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To reap the benefits of the Net, logistics service- provider Blue Dart is set to become a Netco itself.

By Nita Jatar Kulkarni

The numbers say it all. From a base of Rs 170.92 crore in 1999-2000, logistics service-provider Blue Dart hopes to increase its turnover to Rs 1,000 crore by 2004-05, at the dot.comesque growth rate of 42.37 per cent a year. That description isn't far off the mark but, to really reap the benefits of the Web, logistics companies like Blue Dart will have to become Netcos (Net companies) themselves.

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Picture this: an Ahmedabad-based customer, browsing through Rediff's bookstore, discovers a great bargain on J.K. Rowling's first three Harry Potter books, and orders them. But Blue Dart picks up the books from Rediff's supplier, packs them in a Rediff bag, and delivers them to the customer.

It makes sense for an on-line retailer to outsource the logistics function completely. Indeed, over time, companies like Rediff and Fabmart could well expect their logistics service-provider to also provide value-added services like warehousing and inventory management.

Wiring business processes. Complementing these brick-world skills are click-domain capabilities in each of its six critical business processes: supply-chain management, operations management, pre-sales activities, billing-cycles, customer service, and distribution. The objective? To integrate, on-line, the company's customer-interface with its operational interfaces. Or, as Malcom Monteiro, 46, Senior Vice-President (Sales & Systems), Blue Dart, puts it: ''...to merge the company's external business processes with its internal business processes.'' And the Net and Net-technologies will be the glue that binds the two.

The company has set a deadline of June, 2000, for this transformation. By then, it would have invested Rs 2 crore in the process, and created a seamless Net-based information- and commerce-transaction system. Avers Clyde Cooper, 42, ceo, Blue Dart: ''By June, 2000, our intranet and logistics-business process will be integrated into a Web-based electronic system.'' The constituents of this system include a service finder, which can help a company discover the ideal service for its needs; the price finder, which is, essentially, a ready-reckoner of rates; and the transit-time finder, a listing of delivery times.

Over time, Blue Dart hopes to provide on-line information on the availability of space on a particular date. If the client anticipates a need to dispatch something on that day, it can make an on-line booking. The other benefits of the system: clients can download and print service contracts, bills, and shipping documents.

Wiring transaction interfaces. Blue Dart hopes to use the cyber-media to channel its information-transactions with clients: service delay notifications, stock requisitions, registration, feedback, help desk services, FAQs, billing, collections, and reminders of outstanding dues. However, although the company proposes to accept on-line credit card payments from casual customers (read: occasional users), it does not plan to accept on-line payments from its regular clients. The logic: the magnitude of the payment made by the average casual customer is small, and the risk involved in completing this transaction on-line is minimal. And, with the low incidence of corporate purchase cards, corporate customers settle their bills through cheques.

The new system renders Blue Dart's existing customer- and business process-interface systems like Faxdart-where the company sends a fax listing the status of the delivery at a pre-fixed number of hours to the client-or Powerdart-where the company's large clients use a modem to dial into its system to access whatever information they needed-irrelevant. However, in the interests of companies that are yet to embrace the Net , Blue Dart proposes to continue these services for some time to come.

The Web-based system, it believes, will be used primarily by its 1,200 largest customers (it has a customer-base of 25,000). ''Technology,'' explains Monteiro, ''should be leveraged for the betterment of business.'' Put simply, that means the only technologies adopted by the company will be those that make a significant difference to the efficiency of its business processes.

Technology, though, can't serve as a long-term differentiator. Explains Milind Nande, 36, Manager (Systems), Blue Dart: ''It's the customer relationship aspect that is important.'' Which is why Blue Dart has combined hi-tech with hi-touch. Thus, its on-line system does not have a facility for customers to chat with company-employees. Instead, all customer-interactions are done either over the telephone or through face-to-face meetings. Bottomline: technology is merely the means to an end.

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