Category Archives: Supply Chain

Sharing the challenging times given by COVID-19, Naveen Rawat, Director & Co-founder, Holisol Logistics, at CargoTalk’s fourth digital conclave says, “Things have started looking better especially on the e-commerce side. For many of our customers for whom e-commerce was just a secondary channel and their primary channel was selling from their stores have now realised that e-commerce is not a filler but a very important part of their business. In the last four to six weeks the business has gone up to 50 per cent from a single digit market share of e-commerce. Rawat is sure that this change is not only a temporary measure but even as and when things go back to normal, e-commerce would still be an important kind of channel for them. The growth percentage might not stay at 50 per cent but it will not go into single digit and will definitely not go back to pre-COVID level.

In order to enable customers with supply chain solutions on Google Cloud, o9 Solutions has announced a strategic partnership with Google Cloud. The new partnership extends the reach of o9 to companies looking to transform their capabilities around demand sensing and forecasting, supply chain planning, assortment planning, integrated business planning and more with the global infrastructure and deployment options that Google Cloud enables. The wide-ranging partnership will specifically target leading retail, consumer product manufacturer and telecom companies with unique capabilities to scale with o9 and Google Cloud. “The COVID-19 crisis has exposed significant weaknesses in how organisations run their value chains today,” said Igor Rikalo, President & COO, o9 Solutions. Data remains critical for effective planning, and Google Cloud’s data sources and scalability are key to deal with this new level of complexity. In addition, o9’s Enterprise Knowledge Graph (ie Digital Brain) is able to convert data (structured and unstructured, external and internal) to actionable insights to drive improved decision making.

FarEye has raised an additional US$ 13 million as an extension to its Series D investment led by The Fundamentum Partnership and KB Global Platform Fund. The investment will accelerate company’s global expansion to address the steepening digital curve for logistics transformation. The need is being further accelerated by enterprises and end consumers demanding a high level of transparency, faster and more convenient delivery experiences. There is also an increased need for flexible supply chains to meet these demands. “We are seeing a surge in the need for real-time visibility in logistics for businesses to build customer-centric supply chains. With recently raised funds, we will continue to invest in the best talent in the Americas, Europe, and APAC to support our hyper-growth in these regions. With a vision to make FarEye one of the most customer-centric organizations globally, we aim to make every delivery delightful for the consumers.” said Kushal Nahata, CEO, FarEye.

CargoTalk is all geared up to host the fourth conclave on August 25, 2020 from 10 am to 12:15 pm. The virtual summit is divided into two one-hour sessions and will have eminent speakers from Ministry and trade. The summit will discuss the significance of going contactless in logistics industry and how warehousing industry is withstanding the e-commerce boom, especially in this hour of need. Speakers will include Pawan Kumar Agarwal, IAS, Special Secretary (Logistics), Ministry of Commerce & Industry, Government of India, Cyrus Katgara, President, Air Cargo Forum India, V Raju, Senior Vice President – CL – Chemical, Pharma & Food Sector, Avvashya CCI Logistcs (All Cargo Group), Satish Lakkaraju, Chief Commercial Officer, Agility Logistics and John Thomas, Group Director, Realistic Realtors & Reach Promoters and Director at CIRIL (Commercial Real Estate Advisors)

Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal says digital is the way forward. Inaugurating the PHD Virtual Retail Supply Chain Expo, the minister emphasises on how COVID has altered consumers’ purchasing pattern. He says, “More and more people are moving online for purchases. Hence, retail trade will also have to shift to new strategies to align them in the evolving consumers’ preferences. Retail will also evolve by engaging with both the physical and digital world. Smart logistics and better distribution capabilities will built up and supply chain will also progress using modern tools and modern technologies. “Transparency has become very important element in businesses. To build business, both at the production & manufacturing level and distribution & supply chain, we have to look at artificial intelligence, chatbot, augmented reality, virtual reality, IoT, blockchain technology,” he adds.

Holisol Logistics has launched ‘Verdis Visibility’ to provide complete end-to-end visibility of supply chain processes in terms of the key parameters relevant to the organisation. Verdis Visibility is a part of company’s AI and ML-driven supply chain solutions system. The integrated flow of material and information is captured and easily available in the ‘dashboards’ of Verdis Visibility, in real-time, automated and online manner, enabling monitoring, analysis and quick decision making in the complex supply chains of today. “Verdis takes a deep dive into the organisation’s wide data (structured & unstructured) to connect the variables and identify a pattern to build the opportunity intelligence to realise its full potential,” says Rahul S Dogar, Co-Founder & Managing Director of Holisol Logistics.

Serving the air cargo logistics industry, its members from the entire segments of air cargo logistics industry and the nation, Air Cargo Forum India (ACFI) has completed its eight constructive and successful years. With the objective of developing the air cargo logistics and supply chain industry and for bringing improvements in the movement and processing of EXIM trade with the help of the government regulatory agencies, ACFI was formed in the year 2012. After completion of two successful years (2018-19 to 2019-20) term of previous ACFI Governing Board, ACFI in its 8th Annual General Meeting (AGM) followed by its 63rd Board meeting held on July 17, 2020 has announced the new ACFI Governing Board members for the next two years i.e. 2020-21 to 2021-22 taken over charge under the leadership of Cyrus Katgara, Partner M/S Jeena & Co. as President of ACFI. Air Cargo Forum India (ACFI) is the only nationwide association having representation from the entire air cargo logistic supply chain industry i.e. Airport Operators (Government & Private), Freight Forwarders, Airlines, Customs Brokers, Cargo Terminal Operators, Bonded Truck Operators, General Sales Agencies, Express Industry and the Associations of these individual stakeholders. In the international collaboration ACFI is the member of The International Air Cargo Association (TIACA) and an Association Member of PHD Chamber of Commerce & Industry in India.

Calling digitalising the complete supply chain a need of the hour, Nihar Parida, Industry Expert & Supply Chain Consultant, says, “Data at every point should be captured as much as possible. Also, data analysis should happen at a single point and not in silos.” He continues, “During the change in tax from local sales tax to VAT, most organisations opened warehouses in every state. The moment GST was declared; the finance and logistics fraternity started exploring how they could consolidate their stocks in few warehouses as the state borders became obsolete from the tax point of view. For the first time, the logistics people started thinking of inventory from a logistics cost saving perspective rather than a tax saving perspective. But again most were guided by the common thought of consolidation. The LSPs also started selling the idea to ensure they could save cost in their multi-user facilities. The distribution factor was side-lined. The transporters and the courier companies were in the limelight.”

“In order to streamline the logistics eco-system in the country, a National Logistics Efficiency and Advancement Predictability & Safety Act (NLEAPS) is under consideration,” informs, Pawan Agarwal, Special Secretary (Logistics), Ministry of Commerce & Industry at a webinar organized by the PHD Chambers of Commerce. Stressing on defining the various elements in the logistics sector, he says, “What the logistics sector is all about is not very clear to us as of now. The government is considering replacing the multimodal transportation of goods law with national logistics law to promote growth of the sector.” “The high logistics cost of country is impacting the competitiveness of domestic goods in the international market. India’s logistics sector is highly fragmented and the government aims to reduce the logistics cost from the present 14 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product to less than 10 per cent,” tells Agarwal. He continues, “During the times of COVID-19, there has been a disruption in the supply chain and movement of truck with many of the supplies diverting to the rail; making it a reliable and cost effective mode of transportation. In these indispensable times, we have realised the importance of essential services with their regular supply chains,” he adds. According to Agarwal, digitisation of logistics is the need of the hour which will increase the efficiency in movement of goods. He also informs that the government is working on creating digital platforms and mobiles apps for logistics such as warehouse information tracking and trading yard (WITTY), among others to mapping of warehouses. Agarwal believes that logistics is a sector that needs to realise the vision of ‘Aatma Nirbhar Bharat’.

Facilitating omnichannel e-commerce, Holisol has scaled up the fulfillment capabilities by adding self-serving ‘Automated Sales Centre (ASC)’, a tech-based solution that enables 24×7 touch-less buying of product. Along with this, the company has created a strong and tech-enabled network of pick-up centres, customer experience centres, rapid fulfilment centres, return/refurbishment centres, dark Stores, exchange stores, omni-channel fulfilment centres and collection centres enabling seamless omnichannel shopping experience for the end customer. “Our focus is, how to increase the accessibility of the consumption market for the customers, especially during the crisis. By enabling distributed inventory model and placing them closer to the consumption market, we aim to make our customers’ supply chain responsive and enable faster fulfilment”, states Rahul S Dogar, Managing Director, Holisol. “The biggest value addition has been to let our customer focus on sourcing and selling, leaving all else in between to us. With our tech-enabled omnichannel network we will speed up the fulfilment including instant, same day or next day fulfilment to increase the sales throughput of our customers,” he adds.