Retail, e-commerce fuelling growth of warehousing & logistics: Sachin Haritash

The warehousing industry in India is poised to grow by more than 50% over the next three years, and is expected to clock an impressive $20 billion by 2025. Not only are the specialised warehousing players contributing to this growth, what is interesting is that some progressive logistics players too have realised the importance of backward integration, thus investing in warehousing to support their logistics operations in a big way, says Sachin Haritash, Director, Chetak Logistics.

In an exclusive interview with Sanjeev Sinha, Mr Haritash talks about the evolving trends in logistics, especially in warehousing as a support function, and shares his business outlook.

What’s behind the sudden surge in warehousing spaces in India? What are the latest trends in this industry and what does its future look like?

The exponential rise in retail and e-commerce businesses is fueling the growth of the warehousing and logistics sector in India. The diversification, in line with the government’s priority to make India a global manufacturing hub, has led to warehousing clusters expanding rapidly beyond Tier I cities and tapping the potential of Tier II and III cities. With the sudden surge in warehousing space, banks are more forthcoming to give long-term loans of tenures of up to 8-10 years. This makes warehousing investments lucrative.

Additionally, the government allows the financial market to set up warehousing funds where money comes in and warehousing players get investments. Also, GST allows companies to store goods in regional distribution centres rather than in each state. This makes companies to invest in large warehouses in each zone.

E-commerce has played a very vital role which required large warehouses to deliver goods in the shortest time. Enhanced demand raises warehousing needs, which in turn creates quality storage capacity. We are witnessing a trend of ramping up automation in warehousing and transparent shipping via IoT (Internet of Things).

And finally, thankfully, the sector is moving towards green warehousing, which will be in line with the global sustainability goals.

When did Chetak Logistics decide to get into logistics and warehousing, and why?

Chetak Logistics was founded by my late father Shri Jai Karan Sharma way back in 1979. He started from scratch and went on to establish Chetak among the leaders in logistics, in India. He was a keen learner, as he inducted the top Indian and global OEMs as his clients, namely Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai, JCB, Honda and many more. He keenly observed their best practices and started implementing the same in his organisation.

He was a visionary. He realised the importance of warehousing as a tool of backward integration and started investing in procuring land and building warehouses to provide end-to-end logistics services to his clients. What is noteworthy is the fact that he thought of such progressive initiatives way back in early 1980s, when the terms like 3 PL, multi-modal transportation were not even heard of.

His legacy and pioneering initiatives are being carried forward by us as we continue to upgrade our services and facilities to cater to every demanding client.

How do warehouses help the logistics players and the clients?

Warehousing helps to provide add-on services to the clients, who can save on inventory, transportation and thus inputs costs. Similarly, since the logistics players get to offer value added services in addition to basic transportation, it adds to their profitability as well.

What are the differentiators in services being offered by Chetak Logistics?

As the economy kept on growing and more and more global players set foot in, the logistics parks were set up in industrial hubs. This gave an impetus to the logistics, supply chain and warehousing verticals.

At Chetak, we operate FCLs (Foldable Container Loads) consisting of our verified and approved supply partners and individual truckers to provide damage free deliveries. Many services like Knitting, Binning, add value to customer requirements.

Our tech-oriented, future-ready aggregator platform helps us standardise lanes/routes, custom made in line with client’s requirements or creating special ad-hoc routes as when needed by our clients leads to ease of booking shipment for both parties. Our ability to provide customised services to customers helps us grow with each passing day.

Our paperless business reduces operational inefficiencies and helps improve performance standards, making your cargo available continuously and consistently, which is well appreciate by the clients.

What is your company doing currently and what are your future plans?

After establishing Chetak as a leading player in logistics and keeping up with the technological advancement, I launched a digital logistics set up called Mavyn – purely a paperless, asset less, face-less and cashless organisation that works like the Uber of the trucking, in India.

Similarly, building upon the huge warehousing assets, spread over 2 million sq feet, across India, Chetak is setting up virtual (digital) warehouses as well. Digital warehousing enables a user to book consignment from across India, at the click of a button.

We are confident that Chetak will continue to lead in bringing in the latest in technology and trends, to bring the best of services to its customers.