our Soft Limited, a global leader offering software solutions for transportation and logistics industry globally, in association with top players of the industry, has launched a strategic forum - FFIFA (Freight Forwarding Industry & Four Soft Alliance).

     According to Four Soft release, FFIFA is an initiative to provide a forum for the exchange of ideas, which could help the industry evolve best practices available, that would in turn help the logistics players save energy, time and money while serving the customers.

     FFIFA plans to work for the creation of unified and standard business practices across multiple tiers and geographies. Major benefits include access to all information, standards and metrics, better understanding of changing business dynamics and understanding of tangible and intangible benefits of IT in Logistics

     Apart from Four Soft, DHL, Geodis Wilson, CEVA, Agility, FedEx and Continental Group representing six of the largest logistic players in the

world, have come together for the first time to drive efficiencies in the logistic software

deployment. The members will collaborate and will collectively suggest the adoption of best practices across the industry. Commenting on the initiative, Palem Srikanth, Chairman & Managing Director, Four Soft Limited, said, "Logistics and transportation industry has been facing serious problems due to lack of standardised business processes.

     It has made them less competitive and led to lack of control on their IT budgets. We believe this is the right time for leading players of the industry to come together and adopt a collaborative approach to the common industry problems.

     Four Soft is proud to be a part of this consortium as we are rightly equipped to provide valuable solutions to our customers."

     "I am thrilled to be part of this Global initiative from Four Soft. I have been observing the growth of Four Soft from the past few years and they have the acquaintance with the global logistics players which makes them ideal partner to hold this initiative. I am sure this will help the Logistics and Transportation industry to achieve next level of maturity in their business processes," says Kieren Ring, CEO, Global Institute of Logistics.

CARGOCONNECT: How evolved is Indian logistics market towards world-class technologies? What are the different trends you witness in the Indian logistics market in this regard?
R. Roy: The Indian Logistics Market is witnessing an unprecedented growth supported by adopting latest technologies in recent times to compete with global logistics players. According to estimates, the Indian logistics market is $125 Billion with projected IT spend of $200 million approximately by 2013. The key trend that is driving Indian Logistics market is its demand due to economic growth, technology upgradation, investments by private players and infrastructure development.

CC: What is the level of awareness and penetration of technology in the Indian logistics sector compared to other world markets?
R. Roy: The level of technology adoption is relatively at an early stage in comparison to global world logistic markets. This is implied from the fact that the capital expenditure is uncorrelated with technology adoption in the Indian logistics market. There are certain companies, who are our customers, that have taken a lead in this and we are hopeful that others will follow suit this year.

CC: What are the different initiatives of Four Soft aimed at creating awareness about the benefits of technology in the logistics industry in India? How the industry is responding to it?

R. Roy: There have been various initiatives taken by Four Soft in the past in creating awareness and benefits of adopting technology in logistics industry in India. One of the latest initiatives is being organizing an Industry Alliance, FFIFA (Freight Forwarding Industry and Four Soft Alliance) by bringing the global players on a single platform to drive efficiencies in logistic software market and using IT as a tool for competitive advantage.
Another significant initiative is making all our products available in the Sa as (Software as a Service) which makes it possible for SME customers to afford our software. We are quite hopeful that in the next FY this will bring in a lot of customers into the Four Soft fold.
We have been receiving positive feedback from major players in the industry and they would want to extend their arm to come and participate in the next FFIFA meet which is scheduled in the last week of March'10 to drive this objective forward.

CC: What is Four Soft's current market share in the Global IT SCM market, and what kind of growth you foresee in the next one year?

R. Roy: Currently Four Soft has an estimated 10 per cent market share of the projected software spend. The organization has taken various initiatives based on opportunities in the global logistics market and these initiatives are likely to improve and increase our market share by about 5 per cent.

CC: What are the new products and services Four Soft plan to introduce in the next one year?
Four Soft has been investing a lot in R&D to enhance the features in the existing 4S product portfolio. Four Soft recently launched a supply chain automation tool 4S Visiloge (India's first such solution).Designed to help companies to primarily increase efficiency of service and visibility to its customers, this application helps organizations to become the control tower in the whole process of a shipment lifecycle right from the purchase order to its fulfilment and across all parties like the buyer, supplier and the various Logistics service providers.
We are planning to develop specific solutions for the Pharma, Auto and Retail industries in the next three months. This will be a large opportunity for Four Soft.

CC: Four Soft has recently initiated an industry alliance, FFIFA. What are the objectives of this initiative?
FFIFA - Freight Forwarding Industry & Four Soft Alliance- has been formed with an objective to provide a forum for the exchange of ideas where the resultant 'Industry best practices' will save the industry time, energy and money in providing better services to its customers.
Over the years, It has been observed that Freight forwarding and Logistics industry has been struggling with lack of unified and standard business processes/ metrics resulting in very high operating costs and making them less competitive.
The objective of FFIFA and its members is to collaborate and help the evolution of unified and standard business practices across multiple tiers and geographies.
Major benefits include access to all information, standards and metrics, better understanding of changing business dynamics and understanding of tangible and intangible benefits of IT in Logistics.