HERE Technologies has published an inaugural study, APAC On The Move 2023 to provide insights from 1,300 transportation and logistics (T&L) business decision-makers across Asia-Pacific (APAC) including India, on the current technology trends and practices that are shaping supply chain, fleet, and logistics management.
According to the report, end-to-end asset tracking and shipment visibility continue to remain a challenge for Indian logistics companies even after the pandemic. Technology implementation challenges are considered by Indian logistics companies as the biggest obstacle in achieving real-time end-to-end supply chain visibility.
India’s logistics cost is estimated to be around 14 per cent of the country’s GDP (gross domestic product). In this backdrop, National Logistics Policy (NLP) has been introduced to lower this cost to about 8% by 2030 and boost the competitiveness of the industry.
Key highlights of the report
- Technology partnerships and implementations are big challenges
According to 22 per cent of the firms surveyed identifying the right partners and/or suppliers is one of the biggest barriers to technology implementation. There is a demand for easy-to-implement without expensive, time-consuming, and labour-intensive system overhauls.
2. Heavy reliance on manual trackingÂ
Approximately 41 per cent of Indian logistics firms surveyed continue to use asset tracking and shipment monitoring software in combination with manual inputs to track assets, shipment, and cargo. This highlights the fact that a large number of companies still do not have a resilient infrastructure in place because manual processes have a higher chance of creating gaps and vulnerabilities within supply chains.
3. Prioritising customer and financial benefits
Indian logistics companies are prioritising customer satisfaction and are considering adopting tracking and monitoring solutions. Half of Indian logistic players (51 per cent) want a logistic asset tracking solution that could help them highlight areas of inefficiencies for reducing costs and providing continuous improvement, while 49 per cent want to ensure that they gain a competitive advantage.
4. Future Technologies to boost competitiveness
While most logistics companies in India are already using a form of IoT technology the adoption rates for IoT can be improved. IoT applications for warehouse management (26 per cent), inventory management (21 per cent), and order management (19 per cent) are the most popular among logistics companies in the country. Almost a quarter of logistics companies in India are planning to invest in drones, cloud computing IoT and blockchain, in the near future.