The Transport Corporation of India (TCI) Group, the largest private sector integrated logistics firm in the country, will be celebrating six decades of its excellence by becoming a powerhouse of repute in the logistics and transportation sector in the country. Founded in 1958 by Mr. P.D. Agarwal in Kolkata, TCI started working with just one man, one office and one truck and has now evolved itself to be the leading surface transport player with its own and outsourced fleet of 9,000 + vehicles (trailers and trucks) and providing comprehensive multimodal solutions for all cargo dimensions or product segments.
The TCI Group is composed of six general divisions – including TCI Freight, TCI XPS, TCI Supply Chain Solution, TCI Global, TCI Seaways and TCI Foundation. Out of its total business, TCI generates around 32 per cent from Freight, 26 per cent from Supply Chain and 28 per cent from Express divisions with the balance 15 per cent derived from other divisions. Supported by 1,400 fully-computerized company-owned offices, it has a workforce of 5,000 + employees and is moving 2.5 per cent of India’s GDP by value of cargo.
Mr. Vineet Agarwal, Managing Director, TCIL, has been instrumental in bringing the modern business practices in the company. In an exclusive interaction with MOTORINDIA, he said: “The logistics industry was basically perceived as the transportation industry (in India). However, the basic components of logistics are transportation, warehousing, packaging, inventory management and controlling losses and cost of the inventory, etc. Over the last many years, most of the thought process as was always on road transportation. Now, over time people have been talking about multimodal logistics comprising rail, inland waterways, sea and other forms of logistics. From the customer’s perspective, they have always talked about logistics as ‘transportation’. Now they are looking at a larger perspective, towards solutions.”
It is to be mentioned here that TCI provides a single-window solution for all cargo transportation services ranging from door-to-door distribution, time committed high-value cargo delivery to handling of over-dimensional cargo.
“We have been introducing many services as demanded by customers such as basic transportation, warehousing, express cargo solutions, JIT logistics management with value-added activities in the warehouses, multimodal transportation, etc. That in many ways is the way we have been able to transform ourselves by responding to the needs of the customers. The way we have responded is by creating a professional team and mindset around the clients’ needs. That automatically helped us to move away from regular transportation and become a holistic logistics service provider,” added Mr. Agarwal.
However, he maintained that although rail, sea and air transportation will witness an unprecedented boom, the road transport segment will also see a sustained growth over the next decade.
Talking about its road freight business, he stated: “It is the bedrock of the economy and is something from which we have originated from. Road transport is a more controlled and portable medium and grows along with GDP growth and has a lot of potential going forward. Moreover, trucking is a more favoured mode of cargo movement over railways in transportation as it has the advantage of its last-mile service. The trucking service scores over the railways as it offers both pick-up and delivery at the clients’ premises. In the present scenario, consumers are extremely time-sensitive. Therefore, most people are in favour of deploying their own trucks for the last mile, especially the e-commerce start-ups.
Further, TCI Freight offers the entire spectrum of solutions from full truck load (FTL) to less than truck load (LTL), sundry and project heavy haul (PHH) under Surface Transport, in addition to containers, wagons and special automotive wagons to full train movement under rail logistics. It is also into over-dimensional cargo (ODC), for which it has its own hydraulic axles and trailers.
Now TCI Freight is fully equipped to provide total transport solutions backed by its extensive and strategically located branch network and trained workforce.
Referring to the changing trends in the Indian logistics sector, he observed: “We are moving towards multimodal logistics, better value -added services in terms of tracking and all those parameters for improvement. More tech orientation in terms of business are the factors which will help the road transportation business in the long run. Tracking and GPS technology for shipment assures customers of reliability and access at any time and at any place. Combined with customer care cells handling all queries efficiently, clients have access to their shipment with IT applications that cater to the logistics industry.”
The TCI Group, with revenues of over Rs. 2,700 crores, has grown to become India’s leading integrated supply chain solutions provider with its global presence and is projecting a 10-12 per cent growth this financial year.