Devashish Dutt, Managing Director, India, WeFreight says unpredictability, and uncertainty will continue to hinder the growth of the industry and their key focus will be on improving customer satisfaction by providing visibility, agility and, sustainable solutions.
CT Bureau
What are your expectations from this year? Share your plans and strategies?
As a logistics service provider, our focus is on enhancing our digital capabilities. We are making significant investments in global shared services, a strategic move that is accelerating digital transformation throughout our organization.
Our shared service model provides universal support to all our business units worldwide. This approach includes standardising documents, processes, and data—a step towards boosting operational efficiency. Moreover, we are not just standardising data; we are leveraging it to offer valuable predictive analytics and insightful analyses to our customers, adding more value to our services.
Mention your key learnings and takeaways from 2023?
Reflecting on the key learnings from last year, it is clear technology has been pivotal in enhancing business operations, internally as well as in customer interactions. WeFreight’s integration of CargoWise One and sophisticated data analytics has streamlined our processes, cut costs, and boosted transparency, cementing our role as a leader in efficiency and digital integration within the logistics industry.
Our innovative shared service product has been instrumental in standardising operations and enabling swift, adaptable expansion, critical in an era marked by geopolitical climate risks. These risks, such as the recent disruptions in the Red Sea, leading to increased rates and capacity challenges, underscore the importance of our approach in maintaining operational excellence and embracing digital transformation to navigate and mitigate these global challenges.
How do you ensure visibility and transparency?
It is evident that our customers’ primary need is for reliable solutions. Post-pandemic has introduced new challenges and inconsistencies in the business world. In this environment, our role at WeFreight becomes important. At the heart of our approach is a commitment to leverage advanced technology. This includes sophisticated tracking systems and data analytics tools, which enable us to provide real-time updates and comprehensive visibility into every aspect of the logistics process.
By doing so, we not only address the existing inconsistencies in the industry but also ensure that our customers are always informed. Our proactive stance in adapting to geopolitical and climatic changes strengthens our capability to offer transparency.
Tell us about WeFreight’s operations across India and globally?
The company started with the vision of transforming logistics, offering a detailed range of services from ocean freight to customs clearance and warehousing. India is a vital, strategic market in the freight forwarding sector within the Asia-Pacific region region.
We are focusing on a global aerospace engineering project, with our next venture targeting intra-Asia. Our clientele, including government and private firms in energy and power, have a presence in India. We are engaged in energy projects in both India and Africa, where we have a solid network. Recognized as a Great Place to Work in India, UAE, KSA, and Turkey, our dedication to an inclusive workplace is evident.
In India, we are operating out of 10 locations. Our products include standard air services and ocean services. We provide custom brokerage services as well. We have invested in project cargo vertical as well. We also provide insurance services. Our operation’s backbone is technology. With the global shared services, it gives us the ability to plug and play. Imagine you have your own global setup of people who manage your back-end operations, financing, documents, everything; and you need to just plug and play and keep opening the front-end offices.
What are the current challenges?
The first major challenge is unpredictability, and uncertainty. Weak demand, especially out of Europe, is one of the areas that continues to affect the business as well. Next is visibility and sustainability. The biggest gap is not being able to have a clear visibility of the first mile and the last-mile.
