BDP International, India Managing Director Pavithran M Kallada in an exclusive interview with Freightcomms to capture his thoughts on the situation of the logistics industry and the fast adoption of technology. 

What are your views on global digital freight forwarding? Is the launch of  BDP GO a stepping stone for BDP to change as a digital freight forwarder? 

Digitization is not anymore as a buzzword, but it is a reality and that’s a compulsion today in the new environment for a business to go forward. BDP has always embraced digital initiative in logistics years before and we were among the early adopter of technology in supply chain services which digitally interface with our various stake holders externally and internally both of our internal and external stakeholders . When I talk about digitization we started as a phase from internal and then externally to certain way I won’t be wrong even stating that bit earlier than the market fully ready but today it is the market which began demanding or probably heading ourways.

BDP has its customer facing technology such BDP Smart®, SMART Vū® which have been well integrated with our customers and provides them an end to end visibility.  It is not in the form of just track and trace but also giving a customer tool which enables them to analyse their business and supply chain milestones and key components which enable them to make decisions faster. 

The launch of BDP GO will take us to the next level wherein customers can have one click international freight shopping 24×7. BDP GO also enables instant and transparent freight comparison, booking, and tracking until cargo delivery to final destination. 

BDP GO streamlines and simplifies the shipping experience for our customers, while still maintaining the high level of service that BDP stands behind. There are many digital apps on the market, but BDP GO takes it a step further by integrating the operational components to enable a customer end to end visibility from the freight procurement till the executions and delivery combined. 

The key objective of BDP GO is to enhance and simplify the entire shipping experience and GO and establish BDP as a future generation freight solution company. 

As a Global Freight Forwarding Co what is BDP’s business strategy in this global pandemic situation?  What are views on paperless bill of lading and how do you think it will help businesses scale up and will BDP adopt the e-bill service for its customers?

BDP is not limiting itself as a logistics provider, we are a solutions provider to a customer having supply chain processes being part with an end to end visibility and freight forwarding is one of the supply chain activities in the processes. So that in mind BDP India has similarly operated a global system. One system, is our strategy. 

We have integrated with various stakeholders in the system of a customer to have an end to end visibility. That’s in terms of domestic logistics as well as international shipping with a combination of Air Freight and Ocean Freight. BDP understands the new way of doing business in this changing environment and we are focused on giving our customers a self- service capability in a way that they can transact electronically and do the data transmission digitally.

BDP is basically integrating with our customers to manage the show. As soon as the orders are ready we are then  in a position to take and dispatch all planning components then digitally book the shipment with carriers – and all of this can be done with a digital interface in the system.

We are making it a complete digital experience for our customers. As we are already operating on cloud- based platforms we can function remotely and we have already adopted the functionality of working from home with this new changing situation due to Covid-19 

The blockchain adoption process has already started in the US and soon we can see the implementation happening in India as well. That will add value to our entire digital ecosystem.

As BDP is a key player in the chemical industry, with the increasing incidence of the container ships caused by  chemical cargoes do you think Freight Forwarders need to change the DG Cargo handling strategy?

BDP has a strong base of global customers and we have a specialization in handling chemical shipments. The chemical handling needs high levels of compliance and DG handling which is why we also have a DGR training process for our employees for chemical processing. 

Dangerous Good handling is very critical and we are making sure that the cargo handling is done with a deep level of  knowledge, expertise and compliance ethics. Chemical shippers should be aware and made aware of the changing international trade compliances and rules to reduce the number of incidence at sea. 

How is the company managing the operations of the business considering the lockdown in India?   

BDP fundamentally believes that our people are our asset. With our process, technology and business model. Throughout the entire process of business continuity planning, we knew our number one priority remains the safety and well-being of our teams. We established our BCP with this in mind, and once adopted in February and we were also able to have an interface of stakeholders related to customs, ports and carriers.

We managed to prepare our workforce to keep them mentally prepared with the reality of the situation and also, we made necessary arrangements to work in line with the government guidelines to keep the operations running smoothly. We made PPE kits available for the field operations at a no compromise on safety rule and social distancing guidelines. 

As a global player in logistics did the company experience any sort of blocks in the movement of goods globally ?  

Yes, I would put this in Indian context as my area of responsibility, we have experienced the disruption of COVID-19 19 at the initial stage of the pandemic say April and May as the country was under full lock down leaving apart the essential services and industries (of course, logistics remained as an essential service) . However, as the ease in lock down began and more industry started operating in June could see the momentum shaping up.

The labour which eluded the workplace and industry belt started coming back as well as warehouses, CFS and port were fully operations we could see the shipments moving since June. However, the consumption impact is still persistent in the market and many factories are still holding inventories since the retail market, shopping mall etc still not fully operational and until consumption pick up, we could see this trend to continue. We have seen slowly the manufacturing companies starting the production and export shipments which were struck earlier now being shipped out.

Further we also seeing many manufacturing company gradually ramping up the production in India as an alternate to China for many of the products however it all depends up on India’s capability to quickly adopt and make ourselves to be competent and competitive for the global markets in terms of consistent supply.