Supply Chain Tribe by Celerity September - October 2021

SUPPLYCHAINTRIBE.COM September - October 2021 Volume 5 Issue 5 For private circulation only

SPECIAL REPORT 3PLs - The Protagonists

This Special Story presents a future forward direction that the 3PLs are gearing up for and are perhaps most excited about.

SUPPLY CHAIN VISIBILITY AND REAL-TIME GAPS Visibility tools are high in demand but companies struggle with low market maturity for these solutions. Our recent Webinar, ‘Realtime Visibility in Logistics’ offered fascinating insights into what visibility means to the stakeholders and how enhanced visibility is the only way forward.

The Shifting Sands of Workplace Dear Readers, Technology has been reshaping our lives and our workplaces even before the pandemic. The impact of pandemic merely accelerated it. In supply chains, I have been hearing about visibility since the last ten years. It’s only last year when vehicles across India were suddenly stranded, and visibility of cargo was almost nil, talk on visibility reached high decibel levels. Stranded trucks, high value at-risk cargo, homeless drivers, and inventory issues, turned logistics upside down. Those truckers and 3PL companies who had visibility tools in place were able to swiftly pivot.

The call for visibility related technology has never been more urgent. Our Cover Story carries thoughts and experiences of senior supply chain leaders on how work can become easier with implementation of end-to-end supply chain visibility technology.

The first responders to the supply chain crisis were the 3PL service providers. Our special report looks at what changed at their workplaces to effectively combat this crisis.

Another big change which happened, and I wrote about it earlier too was workplaces becoming more human. Soft skills like empathy, co-operation, creativity, and flexibility became paramount to operate in a chaotic lockdown environment. If companies need to move forward in the post-covid-19 era, soft skills will be essential.

This issue revolves around how everything is changing for the better including technology adoption, sustainability, corporate governance and of course healthcare. It remains to be seen as to how much pace we gather in the coming months.

Godspeed!

Charulata Bansal Publisher Charulata.bansal@celerityin.com www.supplychaintribe.com Published by Charulata Bansal on behalf of Celerity India Marketing Services Edited by: Prerna Lodaya • e-mail: prerna.lodaya@celerityin.com Designed by: Lakshminarayanan G • e-mail: lakshdesign@gmail.com Printed by: Xposures, A 210, Byculla Service Industrial Estate, D K Cross Road, Byculla, Mumbai- 400027.

Logistics Partner: Blue Dart Express Limited

2 CELERITY September - October 2021

CONTENTS

September - October 2021 Volume 5 Issue 5

10 | COVER STORY

VISIBILITY IN SUPPLY CHAIN While attaining clear visibility in the entire supply chain seems to be a daunting task, it is not an OPTION anymore but a MUST for companies. The Covid-19 pandemic has only accentuated this very fact. Our recent Webinar, ‘Real-time Visibility in Logistics’ offered fascinating insights into what visibility means to the stakeholders and how enhanced visibility is the way only forward for companies. Here’s presenting you the excerpts from the engaging webinar sponsored by LogiCloud.

LEADERSHIP SERIES 6 | In

a League of his Own

Mr. Shailesh Haribhakti, through this interview, offers his inspirational insights on topics ranging from governance, sustainability, technology, and the bright future that India is yet to witness.

24 | Healthcare

that truly cares

Dr. P. Siva Kumar, Medical Technology Advisor, ESI MedTek Solutions, elucidates on the importance of government’s revolutionary initiative Ayushman Bharat and the role of private sector in ensuring ‘Healthcare for All’.

18 | SPECIAL REPORT

3PLs – The PROTAGONISTS 3PLs have played the indispensable role of the protagonists when the world needed them the most. Ably aided by the technology, they have achieved the unprecedented. This Special Story is not just an ode to their mettle but also presents a future forward direction that the 3PLs are gearing up for and are perhaps most excited about. Read on to ‘Shaping the Trends of our times’.

28 | OPINION

Decoding the new MOOWR Scheme Krishna Barad, Partner/ Customs & International Trade/ Indirect Tax, BDO India LLP, throws light on the amendments and its impact on EXIM. INTERVIEW 13 | The

Maze Matrix

“As a technology hub if we can mate technology solutions to real-world supply chain problems, we will have more products come out of here,” highlights Dinesh PA, Global Head – Engineering & Product, Director Supply Chain Technology, Kimberly-Clark.

36 | Towards

Enhancing Eco-Expanse

Bipin Odhekar, Head – Sustainability & Operations excellence, Marico Ltd., shares, “Integrating sustainability within value chain strengthens business resilience and accelerates the journey towards agile transformation and a low-carbon future.”

35 | FOCUS

Soft is the new Strength JVB Sastry, Consultant – Supply Chains & Sales Management, highlights the approach that managements should take at the workplace.

Editor: Prerna Lodaya DISCLAIMER: This magazine is being published on the condition and understanding that the information, comments and views it contains are merely for guidance and reference and must not be taken as having the authority of, or being binding in any way on, the author, editors, publishers who do not take any responsibility whatsoever for any loss, damage or distress to any person on account of any action taken or not taken on the basis of this publication. Despite all the care taken, errors or omissions may have crept inadvertently into this publication. The publisher shall be obliged if any such error or omission is brought to her notice for possible correction in the next edition.

The views expressed here are solely those of the author in his private/professional capacity and do not in any way represent the views of the publisher. All trademarks, products, pictures, copyrights, registered marks, patents, logos, holograms and names belong to the respective owners. The publication will entertain no claims on the above.

No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior permission of the publisher. All disputes are subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of competent courts and forums in Mumbai only.

4 CELERITY September - October 2021

LEADERSHIP

In

A LEAGUE of

HIS OWN

A transformational leader par excellence, Mr. Shailesh Haribhakti (SH) needs no introduction.

An ExTech (Exponential Technologies), ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) & IR (Integrated Reporting) evangelist, Mr. Haribhakti is a Chartered Accountant, with over four decades of experience in developing and leading one of India’s most respected and diversified Chartered Accounting firms – Haribhakti & Co. He is a Board Chairman, Audit Committee Chair, and Independent Director at some of the country's leading organizations. During the recently held Fireside Chat hosted by Celerity, Mr. Sanjay Desai (SD), Co-founder & Regional Director, Humana International (S) Pte Ltd, brought forth the many facets of Mr. Haribhakti as he offered his inspirational insights on topics ranging from governance, sustainability, technology, and the bright future that India is yet to witness. Excerpts…

SD- You have a lot of firsts to your credit. You are the first ESG certified Board of Director in India. You are the first certified internal auditor in the country, and you have also been one of the youngest professors at IIMA at the age of 25 years. Is it a family DNA? How hard do you work at it?

SH- The one lesson that I have always kept very much on my mind is that ‘Hard work never killed anyone’. I work extremely hard even today. It is not unusual for me to keep 16 hours workday. It was my Maths teacher in the early years who had once remarked to my mother that he may not be the most brilliant student in my class, but he works so hard that he makes up for what he lacks in terms of dazzling brilliance. I have always kept that warning in mind and therefore coming first is not something that I plan to do. It just happens. There have been many occasions when I am not first as well. For example, I did not get the first position in the CA examination, which will be a lifelong disappointment for me.

6 CELERITY September - October 2021

LEADERSHIP SD- Yes, there are always exceptions.

You said that hard work never killed anyone. I completely agree with that. However, from an academic perspective, it is not so easy to score first almost everywhere. Besides the hard work, it is also the natural ability or being there at the right time which makes a difference.

SH- Yes. Even today I feel I get obsolete so rapidly that if I am not open to new topics, for example, five days ago, I didn’t truly know what the whole epoch that we are going through today meant. But as soon as I got curious about it, I listened to multiple hours of video on it and today I can fluently speak about it.

SH- Absolutely, it is so important that life’s every chance must be welcomed and embraced. You should go at it as the opportunity arises. It is like a data set. If it is not captured when it is happening, it’s lost forever. That is why I say to everybody that make sure you don’t regret a single opportunity that comes your way, and you don’t grab it.

SD - It’s all about being sustainable and ahead of the game preparing all the while. You have three facets and I have been following you for a long time – accountant; Board Chairman of many companies; and an ESG practitioner at heart. Among these three, which is that one aspect you would like to lean on to the most?

SD - I know someone said that opportunities are never lost.

Opportunities are taken by people who are ready and willing. In your case, you are always ready and willing.

SH- What comes naturally to me is to be a learner. In whatever role I can learn more through exposure to people who are brighter and better than me and that happens at my role as Board Chairman very often. Today Board Members are so much more knowledgeable, wise, and full

There has been a transformational change on the Boards. The richness of information and analysis that we get on the Board and demand for the supply of high level very well documented insights is unmatched.

The next phase is that the Boards will be empowered to really have a brain computer interface with the repository of data which surrounds the entity that they are in the oversight function or not sitting on the Board of any company. To be able to draw down as the need or the occasion arises, that insightful data from a de-siloed wellorganized database right there where they are. That is going to be the next big transformative step, which is going to make strategic foresight on Boards extraordinarily possible, interesting, and really the big remit of why Boards should meet. supplychaintribe.com

of ideas. I learn a lot from them. Equally in the field of ESG, every day I live and learn. Every day there’s a new insight.

Today’s insight for me came from supply chain. It just struck me that if you don’t think of supply chain, you will simply run out of things that you must have. Take the case of having to produce EV vehicles or windmills or take the case of just simply making sure energy transition to hydrogen, all these need metals that are in short supply and Copper being one of them. Now if you don’t have the means to access more Copper that the world will need to go green, our go green program can be stalled. All this is supply chain and all it needs is technology and time to overcome.

Taking the ESG angle further, there are 17 SDGs where Sweden ranks as number one. India is way behind. However, India has set up an ambitious goal to be under 50 by the year 2025. How difficult it is and what pathways do you see to achieve this target?

We have three pathways. India is a blessed country in terms of natural resources.

It is also blessed in terms of sunlight, and we also have wind so that we can generate sustainable, economically viable quantum of power from all the natural resources. Good news for India is that the cost per unit for generating solar and wind power has fallen below the cost of generating fossil fuel-driven unit of power and that is an inflection point, which is going to lead us to becoming the country which does a very rapid energy transition. Second, we naturally don’t have large consumption power because the per-capita income of our country is low. If we can democratize production and make it more efficient and make goods available, then India might become the first country, which will have ‘Haves’ and ‘Have More’ rather than ‘Have Nots’. We can bring in converging technologies into our manufacturing. We can distribute what we produce in a way that it becomes affordable at low per capita income, and we can do it in a clean and lean way. We have this opportunity to create a fresh ecosystem, which other countries may not have the opportunity to do because of the stranded assets, which would arise as you work towards transition and make

7

LEADERSHIP the change. It could be of such a large magnitude that they would gawk at it.

We don’t have that problem.

Someone mentioned at the UN that India’s growth and India’s ability to be under 50 by the year 2025 is very critical for the world. How can we decipher that statement?

It is very critical. It is so true and relevant.

The path to below two degrees Celsius lies through India and China. These are the two large highly populated nations on Earth. India and the Anthropocene Epoch, the extent to which we needed to take out from the mother Earth, was at an extremely high level. We have now learnt how to get back towards Clean Tech Revolution. China is way ahead. They have discovered the holy grail much ahead of us. They have integrated supply chains.

They are the Manufacturing Hub of the World. They have adopted technology.

They have the means to obliterate all cash dealings in their economy. They have got enough infrastructure to do that. We need to build up to it. The good news is that we are at a midpoint in this evolutionary process and now we need to accelerate.

Taking it forward, can you tell us a bit about GovEVA Consulting and what are the activities you are associated with?

GovEVA was initiated by the inspiration of Mr. GN Bajpai, the ex-chairman of SEBI. He had this driving desire to create a platform which would make sure that governance, social responsibility, and environmental stewardship could happen in a single integrated platform.

Then Mr. J Dalal joined us in this mission and three of us decided to start. Five years ago, we set out on this journey. It took us two years to get our platform for governance ready and now we are working to anoint that platform with the social responsibility and environmental stewardship angle. Hopefully, within 6-8 months, we should be able to give the world its first automated platform, which will enable them to get on to the ESG path in a facile way. What is helping us is that the whole world is getting uniform. For example, we have the Value Reporting Foundation, which is going to combine the Global Reporting

8 CELERITY September - October 2021

Initiative (GRI) and the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB).

All these initiatives are happening in the US. Then we have the sustainability standards getting established in the UK to harmonize the way the measurements of all these impacts will be. When we have access to all of that, we need to integrate all the aspects and bring to the world a unified metric that will set out to achieve the desired objective. GovEVA stands for Governance, Leading to Economic Value Add. We are still focused on adding economic value.

How do we stop technology from crossing the ethical line in our social & personal lives?

This is something that we wrestle with so often. I would point you to a book that I read a month ago, ‘Physics of God’. What has happened is, as the human race has made more and more discoveries of string theories, metaverses, the beginning of life, big bang, they have been able to relate it back to the original force, which kept sustaining things. That answered to me the fact that ultimately, we as a human race will have to discover that we need to come in harmony and peace with nature. We will need to acknowledge that there is something that is beyond us, and we will have to learn to live with it in a harmonious manner and simply not allow it to domineer over us as we attempted to domineer over nature and failed.

When we talk about ESG, there are a few more factors speaking from supply chain standpoint. Are we able to achieve the environmental governance?

Unfortunately, the answer is a clear NO. We have got used to linear thinking. We are not able think exponentially and out-of-the-box. That is a big pivot that the world must make. There is no path to the pivot. It just has to be wished and executed and that’s how it happens.

There are companies which have given us dramatic result over their previous year’s performance. How do they do it? There are technologies, mindsets, and frameworks, which can drive this. We need to plug in to those frameworks, mindsets, processes as an economic entity to acquire that massively transformative purpose and

take the moonshots. It’s no longer going to be easy for us to keep growing incrementally and think that that’s going to be life as usual. That epoch is over.

That epoch gave us zero growth for over 11,200 years, but today we simply can’t afford that. We must have the fastest growth both in GDP and in per capita.

Therefore, we need to start thinking exponentially of how technologies are converging. Therefore, we will get this exponential growth curve.

What are your views on Indian companies taking up the sustainability path? Where do they stand currently? What more needs to be done to push the green agenda forward?

They are taking to this path in droves. The drove definition comes from the fact that a thousand top market cap companies are obligated by SEBI from this year onwards to voluntarily disclose their sustainability reporting (BR-SR). Once that happens, then it becomes mandatory to follow India. That gets a thousand companies already off the starting line. What that is going to do is it’s going to get everyone else who has still the opportunity to think and stay at the side lines to jump in. That has happened at a superlative pace. I am pleased that there are over 8000 companies in India today, which are pursuing the ESG holy grail. Everyone is on a steep learning curve. As we progress gradually, policies will be ironed out and we will definitely see the emergence of a new corporate world which has ESG ingrained in its vision & mission. The phenomenon also extends to the MSMEs as well because for any large company to report scope II & III challenges, they need to have the connectivity to their entire supply chain ecosystem. Eventually large companies are bringing the MSMEs into the whole process. This is a great example of synergistic collaborative atmosphere that is evolving constantly.

I think the extent of attention that is being paid today to MSMEs is appreciative. Not all of that is resulting in them getting saved, but the moment is towards encouraging them, to come together, to consolidate, to do virtual merger, to become responsible parts of the supply chain, to adopt technology, to access money, and so on.

LEADERSHIP The one lesson that I have always kept very much on my mind is that ‘Hard work never killed anyone’. I work extremely hard even today. It is not unusual for me to keep 16 hours workday. It was my Maths teacher in the early years who had once remarked to my mother that he may not be the most brilliant student in my class, but he works so hard that he makes up for what he lacks in terms of dazzling brilliance. I have always kept that warning in mind and therefore coming first is not something that I plan to do. It just happens. There are many occasions when I have not been first as well. For example, I did not get the first position in the CA examination, which will be a lifelong disappointment for me.

We are currently trailing this change and not quite leading it. The next phase seems to be on including suppliers and stakeholders in the ESG framework of the companies. India as the world’s manufacturer / back office and many more, is there an area where we can lead this change?

I think we should lead the change in bringing technologies which are converging to life. We should start with getting the stem cell sample of every child born in India. We should be able to have every moving vehicle and every moving machinery or every manufacturing unit having an IoT enabler in it. We need to have a brain computer interface device embedded in those either as an external additive or a wearable or an embedded chip into our bodies. Today for measuring continuously blood sugar, this is already a feasible option. Ultimately what will happen is the doctors will not have to get this entire set of diagnostics done as soon as the patient comes, and they send them back for tests. All of these will get transformed because the record of a person’s parameter is going to trendline and available right there where it is required. The same phenomenon applies to machines or automotive. We need to start thinking on the digital autonomous world where a car is completely autonomous. One can imagine the entire governance process surrounding a DAO will be very different from the governance process in MSME. This is the new experimentation we are all working towards.

supplychaintribe.com

What is the recent approach of investors towards governance, especially in the start-up space?

I think we need to get to the start-ups who can suddenly become unicorns.

We have already seen a few decacorns who are emerging out of India, ex.

Paytm, Zomato or Swiggy. We are seeing multibillion dollar enterprises emerging and the idea that good governance can risk manage the flight path is becoming very much embedded in the mind frames of these start-ups and the people who have this driving exponential mindset taking the moonshots which they believe in, having this massively transformative purpose, looking at technology as an enabler, they are the ones who are truly making artificial intelligence their partners. They are talking and thinking about it as augmented intelligence and are not fearing it. They are embracing the change. That is what is leading to this exponential change in India. The number of digital transactions we are doing, the extent to which we are now able to deal with things at a molecular and cellular level, is astonishing.

that we will let you know next time.

Information should be available right there for the Board when they walk in.

We are now at an inflection point where every board member realizes that we are all in this together. There is no difference between an independent director, nonindependent director, executive director, or non-executive director. They all have the same purpose.

What is the number one capability today for a board member to possess to enhance all the six capitals of an enterprise?

The answer is equally simple. It is to be able to ask the right question boldly and do not rest until you get a satisfied response. The entire ecosystem should realize that Board members are not going to get satisfied by an answer

9

COVER STORY

VISIBILITY IN

SUPPLY CHAIN

10 CELERITY September - October 2021

COVER STORY

A recent Harvard Business Review Analytic Services and GEP study showed that more than 72% of companies believed their key supply chain capabilities—supply planning, demand planning, supplier risk management, warehousing and logistics, procurement, and inventory management—to be digitally immature. New technologies can provide comprehensive supply-chain visibility with real-time data and intelligence to help companies make timely and effective decisions based on shifting market dynamics.

While attaining clear visibility into the entire supply chain seems to be a daunting task, it is not an OPTION anymore but a MUST for companies. The Covid-19 pandemic has only accentuated this very fact. Our recent Webinar, ‘Real-time Visibility in Logistics’ offered fascinating facets into what visibility means to the stakeholders and how enhanced visibility is the only way forward for companies. Here’s presenting you the excerpts from the engaging webinar sponsored by LogiCloud and moderated by Sanjay Desai, Cofounder & Regional Director, Humana International (S) Pte. Ltd.

supplychaintribe.com

11

COVER STORY

Apurva Mankad, Founder & CEO, LogiCloud and WebXpress India What do you mean by visibility?

The very idea of visibility is how do I remove uncertainty from my day-to-day life be it supplying cargo, unloading at the warehouse, so on. India is a diverse country. We have 9 million fleet in India, which is more than population of some of the countries. More than 90% of fleet are owned by people with just 5 vehicles or less. When we have such a wide fragmentation, the scope for visibility is humungous. Improving visibility is one of the toughest jobs to achieve for any company be it even Google. I think if we can reduce the plight of people who are waiting at the bus stop to catch the next bus is when we would be able to proudly say that we have achieved visibility in a true sense. I hope to do work in that area in the future.

How can we bring the small players or small suppliers into the visibility ecosystem to ensure endto-end transparency?

The supply chain is as good as its weakest link. World over the supply chain consists of small as well as large players. Unless you bring the small players into the gamut, you can’t achieve the visibility objective. I will give you an example… we are working with a

big retail client in India, they run more than 350 retail fashion stores across the country. Getting material to sell in those stores is dependent on probably 500+ small manufacturing companies. Unless they don’t bring all these players into the ecosystem, they will not be able to do a good job of prediction and in making sure that the stores are having all the SKUs at the right time. For many decades, these companies have been ignored because firstly they don’t have the IT system in place, or they didn’t have the maturity in place, or they were considered too small to worry about. Today that’s not the case. It’s not restricted to manufacturing only, all the partners in the ecosystem need to be brought into the visibility space like the small transportation partners. Companies need to incentivize their partners to get onto the visibility journey. Once they realize the benefits, they will certainly be a part of the change.

But until that happens, it’s of no use. It should be the responsibility of big players to bring onboard their partner ecosystem for the real change to happen.

need to be backed with the right capital.

That’s why we are seeing a huge influx of start-ups, particularly in India.

What is the best way to achieve supply chain visibility?

Experimenting is critical whoever wants to go in for supply chain visibility solution. For example, one company went on thinking about how a control tower should be like for close to 18 months. The result is that the control tower didn’t see the light of the day. The essence is one must start somewhere and then iron out complexities and inefficiencies arising in the system. The companies should take a pragmatic approach. They should look at where do they stand currently. If you are at 0, go to next milestone, i.e., 1 and so on. The technology needs to be easily deployable into your supply and give you some results on day 1. If you deploy a technology into your system and it gives you results after 30 days, then there is something wrong with that. For sure, one may not be happy with the result in its entirety, but there must be a start.

Can you talk about trust & transparency?

What are your clients’ expectations?

Transparency is all about visibility. One should be willing to get the visibility or allow the transparency to go to your partner. One of the traditional problems has been that people don’t want to tell you where they are. Traditionally there has been a trust deficit between supply chain partners especially the logistics partners and the shippers of goods who are always at loggerheads. There is also trust deficit in terms of what service has been provided or not been provided. First thing we need to ensure is building trust.

It will help both the partners to declare to each other the updates which might have an impact on other’s operations. There’s a big change culturally as far as the supply chains in India are concerned. Yes, there is a long way to go. As we move forward, this will only improve from hereon.

Involving multiple logistics partners is a must for our customers but bringing them all into one system has always been a challenge for them. Monitoring them and ensuring seamless supply chain visibility can immensely lead to optimization of their processes. This is where LogiCloud fits the bill perfectly.

Through our custom solutions & services, even smallest logistics company can be digitally connected to a large company.

We are hopeful that LogiCloud platform would help connect all stakeholders in supply chain and lead to greater efficiencies. 

What are the opportunities that young minds have in the digital world?

Young minds are going to be the key in the future. They don’t have the baggage of the past. The young generation is way more open to adopting technology. They

12 CELERITY September - October 2021

COVER STORY What does real-time visibility mean to you as a supply chain professional?

In simple English, real-time visibility essentially means live information that allows an organization to monitor the movement of goods, information, and their assets. It is also called ‘facts on the ground’. It provides the organization an ability to understand what is happening on the ground, under what conditions, and the occurrence of any issues. It enables the leaders to act/rectify in case of a problem or by ascertaining the situation and finding the best solution in time, which in turn helps in saving costs, duplications and eventually enhancing a seamless uninterrupted customer experience.

Why is it called the ‘holy grail’ of supply chain?

Real-time visibility is the ‘holy grail’ of an organization and not just supply chain function. It is an outcome of an organization’s process management ability to be integrated & connected and the ability to track events related to Capital Assets or Customers; either in a linear manner or in an event-based manner. It refers to the ability that an organization must have or develop over a period to track & trace, in real-time, the movement of goods/ packages/ information right from their suppliers’ network to their manufacturers’ network to the warehouses and local DC enroute to the end customer where the product is finally consumed. An organization can develop a ‘real-time live’ visibility like an Ocean Tracker or can choose to have visibility, which is more triggered based on important events in the end-to-end value networks.

How do leaders’ go about achieving this ‘holy grail’?

It always about leadership right!! It is cultivated & nurtured over a period of time. It is a combination of years of efforts and strong mindsets to remain integrated and connected in as many small siloes and structures that one can create. You cannot achieve this state of ‘connectedness’ by luck, you need to make a conscious effort every time you think of developing a new process or decide to make investments in multi-echelon

supplychaintribe.com

enterprise business architectures.

Visibility may (or may not be) necessarily be uppermost in our minds when we set about developing building blocks of our value networks. In the last 5 – 10 years, most of the software applications built for efficiency, customer engagement, integration do provide this as ‘given’ at an incremental cost.

What are the impacts that an organization would face due to lack of visibility in their network?

Great question… An organization, which does not have proper visibility will work double or triple harder to satisfy their customers v/s an organization, which has proper tools & processes in place to make visibility routinely available across their enterprise. Unable to keep up with their competitors, the lack of real-time visibility will lead to inefficiencies in different areas of the business. Let us look at top 5 challenges amidst many: • Lack of Customer Loyalty: Modern customers demand end-toend visibility and if an organization (supplier) is not able to provide the same, they will lose their customers regularly.

• Incorrect Benchmarking or KPIs: Without real-time visibility and control, inaccuracies would creep in planning and monitoring the supply chain process, which would ultimately lead to customer satisfaction issues, wastage (duplication) of resources and an ultimate loss of revenue.

• Loss of customer trust: Lack of real-time visibility leads to confusion and chaos as it is almost impossible for an organization to track & trace deliveries, assets and can not provide a proper ATP (available to promise). If this situation is not corrected in shorter course of time, it is just a matter of time that many customers would shift to the next best alternative in the market.

• Incremental cost adders: Lack of visibility can lead to discrepancies & increase the chances of theft and damage of goods. The end result is decreased productivity and excessive overhead costs that will bite the organization, indirectly setting it on a different cost saving spin.

• Increasing risk, non-compliance:

Sanjay Desai, Co-founder & Regional Director, Humana International (S) Pte. Ltd. Lack of accurate real-time data and insights about your assets will increase the risk of accidents, exposure at border checks and customs clearances. Mitigating risks at the right time leads to higher productivity, enhanced reliability and more transparency.

How do you foresee the shape of things to come?

My strong belief is, Visibility is a (mixed) outcome of an organization’s process management capabilities, customer focused approach, and the key investment decisions that the management makes on a day-to-day basis. As a leader, you need an unstinted desire to achieve visibility.

Usually, visibility is taken for granted, either you have it (may be in a tainted form) or you do not have it. Leaders at different levels of the organization, have differentiated KPIs / business objectives to achieve and these can be so pervasive and overpowering that one may lose the sight of ‘visibility’ being as important or an enabler to achieve some of the larger goals in front of us. As Peter Drucker says, “Whatever you track improves” And the best part is. You need the visibility and processes to ‘TRACK’ anything. It is a Catch-22 situation, Isn’t it!

13

COVER STORY

Samuel NG, Senior Director – APAC Distribution, CooperVision, Singapore What do you mean by visibility?

Visibility to me means empowerment.

We use the information to be able to make decisions. From a manufacturing standpoint visibility facilitates stability, integrity, supply, time-to-market, transparency among and with the suppliers, etc. Without visibility, I don’t think all this is possible. When you order a t-shirt from any e-commerce site, you would expect some form of order status visibility and a means to even track your order. We tend to assign a stereotype to vendors who could not provide visibility as unreliable. As consumers, our confidence improves significantly when we get push notifications about our orders. This further explains why visibility as a means to building buyer confidence and reinforcing purchase decision has become critical.

What are those critical factors which impact visibility?

Visibility is all about time sensitivity.

Visibility means nothing if it’s time sensitive. The level of sensitivity can vary by industry, circumstance, users and on how value chain or supply chain was set

up. Everyone is aware today about the movement of vaccines across the globe.

Its supply chain had seen a 360degree difference pre- and post-pandemic.

During peace time, there were flexibility and tolerance to Pfizer’s production lead time, transit time, temperature range, transportation requirements, packaging, etc…There were abundance and lack of demand. Everyone in the value chain could tolerate some lack of visibility.

During the pandemic, demand surged beyond immediate supply, milestone visibility became precision.

List of critical factors impacting visibility are inexhaustive. Most of them are means to the end. Symptoms of the illness. Fundamental factor remains to be information or the lack of it. Not just any information; the information that parties of the value chain has agreed to be circulated at the right space and time. The definition of these agreed information and the process for it, translates how valuable visibility is to the stakeholders.

How can Hyperlocal delivery players improve real-time visibility considering the time criticality?

We have spoken about the tools to gain visibility such as GPS, SIM-enabled devices, etc., but if we go 20 years back, one couldn’t even think of visibility because these tools are not invented.

But visibility existed in various forms.

One of the backbones of visibility is connectivity and information availability.

It doesn’t mean that information or data is not available, it implies that the conduit that information is different.

Tools such as GPS, SIM are the modern conduits providing timely and relevant information for visibility. The key difference in the value of real-time visibility between Hyperlocal delivery and conventional last mile delivery, is the expectation vs time.

In Guangzhou, China, Alibaba can deliver an order of fresh fish from market to restaurant within two hours. Visibility of its status is transmitted via the online platform. In reality, the merchants and delivery assets are not owned by Alibaba.

Other than technology providing the necessary platform to manage milestones and visibility, the explicit commitment to the established service standard by all

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stakeholders played a crucial role.

How will visibility have an impact on Glocalization?

The metamorphosis didn’t happen these couple of years. It actually already took place long ago. Dell Computers, who used to be my customer and I was responsible for their APAC supply chain, is a classic successful example. They are a global supplier that believed in localization, and they have started doing this as early as the year 2000. Their localization was not only about product design. It extended to their entire supply chain, from manufacturing and assembly to distribution. The icing on the cake, they don’t own any of the manufacturing and distribution assets.

Almost everything including PCs and peripherals are manufactured in Asia for Asia market. They have a BTS base in Shanghai for the China and Asia market, another in Chennai for the South Asia and Middle East customers base and their earliest one in Malaysia for the SEA market. They are a phenomenal proponent of supply chain visibility. Their competitive advantage was not only cost competitiveness but more importantly being as close to their customers as possible. They created the ecosystem to facilitate visibility.

In short, globalization demanded a lot on visibility to be possible.

Glocalization is only possible if visibility exist as a critical success factor within the organisation and amongst its supplier ecosystem.

What is the best way to achieve supply chain visibility?

First, recognize that your success depends on your customer. So, the definition of visibility must stem from your customer’s interpretation of what they want to see and by when. As most supply chain is a connection of multiple stakeholders (links of supplier and customers, internal and external), there must be alignment of the established definitions. And there must be a price for delivering and not delivering these commitments. We can push the timeliness and consistency of visibility further if we can own some of the critical tools and platforms with which information is transmitted or managed.

COVER STORY What do you mean by visibility?

Visibility to me is equivalent to facts on the ground. Imagine if you are in a dark room and there are many objects in the room how will you take the decision to go past the objects and reach the door if you don’t have light/visibility?

It’s like the old saying shooting in the dark. Similarly, visibility throughout the supply chain can be gained through the data that is collected and analysed and can help to make key decisions and help organizations to be agile, competitive, and cost effective. Also, in the eyes of customer real time visibility helps to bring more clarity in terms of service and bridges the gap between expectation and delivery and reduces the lead time to service.

If you see most of the recent business models that are on a platform or marketplace models are made on this model of visibility. Where they are simply providing the product inventory and delivery visibility to the consumer/buyer and demand of consumers to the sellers.

To us as an organization, it is most critical to embrace visibility in our day-to-day operations as providing visibility around inventory, dispatches, and delivery is the key to service excellence as a 3PL and we are doing this through adapting a customized mix of manual and tech enabled solutions.

Is visibility relative to industry or is it product specific?

I think relativity in my view is to understand the need for visibility. Yes, it varies from industry-to-industry. If you look at healthcare and pharmaceuticals or the QSRs, chemicals, lubricants, e-commerce, these industries need real-time visibility as compared to commodities. The products which require temperature control or perishable products or products which require safety & handling while transportation or products which are governed by laws of the land, these products require realtime visibility more than any general product.

In India, alcohol beverages industry is controlled by state excise laws. In those laws because of the nature of the product, the excise department controls the route as well as time of each shipment when it leaves from the factory to the

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warehouse to the retail distribution. In such a scenario also, real-time visibility is the need of the hour. Now-a-days, B2C, D2C have emerged as a new channel and since these segments are delivering products directly to consumers the need of visibility is definitely more when compared to General Trade or B2B channel.

Is visibility a specific outcome of process or is it technological capability that organizations need to embrace?

To me, visibility is the necessity for the industry or a product. The outcome is derived through putting the right processes supported by technology.

Definitely, technology plays a very important role shaping the outcome of the results. Let’s look at the GPS and how GPS has really shaped the way tracking is enabled. We can track a truck with the help of GPS on a real-time basis. But this is limited to full-truck load, the challenge that we are facing today is still in the tier II & III cities and the rural towns in India where the last mile delivery in the B2C segment can be tracked but in the general trade, the distributors’ channel still operates on the old processes where till today manual calling happens when the vehicle is on the road. Things are starting to change now, and we will hopefully soon be able to shift to the new age visibility enhancing systems.

How is the tech capability coming along in sync with business demand, in India context?

There are a lot of players in the market where they enable SIM-based tracking.

So, these players get the approval through the operator and the driver to track his SIM. That enables real-time truck visibility in the current scenario.

Other options involve placing a GPS box in the truck and start tracking the truck.

We have come up with ways now to track their passage real-time. In smaller cities or towns, a bigger truck which is 32 ft deploy GPS tracking in the truck. For smaller trucks and smaller operators, SIM-based GPS tracking for short distance is more predominant.

Chetan Kumria, MD & Founder,Xcell Supply Chain Solutions Pvt. Ltd. services to their customers?

If you look at manufacturing, trading, or marketing companies, their core competency lies in selling their products.

All the non-core jobs can be outsourced to specialized in their fields such as procurement outsourcing, logistics, so that they can focus on branding & marketing for selling their products to the target audience. The existence of 3PL comes only because these companies focus on their core areas. In my view, it is the responsibility of 3PL to provide visibility and offer them a complete package comprising of logistics, technology solutions as well as warehousing.

Is visibility dynamic in nature as well and may change in same segment on different point?

There is a difference in the visibility when we say from an industry perspective and when we say from product perspective.

Visibility is also dynamic in nature. If the data is coming from a manual source, it will be dynamic in nature, while if the data is coming from technology, then visibility will be static.

How can 3PLs bring in the expertise of providing visibility

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COVER STORY What are some of the indicators you could be lacking the right levels of visibility in your transportation network?

Kamish Mirza, Head of Supply Chain Management APAC, Ericsson, Singapore What do you mean by visibility?

I work in B2B space, so I would like to give you all a perspective on the same.

Agreeing to Samuel’s views, visibility to me is all about empowerment. Visibility empowers us to get health check on how well our operational process are functioning. It also enables us to detect bottlenecks, abnormalities, etc. All these aspects are done to enhance user experience and customer satisfaction. It also means sustaining growth. Visibility can be seen in two ways – information flow, which talks about demand, forecast, order flow, etc.; track & trace capability.

For us, it’s encompassing the entire ecosystem to enhance efficiency.

What should be the scope of visibility?

Visibility must be end-to-end, and it can’t be a small part of the value chain.

It includes the consideration of people, data, and people communication.

Functionally the scope should also cover the key supply chain processes including end-to-end planning, purchasing, purchase order activity, warehousing, etc. It must also look into the scope of inventory management and distribution management.

There are two ways to look at it – software where you talk about willingness to share, ability to have one source of truth, and then there is technology aspect which is important to understand when we talk about end-to-end visibility.

We have got too many systems. When you look at the value chain. There are tier II & III suppliers who possess their own set of information and system. The challenge lies in having one system where the information flows in a semantic fashion. This is the biggest barrier in the journey to visibility. Secondly there is a big challenge of differentially formatted unstructured data. How do we process and make it simple and usable for the entire value chain is a challenge. There is a lack of good IT support to achieve the desired results. It needs a good data layer to integrate all data points, which is needed to have a common semantic.

How can we bring the small players into the visibility ecosystem to ensure end-to-end transparency?

It is important to understand that not everything is investment intensive. There has to be ecosystem which will help to build upon all these small players. Only then we will survive because if investment is the only way to get visibility, then the overall cost of ownership becomes very high.

What is the role of data?

This is in our DNA. A good data strategy is one of the strongest enablers to achieve a holistic supply chain strategy. From availability perspective, keep the strategy simple rather than over-complicating and giving unnecessary information.

Align with the customer what data is needed, what kind of dashboard is needed and how should it be utilized and try to develop a strategy basis that in an agile way.

What if organizations tomorrow start to perceive supply chain as a value generator vs. cost center, will this help increasing the visibility?

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Well, it is almost a reality for us.

Covid-19 has obviously brought the necessity of visibility into limelight. For us, supply chain visibility, digitalization, automation, is already a value generator.

We are creating revenue streams of supply chain solutions towards our end customer. Supply chain as a service is already sold as a product. I am of the firm belief that this will continue to become stronger in times to come. It also depends on the market sentiments. If the market is cost sensitive, the revenue generation will always be challenged. In the last two years, the supply chain has taken a new dimension. The other catalyst of change is the digitalization within the supply chain, which is creating a huge value proposition for customers.

What role do you see of advanced technologies such as AI & ML / Advanced Analytics to improve supply chain responsiveness and agility for operations in complex logistics environments like in India?

These are some of the recent technological interventions being used to build digital capabilities. Depending on the use cases you deal in supply chain, the impact will be visualized. Talking about machine learning in forecasting, we are already seeing huge benefits and impact. It also depends on the industry one is operating in. Having said that, one needs to be mindful of technologies and due diligence must happen before implementing it in their processes. Not all the processes need to be automated. They need to be streamlined first. Time has come for these technologies to take centre stage in supply chain.

What are the opportunities that young minds have in the digital world?

A lot of competitive shift is happening within the traditional supply chain.

Younger generation is born in the internet era. A lot of what they have studies is a lot of what they can implement. I feel they just lack business understanding, but that can be learned with the right attitude and aptitude. There is a huge opportunity in the corporate side as well.

SPECIAL REPORT

3PLs

THE PROTAGONISTS While some may feel the term a bit too exaggerated, but 3PLs globally as well as in India have displayed an impeccable resilience to turn the Covid-19 tide.

Showing grit & determination, 3PLs have played the indispensable role of the PROTAGONISTS when the world needed them the most. Ably aided by the technology, they have achieved the unprecedented. While Covid-19 pandemic also exhibited some loose ends in the supply chain, the 3PL fraternity was quick enough to stitch them in no time. This Special Story is not just an ode to their mettle but also presents a future forward direction that the 3PLs are gearing up for and are perhaps most excited about. Read on to ‘Shaping the Trends of our times’…

T

HE events of 2020 created a dramatic tipping point for supply chains, to say the least.

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic struck us, supply chains started experiencing trouble and had to address the immediate high demands for goods.

As the nationwide lockdowns started getting implemented globally, the supply chain’s role as the lifeline of humanity— getting goods & services to all types of customers quickly, safely, and securely— became quite evident. In short, as rightly remarked by Carlos Cordon, Professor of Strategy and Supply Chain Management, IMD Business School, in one of his recent articles, the supply chain has become a main protagonist everywhere, it has moved from playing a “behind the scenes” organizational role to being a prime driver of the company business.

Tapas Sudan, Research Assistant, and Dr. Rashi Taggar, Assistant Professor, Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University, in their research paper,

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‘Recovering Supply Chain Disruptions in Post-COVID-19 Pandemic Through Transport Intelligence and Logistics Systems: India's Experiences and Policy Options’, have highlighted that Indian firms have focused on interconnected and lean supply chains to overcome the supply gaps in normal business operations. The COVID-19 pandemic has led to massive supply chain disruptions (SCDs) due to undiscovered supply chain vulnerabilities caused by governmentimposed economic restrictions including transportation disruptions worldwide including India, which adversely impacted the normal functioning of the firms.

Many Indian firms have experienced severe disruptions in transportation and logistics services, including stronger impact on transportation and logistics data, time delays, and cargo cancellations due to drastically reduced freight capacity, limited mobility, ports shutdown, and problems in routine customs clearances. All this has also

severely delayed the production of goods, transport consignments, and logistics services thereby caused massive delays and rerouting to final consumers.

Supply chains faced a significantly transformational phase due to the necessity for greater agility. Interestingly, the prior perception of supply chains as a support activity was rapidly replaced by the understanding that these are a major strategic focus on ensuring the survival of businesses and economies.

The distribution and supply of COVID-19 vaccinations and the resulting complex cold chain requirements were one of the most defining issues for supply chains.

Thus, in order to ensure the sustainability of supply chains and the resulting mobility, which are important pre-requisites for businesses and economies to thrive, it is necessary to adopt apt and timely 3PL (Third Party Logistics) trends, which will undoubtedly transform the global supply chain landscape in response to the ‘new normal’ as dictated by the pandemic.

SPECIAL REPORT SUPPLY CHAIN COMMUNITY RISING TO THE OCCASION Bobby Sharma, Vice President – Retail & Logistics BU, Atos Syntel, in his blog, has aptly stated that the global logistics industry has risen with energy and alacrity to the challenges of covid-19, protecting staff and customers while flexing to the peaks and troughs in demand. Impacts were profound as supply chains were seriously disrupted and new regulations rapidly introduced.

“Meanwhile, the business-toconsumer market has exploded as people in lockdown turned to the internet to make their purchases. And not only did volumes grow; the profile of goods being shipped changed, with more consumers ordering even the largest purchases online. In response, logistics companies fast-tracked their growth and development strategies, quickly expanding to seven days a week and making significant investments in e-commerce, people, and assets to cope with demand,” he added.

Giving a 3PL perspective, R Shankar, CEO-India, TVS Supply Chain Solutions, remarked, “Companies have been impacted, suffered from massive losses but most have worked hard to keep business alive to support their team members and community. It was very important to protect and maintain the health of people working in the supply

chain during this time of crisis. However, keeping the distribution chain alive by the supply management strategies was also important to meet the consumer demands.

Companies supported manpower to resume to work by arranging permissions and their transportation.

Not only they incentivised them but also ensured safe practices (physical spacing, contact-tracing and PPE were followed).

Companies also recruited temporary staff to support operations. This helped to reduce supply chain disruptions as far as possible and delivery of essential material across the geographies which was need of an hour. The collaboration was seen across manufacturers, suppliers and logistics partners and everyone did the possible role to minimize the supply chain disruption. Many companies collaborated with government sharing the intelligence on ground and so the needed actions are taken to sustain the operations.”

While Deven Pabaru, CEO, Stellar Value Chain Solutions, avowed, “In the ongoing pandemic scenario, supply chain management companies have been going the extra mile to ensure business continuity for their clients. At Stellar, we have developed a special Covid taskforce which has been working relentlessly in all our locations so that impact of disruptions can be kept to a bare minimum. The members of the task force devise solutions by working closely with

the leaderships and internal teams. They coordinate with the local and regional authorities to keep the supply chain operations running while complying with all the protocols. The results have been extremely encouraging so far.”

Talking about global landscape, Radu Palamariu, Managing Director – Asia Pacific, Alcott Global and the Global Head of Supply Chain & Logistics Practice, remarked, “Covid19 was, and still is, one of the toughest times for most of us. Most of us had not seen a disruption at such a global scale before. And I am amazed of how well the supply chain and logistics professionals globally have risen to the occasion. And demonstrated their skills. It is only because of them that the world kept going. That we have not seen food shortages or any shortages at all (minus some toilet paper temporary bleeps), which if we think about it is quite amazing, in a time where lockdowns, warehouses and factory closures as well as transport disruptions happened daily.

So, kudos to all these heroes!”

Sharing as to how pandemic brought an opportunity for the business, Raju Kurian, Chairman and MD, Unisis Group, said, “Pandemic has brought structural shifts in the way we do business and some of which will remain permanent, like online working, virtual meetings and less business travel. We realized that agility is crucial and we managed to stay in the game because

Radu Palamariu, Managing Director – Asia Pacific, Alcott Global and the Global Head of Supply Chain & Logistics Practice A key challenge that is still ongoing is the need for TALENT that has the right skills in digital and technology. Because most 3PL companies have a way to go before being truly digital, the fight for talent with such skills is high. And the competition is not only with other 3PLs, it is with most other companies as such skills are in demand across industry sectors. I see this as a main challenge, how to increase the 3PL industry as a great employer brand to attract this top talent. supplychaintribe.com

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SPECIAL REPORT

R Shankar, CEO- India, TVS Supply Chain Solutions The biggest lesson learned during Covid-19 is that the pandemic is here to stay, and we need to prepare to address it better by strengthening the supply chain through extensive planning and digitization. Excessive dependence on one supplier/ location /geography is to be avoided. Multiple sourcing options and delivery models is a way to go. Building end-to-end supply chain visibility, capturing learning in the planning process, building efficient SCM practices and keeping plan B always ready will minimize the impact.

we adjusted to the changing market dynamics. We also realized that we need to be ready with a scalable emergency plan when faced with a crisis. An efficient communication system to keep external and internal stakeholders updated is very important. Every challenge opens opportunities and we too kept looking for opportunities. In our case, being trailblazers and one of the fastest growing companies in the logistics and shipping industry in the ME region, we quickly realized and shifted our focus towards warehouses and logistics park as the pandemic had accelerated the demand for these verticals across tier I, II, and III cities in India. We also realized that tier II and III cities in India including in Kerala are underserved markets for grade A logistics park and warehouses and hence are focusing our efforts on these markets immediately.”

TECHNOLOGY – THE MOST CRUCIAL PILLAR “Digitization, automation, and robotics are expected to transform the value chain with digital platform-based freight solutions, logistics process automation, and last-mile delivery solutions,” said Senthil Kumar Subbiah, Supply Chain & Logistics Practice Industry Analyst at Frost & Sullivan. “The integration of computing devices enables interoperability by linking people, processes, and data without any physical movement. Reducing human

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intervention at various steps of the supply chain can be a game-changer during a pandemic or similar crisis. For instance, owing to the fears of virus transfer while handling voluminous paperwork by multiple parties, Indian Customs has mandated the usage of a single-window system for the transfer of export documentation.”

Subbiah added, “A key factor driving the post-COVID-19 recovery of the sector is the proposed logistics policy by the Government of India. The policy aims to eliminate inefficiencies and reduce costs by removing bottlenecks in the logistics value chain. Logistics costs associated with customs and border clearance are expected to decline.

The development of cold storage infrastructure and the adoption of digital technologies would reduce costs associated with warehousing operations.

The policy is expected to streamline trade and investment processes in India, resulting in an improvement in export competitiveness.”

According to R Shankar, digital transformation has been accelerated due to the pandemic and companies are evaluating automated planning, alternate models of delivery, automated supply chain operations, data analytics and AI to minimise the disruption caused due to pandemic. Visibility over supply chain and predictive analytics are two core areas of interest to supply chain community. TVS SCS has already

embarked on this journey by adopting world class technologies. To ensure the visibility of operations tools such as WMS, TMS, control tower, BI dashboards are adopted. Integration with customer technologies is being ensured to have seamless experience. Analytics and big data tools are used to facilitate intelligent decision making.

Deven Pabaru highlighted, “During the pandemic, technology has been playing a critical role in ensuring superior supply chain visibility and efficient management of supply chain complexities, thus upholding the key parameters of a resilient supply chain such as agility, transparency and integrity. Integration of digital technologies and data analytics have not only added predictive capabilities to the supply chain operations but also delivered superior performance and competitive edge to the clients. In this rapidly evolving economic scenario, a tech-enabled supply chain facilitates real-time data and communication flow so that companies are able to respond to the demand fluctuation and address operational bottlenecks faster.”

As remote collaboration has become the new normal because of the pandemic, we have been using advanced online video conferencing tools to strengthen our connect with our customers and vendors as well as streamline our internal processes through regular team meetings.

The ability of online video conferencing

SPECIAL REPORT tools to break the geographical barriers has helped us develop synergy across our teams located across the country, thus accelerating our service delivery.

“We have also rolled out cloudbased enterprise-class Infor Warehouse Management Systems (WMS). Launched for the first time in India, the scalable supply chain solution which can be integrated with the clients’ tech platform offers advanced real-time visibility, datadriven insights, and customised services.

Coupled with our in-house transportation management system (TMS), we have ensured real-time visibility and speed for our customers,” added Pabaru.

INNOVATIVE PRACTICES IMPLEMENTED BY 3PLS TVS SCS has adopted Relentlessly Lean, Passionately Reliable and Collaborative Innovation attributes as its culture and has created 18-point charter. R Shankar added, “This is being driven across the organization to constantly focus on improving efficiencies through breakthrough ideas, encourage own resources to synergise with other functions, foster collaborative team working, anticipate and proactively initiate change to be relevant in the market. Core competencies around which TVS SCS operates are Optimized solution design, lean practices adoption and competitive cost.”

Continuous people development is taken up through SEAT (Self

Enhancement Activity of TVS SCS) and TVS Way to bring the culture of continuous improvement and innovation.

Innovation is also driven through Crossdeployment of capabilities; leadership invests significant time & efforts to bring the capabilities acquired through global acquisitions in India.

For Deven Pabaru, the supply chain demand is exploding in India banking on the rapid growth of e-commerce and omnichannel retail. The growth potential is huge in the supply chain domain. It's not about capturing market share now.

It's about capturing the larger share in the demand spectrum. The scalability factor will define how far a supply chain service provider can go to leverage the booming phase.

“At Stellar, in pursuit of capturing the larger demand share, our endeavours have always been to build operational presence ahead of demand. We have already developed more than 12 million sq. ft. of warehousing space across the country along with robust express, less-than truckload and temperature-controlled transportation infrastructure. The idea is to gain the first mover advantage the moment supply chain service demand spreads out further to hit those regions.

We have a firm belief on the revival of India consumption story and are now planning to expand our warehousing space further,” he averred.

Giving classic examples of resilience shown by companies during pandemic, R

Shankar informed, “TVS SCS is handling many customers, which handle essential category of products, even during high peak of Covid, operations were sustained keeping in mind all government regulations and safety practices. Team members ensured the permissions for running customer operations, arranged e-passes for employees, facilitated transportation for them and ensured that basic food & hygiene requirements are fulfilled for employees to work safely and earn their wages, which are essential for their survival too. Customers have appreciated the support extended during Covid period and referred TVS SCS as preferred 3PL partner, which is flexible and reliable.”

Highlighting Stellar’s initiatives during Covid-19, Deven Pabaru, stated, “During the pandemic, we have been involved in a number of collaborations with our customers aiming at reducing cycle time significantly. We have closely worked with our clients to cut through the multiple layers in the supply chain to help them accelerate their speed to market. In one such instance, we have joined hands with a mattress manufacturing company to deliver mattresses to a hospital within 12 hours to meet urgent requirements.

So effective was the supply chain strategy that the company eventually adopted it as standard procedure to fulfil emergency requirements.”

Elaborating on the value-added propositions of Unisis, Raju Kurian,

Deven Pabaru, CEO, Stellar Value Chain Solutions The unprecedented pandemic scenario challenged our ability to adapt to emerging realities both in our personal and professional space. However, all of us have shown survival instinct, resilience, and adaptability in one way or the other to navigate extraordinary circumstances. The way we have changed our approach to life and prioritized skill development to re-configure our existence while enduring the unpredictabilities is a lesson in itself. We are now better prepared to face any eventuality in life. supplychaintribe.com

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SPECIAL REPORT

Raju Kurian, Chairman and MD, Unisis Group There is a dearth of grade A warehouses and logistics parks in India with 64% skew towards grade B warehouses. It is more pronounced in South India with not a single grade A logistics park in Kerala.

This is one area that we are currently focusing on.

Along with grade A warehouse or logistics park, we see significant demand for a Warehouse Management System, Automated picking tools, Automated guided vehicles, Automated inventory control platforms and Internet of Things.

informed, “We believe Hybrid Composite Technology (HCT) is the future of construction which delivers on superior quality, cost efficiency, speed and sustainability. Using HCT, we innovate and create unique prefab products & systems suited to match regional requirements. Due to the off-site factory production setup, we can avoid delays due to rains, heat or severe cold as well as ensure minimal disturbance on-site.

This technology also allows flexibility to our architects which allows us to explore innovative designs. More importantly, use of HCT has helped us to avoid ‘No Cost Overruns’. Being leading players in logistics and shipping in more developed markets, like the ME region, we are in a better position to build grade A logistics park and warehouses in Kochi and South India to meet the requirements of worldclass corporates.”

arrangements from multiple suppliers, adaptable manufacturing lines, scalable warehousing, and transportation agreements

CHANGING GLOBAL SUPPLY CHAIN DIASPORA & INDIA’S REIGNING ROLE

Strong data capture and visibility – Quick decisions based real time data (inventory levels, consumer behaviour, fluctuations in freight and raw material prices)

Global pandemics have revealed the weakness of manufacturing and the supply chain. Below given areas will fetch the attention and in turn will drive transformation of supply chains, as pointed out by R Shankar: Scenario planning: Scenario based supply chain planning processes (realtime production decisions based a demand sensing) Risk management – Flexible sourcing

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Continuous efficiency focus – Flexibility and agility in decision making and implementation, lean and continuous improvement practices to keep costs low Sustainable supply chain – Longterm supply planning and network design, managing trade-offs between customized product offerings and efficiencies offered by consolidated sourcing, storage and manufacturing Capability building and retention – Environment and Safety standards, employee policies. Focus on automation, continuous training and building good work culture

Analytical capability – Capability to build insights and act on it Digitization and high level of technology integration – Sensors and geolocation, Robotics, UI and display innovation, Cloud Services, Big Data, etc.

According to Deven Pabaru, the supply chain operations have experienced unprecedented disruptions in recent

times. Companies at present are facing challenges to keep their operations running because of the disruptions caused by localised lockdowns. Therefore, retail companies are looking for end-toend integrated supply chain solutions with enhanced real-time visibility so that they can make real-time decisions.

Such demands are fuelling adoption of digital technologies in supply chain management dynamics. Supply chain companies are now keen to leverage artificial intelligence, machine learning and data analytics to add value to their customers' business.

Added R Shankar, “Global Supply Chain is reconfigured as no one wants to put their eggs in a single manufacturing basket; no one wants to depend on a single source for their needs, this creates opportunity for India. India fits in all three strategies adopted by multinationals – 1) China Plus One 2) An alternative to China 3) Locations with big local markets and low cost so they can scale up and produce for both, the domestic market and exports.

Steps taken by Indian Government to harness this opportunity: m States are preparing actionable blueprints to attract foreign investments; the focus has been on Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Japan, and US m Incentives and reforms are being looked at for example NITI Aayog proposed to grant a four-year tax holiday to any investor, who wishes

SPECIAL REPORT to bring in above $100 million m FDI limits in select sectors is being looked at m Single-window Centre-state clearance system will be introduced m Bilateral ties will be leveraged to push investment inflows m Change in policy approach towards SEZs m To tackle delays in land acquisition, India has identified 461,589 hectares of land to prepare a land pool bank.

It includes new areas, and 1,15,131 hectares of existing industrial land in states such as Gujarat, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, which are favoured by investors m In the post-COVID environment, several states have changed labor laws.

“The global supply chain discourse has been witnessing a phase of redesign or reconfiguration to minimize the pandemic impact. Those realignments in operations and strategic outlook will influence and impact the Indian supply chain ecosystem as well and will eventually throw up new possibilities and growth opportunities. The government renewed focus to boost manufacturing competitiveness and infrastructure will create an enabling environment for a sustainable supply chain transformation.

The government is moving in the right direction by initiating large scale infrastructure development. The supply chain companies need to invest in technology and human capital to leverage the potential,” added Deven Pabaru.

PREPPING UP FOR GLOBAL DISRUPTIONS TO MINIMALIZE THE NEGATIVE IMPACT ON BUSINESSES 3PL must respond on multiple fronts at once, they need to protect their workers’ safety, ensure operational viability, make supply chain agile and risk free. Key to this, as highlighted by R Shankar is: m Transparency – Create real-time visibility not only in terms of freight but the overall operations view to maintain a nimble approach to logistics management to rapidly adapt to any situational or environmental changes.

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m Resilient supply chain – Continuous assessment of the risk creating risk governance and documenting the processes m Creating strong supplier ecosystem m Digitizing supply chain management to improve speed, accuracy, and flexibility m Financial models to capture the impact of various shock scenarios / insurance/ risk mitigation of specific gaps m Employee safety practices to maintain health and safety during the crisis and ensuring the engagement to keep the employee moral high.

According to Deven Pabaru, 3PLs can build resilience to lessen the impact of disruptions of global magnitude by raising funds, investing in advanced technology and hiring world-class talents. A 3PL company empowered by strategic growth capital, cutting-edge technology and skilled human capital is better positioned to navigate challenges and scale up operations to leverage emerging opportunities.

THE BOOM OF SCAAS (SUPPLY CHAIN AS A SERVICE) Post-Covid, the market for 3PL is expected to grow at a faster clip at around 15-20% in medium term, compared to a growth rate of 7-8% for the overall logistics sector. The preference towards large 3PL players is due to the belief that their operations would exhibit greater resilience to localized disruptions in India and overseas that are still expected to occur periodically over the foreseeable future. Sectors such as e-commerce, consumer goods, organized retail, pharma, auto ancillaries and engineering are likely to drive this growth.

Carrying on the growth bandwagon, Raju Kurian, elucidated on Unisis Group’s ambitious plans for the Indian market.

“Indian warehousing market is expected to grow by ~15% between 2021 and 2025 and leasing of warehousing space is expected to reach 100 million sqft. by 2023 from 32 million sqft. in 2019.

3PL players are capitalizing on this opportunity by building logistics and distribution centers to stock inventory for e-tailers. This has given rise to the demand for warehouses and logistics

parks in India. With a view to capitalize on the burgeoning opportunities waiting to be tapped in the Southern part of the country, our focus area remains to be Kerala and rest of South India. With high disposable income, Kerala is recognized as a fast-growing consumer market, and companies are increasingly setting up base there. High Internet penetration and per capita online spends make Kerala very attractive to e-commerce companies.

With the increasing realization about the need for grade A facilities, there are corporate clients already enquiring about such options. With our expertise in building new age smart warehousing in international and regional markets, we are well positioned to capitalize on the transforming warehousing landscape in the country,” he avowed.

Talking about collaboration as the need of the hour, Deven Pabaru commented, “Collaboration is at the core of supply chain management. As complying with the localized restrictions and health & safety protocols for the workplace issued by the authorities to curb the pandemic spread has led to operational challenges, we have been witnessing a renewed focus on collaborations across stakeholders including customers and the government to minimize the supply chain shock. That spirit of collaboration amid challenging scenarios kept the supply chain moving.

Such a convergence of ideas, thoughts and intent is truly invaluable. Finally, the accelerated adoption of digital technology to minimize the impact of pandemic on the operations has redefined the efficiency and resilience.

Tech-driven remote collaborations, datadriven demand projections, etc., have further enhanced customer centricity.

These are the biggest takeaways for me in the last 18 months.”

Going by the fast-pacing trends, industry specialists have aptly summarized that businesses will increasingly adopt Supply Chain as a Service (SCaaS) in the future, followed by the outsourcing of manufacturing, procurement, quality assurance, inventory management, demand planning and other non-core activities to one supply chain provider or 4PL partner.

That, in essence will be the future of logistics and support industry 4.0.

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Healthcare that truly cares –

ACCESSIBILITY AND AFFORDABILITY “With the Indian Government finally channelizing all its efforts on enhancing healthcare facilities and augmenting its expanse to the remotest places in the country, the 2 As hold the key in its success – Accessibility & Affordability,” stresses Dr. P. Siva Kumar (SK), Medical Technology Advisor, ESI MedTek Solutions.

Having over 30 years of experience in leadership positions in the core areas of healthcare and specific expertise in Clinical Diagnostics, we invited Dr. Kumar in a Fireside Chat with Sanjay Desai (SD), Co-founder & Regional Director, Humana International, and hosted

by Celerity. Dr. Kumar highlights the importance of government’s revolutionary initiative Ayushman Bharat and the role of private sector in ensuring ‘Healthcare for All’. Excerpts…

SD - Would you like to share with us your fond childhood memories?

SK - I hail from a small-town Kurnool in Andhra Pradesh. Kurnool was the capital of erstwhile Andhra State between from 1 October 1953 and 31 October 1956. I come from a middle-class family. My grandfather was a teacher, great grandfather was a priest, and my father was a government official, and I have grown to be an executive. There has been a steady growth in the career paths of my lineage.

This has come from the culture and the values that have been ingrained in us since childhood. Till up to 10th grade, my education was in Telugu. One of the important people in my life who helped me in smooth transition to English language from Telugu was my grandfather as he was an English teacher. He was totally hard of hearing, so he would make me write my messages to him in English. He would pick mistakes which helped me improve the language.

Subsequently, I moved to Hyderabad where I pursed my studies further and my PhD.

SD - Let’s talk about your PhD in biochemistry… at which juncture did you even realize that you were destined to be a celebrated doctorate?

How did this transition happen?

SK - It’s a very interesting journey. 10th grade is

24 CELERITY September - October 2021

LEADERSHIP the milestone for most to decide whether one wishes to go- in medical, engineering or commerce stream. Till that time, I had always been dreaming to be an engineer.

But my father always thought that I should be a doctor. He sent one of his officials and got my subject changed from Maths to Biology. Very reluctantly, I moved to the biology stream. Since I was not very keen on Biology, I didn’t focus on studies, and I didn’t qualify for the entrance examination into medical school. Post that I took admission in BSc and further went on to do my MSc and PhD and subsequently went to the US to do post-doctoral research. The idea of doing PhD struck me when I was doing my Masters. Our professor in Biochemistry made this subject very interesting which led me to pursue it further. During PhD, I was mentored by a very eminent scientist from IISc. He was a hard task master. We were expected to be in the laboratory from early morning till late in the night, a routine for almost 5 years. Considering the hard work that I had put in, I became one of his best students. That helped me to explore deeper and get into the training. This is how destiny took me to do PhD in Biochemistry.

SD - After your post-doctoral research and a short work stint in the US, you came to India. What are the value additions that you feel have been a part of your life and what made you come back to the country?

SK - One of the key things in those days when someone does PhD, they would

invariably go to the US to get trained better. Three decades back, laboratory infrastructure was poor in India. Even to get a simple chemical to do a research work was extremely difficult. It is very important that one must go out of India to a developed country and get trained well in latest technologies and instrumentation. I was clear when I went to the US that I had to come back to my roots. Many other contemporaries of mine have chosen to settle in those countries, especially the US. Somehow teaching always enthused me. I wanted to be a professor in a university and simultaneously pursue the research.

Visiting advanced countries and learning new techniques make one a matured individual and apply the experience in research and help the country to progress. Research infrastructure today has certainly improved in India; however, I still encourage youngsters to experience the US and European style of working.

Collectively we need to make our country prosper and for that we need the best of both worlds.

SD - How is the current scenario shaping up in terms of latest technological advancements in our country vis-à-vis other advanced countries?

SK - As I said, three decades back, the equipment or technologies present in the country were at least 20-30 years backwards as compared to developed nations. But today the scenario is very different. Yes, we have been able

to advance our laboratories and bring new technological innovations even though there’s lot more that needs to be done. Contemporary technologies started getting launched in India. Many research institutes have come up today.

Life sciences have got a fresh lease of life with several new institutes being established. It is important that the output from these institutions need to be much better and the solutions should be in line with the needs of the society.

It is noteworthy that government has facilitated through easing the restrictions on imports of requirement for advanced research both in terms of equipment and chemicals needed. High end machines are being airlifted rather than sent through shipping. Logistical bottlenecks have been ironed out. The era of internet has also played a huge part in transforming ideas to reality in a steadfast manner, which used to take significantly longer times earlier.

SD - How did your earlier career choices lead you to where you are now?

SK - I wanted to be an engineer, I ended up somewhere else. Then I wanted to be a scientist and ended up being in a commercial role and became a business head. Opportunities came my way and I accepted them. One of the important things that I realized over the years is, one should never refuse an opportunity coming your way. Put in hard work and dedication to complete the task assigned to you with passion. When one takes up new roles, there is lot of learning, and it

There is an imminent need to adopt the following to overcome healthcare challenges: • Affordable and accessible healthcare is key to the growth and well-being of Indians and of our economy.

• Diagnostic technologies are an important part of preventive healthcare with a greater emphasis on screening large numbers of people to prevent the onset of diseases like TB, cardiovascular disease or thyroid dysfunction.

• With > 65% of population in rural pockets, Point-of-care diagnostics in conjunction with Digital Technology is relevant as it can be taken closer to the patient and enables the closure of the diagnosis and treatment loop more efficiently.

• Increasing Digital Technology adoption by the healthcare ecosystem, the overall clinical care delivery for patient empowerment will be improved and streamlined. supplychaintribe.com

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will immensely help in career growth. I sincerely adopted this and have been successful. It has also helped me to quickly move up the ladder. I feel proud to share that I became GM at Ranbaxy in just about two and a half years from a junior level manager. This success has not been solely mine, but the contribution of the team I associated also deserve the credit apart from the immense support of the organization.

SD - What have been the challenges on course?

SK - There have been innumerable challenges to say the least, but I never looked back and wasted time thinking about them. At this stage, I would like to mention some important events that helped me to grow up the career ladder.

Firstly, I moved from technical to marketing role. Since the products that the organization was dealing were solely technical products, it made my life easier in understanding the products and solutions offered by the company.

Important aspect that contributed to my growth has been interaction with the customers and learning from such interactions. According to me, customer is the king and every single function across the organization should be customer focussed. While it is mostly the Sales and Marketing Teams that interact with the customers regularly, I

26 CELERITY September - October 2021

strongly feel that the back-end teams, especially the technical teams should go out into the field and understand the experiences, challenges and problems being faced by the customers and it will help in improvising the products being offered by the organization. I once again reiterate that team support is immensely important in working towards the customer delight.

One of the challenging tasks that I encountered in my career has been integration of businesses and teams during “Mergers & Acquisitions”. I had the fortune of being the key player during my tenure as Business Manager.

The most important aspect that need to be considered is, we deal with people from vastly different cultures and style of functioning. One needs to keep the emotional and mental balance while managing people and processes during such events. As a leader, it is important to be unbiased and keep the emotions away and work towards the organizational goal.

SD - You have been quite vocal about industry-academia connect. How can companies bridge this gap? Please enlighten us with respect to your global exposure.

SK - I think the responsibility doesn’t lie only with the industry or with academia.

They must go hand in hand to develop a

holistic ecosystem. According to me it is a three-way process involving “academia”, “industry” and “government”. Ministry of Education plays a crucial role in this activity. The progress and ability of students is measured based on their marks and not on the knowledge and skills that they possess. While we may talk about lakhs of engineering graduates coming out of college every year, have we ever given a thought about their employability? I am confident that this number could not be beyond 15-20%. Such is our education system that we are still not able to bring even 50% of the engineers in the industries due of the lack of hands-on experience and associated skills. Industries on the other hand need to move forward to offer internships to the students right from the beginning and encourage them to acquire the necessary skills based on their aptitude. All these aspects need to be taken seriously with commitment by all the stakeholders if we have the objective of harnessing the true potential of Indian minds and spirits.

Academic Institutions should work more towards “Generation of Knowledge” rather than “Distribution of Knowledge”. They should make efforts to bring more focus towards practical skills and knowledge. They should work towards improving the infrastructure of the institutions in that

LEADERSHIP direction. Management of the academic institutions should aggressively work towards establishing connect with the students and Industry, educating them on the latest trends, industrial visits, internships and bring in faculty who have the understanding and exposure of industry and guide the students to become more employable.

On the other hand, industry should work towards bridging the gaps and acquire talent that is competent and productive resulting in profitability.

Industry should volunteer to facilitate the academic institutions and government in restructuring the curriculum. They should become faculty in the academic institutions and facilitate internship programs for students. Industry experts should also motivate the students in joining the industry enabling them to have quality life and be part of nation building.

On its part, the government should make policy-related changes enabling the industry and academia come closer leading to enhanced employability of students graduating from the academic institutions. They should also work effectively in monitoring and advertising the skill initiatives of all the stakeholders.

Incentivize the industry for promotion of internship and training programs.

Last, but not the least, collaboration with Academia and Industry to formulate the curriculum for the schools and colleges.

In conclusion, the collaboration between academia and industry has always been a hot topic among the research community and it has become more imminent now due to the rapid transformation in business volumes and models and the interest from academia in applying their innovative research to “industrially relevant” problems.

Governments must become the main vehicle driving this collaboration.

They must identify key areas of this collaboration leading to industrial benefits and scientific innovation, finally leading to economic and scientific growth.

SD - You are a strong advocate of ‘Make in India’ initiative. Do you think that in India we have the ecosystem for the medical devices, life sciences, and healthcare? Is it

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matured enough to reap the benefits of the initiative?

SK - Medical devices constitute a significant part of the healthcare industry.

In India, 85% of the medical devices today are imported. Very significant number of imports come from countries where the quality is questionable. Hence there is an imminent need for manufacturing in India to mitigate the dependency on imports.

As far as the environment is concerned, we have the requisite talent, but it appears that there is a lack of intention.

Since the last many decades, this has never been an area of focus. Fortunately, in the last 8-10 years, we have made a few initial steps. Manufacturing should not be restricted to only assembling the imported components. This does not make it fully ‘Make in India’ and does not meet the objective of providing affordable healthcare. It is essential to create an ecosystem that makes the devices accessible and affordable. On the other hand, it will also create a large amount of employment opportunities for young graduates. I am confident in the next 4-5 years; we will see lot of progress in this space.

SD - How do you see the government’s role in bringing progressive schemes such as Ayushman Bharat and young medical professionals’ role in enhancing the expanse of healthcare services till the last mile with the help of technology?

SK - 70% of the population live in rural areas while 70% of the healthcare infrastructure is in the urban area. This statement is a testimony to the clear divide that persists and at the same time presents a unique opportunity for the government to expand medical facilities in the rural regions. India produces 30,000 to 40,000 doctors every year.

Most of them desire to be in the urban areas for obvious reasons. Ayushman Bharat is one of the most promising schemes of the government to make healthcare facilities accessible for all. To make the Ayushman Bharat successful necessary infrastructure should be established in rural areas.

Digital technologies should be employed to ensure that healthcare is accessible to a large section of the people.

With the country now widely covered

with mobile network, accessibility could be easily addressed using appropriate solutions. AI enabled solutions will play a major role in making this initiative a success. As an example, diagnostic solutions are undergoing revolutionary changes that would enable healthcare providers to provide solutions without the patient having to visit the clinic or healthcare center. Similarly, significant amount of integration is happening between various sectors of healthcare to ensure that healthcare is accessible to larger percentage of people living in remote areas.

Covid-19 pandemic has already accelerated remote care where in medical professionals and the patients have utilized teleconsultation to their advantage.

SD - What are the opportunities waiting to be tapped for publicprivate partnership?

SK - I would like to give credit to the government as there has been a sea change in the behavioural pattern of the government to bring about a positive change aimed at the betterment of people’s lives. Having said that, the infrastructure is matured and welldeveloped in the private sector. Lot of people are coming forward from the private sector to be a part of this change, which is welcoming news. This will also set the stage for heightened competition, eventually leading to increased state-ofthe-art healthcare facilities in the country, especially in rural government hospitals.

Private players need to join hands with the government to enable them in enhancing healthcare infrastructure across the length & breadth of the country with their expertise and new age technologies.

The partnership is happening in multiple sectors and implementing the same in healthcare will be a win-win for all.

SD - How do you unwind yourself after a long day at work?

SK - I am fond of Carnatic music. I follow the Carnatic musicians. I am engaged with some of the renowned musicians and do workshops with them for translating some of their melodious compositions. Secondly, I like reading biographies specially politicians and sports personalities.

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Decoding the new

MOOWR Scheme Recently, the export incentives and duty benefits schemes like MEIS / EOUs etc., provided to Indian manufacturers, involved in exports of goods was challenged at World Trade Organisation (WTO). While the decision of the Dispute Settlement Body is averse to India’s positioning, an appeal filed by India is pending in WTO. Accordingly, Indian Government has started re-evaluating the existing trade facilitation and incentives to be compliant with WTO norms. Krishna Barad, Partner/ Customs & International Trade/ Indirect Tax, BDO India LLP, throws light on the amendments and its impact on EXIM. Krishna Barad has over 28 years of experience with specialization in Customs, Foreign Trade Policy, International Trade, Shipping & Logistics related matters. He has advised and assisted clients in setting up operations in India. He has also handled SEZ and EOU/STPI related advisory, compliance and implementation related matters of various clients. He has done Bachelor of Science (Electronics), Diploma in Export Management and Post Graduate Diploma in Transport & Logistics.

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OPINION

T

HE Union Government, in an initiative to encourage local manufacturing, revamped the earlier ‘Manufacturing & Other Operation in Warehouse Regulation’ (MOOWR), which was first introduced in 1966 under Customs law allowing owner of any warehoused goods to carry out manufacturing processes or other operations in such warehouse, subject to specific conditions. The said scheme has been given fresh lease of life by altering certain key compliance requirements in the revised MOOWR, 2019, notified on 1 October 2019 to align with ‘Atma Nirbhar Bharat’ plank of the Government.

The revised scheme has caught the eyeball of many corporates in India, who cater not only to international market but also to domestic customers.

Some large multinational companies are seriously considering this option in view of the distinct advantage and ease of administration, unlike other export formats.

When the raw materials or capital goods are imported, the import duty on them is deferred. If these imported inputs are utilized for exports, the deferred duty is exempted. Only when the finished goods are cleared to the domestic market, import duty is to be paid on the imported raw materials used in the production. Import duty on capital goods is to be paid if the capital goods are cleared to the domestic market.

The salient features, eligibility to apply under new MOOWR scheme, procedures, and key benefits under these new regulations are discussed hereinbelow:

in manufacturing or other options is deferred and will be waived in case finished goods are exported. Unlike other Bonded Warehouse, there is no time limit prescribed for consumption of the raw material stored/imported by the MOOWR unit. The custom duty is payable on scrap generated during manufacturing. The MOOWR unit needs to submit the self-declared, Standard Input Output Norms at the time of submitting the MOOWR registration application.

persons are eligible to operate:  A person who has been granted a licence for a warehouse under section 58 of the Customs Act (the Act), in accordance with Private Warehouse Licensing Regulations, 2016.

Deferred Duty on Capital Goods: Until the clearance from bonded facility for home consumption, Duty on capital goods used in manufacturing or other operations is deferred and can be avoided, if goods are exported. Currently there is no depreciation permitted on the capital goods, which are to be disposed-off in the domestic market after considerable usage or its life cycle.

An application is required to be made to the Principal Commissioner of Customs or the Commissioner of Customs along with an undertaking:  To maintain accounts of receipt and removal of goods in digital form and furnish the same digitally to the bond officer on monthly basis,

SALIENT FEATURES OF MOOWR2019

ELIGIBILITY & PROCEDURE TO OBTAIN LICENCE UNDER MOOWR 2019

Deferred Duty on Import of Raw Material: Until the clearance of finished goods, duty on import of raw material used

Seamless transfer between Warehouses: A licensee shall transfer warehoused goods from one bonded facility to another without payment of duty. The liability to pay the deferred duty is also shifted to the transferee of goods.

No Export Obligation: An entity may sell entire 100% of goods manufactured in Bonded Warehouse in domestic market, in the absence of export obligation.

Appointment of warehouse keeper: The responsibility of the proper officer to oversee the operations of a warehouse has been shifted to a self-appointed warehouse keeper.

Under new MOOWR 2019, following

 A person who applies for a licence for a warehouse under section 58 of the Act, along with permission for undertaking manufacturing or other operations in the warehouse under section 65 of the Act.

 To inform the input-output norms and any revision in the norms wherever considered necessary, and  To execute a bond in the specified format.

Upon satisfaction and due verification of the application, the Principal Commissioner of Customs or Commissioner of Customs shall grant permission to carry-out operations under the provisions of these regulations. The permission granted remains valid till it is cancelled or surrendered, or the licence under Section 58 is cancelled or surrendered.

SALIENT OPERATIONAL BENEFITS PLUS FLEXIBILITY OF THE SCHEME 1.

Easy and hassle-free online application process through a

MOOWR provides benefits with extended operational flexibility without burdening the manufacturers with time-consuming compliances and procedural requirements. These regulations are a major step for India to become a global manufacturing hub as it is attracting huge foreign investments and boosting exports.

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common application cum approval form.

2. The Principal Commissioner of Customs or the Commissioner of Customs acts as a single point of contact for all approvals.

3. Simplified digital record-keeping and monthly return filing of the receipt, storage, operations, and removal of the goods in the warehouse.

4. New manufacturing facility can be setup or existing unit can be converted into bonded facility irrespective of its location in India.

5. No investment threshold or export obligations, monitoring unlike other schemes.

6. Unlimited warehousing period for storage of capital and non-capital goods until clearance or consumption without any added interest liability.

7. No physical control by custom authorities.

NEED OF THE HOUR MOOWR provides benefits with extended operational flexibility without burdening the manufacturers with timeconsuming compliances and procedural requirements. These regulations are a major step for India to become a global

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manufacturing hub as it is attracting huge foreign investments and boosting exports.

The MOOWR unit need not to take any authorization for import of capital goods or raw material as required to carry-out the manufacturing activities.

There is no export obligation or obligation to achieve net foreign exchange earnings as required in other schemes under Foreign Trade Policy or SEZ/FTWZ. The MOOWR unit can procure goods from the Custom Bonded Warehouses including SEZ without payment of duty. MOOWR unit can send the goods for Job Work / Subcontract Manufacturing as well.

New entrants from across the world are planning to set-up their manufacturing units in India, which will pave way to achieve the goal of ‘Atma Nirbhar Bharat’.

Key issues which will help the trade and needs clarification/resolution from Central Board of Indirect Taxes & Customs (CBIC), Ministry of Finance, Government of India are:  Depreciation on the used capital goods, when disposed-off for home consumption.  Relocation of existing EOU/SEZ under the scheme  Procedural relaxation in terms of compliance with allied Acts.  Storage of finished products into another private bonded warehouse

 Eligibility or frequency of change in the Bill of Material (BOM), which influences Standard Input Output Norms declared at the time of application.  Relaxation in custom duty payment on the scrap generated during product manufactured and exported.  Scrap destruction facility unlike EOUs  Exemption from registration for Pharma products, who are operating under the MOOWR scheme.  Benefits on export incentive schemes under Foreign Trade Policy or RODTEP  Flexibility to conduct the contract manufacturing for foreign entity / buyer.  Permit set-up of MOOWR Parks on the side of Logistics Park to have multi MOOWR units operating in one demarked area to bring efficiency and reduced investment/operating costs.

While the scheme appears industry friendly, clarity on these aspects can make the scheme more agile and bring about certainty for industry and the investors.

INTERVIEW

THE MAZE MATRIX “There is a view that if you can solve for India, you solve for the world. India is a very complex ecosystem, we have multiple different regions with varying levels of complexity, demography, languages, infrastructure, maturity, etc. So may innovations come out of India that can make things work.

Of course, as a technology hub if we can mate technology solutions to real supply chain problems, we will have more products come out of here,” highlights Dinesh PA, Global Head – Engineering & Product, Director Supply Chain Technology, Kimberly-Clark…

How was the year 2020 for Kimberley-Clark in terms of managing supply chain?

Kimberly Clark had a great year financially, we had one of our best years due to increased demand for our products during the pandemic. Due to this increased demand, we faced severe stress on our supply chain. These included increased demand from customers which made product allocation challenging (Sometimes 10x the normal demand), reconfiguring out network to have more dynamic network, several regional regulatory lockdowns, which made manufacturing difficult due to labor shortage and product mix changes that had to be changed real-time.

What were the immediate challenges & opportunities that you needed to address on a war footing?

We saw our systems which allocate

products to orders under severe stress, quick tech fixes to handle extra orders along with diverting our talent to fix hotspots. The Tech team also worked with the business to have new routes configured so that our products could be delivered directly to customer stores instead of customer DCs as our customers themselves were facing supply chain bottlenecks. This made us realize the importance of having real time visibility of demand and supply so that we are able to react well in future.

How did the technology transformation happen?

Kimberly Clark has been investing in technology transformation over the past 4 years. These have been in the areas of Cloud, Analytics, External APIs and global systems that are standardized across the globe. So, in a sense, we were ahead of the curve and the supply chain stress we noticed during 2020 was

As they say in software engineering, you have to design for failure. So, this design for failure is critical and for us to not assume things will work seamlessly.

I take inspiration from the Chaos Monkey theory that Netflix Technology team implements. It will be good for folks to catch up on this and see how they can implement it for their organizations. supplychaintribe.com

Dinesh is an accomplished engineering leader with extensive experience in leading and transforming large technology teams for multiple Fortune 500 giants like Walmart, Dell, CISCO, GE, EMC and Kimberly Clark. His key expertise is building large high performing engineering teams which deliver results in a Product and Engineering mode. Dinesh has been one of the early stage leaders who has helped setup technology centers at Bangalore for companies like Walmart, CISCO and Kimberly. He has effectively used technology to develop large scale distributed systems in a variety of domains like eCommerce, Omni channel fulfillment and supply chain that has resulted in multi-billion dollars in additional revenue while simplifying costs and organization structures.

handled better because we had, for a large part, the proper systems in place to absorb the shocks.

Can you share your supply chain digital transformation journey?

Since Kimberly Clark is a global company which operates in more than 175+ countries, we felt a pressing need to have standard platforms and systems in place across the regions and countries.

There are many benefits to this. First, it’s easy to roll out features across multiple regions, infrastructure costs are lower and more importantly it made our ability to support and respond to customer needs easier. The later part of the digital transformation journey is how to utilize the power of Cloud, AI/ ML, data platforms, customer centric UX and having more end-to-end connected systems, which are aware of upstream and downstream processes that can become more autonomous.

Was India better placed to manage external shocks?

We have a hybrid model of a central supply chain business team that drives regional teams. This model is adapted in the supply chain technology teams too.

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INTERVIEW

We have a hybrid model of a central supply chain business team that drives regional teams. This model is adapted in the supply chain technology teams too. The central team is able to sense what needs to be augmented from a long-term perspective and implement it in specific regions while the other regions / countries adopt the winning template.

Talking specifically about India, we are in a high growth phase here and the systems that are present in more mature markets are being rolled out into India. We did not see rapid demand increase in India like our other mature markets but the India market has been growing in double digits, so in that sense, the India market was prepared to handle extra stress in the network.

The central team is able to sense what needs to be augmented from a longterm perspective and implement it in specific regions while the other regions / countries adopt the winning template.

Talking specifically about India, we are in a high growth phase here and the systems that are present in more mature markets are being rolled out into India as well. We did not see rapid demand increase in India like our other mature markets but the India market has been growing in double digits, so in that sense, the India market was prepared to handle extra stress in the network.

How did you manage the supplier relationship during this time?

This is a very good question. During this time, we were worried about supplier commitments, their ability to be financially viable and disruptions in their network which will ultimately affect us.

We have a procurement function which did an excellent job of keeping in touch with our suppliers, raising red flags and in some cases looking for alternate suppliers where the supply was deemed to be at risk. We also had a real-time map of all Covid affected areas that was monitored worldwide, so we could figure out areas that are hit and the impact it would cause us and to our suppliers. This helped us tide over the difficult situation.

When did you anticipate that the demand for your products is going to skyrocket?

This was probably once in lifetime situation where all forecasting models went for a toss, our forecast accuracy levels went down because factors that are worn into building the models changed overnight. While we are trying to improve forecast accuracy, at the

32 CELERITY September - October 2021

same time, we were having teams on the ground to handle increased exceptions.

So, this was literally like changing the tires of the car while it was running.

What are the supply chain innovations achieved by you during this journey?

There have been many business process and technology innovations along the way. The business understood the need to have leaner and more standardized processes, which are frictionless. This has to be supported by technology. On the other hand, the technology teams put in innovations where we could predict failure in systems, automate tasks, and give visibility to the network with actionable intelligence.

What are the learnings that you gained during the journey?

The biggest learnings had been that things can go really wrong even if you have the best-in-class systems. The way you react to exceptions in supply chain, enhance greater visibility through data platforms rather than siloed systems and ultimately have more machines take decisions with humans only augmenting them, rather than the other way around are the few key matrix that we feel help companies tide over the crisis.

How did your team manage the surmounting challenge?

It has been stressful for multiple teams for sure. But this is a rather good problem to have (Increased demand) than have suppressed sales. Fortunately, we had a team of real good tenured associates and a mix of new blood. This helped us in understanding the context of why certain things were done earlier and what changes need to be put in place. In a way,

the talent strategy plays a very key role in executing the vision.

What’s your view on sustainable supply chain?

Supply chain is the engine that keeps the wheels of any company moving. Along the way, it is very important to have sustainability goals because it is not only good for the environment but also to the company’s bottomline. For example, if we can use or reuse packaging materials, it mitigates both the environmental impact and costs for the company. So, this is not a zero-sum game but very important to inculcate in the DNA. Fortunately for us, Kimberly Clark has sustainability goals, which are tracked and reported every year. Technology can go a long way in solving for inefficiencies in process or movement of goods, which can solve for reduced trip time, turnaround times, thereby reducing energy and other material inputs costs, which help reduce the impact of day-to-day operations. In totality, the Mantra of reduce, re-use and recycle are the basics of any sustainable supply chain operation.

How do you view India as the supply chain enabler in times to come?

There is a view that if you can solve for India, you solve for the world. India is a very complex ecosystem, we have multiple different regions with varying levels of complexity, demography, languages, infrastructure, maturity, etc.

So may innovations come out of India that can make things work. Of course, as a technology hub if we are able to mate technology solutions to real supply chain problems, we will have more products come out of here.

INTERVIEW

Towards Enhancing

Eco-Expanse

“Integrating sustainability within value chain strengthens business resilience and accelerates the journey towards agile transformation and a low-carbon future. Marico’s Responsible Sourcing Framework’ titled ‘SAMYUT’ was institutionalized in 2018. The intent of the framework is to source material & services for Marico products through sustainable and responsible suppliers or business associates who share our sustainability vision”, highlights Bipin Odhekar, Head – Sustainability & Operations excellence, Marico Ltd., during an interview…

How do corporates view sustainability as a whole?

Sustainability is a way of doing business, irrespective of sector it belongs to. It is no longer a ‘good to have’ function for taking environmental initiatives but it is a business differentiator to pursue responsible growth and create shared value for all stakeholders. One can easily recognize the success of corporates with sustainability as a core strategy.

What have been the sustainability initiatives taken by Marico?

Sustainability aspects are embedded in business decision at Marico. A robust risk assessment and materiality analysis has helped us to identify specific impact areas with measurable long-term targets. There are eight impact areas, which encompass ESG material issues.

These include Conserving energy and reducing emissions, Water Stewardship, Circular Economy, Responsible Sourcing, Product Responsibility (product quality, ingredient safety, health and nutritional opportunities, and reducing environmental footprint across life cycle of the product), Sustainable Coconut Conservation, Social Value Creation

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(CSR initiatives on Education, Skill Empowerment, Healthcare, Community Sustenance and Social Innovation) and a robust Corporate Governance framework.

How can sustainability be imbibed in supply chain?

Integrating sustainability within value chain strengthens business resilience and accelerates the journey towards agile transformation and a low-carbon future. Marico’s Responsible Sourcing Framework’ titled ‘SAMYUT’ was institutionalized in 2018. The intent of framework is to “Source material & services for Marico products through sustainable and responsible suppliers or business associates who share our sustainability vision”. We have a threestep program (Educate, Evaluate and Evolve) which ensures forward movement of our supply chain associates in terms of “Ethical Standards”, “Environmental protection” and “Social commitments”.

There are innumerable stories and examples of organizations that are leading the sustainability agenda from the front. Taking specific names may not be correct but good work is happening in

Bipin Odhekar has done his graduation in Production Engineering and Executive Management from IIM Bangalore. His professional experience of 22 years spans over multiple areas like sustainability, operations, projects, quality, safety, and process excellence. He implemented various projects in improving process efficiencies and manufacturing cost. Along with Operations Excellence team, Bipin played an important role in designing and institutionalizing Marico’s OE Model globally.

carbon & water neutrality, safe products, and waste / pollution control.

What are the sustainable packaging innovations that we can look forward to?

Packaging related innovations have deep-seated value creation potential for a business like ours. The plastics economy is currently undergoing a paradigm shift in terms of how circularity principles are ingrained in the overall dynamics of the system. From a future-ready standpoint, we will see 100% recyclable packaging portfolios, increased use of recycled or bio-based content in packaging, innovative packaging designs to reduce consumption intensity, transport ease and improved material recovery cycles.

Kindly enlighten us on Marico’s theme, ‘Ecosystem Restoration’.

‘Ecosystem Restoration’ is a part of Marico’s overall goal towards climate action. As mentioned above, we have various programs related to resource management.

Currently, Marico’s Perundurai factory has been externally certified as carbon neutral. As a small step to offset the carbon footprint

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INTERVIEW

The plastics economy is currently undergoing a paradigm shift in terms of how circularity principles are ingrained in the overall dynamics of the system. From a future-ready standpoint, we will see 100% recyclable packaging portfolios, increased use of recycled or bio-based content in packaging, innovative packaging designs to reduce consumption intensity, transport ease and improved material recovery cycles.

from the factory operations, we created a Miyawaki forest in 2019 within the premises. This green patch currently comprises of 1100+ trees and sequester 5000kg carbon annually.

Your advice to companies to move towards Carbon Neutrality…

Carbon neutrality means having a balance between emitting carbon and absorbing carbon from the atmosphere in carbon sinks. This paves business opportunities for companies to optimize costs through resource efficiency. Carbon neutrality also proves advantageous while managing physical and transitional climate risks to the entire value chain.

What are the learnings from the pandemic and the way forward?

The pandemic has pushed organizations

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to transform business forever, requiring them to reprioritize their material issues as well as amplify the adoption of digital technologies by several years. As part of this transformed business focus, it has become imperative for organizations to embed sustainable and ESG goals in all aspects of their business strategies and transformation agenda. For us at Marico, the ‘next normal’ of business environment has been perceived as an opportunity to deepen our sustainabilityled efforts and impact while pursuing an agile growth journey.

Where is India Inc in achieving sustainable expanse? What can be done to enhance the green expanse?

India Inc. has a promising future when it comes to striking an optimal balance between industrialization and protection

of natural, ecological, and social assets.

All stakeholders including governments, businesses, investors, social enterprises, academia, and consumers have critical and complementary roles to shape a greener, safer and more sustainable India in the times to come. Given the population rise and other global megatrends impacting India, there is a distinct opportunity for us to epitomize sustainable development on a global canvas. Education, techenabled disruptions, impact leadership from corporates and favourable policy mechanisms can fulfil our vision of replenishing natural resources and restoring ecological sanity.

FOCUS

SOFT is the NEW STRENGTH “Be hard on the Issue, soft on the Person” sums up the right approach managements all over should take at the workplace.

Most of the time we strive to hone our hard skills, be it the functional, technical, or data-centric or any other aspect that we think can give us tangible, measurable, and quick returns.

What most of us fail to understand and practice is that people give results, sure with help of a variety of functional skills but what drives them to learn and deliver effectively is in the realm of what we call the soft skills, deciphers JVB Sastry, Consultant – Supply Chains & Sales Management.

B

USINESS like life is all about relationships within and outside organizations – be it with customers, suppliers, peers or team members or bosses or anyone who might be a cog in the wheel…each one contributes his or her own, in keeping the wheel moving.

Supply chain is all about managing the relationships both within and outside one’s own organization, mitigating business risks, demand, and supply volatility, managing functional siloed thinking and attitudes, external and internal business pressures, meeting customers spoken and unspoken expectations, managing suppliers demands or frustrations, change management dynamics and many other such situations.

Procurement and logistics support production and sales functions in volumes and cost to make and serve and impact the top line and bottom line of a firm. Consequently, supply chain makes a very significant impact on a business and its results. This all-encompassing nature of its function would require close and effective coordination from supply

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chain managers and buy-in from other functions, suppliers, and customers.

However, each segment of this influencer/ operational group have their own goals, values, and motivations, often resulting in conflicts. Supply chain function has both the unique opportunity and responsibility to synthesize the divergent outlooks and expectations of all these functions, groups and individuals and achieve a near optimum outcome and profits for the company.

To illustrate the above a little more, my professional experience showed the following:  Manufacturing wants to maximize capacity utilization and reduce production cost, irrespective of the demand volatility and raw material supply cycles. Yes, a laudable objective, but this requires a collaborative working with sales and procurement and finding an innovative and smart solution. However, often we see conflicts and blame game at each other’s functions.  Similarly, marketing and sales expect best in class service delivery to

JVB Sastry is ex Senior Vice President – National Category Management, ACC & Ambuja Cement.

He possesses over 30 years’ experience in sales, marketing, logistics and procurement in the cement & fertilizer industries. Currently he is an independent consultant based out of Pune.

every customer, often overlooking its business impact, cost-value analysis, and the fact that “one size fits all” approach in service levels is not a good idea. A more calibrated approach based on segment- wise needs and cost/benefit would help a firm optimize its service levels and maximize service to a more long-term and profitable market/ customer segment. This can be achieved, only if there is a matured & informed engagement between supply chain and sales rather than cross-functional fights.  Customers demand variety of customized product or services but at the cost of standardized product or services.  Suppliers want long term commitments but insulation from supply disruptions.

Sure, there are clear solution frameworks/processes to handle situations as above and their likes. For example, manufacturing can collaborate with supply chain and plan production to meet demand and manage optimum

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FOCUS Soft skills in supply chain management is like the blood that runs in a body, nourishing and keeping all organs working together. In business, soft skills keep all functions working together in a seamless manner with least disruptions, conflicts, and impact on morale.

inventory levels in the firm. Alternate input products or different specs products can be tried out to ride over input shortages or steep cost increases. It is also quite possible that breakthrough innovations which are long term and sustainable might come out under such opportunities. We have seen one such step change in cement manufacturing where a few years ago, one innovative firm used pet coke instead of coal as fuel to tide over coal supply led shortages and, in the process, started a manufacturing process innovation through alternate fuel option & at the same time, reducing supply risks and cost of solid fuels in the cement industry. But this was possible only due to the collaborative and active working between manufacturing and supply chain teams, supported by the top leadership of the company.

Similarly, marketing/sales can improve their demand forecasting and /or introduce push or pull back sales drives to handle production level changes/disruptions in the short term.

Again, I can cite an example from the cement industry. One of the many cement products is PPC, a fly ash based cement. Many a times, supply of fly ash gets disrupted due to breakdowns of supplying power plants. At these times, due to quick communication from supply chain, the manufacturing plants change the product mix, and the sales managers respond with speed and flexibility and sell alternative products like OPC or slagbased cement or a composite cement, which have a similar value proposition and benefit to the consumer. This kind of working together with supply chain, have proved beneficial to all including the customer. This is the way rather than sales shouting at logistics for nonsupply of product and losing sales and customers and the business.

The above two might be routine

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examples, but nevertheless important as they speak of the need for a collaborative working in an organization that should be driven by supply chain function and its true spirit of collaborative working.

THE IMPORTANCE OF SOFT SKILLS Before I attempt to highlight what I consider to be important soft skills for a supply chain, I would point out why these soft skills become important. Some of them could be a repetition from above but are worth repeating as it is important to know the problems and the reason for the problem before we suggest the solution. Some of the issues diluting the importance and due place for soft skill based on my experience are:  Functional goals make managers look more inward than outward  Most of the performance management systems in organizations lay more emphasis on achieving functional KPIs, which are often contradictory to each other and to the business goals and strategy  Lack of job rotation make managers less appreciative of challenges and contributions that other functions can offer  An unexpressed feeling of insecurity in the functional managers that their role, function, and importance will be lost if they optimize a holistic solution in a collaborative way rather than maximize from their functional perspective. This kind of approach is fuelled more by the overall culture of an organization  Pure ego games of an influential and strong manager in a function mostly in sales or manufacturing/ line function  General culture of an organization – do they target the issue or the person when a problem comes up? If it is

the latter, then each function and manager try to safeguard their turf  KPIs for employees/managers are mostly business linked (volume, cost, contribution, growth etc.). Sure, it is important but the soft skills and demonstrated abilities in that realm are rarely measured, rewarded, or spoken about  The general attitude of societies that soft people are weak managers and belief that fear drives work and compliance. Undue /over emphasis on aggressive behaviour as a required trait of leaders also contributes to this malice  Related to the above is the approach of many firms who do not understand that a different view is not disobedience and as such employees must be encouraged to challenge, ask, and work in a collaborative way. In spirit, they tend to follow a command and No questions please approach  Lack of formal training in soft skills except cost/price negotiating skills in purchase and sales.

Other skills like active listening, empathy, assertiveness, timely communications, creativity, learning innovation management, being respectful to suppliers and vendors as partners, persuasion skills, flexibility, are usually quickly spoken about in Town Hall meetings but soon forgotten at workplace  Lack of support from leadershipwho think that maximizing each functional goals and returns will maximize the business results is true only up to a point. If pushed too far would result in damaging the internal cohesion and business. Hence, the leadership need to manage a fine balance between functional and overall goals  An incorrect belief of procurement

FOCUS soft skills in supply chain management is like the blood that runs in a body, nourishing and keeping all organs working together… in a business-keeping all functions work together in a seamless manner with least disruptions, conflicts, and impact on morale.

For that supply chains must take lead. But how???

managers that suppliers are selfcentred and not trustworthy, and one must suck out maximum from them, hinders building partnerships with suppliers for innovation and cost reduction.

I am sure everyone has their own experience and reasons as to why we mostly do not hone soft skills or highlight them much, especially in supply chain.

Supply chains are seen as delivery and cost reducing engines but what is lost is that the fuel for this engine is a good set of soft skills, which will work on collaboration and cohesion in business.

We can ill afford not working on soft skills as supply chains face challenges often risking the business and can also deliver opportunities to the business, if we work in alignment. Logistics safety issues resulting in fatalities and injuries to people, demand and supply volatility, price and cost volatility, in-transit and storage hazards resulting in financial losses, changing customer expectations, competition and regulatory pressures and restrictions – all of them pose challenges to supply chains. So, the

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following soft skills become necessary to face these challenges:  Collaboration  Clarity while talking and active listening  Persuasion  Adaptability  Flexibility  Agility  Ability to drive innovation  Job mobility  Cross-cultural outlook and nature  Empathy and supportive nature  Training each other  Transparent feedback and communication  Planning and working together

I propose:  Proactive communication within and outside organization  Active listening and understanding  Formal training on soft skills too  Balanced KPIs covering both functional and soft skill result demonstration  Transparent feedback sessions and rewarding managers demonstrating both strong functional and strong soft skills.  Cross-functional teams’ approach to address special goals  Encourage cross-functional innovation labs  Job rotation and exposure to different work locations  Accepting genuine failures and encouraging people to take risks  Game-based assessments in addition to year end results achieved for deciding increments  Use of AI tools in soft skill education and on-job training.

Supply chains have a great future, and they will be the lifelines for organizations.

My final message through this article is just this, “What happens if you try and remove S (soft) in Skills.” I am sure everyone must have got the hidden meaning and is poised to work towards making SOFT SKILLS an important criterion in their HR strategies.

I am sure there are many such attributes that managers especially supply chain managers need to develop so that team members from other functions are brought on-board and end to end business is managed as a synchronized orchestra. Getting demand forecasting right and improving predictability will help reduce conflicts and stress, enabling a more trust-worthy atmosphere.

To sum up, it is to be remembered that

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Celerity India Marketing Services Email: tech@celerityin.com | Mobile: 79771 05913 Website: www.supplychaintribe.com