Business doesn't stop with recession

PUNE, INDIA: Everybody is affected by slowdown. And Logistics industry is no exception.

The Budgets do get curtailed here and therefore for any IT related solution there’s a direct impact, answers Neela Bhattacherjee, Head, Airline SBU from Kale Consultants that has a customer base of over 100 companies with about 70 live from the airline domain.

“Customers may not have any new money to spend. But they are looking at keeping the lights on. That’s evident in the number of enquiries we have received for our products in the recent span of time. We have signed up four customers for complete revenue accounting. Two of them are large enterprises while the other ones are relatively small but the status of investments is not much different.”

With recession, the business doesn’t stop, as she adds. Route-rationalisation, direct operating costs optimization and trying to figure out other ways and means of reducing costs while plugging in inefficiencies is where the business need of IT comes in, she says. “Accounts, Logistics or Revenue recovery, we are helping companies with exactly those kinds of solutions that are agile and lean. We are looking at hosting, more and more cost-effective and automated platforms along with remote support and pay-per-use models ourselves.”

Another player in IT Logistics industry, Soft Link that netted 30 customers last month, including 15 new ones, seconds that the industry is not completely dead, though it is struggling through slowdown due to its links on the impact on import-export trade.

Amit Maheshwari, CEO and MD from Soft Link says about Shipping industry in particular, “The willingness to be ready for future is there and as new, untouched centres like Kochi are coming up, IT is getting renewed attention as they try to catch up with their national counterparts.” Softlink’s turnover for the financial year 2007-08 was Rs10 crore and they are expecting a growth of at least 30 per cent in the fiscal 2008 -09. Over the past seven months they have added around 130 new clients. So far they have over 2500 customers in total.

But CIOs in this industry, as he stresses, need to look beyond computers and accounts when it comes to IT. “Client servicing, operations, internal control are overlooked areas. IT is much more than putting an accounting system. And most decision makers in Logistics sector still see IT as an expense and would rather not invest if they can save on it.” There’s a significant gap between Indian companies and international biggies like DHL on IT adoption and sophistication, as he agrees.

Nevertheless, while companies are open for solutions, projects with a definite time and scale are under the dark cloud. “With about 20 to 30 per cent Budget cuts, every time a new project emerges, there’s a rigorous scrutiny, while existing ones are put on hold, including the big ones. Unless the very core of business depends on it, projects are under tight scrutiny.”

These are tough times but we will be around and will weather the storm, opines Bhattacherjee.