Mr. Shailesh Kumar, Founder, CABT Logistics shares light on the unique feature of CABT Logistics, about its positive half year performance and the rise of tech-enabled services in the logistics sector.
1. Tell us about your brand CabT and its features. What’s your value proposition and how different are you in comparison to your competitors?
CABT was founded in 2018 with the vision of creating Excellence in the field of Logistics services to endow businesses with the right knowledge and support to scale their operations. We provide a safe, affordable, and stress-free logistic platform.
With a delivery partner network of more than 20000 trusted delivery personnel and 12000+ active pin codes, CABT helps businesses reduce redundancies, optimise supply chains and boost profitability in a competitive business environment. From picking, and packing, to transportation, they offer tech-based solutions tailor-made to your requirements.
Diversifying into Warehousing, First Mile, Mid Mile & Last Mile services, CABT has gained a strong foothold in 1640+ cities across India, becoming an intercity logistics powerhouse since its inception in 2018. Aided by its industry-agnostic nature, CABT is galvanizing the logistics landscape.
The end-to-end visibility we offer or all stakeholders involved ensures the application of a seamless supply chain and a more cost-effective and efficient solution for our clients.
- How has your brand’s performance been this year and what are your future plans and projections?
The company saw a turnover of INR 120 Cr in FY21. We are now gearing up to invest INR 4,80,00,000 to build about 60 micro-fulfilment centres across India. This investment in micro-warehouses comes in the wake of the E-commerce and Q-commerce boom, especially in a post-crisis world. The idea is to bring automation to warehousing and help companies with route optimization.
The second crucial and major chunk of our investment is in the EV segment. Individually as a company and also as a joint venture with OEM, we are bringing EVs on board for our logistics operations. We have currently bought 50 EVs with an investment of approximately INR, 60 lakhs. We aim to buy about 2000 EVs by the end of 2022.
- How are you incorporating sustainability in your module?
Sustainability is of paramount importance for us. As a company that is industry-agnostic, we realize that the measures we take to move towards sustainable development and eco-friendly processes will have a crucial impact on various industries and will help reduce the carbon footprint. Our approach is –
- Setting up micro warehouses – From first-mile delivery to last-mile delivery, a product goes through a lot of processes. Deliveries do use a major chunk of energy resources and fuel consumption. To help lessen the carbon footprint, we are investing heavily in setting up micro-warehouses in delivery strategic places to not only the distance that the rider will have to cover but also first mile deliveries between cities to save on air-fuel consumption. This strategy will reduce last-mile emissions by a significant margin.
- Automation – One of the major bottlenecks of logistics today is route optimization. Currently, once the customer feeds in their address, there is no software or algorithm in place to help figure out the shortest route for delivery. This does lead to energy wastage and delays deliveries as well. We are investing heavily in solving his issue and figuring out a way to optimize the route for delivery.
- EVs- Clean energy vehicles are needed to reduce the carbon footprint. To add to the cause, we are investing in and using more and more electric trucks, battery-operated bikes, e-scooter and CNG rickshaws to reduce gas emissions.
- Eco-friendly packaging – Currently most of our packaging is in cardboard boxes. Although earth-friendly, we are still trying to replace our packaging with either fabric or recycled plastic to help in plastic recycling management as well as further the sustainability movement. From our 3.5 – 4lakh shipments, we are changed 12-15% of the same to sustainable packaging and we are working towards getting his to 100%
- What is the future of the supply chain looking like in 2022 and beyond?
Logistics has become one of the most important silos of any business. With the help of AI and machine learning, the supply chain is all set to be agile, responsive, robust and automated.
- How has the supply chain ecosystem in India changed since the pandemic?
The pandemic hurdled a lot of industries but it also brought about one of the most significant growth periods in logistics. The supply chain ecosystem in India post-pandemic has become more responsive and seamless.
- Why is it important for all industries to prioritise AI- driven supply chain tech solutions?
Today, logistics is about offering a seamless and time-optimized service to the consumer while maintaining operational and time optimization. To achieve this, companies need to invest in Ai-driven supply chain tech solutions. Processes such as sorting, order picking and FDA must adopt automation. The process stands to ultimately aid with rapid last-mile deliveries without putting human lives at risk.
Besides this, strategic decisions such as micro-warehousing, setting up dark stores, sorting facilities, manpower, rider tie-ups based on pin codes and demand and supply etc are no longer a tedious process, thanks to advanced technology and AI.
Efficiency, advancement and convenience are what tech and AI have brought to the logistics sector helping this sector accelerate growth at a scale never imagined before.
