Championing e-commerce retail

At a CII conference in Delhi, experts brainstorm on GST preparedness and e-commerce 2.0 to ameliorate the infrastructure of the logistics sector.

“Lot of focus has gone to, roads, ports, railways and civil aviation, etc. The infrastructure building part has been quite accelerated both in terms of finances as well as execution. Lot of improvements has been made in customs also.” He informed that the government is targeting Singapore port for the processes, which will be the benchmark for Indian ports, especially container ports like JNPT, etc. “We are also trying to connect all the capital cities of North-East via rail by 2020 and this will help e-commerce ultimately,” he adds. Dr Manoj Singh IRTS, Adviser (Transport), NITI Aayog, Government of India “The DHL report says that crossborder opportunity, assess the vast potential of crossborder logistics and last mile opportunities across the world. Online shoppers are becoming increasingly sophisticated. And, according to Google’s Consumer Barometer, shoppers identify logistics, trust, price and experience as the main barriers to overseas purchases.” Smaller retailers can also build trust through partnership with recognised and trusted logistics, payment and website security. Aman Bhalla Business Development Manager, DHL Express India “e-commerce logistics is integral. It’s been a constant endeavour to be in touch with e-commerce companies and talk about supply chain. In logistics and supply chain, most of the companies are offering Just-in-Time. Moreover, there is a potential in collaboration wherein logistics companies can do a good job and simultaneously e-commerce companies can also explore more.” Manu Raj Bhalla Member – CII National Committee on Logistics & Global Head, Freight Systems “e-commerce 2.0 is basically to take products to middle India and grab the opportunity. Moreover, there are two major trends in e-commerce industry; one that even with much strengthened growth level, e-commerce is still at a stage where we are always looking for more capacity.” “The second trend is that the demand in e-commerce is a peak phenomenon; you have a regular demand coming up and then same season pushes up the demand and brings in new consumers into the ecosystem and then sets the new bar for the average demand. And, the third trend could be ‘speed of innovation’. Satyam Chaudhary Senior Director – Supply Chain, Flipkart.com “The first element is technology and the other is operation and how we deal with them. From the technology side, the focus is to create products that has platform. For omni-channel to work, you need to have EPI integration. From technology point of view, we are trying to build platforms rather than products. On the other hand, looking at people and ground execution, the challenge for our generation is that it is important for people to get excited about their jobs rather than companies.” Sourabh Pandey Director & Head – Logistics, Myntra.com “There is an increased focus on infrastructural development in India; roads, rail, ports and aviation often in the form of PPP. Even the logistics service providers are providing integrated distribution solutions cutting across multiple modes of transportation right at your doorstep. The only gap is that, multi-modal connectivity should develop higher efficiency and encourage optimal operation at competitive costs. There is a transformation in the sector and that is also driven by investment in the sector by both investors and strategic operators.” Anay Shukla VP, Business Development & Solution Design, Apollo LogiSolutions