WHEELS OF CHANGE
Siddharth Agarwal, Chief Strategist at seven-year-old logistics start-up Ecom Express can bet anyone to name a street or even a paan (betel leaf) shop in the congested lane of a small town where his firm cannot deliver a packet. If someone were to name Jhumri Telaiya or Pulwama to put Agarwal in a spot, he is going to lose the bet. The start-up covers over 26,000 pin codes in the country.
Most start-ups have been growing at breakneck speed, multiplying their revenues year-on-year. The common factor is that they all leverage technology to achieve scale and efficiency, issues that have been plaguing the highly-fragmented logistics sector for decades.
"As you move into the future there would be even more investments in technology. There will be newer channels and ways of delivery. If I talk about last-mile delivery, although it is still at an experimental stage there are countries like China which are trying to leverage drones," Agarwal said.
Agrees Ashim Sharma, Principal and Division Head, Business Performance Improvement (Auto, Engineering and Logistics), Nomura Research Institute Consulting & Solutions. "Compared to developed markets, technology application is still at a nascent stage in India. These start-ups have realised that this is the gap
