Safexpress' move to cloud and implementation of complex analytics is ushering in transparency in a still-evolving logistics sector
KAPIL MAHAJAN
SAFEXPRESS
All the new applications and products are being developed for the Cloud so that they can be hosted on a public or Private/Hybrid Cloud infrastructure. For our core systems, we have a phased approach to replace the existing legacy hardware to the new infrastructure.
The rise of e-commerce industry has transformed the way we shop and transact, giving rise to a new digital economy. However, it has raised expectations of the customers for a better and more transparent shopping experience. It is here that logistics plays significant role. Safexpress, the 20-year-old logistics firm, realised that to serve the changing requirements of customers, the firm needed to transform itself. And that is when Project HOG came to life.
A digital transformation project, HOG or Hub On the Go is a piece of Safexpress' overall digital transformation initiative to bring IT on mobile devices and provide analytics dashboards that help optimise the operations on the grounds. “HOG enables hub managers (responsible for all shipment coming and going from a given logistic park/ hub) to view the operation managers' performance in real time, view arrival information of the vehicles in real time (integrated with GPS on vehicles), take stock-taking on the shipments in the hub, plan manpower shift based on the incoming vehicle traffic and unloading volume,” explains Kapil Mahajan, CIO, Safexpress.
The decision to begin the transformation came from the top and therefore, a top down communication strategy worked in the company's favour to get all stakeholders on board. “To make it more effective, I setup a close communication governance model which ensures all key stakeholders are informed and consulted along the way (JAD sessions and roundtables can be effective to ideate and take feedback from various department heads) and this way, the key stakeholders feel positively engaged in the digital transformation journey which effectively clears lot of roadblocks and internal resistance,” says Mahajan.
Once the key stakeholders were aligned, their subordinates and team members got the right message and actively started accepting and participating in the journey which proved to have a much higher success rate than driving these initiatives in isolation. Mahajan took a hybrid approach to transit from legacy infrastructure to Cloud by migrating less critical systems to the IT, giving the company enough room to phase out dated hardware and consolidated infrastructure along with savings on annual AMC costs.
An open IT model further helped the company to focus on its core while allowing new-age start-ups to integrate their applications with Safexpress’ infrastructure without any friction. “We are working on an API-based model that gives us flexibility to easily integrate the deliverables from these start-ups directly in our enterprise’s software ecosystem, either as a downstream or upstream app,” Mahajan puts in.
But that is just the beginning of a long journey. “My long-term digital transformation goal for the organisation is to put all our components (developed and in flight) to seamlessly integrate across all SMAC (Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud) enablers,” Majahan opines.
The idea is to use all the four pillars to create a unified experience for both internal and external users that give them insights tailored customised to their needs and integrates data across disparate and spread sources to present a common platform that can serve all the requirements from social listening to operational efficiency to analytical dashboards, available on the go through Cloud.
Although this might sound simple, more than 95 percent of the companies that have upon the digital transformation journey using SMAC do not have an effectively integrated and cohesive technology ecosystem at the enterprise level. But Mahajan is determined to create an example for others to follow.
Comentários