“We are a product-first company, and, it is something that has now become a part of our DNA.”-Mr. Kushal Nahata, CEO & Co-founder, FarEye.

An exclusive interview with IT.Voice,Mr. Kushal Nahata, CEO & Co-founder, FarEye,reveals his strategies for business in India .

Nisha Harshwal:-Business Model, Key Products & Services?  What are the logistics problems you are solving via technology?

Mr. Kushal Nahata:-Founded in 2013, FarEye is a technology solution to run eCommerce and supply chain logistics operations. It gives organizations real-time visibility and predictive intelligence, thus ensuring on-time deliveries and business excellence. As a SaaS platform,we enable quick and reliable movement of goods using mobility, data analytics & automation.Our two products include:

FarEye eCommerce Logistics: Logistics intelligence platform to optimize parcel movement for retailers and 3PL companies

FarEye Transportation: Predictive visibility platform to run logistics operations and achieve on-time delivery & efficiency. The platform gives businesses with real-time visibility on the LIVE location of trucks, containers, and freight, thereby enabling predictive ETAs.

eCommerce is growing exponentially across the globe, deliveries gain the paramount importance in such a landscape as delivery is the first touchpoint of the brand for the end-consumer. However,the last leg of deliveries is the most cumbersome for e-tailers and logistics organizations. The cost of ‘last mile’ constitutes up to 28% of the total logistics costs. FarEye helps organizations run and optimize their logistics operations while providing them with additional features such as machine learning based routing, reverse pickups, ability to personalize and customize deliveries for end users, parcel lockers and shops, live tracking of parcels and data driven business insights. This enables logistics managers to turn deliveries in an enjoyable experience rather than an executional task.

Further with its supply Chain offering, FarEye plans to solve challenges for long haul and multi-modal logistics.With consumers demanding real-time visibility of their shipments, supply chain and logistics organizations continue to face acute issues of delayed shipments, no visibility of goods-in-transit, pilferage, and theft, inefficient operations, poor resource management and not knowing when the goods would arrive. FarEye Transportation aims to break the silos that exist within the supply chains, create an integrated ecosystem, derive actionable insights and help businesses become agile & faster than ever before with predictive visibility.

Nisha Harshwal:-How was the year 2018 for your company?

Mr. Kushal Nahata:-2018 has been a year of tremendous action with technology, policy, innovation and infrastructure shaking up India’s logistics landscape with the introduction of drone regulations, passing of e-way bill, granting ‘Infrastructure’ status to the logistics sector and much more. This indeed implies an increased focus on the logistics space in India.

This year was exceptionally eventful for FarEye as well. It has been a rollercoaster year for us at FarEye, a year that has helped us make a headway into new frontiers and has set us on an amazing trajectory of growth.Early this year, we expanded our footprint in the European market with the launch of our regional office in London. In India, we launched a number of technology solutions targeted at the e-commerce and food delivery segments. This includes ‘Delight’ – Our delivery experience suite that helps businesses achieve the best Delivery Happiness Score – the ultimate measure of customer success; ‘Foodeligent’ –a first of its kind AI based delivery platform enabling faster growth of the food delivery market across the world by cutting down the delivery time by 15 percent; among others.

We concluded the year with great enthusiasm by acquiring Dipper Technologies, an IoT platform for visibility and management in freight movement with a view to provide end-visibility of freight to shippers.

Throughout the year, we were acknowledged 5 reports by Gartner for our real-time visibility and vehicle routing platform. We were awarded the ‘Most Valuable Startup’ Award at the 4th Inflection Summit & Awards, India’s largest Supply Chain, Logistics and Procurement leaders’ conclave, named Business Today’s Coolest Startup 2018, and listed in Deloitte Tech Fast 50 for the third time in a row.

Nisha Harshwal:-You recently acquired Dipper Technologies, how has it helped you expand your business?

Mr. Kushal Nahata:-We joined hands with Dipper Technologies, in a move to digitalize India’s transportation industry and improve it to ensure on-time deliveries with reduced cost of goods movement. The biggest problem in road transportation is lack of data and visibility because of fragmented industry with multiple stakeholders.Dipper’s predictive technology platform provides logistics stakeholders end to end real-time visibility of their chain while enabling them with preventive management tools and easy decision making aided with smart KPIs and analysis.

Historically FarEye catered to carriers and gave them unmatched business benefits. Carriers wanted visibility for their customers – and we picked up from there – wanted create a solution which can revolutionize both the worlds in parallel. With the acquisition of Dipper we have expanded our product offering with FarEye Transportation. The joint comprehensive solution will now enable shippers to gain end to end visibility of the freight and will give them access to preventive tools for optimizing supply chain operations and management. We are now catering to consignors, 3PLs, carriers and consignees alike in the manufacturing and automotive industries.

This investment aligns with our strategy and our goal is to contribute to India’s success story, while growing our business across geographies. FarEye is now a strong team of 200, consulting more than 100 customers – targeting the trillion dollar logistics & supply chain industry, globally.

Nisha Harshwal:-What are your business plans for 2019? Any new geographies you are targeting?

Mr. Kushal Nahata:-We aim to chart new growth milestones in 2019. With a strong presence in India, South East Asia and Middle East we are targeting to further strengthen our presence in the US and Europe markets as well.

Nisha Harshwal:-Next technology-driven solution to be launched in India?

Mr. Kushal Nahata:-We are a product-first company, and, it is something that has now become a part of our DNA. We have already launched the beta version of one of our latest offering- FarEye Maps a significant addition to our portfolio that will give us competitive differentiation and advantage.

Few other offerings that are in the testing phase and will be launched for the wider market soon are: Connectors (aimed to increase our interoperability with other systems thereby helping us make a difference to a broader set of clients) and FarEye Insights. This Machine Learning-based feature will empower clients with intelligent and actionable insights into their delivery process that will help them get closer to achieve their goals of optimum efficiency and delightful deliveries.

Nisha Harshwal:-Expected trends for the logistics industry in 2019?

Mr. Kushal Nahata:-Fuelled by growth in sectors such as manufacturing, retail, e-commerce, food delivery and consumer goods, along with the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST), the demand for logistics and supply chain solutions in India is also on an upward trajectory. 2018 has really been a year of transformation for the sector, owing to the remarkable use of technology and the parallel growth of other sectors which depend upon logistics for their appropriate functioning. It is only natural that 2019 will see a meteoric transformation. Technology has moved from being an enabling function to a driving function.

Some of the key trends that we believe will transform logistics & supply chains in the coming year are:

Blockchain – the use of which grew steadily in 2018, could prove to be a real game-changer in this space moving ahead. The use of this breakthrough technology allows industry players to efficiently track all types of transactions safely and securely. Besides this, the biggest advantage of using blockchain network is that it ensures complete transparency of logistics operations throughout the entire process, until the goods are finally delivered.

Hyper-Personalization & Hyper Localization

Hyperlocalization has been established as a growing need in today’s world, as the consumer demand for instant personalized services has been only growing with time. Businesses are therefore expected to be fast in delivering products, and are focusing on building robust supply chains, which are located close to both, buyer and seller. Various big e-commerce players are already using hyperlocalisation as a part of their strategy and this is going to continue in 2019.

Predictive Multi-Modal Visibility

With global supply chain networks, multimodal transportation networks are only expected to grow. With this increasing complexity of such mesh networks, getting real-time and predictive visibility will be a core area where organizations will focus on. How cutting-edge, modern visibility platforms fit into traditional, manufacturing practices such as JIT, Kanban and how they adapt to each of these specific scenarios is an interesting thing to watch out for.

Optimized Reverse Logistics

It is interesting to note that as much as 30 percent of all orders ordered online are returned compared to only 8.89 percent when purchased from brick-and-mortar shops. Large volumes of returns can put unprecedented pressure on supply chain processes, especially in terms of logistics expenses. Poorly planned reverse logistics can cost businesses upto $260 billion dollars. Optimizing reverse logistics can not only save logistics costs but also help manage inventory better and increase an organizations ability to retain customers.