In the contemporary business world, logistics plays a vital role in the success of modern businesses. From transportation to supply chain and storage, companies need to have a robust logistics network to stay competitive. Staying plugged into relevant and emerging trends to stay at the forefront of advancements and remain competitive, the best logistics firms offer innovative and user-friendly logistics solutions for simplifying the highly complex processes of modern industry.
Stockarea is a logistics network company for modern-day business transportation, logistics, supply chain and storage. It provides services for any business that needs support in managing freight and shipping costs, meeting service agreements, automating job scheduling, and tracking and optimizing transit time and routes.
J Vinoth Raja, CEO and Co-founder, is a visionary leader who understands the importance of logistics in today’s business landscape and is utilizing embedded technology to capitalize on better logistics management strategies. Vinoth’s leadership and vision have been instrumental in establishing the logistics network as a leader in the industry, providing innovative and user-friendly logistics solutions for simplifying the highly complex processes of modern business.
As an experienced logistics leader, Vinoth has been in the industry for six years. He started his entrepreneurial journey as CTO of VirtualGodown, where he gained insights regarding B2B trade and the fragmented logistics of the Indian Logistics Market.
Without external VC funds, Vinoth has made Stockarea a multiple-million-dollar startup providing services to 300+ clients in India. He has great practical knowledge of Domestic and Global Supply chain functions. We at CIOLook interviewed Vinoth on his passion for utilizing embedded technologies to capitalize on future logistics management strategies.
Let’s get enlightened by this illuminating interview!
Please brief our audience about your firm, its USPs, and how you are currently positioned as one of the best-performing supply chain management providers.
The logistics market in India for SMEs is highly fragmented, lacks tech adaptation and runs on manual data entry with a service-driven approach where one vendor equals one service. This results in unreliable vendors, rigid service commitments and a lack of standardization.
Indian Logistics Market for SMEs runs on regional Transporter, Warehouse/Godam operators and gives no unified way to export or import from global markets.
To achieve One Supply Chain objective, an organization coordinates with multiple Logistics Service Providers, each possessing its SLAs and goals, resulting in a business working with 100+ vendors and setting up its Supply chain team to manage and control the operations. Typically, an organization works with 100+ logistics vendors, manages multiple data sources, and has internal teams for constant external coordination. These vendors are region specific, offer poor service, stay on passing the buck attitude and charge opportunistically with a common practice of mishandling inventory.
Stockarea is an end-to-end tech-enabled supply chain management company. Stockarea provides PAN India warehousing (3PL) services, full truck loads, freight forwarding and customs clearance services.
Stockarea works as a Logistics Interface for Indian manufacturers and distributors, enabling it to store and move its goods via its curated network of infrastructure partners across India and the globe. Manufacturers and distributors control their entire supply chain via an In-house technology platform built to monitor and track the goods.
Stockarea is the only supply chain partner a firm needs because of its wide range of services capability, customized solutions and technology.
Tell us more about your firm’s offering and what makes it stand out in the cutthroat competition.
Stockarea has built its capabilities with under-utilized fragmented logistics infrastructure across the country. Stockarea focuses on building logistics solutions that help streamline one’s import, export and distribution requirements, which involves freight forwarding, warehousing, Trade Compliance (Customs and DGFT) and FTLs (Full Truck Loads). Our innovative solutions focus on adding the required elasticity and optimising the available resources.
What professional qualities and values do you think your clients admire in you the most?
The supply chain is the most crucial aspect for any client. A single order not processed on time impacts the relationship with the client. Stockarea’s core values lie in ensuring the client succeeds and has a resilient and flexible supply chain or organization. Stockarea operates 24*7 to confirm the order reaches on time, and everything remains tracked via technology.
We understand every breakpoint, ensure no single issue repeats, and that the entire Stockarea team partners with clients instead of just being a service provider.
Our motto remains ‘One partner, One Technology, One support to organizations in India.
Our process, compliance and presentation stand out. Traditional LSP focuses majorly on service completion. In our case, we operate one layer on top of these LSP; hence we can differentiate on the above lines.
As an experienced leader, share your opinion on how adopting modern technologies like AI and ML impacts the supply chain management solution space and how your company adapts to the change.
Stockarea Technology is a single platform for businesses to store, move & track inventory across India and the world.
Stockarea Technology offers:
- Order Management System.
- Price Discovery – Road/Ocean/Air freight.
- Booking – Road/Ocean/Air freight.
- Documentation Management.
- Project Management.
- Supply Chain Design.
A combination of the above features generates data that enable companies to prevent delays, detentions and demurrages before they happen.
Also, insights generated via ML from the technology allow organizations to spot missing sales opportunities, address potential issues and delays and provide ways to optimize the cost.
Considering the current industry scenario, what challenges do you face, and how do you drive your firm to overcome them?
Our service offerings are in line with the global giants. We are dependent on the market for our service offerings. Maintaining the service levels at scale with 100% market dependency will be challenging. We are looking to strategically build assets for 25% of our business volume.
What would you advise budding entrepreneurs aspiring to venture into supply chain management?
A supply chain is vast. No one player can capture a significant market share, and there is a space for many companies to thrive in the space. The entire supply chain cost is more than 15% of the Indian GDP, and any organization spends at least 15-20% of its expenses in the space.
The market is huge to enter in and form a place for yourself. Ever evolving supply chain creates multiple voids in the system. Find these voids and give a tech-based solution to the Indian Brands. Remember, the supply chain works on relationships, builds technology to handle operations, and forms strong internal customer-friendly processes to service your customers.
How do you envision scaling your brand’s operations and offerings in the future?
Stockarea aims to capture 8-10% of the Indian supply chain market in the next ten years. Our increased reliance on technology to manage operations allows us to scale fast. We add 10+ clients to our portfolio monthly and aim to improve our marketing and Sales costs to bring 50+ clients each month.
Our Awards and Customers’ positive feedback are a testament to our success. We have been awarded The Best Warehousing Startup in the Country by ISCM India Mumbai.
Customer testimonials:
“Stockarea is a perfect fit for business. Their on-point solutions allow us to store and distribute our goods from six locations in India. We highly recommend them to be used for warehousing and distribution and imports.” – Mr Pavan, Krannich Solar.
“Stockarea allows us to track and manage our entire distribution network from Digital Warehouse. Their support is excellent and always enable us to reach our customer on time.” – Mr Arvind, Loom Solar.
“We at LONESTAR GLASS INDUSTRIES have been associated with Stockarea since its beginning; great customer support, the best network, pricing and above all, great teamwork. I would definitely recommend working with them.” – Mr Arif, LoneStar Glass.
“We have been working with StockArea for almost a year now, and the experience has been good so far. It helps to cut down additional warehousing costs.” – Mr Purvil, Dubaria Computers.
“Stunning service, best in my business experience to date. Stockarea provides unmatched service in every vertical it deals in, may be warehousing, freight forwarding or logistics. Strongly recommended!” – Mr Nishant, ISC CleanTech India.
“For the last six months, we’ve been using Stockarea’s services in Chennai, Bengaluru, and Mumbai. Their platform enables my team to Book on-demand Transport and controls warehousing efficiently. Additionally, the support staff is excellent.” – Mr Gowtham, AeroPlast.
