Carl Zeiss - National Head - Customer Service & Logistics

National Head - Customer Service & Logistics

Role Overview:

The National Head - Customer Service & Logistics will lead the end-to-end customer service, order management, warehousing coordination, and logistics agenda across India.

The role is accountable for delivering reliable order fulfilment, compliant operations, efficient logistics partnerships, and consistently strong customer experience across a network of 20 stock points.

The incumbent will provide strategic direction, operational governance, capability building, and performance oversight to the pan-India customer service and logistics team.

Key Responsibilities:

Order Management and Customer Service:

- Own the national order-to-delivery process and establish consistent service standards across all stock points.

- Ensure accurate and timely order processing, allocation, fulfilment, invoicing coordination, and delivery tracking.

- Monitor order backlogs, service exceptions, returns, claims, and customer escalations; drive timely resolution and root-cause correction.

- Partner with Sales and Finance to align order priorities, credit or commercial dependencies, inventory availability, and customer commitments.

- Define and track customer service metrics, operating dashboards, review mechanisms, and escalation protocols.

Logistics and 3PL Management:

- Lead logistics operations across the national distribution network, balancing service, speed, cost, capacity, and compliance.

- Manage relationships and performance of 3PL partners, transporters, and courier vendors through defined service levels and regular business reviews.

- Own contract coordination, commercial evaluations, renewals, and onboarding of logistics service providers in collaboration with Legal, Finance, and Procurement or Administration stakeholders, as applicable.

- Assess new logistics requirements, network capacity, route needs, and service models to support business growth.

- Prepare and manage logistics budgets, monitor actual expenditure, identify variances, and deliver sustainable cost improvements.

Audit and Operational Governance:

- Ensure readiness for statutory and internal audits across customer service and logistics operations.

- Maintain appropriate records, standard operating procedures, control evidence, licenses, vendor documents, and corrective-action trackers.

- Coordinate audit responses, close observations within agreed timelines, and strengthen controls to prevent recurrence.

- Establish governance routines across stock points to ensure process consistency, accountability, and transparent reporting.

Regulatory and Legal Compliance:

- Liaise with Regulatory, Legal, Finance, and local operating teams to support ongoing compliance at all stock points.

- Coordinate the availability, renewal, and documentation of applicable drug licenses, GST registrations, trade licenses, and other required approvals.

- Monitor compliance requirements affecting warehousing, distribution, transportation, invoicing, and customer service processes.

- Escalate compliance risks promptly and ensure agreed remediation actions are implemented and documented.

Team Leadership:

- Lead, supervise, and develop the pan-India customer service and logistics organization comprising 3 direct reports and more than 25 indirect reports.

- Set clear goals, role accountabilities, performance standards, and review cadences for national and stock-point teams.

- Build team capability through coaching, process training, knowledge sharing, succession planning, and cross-functional exposure.

- Promote a culture of customer focus, ownership, collaboration, compliance, and continuous improvement.

- Ensure adequate workforce planning, workload allocation, and backup coverage for business continuity.

Special Projects and Continuous Improvement:

- Lead projects focused on logistics cost optimization, distribution-network optimization, customer delight, and faster order fulfilment.

- Use operational data to identify bottlenecks, prioritize improvement opportunities, and measure the impact of interventions.

- Drive process standardization, automation opportunities, and scalable ways of working across stock points.