Trackhub, an indigenous logistic firm based in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, is deepening its services in Northern and Central Nigerian region with top-notch services, leveraging fast moving consumer goods and information technology (IT).
Focused on niche areas such as servicing the medical industry, Agribusiness, and hospitality industry, Trackhub has within a short period developed a robust business to business (B2B) ecosystem that thrives on predictable revenues.
Speaking in an interview with some selected journalists recently on the strides the company has made in a short period, Chukwuemeka Azubuike, founder and chief executive officer, explained that he started thinking about logistics while working with a top NGO in Abuja.
Azubuike also affirmed that working with the NGO provided him the exposure to public sector supply chains and how they are financed and managed.
“As a result of poorly coordinated logistics and supply chain systems, many public health facilities struggle with the availability of drugs and essential medicines and this impacts negatively on health outcomes. I decided to bring my experience in the public health sector to the private sector logistics space starting with market research in Abuja and Lagos in 2019 across businesses, and delivery companies,” he said.
Read Also: Why logistics will power AfCFTA and Africa’s e-Commerce export potential
According to him, “We sought to understand the major constraints in the space and the buying behaviours of the stakeholders. The data showed that the last mile delivery logistics space in Nigeria has great potentials but faces myriad issues that affect both delivery merchants and customers.
“We launched in June 2020 and our theory of change for the logistics space was that if we were able to link merchant and customer seamlessly via a platform model, and created the right incentives to stay on the platform, we had struck gold- after all it was a winner-take-all market.”
‘’At each stage of our journey, we have constantly validated this hypothesis considering the changing nature of the market. In March 2021, after 9 months of learning and executing over 1500 deliveries across 12 logistics partners, using a platform/aggregator model, the business model pivoted to a different approach which involves owning our in-house bikes and riders. The vision is the same, but the mission has changed to using technology, process innovation and strategic partnerships to fix the customer experience problem in the logistics space in Africa”, he added.
On expansion and insecurity in some of the key states in the Northern region, Emeka said that the current security challenges in the North had hampered their expansion plans to Kaduna and Kano.
‘’As a context sensitive business, we planned our expansion around cities that are economically mobile in Nigeria. We believe these cities have more purchasing power and more commercial activity that require our services. Kaduna, Kano, Lagos and Port Harcourt are such cities.
‘’Furthermore, because of the access to the rail system, and the ports, they constitute an economic corridor that can be served by logistics companies. The security situation in the North has delayed our timeline for expansion into these 2 key cities. We are now observing the situation in these cities while consolidating market share in Abuja,” he said.
On using information technology (IT) to deliver top-notch service, he explained that the company is developing a robust food delivery platform that aggregates restaurants in Abuja and facilitates ordering and delivery on the platform.
Restaurants, he said pay a small commission of 5 percent of the total food amount ordered on the platform and added that customers benefit from prompt delivery of their tasty meals while still hot.
Trackhub is designed to use technology, process innovation, and strategic partnerships to fix the customer experience problem in the logistics space in Africa.
