Zast logisolutions which operates under the brand Onmove, is a high-speed, long-distance trucking aggregator capacitated through technology. The company’s operations started to provide quality service to time-sensitive cargo for e-commerce, courier, pharma, and retail sectors.
Praveen Jain and Pervinder Singh Chawla are the company’s co-founders, which was incepted in 2015, started operations in 2016, and currently have many hubs across the country. The genesis behind the introduction of Zast’s groundbreaking transportation processes was the inefficiencies within the trucking industry in India.
Full truckload (FTL) road logistics is a titanic market space, contributing USD 50 billion to the GDP. However, it is highly fragmented and cumbersome due to its asset-heavy and manual mode of operations. This is the void where Zast is trying to provide an ingenious infill – is building an ecosystem for efficient trucking solutions for time-sensitive cargo by controlling and selective aggregation of fleet owners.
The solution to the snag is being incorporated through the tech-fueled seamless stack of serviceable middleware that helps improve the truck transportation industry. The tech-based company’s seamless serviceability is planned and synergized through the interoperability of the triplex stack of tech tools – the partner app, internal admin panel, and customer app.
Breaking the longer delivery chain, the platform creates a precision pathway, streamlined for efficiency and better margins. A cohesively connected network creates value across the trucking ecosystem, where fleet owners, drivers, and customers are proffered tech-enabled tools from the company to create a synergy for seamless service.
IndiaTech Desk spoke to Pervinder Singh Chawla, the Co-founder of Onmove by Zast Logisolutions, to understand how it builds an ecosystem for efficient trucking solutions.
Would you please provide a brief profile of your company?
Onmove is an asset-light, tech-powered network and assisted marketplace defining “FTL Express” in the Indian Logistics space.
We have identified that the Indian trucking space is marred with inefficiencies. To solve various problems through a tech-led digital process and bring efficiencies to the overall ecosystem, we started our journey in 2015 to build an integrated digital platform that creates efficiencies and delivers a mutually advantageous growth cycle to all stakeholders, i.e., customers, fleet owners, and drivers. We are currently at a monthly run rate of 30 Cr, growing at a CAGR of ~80 percent year-on-year with a strong team of 200 professionals.
Would you please briefly inform us of the specifics of the client base?
We serve marquee customers across Ecommerce, 3PL & courier, Retail, Pharma, Auto and FMCG segment Pan-India and in the SAARC region.
How are your clients benefiting from your services? Would you please explain with examples?
Like the true nature of every business, it can never be predicted perfectly, nor can it be balanced as per choice. Similar is the situation a customer faces in logistics.
Load imbalance between departure and destination city, i.e., customers don’t have a load from both sides to offer total capacity round trips to logistics partners.
The unpredictable nature of demand creates a gap between regular routes and the actual demand of trucks at a time.
Our unique selling proposition USP is the network that empowers us to provide on-demand one-way vehicles with reliable services to customers consistently.
For example, suppose a “Customer A” has goods to transport from Gurgaon to Mumbai immediately but no goods for loading the truck back from Mumbai to Gurgaon. In that case, we will happily place the vehicle within 3 hours at customers warehouse and use our network to load the vehicle from “Customer B” to get the vehicle back to Gurgaon.
This helps customers to run their network in a cost-efficient way and, at the same time, maintain SLAs on the trust Onmove offers them.
What are your expansion plans, and how do you plan to move forward?
We are amongst the market leaders in the FTL Express segment for the value we offer to Ecom and 3PL and the courier segment. We are working on expanding our network and providing the same service to a broader set of Industrial markets (Pharma, Auto, Retail, Agritech, Beverages etc.).
We believe that as India’s economic landscape is evolving and moving towards digitalization, it’s the need of the hour for every industry to work with logistics partners like Onmove for more reliable and transparent services to compete with global and new age businesses.
Five years down the line, we believe India’s largest trucking network and establish Onmove as a brand in FTL Express logistics space that people associate with trust, reliability, and quality services.
What challenges do the trucking industry face please explain from an industry perspective?
Indian trucking is highly inefficient and costs India 2 percent of its GDP. There are many contributing factors to it.
Firstly, information asymmetry between demand and supply – A truck in India runs an average of 7000kms a month which is around three times lower when compared to a developed economy leading to higher cost of logistics and thin margins for fleet owners as a significant chunk of the total cost being fixed in nature.
Secondly, no transit assurance – Due to low tech adoption, there is no end-to-end visibility in the overall chain, making it unreliable. Due to non-reliability over delivery TATs, a company needs to plan higher inventory levels leading to increased working capital needs and bigger warehousing space, inflating the overall supply chain cost.
Finally, no Visibility – As the supply chain is still in the nascent stage of tech adoption, there is no real-time visibility of cargo on the go increasing the cost account of theft and damages.
Would you please elaborate on how Zast has taken up these challenges and solved them?
We solve these problems by creating a network connected through tech, bringing end-to-end visibility across the ecosystem.
Digital load matching solves the problem of information asymmetry and asset utilization. Further, with the use of tech, we shortened the working capital cycle for the fleet owners and paid them as per their needs to scale their business and grow with Onmove.
Curated aggregation of the fleet is solving the problem of reliability.
A GPS agnostics platform where any device can be integrated with our systems for end-to-end cargo visibility on the go. We have also implemented Sim-based tracking.
Would you please talk with data about the demand for your services and their performance?
We are currently serving more than 50 customers fulfilling above 5000 trips monthly with a 95 percent SLA achievement mark. These trips are completed by our aggregated fleet of more than 800 vehicles dedicatedly to running for Onmove, covering over 20 cities across India.
What are some of your current focus areas?
Our current focus is mainly on two things completely aligned with the company’s mission – “To be the largest trucking network platform in India.”
We want to expand our network of fleet owners and customers by targeting newer markets and cities to make it more effective and robust; and enhance the tech we have built over the years to make it smart with the use of Data Analytics and Artificial intelligence to create visibility, transparency and simplify the whole chain.
We believe employees are the foundation on which business can be built. We are building a team of dynamic and enthusiast entrepreneurs who will write this success story with us with this philosophy.
