December 20, 2022, Mumbai, India
During the pandemic, countless supply chains have been crippled around the world due to their outdated systems. Traceability falls apart when certain aspects of the network have to be forcefully shut down due to unprecedented events. Many processes that revolve around deliveries still run with a face-to-face, paper-based signature. Thus, using a digital approach can eliminate the need for face-to-face interactions, improving business both during and after Covid-19.
When looking to improve a business' supply chain, there are several digitalisation options available to help automate each step in this process. Before digitalisation, every step in the supply chain had to be performed manually, as very little was able to be tracked digitally.
The increasing adoption of Industry 4.0 continues to sweep across the world bringing never-seen-before innovative technologies that can completely transform the operations of a supply chain network, company, or procurement process.
The supply chain is demanding digitisation across all industry verticals, including manufacturing, retail, food, and beverage, energy, medical devices, and healthcare.
Supply chains have generated a lot of data over the years, but this has not been analysed to determine its real value. Now, with supply chain databases, analytics is a must. This will help reduce congestion and speed up decision-making, transforming the supply chain by optimising resources and making systems more efficient.
But the story is different for SMEs. As per the Ministry of Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises, India has more than 7.9 million MSMEs, which will be the major contributor to the country’s success stories. The government in July 2021 announced the inclusion of retail and wholesale traders as MSMEs to strengthen the sector and boost economic growth. Giving more vent to the sector, in the same year in November, the government launched the Special Credit Linked Capital Subsidy Scheme (SCLCSS) for the services sector. This scheme will help enterprises in the services sector meet various technological requirements.
In line with the government’s agenda of bringing down logistics cost to GDP to 8% by 2030 from the current 14%, Aurobees is participating to uplift and transform the way SMEs work. As SMEs lack the bandwidth to acquire the required working capital and compete with established industry players, Aurobees platform ensures them a complete makeover for their business by creating a website, webstore and establishing their footprint in the right marketplace. It enhances business automation by providing end-to-end supply chain fulfilment from order management, B2B /B2C warehousing and last-mile distribution.
Along similar lines, Aurobees’ Business Payments Platform (BPP) facilitates invoice financing and commercial card payment, a form of short-term borrowing to the customers, shortening the days' sales outstanding. The platform facilitates businesses to collect cash immediately without waiting for the customers to pay against the amount due on invoices issued which keeps working capital stable. Thus, avoiding credit and cash flow problems.
Healthy deliberations among policymakers and industry players on revitalising India’s logistics industry are much needed to enhance its contribution to the economic growth potential of the country. The performance of the logistics sector in India has never been more compelling. A robust logistics sector can go a long way in boosting India’s quest for being a manufacturing giant given initiatives like ‘Make in India’. Increasingly, companies across the world are looking at the world for a unified production base and a market that a competitive logistics sector can successfully tap into.