Friday, August 01, 2008

TransCare Management Consultants - 31st July 2008

The following people represented TransCare at the event hosted by the firm at ISB.

· Poul V. Jensen – Managing Director, TransCare Logistics India Pvt. Ltd.
· Jaffrey Thomas – Senior Lead Consultant, TransCare Logistics India Pvt. Ltd.
· Vipul Kumar - ISB Co2008, Lead Consultant, TransCare Logistics India Pvt. Ltd.

Paul started the session with a brief introduction to TransCare. He informed the audience that TransCare is a niche management consulting firm providing solutions in Logistics domain. They have an office in New Delhi, India (3.5 years old). TransCare deals with transportation and logistics planning. TransCare has a presence in all the BRIC countries.
Paul delved on the question “what is management consulting in a niche”?
- focus and expertise in a service or industry
- high impact in the niche industry.

Jaffrey took over from Pail and took the presentation further. He told the audience that TransCare has a global outlook and was founded in 1993. It has successfully conducted over 1000 projects for more than 250 clients. TransCare takes pride in adopting a pragmatic approach for the problems. Apart from coming up with solutions for the problem, TransCare also partners with clients to implement the recommended solution. TransCare gets a majority of its business from repeat clients. TransCare has a long term vision for India and it sees India as an attractive market. With the boom in the cargo and container traffic, logistics consulting is in great demand. Jaffrey further informed the audience about the current scenario in Indian logistics sector.

Current Indian Logistics Sector

Logistics industry
- Fragmented: regional players with limited geographical reach, lot of consolidation taking place in the industry. Huge scope for M&A and consolidations
- There are no economies of scale.

Poor infrastructure
- Indian infra has been unable to keep pace with economic growth in the country
- Created bottlenecks across all segments of transportation.

Low level of outsourcing
Only 60 percent of Indian customers outsourcd their transportation service
Almost 50 percent of warehousing services is not tapped by Indian

High costs of logistics
- Indian logistics spend 6-13 percent of GDP
- This is much higher vis-à-vis global average of 5-10 percent
- Room for major improvement

There are several growth drivers
- Introduction of VAT to replace ST and hence promoting more efficient logistics
- Increased FDI in auto, auto components, electronics manufacturing and logistics
- GDP growth driven by organized retail and manufacturing
- Infrastructure investments in road creation, port capacity, rail network and air cargo.

Indian logistics market has just crept out of nascent stage and is poised for an exponential growth. Growth potential is immense; roads, air, sea etc are the modes of transport.

TransCare classifies its clients under three categories.
- Industry/retail
- Infrastructure providers and
- Logistics service providers

Investors in all the above sectors also constitute an important customer segment for TransCare.

TransCare provides consulting in the following functions

- Management consulting
o Market Entry Strategy
o Market assessment
o M&A support
o Feasibility analysis and
o Economic analysis

- Global supply chain consulting
o Logistics audit
o Process optimization
o Network optimization and
o Implementation support

- Technical and operation consulting
o Warehouse planning
o SEZ/FTWZ Planning
o Site planning
o Location analysis and
o Operation simulation

Vipul (ISB Co2008) informed that TransCare has 60 consultants worldwide. It has 12 consultants representing 4 nationalities in the Indian office. Complete focus in the niche of logistics and supply chain. It recruits from IIM, ISB, IIT and SPA. TransCare has a small team, inspiring work environment, offers diverse projects, and provides high visibility of work.

At the close of the talk, Jaffrey explained to the audience that TransCare is also offering an ELP at ISB. The team is expected to address the following questions:
1) Are Logistics Service Providers (LSP) open to hiring management consultants to improve their operational efficiency?
2) Look at TransCare’s portfolio and develop a plan to attract LSPs towards it.

Overall it was a great talk and helped clear the doubts of several people about niche consulting firms. Many more firms are scheduled to visit the campus in the coming months.

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