GoComet concluded the event in Bengaluru. The meet featured insightful discussions and strategies from significant industry leaders who focused on existing supply chain disruptions, contingency plans, and strategies in order to deal with crises, including the Red Sea chaos, Suez Canal blockades and Baltimore infrastructure collapse.
Ritika Arora Bhola
GoComet, a leading supply chain visibility platform, concluded GoComet Odyssey Edition 2 conference in Bengaluru. The event featured insightful discussions and strategies from industry leaders such as Unilever, Tolaram, Himalaya, Tata Electronics, Britannia, and MSN, aimed at thriving amid ongoing disruptions.
Gautam Prem Jain, CEO, GoComet, delivered the inaugural address. Jain engaged the audience by tracing supply chain disruptions over the past five years, including the Red Sea chaos, Suez Canal blockades, and the Baltimore infrastructure collapse. The GoComet CEO posed a thought-provoking question, “will disruptions ever cease in the international supply chain?”
“What we once considered anomalies in the past have now become ‘business as usual’, underscoring the need for resilient strategies in today’s dynamic environment,” he added.
Saravana Mariappan, Supply Chain Head, Tolaram, a business conglomerate, took the stage to share his fundamental strategy for disruption-proofing supply chains. Emphasising the importance of building better visibility through technology, he shared how digitization upgrades lead to proactive exception handling in their S&OP systems, resulting in an improvement of 10 to 15 per cent, in accurately predicting stock demand.
“Supply chain visibility is about making sure that the right data reaches the right people at the right time,” Mariappan said, pointing at the advanced exception handling flows built by their respective teams.
Sanket Chhajed, Head of Taxation & Audit at Himalaya Wellness, joining the conversation, talked about the importance of digitization in achieving resilience profitably. Businesses must approach digitization, leveraging on the five key pillars, he emphasised. They are as follows:
Problem identification: Start with the problem not the solution
Digitization of processes: Find the best way to solve your solution with one of the many tools available
Ecosystem readiness: Check if your business and people are both ready to embrace change. User Experience is key to easy change management
Re-assess data: Assess data and insights generated for tangible business value add, frequently
Roadmap for future: Align digitization efforts with long-term business goals
Chhajed concluded that though digitisation is the way to go, businesses must take time to find the right problem-solution pair to achieve resilience, profitability.
Ravi Balasubramanian, Head of Logistics, MSN Labs, also shared his insights. Emphasising on the ongoing nature of supply chain disruptions, he said the need for agility to ensure resilience. Echoing on what was shared he added the following steps to achieve resilience with better planning,
1.Forecasting and planning: Anticipate disruptions through proactive forecasting and planning, developing contingency plans in advance
2.Backup strategies and diversification: Diversify and explore alternative routes/transportation modes for operational diversification.
He also said that the only way to be resilient is to be proactive and aim at seeing ahead instead of reacting in the moment. Balasubramanium added, “Disruptions present opportunities to delight customers and take the lead” pointing at agile chains that are ready to pivot and deliver. The conclusion brought invaluable insights from industry leaders, from proactive digitisation strategies to cultivating a culture of foresight and adaptability, the keynotes underscored the critical importance of resilience in today’s dynamic business landscape.
Concluding the session, Jain added, “We are committed to leading the charge towards a future where resilience is not just an aspiration but a fundamental pillar of success in the supply chain industry, building a playbook that works” unveiling the thrilling news that GoComet Odyssey will return in July 2024 in New Jersey, setting the stage for continued innovation and industry excellence in the USA.
