As India gears towards becoming an economic powerhouse by 2020, it is important to assess its readiness to face the global competition. Increased globalization, affordable technologies, and improved infrastructure are going to impact the future supply chains. How the Indian organizations equip themselves to address the challenges in each of these areas and to meet the increasing global competition, is going to define the future of Supply Chain in India.Are we ready?
Track focuses on customer centric supply chains and managing reduction of wastage in various processes.
With the inception and rapid progression of the country into the e-age, meeting the expectations of the customer necessitates a complete overhaul of the supply chain. Especially key to fulfilling this seamless last mile customer experience is to build a logistics strategy with customer-centricity at its core. The lean supply chain of the future demands focus on waste reduction in various processes by management of resource, quality and inventory thereby making it not just operationally and environmentally efficient but also focused on inclusivity as a driver for sustainable growth.
Track focuses on India’s readiness with modern infrastructure, renewable energy, reducing carbon and water footprint with emphasis on industries manufacturing in India.
Time to answer the big question – Is India ready for a low-carbon future? As one of the world’s largest energy consumers, India today faces a number of challenges to meet the ever-increasing energy demand and at the same time ensuring continued growth. Although India has made substantial progress in the implementation of renewable energy and low-carbon alternatives, there is a lot of untapped renewable energy potential in India. With the improved supply chain infrastructure, globalization, increasing consumer segments and affordable technologies, various organizations, especially manufacturing firms, will need to customize activities across their supply chains and responsiveness will be a key driver in ensuring sustainable growth.
Track focuses on the logical progression of digital technology in supply chains such as AI, Big Data Analytics and Block Chain.
Over the course of years, Supply Chain Management has become more and more complex and to handle the increasing complexity, it has taken aid of technological advancements. The latest suite of technologies to impact SCM is a huge way is the trio Artificial Intelligence (AI), Big Data Analytics and Block Chain. These technologies seem to be the buzz words today and are used almost in every industry. But what do these technologies mean for the Supply Chain ecosystem? Going back to the basic definition, Supply Chain Management is the management of flow of goods and services from point of origin to the point of consumption. Any improvement in performance of SCM would mean reducing the uncertainties between the point of origin and the point of consumption. These uncertainties can be in the form of delays, increased transportation expenses, damaged and counterfeit goods at the destination, ad-hoc rise in demand, delay in payments, increased lead times, increased inventory costs etc. The traditional technologies are no longer able to handle these uncertainties due to volume limitations. This is where AI, Big Data Analytics and Block Chain come in. They provide robust platforms to handle huge amounts of data and also have the ability to extract meaningful results from the data.
Institutions have always played a crucial role in the development of technology. They have the intellectual capital to develop breakthrough technologies and to collaborate with organizations to spread that technology to the masses. In today’s era of rapid technological disruptions, the role played by Institutions is even more crucial. While quite a few institutions provide cutting edge research, there a numerous institutions that do not have courses which match the requirement of the industry. For example, the area of Supply Change Management is in the process of a deep technological transformation and the skills demanded in this area are over and above those that were needed a few years back. Skills in Machine Learning, AI, and Blockchain are becoming an integral part of high performance Supply Chain Management systems. Institutions would do well to create courses which can integrate elements of SCM with those of emerging technologies so that the students graduating from these institutions can hit the ground running.