Play Fair, Be Honest - DB Schenker

Responses on behalf of Vishal Sharma, Chief Executive Officer, Cluster India and Indian Sub-Continent
1. Can you please give an overview of your professional background leading up to and including your current role?
Being the Chief Executive Officer – Cluster India and Indian Sub-Continent at DB Schenker India, my role defines responsibilities around key focused areas such as Contract Logistics (3PL), Land Transport, Ocean and Air Freight. Over my past two years with the company, I have been closely overseeing the expansion of our service portfolio across key markets through global collaborations.
I have a history in the logistics and supply chain industry having previously worked as the CEO of DAMCO (India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka), and have also led operations as the CEO of Gateway Rail Freight Ltd. (GRFL) – India’s largest private rail operator.
2. What have been some of the significant highlights of DB Schenker India history?
DB Schenker in India started its operations in 1996 and since then the journey of the company is on a growing trend. Some of our significant highlights are as follows:
 Becoming a 100% subsidiary of Schenker AG in 2002
 Merger with BAX Global in 2007
 Bangladesh Go Live under the India Cluster
 Launch of connect 4 Ocean
 Obtaining our Insurance license in 2019
… the list goes on.
3. What are some of DB Schenker India’s key values and beliefs? How important is customer’s satisfaction?
We have an in-depth understanding of the consumer industry and offer innovative and responsive logistics solutions. Our numerous consumer industry partners trust us to optimize the supply chains of their business-to-consumer organizations and have done so for years. We work closely with each of our customers to develop customized solutions.
Customer satisfaction is one of the vital factors for us. We at DB Schenker also offer a variety of supplementary services from customs clearance, co-packing, fulfillment, production supply, project shipments, fairs and exhibitions services to eco-friendly transport.
4. What do you think sets your business apart from its competitors?
We have seen a tremendous opportunity in expanding our domestic logistics offerings through contract logistics and land transport, post GST implementation. The whole concept of moving goods from one place to another is changing with the improvement of road infrastructure. With more companies starting to realize the importance of a specialist who understands the changing landscape, it allows us an opportunity to lead the space. Therefore, we are constantly following this trend and helping customers to design supply chains thereby making them more adaptive and resilient. One such initiative is the reduction of lead time in long-haul movements by efficient track / trace / ongoing run time of the vehicle.
DB Schenker’s customer base in India had a lot of European multinationals, however since last year, 50 percent of the organization’s business is coming from the Indian companies who are redesigning their supply chains.
5. How have you found the industry in India?
We offer a complete range of international air and ocean freight, contract logistics and global supply chain solutions from a single source. With 35 office locations and more than 52 warehouses covering more than 3.5 million sq. ft. of warehousing space, we want to serve our customers end-to-end logistics solutions across the world.
India is a priority market for DB Schenker globally and with the growth triggered by the implementation of GST, the company is aggressively focusing on developing local logistics capabilities to capitalize on India’s growing market. The logistics industry witnessed a huge growth in 2019. Trends such as advanced automation, IoT, last-mile delivery services by companies, growth of start-ups, and process digitization were some of the major developments in the industry. A few of these trends were initiated and practiced by logistics leaders globally and are planned underway in India.
With the current lockdown situation due to the COVID – 19 outbreak in the country, the logistics sector is severely hit. While the government is taking all necessary steps to ease the movement of goods, it’s important for the industry to focus on new-age technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) which will be critical to next generation supply chains due to higher turnaround times to respond to emergencies.
6. How important is culture to the business? How do you instill this in your employees?
Culture cannot be separated from business and we embarked on a culture transformation journey a few years ago. Today culture plays a significant role in our day to day activities as the same is in line with our internal program “PRIMUS” (in Latin it implies First). We have PRIMUS for Growth, Culture & Efficiency. Our culture is embedded in our purpose statement “We advance businesses and lives by shaping the way our world connects”. Our values again continue to incorporate our culture.
 Play fair, be honest. …
 Be one team with one goal. …
 Walk the talk. …
 Win together. …
 Push limits. …
 Take customers further.
We are in a culture transformational journey to have employees & customers in the center of all our strategic initiatives. Increased level of transparency, frequency of communication & an inclusive approach are some of the fundamental changes we have brought in to impart the culture of our organization.
7. What are the plans for the future in terms of expansion and growth?
Schenker India plans to scale up its operations in the country by expanding its warehousing capacity as well as deploying technological solutions capable of processing shipments at a quicker pace. We have been proactive in adopting digital technologies to keep pace with ever-evolving industry demands and the existing online platform eSchenker features, like its track and trace capabilities, are meant to improve fluidity and transparency. Further, there are opportunities to introduce new and advanced technologies such as scanning, auto picking, and locational capabilities, at our upcoming facilities over the next few years.
We have a state-of-the-art Enterprise Lab for Logistics and Digitization in Germany which offers the best location and resources to innovate, develop, and test new solutions. DB Schenker has also collaborated with IAM Robotics to create ‘Warehouse of the Future’ with the aim to lead to automation within the logistics business of the company with the minimization of human involvement in various processes.
8. What strategies does DB Schenker India have in place to improve your supply chain and build long term relationships with key partners?
Our aim is to develop a solution that would help our customers manage their supply chains, optimize inventories and significantly reduce logistics costs. We are using artificial intelligence (AI), especially for our internal processes, predicting market trends, network optimization, route management, and freight rates where large sets of data are available and accessible.
We at DB Schenker understand that managing supply chain logistics can be a complex process. Creating a network among many business partners across key markets while catering to each individual’s requirements can be a challenge. Keeping this into consideration, with support of our worldwide network of branches DB Schenker in India connects all-important global economic regions and offers logistics solutions tailor-made to the customers’ requirements. We cover all stages of the supply chain – from supplier to customer delivery, from reverse logistics to aftermarket support, in different industries such as automotive, pharma, infrastructure, and so on.
9. What are some of the key goals Mr. Vishal Sharma and DB Schenker India company have achieved since they’ve begun their role as the MD?
2019 was a successful year for us as DB Schenker India witnessed developments in terms of innovations, expansions and policies. Early last year, Schenker India announced plans for growth – we will be strengthening our local footprint and are set to double warehousing capacity by 2022. Later in the year, we launched DB Schenker’s new digital forward online booking portal, Connect 4.0, in India to provide a hassle-free logistics experience to small, medium and large organizations.
10. How does DB Schenker India collaborate with and develop relationships with key suppliers and what benefits as a company do you see from this collaboration?
In our general conversation instead of using the word “supplier”, we use the phrase “Partners” as we value our partners more than ever. They are an extension of our organization with a different label, however we wanted the flow of communication and needs including compliance expectation to be 100% aligned with our partners. Our partners at times remain the face to our customers doing the first mile and last mile legs or supporting an integral part of the supply chain. Hence our partners play an extremely significant role & we collaborate with them in multi-dimensions. Collaboration starts with win-win positions for both organization, technology advancements, IT integrations and automation possibilities that will allow our partners to work with us collaboratively. We treat them as one among us than our “Supplier” which again gives them an inclusive approach towards business needs. They continue to grow with us & also become loyal to DB Schenker in India. We have various collaborative partners in place for brokerage activities, land transport, strategic supplier for Material Handling Equipment (MHE) & Automation equipment, etc.