Indian Supply Chain Sutra - a great way of thinking & paradoxes with the West

Supply Chains have evolved with the "West" as an anchor. It probably has its roots in Supply Chain as a term being coined in the West. Also over the years, Supply Chain leading practices have emerged out of the West as well as the Supply Chain thought leadership has rested with the West. A mix of all these & many more things has led the Indian thinking of Supply Chain be overshadowed by the West. And that has been a very contrasting story till NOW.

Indians by nature are heuristically driven & most of the Indian Supply Chain professionals that I have met over my career have exhibited that they can handle the "state of flux" much better. Rather Indian Supply Chain professionals have less liking towards deterministic way of working. Contrasting to that over the decades, all efforts have been to move towards "planning for enhanced flexibility, responsiveness & agility". This has been through practices of planning systems, adoption of technology & systems which inherently have taken away the Indian Supply Chain sutra. Over my long consulting career, I have seen Indian Supply Chain Professionals having to overcome the basic instincts to mould themselves into these Western way of thinking & operating called as "Benchmark" practices. 

Considering that it is pretty evident that the rate of change coupled with the variables impacting the change is so high that it is the eternal Indian Supply Chain Professional ethos than can be leveraged in formulating Supply Chain sutras.

Having met over 6,000 Supply Chain professionals I have got this feeling that "Indian Supply Chain Sutra" should be given much more serious thought & attention. This, if shaped up correctly, can be a long lasting best practice. Much more important, because it has a perspective which is indigenous. Western Supply Chain practices have kind of "mechanized" everything leaving less to "think" & more to "adhere". That is fine as long as the its applied to the transactional layer of Supply Chain. But when it comes to Tactical & Strategic layer, its the "thinking" processes which shape up Supply Chain decision making & outcomes. Indian Supply Chain Sutra is extremely powerful as its focused on "People inherent ability to think". 

Paradox in India is, we have fitted a square in a circle. Under the influence of Western Sutra of Supply Chain with an assumption that the West does & knows it better than Indian Sutra, the Supply Chain advantage which can arise from "Indian Supply Chain Sutra" has been subordinated to the Western way of Supply Chain. 

In 1970's the way Japanese (from the East) led the Manufacturing revolution (which West eventually adopted), India (from the East) has a great opportunity to lead the Supply Chain revolution (which West shall adopt) of the the 21st century.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Five Point 'Profit Protection Plan'

Business cycles come & go. And if history is any evidence then the cycles also get 'repeated'. The nature of the cycles undergoes a time frame change & a characteristic change although the broader 'structure' remains the same. Arguably the goal of the organization also shows continuity over the history & the overarching goal although is 'creating / preserving stakeholder value' the more commonly understood goal is 'Profit' . The current industry cycle seems to be of demand contraction hence decelerating revenues & profits. I was wondering what may constitute a 'Profit Protection Plan' for organizations. My five point agenda for Profit Protection is; a. Target Volume - It is unlikely that one enterprise has a capacity which exceeds more than quarter of the total market demand. Need to redefine markets & start selling more to the ones who you didn't sell. b. Price - Think 'service'. This is where the
Read more

Supply Chain KRI's (Key Risk Indicators) as a lead practice for improving Supply Chain Performance

In the evolution of enterprises, there comes a point in time when the circumstances lead to rethink the future course. I think Covid-19 has offered that, for those who wish to chart that course. Covid-19 has proven that the frequency at which Supply Chains are being impacted, due to unforeseen events, has increased to almost once every decade on a large scale. Coupled with the fact that Industry cycles have shrunk. With all the uncertainty arisen out of Covid-19, I am sure many enterprises have been working on how much would the Key Performance Indicators (KPI's) be impacted. Why enterprises? Even a country like China is thinking of its most important KPI - GDP growth rate - to be a number or a landscape / direction to be shared. In short, the stakeholders of Supply Chains are predominantly drawing on the KPI achievements factoring in for variations based on how Covid-19 unfolds. As a Supply Chain practitioner, I appreciate enterprises have spent lot of resources in designing the
Read more

The 'Adaptive' organisation

A lot is being said & pondered over the nature of the environment in which enterprises operate. The current environment is considered to be 'chaotic'. The 'Alignment' of the enterprise with the customer is considered to be the most important mantra for success.  I wonder what does alignment mean in the context where the environment is chaotic & the customer hence is not static. In my opinion organisations need 'dynamic alignment'. Organisations which are able to know the ingredients of what makes up for alignment & continuously gauge the shifts in the environment to keep themselves abreast with the latest parameters of alignment would be successful. Dynamic alignment needs 'Adaptive Organisations'. Adaptive organisations is a function of the People. It's your workforce. They way it is  recruited, developed, appreciated or rejected. Encouraged to take up new tasks. How is your workforce respected, trusted & celebrated.I think
Read more