There are numerous job roles that have emerged due to increased demands in various verticals of logistics: E Commerce, Freight Forwarding, Warehousing, Terminal Operations, Port Operations. Even the industry is looking for skilled personnel to fit various job functions and also offering opportunities for entrepreneurships, Alpana Chaturvedi, CEO, My Logistics Gurukul pens down a column on skilling in logistics. 

Logistics is emerging as one of the top five employment generating industries. It is expected that transportation, warehousing, and packaging businesses will generate nearly 11 million jobs by the end of this decade. However, the changing landscape in the industry with its fast  paced development has put forth a demand for a number of skill sets that are needed for existing serving personnel to upgrade themselves to stay relevant and multi skill sets will also be needed as organizations would want to do more with less.  Similarly, skills are needed for aspiring logisticians who wish to be part of this exciting, growing, changing and fast paced industry. Another important aspect of skilling, reskilling and upskilling is to ensure error free deliverables at work as small mistakes could cause the company huge loss of revenue. 

Though logistics has always played an important part in facilitating trade, which is the backbone of the economy, vital for the manufacturing industry and our very own day to day existence, in the last couple of years, it has found its rightful place under the sun! What would humanity have done without access to essentials, availability of daily items for consumption, medicines and many other things available at their door steps during the last 2 years. The dependency on ecommerce has given the sector a huge boost. While the pandemic is hopefully receding but our changed habits and dependency on these conveniences are here to stay. Humanity at large has found a lot of convenient ways of managing its daily needs and timely access to so many goods from far off destinations has become a lot easier.

There are numerous job roles that have emerged due to increased demands in various verticals of logistics: E Commerce, Freight Forwarding, Warehousing, Terminal Operations, Port Operations; the industry is looking for skilled personnel to fit various job functions and also offering opportunities for entrepreneurships.  No one has the time or availability of manpower to train personnel who come with degrees and diplomas and yet have no practical knowledge or skills. The labor intensive logistics industry also has a need for semi skilled personnel. Hence skilling initiatives are needed for all levels of personnel: entry level, mid-level and executive and senior levels.

The advancement in technology has not only brought about workplace efficiency but also created a demand for a changing level of skill sets who understand automation, innovative technologies, artificial intelligence, data analytics and are able to handle the changed environment in the workplace. Hence employers are looking for personnel who are adept and have an understanding of various technological skills. 

Along with the above, one cannot undermine the skills that are needed for all professionals and are industry agnostic. The service attitude and customer service skills for providing a delightful experience to the customers, to one’s clients and which at times could be the only differentiators between retaining a customer and losing one- as technology could be replicated but human intervention remains a key skill that is needed in every industry and sector. Timely and pleasant communication with the customers, being interactive, thinking out of the box, managing teams, handling difficult situations and leading from the front, retaining of old customers and building new ones are key to running businesses. 

The Gati Shakti, Made In India initiatives and projects like Bharat Mala, Sagarmala , Dedicated Freight corridors will need an organized skilled workforce to step in great numbers, so the demand supply gap will have to be filled, in time.

MyLogistics Gurukul has set solid footprints in the logistics knowledge development  and upskilling domain. We train students to be job ready by training on modules that have been developed by industry stalwarts and also delivered by industry people. Students are trained in different verticals of logistics. 

We have trained airlines and ground handling teams on Vaccination Handling during the Covid lockdown, the Med Tech Logistics training for the Pharma community, and many other short specialized modules have been  our marquee customized training modules.