With over a 100 years of experience in supply chain and logistics, Jeena & Co is spearheaded by the 4th generation of its founders. Cyrus Katgara, Partner, Jeena & Co. reveals how being agile and flexible helps in coping with ever changing market demands
Q What are the critical elements that are required for you to be a success in retail fashion logistics?
Systems integration with our overseas partners and buyers for complete real time visibility of their orders in pipeline.
Q Has online retail spurred the need for retail fashion logistics?
Online retail purchase has added to the complexities of retail logistics. In brick and mortar retail scenario the spike/uncertainty in the demand for products was limited to the limits of the footfalls to the retail outlets and could be met with stocks based on some historical forecasts. With online retail the velocity of the products and obsolescence have increased manifolds resulting in requirement of a highly efficient and responsive supply chain to cater to such environment.
Q. How are you able to cope with the ever changing customer demands?
The mantra for coping with such ever changing market is constant innovation with agile and flexible operational and management structures.
- When did you introduce door to door service? How successful has it been?
Door to door service was introduced about 10 years ago. It has been reasonably successful in spite of stiff competition from global integrators with vast reach in every nook and corner of the world. Ours is a niche cost effective product for large shipments that require customised door to door delivery with value added services of pick and pack, storage and consolidation.
Q What are the challenges you face in door to door delivery?
We do face challenges such as urban congestion, remote locations, poor road infrastructure, lack of exact delivery address etc during door to door deliveries. This makes the estimation of last mile delivery costs difficult as such nuances cannot be accounted for accurately.
Q Tell us about your auto logistics solutions?
In auto logistics, we provide an entire bouquet of services under the vertical of “Integrated solutions.” Such solutions cover from line feed to packaging design solutions resulting in optimisation of space utilisation for cost effective freight options.
Q On the freight forwarding side: between air freight and ocean freight which side do you see business growing more? What could be the reasons?
As of today, sea freight is growing faster than air freight in India. There are many reasons for the same, some of which are partially opened airspace of Pakistan, Space crunch situation with airlines, poor infrastructure, limitations on size and weight etc.
Q How is the demand for 3PL in India? Do you see it grow in the near future? In which parts of the country do you see demand for 3PL catch up fast?
The demand for 3PL in India is huge and increasing at a brisk pace. The revenue from 3PL is estimated to reach $31 billion by 2022. Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Pune, Bengaluru and Chennai continued to be the top five markets in terms of demand and absorption. While Pune and Ahmedabad registered significant demand from the manufacturing sector, Kolkata emerged as a major logistics hub due to its consumption and distribution advantage. Demand from tier 2 cities like Coimbatore, Guwahati, Lucknow, Jaipur and Ludhiana are also growing.
Q Customs Dept. has implemented a lot of digital initiatives. How has been your experience in dealing with Customs department?
Yes, there have been many initiatives taken by the Ministry of Finance to digitize Customs department however few of the initiatives like going paperless have not been implemented due to some reason or the other. We are taking up these issues via ACFI (Air Cargo Forum India) and pushing all stakeholders to implement the same at the earliest.
