The next generation – Navneet Agarwal

To watch highlights of this interview with Navneet Agarwal, click here.

With responsibility for 175,000 moves every year – probably the highest in India and one of the highest worldwide – Navneet Agarwal, Director of Agarwal Packers and Movers, oversees an impressive and challenging portfolio. This involves managing 1,000 jobs a day in peak season, more than 150 company branches in eight countries, approximately 5,000 staff members and 2,000 vehicles – plus two and a half million square feet of owned warehousing and a further three and a half million square feet of leased space.

While these overwhelming numbers surprise even him at times, Agarwal says ‘the operation has become seamless because we have the right systems and technology in place’.

His father, Ramesh Agarwal, and uncle, Rajender Agarwal, set up the company in 1987. Navneet joined 14 years ago, working in different parts of the firm and gradually transitioning to a management role as his experience grew.

‘I started while I was doing my undergrad,’ he says. ‘I worked part-time in the business and trained as a packing crew member – I can proudly say I’m a black-belt crockery packer – and I learned everything from the ground up.

‘In a family business, the dinner table is a board meeting. You eat, breathe and exhale the business every single day. You grow up with it without even realising it.’

Accordingly, Agarwal adds, there is ‘no coronation day’ in a family business: ‘You shadow your father, learn best practices, and mix this with studying formally. One day, you realise you’ve taken over, without it ever being announced.’

This gradual transition also applies to the technological capability that, today, enables the company to handle huge move volumes across its markets. While his father and uncle have ‘always had a knack for technology’, Agarwal is a true tech native.

‘I was born into technology,’ he says. ‘I’ve had a phone since I can remember. Implementing technological solutions comes very naturally to my generation.’

As a result, Agarwal has been a driving force for the adoption and proliferation of technology throughout the business. ‘Technology helps us make the overall system foolproof,’ he says. ‘Everything sits inside a workflow, so, even with the small details, people can’t really deviate from this. This is how we have scaled the business safely.’

Tech-driven advances have underpinned central oversight of the entire Agarwal business while maintaining the independence of local offices and enabling a shift ‘from reactive to proactive decision-making’. Real-time tracking has been vital to this process.

‘Customers today expect total transparency,’ Agarwal says. ‘They want to know where their shipment is, how it’s moving, every step of the journey – this is normal now.

‘With everything in real time, you know exactly what is happening on the ground, and you can track and trace every aspect of the workflow. The customer doesn’t have to call and say, “your crew is late and I have a flight to catch”. Instead, we call first and say, “we might be 30 minutes late, but we are adding two more crew members, so you won’t miss your flight”. This is the difference technology makes.’

Alongside tech, Agarwal says staff development is ‘like oxygen’ to the business. ‘Without training, we simply can’t operate. Our workforce has huge experience, but now we have to reskill them so their experience matches the latest technology. That balance is critical.’

Everyone who joins the organisation is thoroughly trained on the standard operating procedures, to ensure consistency across the company’s 150 branches. It’s a process that never ceases: ‘We are training someone 365 days of the year,’ Agarwal says.

Women-only crews

Staff have been at the centre of one of Agarwal’s innovative approaches to providing exceptional and tailored customer service in direct response to feedback – and what began as a pilot project is now available across the firm’s Indian operations.

‘One of our crew members said to me that the women of the house can feel it is a little intrusive when we go into wardrobes and personal spaces to pack – they’re not comfortable. This stayed with me, because it shouldn’t be the right way of doing things,’ he says. ‘So, we created ladies-only packing crews, who come one day before or alongside the main crew and handle wardrobes, kitchenware and anything that requires comfort and sensitivity. The heavy furniture is done by the primary team, but the personal spaces are handled by women.’

Again, training has been central to this. ‘We recruited them and trained them in wardrobe organisation, and built special modules for their role,’ says Agarwal. ‘Rather than being symbolic, this is a role that really adds value to the clients.’

Customer feedback certainly suggests this is the case. ‘Wherever we send a female crew, our ratings are 100 per cent,’ says Agarwal. ‘In the moving business, we are selling a customer experience, and if you’re consistently getting five stars, you know you’re doing something right.’

The introduction of all-female crews has had an unexpected, but equally welcome, impact, too. ‘Internally, the behaviour has changed,’ explains Agarwal. ‘When female crew members are present, everybody’s language becomes more polished and respectful. The whole working environment improves.’

Those who follow Agarwal on LinkedIn will know his attention to diversity and inclusion is not merely lip service; it is something that he has driven in other areas, too. ‘For us, diversity is not only about gender,’ he says. ‘India changes every 100 kilometres – different languages, foods, culture, and more. So we have to create an environment in which everyone feels comfortable speaking up. It’s how you build harmony.’

Agarwal has also brought innovative thinking to the issue of driver safety and shortages across the country.

‘In India, for every 1,000 vehicles, we only have around 600 drivers,’ he says. ‘With almost 40 per cent of trucks without drivers, this is a national issue.’

With drivers reportedly dying almost 10 years earlier than the average Indian, Agarwal says action was essential. ‘If drivers don’t rest, accidents increase, so we built what we call a “Sleep Donation” centre. Drivers pay by sleeping. They park safely, sleep six or eight hours, and get free food and use of facilities.’

The approach has reduced accidents significantly and, by acting on the duty of the business to look after its staff and highlighting this to others, supports employee wellbeing and the company’s goal of attracting and retaining good staff. It also makes a statement to the country’s wider logistics industry.

‘We take so much from society and, at some point, it is our responsibility to give back,’ Agarwal says.

He uses his LinkedIn platform to highlight messages such as this regularly – not only, he says, to promote the company’s work, but also to share good practice with the wider moving community.

‘If we’re doing something good, we should talk about it – you shouldn’t hide your knowledge or your experience,’ he says. ‘If something works for us and it can help someone else, why wouldn’t we share it? The more you radiate, the more you can help the industry as a whole.’

Agarwal hopes the approach will be part of the legacy he leaves to the next generation of movers – but he plans to leave a legacy within his company, too.

He wants to build on the foundations laid by his father and uncle by leveraging technological know-how and well-trained, satisfied staff to move the company to the next level and become a truly global player.

‘My goal is to make moving safer, simpler, more respectful and more reliable for customers,’ he says, ‘to build an organisation or an institution that outlives individuals, where professionalism, trust and dignity of work define the brand.

‘With the support and the tailwinds that we have, can we build an Indian brand that succeeds globally? That’s what I want to look back on and say we did.’