Schedulers Logistics India is a recent entrant in the bio pharma space. In the last three months, the company provides its services to 10 customers ranging from blood plasma to vaccines to APIs to antibiotics. Akshay Sharma – Chief Operating Officer, Schedulers Logistics India shares the company’s plans with Usha Sharma
How big is the Indian pharmaceutical cold chain market and how fast is it growing annually? What is your projection from the current financial year?
Indian pharmaceuticals market is dominated majorly by branded generics which constitute nearly 70 to 80 per cent of the market. The Indian pharma industry is estimated to grow at 20 per cent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over the next five years. Also, growing at an average rate of about 20 per cent, India’s biotechnology industry comprising bio-pharma, bio-services, bio-agriculture, bio-industry and bio-informatics may reach the $7 billion mark by the end of FY15. Biopharma is the largest sector contributing about 62 per cent of the total revenue, with revenue generation to the tune of over Rs 12,600 crores ($2.03 billion). The bio-pharma sector comprises vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics. The Indian pharma cold chain market is evolving, and will grow in the light of the above two industries growing. One could say that the market is evolving and hence it is little difficult to put in exact numbers.
What per cent of the market share has been captured by the Schedulers Logistics and how do you plan to expand it further?
We are a recent entrant in the bio pharma space and in the last three months have signed and are servicing 10 customers ranging from blood plasma to vaccines to APIs to antibiotics. From the interaction we have had with the customers and market intelligence gathered from point of retail we shall be carving out “Schedulers+” with dedicated resources and people to serve the pharma space with a service span to cater from bulk movement to last mile delivery to retail outlet ensuring temperature adherence and visibility pan India. Our growth will be based on offering tailor made solutions ensuring adherence to GDP with visibility to customer.
How much investment did Soros Economic Development Fund (SEDF) made in the company in July 2014, and currently what are the stake holding patterns?
SEDF has committed Rs 20 crores in four tranches of which we have received three. The stake is currently held equally between the promoters, tiger warehousing and SEDF.
What services do you offer to the pharma sector and who are your major clients?
Currently, we are offering transportation service between from the factory gates to the C&F location. This could be a truck load or load as low as 500 kg ensuring temperature adherence. In the near future we shall be offering multi temperature movements, multi temperature city distribution to ensure economies and end to end cold chain adherence.
Is your service cost effective and how?
Our costs are heavily optimised due to clever scheduling, reverse logistics and consolidation. However such costs are not at the expense of quality parameters in cold chain which is very essential to human life. Besides we are not willing to take short cuts and are digging in for the long term. Customers continue to find value in our service.
The Indian pharma industry is facing quality issues in the global pharma market, and regulators are trying to fix the gaps and supply chain players need to play an important role. How difficult and challenging it is for the logistic players?
Good Distribution Practice (GDP) is an important issue which needs to be addressed by Indian logistics player as most of the international cold chain operators working in India for surface movement rely on local resources available in India and simply outsource the orders domestically. What a customer gets is only brand name without content. We at schedulers are working on developing a seamless chain from the manufacturing location to the point of retail ensuring temperature and time adherence ensuring online visibility. This means we need to enhance our capability to handle small quantities ensuring temperature sensitivity of the given drug.
What is the USP of Schedulers Logistics and tell us about the company’s business strategies?
Schedulers Logistics has been built on the ethos of providing value to the customer through lean logistics for cost optimisation and business excellence. This has been the thought behind extending our reach to over 100+ towns that the customers can leverage on besides taking advantage of our less than container load offerings of as low as 500 kg, which in the coming days will be brought down to 10 kg.
Schedulers is one of the few players operating in tier II & III towns in India that offers temperature-controlled loads as small as 500 kg. How relevant and useful it is in the pharma sector?
Schedulers understand the sensitivity of the pharma sector. The consignments are compact and light but could be very expensive and rare. It is not so much the bulk but the value of it as a life saving necessity. Hence care and quality is of utmost importance here. Schedulers Express LCL service ensures temperature adherence along with economies.
The company offers services to food and pharma sector. Which sectors are money makers and how are you going to expand it further?
Food and pharma sectors are both recession free to a large extent but then they are very price sensitive in nature due to direct impact on the consumers. Schedulers has always taken care to understand these concerns and the service offerings are steady in their price points and heavily optimised. Our pricing mechanism is directly linked to input costs. This we share with our customers upfront and hence all their decisions are based on a value approach to cold chain management. We strongly believe is offering service delight and in near future we shall be playing a important role in giving reach to farmers and pharma manufacturers on pan India basis by innovative service offerings.
u.sharma@expressindia.com