Dhruv Kumar: Reinventing Indian Logistic Market With His Industry Rich Expertise
Dhruv Kumar
Deputy Chief Executive Officer
In an exclusive interaction with CEO Insight, Dhruv share his professional journey as well as his experience in
the supply chain and logistics domain.
Share few details about your professional experience, specifically, your motivation behind venturing into logistics and what are the factors that still drives you today?
From learning perspective, the last 14 years have been tremendously fruitful where I have been lucky enough to get into leadership positions to build new age supply chains at organizations such as Flipkart and Snapdeal which were built on keeping the end user experience as well tech scaleup in mind. After Snapdeal, I was extremely curious to explorethe supply (seller) side of ecommerce which helped me build and head the Marketplace and Omni business verticals at Indian top fashion online portalMyntra.
Before the ecommerce stint, I was at Maruti Suzuki for 5.5 years which gave me an exposure into supply chain as well as multiple facets of automobile business.
I have been particularly keen to work in logistics due to a) the significant impact it has over the end consumer experience and b)the unorganized 200 billion dollar plus logistics industry which opens scope to bring in effectiveness and scalability into it using technology.
Helping small organizations with my experience,learning and capital is something that drives me today.
Define CriticaLog as an
organization, its market position, and the unique proposition that it offers to clients.
A young dynamic startup with a sole aim to resolve inefficiencies found in critical sectors of B2B and B2C sectors such as healthcare, high value shipments, reverse and repair, auto, engineering, IT supply chains and so on while resolving it through scalable operational model, CriticaLog is an “one of its kind” organization where solutions are custom build based on customer’s supply chain. What differentiates CriticaLog apart from other logistics companies is the focus on customization without compromising on speed and quality. For ex:one of the high-end Watches brands wanted CL to match the serial number of products while picking it up to their retail stores in malls and delivering to either their retail store or a different mall location. Such services are usually not provided by firms that have standardized pickup and drop operations.
This is also our MOAT(unique proposition) and is something that sets us apart from all other organizations in this field. Because of our custom built solution approach, we are able to maintain long term relationships with all our clients.
How have you been navigating the challenges imposed by pandemic on logistics?
Clearly, Pandemic has been a very challenging and unprecedented events for everyone in the ecosystem. Overall impact was largely a mixed bag, where in some B2C specific categories such as laptops etc. saw a higher last mile shipment, whereas B2B saw a drop due to factory closure and reduced overall production Realizing that we had to reinvent to survive the pandemic CriticaLog quickly shifted its focus towards addressing the critical needs in Healthcare sector which registered a substantial growth during the pandemic. Now after 18 months since then the healthcare sector is one of the fastest growing sector for us.
Due to our focus on healthcare over the last 2 years, its become one of our top business drivers and continues to register growth. We have also launched additional services for our clients such as Surface, warehousing and international movement to become a ‘one stop shop’ for all of your supply chain needs.
A young dynamic startup with a sole aim to resolve inefficiencies found in critical sectors of B2B and B2C sectors such as healthcare, high value shipments, reverse and repair, auto, engineering, IT supply chains and so on while resolving it through scalable operational model, CriticaLog is an “one of its kind” organization where solutions are custom build based on customer’s supply chain. What differentiates CriticaLog apart from other logistics companies is the focus on customization without compromising on speed and quality. For ex:one of the high-end Watches brands wanted CL to match the serial number of products while picking it up to their retail stores in malls and delivering to either their retail store or a different mall location. Such services are usually not provided by firms that have standardized pickup and drop operations.
Even though a highly overused term now a days, passion, in my opinion, can be a deciding factor between a successful and an average person
This is also our MOAT(unique proposition) and is something that sets us apart from all other organizations in this field. Because of our custom built solution approach, we are able to maintain long term relationships with all our clients.
How have you been navigating the challenges imposed by pandemic on logistics?
Clearly, Pandemic has been a very challenging and unprecedented events for everyone in the ecosystem. Overall impact was largely a mixed bag, where in some B2C specific categories such as laptops etc. saw a higher last mile shipment, whereas B2B saw a drop due to factory closure and reduced overall production Realizing that we had to reinvent to survive the pandemic CriticaLog quickly shifted its focus towards addressing the critical needs in Healthcare sector which registered a substantial growth during the pandemic. Now after 18 months since then the healthcare sector is one of the fastest growing sector for us.
Due to our focus on healthcare over the last 2 years, its become one of our top business drivers and continues to register growth. We have also launched additional services for our clients such as Surface, warehousing and international movement to become a ‘one stop shop’ for all of your supply chain needs.
What are the challenges, changes as well as opportunities you foresee in the future market?
The massive growth in ecommerce and online shopping will help the logistics industry with opportunities in order to resolve the ever evolving consumer needs.
Similarly,as air transport is getting costlier day by day, to help reduce the delivery time there will be a need to set local cloud warehousing in regions which we see a big opportunity. Also, extensive use of AI and machine learning for bringing in efficiencies and better customer experience are some of the opportunities that we are anticipating.
We however anticipate a few key challenges which would require a scalable solution for us to be able to capture these opportunities. Specifically a)retaining and building talents b)adopting to new technologies to say ahead of the curve and c)being agile and flexible while we grow.
Similarly in terms of changes, I believe the industry is moving to a more tech and value oriented approach. Today customers can simply access dashboard and get updates instead of sending regular emails/ calls. Also, customers don’t mind paying a little extra for value added services. Its moving away from a price oriented to a value oriented industry.
How do you manage a balance between your personal and professional life? Any advices for the budding entrepreneurs?
Professionally, I love to build and scale companies and it’s something that comes naturally to me. So I never had any issues with balancing both my personal and professional life. For the young startups and budding entrepreneurs, my advice is: Be passionate. Passion, even though a highly overused term now a days, can be a deciding factor between a successful and an average person. So be humble, have a learning mindset, invest in people and culture while focusing on building a great team. We at Criticalog focus on developing a high performance culture, which has helped us get certified as ‘Great Place to Work’ for 3rd year in a row.
Dhruv Kumar, Deputy Chief Executive Officer, CriticaLog
With a highly decorated career of over 14 years in variousfields such as e-commerce, supply chain management, building market places and so on for ecommerce giants such as FlipKart, Snapdeal,Amazon, Dhruv Kumar is a well known leader in the Indian e commerce space. Presently, taking new challenges and helping CriticaLog reach new heights in the logistics sector even during the pandemic as its Deputy Chief Executive Officer.
The massive growth in ecommerce and online shopping will help the logistics industry with opportunities in order to resolve the ever evolving consumer needs.
Similarly,as air transport is getting costlier day by day, to help reduce the delivery time there will be a need to set local cloud warehousing in regions which we see a big opportunity. Also, extensive use of AI and machine learning for bringing in efficiencies and better customer experience are some of the opportunities that we are anticipating.
We however anticipate a few key challenges which would require a scalable solution for us to be able to capture these opportunities. Specifically a)retaining and building talents b)adopting to new technologies to say ahead of the curve and c)being agile and flexible while we grow.
Similarly in terms of changes, I believe the industry is moving to a more tech and value oriented approach. Today customers can simply access dashboard and get updates instead of sending regular emails/ calls. Also, customers don’t mind paying a little extra for value added services. Its moving away from a price oriented to a value oriented industry.
How do you manage a balance between your personal and professional life? Any advices for the budding entrepreneurs?
Professionally, I love to build and scale companies and it’s something that comes naturally to me. So I never had any issues with balancing both my personal and professional life. For the young startups and budding entrepreneurs, my advice is: Be passionate. Passion, even though a highly overused term now a days, can be a deciding factor between a successful and an average person. So be humble, have a learning mindset, invest in people and culture while focusing on building a great team. We at Criticalog focus on developing a high performance culture, which has helped us get certified as ‘Great Place to Work’ for 3rd year in a row.
Dhruv Kumar, Deputy Chief Executive Officer, CriticaLog
With a highly decorated career of over 14 years in variousfields such as e-commerce, supply chain management, building market places and so on for ecommerce giants such as FlipKart, Snapdeal,Amazon, Dhruv Kumar is a well known leader in the Indian e commerce space. Presently, taking new challenges and helping CriticaLog reach new heights in the logistics sector even during the pandemic as its Deputy Chief Executive Officer.