Smart Logistics: Ease in business

The Confederation of Indian Industry Institute of Logistics organised ‘Smart Logistics 2015–Ease of Doing Business’ at New Delhi to discuss about the usage of IT in value chain, mix of multiple transport modes, necessity of mechanisation and need for gree

Logistics service providers think of smarter ways of handling logistics. Among the initiatives adopted for doing so is multimodal way of transportation and in India 50-60 per cent of spending is on transportation. The second is information technology usage. The industry is facing an increasing challenge of lack of skilled manpower because of which mechanisation is a definite need.

Srinath Manda Programme Head – Transportation & Logistics Frost & Sullivan

The expectation of every supply chain is minimising costs while keeping reasonable service, customer satisfaction, quality, on-time delivery. General strategies for supply chain are inventory, transport and location strategies and customer service goals. India is experiencing a GDP revival and the growth rate of our country is much more than that of China. Also, multimodal transportation is becoming important and going to dominate the market in future.

Prashant Bhatmule Vice President – Supply Chain Hindware India

Achieving perfect service is actually delivering on time and in the right quantity irrespective of channel. Costs in logistics can be minimised by optimum utilisation of the available assets. It is necessary to be able to automate quality control especially during multimodal transportation. The drivers of logistics in India are the business models of eCommerce, impending implementation of GST and finding the ways and means to use technology to leverage the costs. Satya Narayan Sahu

Director SAP SCM and Manufacturing Solutions

Logistics is not all about goods’ movement but all what one wants to do in short-term and long-term. India has the capability of making logistics smart despite infrastructural hurdles. I believe that this is a revolutionary time for logistics and the biggest revolution can be seen in the form of online retail, which is going to be very successful in the coming years.

Manoj Kapoor Vice President and Head – APAC Service Assurance, Alcatel Lucent India

IT is a value generator, a differentiator, as it will decide how business needs to be done. The IT solutions for logistics have to be interrelated, interactive, inclusive, individualistic, unique and intelligent. Three things, which are going to decide the smart supply chain design, are Internet of Everything derived from Internet of Things, Big Data and connected customers.

Asokan Sattanathan Founder Director Beta Solutions

Scarcity of skilled human resources along with competitive demand for efficiency in logistics has led to the introduction of mechanisation in logistics. There is a necessity to increase the percentage of skilled human resources. Movement across various modes is mechanised and now its being automated too. eCommerce companies are able to deliver within specified time with help from mechanised transport.

Varghese Abraham Vice President Total Shipping & Logistics