Safexpress MD Rubal Jain Reveals How They Migrated to Cloud ERP

Regarded as the backbone of the economy, India’s logistics sector continues to provide efficient and cost effective flow of goods on which other commercial activities depend.  As the country has come a long way, this sector has witnessed several changes. Today it is the interplay of infrastructure, technology and new types of service providers, which is focused on reducing cost as well as time of delivery.

One such logistics company is Safexpress which has been playing an important role in redefining this sector through its innovative approaches and deployment of technology. Started in 1997, the company has come a long way in building trust among its customers and strengthening relationships with partners by offering improved logistics and cargo services. “Safexpress is a trusted supply chain management company in India today which is known for timely delivery and fast decision-making. Despite India becoming more complex, Safexpress has helped its customers steer forward with value-added logistics services,” says Rubal Jain, Managing Director, Safexpress in an exclusive conversation with Dataquest.

The Journey to Cloud

Safexpress recently decided to embrace cloud as its on-premise ERP solution was not able to keep pace with the changes and growth in the company. Besides, the logistics major wanted to do away with numerous administrative hassles, bring visibility, focus on its core business and be available to customers in real time. “Technology is pervasive into our organization. Decisions related to IT or any piece of technology that can help us speed up the process, reduce time and contain costs are taken faster and without inhibition. We do not use technology for the sake of using it. We take decisions keeping in mind our goals, objectives and customer satisfaction. Our decision to embrace Oracle ERP is part of our well-drawn plan to reduce administrative headache,” reveals Jain. “While cloud migration comes with a lot of challenges as you need to synchronize all your on-premise data with cloud application, it is just one time pain which can consume our time during the implementation but would be beneficial for the organization in the long-run.”

Jain also recounts issues which cropped up during the change management process but strongly believes that no change is easy. Having moved to cloud, Safexpress has also been able to reduce the cost of on-premise hosting and datacenter management. “We are a company with on-ground operations spread across 600 cities in India. We wanted to move to cloud ERP for flexibility and stability. Oracle Cloud ERP has allowed us to concentrate on our core and taken away the pain of managing and upgrading the ERP,” says Jain.

The role of IT team

Jain also works pretty closely with their IT team led by Kapil Mahajan to find out solutions for their business problems. “CIO is an integral part of our regular decision making process as we believe in addressing business challenges with the use of digital tools. For instance, IT team is now planning to integrate weather forecasting into our systems so that there is more visibility into the supply chain and we can manage our on-ground fleet more efficiently,” further adds Jain.

Safexpress, according to Jain, would be one of the first beneficiaries if technologies like AI, ML and autonomous vehicles become real and functional in India. However, he doubts whether it is going to happen any time soon. Instead Jain has strong faith in electric vehicles which he believes can change the face of the transportation and logistics industry forever.