Logistics Management: How Is Flipkart’s Quick Delivery Module Managed?

Forty two year old Amit Kumar works as logistics manager at Flipkart’s office in Patna. He has been working at Flipkart for the last seven years. Kumar highlights the job-role, challenges and key skills and competencies required for the job of a logistics manager in an e-commerce company.

Flipkart is one of the largest e-commerce companies in India. The company operates as an online marketplace offering a wide range of products. It handles more than two million orders on a daily basis and delivers to more than 19,000 pin codes across India.

Order Cycle

To understand the logistics of how the purchased product reached its destination let's start with the order cycle at Flipkart. The moment an order is placed by the customer, it goes to the OMS (Order Management System). From here it goes to the ‘Inventory Allocation’ process where the seller and the logistics department receives the details of the order followed by the process of ‘Order Picking’ and finally ending with ‘Order Delivered’ by the logistics team. It is important for the seller to pack the product only with Flipkart packaging materials and be ready with the packed product on time to hand it over to Flipkart’s logistics.

Logistics

To ensure proper tracking and on-time delivery of the products, Flipkart relies on its own logistics – EKart. However, Flipkart has tie ups with other courier companies and India Post as well to deliver products at the locations where it doesn't deliver.

Flipkart has three transport clusters namely local, zonal and national. For the local orders (where the seller and the buyer are from the same city/place), it uses surface or road mode of transportation. For zonal orders (where products are shipped within the borders of a zones which are - north, east, south and west), it usually uses surface or road mode of transportation but if the order volume is high, air mode of transportation is also used. Lastly, for the national orders (interzone or where products are shipped across zones in India), most of the time, air mode of transportation is used.

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Fulfilment

Fulfilment means everything done by the company after the order gets placed and before it gets delivered to the customer. As soon as the order is placed by the customer, Flipkart immediately sends the order details to the seller and EKart. Flipkart has multiple warehouses, fulfilment centres and delivery hubs all across the country. The shipments received from the sellers are transported to the mother hubs, then to the delivery hubs where delivery personnel pick up the products and do doorstep delivery.

Responsibilities of a Logistics Manager

A logistics manager plays a critical role in ensuring that the company’s supply chain is running smoothly and that the customers receive their orders on time. He is the one who manages a complex network of vendors, carriers and warehouses keeping in mind that the service and quality is never compromised.

Let’s look at the key responsibilities that I look after:

Managing supply chain processes - Kumar looks after the smooth movement of goods from the warehouses to delivery locations.

Coordinating with vendors and delivery agents - Coordinating with vendors and delivery boys to ensure safe and timely delivery of products are my every now and then activity. Proper allocation of delivery is extremely important especially, in case of one-day delivery and same-day delivery. For this, we use faster means of transportation or a combination of both air and road transportation.

Managing inventory - One of my most important tasks is to make sure that the right products are available at the right time. For this, Kumar keeps a regular check on the inventory sheets and if he finds that there will be a shortage of a particular product very soon, he asks the vendor(s) to ship that product to the warehouse. This is very important because customers do not like to see ‘This product is out of stock’ for a long period of time. It’s us who are responsible to get the products in the warehouses as soon as possible.

Ensuring compliance - Kumar ensures or rather, all logistics managers ensure that all the shipments comply with regulatory requirements and internal policies of Flipkart, including proper documentation and adherence to safety standards.

Managing team and training - Kumar manages a team of 18 members and he is responsible for providing proper training and feedback to the delivery boys. Everyday, on an average, he handles around 1,500 - 1,800 orders per day.

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Challenges

There are a lot of challenges. Some of the important ones are listed below:

Dealing with fraud/cheating customers/delivery boys - Sometimes, I come across such customers or even delivery boys who are fraud and cheat the company. In case of fraud, the logistics manager has to submit a report to the company with each and every detail as it's about the image and reputation of the company.

I will share an old instance where the company had to suffer a loss of around one lakh. This is before Flipkart introduced ‘Open-Box Delivery’ for valuable items. There was a customer who had ordered an iPhone of nearly Rs 90,000. It was a prepaid order so the delivery boy delivered the shipment to him. Soon, I got a call from the head office that the customer had complained that the box delivered to him didn’t have an iphone, there was soap in it. I immediately called the delivery boy who had delivered the box to him. He said that everything was fine and that the box was sealed like any other shipment. I submitted each and every detail of the order. Every process involved was thoroughly checked and no fault from the company's side was found.

At last, the company could have done nothing but to send him an iPhone again. In such cases, even if the company knows that the customer is cheating or lying, it will take the customer’s say into account and will compensate him/her. It’s our policy, we can’t blame our customers.

Later, after a few months, that person was arrested by the police as he was caught cheating with another e-commerce portal citing the same story.

Dealing with unforeseen events - At times, due to natural disasters like heavy rain or thunderstorms, roadblocks and supply chain disruptions etc., the orders do not reach the warehouse on time which results in delay in delivery to the customers. Although such things happen once in a blue moon, we are held accountable for this delay because the logistics manager is the one responsible to get the shipments on time and ensure its timely delivery.

Ensuring all shipments meet the quality standards - We have to make sure that the seller packs the products with proper packaging materials bearing Flipkart’s branding and has the product label stuck on them.

Managing large volumes of orders - During the sale season or big sale events like the Big Billion Day or the Summer Sale that happen once a year, we receive a high volume of orders. Managing such a high volume of orders and ensuring their timely delivery requires a lot of time and manpower. We have to ensure that the product reaches the customer before the committed time.

Daily Routine

My office shift is from 9 am to 6 pm. This may also get extended during sale events due to bulk orders. We get a lunch time of 45 minutes. Each and every part of the warehouse gets monitored by high-resolution CCTV cameras. When I am not working, I monitor the cameras to ensure that everything is fine in the warehouse. Apart from this I have already shared my everyday work that I do at my office (warehouse). There is one other logistics manager as well who works when I am off duty. We also ensure that the customers get timely updates via SMS and email about their orders. For this,we have software.

Finally, I would like to say that since I am an old employee and have been working for a long time, I have got habituated to seeing trucks and loading vehicles coming and going out of the warehouse. The crowd of delivery personnels and their motorbikes is a common scene at any delivery hub. I have a good work-life balance and I enjoy my work.

Through the work experience shared by Amit Kumar, you must have understood that the role of logistics manager is not easy. You need to possess the right set of skills, understand time management, networking and negotiation skills as you will work with a vast resource of human workforce to make your job a success.

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