“Let our advance worrying become advance thinking and planning,” said Winston Churchill which is evidently undeniable in the era of unprecedented time.
Agonizing solves nothing, of course, but if we start recognizing potential kinks in the supply chain before they occur, it’ll surely turn out to be the key to the door left unexplored. As a supply chain professional, it’s important to run “what if” scenarios and dig into any areas that give you pause for thought. That’s where you’ll find those advance worries turn into advance planning!
Ankur Chaturvedi from Emami Ltd the moderator of the 22nd Inflection Manufacturing Supply Chain Innovation Web-Conference and Awards initiated the session with a summary of how challenging the previous year has been for the business since Covid-19 hit the country.
Vineet R. Ahuja from Accenture discussed the insights which one gets from such web conferences. “Covid may not be there tomorrow, but the impact & scars are clearly not temporary,” he said. Such as changes in channel mix, the rise of e-commerce, change in buyer’s demand & behavior. All of these would bring complexities in the form of demand variability, SKU proliferation, and so on. FMCG supply chains are one of the most streamlined across industries with the capability of being lean and efficient.
Manoj Kothari from Godrej Consumer added on to what Vineet shared with the other panelists. He put forth his views upon his company and shared the areas he looked upon. He said, “The supply chain KPI has been changed. Earlier the focus used to be on low cost, but now it has shifted to its availability”. The planning has come down from weekly to daily basis which includes integrated and inclusive planning. “We are spending more on automation because in some geographic areas like the US where we pay weekly $500 for workers to come and they are getting $500 without doing anything”, he added.
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Neeraj Saini from Crompton Greaves discussed the challenges faced by their team and the solutions adopted accordingly. One of the primary challenges which his team faced was the supply shock when everyone was gasping to get supplies from China. Since it originated from China, they thought it would be the end, but it got spread across the countries. Post supply shock became the demand shock when the entire economy was shut down within India itself. Not only this, but the confrontation between the countries such as the US-China, India-China has led to the rise of economic nationalism.
Rajat Sharma from Hamilton Housewares discussed how the lockdown has given them an opportunity to rethink their supply chains. There has been a huge change in consumer behavior and buying behavior across channels. “It is essentially the consumer buying behavior that one needs to keep a keen eye on, in order to rethink whether our supply chain is effective or not,” he said.
Ramkesh Jangra from Ericsson shared his views on how people have adopted new ways to cope up with the situation and keep up the flow of their work. He also focused on the challenges which are faced by the company due to remote working. One of the primary challenges was the scarcity of manpower on the field.
Anamika Jain from AAJ Enterprises spoke about the unfolded nationwide lockdown. She discussed how their team has been able to turn this situation into an opportunity by providing warehousing services and keeping customer businesses running despite the challenges.
The web conference ended with India’s most prestigious awards!
ceremony where the top Supply Chain Industry leaders of India got awarded.