Unlearn and relearn, keys to our business

Delex was set up in 2009 by NDR Group. The company, in just five years, has emerged as a key player in India’s logistics sector. In a special interview with Indian Transport and Logistics News, Srinivas Sattiraju, the chief executive officer of Delex talks about the game changing trends in the supply chain space, talent acquisition and the position Delex keeps in the rapidly evolving supply chain industry.

How has the supply chain industry changed over the years? Could you elaborate on the game changing trends in the supply chain space?
Over a period of last 15 years, the landscape of India’s logistics industry has undergone significant changes. Storage places that were called stores, godowns, yards, have now become warehouses. The half body, nine-tonne capacity open trucks are now transformed into containerized trucks of varying lengths, heights and capacities. When companies went around the country looking for larger and well established warehouses, first it was the individual businessmen and land owners who came forward to construct and lease large, modern and new warehouses suiting customer requirements. Later large companies entered into the space creating logistics parks. With all these changes, I could also see that well educated, often engineering graduates from India’s premier institutes have started looking at this industry as an option of employment. Industry is now attracting the best talent as compared to earlier times, when getting the right talent was a challenge.
How has Delex kept pace with the technological advances in the supply chain industry?
This has been simplified for Delex I guess, as the journey of Delex has started only in 2009 and by then technology had advanced so much and most of us who came together as a startup team of Delex have gone through the learning curve. We were ready with required skills, experience and expertise to design and roll-out “best-in class” solution to given customer requirements. This ability we have demonstrated by executing successful projects to various customers. Besides the advantage of starting in an era where technological advances and team knowledge is at an advantageous position, Delex had deployed some latest tools to enhance the overall operations and business efficiencies. Like implementation of the latest generation Oracle CRM “talk now”, integrated, system assisted mobile hand-held devices for system booking and delivery, complete with portable printing devices etc.
What, according to you, is the key to competing in the logistics business in India?
Key to compete in logistics business in India is the ability to ‘unlearn’ and ‘relearn’ each time, according to the customer’s specific business requirements. We have seen this happening all the time, be it an individual trucker or fleet operator who are willing to stop conventional truck body building and adopt to a 32’ containerized body building or a large manufacturing conglomerate hiving off all its transportation and warehousing activities into a Logistics BU to give a better focus to these hitherto not-focused areas or to bring in cost competitiveness into their business operations, all of them have “unlearned” something that they have been doing historically and learned new ways of doing things.
How has your business performance been in the last financial year? And what will be your key focus this year?
The last financial year has been a year

of consolidation for Delex, where we have emphasized on refocusing our key business verticals. Without significant addition of large, new customers, our overall business volumes have grown higher than expected. In the current financial year, our key focus is to grow our air cargo door-to-door as well as our surface parcel delivery services, as it helps us utilise our well established, widespread, country wide network.
Are there any expansion plans in the near future?
Delex will continue to focus on its key services, AIR Cargo (Door-to-Door) and SPD (Surface Parcel Delivery). We would also be focusing on developing our capabilities around the growing segments like Cold SCM, Clinical & Pharma SCM, Critical Care and Specialty product handling and transportation. Expansion would be in the form of opening of new PUDOs (pick up and delivery offices) across various key and emerging markets that are connected to our existing network in order, providing seamless services to our customers. Most of such expansion activities shall be built around specific customer requirements. Delex has signed up for rolling out the Oracle CRM product “RightNow” for better customer engagement. Delex will probably be the first logistics company to implement “RightNow” in India.n