The company’s USPs are exceptional service quality, individualised delivery solutions, a reach that extends into the Indian heartland as well as across national and international borders and unmatched speed that ensures the shipments reach on time, every time
Blue Dart is South Asia’s most innovative and awarded logistics service provider since its inception in 1983. Over the last 37 years, the organisation has centred the business on providing individualised customer solutions to ensure exceptional service quality. Blue Dart’s award-winning services are supported by its six Boeing 757-200 freighter aircraft offering a payload of over 500 tonnes per night, a flotilla of 11,122 vehicles as well as 2,113 facilities and hubs across 35,000+ locations. A stellar advantage to the Blue Dart brand remains its efficient team, who work in perfect harmony to deliver 30 shipments every second of every day.
Blue Dart has been a part of the Deutsche Post DHL (DPDHL) Group since 2005. In 2019, Blue Dart became a part of the newly restructured DHL E-Commerce Solutions division. This division is geared towards providing high-quality solutions, particularly to customers in the rapidly growing e-commerce industry. Leveraging the group’s footprint, Blue Dart intends to continue being a customer favourite and living up to the group’s motto of ‘Excellence: Simply Delivered’. The company’s USPs are exceptional service quality, individualised delivery solutions, a reach that extends into the Indian heartland and unmatched speed that ensures the shipments reach on time, every time.
Product Portfolio
Blue Dart’s key offerings are the air and ground express segment as well as air freight, speed trucking and charters through its synergies with the Deutsche Post DHL business units – DHL Express, DHL Global Forwarding, DHL Supply Chain and DHL E-Commerce LLP. The global network through DHL Express spans over 220 countries and territories, making Blue Dart the only express logistics company to offer unmatched delivery capability encompassing the entire spectrum of distribution services. In terms of sustainability, Blue Dart is aligned to the group’s Mission 2050: Zero Emissions.
The aim is to reduce the logistics-related emissions to zero through improving carbon efficiency by 50% over the 2007 levels, operate 70% of first and last mile services with clean pick-up and delivery solutions, have 50% of its sales to incorporate ‘green solutions’ and 80% of the employees to be certified ‘Go Green Specialists’ and together with its partners, plant one million trees globally each year, of which Blue Dart will plant over 10% in India every year. As part of DPDHL, Blue Dart’s new sustainability roadmap calls for ‘clean operations for climate protection’, a great company to work for all as well as building a highly trusted brand.
Pioneering Efforts
The company has launched many initiatives to ensure it is doing its bit to aid the world in its battle against climate change and global warming. The company aims to make all their owned or leased facilities operate at ‘net zero carbon’ by 2025, drive increased efficiency and use cleaner fuels within their fleet of six Boeing 757-200 freighters, support customers with sustainable and optimised packaging solutions as well as design greener products and services through comprehensive solutions.
Performance Review
In FY 2021, Blue Dart was honoured to be a part of the Indian government’s ‘Lifeline Udan’ initiative to ensure uninterrupted supply chain continuity of medical equipment, ventilators, personal protective equipment (PPE), testing kits, reagents, enzymes, respirators, surgical masks and gloves, among other vital supplies. The organisation worked closely with the Government of India and several other institutions to ensure door pick-up and door deliveries across several Indian and international cities. Blue Dart operated close to 1,108 flight cycles, uplifting thousands of tonnes nationally and internationally, carrying urgent medical supplies and pandemic-related relief material from Guangzhou, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Dhaka, Yangon and Hanoi during the pandemic.
During the year, Blue Dart carried over 1,853.16 lakhs domestic shipments and over 7.52 lakhs international shipments, both weighing more than 7,18,548 tonnes. “India’s competitiveness, infrastructure development and initiatives of the government have created an ecosystem that is driving the growth of the logistics sector in our country. Post witnessing the second wave of the pandemic, we are cautiously optimistic about what the future holds for the economy. Blue Dart will extend its role as a ‘trade facilitator’ to the nation and will support all its customers’ logistics needs. With our market-leading technology and automation, we intend to continue our longstanding relationship with customers as their provider of choice,” says Balfour Manuel, Managing Director, Blue Dart Express Limited.
“We are committed to staying one step ahead of the curve and continuously outperforming by investing in the brand, people, technology, digitisation and automation to chart a new trajectory as we build our brand for the future,” he adds. Even amidst a highly challenging and volatile environment, Blue Dart outperformed significantly, recording the highest ever sales in a single quarter in its history during the quarter ending December 31, 2020 and the highest in a single month in October 2020. For the year ended March 31, 2021, Blue Dart on a standalone basis reported income from operations of Rs 3,27,970 lakhs as against Rs 3,16,639 lakhs in the previous year and posted net profit after tax on a standalone basis of Rs 9,631 lakhs as against net loss of Rs 3,829 lakhs in the previous year.
Domain Expertise
The world heaved a sigh of relief when a few vaccine candidates received emergency use approval and the dissemination of the vaccine began. However, while manufacturing the vaccine solved a large part of the problem, transporting the vaccine in a temperature-controlled manner posed a potential challenge for governments across the world. To remain one step ahead of the curve and support the government in the distribution of the vaccine, Blue Dart ramped up its temperature-controlled logistics services ahead of time. Blue Dart already has operational experience and specialised infrastructure required for handling bio-medical shipments. This feat is supported by its fleet of six Boeing 757 freighters and 11,122+ ground vehicles servicing 35,000+ locations and a strong Blue Dart team.
Infrastructure Spread
Blue Dart has eight pharmaceutical grade conditioning rooms at strategic locations like Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Pune, Kolkata, Delhi and Bangalore. These rooms are in close proximity to the Blue Dart Aviation Station which reduces turnaround time and aids in speedy delivery. Work-related process flows have been designed and rehearsed across all locations where there are conditioning rooms. The conditioning rooms are constructed of PUF. The room is expandable and is designed by refrigeration and cold room experts. “We understand the criticality of the shipment and have a specialised life science team who are experts in solutions required in this vertical of the business,” says Manuel.
“We have already done our background work in terms of capacity requirements – materials for packaging, availability of data loggers, insulated shippers, walk-in cold room, coolant, network reach, manpower preparedness and technology investment to handle requirements in this direction. Each TCL expert and support staff has been trained to handle all temperature ranges. Additionally, a task force has been created with the DPDHL Group to leverage each other’s strengths in terms of network, vehicles and internal assets. We have access to a global shipping network at scale, a local freezer and storage capacity as well as an in-depth understanding of in-country logistics,” he adds.
Increasing Digitalisation
Blue Dart recorded many firsts during FY 2020-21. One of the significant achievements during this period was the launch of its mobile application ‘My Blue Dart’. The app aims to fulfil all of its customers’ logistics requirements whilst providing individualised on-the-go solutions. Its user-friendly, secure and reliable mobile application will now allow customers to track shipment, locate the nearest Blue Dart store or find out the best pricing anywhere and at any time.
The app offers all the features necessary to have a smooth logistics experience such as:
• Track Dart: It enables the customers to track their shipment anywhere, anytime.
• Location Finder: It benefits the customers by helping them find the nearest Blue Dart store across the country.
• Transit Time and Price Finder: It provides customers with a user-friendly method to find out the best rate while sending or receiving a shipment.
• Schedule a Pick-Up: This is a specialised post-login feature for registered credit customers.
• Contact Us: It helps customers connect with the company’s reliable, responsive and resilient customer service team who will assist them with their queries.
Future Outlook
The future outlook for the express logistics industry is positive owing to several government initiatives that are actively being executed. These include the National Logistics Policy, National Air Cargo Policy, National E-Commerce Policy as well as the dedicated freight roads. In an attempt to propel the growth of the logistics sector even further, the government has also actively invested in logistics parks and included several initiatives in the Union Budget. “The pandemic outbreak damaged India’s most indebted businesses as almost 14% of the country’s imports come from China, making it the nation’s biggest import partner. India is heavily dependent on Chinese imports such as electronics and pharmaceuticals. India also procures almost 70% of its active ingredients for medicines from China. However, a way has been found around this potential problem by giving impetus to the ‘Make in India’ and ‘Vocal for Local’ initiatives. The self-reliance campaign eliminates the need for dependency on external parties and will help India become more self-sufficient,” Manuel concludes.