Senior Manager – Surface Hubs (Country wide), HQC

Job Title: Senior Manager – Surface Hubs (Country wide)

Function: Operations

Reports To: Head – Ground Operations

Location: National (India)

Travel Required: 50% – 75%

About Blue Dart Express Limited

Blue Dart Express Limited, part of the DHL Group, is India’s most reliable express logistics provider, operating an integrated air and surface network across 54,000+ locations nationwide. The company’s surface hub infrastructure forms the backbone of its domestic express capability, enabling time-definite B2B, B2C, and e-commerce movements at scale. Continuous strengthening of surface hubs is critical to ensuring speed, reliability, cost efficiency, and network resilience.

Position Overview

The Senior Manager – Surface Hubs is a country-wide leadership role responsible for end-to-end strategy, design, governance, and performance of Blue Dart’s surface hub network across India. The role owns national standards for hub operations, throughput efficiency, TAT adherence, cost productivity, and scalability, while enabling regional teams to execute consistently.

This role acts as the single-point owner for surface hub excellence, ensuring hubs are future-ready, capacity-optimized, and aligned with business growth and service commitments.

Job Purpose

To design, govern, and continuously enhance Blue Dart’s national surface hub ecosystem by driving operational excellence, throughput optimization, cost efficiency, and service reliability, while enabling scalable growth across B2B, B2C, and e-commerce segments.

Key Roles & Responsibilities

National Surface Hub Strategy & Design

• Define and own the national strategy for surface hub operations, capacity planning, and network flow design.
• Establish hub classification, role clarity, and throughput benchmarks across primary, secondary, and regional hubs.
• Drive long-term hub capacity planning aligned to volume growth, product mix, and service commitments.
  
  
  

Hub Operations Excellence & Standardization

• Define national operating standards, SOPs, and productivity norms for surface hubs.
• Ensure consistent execution of hub processes across regions through governance, audits, and performance reviews.
• Drive adoption of best practices in handling, sorting, staging, and dispatch operations.
  
  
  

Throughput, TAT & Service Quality Governance

• Own national hub-level KPIs covering throughput, cycle time, dwell time, and TAT adherence.
• Identify systemic bottlenecks impacting service performance and lead corrective interventions.
• Partner with Network Planning and Linehaul teams to ensure seamless flow through hubs.
  
  
  

Cost Productivity & Asset Utilization

• Drive national-level productivity improvements across manpower, equipment, and infrastructure.
• Own cost-per-shipment and cost-per-unit benchmarks for surface hub operations.
• Support investment decisions related to hub mechanization, automation, and infrastructure upgrades.
  
  
  

Technology, Automation & Future Readiness

• Sponsor and lead adoption of automation, mechanization, and digital tools within surface hubs.
• Partner with IT, Engineering, and vendors to pilot and scale sorting, scanning, and control systems.
• Ensure hubs are designed for scalability, resilience, and future volume surges.
  
  
  

Governance, Risk & Compliance

• Ensure compliance with safety, statutory, and operational risk standards across all surface hubs.
• Lead incident reviews, root-cause analysis, and preventive action planning.
• Support audits and governance forums related to hub operations.
  
  
  

Leadership, Capability Building & Stakeholder Management

• Provide functional leadership and direction to regional hub heads and operations leaders.
• Build capability across hub leadership teams through coaching, training, and structured reviews.
• Act as the national interface with Product, Commercial, Network Planning, Safety, and Finance teams.
  
  
  

Qualifications & Experience

Education

• Essential: Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Logistics, Supply Chain Management, or Operations.
• Preferred: MBA / PGDM in Operations, Supply Chain, or Logistics from a reputed institution.
  
  
  

Experience

• 12-15 years of progressive experience in surface operations, hub management, or large-scale logistics network roles.
• Significant experience managing multi-hub, multi-region operations in express logistics, e-commerce, or freight networks.
• Proven track record of driving throughput improvement, TAT performance, and cost productivity at scale.
  
  
  

(Experience benchmarked against senior surface / hub leadership roles in leading Indian and multinational logistics networks.)

Skills & Capabilities

Core Technical Skills

• Large-scale hub operations and throughput management
• Network flow and surface logistics understanding
• Productivity engineering and cost-to-serve optimization
• Capacity planning and infrastructure utilization
• Operational analytics and performance governance
  
  
  

Hub Layout Design

Behavioural Competencies

• Strong strategic and systems thinking
• High ownership and execution discipline
• Ability to influence across regions and functions
• Structured problem-solving in complex networks
• Clear communication with senior leadership and field teams
  
  
  

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

KRAs

KPIs

Hub Throughput

Throughput per hour and capacity utilization

TAT Performance

Hub dwell time and end-to-end TAT adherence

Cost Productivity

Cost per shipment and productivity ratios

Standardization

SOP adherence and audit outcomes

Network Stability

Reduction in hub-induced disruptions

Capability Building

Strength of regional hub leadership bench