Japanese moment for Indian Supply Chain



Supply Chain practices in India, since the term Supply Chain was coined in 1980s', have been moulded, designed & bench-marked with the Western Supply Chain. Most of the Indian enterprises, be local or international, have evolved with the thinking process of the structure, underlying cultural needs & perspectives which have been predominantly "Non-Indigenous".

Once in a life time of a country comes, what I call it as, its "Japanese moment". If grabbed then it leads to what Japan achieved post WW II to create a Global Best Practice which has been replicated for over six decades across the world using various "Names" but with similar framework. Japanese, post the trauma it went through in late 1940s & 1950's, developed a World Class Manufacturing framework, which not only made Japanese companies be World leaders but also has been a bench-mark for Worlds Class Manufacturing since then.

India has its Japanese moment for Supply Chain (which is distinctively different than "Chinese moment of 1990s"). Covid-19 has provided the impetus. Westernized model of Supply Chain has already shown its limitations when handling the higher rate of change along-with its lack of 'heuristics'. Indigenous Supply Chain led Supply Chain Model can make India deliver something similar to what Japanese offered the world in the domain of Manufacturing.

To offer an example - Indian way of Supply Chain thinking leverages on the Supply Chain Professionals ability to handle "flux". Over the years, as Non-Indian thinking has prevailed, the instinct has been suppressed as "Policies" & "SOP's" have been given higher importance than building "People" focused Supply Chain. Indian Cultural ethos is a great differentiator for the 21st century Supply Chain. Indian Enterprises need to identify such levers, as Japanese did for World Class Manufacturing, to develop a Supply Chain Model which over the next few decades leads Indian enterprises to grab more business share in the world market as well as the Rest of the World to mould, design & benchmark themselves against an Indian Supply Chain framework.

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