As the global economy is recovering from the effects of Corona Virus known as Covid 19, Nigeria inclusive, the demand for logistic services has surged lately hovering around 5% upwards. This has also impacted positively in Nigeria with the increase of online shopping and bringing to barest minimum human to human interaction. Having said this, an indigenous logistic firm based in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Abuja, Trackhub is literally taking the bull by the horns by deepening its services in Northern and Central Nigerian region with top notch services leveraging on information technology (IT).
Focused on niche areas such as servicing the medical industry, Agribusiness, fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) and hospitality industry, Trackhub has within a short period developed a robust business to business (B2B) ecosystem that thrives on predictable revenues. Its B2B business functions on a retainership model and targets high ticket businesses with an average of 15-20 deliveries per day but with effective logistics needs. Trackhub provides a 200cc bike, a well-trained rider at your facility, handles all logistics management activities for a discounted retainership price. Trackhub prides itself as the service that business think of when they want to outsource their logistics wahala…… Speaking to the media on the strides the company has made in a short period.
Dr. Chukwuemeka Azubuike, the Founder and Chief Executive Officer said that “I started thinking about logistics while working with a top NGO in Abuja, Nigeria. Working with the NGO in Nigeria provided me 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. We sought to understand the major constraints in the space and the buying behaviors 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 Trackhub 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 winners 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 hampered our 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.”
On using information technology (IT) to deliver top-notch service, the company is developing a robust food delivery platform that aggregates restaurants in Abuja and facilitates ordering and delivery on the platform: eats.trackhub.ng. Restaurants pay a small commission of 5% of the total food amount ordered on the platform. 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. With high touch engagement model executed by Trackhub team of dedicated staff that ensures that satisfaction is guaranteed, and customer expectations exceeded per delivery.
