“Dream is not what you see in sleep, dream is something which does not let you sleep,” stated former President late Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, often referred to as ‘Missile Man of India’ and inarguably the most popular people’s President. This profound quote’s significance comes to the fore whenever we come across successful people in their own fields, be it sports, arts, medicine or technology; and for sure, entrepreneurs in the MSME segment contributing significantly to the economic growth should be one amongst this special class of citizens. It was indeed a unique and inspirational experience for us at MOTORINDIA to interact with one such first generation trailblazing entrepreneur in the competitive logistics segment – his group firms clocking Rs. 156 crores turnover in FY18 and implementing plans to quadruple this by the year 2021. The company is Triway Group, Chennai and headed by Mr. N. Ravishankar, Chairman & Managing Director, who started his career as an entry level white-collar employee in a Customs broking firm. However he dared to dream big and today he heads the group comprising 5 companies and employing 800 people. Read on for the interesting tête-à-tête.
Ace troubleshooter
Mr. Ravishankar started his career as a junior clearing assistant with a small-time custom broker before joining in 1979 the firm Air Freight Pvt. Ltd., Chennai, where he spent over 11 years in various aspects of imports and exports operations. He loved challenges and was soon adept at solving various pressing issues cropping up in air and sea freight operations. He was identified as an ace troubleshooter and the demanding assignments handled gave him a wide exposure in understanding the bottlenecks and problems faced by both exporters and importers. After moving out of the company and working as one of the five directors of a startup firm in the same field, he decided to take the plunge alone by starting Triway Forwarders Pvt. Ltd. in 1994 with 18 employees. He says: “Invaluable past experience enabled me to identify the opportunities for a faster growth. With a humble beginning in the routine business, I soon started focusing on select segments to charter growth. Textiles and garments was my chosen field and soon started handling all operations of imports and exports of textiles and textile machinery so much so that I knew every operation of the machinery and every count of the yarn.
Troubleshooting days helped me to crack the set procedures in the field. I recall here two such cases. For textiles export, the fabric samples were tested at Customs dept in-house lab which invariably took about a month to furnish the final report. To hasten the procedure, BGs were obtained which involved cash outflows. During that time, textile committee at Chennai had installed sophisticated testing equipment in its lab to facilitate quality checks of exports; and they were not having enough customers availing the opportunity. I sensed the opportunity here and enabled Customs coming under MOF to linkup with textile committee’s lab coming under MOT in testing samples; and by co-ordinating all the agencies, cut down time drastically to get the report within 3 days from the date of sample submission. This approach was notified subsequently as the procedure by Customs dept and replicated later at other locations to benefit all.”
He was also instrumental in cutting down financial losses to an exporter because of Customs seal put on the metal tape for 100% EOU export cartons getting stuck in the conveyors during handling at overseas countries – same causing damages to the conveyor and hence the claims by importer for reimbursements. By getting the Customs seal removed at the Customs station after inspections and before exports, the problem was overcome. Needless to say this procedure was also replicated at other locations as well to aid exporters.
Specialisation spurs growth
Proactive approach in sorting out customer issues, specialisation and wide gamut of services resulted in Triway being much sought after by many of the manufacturers of textile related items. Big business opportunities that came by enabled them to expand in all related segments. CHA (Customs House Agent or Customs Broker) divisions were set up in Mumbai, Delhi apart from Chennai, B’lore and Tutiocorin. Over a period of time with competition picking up, they have limited their operations to places in T.N. and B’lore.
Looking at the avenues for growth, Mr. Ravishankar mentions: “Our USPs are expertise on the job, trained expert manpower and strong financial background. To give better and cost effective service, we set up CFS (Container Freight Station) and transport division. Currently we have 5 companies under the group. Triway Forwarders Pvt. Ltd., Triway Global forwarding Pvt. Ltd., Triway Container Freight station Pvt. Ltd., Waymark Logistics (India) Pvt. Ltd., and Route Logistics India Pvt. Ltd. While Triway and Waymark companies are focusing on CHA & CFS, Route Logistics focuses on transportation and related operations. Exports account for 60% of the business, essentially on textiles segment and 40% on imports, most of which are also connected with exports business. 80% of the imports are in textiles field while 20% account for the balance like metal scrap, food products, pharmaceuticals, project cargo and chemicals.”
Route Logistics has about 130 trucks in their fleet; and the CFS located in north Chennai at about 19 km from Chennai port is the largest in the area. It is located on a 30 acre land, has a warehouse floor area of 2.5 lakh sq. ft. and open yard for 3000 container ground capacity. They have their own equipment for CFS operations, viz., 5 nos. rail mounted gantry cranes, 3 nos. reach stackers and 40 different materials handling equipment like forklift, cranes and roll catcher. The services offered include imports & exports of LCL & FCL cargo, bonded storage, A/C storage, container repair and general support. The vehicles fleet comprises trucks and tractor trailers ranging from sub 3 ton to 49 ton GVW ratings. In the range up to 16 ton GVW they have Tata trucks, 25 ton to 40 ton GVW both integral chassis and tractor trailers of Ashok Leyland and 49 ton GVW, MAN tractor trailers. Overall they have 90 tractor trailers and plan to procure about 15 more 49 ton tractor trailers for their expansion plans. About 120 drivers are under their direct employment and provided with all facilities and statutory benefits. They have their own workshop at the CFS to attend miscellaneous service works and have tie-ups with third party service providers with workshop at strategic locations to attend en route problems in vehicles.
Thrust on distribution management
Triway is focusing on the transport and distribution verticals to move up to a higher orbit. Mr. Ravishankar indicates: “We are expanding our operations in a big way under Route Logistics. In the 40 ft container transport thro’ trailers, say in transport to a factory at B’lore, over 72 hours are spent from entry to exit after reaching B’lore outskirts; major time wasted due to traffic restrictions and unloading operations at the factory. To cut down the delays, we are planning distribution centres near the cities. This will enable the trailers to unload cargo and make their way back in less than 36 hours; and cargo delivered to customers thro’ LCVs that have no issues of movement thro’ cities. In transport business the money is earned with the spinning of truck wheels and thro’ efficient management of systems, equipment and manpower, we aim to maximize the movement of trucks. Also to cut down costs, we offer to destuff the 40 ft containers at our CFS and transport the goods in 20 ft containers. The return load for 20 ft container ensures overall economy resulting in lower costs to customer. Yes, logistics costs can be brought down in many ways and distribution centre is going to play a crucial role in our future plans.”
Mr. Ravishankar opts to invest in equipment and vehicles as he opines the risk reward is better than in the asset light model. GST has not made any significant impact on his operations and opines if the time wastage at the toll plazas are minimised, the transit times can be shortened. Logistics costs in port related operations stand at 12.5% and sees no possibility of reduction in the absence of a tariff authority. Once the logistics wing is established by the Govt and different charges like payments to steamer agent, CHA, CFS, port and transportation are fixed, the logistics costs can be brought down to 6 to 8%, he adds.
Triway’s impressive run in the domain has been achieved by identifying new business opportunities where none existed, focusing on operations to excel and offering innovative and cost effective solutions. In continuation of their success formula, transportation and distribution are on their radar for expansions and the company will be going all out in the next couple of months to start addressing the customer needs. Mr. Ravishankar now has the new dream to achieve the revenue target of Rs. 500 crores in 3 years; and this could be readily discerned by noting the effusive passion and intense energy exhibited during the interaction – and yes, Dr. A.P.J. Kalam was spot on about the dream interpretation in his memorable quote.