Mr. Rajesh Sikka, took over the responsibility of Managing Director of MDIPL in February 2014. He is a Mechanical engineering graduate from Delhi College of Engineering, New Delhi in the year 1991. After completing his graduation, he joined Bluestar India, a leader in air-conditioning and commercial refrigeration as anengineer.

Post that, he went on to join his next assignment as one of the Co-founder of Trane Ltd., a US based MNC in Nov. 1994 to start its operation in New Delhi. There, he held several positions including, sales head and business leader where he was responsible for the geographical area of SAARC nations (excluding Pakistan). Trane Inc. became part of Ingersoll Rand, a US MNC in the year 2008. Mr. Sikka continued with IR till Dec 2013. He decided to move on when he was Business head of business development and vertical markets of IR Climate Solutions Pvt. Ltd.

He has 23 years of rich experience with almost 19 years with Trane/IR in the field of air-conditioning, Building automation system, Energy management and Turnkey Solution encompassing key positions to leadership roles in the organizations.He also possesses strong leadership & entrepreneurship skills which he proved during his varied roles.

In an exclusive chat with an Global Logistics Show representative, Mr Sikka talks about his experiences, his growth chart and an industry overview, from his lenses.

Q.1 Please share something about your 20+ years of enriching work experience, challenges you faced, and your learning.
Having 25 years of rich experience in start ups, turn around and scaling of the business in B2B markets, I have held key leadership positions in multinationals like Trane and Ingersoll Rand with experience in air conditioning, refrigeration, energy management and turnkey solution. Every industry has its own set of challenges and brings few learning to you. Scale, cost effective solution, services, talent acquisition, project management and customer satisfaction index are few of the critical key areas wherein you will find lots of challenges. On the other side, the learning curve keeps on evolving. The learning spread from turning around the business to adapting the new technologies with focus on Tier II and Tier III markets.

Q.2 We would love to know about the 'Make in India' initiative by Metaflex.
We made Dutch quality products as part of Make In India initiative. We have the state of the art manufacturing facility based in Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh. Besides this, our continuous focus on fostering the innovation through our in house R&D department helps us in delivering nothing but the best technological qualitative products to our customers. Further, we are also dedicated towards building the skill development amongst our employees. We have tied up with an NGO- Gram Tarang, to hire skilled manpower into our organization.

Q.3 So over the years, how do you think the industry has evolved and what do you think the future holds?
Indian logistics industry has come a long way from the time when most of the operational systems in logistics industry were manually driven to the present technology oriented systems. With the evolution of other industries like infrastructure, manufacturing and the complete supply chain industry; logistics industry has gained momentum too. Dominated by inbound logistics, the industry evolved in such a way that it has gained market on outbound logistics also.In the logistics industry, the demand for docking solutions has recently started picking up. Various reasons for increasing demands are development on the infrastructure industry, Make in India initiative by government. The shift to the technology driven systems has not only helped the organizations to reduce their costs, but also helped them in saving on factors like time, labour cost, better space utilization etc, which has eventually increased their operational efficiency substantially. Further automation is the key to future.

Q.4 What are the various products Metaflex offers and what's the major factor behind every product creation?
We provide complete docking solution for external and internal applications. From overhead sectional doors, dock levellers, dock shelters, dock seal to high speed roll up and fold up doors, we offer a complete solution. The core idea behind offering such a wide spectrum of products is to provide one stop shop solution which helps them in improving their operational efficiency.

Q.5 Do you think the food and grain storage mechanics in India is going in the right direction and what, according to you, is the most important aspect of food safety?
New government policies including focus on building more cold storages, infrastructure and 100% FDI in food processing sector will help in solving the problems like food wastages will bring price control and less inflation.

Q.6 There are various industry exhibitions running across the country. What is your opinion on platforms like Global Logistics Show? How can they improve?
The platform like Global Logistics Show are doing a fairly good job by bringing whole industry under one roof. It is applaudable to organize an event at such a wide level, wherein all industry experts can come together and share their valuable views; along with brining prospective clients at a common meeting point. There could be new initiatives which can enrich the quality of exhibitions like getting themselves registered with government bodies and be a part of government policies and advocacy. They can also educate the industries about government schemes and policies by various means of marketing.