Supply Chain Best Practices Post Covid-19 | Insights by Alvis Lazarus | Amity Global Business School

Organizations have always been sure of that their Supply Chain is Perfect and Covid19 is the actual reality test. A real eye opener which unearthed all the weak links in the Supply chain. Alvis Lazarus, CEO Hesol Consulting explains the Supply Chain best practices and a game plan that would prepare the supply chain to face any Pandemic in the future.

Relevant Videos mentioned during the Session!

Get a Free Copy of SCAM Model by Alvis Lazarus (download here) – https://supplychainway.com/supply-chain-analytics-career-scam-model-alvis-lazarus/

Supply Chain career related videos (complete playlist)

Supply Chain Coach’s Portfolio: https://www.linkedin.com/in/AlvisLazarusA

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Questions asked in the session and answered by Alvis Lazarus

Question: As a supply chain consultant what is the most challenging project you have worked on?

Answer: The most challenging project comes with SME I am going to give it as a little larger prospective. You may think the challenge comes from a bigger organization it is not. The challenge comes when we work with small and medium enterprises. The reason is they would have done lot of good things not just that they are also going to be along with the field and they want to learn along with you. To show value for SME is really challenging not just that you can go and talk about IoT and block chain and everything.

Edge of Hesol we don’t have associated ourselves with any technology, we don’t sale technology what we do is whether it is a small organization be it a multinational company, we pick the problem and come up with the solution which give the return that’s RY is the key in our calculation. So the point is working with SME any project is going to be most complex one and one more thing I can tell is Go to market strategy. Whenever we build supply chain right from scratch till the end, that we called as a  Go to market strategy. That is all those project will be pretty challenging because it touch base everything right from sourcing, processing, packing even the conversion, the manufacturing and then the distribution. Go to market strategy always has that tag of complexity.

Question: What specific skills a student need to have that they qualified to be a successful supply chain consultant?

Answer: Let me put this way:

1. To be very successful first and foremost thing what you need is problem solving ability that’s mean you should have good analytical backup not just a analytical backup you should have the functional knowledge, because these two make you a problem solver.

2. Working as a team: this is going to be a fine line become success and failure, you can come up with wonderful solutions on paper but when you have to implement you need to work through the team. So you should be very good team player a great leader that if you are planning to become a consultant you don’t have luxury of three months to form a team. So you need to do that in few days to get the quick ice breaking and work together as a team. So these skills are very crucial to be successful in this role.        

Question: Whether there is an opportunity for the students for the fresher to join the organization in a supply chain department?

Answer: In supply chain lot of junior level roles available. For example I put it in different way someone who have the passion towards operation, you want to be on field and you want to work then you can start your supply chain journey in manufacturing that is one great place where you can do it. Every function there is a junior level role so you can start manufacturing if you really like operations or you can start your work on distribution center these two distribution or warehousing are really good if you are hands-on person that would be a great starting point but if you are a person who is interested in doing lot of number crunching you want to do mix of operation as well as analytics doesn’t mean in manufacturing you can’t use analytics, not like that. I am telling where the flavor will be higher in that case you can start with the planning role you can start with demand planning or supply planning that would be a great place to start or as a sourcing role like buyer or vendor manager these kind of role also you can start with. So anyone who doesn’t want to get into a field work I want to be in supply chain but I don’t want field work I want to do a  desktop job but learn the nuances of supply chain 100% close your eyes get into a planning role and you won’t regretted. Anyone who wants to get into project’s based experience in supply chain you can get into a process excellence role like six sigma base role, lean base role these things will give you good hands-on in terms of project based experience.   

Question:  Some IT organization today in these organization it comes during the discussion distribution channel become more important than the product itself. Why is it happening, what is the future?    

Answer: The competitive edge for an organization moved from manufacturing to supply chain which is the end to end, when I say supply chain they are talking about distribution. So obviously distribution has an edge that is an excitement. Let me quickly tell without taking much time distribution is a FMCG company there are around 13 million outlets including all the kirana stores, petty shop which serves FMCG products, your job is to ensure your product reaches to all the 13 million outlets how exciting is that. Distribution has a great excitement factor in to it, but there is one call out that since talk about IT firms I want everyone to understand difference between IT based roles and proper operations role, there is Himalayan difference. If you going to a product based company and IT product based company you will work only on that product, your complete routine will revolve around the project. If you are a person you don’t like to be associated with specific technology you should not get into that role. 90% people are calling me they are filling badly about their roles or they want to shift from IT consulting back to a proper supply chain consulting. Or in IT operation role to a core supply chain operations role there is a Himalayan difference between both. Both has a great future I am not telling bad about any of these but you should be clear where you are getting into, that’s the preview about it.

Question: In the mid of pandemic what challenges your company faces?

Answer: We actually didn’t globe up so much in terms of how Hesol performs, because already people are struggling. We are a complete problem solving company very mist supply chain consulting, actually we are running on access project because it actually covid19 become a kind of loudspeaker of what we are keep telling on our clients. Whatever week links we told the clients they didn’t listen to because those weak links have created the biggest problem doing a covid19 time. So now they are ready to really hear they are ready to work with us, and lots of new clients as well with supply chain, we are working with go to market strategies and redesign of supply chain. In terms of our Hesol’s specific scenario it is actually came as a positive and we will also ensure even the start of covid19 we ensure there is no lay off because there was a little downturn, there were no lay off, no cuts we just maintain statuesque and we are always use to working gradually because we are very lean organization and once things picked up then all good times for us. So specifically for us no big impact.

Question: What all new development happening in coming future in the supply chain industry?

Answer: I will give you very few insights:

1. Offline market got a huge hit so the loss of offline market is a gain of online market, what is happening omni channel and online both are like booming in the sense offline players now working towards have an online channel to reach the customers and online players running towards 2x volume 3x volume suddenly they realize there engine couldn’t do it. So what the trend is your global ecommerce numbers have gone really high it estimated to reach now 6trillion US dollars in next few years and out of that 1.5 trillion is going to come from cross border sell that is people from one country ordering from other country, this is a great boost.

2. There are very specific sectors who are benefited like health related products this again booming anything healthy living related products this again booming. This again I am specifically talking about sectors like products related to yoga, products related to home gym, so these kind of things are picked up, home appliance has picked up because covid19 times the house help couldn’t come in. So that add a direct impact so suddenly home appliances picked up. So there are lots of sectors which are really doing good so organizations have to work in same way understanding the Kano and then diversify the business and for sure you can’t missed the online channel. That should be the part of distribution strategy at this current scenario.