Logistics Industry in India: Challenges & Entrepreneurship Opportunities,our session at NITIE

BGyan session on "Logistics Industry in India: Challenges & Entrepreneurship Opportunities"

NITIE, Mumbai has always been proud of its Strong Alumni. People from NITIE have travelled miles and have done exceptionally well in their respective industries. One Such name is Mr. Rajesh Pednekar, Head Distribution, Pfizer Ltd. He is an alumnus of NITIE IM 1^st Batch with more than 16 years of experience in Logistics and Supply Chain management. Mr. Rajesh has worked with leading MNCs and domestic companies in FMCG, Pharma, Food and Nutraceuticals with strengths in Logistics, Inventory Management, Distribution, Warehousing & Transportation, 3^rd Party Purchase & Procurement, and Forecast Accuracy Improvement.

B-Gyan Committee of NITIE, Mumbai organized its first session of the season on "Logistics Industry in India: Challenges & Entrepreneurship Opportunities", the Guest of Honour being Mr. Rajesh Pednekar. It was a first session of its kind for the newly joined Batch Of 2014.

Mr. Rajesh brought in lots of insight into the sector owing to his vast experience having worked with several renowned organizations. He was a smooth talker and was easily able to capture the pulse of the audience. The session began with a brief introduction about logistics and revolved around challenges, Global opportunities coming up in this sector and the technologies adopted by the competitors in the market.

Mr. Rajesh introduced us to the topic. Logistics is basically the management of the positioning and flow of resources in order to meet the customers’ requirements. Logistics involves the integration of information, transportation, inventory, warehousing, material handling, and packaging. He discussed about the recent problems posed and developments in each of the above domains. With the advent of globalization, government policies and technology have begun to play a very crucial role in this sector. Mr. Rajesh aptly symbolized this with his quote “With every mouth are born two hands”, which simply meant that two hands can very well serve one mouth. He explained that he sees lots of manufacturing opportunities in India. To illustrate this, he compared Government policies of India to those of China. In China, there is “One Child Policy”, due to which the work force is rapidly reducing. There are 6 parents viz. the original set of parents along with the maternal and paternal grand parents, to back one child. This implies that a single house has 7 cash flows to bank upon. This automatically reduces an individual’s interest in job and hence poses challenge to the manufacturing sector there. As compared to China, in India, with growing population, we have an easy availability of low cost work force. Also, India has become the 3^rd largest consumer market in the past 10 years. But, Climatic diversity poses challenges to the specialized supply chain. As an example, cervical cancer injections are delivered, as and when required because these medicines have stringent temperature requirements. Lots of technological advancements are much awaited in this area. Another challenge is the means of transport. In India, Railways are the most preferred ones. But due to the bounce back of recent passenger fare hikes by the government, the burden has shifted to this sector. Transportation of Goods by rail transport has become all the more costly. Also, with the availability of varied means of transport, Validation of Supply chain in India is another big challenge. Innovation is the need of the hour. He also discussed about Innovations in Logistics with examples from industry. Flipkart introduced cash on delivery to distinguish itself from rest of the online shopping sites but 3% of its revenue was lost because of reasons like non availability of people, change in addresses etc. a risk which he justified for the profits made. ’Gharpe’ came out with the unique idea to act in between the two parties and thus led to an increase in their profit margins.

Mr. Rajesh also talked about the existing practices and global trends. He sees a lot of growth in this sector in the upcoming years. I wish him all the best for his future. The session was very knowledgeable and worth remembering.

 It’s true that our Alumni have set a benchmark in the industry for us to emulate!