Celcius Logistics Solutions Private Limited- Company in Focus 2022.
About the company
Celcius is a cold-chain marketplace startup. It is the only aggregator platform in India, which offers solutions for both Reefer logistics and cold storage warehousing. Celcius’ simple yet unique solution can be credited to its inception as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic in India. The unprecedented nationwide lockdown in March 2020 exposed the shortcomings of the existing cold chain in India. The unavailability of staff and coordination gaps between the shippers and transporters created chaos in transporting essential commodities across the country. Considering the sustained demand for contactless deliveries of essentials and anticipating the need for a robust and seamless cold chain to aid the distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine, the founders of Celcius came together to create India’s first digital marketplace for the cold chain.
The entrepreneur story
Swarup Bose, Founder and CEO
Swarup Bose and his team were working in the Cold chain sector in the UAE before they moved to India. Back then, they were taking in orders from India and they noticed the huge potential that the market held in the cold chain sector. They also noticed that India’s cold chain market lacked technology-based approaches. They looked at this as a golden opportunity for them to enter the Indian cold chain industry. They have been a part of this industry in India for 18 years and that gave them an edge and a unique insight when they started Celcius.
When Swarup started this venture, initially it was just him and his co-founders, Rajneesh Raman (Co-Founder and COO) and Arbind Jain (Co-Founder and CTO). From there on, the team grew to where it is today. In their earlier days, they used to work from a small office in a remote location but in that period, they were able to innovate and come up with new ideas. The success that Celcius has achieved today is largely backed by its quest for innovation.
Celcius was started at the height of the lockdown in 2020 when the entire country was shut down. It was imperative that transportation of essential commodities would be of high priority during these times. Moreover, the need for an effective cold chain solution would only increase once the vaccines started rolling out. The team realized that creating a nationwide cold chain network was the need of the hour since the cold chain facilities available were scarce. Their modus operandi was to create an asset-light SaaS-based platform that would help cold chain entities collaborate regardless of their bandwidth. They have now gone from operating in Mumbai to operating in 300 cities across India, and from only connecting the major hubs in metro cities to tier 2 and 3 cities.
About the client base
They have clients across the dairy, pharmaceuticals, frozen goods, fruits, vegetables, and seafood and meat industries. Out of these, there is a considerable scope for growth in the fruits and vegetables segment. These sectors still largely depend on non-temperature controlled vehicles for transportation of their commodities and this generates large amounts of waste.
Celcius through its online platform has so far created a rich database of over 200 clients and has a reach in over 300 cities across India. They have successfully transported over 18,000 tonnes of perishable cargo since their inception in December 2020.
How has the industry changed over the years?
The logistics ecosystem is expanding expeditiously, and the pandemic has played a huge hand in accelerating the development of the industry. Covid-19 exposed the infrastructural and operational gaps in the logistics industry and more people began to recognize the need for the country to have a strong and reliable supply chain and cold chain network. With this necessity in mind, a lot more people are delving into the logistics sector. Entrepreneurs also have more financial support from the government and investors alike, pushing them to stick to their pursuits. The Indian government has been providing subsidies and schemes to encourage more individuals to explore the potential of this sector, while angel investors and VCs have been investing in this field more generously than before.
What have been the biggest challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Like most startups, our biggest challenge initially was for the market to accept a disruption in the age-old cold chain practices that they were inclined to follow. Bringing a tech-based approach to a non-tech oriented sector and awaiting for them to adapt to this solution was a struggle. However, once we got the initial traction of clientele, we got to experience how the Indian cold chain industry, open-mindedly adopted our solutions. Presently, we are grateful to be in a position to grow our business and scale up exponentially.
What business strategy you apply that brought you success?
Our strategy for success has been quite simple; innovation and service with hard work and patience. With this strategy, we have developed an ecosystem that ensures that 99% of our deliveries are meeting strict quality guidelines on maintaining correct temperatures and delivery timelines. We account for the transportation of perishable cargo throughout the transit and our response time is limited to 2 hours in case of breakdowns. All of this translates into an end-to-end solution and a better user experience. We believe that this is the driving force behind our success.
When it comes to the company, what are you most proud of?
The team we have built is diverse and multi-faceted, we take pride in each member of the team working for themselves and helping the company grow, we firmly believe that when your employees give it their all it’s impossible you will fail in your endeavor. Giving opportunities for the people to grow has been a driving factor in our quick rise to success, free flow of ideas has helped us innovate and cross many hurdles towards creating the first Cold Chain ecosystem.
What do you see as the most difficult task in being in your Industry?
Recent years have brought a lot of the issues with the cold chain industry to the forefront. Apart from the clear lack of facilities and infrastructure, the industry often has to deal with technological challenges. Most cold chain products are sensitive to minor fluctuations in temperature. With vaccines, for instance, even a change of one degree in temperature can reduce the efficacy of the vaccines significantly. A lot of the storage and shipping companies do not have the technological solutions required to monitor the conditions of the products stored or track the products when they are en route. This eventually leads to a lot of the products deteriorating in quality, and the amount of waste generated increases. To prevent such instances, at Celcius, we ensure that we install IoT devices and GPS trackers in the vehicles of every transporter we onboard. This way, not only do we monitor the temperature conditions of the shipments but we can also track the location of the vehicles to assist them in case of any mishaps that might occur on the road, a first-of-its-kind VTS (vehicle tracking system) monitors each trip 24/7 and alerts all involved for the smallest of deviations, a pan India operations team steps in to assist the transporter with anything required to complete each transaction in the most efficient manner.
What is the game-changing decisions you took as a leader for your company?
In the very beginning, we launched Vahan Vikas Yojana. This scheme is all about Creating Entrepreneurs and new transporters across India, giving low-income group people a secondary method of income, even when we were formulating the whole scheme, we took the bold step of taking it Live across India with the confidence that we will get the support we asked for? It has been an upward journey for us from that day. Our transport partners have helped us grow, build quality efficient systems and enrich their own lives also.
How do you encourage your team to grow and bring innovative ideas to the table?
At Celcius, the team follows an “open-work environment”. This provides employees with the freedom to grow, and take ownership and responsibility for their work. The workplace acts as a support system for the employees, giving them the space to learn and thrive while holding themselves accountable and responsible for driving growth.
Despite having software-based checks and balances in place, the founders figured that providing employees with the freedom to work at their pace and divide their time based on their workload, has proven to be the most effective in instilling the value of accountability and thereby, contributed massively to the growth of the company.
Growth map- Plan for the next 5 years for your company
Our plan is to grow and cover over 500 cities in the next two or three years while creating India’s largest last-mile delivery network. The services we offer will cover everything from primary movement to the last mile distribution, thereby providing a complete cold chain solution. Our software operations too, are set to evolve from transaction-based to completely integrated TMS (Transportation Management System) and WMS (Warehouse Management System). This change will further help us create a holistic end-to-end supply chain solution for the cold chain network.
What is the best advice you can give to our readers?
In addition to experience and knowledge in any field you wish to venture into, maintaining the right attitude towards the ups & downs and a “never give up” outlook will definitely keep you motivated in achieving your mission.