BENGALURU: In India, carriers operate on thin margins that leave little room for extra costs. The sensors and software needed to automatically monitor a far-flung delivery network would add as much as $1 to the price of each shipment. According to the survey by Frost & Sullivan transportation and logistics consultant, there are less than 15 Pct Indian logistic companies using most common electronic tracking technologies, largely because such systems are too expensive. Technology adoption in the Indian logistics market is still significantly lower than expected levels of a developing nation.

V Express decided to set up its distribution hubs with a messaging program that allows them to log when they receive or send out a shipment into a central database. Service representatives then only need to ping the program to get an update on a customer’s package.

 The company is using a messaging system called Teamchat, developed by Webaroo Inc., which costs $1 per user per month for each of the 150 employees on the system. V-Xpress, which started using Teamchat three months ago, employees log each time a vehicle is loaded, entering the number of packages on board, the destination and other information.

The system has cut down on the calls customer representatives once had to make to different distribution centers in order to locate a package, and the increased visibility has also helped the company save money by reducing the rate of loss and theft.

Results from adoption of Teamchat App:

· The average new annual contracts signed were about 45/month. After adopting Teamchat, these went up to 75/month as they were able to monitor the daily movement of the sales people.

· As compared to the tonnage before using Teamchat, the tonnage post-adoption had increased by 1500 tons in the first month itself.

· Due to the reduced calls (as information is now being pushed through Teamchat), there was a reduction in phone bills to the tune of over a 100,000 INR

· Their shortages / pilferages ratio reduced from 0.08% to 0.03%, which is huge considering that about 60,000 dockets are booked every month and on an average, there are at least 10 articles per docket.

· There was improved customer satisfaction through real-time updates on delivery status

·The handling of seasonal peak demand and back-filling of absent staff had improved

· The response time to contingencies had improved with real-time visibility by the managers

· There was improved co-ordination and communication across the organization

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