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impressive though no one knew precisely The telecom network connecting In-
what it meant! dian cities was also so rudimentary in the
Another leap forward was to give effect 1980s, that we were compelled to set up
to our dream of delivering documents our own captive high-speed, leased line
across the world, to reach “next day”. Unre- network connecting 17 cities, as the only
alistic as this sounded, we achieved this for way to accelerate delivery information
our bank customers shipping high-value across the system. In its time, this was one
instruments to New York from several cit- of the country’s largest private networks
ies in India: late afternoon pick-ups, on to and also one of the first private VPNs.
the last evening IA flights to Bombay, rapid Equally, the dreadful state of north In-
sorting at the airport (our first preferred dian highways compelled our Heavy Pro-
sort location was the well-lit car park jects Division to invest in a fleet of multi-
outside the Centaur Hotel!), loaded on to axle Goldhoffer trailers and shallow depth
the midnight departure of BA, an air-side barges, to transport packages weighing
transfer at Heathrow on to Concorde, upto 400 tonne and over 50 m. long, from
reach New York same time same day, and Calcutta, up the river Ganga, and RoRo to
a helicopter transfer into Wall Street to plants in Central Uttar Pradesh.
catch the first clearing! This level of ser- In much the same way, we were Issues of Filmfare
vice, breath-taking in its time, helped our obliged to develop in-house, our own
company to gain and retain its dominant Warehouse Management System, to and Femina
position in international express. transform the godowns of those days into magazines would
Our post-DHL avatar, took us into Distribution Warehouses that met the
replicating the DHL formula in domestic stringent requirements of hi-tech custom- arrive at our office
express, where we were already offering ers like HP.
door to door time definite services by air You may wonder why I chose to look late Saturday night,
and road – the latter being a new market so far back at our antecedents. I do so, and have to be
offering that set a trend for other small because it seems hard to imagine that so
parcel Express carriers. For example, when much of what we take for granted today booked immediately,
PAN Cards were being introduced, we – the incredibly efficient and exten- on Air India’s flights
delivered 150,000 cards to 5000 locations sive delivery systems across India and,
over three weeks. especially, the last mile; on-line booking to London; upon
After adding the last piece – warehous- of shipments; shipment tracking; instant
ing – to our 3rd party logistics offering, delivery information; 24-hour call centres arrival, they had to
we were able to integrate a multi-modal and booking offices – none of this existed be swiftly distributed
service with our customers’ IT systems. through the ‘80s when AFL and DHL man-
This led us into the domain of supply aged to put all those pieces of the express to various cinema
chain management, again a first of its kind and logistics jigsaw together, and set the houses around
service offering in the country. stage for the transformation of logistics
Lest all of this sound too self-congratu- and set new standards for technology- London to catch
latory, I hasten to clarify that there it was backed delivery and transport in India. Indians leaving
not so much any pioneering genius in our In concluding, while once again con-
DNA, but ironically, the deplorable state of veying my gratitude to The STAT Trade the theatres after
the country’s infrastructure – physical and Times for this Award, I would like to
procedural – that provided the impetus to acknowledge that the achievement that watching the Sunday
our constantly seeking greater efficiencies. is recognised, such as it is, flows from the morning Hindi film
For instance, we were able to launch a exceptional relations my company has
successful time-definite door-to-door ser- enjoyed with my foreign business part- shows.
vice by road, (2 days to BLR, 3 days to DEL) ners DHL, DACHSER, Carlson Wagonlit
because this longer transit time was still and ASL; and the outstanding manage-
more consistent and reliable than the erratic ment team that ran AFL’s operations to
air service of Indian Airlines which, in the such high standards across India for over
1980s, suffered badly from industrial unrest. half a century. 

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