Our technology helps businesses embrace multimodal transportation by improving end-to-end visibility over goods movement
The need to digitize the supply chain is amongst the most critical areas for Indian MSMEs, of which only 5% have embarked on their digital transformation journey
Soham Chokshi – CEO & Co-founder, Shipsy
Briefly tell us about Shipsy’s inception and growth so far.
Shipsy started in the year 2015 to solve last-mile logistics challenges. We soon realized it was like a drop in the ocean as multiple other factors introduced inefficiencies. There was a dire need to merge the physical and digital aspects of goods’ movement for seamless supply chain operations. So, we quickly expanded our platform’s capabilities and depth to digitize, optimize and automate siloed, inefficient, and cumbersome supply chain operations from the first, middle, to last-mile and from domestic to cross-border logistics.
Our efforts have paid off all these years. Starting with a team of 10 and 2 customers back then, today we are a 350+ strong team with more than 220 customers across various industries globally. We are headquartered in India, with regional headquarters for the Middle East and South East Asia in Dubai and Indonesia, respectively.
We are clocking a 2.5x YoY growth rate. Our customer base grew by 75% last year, and our recurring revenue soared by over 100%. We have raised $31 Mn in Series A ($6 Mn) and Series B ($25 Mn) funding. Our recent employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) buyback was also successful.
How has Shipsy leveraged AI to improve the logistics and supply chain management industry?
Our AI-powered smart logistics management platform helps businesses predict demand, mitigate risks, drive data-driven decisions, and build agile and self-governing supply chains. It enables capacity planning for future delivery needs, understands customer preferences, optimizes territory planning, and helps gain insight into the carbon emissions of logistical procedures before the shipment journey begins.
Can you discuss the company’s focus on sustainability in the logistics and supply chain ecosystem?
Our solutions make logistics and supply chain operations economically and environmentally sustainable. AI and automation-backed smart logistics management platform optimizes and automates core logistics processes to unlock efficiencies. For instance, intelligent route planning and optimization engines lower trip volumes by 6% and reduce miles travelled by 7% with improved routing based on accurate customer-provided locations. In addition, en route order clubbing improves deliveries-per-day-per-driver by 22%, while active customer communication boosts the delivery success rate by 12% to reduce non-delivery (ND) and return-to-origin (RTO) costs. The system also empowers delivery managers to prioritize eco-friendly modes of transportation for short-distance deliveries. Furthermore, Indicators of Carbon Emission (ICE) help customers gain visibility into the carbon emissions of their freight movement across multimodal transportation even before the shipment journey begins.
How has Shipsy helped businesses achieve their transportation and supply chain management goals?
Our smart logistics management technology is helping businesses tide over various industries and use case-specific challenges to reduce manual intervention, save costs, and drive highly agile, cost-efficient, and customer-centric operations.
For instance, our solution helped a leading logistics service provider to:
- Automate its first-mile operations
- Shrink customer query calls per order by 40%
On the other hand, our technology helped a leading quick commerce delivery provider to:
- Deliver on 10 mins SLA promise
- Auto-allocate 99.7% of orders
- Ensure proof-based and fair driver pay-out management
- Drive highly agile delivery operations with reduced manual intervention
A global Fortune 100 retailer is leveraging Shipsy to:
- Lower incidental costs by 80%
- Save up to 65% person-hours
- Increase shipment transparency across stakeholders
- Shrink overall logistics costs by up to 10%
Talking about the manufacturing industry, using Shipsy’s technology, the world’s largest diversified agricultural conglomerate has been able to:
- Drive cost savings of 40% across all lanes through competitive bidding
- Amplify their network of freight forwarders by up to 10x in less than a year
- Achieve up to $700 cost savings per container on shipping
Can you discuss the impact of digitalization on networking ecosystems and how Shipsy is adapting to this change?
Our technology helps businesses embrace multimodal transportation by improving end-to-end visibility over goods movement. It enables managing and tracking multiple logistics service providers across different modes through a single dashboard, which helps businesses realize significant cost savings.
Our deep knowledge and expertise, seamless integration capabilities, cloud infrastructure, and a vast adopted shipper network help our customers create robust logistics ecosystems. We have integrations with 60+ major shipping lines, 300+ freight forwarders, 100+ 3rd Party logistics companies, a network of 20,000+ shippers globally, and 50+ customs agents. Such integrations facilitate easy and faster collaboration for business needs. For instance, if an on-demand retailer wants to collaborate with a 3PL for delivery scalability or a manufacturer with freight forwarders to get the best deals on international shipping. Our platform processes over 650,000 containers and over 70 Mn parcels per month and tech-empower 100,000+ customer fleets for our 220+ customers worldwide.
Can you discuss the challenges and opportunities for Indian MSMEs in the logistics and supply chain industry and how Shipsy is addressing them?
The need to digitize the supply chain is amongst the most critical areas for Indian MSMEs, of which only 5% have embarked on their digital transformation journey. The challenge can be accredited to several factors. Small businesses need the right capacity, tools, vendors, scale, and talent to justify investments in technology. Fluctuating freight rates and container shortages are other issues in the post-COVID world. Then there is a general but severe truck driver shortage, leading to higher costs, and minimizing profit margins for growing businesses.
Fortunately, the rise of e-commerce and internet penetration has widened the scope of potential markets for MSMEs. The National Logistics Policy and PM’s Gati Shakti Master Plan also aim to leverage the power of digitization, multimodal logistics, and platformization to lower logistics costs and increase the competitiveness of Indian goods in international markets. It will also open up new avenues of growth for small businesses. Smart logistics management platforms such as Shipsy are critical to addressing the challenges to embracing digitization. Cloud-based systems don’t require heavy investments in ripping or replacing physical IT infrastructure. Moreover, highly scalable tech, easy interface, and advanced technological capabilities optimize ongoing processes to save cost, improve resource utilization, acquire the best freight rates, etc., to thrive in a highly competitive ecosystem.
Which are the major verticals you are targeting and why?
At Shipsy, we serve various industries, including logistics service providers, manufacturing, retail, e-commerce, on-demand delivery providers, healthcare providers, and more. We are the preferred technology partner to a Fortune 100 conglomerate, a well-known pizza chain, one of Asia’s largest express logistics providers, one of the largest steel manufacturers, a leading 10-minute on-demand grocery delivery provider in India, and more. Our solutions are tailored to address the unique challenges faced by each industry.
What is your road map for 2023?
We look forward to continuing to strengthen our presence in key markets like India, Indonesia, UAE, and Saudi Arabia and on-board top talent. Expanding our footprint in Europe and America is on the horizon too. We will also continue to invest in amplifying technological capabilities and diversifying our services portfolio to create value for supply chain stakeholders of all sizes.
