Marketplace Solutions for the Service Industry

Erik Desloges, co-founder of Cocolabs tells us about the solutions for the service industry.

Tell us how Cocolabs was founded.

Erik Desloges: The 4 of us were operators of service marketplaces before founding Cocolabs. We saw the opportunities rising with it, and that’s what made us create the company. Product e-commerce has been rising for 30 years, and now it’s time for e-commerce of services. According to Andreessen Horowitz, of this year’s top 100 marketplaces, 70 are service marketplaces, and the trend for the market network is growing.

How does Cocolabs innovate? 

Erik Desloges: The solution we created, Cocorico, is the only solution dedicated to the service marketplace in the world, and was deployed over 1,000 globally. Cocorico has all the keys to accompany companies in their digital transformation: rental, services selling, network, e-procurement… The sector is pretty new and evolving constantly, our presence on the field every day with the actors of this ecosystem perfects Cocorico.

How does the coronavirus pandemic affect your market?

Erik Desloges: Companies, governments, and more generally people have to adapt to this new normal, and change the way they interact with each other. The pandemic was a catalyst of ongoing trends: the marketplace model rose while the need for access to online services went to the roof. For the large corporations, no choices but to find new business shares and adapt to the situation

Did you have to make difficult choices regarding human resources and what are the lessons learned?

Erik Desloges: France is a wonderful place for entrepreneurs: the government helped businesses to get through this crisis; we were lucky to not need it. Some of our clients had their business highly impacted while others had more activity than they ever had.

How did your customer relationship management evolve? Do you use any specific tools to be efficient?

Erik Desloges: Telecommuting has always been part of the Cocolabs culture; even if the pandemic made it more present in our lives. However, the multiple lockdowns did not impact our way of working together: we use Google Meets a lot, and the Atlassian pack makes it easier for us to collaborate. We still give employees the opportunity to come to the office and maintain a link, and we try to organize some internal remote events to keep the spirit of the company alive.

Your Website?

https://www.cocolabs.com/en/