In an interaction with The PageOne Asia's Parul Manchanda, WebXpress CEO & Founder Apurva Mankad talks about the key logistics trends, new technological developments and credibility of SaaS in the logistics industry.

Edited excerpts:

Tell us about your company and its vision? How has been the growth journey so far?

WebXpress was started to bring the latest technology to a highly unorganized but very crucial sector - Logistics. WebXpress built its transportation, fleet and warehouse management solutions by combining customer needs with the technology and process know-how of the founder team.

With the advent of the Cloud, WebXpress then transformed into a SaaS-based solution that covers an entire rainbow of transportation solutions from e-commerce to Express to Hyperlocal to Full Truck movement.

Today, WebXpress processes over 3.5 million orders and analyzes over 100 mn IoT signals every month. WebXpress is all set to increase its customer base by 10 times and revenues by 15 times over the next 3-4 years.
 
What are the new developments to look forward to?

WebXpress foresees the next level of digitization post 5G deployment. Also, there will be an increased focus on measuring GreenHouse Gas emissions for every shipment across the supply chain. Building such solutions will require investment in technology, teams and customer pilots. Also, WebXpress is always in a continuous innovation mode for its current set of solutions. We are in the advanced stages of closing an investment round and hope to deploy the same over FY 2022-2023.
 
How WebXpress is leveraging SaaS to build its ecosystem?

SaaS is the perfect fit for the logistics industry- given its fragmented nature and a large number of players. WebXpress has built an “Industry Solution” combining ground-level practices of 100+ logistics companies. At the same time, WebXpress has also built a “Digital Ecosystem” combining multiple solutions to offer customers complete digitization.

WebXpress has integrated over 40+ GPS providers, 100+ logistics partners, an E-way bill system, FastTag and Fuel Companies to name a few.  WebXpress also builds in third-party tools such as AI on CCTV, SIM triangulation, and Google OR as a building block of its solutions.

Could you please elaborate on some of your new technological partnerships?

WebXpress is continuously looking to add value to customers in the shortest possible time. Thus, we look at onboarding multiple technology partners.

We have recently added Darsa.AI and Tarsyer to offer AI-based solutions for Dock Management and Vehicle Management inside a logistics facility. We have partnered with Signzy to offer real-time Vehicle and Driver KYC to automate vehicle verification and capacity capture. We are also collaborating with companies such as Freight Tiger to offer end-to-end solutions jointly to customers. Climate change and sustainability are matters of serious concern.

How are you promoting sustainability in your organization?

With increased focus on climate change, the supply chain industry is under pressure to clean up its act. Transportation accounts for 17% of global GHG emissions- and electric vehicles are the obvious answer.

Electric bikes for last-mile delivery, solar rooftops for warehouses, optimized truck loads to reduce emission per kg- many such initiatives are gathering pace.

WebXpress is developing a “Green Index” to measure carbon emission for every activity in logistics. This will help companies focus on specific areas to reduce their emissions and in the process also save costs.

How would you differentiate your organization from the other organizations operating in the same sector?

The emergence of Unicorns or Soonicorn from India is great news for all the players. The logistics market is very large and requires specialized technology solutions in multiple areas. WebXpress competes as well as collaborates with many start-ups.

In fact, we use star-ups to increase our solution capability. For example, we are working with AI-based start-ups to use CCTV to manage docks. We are working with another start-up to get real-time data on Vehicle KYC. With one more start-up, we are deploying Robotic Process Automation.

The way we see the market is there will be a set of fulcrum companies such as WebXpress ensuring solution delivery and ensuring security and governance. These will then work with a range of start-ups to offer a larger solution competing with global giants.

What are the key trends in the logistics industry for 2022?

The year 2022 promises to be the year of sensors and devices in the world of supply chain and logistics. With the rollout of 5G taking place, the enabling infrastructure to get real-time massive data will be available in a widespread manner.
 
Package level tracking
Many years ago, companies such as Walmart experimented with RFID tags – but the technology was expensive and much ahead of its time. Now, in 2022, package-level scanning using technology such as BLE has become viable.
 
Digital Twin of vehicles
As we have seen in the case of self-driving cars and high-end electric vehicles- massive data about vehicle movement is available in real-time creating a digital twin. This technology will now be applied to commercial vehicles. While older models of vehicles can provide limited data, newer vehicles provide immense information.
 
Video Analytics
Technology such as Cognitive AI has become commonplace. The same will now be applied to all aspects of a warehouse. Vehicle docking, tracking of human operators, CCTV based attendance are becoming common tools across Smart Warehouses and will be deployed widely.
 
EV deployment
With increased focus on Climate change, the supply chain industry is under pressure to clean up its act. Transportation accounts for 15% of global GHG emissions- and electric vehicles are the obvious answer. Electric bikes for last-mile delivery, solar rooftops for warehouses, and optimized truck loads to reduce emission per kg- 2022 will see many such initiatives gather pace

What are your organization's hiring plans for 2022?

In line with our investment plan, we are looking to hire over 100 resources in 2 years. Hiring will be for new tech capabilities, customer solutions, project execution and cloud infrastructure.

We are looking at various models of increasing our team including remotely working resources from Eastern Europe, and Southeast Asia apart from India.

The world of technology is increasingly moving towards componentization akin to the car industry and we now have experts available for each area- thus future hiring will be very different from normal hiring.

Could you please shed some light on the state-wise logistics trends?

Indian states are fast recognizing that the key to a thriving manufacturing sector lies in world-class logistics infrastructure. Thus, many states have come up with policies to promote investment. The central government has started the LEADS- Logistics Ease Across Different States (LEADS) program to compare the state-wise performance.

States such as Gujarat, Punjab and Andhra Pradesh have been ranked as the Top improving states as per LEADS 2021. Such initiatives will bolster overall logistics practices in the country and create a very conducive environment for attracting more and more manufacturing investment to India.