Global trade is entering an era where geopolitical tensions, shifting trade routes, rising logistics costs and climate-related disruptions are increasingly challenging the predictability of supply chains. For Indian exporters, the recent disruptions around critical maritime chokepoints such as the Strait of Hormuz offer a sharp reminder that a disruption in one part of the world can quickly translate into higher freight and insurance costs, delayed deliveries, working-capital pressures and margin challenges.
In this interview with TheCSRUniverse, Mr. Jitendra Srivastava, CEO, Triton Logistics & Maritime, examines what these disruptions mean for Indian businesses and why supply-chain resilience must move from contingency planning to long-term strategy. He discusses the importance of identifying concentration risks, diversifying trade corridors and logistics partners, and creating practical alternatives before disruptions occur.
The conversation also explores how multimodal transportation, real-time shipment visibility and digital technologies can help businesses respond faster while balancing resilience with cost competitiveness. Mr. Srivastava highlights the wider implications of resilient logistics for MSMEs, workers and consumers, emphasising that supply chains are interconnected ecosystems.
He also shares a Triton case study demonstrating the importance of coordination in complex cargo movements and outlines the key geopolitical, trade-policy and climate-related risks Indian exporters should prepare for over the coming year.
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Q. What do the recent disruptions around the Strait of Hormuz mean for Indian exporters and global supply chains?
A. The disruption around the Strait of Hormuz is affecting more than shipping schedules. It is increasing freight, insurance and risk-related costs and making delivery planning significantly less predictable.
On some Gulf routes, freight rates that were around $300–400 before the latest disruption have risen to approximately $3,400–4,000, with emergency and war-risk surcharges being added in some cases. There is a landed-cost increase of 35% to 50% on some trade lanes, with extreme cases exceeding 200%. The actual impact varies considerably depending on the commodity, destination, cargo value, route and contractual structure.
For Indian exporters, the immediate concern is therefore not simply higher freight. It is the combined effect on margins, delivery commitments, working capital and customer pricing.
The broader lesson is that critical maritime chokepoints can create economic consequences far beyond the shipping sector. Businesses need to understand where their supply chains are exposed and have practical alternatives available before a disruption occurs.
Q. Beyond immediate contingency measures, how can Indian exporters build long-term resilience against geopolitical disruptions affecting trade routes, costs and delivery timelines?
A. Resilience should be built into the supply-chain design rather than created after a disruption begins.
The first step is to identify concentration risk. Businesses should know which products, suppliers, carriers, ports and trade corridors are critical to their operations and where a single point of failure exists.
From there, companies can evaluate practical alternatives: multiple carrier relationships, alternative ports and corridors, appropriate inventory buffers, diversified sourcing where commercially viable, and predefined contingency routes.
Scenario planning is equally important. Companies should model what happens if a major corridor is disrupted for one week, one month or longer, and understand the effect on cost, inventory, customer commitments and working capital.
The objective is not to eliminate every risk. That is not realistic. The objective is to know which risks matter most and have a credible response ready before they materialise.
Q. What are the most effective ways for businesses to diversify shipping routes and reduce dependence on a single trade corridor while maintaining efficiency and cost competitiveness?
A. Diversification should be based on risk and economics, not simply on having more routes.
Businesses should map their critical trade lanes and compare alternative corridors on transit time, total landed cost, capacity availability, port infrastructure, customs requirements, insurance implications and operational feasibility.
Carrier diversification is also important. Maintaining relationships with more than one carrier or logistics partner can provide additional options when capacity becomes constrained.
Multimodal solutions can add another layer of flexibility, particularly for cargo where time sensitivity justifies the additional cost. But the answer is not to move everything to air freight or permanently choose the most expensive route.
The more practical approach is to maintain a portfolio of viable options and activate the appropriate one when conditions change. A small premium for optionality can be justified when the alternative is a major interruption to the business.
Q. How important is multimodal transportation in building more resilient supply chains?
A. Multimodal transportation is an important resilience tool, but it should not be treated as a solution in itself.
Different cargo has different requirements. A time-sensitive, high-value shipment may justify air freight, while high-volume and less time-sensitive cargo may remain better suited to ocean freight. Road and rail can then play important roles in connecting ports, production centres and final destinations.
The value of multimodal planning is that it gives businesses more than one way to respond when a particular mode or corridor becomes constrained.
At Triton, we already use multimodal solutions based on factors such as cargo characteristics, urgency, origin, destination and cost. The objective is to determine the most appropriate combination for the shipment rather than automatically choosing the fastest or cheapest individual mode.
That distinction matters. Resilience should improve decision-making, not simply increase logistics costs.
Q. How can greater supply-chain resilience help Indian businesses protect not only their own competitiveness but also the wider ecosystem of MSMEs, workers and consumers that depend on stable trade flows?
A. Supply chains are networks, so disruption rarely stops at the balance sheet of one company.
A large exporter may depend on hundreds of smaller suppliers, packaging companies, transport operators, warehouses and service providers. If production or shipments are interrupted, the impact can move through that network in the form of cancelled orders, delayed payments, reduced utilisation and eventually higher prices or shortages for customers.
For MSMEs in particular, prolonged disruption can be difficult because they often have less financial and inventory flexibility than larger businesses.
Greater visibility, better contingency planning and access to alternative logistics options can therefore help businesses maintain continuity across the wider ecosystem.
This is also why logistics resilience has an economic dimension. Keeping trade moving is not only about protecting an individual shipment. It is about reducing the knock-on effects of disruption across businesses, workers and consumers.
Q. How can businesses balance supply-chain resilience with the need to control logistics costs and remain competitive?
A. Resilience does have a cost, so businesses should be selective about where they invest in it.
A predictable, high-volume shipment moving through a stable corridor should continue to be optimised for efficiency through consolidation, planning, carrier negotiations and appropriate contractual arrangements.
A high-value shipment, critical component or cargo moving through a geopolitically exposed corridor may justify paying more for flexibility, alternative routing or additional inventory.
The right question is therefore not whether resilience is expensive. It is whether the cost of resilience is lower than the potential cost of failure.
A targeted approach allows businesses to protect their most critical flows without adding unnecessary cost to every shipment.
India's broader logistics policy direction is also moving towards greater multimodal integration, digitisation and efficiency. PM GatiShakti and the National Logistics Policy are explicitly designed to improve connectivity, logistics efficiency and resilience.
Q. What role can real-time shipment visibility and digital technology play in helping exporters respond quickly to disruptions?
A. Visibility is valuable because a disruption cannot be managed effectively if the business does not know where its cargo is or what is changing around it.
Real-time tracking can provide information on shipment location, estimated arrival times and operational exceptions. Alerts can help logistics teams identify delays earlier and begin evaluating alternatives before the disruption becomes a larger commercial problem.
The next step is bringing different information sources together, including carrier schedules, port congestion, weather conditions and geopolitical developments.
But technology should not be presented as a substitute for operational judgement. A dashboard can tell you that a shipment is delayed; experienced logistics teams still need to decide whether to reroute it, change the mode, adjust inventory or communicate a revised commitment to the customer.
At Triton, cargo visibility and tracking are supported through CargoWise, with real-time shipment information and alerts designed to help customers monitor and respond to changes in transit.
The real value of technology is therefore not simply visibility. It is reducing the time between identifying a problem and making a decision.
Q. What lessons from the recent disruptions should businesses incorporate into their long-term supply-chain and risk-management strategies?
A. There are three important lessons.
First, concentration creates vulnerability. Businesses should identify excessive dependence on a single trade corridor, carrier, supplier geography, port or market and determine where diversification is commercially practical.
Second, relationships matter during disruption. When capacity becomes constrained, having established relationships with carriers, logistics providers and other supply-chain partners can improve access to information and available options.
Third, contingency planning has to happen before the disruption. Companies should define alternative routes, escalation protocols, communication responsibilities and decision thresholds in advance.
There is also a fourth lesson: resilience cannot be measured only by whether cargo eventually arrives. Businesses should also assess how much additional cost, inventory, time and working capital were required to maintain continuity.
Recent disruptions have reinforced a simple principle: preparedness does not remove uncertainty, but it gives businesses more choices when uncertainty increases.
Q. Can you share a success story where Triton Logistics & Maritime helped a client navigate a major supply-chain disruption or unexpected routing challenge?
A. One example we can speak about publicly is a complex industrial shipment from India to Germany involving both breakbulk and containerised cargo.
The shipment included two oversized breakbulk units and 13 containerised packages, with a combined gross weight of approximately 74 tonnes and cargo value exceeding €2.14 million. The cargo moved from Kattupalli to Rotterdam, followed by final delivery in Germany.
The challenge was not simply moving the cargo. It required coordinating two cargo formats, documentation, handling requirements and a non-negotiable project timeline.
Triton successfully delivered both cargo modes within the customer's required schedule, with zero reported cargo damage across the 15 packages.
What the example demonstrates is the importance of planning and coordination when a shipment cannot be treated as a standard movement.
For the current West Asia disruption specifically, we would prefer not to disclose client-sensitive details. What we can say is that our approach has been to use diversified transportation networks, multimodal options and close operational coordination to support continuity where alternative routing is required. This is consistent with the approach we have described publicly during the current disruption.
Q. What kind of collaborations between logistics providers, exporters, shipping lines, technology companies and other stakeholders are needed to build stronger trade networks?
A. The biggest requirement is better coordination and information sharing.
Exporters have information about production and customer requirements. Carriers have visibility into vessel schedules and capacity. Ports understand congestion and operational constraints. Logistics providers coordinate multiple parts of the movement, while technology platforms can bring different data points together.
When these systems operate in isolation, businesses often discover problems only after they have already affected the shipment.
Greater interoperability between systems, better access to reliable operational information and earlier communication around capacity or schedule changes can help businesses make decisions sooner.
Industry associations and policymakers also have a role in improving trade facilitation, infrastructure and information exchange.
India's logistics reforms, including PM GatiShakti, the National Logistics Policy and digital initiatives such as ULIP, are moving in this direction by attempting to integrate infrastructure, processes and logistics data across stakeholders.
The objective should be practical: fewer information gaps, faster decisions and less friction as cargo moves across different parts of the network.
Q. What are the key geopolitical and logistics risks Indian exporters should prepare for over the next 12 months, and what would you advise businesses to do now?
A. Indian exporters should prepare for a combination of geopolitical, trade-policy, freight-market and climate-related risks rather than focusing on one particular disruption.
Maritime corridors in and around the Gulf and Red Sea remain exposed to geopolitical risk. Recent reporting shows that vessel movements through the Strait of Hormuz have been severely reduced, while activity through Bab el-Mandeb has also been affected.
Trade-policy changes and tariffs can also alter the economics of individual markets and sourcing strategies. At the same time, weather and climate-related events can affect ports, inland transportation and production.
My advice to exporters would be practical.
First, map your most critical trade lanes and identify single points of failure.
Second, quantify what a disruption would mean for your business in terms of transit time, freight cost, inventory and customer commitments.
Third, agree alternative routes and modes with your logistics partners before you need them.
Fourth, improve shipment visibility so that decisions can be made earlier.
And finally, review these plans periodically rather than treating them as a one-time exercise.
Businesses cannot predict every geopolitical event. They can, however, build supply chains that are capable of responding when conditions change.
That is ultimately what resilience should mean: not eliminating uncertainty, but improving the organisation's ability to absorb it, make informed decisions and continue operating.
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