Qatar faced three parallel crises in 2018 to 2021 each challenging the country to its logistics limits: a geopolitical blockade which called for a radical re-imagining of the nation's entire import supply chain; a global pandemic that required a near-perfect vaccine cold-chain operation; and the ever-important technical challenges associated with hosting the FIFA World Cup. At the center of the SAP Transportation Management platform that kept Gulf Warehousing Company operational through all three was one specialist: Ajay Bhaktharahalli Nagesh Hemambika.
The Logistics War Behind the Qatar Blockade
On 5th June 2017, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Egypt simultaneously cut off diplomatic ties with Qatar and closed its only land crossing, as well as its airspace and territorial waters to Qatari aircraft and ships. Qatar imports approximately 90% of its food and was thus faced by the abrupt breakdown of the main food supply lines. The stock market lost almost 10%, while imports fell by almost 40% during the first few days of the crisis.
Gulf Warehousing Company (GWC), the country's leading logistics firm, contributed significantly to the response efforts at the national level. GWC diverted sea and air transport via Turkey, Iran, and Oman,
Al Jazeera. "Beating the blockade: How Qatar prevailed over a siege." June 5, 2020. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/6/5/beating-the-blockade-how-qatar-prevailed-over-a-siege
Al Jazeera. "Beating the blockade: How Qatar prevailed over a siege." June 5, 2020. "With Qatar reliant on imports for 90 percent of its food at the time, it had to act quickly to counter the effects of the blockade." https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/6/5/beating-the-blockade-how-qatar-prevailed-over-a-siege
Springer Nature / The 2017 Gulf Crisis and Changes in Qatar’s Economic Landscape. "The Qatar Stock Exchange index took a nose-dive, losing up to 10 percent of its market value in the first few days, while imports fell by nearly 40 percent." https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-19-7796-1_27
using existing warehouses, trucks, and manpower on a completely new supply chain for the goods flow. The blockade forced GWC to adapt its SAP Transportation Management environment to entirely new freight routes and operational requirements.
Ajay Bhaktharahalli Nagesh came on board GWC in November 2018 as a System Analyst, SAP TMS for its Innovation, IT, and BPI Division in Doha. The blockade was unprecedented and only lifted in January 2021. The SAP TM and Event Management systems became central to coordinating rerouted freight operations, delivery commitments, and import tracking across GWC’s logistics network during the blockade period.
Meanwhile, he developed scenarios for inbound and outbound freight transport through both air and sea for GWC's 19 logistics hubs, re-routed business requirements, re-did the blueprint analysis, and designed and tested solutions for the entire GWC network, replacing the blocked corridors from GCC with new ones and configuring Hamad Port as Qatar's primary inbound trade node.
He processed more than 1,200 trucks on routes in real time, following SAP Event Management rules, to ensure the movement of food and essentials identified as national priorities by the Qatar government.
It had forced the Qataris to establish a robust supply chain for the blockade, and it had to be developed into the living SAPs that Ajay had to deal with every day, which experts at King’s College London later termed ‘extraordinary preparation for future shocks.’
Vaccine Cold-Chain Delivery: The Platform that had to work every time
On December 21, 2020, Qatar has shipped its first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine. GWC reported that the shipment, and every subsequent one, was transferred from the plane to the cold storage facility in less than 90 minutes of landing, on every flight for over a year. The Pfizer vaccine had to be stored at minus 70 degrees Celsius, so it required special equipment and remote temperature-monitoring devices, and careful coordination with GWC, Qatar Post, and the Qatar Ministry of Health.
GWC has been able to perform this operation without any incident in history because it requires a logistics platform that can coordinate pre-clearance at customs, track the shipments in real time and with temperature control, and organize the delivery of the vaccines to vaccination centers nationwide. The system they used was SAP TM and the Event Management system, where Ajay Bhaktharahalli Nagesh Hemambika served as System Analyst for the entire period of rollout.
Eventually, Qatar supplied enough doses to vaccinate more than 115% of its population. All shipments in that operation went through the logistics management system that Ajay had helped set up and maintain. The technical backbone for the cold chain operation was provided by his efforts in event-driven monitoring and exception handling for the SAP EM module and in implementing freight forwarding and distribution scenarios on GWC's network.
[1] GWC official statement, republished in Qatar Tribune. "During the ongoing unjust blockade imposed on the State of Qatar, the company has deployed creative systems and alternatives needed to facilitate the shipping, transport, warehousing, and distribution of goods and cargo, especially food and primary cargoes."
BBC News. "Gulf states restore ties with Qatar after three-year rift." January 5, 2021. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-55538792
Al Jazeera, citing Andreas Krieg, King’s College London: "The blockade has prepared Qatar well to deal with the supply chain disruptions we have seen globally during the COVID-19 crisis." https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/6/5/beating-the-blockade-how-qatar-prevailed-over-a-siege
GWC. "Delivering What Matters." Published on CNN. https://sponsorcontent.cnn.com/int/gwc/delivering-what-matters/
Ajay set up SAP Event Management to monitor each handoff and real-time alerts that would be set off when temperatures went out of range with IOT devices. No manual checks. No waiting. The system detected it in time, before the shipment was breached.
In a published interview, GWC's Group CEO Ranjeev Menon acknowledged this: the company's response to the blockade had acquired the skills and processes for Qatar to be the most food and supply secure country in the region when COVID-19 struck. Resilience is built into the systems. Ajay was one of their constructors.
Getting the World Cup right – National freight at the tournament scale
With eight stadiums and a reality of what the scale of the tournament on the ground actually meant, logistics operations increased in scale and complexity as Qatar prepared to host FIFA World Cup 2022. Equipment, materials and supplies were to be sent from various locations and within specific time frames.
The Official Logistics Provider for the tournament was Gulf Warehousing Company. This necessitated the coordination of the transportation, warehousing, and distribution operations on a national scale.
In 8 operational sites, Ajay spearheaded integration initiatives between the SAP Transportation Management and warehouse management systems and telematics platforms. He developed the data flows to ensure visibility was shared across the transport, storage, and last-mile delivery processes, so that GWC's operations teams could have real-time, consistent information on all venues throughout the tournament, monitoring each delivery from start to finish in SAP Event Management. He ensured the right truck was at the right gate at the right time, in alignment with FIFA's strict Master Delivery Schedule for SAP Transportation Management execution.
From scratch, Ajay has designed GWC's Vehicle Tracking System and a driver application that enables real-time tracking and traceability for all trucks, drivers, and deliveries, both seen and unseen. It perfectly matched FIFA's need for 'best in class IT solutions and comprehensive tracking systems, ' and GWC walked away with the contract for the official logistics.
Conclusion
Systems and the specialists that create and maintain them are the force behind these efforts. Through his design and delivery of SAP-based logistics platforms at GWC, Ajay Bhaktharahalli Nagesh Hemambika ensured that Qatar's supply chain operations remained resilient across three of the most demanding years in the country's recent history.
Qatar Tribune interview with GWC Group CEO Ranjeev Menon: "GWC moves forward as business picks up steam." September 2020. https://www.qatar-tribune.com/article/191071/Supplement/GWC-moves-forward-as-business-picks-up-steam
GWC. “GWC Announced as Regional Supporter and Official Logistics Provider for FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022." https://www.gwclogistics.com/news/gwc-announced-as-regional-supporter-and-official-logistics-provider-for-fifa-world-cup-qatar-2022/
GWC Chairman explicitly cited "best in class IT solutions and comprehensive tracking systems" as part of what secured GWC's position as Official Logistics Provider.
https://www.gwclogistics.com/news/two-years-to-fifa-world-cup-qatar-2022/
FIFA Chief Commercial Officer confirmed that logistics technology and supply chain expertise were critical factors in awarding GWC the contract.
https://www.lawinsport.com/topics/item/gwc-announced-as-regional-supporter-and-official-logistics-provider-for-fifa-world-cup-qatar-2022
