Transport business

Trucks are becoming a rage in India and why not! After the entire Golden quadrilateral’ project is finally crawling up to completion even though laboriously. A sluggish national railway finding itself inadequate to match supply demand mismatch while Indian economy juggernaut chugging along at 8% plus GDP growth rate. Railways in any case will suffer from load head and discharge head bottlenecks, even if it achieves some semblance of efficiency in delivering goods over distance in quick time. Besides railways will always remain favorite of bulk users such as petroleum products, coal, cement, food-grain etc. as the advantage of economy of scale is heavily skewed in its favor. On the other hand road transport business is best for sundry articles with efficient door delivery facility and anytime operation and most of flexibility on all norms of business. Considering these conditions, prospects for some robust truck transport business couldn’t have been any better from this point in time.

The Government in India has always been associated with inefficiency, red tape, obstacle in the path of industry and its first response mostly is “how can this be possible” attitude. India entrepreneur has always tried to bypass and avoid the government interface, the least one has to deal with it the more efficient and faster one’s enterprise works. Yet government is and will remain a necessary evil as far as business is concerned. That is why transport business, even though more expensive than railways in delivering goods from one destination to other has succeeded in all these years and continues to grow despite advancement in technology.

This is one reason why the transport business is fractured in the sense truck owners are individuals while booking agents are big companies. Therefore most truck buyers are individuals as such it becomes a big invest for them. But an investment in trucks is a messy affair with short term and long term issues. In addition there is capacity to be optimized and haul range issues to be settled before one can zero in on truck size and model. Should we go for rugged gas-guzzler or delicate, efficient but maintenance monster Smaller trucks over short range will have quick return advantage while bigger trucks are drags but cost benefit per kg is substantial over long hauls. Even in bigger monster truck one has to contend with running tanker business, bulk material business, perishable goods business which obviously has to have air-conditioned cargo hold. However subject of this article is not selection of truck but to help buyer arrive at an informed evaluation of best deal from his business prospective. Simplest evaluation technique is to first set importance of attributes and then allot them weight gages. Attributes could be robustness of machine, mileage, cost of maintenance, comfort of driving, capacity truck etc. Once this is accomplished next step is fill up the data and do some basic calculation and bingo! You have the best deal. In following part of the article we will set up an easy to do model which will act as templates for actual cases.

A General Model for Price Comparison of Truck:

Model Attributes Weightage Score(10)Grade Model 1 Aesthetics 5% 5 0.25 Cabin Comfort 5% 6 0.3 Ruggedness 7% 8 0.56 Safety 8% 5 0.4 Mileage 20% 6 1.2 Maint Cost 10% 5 0.5 Price 38% 8 3.04 After sales 7% 8 0.56 Total 6.81 Model 2 Aesthetics 5% 8 0.4 Cabin Comfort 5% 6.5 0.325 Ruggedness 7% 6.5 0.455 Safety 8% 4 0.32 Mileage 20% 3 0.6 Maint. Cost 10% 6 0.6 Price 38% 8 3.04 After sales 7% 7 0.49 Total 6.23

The score for each attribute has to be assigned by the user himself depending on his preferences and inclinations though weight gages will be more or less in the same range as assigned above. While most of the attributes mentioned in the table are self explanatory, their importance needed to be properly assessed by the prospective buyer. For instance driver comfort just cannot be ignored as the driver is on hire. His comfort will only assure efficient and timely runs of trucks. An individual aspiring to own a truck and start transport business needs to spend some time scouting around various companies and learn pros and cons of different attributes.

Going through specifications of various models give valuable insight into what makes a great truck. Some attributes associated with financial cost have not been considered in above model as it would then make the appraisal very complicated which would be counter to the object of this article. However financial cost is not be all together ignored as some times it becomes the main hurdle in acquiring the machine. In view of this I would suggest that financial aspect of truck price must be analyzed as follow up step we have zeroed in on a particular model. In addition the financial cost in more associated with the dealer rather than the manufacturer therefore having arrived at decision, best financial deal can be obtained by simply juggling the dealers. Behavior and approach of the dealer will also give you some taste service you can expect once the purchase action is consummated.

In summery we will repeat what we have already said earlier. There is a vast opportunity awaiting transport business. More and more super highways will come up in near future as it fits in the game plan all politicians, being huge employment generators as well as growth engines of places through which these highways pass. And as more highways come up they need to be filled up with vehicles to make them viable. The government is likely to unleash goodies in terms if tax and cess waiver to spur this growth. The time is ripe for investment in trucks as road transport business is going to explode in future just as India is bursting with energy and enterprise while the whole world looks at in awe.

So go ahead and take a plunge but not before safety precautions enumerated above. Good luck to you and great profits.