Premier Logistics Growing Ambition

Kasun Illankoon spoke to the founder and managing director, Mr. Deepak Khushalani, about Premier Logistics growing ambition

Ever since their inception in 2016, Premier Logistics has achieved a year on year growth of 20% and likewise for 2018. From a team of just three, the company has now grown to thirty.

Premier Logistics is a third party logistics (3PL) company that provides supply chain solutions which deliver a great return on investments for any organization.

The parent company of Premier Logistics, Maneesh Textiles began operations nearly 45 years ago, a firm that was dealing in textiles wholesale as well as the retail trade. Managing the stock was an eye opener for the company’s founders since managing the volume at such a massive scale meant using 3rd party providers for shipping, clearance, and delivery. This was an opportunity that could be done in-house and expand as a service for other companies.

Picture: Deepak Khushalani, Founder & Managing Director of Premier Logistics

“Starting small and scaling up has taken well over 3 years, but at the forefront has been the vision of the founders and shareholders to provide good service and the heart of its principles has been energetic staff and a will to get things done. What drives any organization has been motivated employees and Premier has always kept this in mind. Acquisitions of smaller providers will be on the radar if it will add value to the service offering,” said Mr. Deepak Khushalani, Founder & Managing Director of Premier Logistics.

For Premier Logistics, 2018 has been a year of consolidation and establishing a solid foundation for 2019.

“This year was about establishing and growing internally, specifically bringing on board a set of an experienced team of professionals that can drive the next 2-3 years of growth and lead the expansion. Focused mainly on employees, giving them the responsibility to drive their departments and in tandem establishing and connecting with current and new clients.”

Premier Logistics offers a full range of logistics and supply chain solutions with an international multimodal network of warehousing and transportation. With innovative industry solutions, our integrated services include all aspects of warehouse management (Infor SCE 10), logistics planning, control, and execution as an extension of your supply chain ecosystem.

The last 12 months was to establish various verticals within the organization. Premier Logistics has successfully established a successful Finished Vehicles Logistics (FVL) division in collaboration with a leading Vehicle Distributor in the Middle East. Moreover, and have also developed an in-house value added services (VAS) department currently catering to over 70 brands within the Middle East, providing services such as Co-packing, Shrink wrapping, Labelling, Barcoding, Repackaging and much more.

“Due to the rapid expansion of our business, we have also managed to secure additional storage facilities (Open Yard and Bulk Storage) for Project Logistics with services such as Lashing and Crating for bulk items,” added Mr. Khushalani

“Our goals for 2019 include expanding our Warehousing Capacity through International Joint Ventures and build & operate a new state-of-the-art facility within Dubai.”

Picture: Premier Logistics Facility

One of the advantages of working with a 3PL provider is the ability to easily position your supply chain in markets where you don’t have an established presence. Having access to distribution centers and warehouses in various regions allows companies to grow in new areas by being able to ship goods efficiently to anywhere in the world.

Being able to locate and keep track of products and inventory in a new market without having to spend money on warehousing, equipment, and additional labor can save companies money while giving them the opportunity to strategically position themselves to better serve their customers.

“In this regard, we aim to increase our current business by offering our clients improved end-to-end visibility of their goods through our Logistics Management Portal. Our other plans for 2019 include the establishment of a Chemical Logistics and an Aviation Logistics Division.”

An important aspect of Premier Logistics success is the initial investment towards IT and digitalisation within their organization. From selecting the leading WMS (Infor SCE 10) to creating an in-house Logistics Management Portal (LMP), where a client can directly track, view, modify, request inbound/outbound, reserve dock space for their inventory stored within our warehouse.

As such Mr. Khushalani expressed the importance of continued investment in the company’s IT infrastructure in order to face further obstacles ahead of them, “To be visible and to continuously grow it’s about the development of IT infrastructure, investment in niche areas of e-commerce final mile delivery, managing stock, cold chain & chemical related industries. Managing customer expectations and maintaining margins is certainly a challenge.”

“There is a trend of more digitization within the industry, which is positive because that is one of the focus areas of Premier and a more professionalized level of service. Service level’s which tapered off recently have become a talking point for big clients that are looking to service larger parts of the region and that means experienced staff to handle complex tasks. The ability to be available and a more dynamic approach to work is a need of the hour. And that is certainly what we are focused on,” remarked Mr. Khushalani.