NEC Corporation Transforming India's Logistics Industry

Debashish Debsikdar, AVP & Business Head - Transportation & Logistics, NEC Corporation India, discusses the challenges, solutions, and plans to enhance the development and delivery capability from India to aid the global business growth and serve as a global delivery hub for offshore support and product development.

Please give an overview of the Logistics industry and where India's growth curve is headed.
As per Reportlinker.com, the logistics market in India is forecasted to grow at a CAGR of 10.5% between 2019 and 2025. With multi-model types of transportation available in the country (oceans, rivers, etc) the potential of this segment is immense. The ongoing pandemic has further reinforced the fact that the logistics industry is truly the backbone of the economy.

In the context of the Indian government's focus on 'Make in India' and 'Self-Reliance' initiatives, the logistics sector is witnessing a boom. Aligned with the government's vision of achieving exponential growth in the Indian logistics segment, a new division of logistics has been set up under the Ministry of Commerce. We are looking forward to partnering with the government and the ministry for more ventures soon.

What are the mid and long-term goals set by NEC for India and its growth strategy?
NEC has been a long-standing partner of India's growth since the 1950s and we have contributed significantly to the country's progress. Most often than not, we have been amongst the first movers to adopt and build on newer technology than our competitors in the country. Our advantage with being a front runner is that we, as a global brand, are committed to bringing the best practices to this country and adapting it to suit the needs of the respective sectors.

To this end, with our ‘In India – For India' and ‘From India – For Global' strategy, we are focusing on strengthening our R&D efforts and developing innovative solutions at NEC Laboratories India to create social value and drive long-term impact. We are focusing strongly on sectors like logistics, public safety, and telecommunications, to name a few.


Please share some of the solutions provided by NEC for various sectors.
We are focused towards both the public sector as well as private enterprises in the country. NEC has a proven track record in delivering marquee Government projects in smart cities and making communities safer. As regards the logistics and transportation industry, our solutions are not only empowering incumbents in the sector but also benefiting the end-consumers. Some of the major projects include:

Logistics: Tracking India's EXIM container movement through NEC's Logistics Visualization System. Through this project, we are handling 97% of the container volume in the country and tracked over 27 million containers.

Public Transport: Managing over 4000 buses through Bus Rapid Transport (BRT) system in major cities of India. We are facilitating contactless payments of bus tickets to provide a safe and seamless experience. In Ahmedabad, we have collaborated with Paytm to provide cashless tickets. Additionally, we have developed Janyatra app for booking tickets through Paytm, and have introduced QR codes to validate them at the bus and railway stations. We are working on introducing paperless boarding using biometrics at 4 major airports in the country, which will enable a seamless travel experience.

Citizen services: NEC leverages its world-leading facial recognition and biometric authentication technology suite to create fair and efficient civil ID and law enforcement systems that help protect national security, reduce serious fraud risks for governments and private enterprises, and open the doors for the vast majority of global citizens without an irrefutable form of ID to a wealth of public and private services for a more satisfying and safer daily living.

Within the enterprise business, we focus on Manufacturing, Retail, Displays, PNS, and AI platform. The first 4 units have a clear focus as to the service and solutions provided by NEC Corporation India. For Manufacturing and Retail, NEC Logistics solutions like Warehouse Management, TMS (Transport Management System), and Logistics Control Tower play a key role in addressing the Supply Chain Management (SCM) of our clients. NEC Corporation India is working with the government to provide digital services to the rural and remote locations of India through the Common Service Center (CSC).


The automobile and automobile ancillaries' industry is our key focus. We have a strong SAP story that contributes towards NEC's holistic growth. We offer industry-recognized Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) practice to the manufacturing entity, primarily on Systems Applications and Products in Data Processing (SAP). We have done real complex implementation of SAP in multiple instances, SAP spreading out at a shop flow integrating with the IoT platform, mobility solutions, SAP fury as a mobile solution, and SAP on the cloud. Additionally, in the manufacturing industry, NEC's focus is on value creation and innovation, which is primarily the journey of our digital transformation.


What are the challenges in the Indian Transportation & Logistic industry? Please share a case study.
The current challenges that the industry faces are with regard to operations, SOP/ Mechanism, un-optimized planning, cash collection frauds, bus bunching, and too much analog data. There are user experience concerns in real-time schedule availability, route opinion planning, and community accessibility. Moreover, there are user experience concerns on overcrowding, cash handling ease, safety concerns, and no PA/ PIS.

Our transportation solutions are aimed at tackling issues faced by passengers as well as the operating agencies. We leverage the power of ICT to solve social and economic issues such as traffic congestion in public transport. Building on our experience of delivering best quality work in the Indian market, we continue to accomplish turnkey projects and contribute towards achieving a more eco-friendly public transportation infrastructure. For instance, NEC's Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) is an advanced suite of applications which aims to provide innovative services related to different modes of transport and traffic management. Additionally, this enables users to be better informed and make safer, more coordinated, and smarter use of transport networks.

Our key solutions in transportation and logistics segment include:


For Passengers: NEC intelligent Transit solutions are implemented for BRT operations in cities like Pune, Ahmedabad, Surat, and Hubli. Our intelligent Traffic Management solution is implemented as a Smart City initiative by Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA). We are working on introducing paperless boarding using biometrics at 4 major airports in the country.

Freight Transport: NEC Logistics platform integrates ports, railways, and toll plazas on highways to monitor and track the movement of India's EXIM containers. This has helped in providing visibility and transparency in the fragmented logistics sector.

What are NEC's plans for the Indian market?
Our recent rebranding from NEC Technologies India to NEC Corporation India reflects our strong commitment to the country and India's growing importance to NEC Group's global business. We plan to expand the portfolio and the depth of solutions and services offered both in the Indian market and globally.

Moreover, our huge pool of engineering and technology talent across various verticals, including public safety, communications, infrastructure, aviation, logistics and transportation solutions contributes significantly to the digital transformation journey of the country. To support our business and expansion plans, we are looking at increasing our employee strength from 6,000 to 14,000 employees in India by the end of 2023.

Overall, we are aiming at "India Go Big" initiative by leveraging our solutions' development and delivery capability from India to aid the global business growth and serve as a global delivery hub for offshore support and product development.