Category Archives: Technology

To power the future growth for its end-to-end air cargo and logistics business, IndiGo has partnered with SmartKargo; a cloud-based air cargo management solution. The airline will deploy SmartKargo for its cargo business across all destinations, including domestic and international operations. IndiGo operates on a fleet size of 189 aircraft including 47 new generation A320 NEOs, 127 A320 CEOs and 12 ATRs, across 57 destinations – 48 domestic and nine internationals. Mohan Kash, Managing Director, SmartKargo India, says, “With our unmatched cloud-based technology and out-of-the-box deployment approach, our customers have significant improvements in key performance indicators, in three main areas, i.e. real-time and complete visibility, higher flown and higher yields.” William Boulter, Chief Commercial Officer, IndiGo, said, “IndiGo cargo has ambitious plans to grow its revenues and remain competitive in this fast-growing area. We needed to have a state-of-the-art technology platform that was fast to deploy and easy to use. SmartKargo includes the local as well as international features needed for our business. Especially important for us was to adopt to best practices in the air cargo industry and deploying SmartKargo can bring us closer.”

OceanPro , an intensive 120-day accelerator programme, is offering start-ups an opportunity to partner with Maersk to bring innovative technology solutions to ease the global supply chain for customers. Pioneered in India, OceanPro complements Maersk’s innovation efforts worldwide. Seven external start-ups and one internal start-up have been identified for collaboration to create solutions that serve customers and manage operations better, leveraging Blockchain, Internet of Things, Advance Text Analytics and Artificial Intelligence. “We recognise the immense potential of India’s technology and digital talent and are looking to capitalise on these capabilities to help the logistics industry worldwide, to reinvent itself,” says Søren Skou, CEO, A.P. Moller – Maersk.

To enable a boon for industries and trade in the state of Punjab, three mega logistics parks have been initiated in Ludhiana. This was disclosed by Sunder Sham Arora, Punjab Industry and Commerce Minister at the Punjab Logistics Conclave, held recently. The parks, which will come up near Kila Raipur village, include multi-modal logistics park by Adani group, a logistics park by Punjab Logistics Infrastructure Limited and another one by Punjab State Warehousing Corporation. Arora shares, “These parks would act as a stimulus for growth of our industry. Logistics has been added in the state industrial policy as it is the backbone of the industry; it cannot be left out.”

To create transparency and digital transformation in the courier industry, CourierHome has necessitated to bring out  ‘Blockchain technology & AI,’ for enabling disruption in the logistics industry. The aim is to create transparency of all documents and transactions across the freight landscape, ultimately, increasing the efficiency, agility and innovation of supply chains. With the implementation of the new-age technologies the entire courier process will get automated, making the process more efficient.   Sushant Kumar, Co-Founder & COO, CourierHome, commented, “Today, the application of Blockchain technology is innumerable.  The logistics industry, which is a trillion-dollar industry, is going to alter the landscape of the logistics industry with this revolutionary technology. Seeing the advantages that blockchain brings in logistics, it can prevent frauds, eliminate inaccuracies, increase data security and transparency, improve efficiency, and reduce expenditure.”

The National Institute of Design (NID) has given visual identity to India logistics in the form of a logo. The logo was unveiled recently by Suresh Prabhu, Minister of Commerce & Industry and Civil Aviation. The logo has been designed by a team consisting of faculty members: Tarun Deep Girdher, Amit Sinha, Sudip Adhikary, NID alumna Ankita Talapatra along with T G Shaikh.  According to the concept note, the symbol represents a pair of swans — the bird known for its ability to travel long distances and being compatible in the sky, water and earth. It also represents the agility of India Logistics as the pair portrays teamwork and coordination between various stakeholders. The overlapping white wing represents transparency. The logo is set in Indian tricolour to denote a progressing nation.  

The Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) has launched a dedicated portal to connect cargo owners and shippers with real time data on availability of vessels. The landmark e-connect measure will enable direct interaction among the vessel operators, shippers and cargo owners as currently, there is no platform to know the availability of vessels in the market. It has been designed and developed by the in-house IT department and the traffic wing of IWAI as part of its preparedness for optimal use of its ongoing capacity development on various national waterways. Named as the Forum of Cargo-Owners and Logistics-Operators (FOCAL), the link of the portal is available at: www.iwai.nic.in. Nutan Guha Biswas, Chairperson, IWAI, on the launch revealed, “The step is in line with IWAI’s commitment to promote Inland Water Transport (IWT) in India through critical interventions, both physical and by creating intellectual property.”

FarEye has announced the launch of its delivery experience suite ‘Delight’ that helps enable businesses increase their delivery happiness score. The product provides a seamless and personalised experience to the customers. FarEye Delight provides superior delivery experience to the customers and increases the first attempt success rate for businesses. It is already in use by enterprises like Blue Dart, Amway, Future Group, Zalora, Noon and many others. Kushal Nahata, CEO & Co-founder, FarEye, says, “Delivery happiness score is a metric to measure the overall effectiveness of your deliveries. While more companies understand that providing a great customer experience is necessary for business growth, many have a long way to go, bringing all the parts together to make it a reality. The bottom line is that companies struggle to get a cohesive, holistic, outside-in view of their customers’ experience and that is where FarEye Delight bridges the gap.”

Kale Logistics Solutions collaborated with Widerøe as a technology partner to provide air cargo management system for more than 38 airport stations across Nordic region. Widerøe is the largest regional airline operating in the Nordic countries. Vineet Malhotra, Director, Kale Logistics Solutions, said, “Air cargo operations are intricate and complex with numerous stakeholders involved at each step of a cargo transaction. With GALAXY, Widerøe can feel extremely confident to address the necessary concerns in a systematic and industry compliant way. GALAXY is a preferred solution. used by worldwide airports that incorporates global best practices and prepares the industry to manage the growing industry demands.”

Kale Logistics Solutions has collaborated with Cybage to leverage their technology and business acumen respectively, to explore markets and grow business across the warehouse, transportation and allied verticals. The focus will be on exploring markets for providing IT solutions to warehousing, transportation and allied functions. Vineet Malhotra, Director, Kale Logistics Solutions said, “We are sure that our and Cybage’s precision and hard-working ethos will help us in fulfilling our mutual business goals.” Amit Gajwani, EVP, Cybage, commented, “We believe that with this collaboration, Cybage will strengthen its competitive positioning and grow its opportunity base. Our current growth prospects are at the highest peak and bringing Kale Logistics Solutions into our ecosystem will expand our impact.”

Cloud innovation has been a debated topic for the logistics industry for some time. The segment helps in accelerating growth in business. Enumerating the concept on cloud technology for the logistics industry, Kapil Mahajan, CIO, Safexpress, says, “Cloud is a key catalyst for Industry 4.0; it’s no longer a question of whether logistics companies will transform themselves into digital-first businesses; rather, it’s more a question of how, and how soon.” “At Safexpress, technology-led innovation is at the core of our business growth strategy. We’re currently using Oracle Fusion Financials Cloud and Oracle Management Cloud. We wanted to move to a cloud ERP model for increased flexibility, stability and agility and with Oracle, we’ve done just that. In fact, we were the first across the industry to implement Oracle’s GST compliant Fusion financials in India. By taking away the time and effort required to manage software upgrades and associated infrastructure, it has enabled us to concentrate more on our core platform and create more value for the business,” he informs.