The Best Practices Exchange Annual Meet, organised by the Supply Chain Management Centre, a Centre of Excellence at IIM-B, on May 18, was attended by practicing SCM professionals, domain experts and business leaders from various industry sectors; and by academia from Universities, business schools and the ASC Centre & College (Army).
The inaugural talk, by Prof Gopal Naik, Dean Faculty at IIM-B, emphasised the merits of regularly sharing best practices by various industry sectors.
Prof Jitamitra Desai, Chair, SCM Centre at IIM-B, in his welcome address, stated that the centre was committed to research, duly supported by world-class faculty and research scholars.
Shantanu Preetam, Sr Director of Engineering – Supply Chain, Walmart Labs, explained how the supply chain at Walmart had moved from being an ‘enabler’ to a ‘service for creating value’.
Sudhanshu Singh, Country Director – Supply Chain, Dell Technologies, listed the initiatives at Dell in terms of people, assets, smart logistics and circular economy. “These are front runners for sustainability in the supply chain and corporate social responsibility,” he said.
Anuj Jain, Sr Manager Finance – SCO, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL), said: “Mitigating risks in the energy supply chain at BPCL with turbulent crude oil prices is a priority managed through a Supply Chain Optimization cell, to ensure continuity of the oil lifeline.”
Satish Kumar S, Lead – Transport Solutions, TVS Supply Chain Solutions, presented a case study depicting the end-to-end aftermarket supply chain of auto components on a technology platform, and brought out the nuances of optimising the metrics of order fulfilment, distribution network and inventory.
Karthikeyan Krishnan, Director – Customer Support, Manhattan Associates, said retail trends reflect a paradigm shift from a ‘product’ to a ‘service’ mindset, in order to ensure high quality customer experience in the retail industry.
Prakash K Pattanayak, Deputy General Manager – Integrated Margin Management, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd, described how an interesting discussion arising from the Goods and Services Tax (GST), a destination-based consumption tax on certain petroleum products, had brought out opportunities, during the implementation journey, that far outweigh the challenges.