We offer technology to reduce carbon footprint to help organizations measure it on every shipment, customer, and vehicle. We work closely with customers through a case-based method to identify various problems and solving them gives a lot of confidence to them, says Apurva Mankad, Founder & CEO, WebXpress.
Ritika Arora Bhola
How streamlined are your efforts towards designing tech-enabled logistics solutions, assisting clients and supply chains to evolve the level of modern-day integrated and expedited logistics?
Today, Logistics segment is at cross-roads. On the one hand, customers are seeking faster deliveries for smaller orders. At the same time, the need to reduce carbon footprint demands better vehicle utilization and more optimal delivery run. WebXpress is leveraging technology for sustainable and capital efficient logistics to resolve such conflicting demands. WebXpress works closely with customers to understand their specific problems and design custom solution on top of its standard product offering. Every learning from our customers is added to the product, thus next customer starts with a ready solution and focus on further value addition.
Could you tell us about your loyal clientele globally? What do they seek and how successful have you been in fulfilling their demands, especially during the pandemic? Can you name some of your clients?
Apart from India, WebXpress has customers in eight countries. We have been in the Middle East since 2017 serving logistics companies, retail, and manufacturing companies. We have served companies in auto sector, FMCG and retail to help them optimize transportation costs and improve service levels. Even before the pandemic, WebXpress had an effective global delivery model. More than 80 per cent of our project was deployed remotely, with customer visits to build rapport with customer teams, experience ground operations and train key users. During the pandemic, we shifted to 100 per cent online model was not a big challenge and we deployed WebXpress across multiple sites in the region.
Tell us how you identify the pain points, while providing reliable business solutions to air freight stakeholders and other clients?
WebXpress has always believed that good technology will focus on solving everyday problems for customers to reduce their pain points. We work closely with customers through a case-based method to identify various problems. We then, give weightage to each case and focus our energies to solve biggest problems first. We are proponents of pareto principle—80 per cent of problems is due to 20 per cent of cases. Solving these gives a lot of confidence to customers and delivery value of technology much faster.
How do you exploit technology in a meaningful way to create business value for your clients?
Technology can help customers in three key areas: improve sales, reduce costs, and improve efficiency thereby leading to a more profitable business. We deploy a range of Artificial Intelligence-based technology to achieve these goals. For example, our users can simply send image of a Proof of Delivery as a WhatsApp messages. Our AI engine processes the image, location of capture and timestamp to automatically update delivery of shipment. The recently launched Control Tower reads a stream of data from IoT devices on vehicles. It combines this with Geo-fences to detect excessive stoppage at border check-posts, senses arrival of vehicles at customers’ location and any deviation from set route. Such applications ensure any delay is sensed in real time. Our notification engine then informs stakeholders to take appropriate action.
How do you ensure zero disruption or interruption despite growing data volumes and demand?
A key benefit of cloud-based SaaS solution is elastic capacity. Our cloud system automatically adds processing capacity when usage crosses certain threshold. We can easily increase capacity by as much as 300 per cent in seconds. When the peak has passed, this capacity is reduced to ensure optimum usage and costs. Cloud solutions ensure high availability as data is stored across multiple data centers. This ensures business continuity in case of major disaster in one country. We have experienced Zero unplanned downtime of cloud-based SaaS solutions in the past five years.
Do you think the tech industry has the right skill set to provide best-in-class solutions and if the global logistics industry is ready to embrace the technology?
Logistics industry has experienced benefits of investment in technology during the pandemic. Companies with robust technology prospered and were able to handle COVID-driven disruptions better. Technology companies have realized that they need much better investment in Domain Expertise, apart from cutting edge technology. WebXpress has a balanced technology team with subject matter experts. Over 40 per cent of our team consists of Operations Management graduates. Our core team has more than 100 years of combined experience in logistics sector.
Anything new that you have instituted to embody the commitment to innovation and marketing approach in your contracts in the past few years?
WebXpress is increasingly focused on Sustainable Supply Chains. Climate change is a reality and logistics sector need to play their role in reducing carbon footprint. WebXpress has a launched a set of technology tools to measure, reduce and replace carbon footprint. Our technology will help organizations measure carbon footprint of every shipment, customers, and vehicles. They can then focus on reducing carbon emissions, one trip at a time. For example, a retailer can find that utilization of vehicles for a given route is less than 60 per cent. It can increase cut off time to add orders from additional stores and increase utilization to say 85 per cent and thus reduce carbon footprint by 15 per cent.
