Page 31 - ITLN May-June 2021 issue for Magzter

more in developing technology and 1. Because of the use of technology very
investing in automation. early in the business. We have always
We are doing a humongous amount Bring in smart technology had an in-house technology team
of automation by deploying multiple to support omnichannel operating our in-house platform, which
sorters which can sort 24,000 parcels and automating the had built-in efficiency.
per hour over the next few months. The 2. We have said that we want to be
automation spends of the company warehouses are the few efficient first, and then we scale. A lot
itself would be around close to 500 areas that we'll of businesses think of scale first and
crore over the next three years. work upon. efficiency later. We come from the other
side of the table.
Tell us more about your technological
ambitions. to be very useful. Today the minimum What happened to your plans to
Logistics is becoming heavily tech- cost of an RFID tag is 10 Indian Rupee expand to China, Southeast Asia and
dependent. We already have our entire which is not viable. The moment we can the Middle East?
operations working on our in-house bring it down to a couple of paise, it will We have tied up with some of the
build technology and we are building be very useful to eliminate scans and largest players in these geographies
the technology on the last mile as well. ensure automatic tracing. and we did some technical integration
We'll be spending on the next level of A lot of logistics companies spend as well. However, because of the
technology like geospatial mapping or a lot of time scanning and screening Covid-19 pandemic, we have put those
giving better visibility to our customers as we do scan based tracing. So once plans on hold for now. We'll revisit
on exactly where the parcel is. we move into RFID in future, we will them as the situation normalizes.
As of today, once the shipment is automatically know when the package Considering the challenges and the
out for delivery, we can predict when moves in or out. growth we're seeing in the domestic
it will be making the delivery, break it market, we’ll focus on India for the next
down to a four-hour window followed by The government of India recently year and a half.
a two-hour window and give accurate deregulated geospatial data. Will it
information to the customer to not only help your business? Who are your clients and what are the
make it convenient but also to ensure Obviously, it will help the businesses to new trends popping up particularly
a higher hit rate especially if you're use the data and to bring in efficiency. from your clients perspective?
delivering a COD (cash on delivery) We do it in a very small manner, Without exception, all major
shipment and you need the customer to but we want to do it much more e-commerce companies are our
be at his doorstep with the money. extensively. For example, today, all clients. Other than e-commerce, when
By investing in technology, we're our hub locations are mapped out, but we opened up from Covid we got a lot
also building up our B2B express tomorrow we want to track the boys of interest from the pharmaceutical
business. Just like technology played on the field continuously. We will be and fashion sectors because the
a major role in the evolution of B2C making more investments into it so traditional supply chains were broken.
businesses, where traditional players that we can give a more predictable We've got a lot of pharma and fashion
like Blue Dart and DTDC lost out. In the outcome on the delivery timings. clients and these two verticals have
next few years is we are going to see grown significantly for us. We're also
an evolution in the B2B business and it How well funded is Xpressbees? Are getting into other areas in B2B express
will be led by operators who understand you looking for more funding right logistics like engineering, automotive,
or use technology very well to bring in now? industrials etc.
efficiency. Once you make the operation Right now there is no need for funding
machine-dependent it will further bring and we are very well-capitalised. We are What we could expect from you in the
down the cost as well. also, on our bottom line perspective, next year?
very close to breaking even. In fact, We plan to expand our reach to cover
You were also talking about venturing most of the months in the last financial every pin code of the country by mid
into machine learning and data science year, we were EBITDA positive. of next year. We're getting into newer
in our previous interview. How far you So, we need funds only for two reasons, areas of business like B2B express.
have penetrated? 1. Automation of building scale into the While B2C continues to be more
Machine learning and data sciences business, which was more of making efficient, there'll be new thrust areas
are still in their nascent stages. These a long term investment rather than of B2B warehousing. Post-Covid,
are just two to three years old. Other funding business losses. omnichannel is one of the top things on
technologies are geospatial mapping, 2. We are looking at some acquisition the list of every CEO or CFO in the retail
IoT (Internet of Things) and RFIDs. and inorganic growth as well. industry. Bring in smart technology to
RFID is currently quite expensive for support omnichannel and automating
logistics. However, the moment we can How you gain capital efficiency the warehouses are the few areas that
bring down the cost of RFID, it's going compared to your competitors? we'll work upon.

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