THE COURIER MARKET

Chennaibest.com spoke to Anish Ahmad, Marketing and Sales, Professional Couriers, on the courier industry in Chennai today.

Apart from us, First Flight and DTDC are the major ones in the city.

I would say 65% of our market share comes from the Corporates and the rest is the household segment.

Documents/Consignments ...

Since this is a courier service, we usually do not undertake bulk orders. The majority of the orders is in the form of small packets and documents. But e-commerce has given a boost to bulk orders. Actually this is on the rise.

We undertake the courier of approximately 35,000 packages per day. This is the minimum figure that I am quoting.

We cater to both the domestic and the international market. Infact Air Pronto exclusively caters to our international market. Air Pronto is promoted as the international courier service by Professional couriers.

The Chennai market is no less than the others.

It depends a lot on the destination. Within the state of Tamil Nadu, we operate our own vans. For interstate courier services, in the south - Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, we operate through vans and trains. For North India, we utilise the air services, and occasionally, train services as well. It also depends on the load that is sent. Bulk orders are usually sent by rail.

The Internet has definitely helped us in providing quality services to the customer. Yes, it has helped us to launch the track and trace service through the net. The customer can reach us easily. The service becomes extremely customer-friendly.

We are happy with the existing structure. Taxation varies from one state to another. The Government has been quite friendly.

We have a network of professionals who take care of the security of goods. We have a hub and spoke centre. Our personnel physically supervise and track the movement of packages.

Yes. We do have plans for automation. It will be operational shortly.

Quite good. Nearly 30% is the margin in this industry.

We take a lot of care to see that the packages are handled properly. Our personnel are given adequate instructions to handle the parcels with care.

Implications for late delivery ...

The first implication is that the payment will be cut. The second and rather more serious one is that persistent late delivery would mean loss of business from the clients. These situations unless rectified, might ultimately spell doom to the business.

It is highly competitive. As far as Chennai is concerned, clients here are particular about the quality of service. Unless the quality is taken seriously, it is difficult to tap this market and penetration into areas where other players are operating will become impossible.

Yes. In future IT-related services would be launched. Quality services will become a norm in this market in due course of time.

|