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Top1. Introduction
The origin of the word logistics had military roots as it was used to refer to the transfer of supplies and equipment from point of origin to destination (Friedberg, 2020). Logistics had been critical since the inception of civilization to the present-day development of e-commerce and global supply chain (Ilangasekara and Premarathne, 2018). In the context of any country, logistics helped in providing employment, customer satisfaction and timely fulfilment of goods and materials (Malhotra and Mishra, 2019). Logistics enhanced economic development and global trade (Malhotra and Mishra, 2019). Emergence of new technologies and use of internet had a cascading effect on performance of logistics firms (Radivojevic and Milosavljevic, 2019). In the Indian context, the Government of India (GoI) had been trying to boost the logistics performance of the country with a range of policy interventions and regulations (National Logistics Policy, 2020). The proposed National Logistics Policy (NLP) aimed to reduce the logistics cost from 14% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to under 10% of the GDP over the next five years till the year 2025 (National Logistics Policy, 2020). To review and evaluate the logistics, real-time measurement had become a must, hence Logistics Performance Index (LPI) became very important (Ilangasekara and Premarathne, 2018). The World Bank published the LPI, every couple of years since the year 2017, to measure the performance of various countries in logistics sector (The World Bank, 2018). This was based on weighted average of six dimensions namely logistics competence, infrastructure, customs, international shipments, timeliness , tracking and tracing, (The World Bank, 2018). Performance of India in LPI and its dimension has been depicted in figure– 1.
Figure 1. Chart on score of Logistics Performance Index (LPI) components
From the chart in figure 1, one could observe that in the year 2018, infrastructure component registered the maximum decline amongst all the mentioned six dimensions across all years. Historically, the data from India had indicated consistent poor performance in the infrastructure dimension of LPI as depicted in figure 1 (The World Bank, 2018). There was both poor quality and quantitative base of port, railways , road and air infrastructure (Aswal, 2020). However, infrastructure development initiatives in logistics sector had boosted the LPI scores of developing countries since the year 2007 (Arvis, et al., 2014). Many Indian firms had expansive scale vision towards for export (Bhattacharyya, & Choudhury, 2017) often in commodities (Bhattacharyya, & Deepak, 2012). Firms applied new technologies (Bhattacharyya, 2011) to gain competitive market superiority (Bhattacharyya, Jha and Fernandes, 2015). In India this narrative was already transpiring (Nayak, Bhattacharyya, and Krishnamoorthy, 2019). Various technologies had reduced logistics infrastructure costs and improved logistics services (Nechaev, et al., 2020). In the present-day context, emerging technologies like Internet of things (IoT), Blockchain technology (BCT), Cloud based technology (CBT), automation, robotics, and such other technologies are augmenting the infrastructure of logistics. Thus, the main objective of this research was to study the influence of technology to improve the underperformance of trade and transport related infrastructure dimension in LPI score of India. The authors applied Delphi technique in this exploratory study. The authors applied Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) to comprehend what emerging technologies augmented in what way the infrastructure associated with logistics. The context of this study was the emerging economy of India. The research gap was to explore how emerging technologies could improve the logistics sector in countries like India. The first research question was to identify, measure and improve the critical elements affecting logistics performance in India. Second was to ascertain the impact of various emerging technologies on the infrastructure component of LPI. Delhi technique was applied. The article next presents the literature review followed by researchable gaps, research questions, research methodology. Finally, the discussion and conclusion sections have been presented.