The transportation sector is the backbone of the entire logistics and supply chain industry, which lies at the core of a developing country. Yet, all the business entities engaged in it have constantly been facing major issues since the beginning. Tracking, tracing, and monitoring freight, increasing fuel costs, repairing, maintenance, and payments to drivers have been severe problems plaguing the sector. These challenges became sort of permanent pain points for an aspect of the economy without which the wheel of progress cannot run.

These obstacles persistently blinded the view of companies trying to survive for a very long time. Of course, technologies like GPS and RFID-based tracking systems have been long around there. However, leveraging these technologies effectively and offering the most reliable solutions in terms of end-to-end services remained a far cry from the actual realization. And then came the pandemic for the last three years, amplifying all these difficulties to the extreme.

The industry, in general, and the entire Indian transport sector, in particular, would have been stuck in a hopeless limbo if eTrans Solutions Pvt Ltd’s brightest ray of sunshine had not pierced the darkened sky in the year 2000.

Established by a veteran and visionary Founder, Chairman and Managing Director, Mr Shoummo K Acharya, eTrans has been enlightening the path and illuminating the road ahead for almost all the blue chip companies and small and medium industries from the eastern part of the country for over the last two decades.

Testimony to Triumph

You can hear it from the industry stalwarts enamoured by eTrans’ revolutionary services.

Mr Ashish Gupta, Former Chief of CSD & Logistics, Tata Steel Ltd used to say, “My first impression of eTrans, when I started to work with them – a Company with lots of futuristics ideas, with a passion to not make money but to change the way things were happening in the industry so far.” Another very old client, Mr Ranabir Chatterjee, Vice President Deliver & SHEQ, at LINDE India ltd, had once commented, “The network of service personnel that eTrans has created over the years is amazing. Service stations are located at various strategic places so that vehicles are attended to even while enroute. The kind of commitment and dedication the team has formed over the years – is excellent.”

Mr Sairus Kersoo Inodrewalla, Director of Saizar Enterprizes, says, “Our relationship with eTrans started in about 2009 when Tata Steel wanted us to have all vehicles fitted with GPS. Since the very beginning, we have been very happy about eTrans all the way.”

Another client, Mr Arindam Bhowmick, Senior Manager, Materials, CESC Ltd, says, “The type of reports and after-sales service that we have received from eTrans, I am not sure that other Tracking Companies would have been able to give us. We have installed GPS to increase the effectiveness of our service, and we can say that our endeavour has been fairly successful. Of course, there have been hurdles, but eTrans has made the journey quite satisfying.”

Set up in August 2000, eTrans Solutions Private Limited has focused on providing cost-effective and user-friendly IOT-based tracking solutions tailor-made for Indian conditions. As a direct result of eTrans’ philosophy of working in close partnership at the operational level with its clients, the company has succeeded in acquiring deep insights into and strong domain knowledge of the Indian surface transport industry. The ready acceptance of eTrans Solutions’ services by leading blue-chip corporate customers bears testimony to its effectiveness.

We Will Be There All the Way

eTrans Solutions has its Head Quarters in Kolkata, Regional Offices at Jamshedpur, Jajpur and Delhi and Site offices and Service Engineers all over India. eTrans Solutions’ core strength lies in the quality of its people, its deep domain knowledge, and its sterling client base.

eTrans is the oldest surviving Company in the domain in India with the highest retention of customers. eTrans has a primary dominance in the eastern part of the country, with the largest number of GPS devices installed in various types of transport modes. Be it inbound movement, outbound movement or within the plant, parking lot management, or fly-ash disposal – eTrans is there with a solution.

According to Mr Acharya, eTrans Solutions’ core strength lies in the quality of its people, its deep domain knowledge, and its sterling client base. eTrans Solutions has a full-fledged embedded systems lab in Kolkata where it designs GPS units and customises RF & NVR technologies. eTrans Solutions has a strong IT team with a wide range of skill sets for application software development in the IoT space using the latest technologies. “Our customers get a wide range of value-added services like MIS reports, alerts, billing automation etc.,” he says.

An Acharya’s Vision

Mr Acharya, a Chemical Engineer, has been a sought-after Corporate Leader throughout his life with extensive experience in the Indian transport industry. He was the Managing Director of ICLCL when the entrepreneurship bug bit him.

At 52, he left the cushy job and plunged into the domain where his passion lay. Thus, eTrans (erstwhile VI eTrans Pvt Ltd) was born to bring efficiency and transparency to the supply chain. The first few years were a roller coaster ride and uncertain. The initial offering of smart card-based tracking was a new concept and Indian companies were sceptical of the idea of tracking.

Mr Acharya’s vision was way ahead of the time, but his optimism was high enough to keep all setbacks at bay. “Our vision is to Change the way Business is done in the Logistics Industry through Disruptive Innovation.” GPS was finally introduced in 2006 with a very small fleet. The Company first made a profit in 2009, and there was no looking back. Year after year eTrans has added feathers to its cap and has consolidated its position in the industry.

Further sharing their mission, he says that it is

• To understand and focus on the need of the customer and provide solutions in the logistics domain that creates customer delight. To nurture human capital and harness talent to deliver value to their clients and develop great leaders of people and process.
• To be flexible in adapting themselves to any and all relevant technologies to ensure that customer expectations are met.

Sharing his inspiration behind venturing into the business arena and especially into the transportation sector, Mr Acharya states that eTrans was born mainly out of two parallel dreams of his – A Freight Exchange platform to bring transparency in freight cost by eradicating the Intermediaries and improvement of Driver wellness. There is always a huge gap between the freight paid and the actual cost against the freight paid. The first step to building this platform has been to bring the entire trucking system under the GPS umbrella. Now that vehicle tracking has become a common and necessary activity, the time for launching Freight Exchange has come.

The other aspect of Mr Acharya’s dream, welfare of drivers has always been a focal area for eTrans. Despite being the main spoke of the industry, the drivers are the most deprived entity in the system. Mr Acharya, while he was a member of the Working Group on Logistics in Planning Commission, GOI, had made quite a few recommendations for the drivers.

eTrans is committed to cleaning up the system and providing a space to breathe for the drivers. Regular free medical checkup camps are set up at different sites throughout the year only for the drivers. A major task of eTrans’ service team is to counsel the drivers to practice healthy life style.

Transparently Ethical 

He further says that their professional qualities and values like; Understanding the objectives and pain areas of their customers; Providing custom made Solutions; Face to Chase and Providing 24×7 Support; High Customer Retention; and Commitment towards providing the best services are greatly admired by their clients. He states, “We have given the industry a glimpse of a new landscape and aim to deliver! We deliver on our promises – our happy customers can attest to that!”

eTrans continuously work on upgrading its system both on application and hardware part. eTrans has developed, and designed indigenous products such as 4G GPS devices (AIS140 and Non-AIS) and Network Video Recorder integrated with Advance Driver Assistance System and Driver Fatigue Monitor. Both ADAS and DFM work on the logic of train and café modules which creates a neural schema. Based on the neural schema, the captured images determine the abnormalities raised and immediately trigger an exception to alert the entire system regarding the abnormalities. It is basically a learning process that the devices automatically gather. The experience in developing an AI/ML model which later on analyzes the abnormalities found while working in the real scenario. “This is one of the examples of how we are developing our product and creating a solution for the NextGen era,” adds Mr Acharya.

Considering the current industry scenario, he says they face many challenges and must continuously overcome them. “eTrans is committed towards the best services we can offer to our customers.” However, some players dive into the industry domain as box sellers and do not provide service commitments. “They are killing the environment and decreasing faith in products or solutions in the mind of our customers.”

Nonetheless, eTrans has stuck to its model of providing not only tracking but also solutions to different pain points in the supply chain. “Our dedicated 24/7 data centres constantly churn out reports on different exceptions and enable the customer to take timely action.” In the era of the cut-throat price war, eTrans excels by virtue of proactive service.

Evolving with Tech-Changed Times

According to Mr Acharya, GPS tracking systems are very crucial today, and certain advancements can be expected in the future. To date, GPS has become a part and parcel of everybody’s life. Wherever you see, you will find GPS. If you want to find a place, you are taking the help of GPS. Whenever you book a cab, GPS plays a role. While tracking your purchased item, a tracking system is working. Tracking the whereabouts of your loved ones in terms of their safety/security again the tracking plays an important role and so on. “We live in a world of GPS, and the future is much stranger than we can imagine. We cannot think even the way technology is changing our daily lives.”

In his advice to budding entrepreneurs aspiring to venture into the GPS solution space, Mr Acharya says that understanding the business is essential to provide a perfect solution to your customer. Hence, please be truthful to your customers and provide the service you committed to them.

A Human-Machine Transcendence 

On envisioning scaling brand eTrans Solutions’ operations and offerings in the future, he reveals that though eTrans has a presence nationally, “We have focused more towards the eastern part of the country. We now have set up certain targets. In the next two years, we are focusing on doubling our Revenue volume.”

Separately, they are continuously working on new technological evaluations and developing new products in the field of telematics for tomorrow. They have introduced several types of sensors integrated products. RFID – GPS combo products and video-related products for remote monitoring and tracking. “We also are working on Driver Monitoring and Productivity. In line, they will be used as training references to the Driver Trainers for future usages,” he concludes.

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