Page 27 - LINKPIN 2023-24

Disruptions in International

Logistics in India

Sirodkar Jha
Founder Director Glo Ind
Logistics Pvt Ltd and Group.
Again! And yet again, International Logistics is
being disrupted.
Pre-Covid, digitization had made its entry
to change the processes of International
container trailers were bought by them as a
Logistics. The most important, crucial, and
foundation to support the idea of aggregation
gigantic stakeholder i.e. shipping line had
of much smaller-unorganized and rather just
offloaded the majority of its trade interface
`subsistence level’ transport operators, and,
processes. There emerged an opportunity for
all this was being organized for the shipping
the two indispensable ends of International
lines to enter the 1st mile and the last mile.
Logistics i.e. the seller(exporter) and the
The transporters were shown the carrot of
buyer (importer) to transact business with
immediate payments, assured trips, and
the shipping lines directly. A landscape of
relief from the business solicitation. Shipping
uncertainty and insecurity began developing
lines began arm-twisting by denying to give
for the Freight Forwarders and Custom House
Agents. Here, it is important to understand that bookings unless their transporter services
Freight Forwarders and Customs House Agents were used. All this came with a bang! The
are the ones who have always executed International trade industry, if not fully, at least
the logistics operations and corresponding to the extent of MSME exporters/importers was
documentation. There was a massive effort on affected adversely. However, the take-off of
the part of the leading shipping lines to dislodge the aggregator was short-lived with business
these two key players. With marginal success,
shipping lines curbed the force with which they
wanted this change to happen, however, this
attempt led to significant changes impacting
primarily the logistics costs and required skill
sets. Professionals with higher education and
at higher costs were brought into the logistics
system.

Probably it was the intervening period of
before and after COVID-19 when the IT wizards
with their unquenching thirst for disruption
and making their hay entered the container
transport segment. With huge investments
backing them and technology that they
deemed fit to disrupt the market, fleets of
Linkpin 2023-24 | 27