Gartner's interactive briefing focusses on supply chain, DDVN and S&OP
Gartner, a multi-national information technology research and advisory
services company, organised a briefing on supply chain – a subject that
has a number of applications – at a hotel in Mumbai. The theme of the
event was 'Develop a World-class Supply Chain and Master Sales and
Operations Planning (S&OP)'. The former dwelt upon the concept of
demand-driven value networks (DDVNs)
During his presentation, the speaker, Vikas Sarangdhar, director, research, Asia Pacific (APAC) Region, supply chain, Gartner India Research and Advisory Services Pvt Ltd, divided the topic into two sessions. The first was titled, 'The Quest for Supply Chain Excellence – Demand-Driven Value Network (DDVN)', and the second was titled, 'How S&OP Improves Demand and Supply Matching Capabilities'.
During his presentation, the speaker, Vikas Sarangdhar, director, research, Asia Pacific (APAC) Region, supply chain, Gartner India Research and Advisory Services Pvt Ltd, divided the topic into two sessions. The first was titled, 'The Quest for Supply Chain Excellence – Demand-Driven Value Network (DDVN)', and the second was titled, 'How S&OP Improves Demand and Supply Matching Capabilities'.
Supply Chain
“The global
business environment remains uncertain. VUCA is an acronym which aptly
sums this up. It stands for 'volatile, uncertain, complex and
ambiguous'. In the era of globalisation, businesses have to grapple with
changing consumers and customers; changing balance of power;
disruptions; reputations and regulations; economic uncertainty, and
demand volatility,” Sarangdhar said.
“The global challenges have thrown up a number of questions. Every organisation wants to know how to differentiate; how to become more visible; whether it needs to forge truly collaborative relationships; whether it really understands cost-to-serve; whether one size actually fits all; whether its sensing capabilities are upto the mark, and whether it is aligned internally,” he said.
Sarangdhar added, “At the same time, they are trying to find out whether they have the right talent; whether the right metrics are in place; whether their 'make versus buy' decision is right; how they can leverage themselves more; how they can achieve faster time to value; whether they have covered their risks, and perhaps the most relevant of them all – What are we doing for emerging markets?”
He said that in the past one year, there has been a big switch from a defensive agenda to a growth agenda. The companies that failed to understand the competitors' strategies; couldn't strike a balance between short-term goals and long-term strategy; couldn't focus on their core competencies and failed to improve their financial structure were the biggest fallers.
“The biggest gainers were those who were more open and collaborative with their customers; built responsive, flexible organisations; moved into new product or service markets, and fostered innovations,” said Sarangdhar, before proceeding to explain the typical responses of companies that innovated to tide over the bad times and those of the ones that failed to do so.
“Some companies merely focus on costs and savings and benchmarking (to gauge where they are vis-a-vis their competitors) and get stuck in the continuous improvement loop. And there are innovators, who reinvest their savings in supply chain innovations to enable growth; shape the future fast and get continuous innovation breakthroughs,” he said.
“Supply chains have to become customer-value-centric. The traditional ones, which are supply-centric and focus on execution excellence and innovation and externality, will struggle to compete. An integrated approach is essential. In this age of cut-throat competition, a networked supply and embedded innovations will become the buzzwords. Cohesion, integration and orchestration is today's mantra,” said Sarangdhar.
Demand-driven value networks (DDVNs) were diagrammatically represented by three circles marked demand, supply and product. A demand-driven response can be orchestrated by making conscious trade-offs that drive profitable growth. Demand can be sensed and shaped based on insights, which, in turn, will make a company demand-driven. And as far as the supply side is concerned, there are obviously supply risks involved, but every company aims to build value into the supply networks and produce to demand reliably and cost effectively.
“Balance and orchestration are synonymous with leveraging operations and innovation maturity,” Sarangdhar explained. “The difference between a loser (laggard) and a winner (leader) is that although the former has a product, there is no match between the demand for it and the supply of it,” he added.
Operational excellence can be achieved only when the cycle times and the total supply chain cost are in perfect order; and innovation excellence revolves around time to value and return on R&D. “Winners – including Apple, P&G and Cisco – have one thing in common: the demand for and the supply of their products are in perfect sync. As a result of this, their cash flow, profits and share prices are high,” he said.
Sarangdhar also enumerated four qualities of a winning product. They are translating business strategies continuously; have a portfolio of strategic priorities; formulate demand-driven product supply strategies, and build usage insights into innovations.
Demand-driven leaders get better results. Sarangdhar said leaders deliver about 20 per cent more perfect orders, hold a third less inventory than laggards and have lower supply chain costs (equivalent to about five per cent of a laggard's revenue). Every company aims to drive innovation into its product or service. This point was also mentioned in the slide on DDVNs as well as the one on Gartner's clients who have successfully built demand-driven strategies.
“Every company that's been a success story has a set of core strengths. Honda is great at local sourcing; supplier development, and platform reuse, and understands the cultures it operates in; while John Deere understands the demand-driven versus agility concept well; creates flexible platforms, is among the world's S&OP leaders, and has been successful at supplier partnering,” Sarangdhar said.
Having worked with a host of verticals during his career, he picked the automotive industry for a comment on best DDVN practices. “Toyota is great when it comes to the voice of the customer (VOC) concept, and is among the leaders when it comes to new product innovation (NPI) governance. Ford is good in the latter as well, but its manufacturing network design is its best DDVN practice by far,” he said.
Sarangdhar said, “Transformation requires a road map of synchronised and prioritised initiatives. There are four stages – the reaction stage; the anticipation stage; the collaboration stage, and the orchestration stage.”
Each stage has its own goal (opex M&A growth at the reaction stage; cost-efficiency and consistency at the anticipation stage; balanced and scalable growth at the collaboration stage, and shared value at the orchestration stage); supply chain organisation [localised cost centres at the reaction stage; consolidated shared services at the anticipation stage; process-based (end-to-end) at the collaboration stage, and outcome-based (design for X) at the orchestration stage]; metrics (transactional and events at the reaction stage; functional and complex at the anticipation stage; conscious profitable trade-offs at the collaboration stage, and value network excellence at the orchestration stage), and culture (cost-focussed and defensive at the reaction stage; continuous improvement and benchmark at the anticipation stage; continuous innovation and best-in-class at the collaboration stage, and breakthrough innovation and next-in-class at the orchestration stage). Companies are unconsciously incompetent at the reaction stage; consciously incompetent at the anticipation stage; consciously competent at the collaboration stage, and consciously excellent at the orchestration stage.
“Tighter integration across the value chain is the order of the day. It moved from the functional phase (which includes planning, sourcing, making/operations and delivery) to the cross-functional process-driven phase (S&OP, NPI, supplier innovation and risk management), and is now in the phase where joint values are being created with trade partners. This includes customers and suppliers, strategies and execution. Functional silos need to be mapped to cross-functional processes to create value,” Sarangdhar said.
The integration of S&OP and NPI drives business value (in terms of return on assets, revenue and profit). It is a cyclical process. The demand for a product depends on the market for it, its features and pricing; while the supply of a product depends on its capacity, flexibility and quality. The demand-supply shift is based on a forecast, and the supply-demand shift is based on availability. Products are dependent upon innovations, options and a road-map. If there is a requirement for a product from the demand side, there will be competencies from the product side, and if there is a capability for a product from the supply side, there will be specifications from the product side.
“Creating the right foundation is absolutely critical,” said Sarangdhar, adding that this involves the foundational capabilities (the outside-in view; the end-to-end supply chain process; technology, and aligned X-functional objectives); the differentiators (risk management; demand management; global network management and cost-optimisation), and competitiveness (alignment to customer value; sustainability; services, and profitable trade-offs).
Besides this, it is important to build the right set of capabilities for profitability and innovation. There is a set of advanced capabilities [end-to-end visibility; talent management; product life cycle management (PLM); downstream data management; cost-to-serve; predictive analysis; resiliency, and segmentation]. These are glued to the foundational capabilities by customer value; the right talent; chance management; governance, and innovation.
“The 'one size fits all' approach is less effective. It is now the time for segmentation. Value chain characteristics drives variability. The business considerations include complexity; tax optimisation; sustainability, and market maturity. On one hand, there is the product (product or process technology; life cycle stage; criticality of use; demand accuracy; volumes; manufacturing strategy, and cold chain) and the customer (volumes; prices; lead times; growth rates, and service expectations); and on the other, there is the distribution channel (wholesaler versus direct; emerging versus developing market, and shelf life) and the supply channel (lead and cycle times; supply constraints, and supplier maturity and risk),” Sarangdhar said.
There are three key areas for better customer value alignment – customer segmentation (understanding the unique requirements of different customers, and identifying clusters of demand for value chain capability); supply chain segmentation (creating differentiated capabilities for end-to-end supply chains to deliver upon unique demand requirements), and cost-to-serve (calculating the profitability of products, customers and routes to the market and fact-based focus for service mix and operational changes for each customers). There are areas that overlap, such as the need to align demand requirements with supply constraints; become market-driven; have an outside-in focus; maximise profitability; achieve a balance between agility and efficiency; allocated cost of business decisions, and test the trade-off of customer value attributes versus cost of creation.
“Every customer's need is unique. That is why it is critical to make the right trade-offs. The process of tailoring a company's supply chain response to meet the desired needs of customers involves cost, speed and services,” Sarangdhar said.
Each of the five stages – planning; sourcing; making; delivering, and returning – is either efficient or agile. Efficient plans could be made once a month; be automated, or involve portfolio planning, and agile plans could involve a daily forecast; a what-if analysis, or demand shaping. Efficient sourcing could involve bulk buys; strategic buys or a locked volume, and agile sourcing could involve multi-sourcing; a buffer stock, or flexible contracts. Efficient making could involve lean lines; determining the maximum capacity, or build-to-stock (BTS), and agile making could involve postponement; high touch, or flexible capacity. Efficient delivery could involve cube utilisation; no expedites, or ocean networks, and agile delivery could involve air networks; expedites, or flexible capacity. Efficient returns could be returns to depot; merge centres, or a basic warranty, and agile returns could involve self-service; in region centres, or platinum warranty.
Sarangdhar signed off the first session of his presentation by saying, “Gartner has also announced the global top 25 companies for 2012, and Apple has topped the list. These companies were chosen by a two-step process - peer voting and an assessment of the company's financial performance. The reason the list does not include any companies headquartered in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region is because corporations in the region are still developing.”
“The global challenges have thrown up a number of questions. Every organisation wants to know how to differentiate; how to become more visible; whether it needs to forge truly collaborative relationships; whether it really understands cost-to-serve; whether one size actually fits all; whether its sensing capabilities are upto the mark, and whether it is aligned internally,” he said.
Sarangdhar added, “At the same time, they are trying to find out whether they have the right talent; whether the right metrics are in place; whether their 'make versus buy' decision is right; how they can leverage themselves more; how they can achieve faster time to value; whether they have covered their risks, and perhaps the most relevant of them all – What are we doing for emerging markets?”
He said that in the past one year, there has been a big switch from a defensive agenda to a growth agenda. The companies that failed to understand the competitors' strategies; couldn't strike a balance between short-term goals and long-term strategy; couldn't focus on their core competencies and failed to improve their financial structure were the biggest fallers.
“The biggest gainers were those who were more open and collaborative with their customers; built responsive, flexible organisations; moved into new product or service markets, and fostered innovations,” said Sarangdhar, before proceeding to explain the typical responses of companies that innovated to tide over the bad times and those of the ones that failed to do so.
“Some companies merely focus on costs and savings and benchmarking (to gauge where they are vis-a-vis their competitors) and get stuck in the continuous improvement loop. And there are innovators, who reinvest their savings in supply chain innovations to enable growth; shape the future fast and get continuous innovation breakthroughs,” he said.
“Supply chains have to become customer-value-centric. The traditional ones, which are supply-centric and focus on execution excellence and innovation and externality, will struggle to compete. An integrated approach is essential. In this age of cut-throat competition, a networked supply and embedded innovations will become the buzzwords. Cohesion, integration and orchestration is today's mantra,” said Sarangdhar.
Demand-driven value networks (DDVNs) were diagrammatically represented by three circles marked demand, supply and product. A demand-driven response can be orchestrated by making conscious trade-offs that drive profitable growth. Demand can be sensed and shaped based on insights, which, in turn, will make a company demand-driven. And as far as the supply side is concerned, there are obviously supply risks involved, but every company aims to build value into the supply networks and produce to demand reliably and cost effectively.
“Balance and orchestration are synonymous with leveraging operations and innovation maturity,” Sarangdhar explained. “The difference between a loser (laggard) and a winner (leader) is that although the former has a product, there is no match between the demand for it and the supply of it,” he added.
Operational excellence can be achieved only when the cycle times and the total supply chain cost are in perfect order; and innovation excellence revolves around time to value and return on R&D. “Winners – including Apple, P&G and Cisco – have one thing in common: the demand for and the supply of their products are in perfect sync. As a result of this, their cash flow, profits and share prices are high,” he said.
Sarangdhar also enumerated four qualities of a winning product. They are translating business strategies continuously; have a portfolio of strategic priorities; formulate demand-driven product supply strategies, and build usage insights into innovations.
Demand-driven leaders get better results. Sarangdhar said leaders deliver about 20 per cent more perfect orders, hold a third less inventory than laggards and have lower supply chain costs (equivalent to about five per cent of a laggard's revenue). Every company aims to drive innovation into its product or service. This point was also mentioned in the slide on DDVNs as well as the one on Gartner's clients who have successfully built demand-driven strategies.
“Every company that's been a success story has a set of core strengths. Honda is great at local sourcing; supplier development, and platform reuse, and understands the cultures it operates in; while John Deere understands the demand-driven versus agility concept well; creates flexible platforms, is among the world's S&OP leaders, and has been successful at supplier partnering,” Sarangdhar said.
Having worked with a host of verticals during his career, he picked the automotive industry for a comment on best DDVN practices. “Toyota is great when it comes to the voice of the customer (VOC) concept, and is among the leaders when it comes to new product innovation (NPI) governance. Ford is good in the latter as well, but its manufacturing network design is its best DDVN practice by far,” he said.
Sarangdhar said, “Transformation requires a road map of synchronised and prioritised initiatives. There are four stages – the reaction stage; the anticipation stage; the collaboration stage, and the orchestration stage.”
Each stage has its own goal (opex M&A growth at the reaction stage; cost-efficiency and consistency at the anticipation stage; balanced and scalable growth at the collaboration stage, and shared value at the orchestration stage); supply chain organisation [localised cost centres at the reaction stage; consolidated shared services at the anticipation stage; process-based (end-to-end) at the collaboration stage, and outcome-based (design for X) at the orchestration stage]; metrics (transactional and events at the reaction stage; functional and complex at the anticipation stage; conscious profitable trade-offs at the collaboration stage, and value network excellence at the orchestration stage), and culture (cost-focussed and defensive at the reaction stage; continuous improvement and benchmark at the anticipation stage; continuous innovation and best-in-class at the collaboration stage, and breakthrough innovation and next-in-class at the orchestration stage). Companies are unconsciously incompetent at the reaction stage; consciously incompetent at the anticipation stage; consciously competent at the collaboration stage, and consciously excellent at the orchestration stage.
“Tighter integration across the value chain is the order of the day. It moved from the functional phase (which includes planning, sourcing, making/operations and delivery) to the cross-functional process-driven phase (S&OP, NPI, supplier innovation and risk management), and is now in the phase where joint values are being created with trade partners. This includes customers and suppliers, strategies and execution. Functional silos need to be mapped to cross-functional processes to create value,” Sarangdhar said.
The integration of S&OP and NPI drives business value (in terms of return on assets, revenue and profit). It is a cyclical process. The demand for a product depends on the market for it, its features and pricing; while the supply of a product depends on its capacity, flexibility and quality. The demand-supply shift is based on a forecast, and the supply-demand shift is based on availability. Products are dependent upon innovations, options and a road-map. If there is a requirement for a product from the demand side, there will be competencies from the product side, and if there is a capability for a product from the supply side, there will be specifications from the product side.
“Creating the right foundation is absolutely critical,” said Sarangdhar, adding that this involves the foundational capabilities (the outside-in view; the end-to-end supply chain process; technology, and aligned X-functional objectives); the differentiators (risk management; demand management; global network management and cost-optimisation), and competitiveness (alignment to customer value; sustainability; services, and profitable trade-offs).
Besides this, it is important to build the right set of capabilities for profitability and innovation. There is a set of advanced capabilities [end-to-end visibility; talent management; product life cycle management (PLM); downstream data management; cost-to-serve; predictive analysis; resiliency, and segmentation]. These are glued to the foundational capabilities by customer value; the right talent; chance management; governance, and innovation.
“The 'one size fits all' approach is less effective. It is now the time for segmentation. Value chain characteristics drives variability. The business considerations include complexity; tax optimisation; sustainability, and market maturity. On one hand, there is the product (product or process technology; life cycle stage; criticality of use; demand accuracy; volumes; manufacturing strategy, and cold chain) and the customer (volumes; prices; lead times; growth rates, and service expectations); and on the other, there is the distribution channel (wholesaler versus direct; emerging versus developing market, and shelf life) and the supply channel (lead and cycle times; supply constraints, and supplier maturity and risk),” Sarangdhar said.
There are three key areas for better customer value alignment – customer segmentation (understanding the unique requirements of different customers, and identifying clusters of demand for value chain capability); supply chain segmentation (creating differentiated capabilities for end-to-end supply chains to deliver upon unique demand requirements), and cost-to-serve (calculating the profitability of products, customers and routes to the market and fact-based focus for service mix and operational changes for each customers). There are areas that overlap, such as the need to align demand requirements with supply constraints; become market-driven; have an outside-in focus; maximise profitability; achieve a balance between agility and efficiency; allocated cost of business decisions, and test the trade-off of customer value attributes versus cost of creation.
“Every customer's need is unique. That is why it is critical to make the right trade-offs. The process of tailoring a company's supply chain response to meet the desired needs of customers involves cost, speed and services,” Sarangdhar said.
Each of the five stages – planning; sourcing; making; delivering, and returning – is either efficient or agile. Efficient plans could be made once a month; be automated, or involve portfolio planning, and agile plans could involve a daily forecast; a what-if analysis, or demand shaping. Efficient sourcing could involve bulk buys; strategic buys or a locked volume, and agile sourcing could involve multi-sourcing; a buffer stock, or flexible contracts. Efficient making could involve lean lines; determining the maximum capacity, or build-to-stock (BTS), and agile making could involve postponement; high touch, or flexible capacity. Efficient delivery could involve cube utilisation; no expedites, or ocean networks, and agile delivery could involve air networks; expedites, or flexible capacity. Efficient returns could be returns to depot; merge centres, or a basic warranty, and agile returns could involve self-service; in region centres, or platinum warranty.
Sarangdhar signed off the first session of his presentation by saying, “Gartner has also announced the global top 25 companies for 2012, and Apple has topped the list. These companies were chosen by a two-step process - peer voting and an assessment of the company's financial performance. The reason the list does not include any companies headquartered in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region is because corporations in the region are still developing.”
S&OP
Sarangdhar recapitulated
the points he covered in the first session before introducing the topic
for the second part. The latter revolved around demand-driven value
networks (DDVNs); details of sales and operations planning (S&OP);
roles; governance; S&OP observations and recommendations.
“Sales and operations planning,” he said, “is the core cross-functional process to support decision making in the mid-term time horizon, that requires structured alignment between sales, marketing, finance, and supply chain, which enables the right trade-offs to be made to meet both customer needs and company goals.”
S&OP is a cyclical, monthly business planning process; tailored to meet the requirements of the business; brings the ability to translate opportunity and demand in the form of go-to-market strategies and solutions into actionable and profitable responses from the source, and make and deliver functions; connects up to company strategy as well as down to execution, and focusses on the 3-24 month planning horizon. The goal is to maximise the market opportunity, profitability and customer satisfaction simultaneously.
“Effective S&OP brings in a host of benefits, including increased forecast accuracy' decreased cycle time; lower inventories; improved perfect order; predictable financial results, and above all, profitable response and sustainable growth,” Sarangdhar said.
The plan can be translated from the traditional (adaptive translation) approach (wherein the demand-side view was provided by the brand; the product category; the country/region; the account, and the to location of the ship, and the supply-side view was provided by the region; the plant; the product line; the warehouse, and the from location of the ship) to a broader, more advanced version involving several matrices including financial translation [which involves a plan and the global viewpoint; countries/regions; the product category; the customers; the units; the stock-keeping unit (SKU)/mix; the plant, and the currency and profit.]
He explained the various time horizons, and the four levels of S&OP maturity (developing operational plans; matching demand and supply; profitability, business orchestration). These can either be margin- or value-focussed; internally or extrenally focussed, or cost- or revenue-focussed. The first two phases of S&OP involve making localised, rough-cut supply decisions; the third phase involves downstream demand sensing and translation, and the fourth and final phase involves integrated business planning.
Thereafter, trade-off points and execution responsibilities were defined, the keys to successful S&OP were enumerated. These are as follows: Who is empowered to make decisions; where do trade-offs take place; priorities (customer, category, brand or country), and who is responsible for delivering growth, profit and market share. Implementing S&OP is 60 per cent change management; 30 per cent processes and 10 per cent technology. The roles in S&OP (demand planner; supply planner; supply chain/operations; commerical; finance, and executive) keep changing from stage to stage. As S&OP matures from supply chain to business planning, the governance also changes.
To maintain the S&OP maturity, it is necessary to build the right culture; measure performances; conduct regular self-assessments; maximise enabling technology; develop and manage talent, and utilise a supporting centre of excellence.
Global planning systems (GPS), the term used by some organisations to describe S&OP, helps an orgainsation know its current position; set its destination; plan the best route, and auto-correct in real time when something goes wrong. Gartner has also developed a toolkit to determine how demand-driven a company's S&OP is. The presentation concluded with a few observations and recommendations by Gartner.
“Sales and operations planning,” he said, “is the core cross-functional process to support decision making in the mid-term time horizon, that requires structured alignment between sales, marketing, finance, and supply chain, which enables the right trade-offs to be made to meet both customer needs and company goals.”
S&OP is a cyclical, monthly business planning process; tailored to meet the requirements of the business; brings the ability to translate opportunity and demand in the form of go-to-market strategies and solutions into actionable and profitable responses from the source, and make and deliver functions; connects up to company strategy as well as down to execution, and focusses on the 3-24 month planning horizon. The goal is to maximise the market opportunity, profitability and customer satisfaction simultaneously.
“Effective S&OP brings in a host of benefits, including increased forecast accuracy' decreased cycle time; lower inventories; improved perfect order; predictable financial results, and above all, profitable response and sustainable growth,” Sarangdhar said.
The plan can be translated from the traditional (adaptive translation) approach (wherein the demand-side view was provided by the brand; the product category; the country/region; the account, and the to location of the ship, and the supply-side view was provided by the region; the plant; the product line; the warehouse, and the from location of the ship) to a broader, more advanced version involving several matrices including financial translation [which involves a plan and the global viewpoint; countries/regions; the product category; the customers; the units; the stock-keeping unit (SKU)/mix; the plant, and the currency and profit.]
He explained the various time horizons, and the four levels of S&OP maturity (developing operational plans; matching demand and supply; profitability, business orchestration). These can either be margin- or value-focussed; internally or extrenally focussed, or cost- or revenue-focussed. The first two phases of S&OP involve making localised, rough-cut supply decisions; the third phase involves downstream demand sensing and translation, and the fourth and final phase involves integrated business planning.
Thereafter, trade-off points and execution responsibilities were defined, the keys to successful S&OP were enumerated. These are as follows: Who is empowered to make decisions; where do trade-offs take place; priorities (customer, category, brand or country), and who is responsible for delivering growth, profit and market share. Implementing S&OP is 60 per cent change management; 30 per cent processes and 10 per cent technology. The roles in S&OP (demand planner; supply planner; supply chain/operations; commerical; finance, and executive) keep changing from stage to stage. As S&OP matures from supply chain to business planning, the governance also changes.
To maintain the S&OP maturity, it is necessary to build the right culture; measure performances; conduct regular self-assessments; maximise enabling technology; develop and manage talent, and utilise a supporting centre of excellence.
Global planning systems (GPS), the term used by some organisations to describe S&OP, helps an orgainsation know its current position; set its destination; plan the best route, and auto-correct in real time when something goes wrong. Gartner has also developed a toolkit to determine how demand-driven a company's S&OP is. The presentation concluded with a few observations and recommendations by Gartner.
One-on-one chat
In a
one-on-one interactive session with FnB News, Sarangdhar said, “It is
certainly a challenge for most companies with global operations to
manage a different supply chain management strategy in each individual
geography, but the formulated plans can be tweaked a bit to suit the
needs of a particular country. For example, India has the available
talent, and it is a matter of managing it well. But the United States
doesn't have the number of personnel, although they are resource-rich.
In fact, although we don’t have adequate resources, we have been doing a
fine job. Some Indian corporations have imbibed the best practices
followed by their counterparts overseas and tweaked them to their
advantage, and they could certainly learn from the Indian experience.”
When asked about the food and beverage industry, he said, “It faces infrastructural challenges. In India, the main problem is the non-availability of cold chains, warehousing facilities, our inability to curb losses arising due to inefficiencies and the fact that we have flawed decision support systems in place.” As for the pharmaceutical industry, he said, “It is an industry that depends totally on its resilience and the ability to deliver. Supply chains need to be restructured to respond better to the demands of the pharmaceutical industry.”
When asked about the food and beverage industry, he said, “It faces infrastructural challenges. In India, the main problem is the non-availability of cold chains, warehousing facilities, our inability to curb losses arising due to inefficiencies and the fact that we have flawed decision support systems in place.” As for the pharmaceutical industry, he said, “It is an industry that depends totally on its resilience and the ability to deliver. Supply chains need to be restructured to respond better to the demands of the pharmaceutical industry.”
Reference : http://www.fnbnews.com/article/detnews.asp?articleid=32010§ionid=1 date :June 11, 2012 Time 12:06 PM IST
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