At IIMB-hosted conference, experts brainstorm on developments, innovations, challenges and solutions in sourcing and supply chain management
15 December, 2016, Bengaluru: “As against the popular belief in the media, we do not take students and help them find jobs. The Supply Chain Management Centre (SCMC) at IIMB has carried out dedicated research, teaching and consulting activities in different aspects of Supply Chain Management. In the last 10-15 years we have made a headway into academic research, the way research is recognised the world over,” said Professor R. Srinivasan, Director Incharge, IIMB, in his inaugural speech during the Fifth Biennial Supply Chain Management Conference, jointly organized by the Airbus Group Endowed Chair for Sourcing and Supply Management at IIMB and the Supply Chain Management Centre at IIMB, on December 15 & 16, 2016. The theme of the conference is ‘Technology in Supply Chain Management‘.
Professor R. Srinivasan made a special mention of the contribution made by IIMB’s illustrious faculty, which is reflected in IIMB’s ranking in the field of Supply Chain Management. IIMB, at the 31st position, is the only Asian Management school to be ranked in the prestigious ‘2016 SCM World University 100’ survey by SCM World. IIMB has been ranked alongside universities like University of Michigan, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, INSEAD, University of Texas at Austin, among others.
Altogether 35 papers from academicians and industry executives, selected by a peer review process, were presented in nine technical sessions during the two-day SCM conference. The aim of the conference was to provide a forum to researchers and practitioners to meet and analyse current developments, innovations, trends, concerns and major challenges encountered in the field of sourcing and supply chain, and the solutions adopted in the field of Enterprise and Supply Chain Management. The conference provided participants a platform to exchange and share their experiences and research results. Over the last few years, the conference has emerged as a significant event for supply chain management researchers and practitioners in the country.
In this edition of the conference, keynote speeches were delivered by Professor Sridhar Seshadri, Deputy Dean Operations and Area Leader Operations Management at Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad, and Dattatri Salagame, Vice President at Robert Bosch Engineering and Business Solutions Ltd.
Professor Seshadri offered an overview of what was happening in and outside India in the field and the lessons to be learnt, as India, he said, was missing in many global supply chains. He spoke mainly about three things – supply networks, technology and the manufacturing sector. He pointed out that manufacturing was important, but manufacturing was not about China and the US anymore, it was about productivity. “Supply chain has become increasingly global. Not every firm exports — it is just a small fraction of firms with higher productivity which export. That’s an opportunity for India of connecting to global supply chains. Technology, here, will be great enabler,” pointed out the academician.
Talking about the importance of education
and technology, he observed: “If you want small scale industries to grow, most workers need middle school training, otherwise one cannot innovate. To be able to absorb technology at the small scale, you need basic education, which is lacking. This is where technology can help.”
He spoke, in detail, about how China became a powerhouse of manufacturing. He also suggested that the core necessity was to gain specialised labour force, core infrastructure, education, consolidated procurement, and knowledge spill over. Giving the example of the success of Singapore and Hong Kong, he established the correlation between logistics rank of a country and the ease of doing business. “If you want to connect to the supply chain of the word, it is possible. For that, you have to build the road, invest in people, create enough scale, create enough specialists, and build infrastructure.”
Talking about the lessons to be learnt from within India, he said that if one got small firms to work together, it could increase manufacturing output. “Size distribution of firms in India is a problem. There are lots of big and small firms, but a missing middle. Size distribution of firms in India by sector is heterogeneous.” He listed the benefits of scaling up: improved productivity, boost of specialisation, governance, managerial experience, capital formation, and hence bargaining power. He also said that research had shown that hyper competition was an impediment to growth.
In his address, Dattatri Salagame discussed the dilemma faced by large companies from new generation companies. “In the face of disruption from new firms, big companies stand to lose their space and hence are learning to reinvent, defend themselves and conquer competition. The symphony of 3s – sensors, software and services – will change the way businesses operate. There has to be a tectonic shift in the way you produce things, the way you manage supply chain to survive competition.”
He spoke about the concept of Industry 4.0, a term coined by Germany to describe the current trend of automation and data exchange in manufacturing technologies. “We have seen three Industrial Revolutions – Mechanization, Electrification and Digitization, which will be followed by the fourth one, which is Connected Industry. People, machine, object and systems will be connected. The 3s will connect the whole industry. There will not be any exclusions in the value chain. Every node in the value network of supplier – Production, Logistics, Customer, Consumer – will be connected. There will be seamless value exchange across the nodes. Virtual and physical world will come to interact with each other – that is the essence of Industry 4.0,” he said.
Explaining that the value chain re-architecting was in digitization, that products and services were getting digitized, and that business models were getting digital, Salagame added: “These three elements will change the way you operate manufacturing with your partners. From asset intensive business operation we need to transition to the data intensive model.”
He had a message for young managers in the audience in driving the connected industry strategy. “If you are looking at managing industries within the new order, where you are the driver of change, you need to build a digital culture within the enterprise, raise organization IQ for data, develop a complete ecosystem collaborative model, understand consumer – not just customer, and understand that digital strategies are context-specific. Hence, build your own, customize it for your organization and do not copy.”
Day One of the conference was attended by invitees from partner institutions, corporate leaders, experts, besides the conference delegates. Day 2 of the conference includes a one-day workshop on ‘Building Sustainable Agri-Food Supply Chains in India’, jointly organized by IIMB and the Hull University Business School (HUBS), UK in which an invited panel of experienced executives and senior academics will articulate issues in sustainable supply chains in agro and retail industries which would help in the identification of research issues.
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