Madhav Thapar Logistics is one of the most adaptable and agile industries and surely it will continue to play a critical role through the global recovery, believes Madhav Thapar, Vice President- South Asia and Managing Director- India, C H Robinson. In a riveting conversation, the logistics sector expert informs Ajeet Kumar, India’s scale and geographic positioning which offers tremendous opportunity to the country to become an international hub for air, sea and multimodal movement of goods. And, if appropriately harnessed, India can achieve the goals sooner.
India must be careful not to overregulate the logistics sector, especially in terms of pricing
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ost-lockdown, how long would you estimate it would take for our industry to get back to business as usual? What will be the growth drivers? As lockdowns start to ease, China and rest of Asia show an immediate surge in cargo movements. This surge is mostly witnessed in case of air freight, as reopened businesses quickly fulfil stock inventory and non-essential freight orders, which were previously put on hold due to the lockdown. However, as the initial rush eases, it’s likely that consumption and demand will significantly 38 |
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reduce due to recessionary trends. Therefore, we will likely see an overall decrease in volume and a modal shift to ocean freight. Businesses can take advantage of cost savings until the pandemic eases and world economies revert to normal growth.
How has your organisation been providing customer experience during the lockdown? Our scale, technology, and single multimodal global transportation management system - Navisphere has enabled us to continue support our network of
nearly 200,000 customers a nd c o nt r ac t c a r r i e r s worldwide. Backed by contingency plans, our global team of experts is working closely with customers on production planning and forecasting to ensure they are prepared with strategy and execution support and, if necessary, appropriate mitigation plans.
We will likely see an overall decrease in volume and a modal shift to ocean freight. Businesses can take advantage of cost savings until the pandemic eases and world economies revert to normal growth.