Senior Manager – Surface Hubs

About the job

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. 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.

Requirements

• Large-scale hub operations
• Network flow understanding
• Cost-to-serve optimization
• Operational analytics

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering
• MBA / PGDM in Operations

Preferred Technologies

• Large-scale hub operations
• Network flow understanding
• Cost-to-serve optimization
• Operational analytics

About the company

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.