Page 24 - ITLN JAN-FEB 2022 for Magzter

Interview
Abhay Kothari

“Intent and motivation

more important than

knowledge and

expertise while

hiring for a startup”

Graduated from IIT Kanpur as a chemical engineer in 2005, Abhay Kothari joined as a
business leadership trainee at Hindustan Unilever (HUL), into manufacturing first and then
the supply chain. He went to Harvard Business School for MBA and spent a couple of years
in consulting in the US. He came back to India to immerse himself in the startup ecosystem.
In 2015, he started working at Treebo Hotels. He was very clear that he would want to start
something of his own which ended up in starting the asset-light cold chain company AbleCold
Logistics with a focus on the quality of operations.
He is talking to Libin Chacko Kurian about the Indian cold chain industry, the nature of
his business, his journey, hiring strategy, how he helped his clients, tech strategy, financial
health and future.

Give me a perspective about the Indian Right now, Tier 1 and 2 cities have cold Yes, we do not own any of the assets in
temperature-controlled logistics storage as well as reefers. Tier 3 and the supply chain, neither do we intend
industry and its evolution? beyond is where it is a challenge. to. The fundamental way of solving this
The temperature-controlled supply With the arrival of the pandemic, market is to have a very large, reliable,
chain industry in India has been lagging there has been a huge growth of D2C integrated network of cold supply chain
in terms of sophistication, technology brands. For example, a small ice assets, which is one part. The other
adoption and the basic evolution. For cream startup has to establish its D2C part is the quality of operations and
example, there are several startups deliveries. That requires a change in their needs to be standardized and
that you would see in the dry logistics the way the cold storage operations and monitored. We have chosen the latter. At
space, but in the cold chain that hasn't local distribution. the same time, we can generate enough
been there because of the complexity. India is witnessing growth in terms value for the unorganized segment
However, the last three or four years of branded fruits and vegetables. It asset owners.
have been very encouraging, because of has always been the Kirana shop that
consumer behaviour shift. you will blame if Apple is bad. Now you Take me through the journey of
can blame the brand and the brand is AbleCold and how it is positioned in
How other cold chain players are concerned about its brand equity. And this market? How big is AbleCold
evolving? What is the potential that that is where a lot of the brands have in terms of reefers you operate,
you could see? What are the gaps? now started using a cold supply chain. warehouses you manage, clients you
More than 90 percent of the market is We require a fundamental shift from serve and the geographical reach?
unorganized. That's a huge deal. Within just focusing on asset-heavy players We started in November 2017. Those
the organized market, players like to the need for a layer of asset-light last two months and the whole of 2018
Snowman Logistics, Coldman Logistics, operators who are focusing more on the was just spent understanding and
ColdEX, ColdStar Logistics, Coldrush quality of operations and able to provide maintaining end to end operations
Logistics, have their core strengths in at an end to end solution. reliability. In 2020, within a couple of
least one vertical of the supply chain. months since lockdown, one person
10 or 15 years ago, very few cold Is AbleCold an asset-light company from our team opened up 10 new cities
storages and reefer vehicles were there. like that? without burning money. So that is when

22 January - February 2022 www.itln.in