This Jaipur-based business house finds strength in the family unit that works together and contributes their expertise and by making clear-cut strategies to bring ‘luxury’ to one of the most difficult and highly unorganized sectors in India – logistics. Vikas Jain – Head, Finance and HR, Ekta Enterprises defines ‘luxury in logistics’ as meeting the most difficult demands of the customers to enable them to execute their projects with a distraction-free experience when it comes to logistics. Sarada Vishnubhatla reports.
The name itself conveys unity. Ekta Enterprises is big on family working together where each member contributes experience and expertise to bring professionalism and efficiency to logistics. Established in 1986 in Jaipur with a single crane to pick and drop steel coils from the railway siding, today Ekta Enterprises has grown to 400-odd vehicles serving different verticals in the logistics sector. Not just that, the founder brothers of Ekta Group – V C Jain and G K Jain – are happy that they have been able to provide employment to roughly 1000 people and their families. With the second generation also now joining the business, Ekta Enterprises is into a strong expansion mode.
Vikas Jain – Head, Finance and HR, Ekta Enterprises shares: “In the initial years, our company took up projects as a subcontractor for those who worked for giants like SAIL and Tata Steel. Having worked hard, a decade later we grew to take on direct contracts. Today, we own our fleet of 30 cranes that are both truck-mounted, and crawlers, and those that can handle containers and steel, besides 300 trailers, 30 transit mixers and 20 forklifts.”
Strength in Multiple Verticals
Ekta Enterprises handles multiple verticals starting with container and steel handling, freight forwarding, renting out infrastructure equipment besides transporting construction aggregates. The company takes on fixed contracts with PSUs, and at ports including JNPT and New Mangalore Port Trust and at dry ICDs, helping their customers handle their cargo.
It was in 2004 when the company began handling containers for CONCOR which turned the fortune around for it. Till that point, Ekta Enterprises was only handling steel and transporting it for their clients.
Jain reminisces: “At that time, we had only 5 trailers, and we would hire the vehicles from the market as per the requirement. Aggregate transportation was begun as a vertical only in 2018. We ferry construction material for road building projects using our tippers from the crushers located near mines to the point of construction. We also transport steel and loose cement for the Western Dedicated Freight Corridor which is under construction for a patch measuring 700 km. Then, we also supply material for the Delhi-Mumbai Expressway for which on a daily basis we transport around 5000 metric tonnes of aggregate which is picked up from a mine near Haryana and transported to the camp site and the distance varies between 100-250 kms.”
Luxury in Logistics – USP of Ekta Enterprises
Logistics holds the key to projects getting executed on time. And Ekta Enterprises has been working hard for more than 3 decades to make it seamless for their customers.
Jain elaborates: “Those who need our services are generally bogged down by the challenges involved. For them it is difficult to build long-term association with service providers and hence they lose out on apt solutions. But with us, they know that they can let us handle all their logistics challenges. We have developed ourselves as logistics solution provider who are reliable in tough situations and in our kind of market, if a company can cater to the sometimes challenging demands of the customer, then it can justifiably be termed as luxury in logistics. We are working towards becoming a one-stop-shop to our customers.”
Ekta Enterprises has its entire fleet installed with GPS, security cameras and have been put under AMC with the vehicle manufacturers. Their dedicated IT team monitors the vehicles ensuring transparency of the vehicle movement. There are regular follow ups for predictive and corrective maintenance too.
Addressing Tough Market Demands
It is all in a day’s work, according to Vikas Jain. Tough customers and demands are merely part and parcel of the business. Ekta Enterprises is clear that once committed to a project, the team works towards delivering their best.
He quotes one example: “There is one customer who initially had a tough time in fixing their steel volumes. But uncertain volumes make it difficult for us to deploy ideal number of vehicles. There were times when they would complain to us that there were not enough vehicles available, but we sorted it out for them firstly by letting them know that only if their volume is certain we can service them in the best possible manner by deploying apt number of trailers. Eventually they understood our point and gradually worked it out partially by averaging out the daily volume. We began deploying a minimum fleet at their project site and if needed, we hired from the market.”
Perseverance is the key in customer servicing and Ekta Enterprises knows it. And this is what has kept the company in good stead since it is a highly competitive market. In complete alignment with the sentiment is another example that Jain quotes: “A big name in infrastructure has a long process in releasing payments. Yet we persevered and now have been working with them from the last 15 years. We have a couple of our executives working with them to keep the billing process on our part up to date. Our patience has paid off in the most interesting way for us. Other customers have recognized our long association with this company which has impressed them and has brought recognition to our resilience. It is like word-of-mouth publicity for us.”
Milestones Achieved
In the last 35 years since their inception, Ekta Enterprises has earned a reputation in the market as a reliable and efficient logistics solution provider. The founders and the younger generation see keeping the family business healthy and growing as a big milestone achieved, followed closely by the 2nd one which is to have expanded from working from a single district in Rajasthan to about 18 states in India today, besides having finished a few projects in Nepal as well.
Jain quotes the 3rd milestone: “We consider owning a fleet as an achievement because it gives us a competitive edge. Combine that with our experience in logistics, we make a formidable competitor to others in the market.”
Interesting Fall-out of COVID
The fall-out of COVID pandemic has been interesting for Ekta Enterprises. Initially there was hardly any business coming their way, which in turn, prompted them to sell a couple of trailers to cut out losses. Work restarted for them in August 2020 – what with port work coming under emergency services – industry movement also began gradually. By September, business picked up considerably and today, the company has purchased about 150 new trailers, of which 75 have already been delivered and the rest will arrive in a couple of months.
He says happily: “When lockdown came into being, challenges were expected. For us the biggest downside was that though we were ready to ferry freight there was no market movement. Now, along with the industry, we have recovered more than the loss that we incurred during the lockdown. Then, multiple projects came in and we received contracts for a few. In fact, currently there is a huge demand in the market for tip trailers but we have topped our capacity already with ongoing projects, hence we are unable to catch more demand. The new purchases will help us grab some of it though.”
Growth Trajectory
As a highly unorganized sector in the country while being one of the costliest in the world, logistics contributes considerably to Indian GDP. It is the presence of way too many single or less than 5 truck owners who undercut the market rates that creates an imbalance and less-than-desired efficiency in the market. With the road infrastructure improving by the day, there is better business coming the way of companies like Ekta Enterprises.
Jain shares: “We are flexible enough to change with the market requirements. In the near future, this industry will convert to becoming organized because there is no alternative to that.”
Addressing the challenges of driver attrition while seeking out skilled drivers from a relatively small pool adds to their learnings. Then there is also the challenge of highway pilferages. But Jains ensure that all the drivers – be they on their payroll or on contract – receive regular training to keep them up to date in safe driving skills.
Vision 2025
Currently, the company’s turnover is Rs. 100 crores and the management is aiming to cross Rs. 500 crores by 2025.
Jain says: “We are in complete alignment with the central government’s AatmaNirbhar Bharat concept by way of improving infrastructure. We are clear that we will do our best and work with opportunities like Bharatmala, Sagarmala, many airports that are being built and the Ahmedabad-Mumbai bullet train that is underway.”
In the near future, Ekta Enterprises hopes to open an infrastructure company as well which will bid tenders for building roads. Another segment the company is looking at is building warehouses for which currently the management is looking at real estate around Jaipur or alternately in Mumbai.
The ultimate global competitiveness comes in when a country can seamlessly transport goods minus downtime of any kind at an economical rate. For that to happen, the logistics industry has to become highly organized. The notoriously high logistics cost is a deterrent to India’s development but it is up to each logistics service provider to up the ante and run a tight ship.
And Ekta Enterprises is setting a tall example for others to follow!
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“In the initial years, our company took up projects as a subcontractor for those who worked for giants like SAIL and Tata Steel. Having worked hard, a decade later we grew to take on direct contracts. Today, we own our fleet of 30 cranes that are both truck-mounted, and crawlers, and those that can handle containers and steel, besides 300 trailers, 30 transit mixers and 20 forklifts.
– Vikas Jain, Head, Finance and HR, Ekta Enterprises