31/03/2020 Demand for tech innovators to go up in Indian logistics industry - The Economic Times

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Demand for tech innovators to go up in Indian logistics

industry
UPDATED: FEB 27, 2015, 02.05 PM IST Post a Comment

By Amrita Premrajan, TimesJobs.com Bureau

The Indian e-commerce boom is leading to an increased competition within the logistics
industry. To build a strong competitive edge, logistics companies are set to bring onboard
Innovation Managers and Tech Evangelists. In an exclusive interaction Anjani Kumar,
CIO, Safexpress tells us about this and more…Today, many Indian e-commerce
companies such as Snapdeal and Flipkart, have their own in-house logistics networks. But
in the near future, as the competition intensifies among the e-commerce businesses,
many of them may look at outsourcing this function to logistics companies to shorten the
In a recent interaction, Anjani Kumar, CIO,
delivery time and reach out to the Tier 2 and 3 cities also.
Safexpress talked about why the logistics industry is
now becoming more competitive than ever.
In a recent interaction, Anjani Kumar, CIO, Safexpress talked about why the logistics
industry is now becoming more competitive than ever. "With e-commerce booming like Big Change:
never before, the volume of shipments is increasing dramatically, as we speak. Added to The end of Five-Year Plans: All you need to know

this, with increasing competition among e-commerce players, the focus would be on
delivery of products within the shortest possible time," said Anjani.

Need for an Innovation Manager

The increased competition within the logistics industry means that logistics companies are set to experience a need to build unique
competitive advantages. Here, technology would act as an enabler and demand will be for professionals who can connect the dots using
technology and help the business become more competitive.
Citing an example of a possible area of innovation which can bring business advantage within the logistics industry, Anjani talked about
the potential of integrating GPS (which are enabled in the shipment trucks) with the ERP application to enable the operations team to
track these vehicles in real time and take quick decisions.

Understanding the edge that such professionals can bring to their logistics business, Safexpress has recently brought onboard an
Innovation Manager.
Elaborating about this job role, Anjani said, "The Innovation Manager is responsible for driving benchmarking and innovation within the
company. His/her primary job role is to constantly keep a track of technology and trends with respect to the business needs and come
up with innovative solutions which can benefit the business."

For the position of Innovation Manager, Anjani brought in a techie with a total industry experience of 16 years, with 7-8 years purely in
the logistics business. Not only does he understand technology, but also understands the business of the logistics industry and where
technology could plug in.

Explaining the reason behind creating a job profile dedicated to innovation, Anjani said, "Even in many large companies, innovation is
more like a stretch role - a secondary requirement - which certain specific employees are needed to deliver. But the moment innovation
gets tagged as secondary, the focus is lost. To ensure this is taken as a primary job role, I decided to create the position of Innovation
Manager within Safexpress."

Qualities an Innovation Manager must have

When asked to highlight the key skills or specialisations that an Innovation Manager should ideally have, Anjani shared the following:

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31/03/2020 Demand for tech innovators to go up in Indian logistics industry - The Economic Times
1) In depth understanding of the industry vertical, in this case logistics 2) Knowledge of technology landscape and emerging
technologies and ability to map it to specific business needs 3) Out of the box, analytical thinker who can adeptly weigh the pros and
cons of various situations and strategise and prioritise the best innovations and the impact to the business 4) Ability to make colleagues
and team mates believe in the idea of innovating, motivating and giving them an environment to come up with interesting ideas.
Logistics industry might hire Tech Evangelists in future

Going forward, the logistics industry would be looking for techies who can leverage technology to help their business deal with emerging
logistics related market needs -especially from within the e-commerce businesses - in the fastest possible way.

In this context, Anjani shared that as this initiative builds and gathers steam, he would be looking at hiring young techies in the
innovation and benchmarking team, who would be called 'Tech Evangelists.'

When hiring Tech Evangelists, the CIO shared they would be looking for the following traits:
* Young techies who are masters of 2-3 technologies * Thirst to learn new technologies * An unquenchable fire in the belly to do
something new

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