO-bound platform is building manufacturing and processing capabilities across metals, chemicals and apparel, seeking greater control over production, quality and supply while expanding the margins associated with a sourcing-led business. The move is especially relevant to construction and industrial supply chains, where the availability, consistency and price of materials can shape the performance of downstream businesses.
The company says it is scaling manufacturing across roughly 10 products while its integrated manufacturing capability now spans more than 40 products. That expansion is taking place within categories it has supplied for several years, rather than through a wholesale move into unfamiliar sectors. The stated strategy is therefore not simply to add factories. It is to deepen control across sourcing, production and market access within existing commercial ecosystems.
That distinction matters. A commerce platform typically creates value by connecting buyers and suppliers, aggregating demand and making procurement more efficient. Owned manufacturing introduces a different set of responsibilities and risks. The platform must manage production quality, capacity, compliance, labour, logistics and market demand in addition to transactions. OfBusiness’s stated rationale is that selective manufacturing can make the supply chain more integrated while allowing it to retain a larger share of the value created between producer and buyer.
The company’s metals vertical remains its largest by revenue. It covers construction steel, flat steel, structural steel, aluminium, zinc and copper, with construction steel alone accounting for around a fifth of overall revenue, according to the report. This gives the manufacturing push a direct connection to the built environment. Steel is a basic input for buildings, industrial facilities, infrastructure projects and a wide range of fabrication activities. The source does not establish how much of OfBusiness’s metals business is currently produced in company-owned facilities, but it indicates that manufacturing capability has been integrated across more than 40 products overall.
For construction-material markets, the significance of this model lies in the attempt to combine demand aggregation with supply control. A platform that serves business buyers can use knowledge of recurring procurement requirements to identify categories where processing or manufacturing may add value. OfBusiness says it is concentrating on product categories it has supplied for many years. That approach could reduce the distance between observed demand and production decisions, although the supplied material does not provide capacity utilisation, investment figures, plant-level output or customer-level data to assess the results.
The company’s overall commerce business is reported at Rs 19,174 crore. Chemicals contribute approximately 18 per cent of that business, or around Rs 3,500 crore. Within the chemicals vertical, OfBusiness operates an ethyl acetate production unit in Maharashtra and plans to begin production of herbicides and pesticides. These details indicate a move into more specialised production, but the report does not specify the unit’s capacity, commissioning date, investment size, employment at the facility or the regulatory approvals involved.
Those omissions are important when assessing the scale of the transition. Announced manufacturing capability can take several forms, including owned plants, processing arrangements, integrated sourcing systems or capacity built through associated entities. The available report confirms the company’s stated manufacturing direction and identifies some products and locations, but it does not provide a consolidated map of assets or clarify the proportion of production that is directly owned. The difference between commercial control and physical ownership will be central to understanding the business model as it develops.
Apparel is described as the fastest-scaling of OfBusiness’s four verticals. The company has combined sourcing with owned manufacturing capacity in garments, accessories and footwear. This activity is spread across Delhi-NCR, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Bangladesh. The geographic spread suggests an effort to organise production around established industrial and sourcing locations, though the material supplied does not identify individual factories, production volumes or the roles played by each location.
The apparel expansion has also contributed to a direct employee count of more than 35,000, according to the report. That figure is presented as a company-level headcount rather than a manufacturing-only number. It therefore cannot be used to determine how employment is divided among commerce, production, logistics, administration and other functions. It does, however, show that the platform’s operating footprint extends well beyond a digital marketplace.
OfBusiness co-founder Asish Mohapatra described the company’s approach as centred on small and medium enterprises. He said the platform aims to help businesses procure more efficiently while enabling manufacturers and suppliers to access demand. The company’s stated logic is that deeper ecosystems can support selective manufacturing in categories where it sees an opportunity to add value to the supply chain.
That logic reflects a broader tension in industrial commerce. Small and medium enterprises often face fragmented procurement, inconsistent access to suppliers and limited bargaining power. A platform that aggregates demand may address some of those constraints. But when the same platform also becomes a manufacturer or processor, the relationship changes. It may offer buyers a more controlled supply source, while also competing with independent suppliers that use the platform to reach customers. The supplied report does not indicate how OfBusiness manages that potential overlap or whether its owned capacity is open to external buyers.
The company says manufacturing can strengthen control over production, quality and supply. In construction materials, those attributes can affect delivery schedules and the ability of contractors, fabricators and other businesses to plan work. Yet control does not automatically eliminate supply-chain exposure. Metals, chemicals and apparel each depend on different raw materials, logistics systems, production standards and market cycles. A vertically integrated platform may reduce some dependencies while taking on greater responsibility for operating assets and demand risk.
OfBusiness’s next phase is described as a focus on deepening capability across sourcing, manufacturing and market access rather than adding new verticals. The strategy includes further investment in chemicals manufacturing and expansion into export geographies such as the European Union and the United Kingdom. The report does not specify the products intended for those markets, the expected export volumes, the facilities that would serve them or the timeline for expansion.
This emphasis on depth over breadth also provides a useful way to read the company’s manufacturing push. Its existing commerce base gives it access to information about products, customers and purchasing patterns. Manufacturing then becomes a way to capture more of the chain around those transactions. The model could be particularly relevant in categories where product specifications are repeatable, demand is sufficiently visible and processing can produce a clearer commercial advantage. Whether those conditions hold across all the categories mentioned remains unestablished in the supplied material.
For India’s urban economy, the most immediate connection is through the materials that support construction and industrial activity. Construction steel, structural steel, aluminium, copper and zinc sit within the wider network that supplies buildings, factories, infrastructure projects and urban services. A company seeking greater control across these categories is participating in an important part of the built environment, even if its primary identity remains that of a commerce platform.
The report also highlights the institutional complexity behind such expansion. Manufacturing across Maharashtra, Delhi-NCR, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Bangladesh involves multiple industrial jurisdictions, logistics corridors, labour markets and regulatory environments. The source does not provide details on approvals, environmental compliance, land arrangements, energy use or transport planning. Those factors will determine how the company’s reported manufacturing capability translates into durable industrial capacity.
The evidence currently confirms a strategic direction rather than a completed transformation. OfBusiness has reported manufacturing capability across more than 40 products, an ethyl acetate unit in Maharashtra, planned chemicals production, apparel capacity across several locations and a direct employee count above 35,000. It has also identified construction steel as a substantial part of its revenue base and said it intends to invest further in existing ecosystems.
What remains unclear is the physical scale and financial performance of that manufacturing network. The supplied material does not establish plant capacities, capital expenditure, profitability by vertical, production volumes, utilisation rates or the share of revenue generated by owned manufacturing. It also does not explain how the company’s expansion will affect independent suppliers using the platform or the businesses that buy through it.
The next stage of scrutiny will therefore concern execution. OfBusiness will need to demonstrate whether selective manufacturing can improve supply reliability and margins without creating excessive operational complexity. Its planned chemicals expansion and push into export geographies will provide further evidence of how far the platform intends to move from aggregation towards industrial ownership. For construction and other urban supply chains, the key question is not simply whether a commerce company is building capacity, but how that capacity changes the organisation, resilience and accountability of the markets it serves.
