– Subhasish Das –
India’s logistics Industry has witnessed an exponential growth in the last few years. Now contributing to around 14% of our country’s total GDP, the logistics market in India is expected to move up to a staggering US$ 301.89 billion by 2020, serving as a backbone to the economy. As India becomes more open to trade and investment in recent years, the need for logistics services are also increasing proportionately, providing more opportunities for service providers.
It is also true that the logistics industry is facing some major challenges at present such as poor infrastructure, high cost of transportation, lack of integration of technology, lack of uniformity of rules and regulations, and shortage of skilled and trained manpower. No wonder, this industry remains unorganized and largely fragmented till date, leading its customers to suffer issues such as untimely delivery of goods, loss of goods’ value while on the go, and variations of price at different locations of the supply chain.
Logistics Industry in India: Present Challenges
In India, inter-state trade and logistics is considered to be a complex and critical issue, increasing the cost of doing business up to a great extent. The lack of sound inland transport infrastructure and poor state of national and state highways have been hindering the growth of the industry for a long time now, leading to high transit times. Probably one of the most significant challenges faced by the industry today is the insufficient integration of information technology in transport networks, warehousing and distribution processes. Besides, regulations in our country exist at a number of different tiers imposed by national, regional and local authorities, and may vary from city to city, thus creating bottlenecks in the creation of national networks. Last-mile delivery for e-commerce continues to be a pain-point, even for the established delivery companies.
A major share of this industry in India is dominated by unorganized players resulting in barriers to entry for new technologies and innovations and global supply chain models. Also, the industry is facing shortage of skilled human resource with sound operational and technical knowledge of supply chain management, in-turn making it difficult to employ latest technologies to the benefit the customers. With 65 per cent of freight moving on road, transportation delays not just impacts the transit time, but also adds to the costs. Curbing road blocks can cut freight time by 20-30 per cent and logistics costs by approximately 30-40 per cent, suggest industry estimates.
Finding the Answers with Technology
Like several other industries in India, tech-integration is bound to offer immense value for the Indian logistics industry also. On-demand consumer logistics space in India is burgeoning, with several start-ups coming up with innovative technologies and approaches to revolutionize logistics. Tech-driven solutions for this sector are getting better and smarter with every passing day, addressing various pain points in the supply chain in India.
By using tech-aggregation models, start-ups are nowadays allowing individual fleet operators to expand without losing on the profitability part, thus also reducing the problem of fragmentation in the industry. Solutions built on artificial intelligence are assisting fleet owners in designing route optimization for vehicles, enabling optimum utilization of their assets. Further, real-time GPS-based vehicle tracking has introduced ‘never-known-before’ transparency and reliability to India’s trucking industry.
By combining core capabilities of Internet of Things (IoT), data assessment and automation, moving and tracking of cargo have been made easier than never before. In the past one year, more than 200 start-ups have come up to solve infrastructure and last-mile problems and help businesses smoothly operate their distribution network. New inventions like mobile DGPS, RFID, etc. have helped the industry in minimizing the issue of identification and location of the products along the supply chain, eventually leading to better profit margins.
Technology is also helping in the reduction of lot of paperwork involved in lorry receipt, proof of delivery, invoicing, and other processes in logistics. New-age cloud-based solutions have proven to be particularly useful in this context. Post-GST implementation, it is predicted that swift billing will become quite essential for customers to claim GST input credits, and again banking on IT and technology integration will be the only way out.
Conclusion
In a consumption-driven economy, there always lies a definitive need for efficient and reliable logistics solutions connecting every household for inclusive deliverables. In the logistics and transport industry, start-ups that provide powerful back-end technology, hyper-local delivery services, and truck aggregators were seen to be in the news recently.
Come 2017, and we see India been ranked second (only after China) on the Emerging Markets Logistics Index, a welcome news for the logistics fraternity. With the proliferation of smart phones and call for ‘Digital India’, the logistics sector does not want to remain constrained and backdated anymore. Investing in better data analytics to forecast customer demand has become the need of the hour. While start-ups have already begun to reinvent the supply chain with fresh ideas and resources, real emphasis must be put at the moment on embracing technology by stakeholders at each and every level of the supply chain.
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About the author
Subhasish Das
Author & Entrepreneur
Born and brought up in Andhra Pradesh, Gujrat , Mr Das has completed BE Marine/MBA from Ohio state University.Mr Das is an activity enthusiast with a penchant for sports and cross country rides.
Subhasish Das is the co-founder and CEO of Trukky, India’s pioneer web and app based online Transport Booking platform that connects users to Hire a Truck with a network of thousands Truck drivers for Quick and Prompt Goods Delivery Option. Mr.Das a pioneer entrepreneur with a keen eye for picking up the pulse of the industry. He has 10 years of prolific experience in Operations and Project management domain across industries like Shipping, logistics & Media. Before starting with Trukky, he was associated with Taxiforsure
Disclaimer : The views expressed by the author in this feature are entirely his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of INVC NEWS.
