Pallet of Life

Introduction Supply Chain Control Tower is a concept propagated by multiple Consulting firms and IT Services companies. As a result, it has muddled the definition of this concept and left several Supply Chain leaders and practitioners confused and/or disillusioned. The reason for this confusion is simple because the Supply Chain Control Tower concept can be stretched like the arms of " Elastigirl " from Disney-Pixar's Incredibles fame!   Picture credits: Elastigirl (Helen Parr), Pixar   This concept can be made to span the entire value chain from raw material vendors to end consumers, straddling across several processes like Purchase-to-Pay, Order-to-Cash, and involving global, regional and local end-to-end material flows. However, this topic is best approached by adapting it to an organization's current functional structure, complexity and business needs. For example, it could be split into 3 key domains: Transportation Planning Customer Service Seg

In today's age of hyper automation, Autonomous Supply Chain is a key buzzword. But significant elements of the Supply Chain operations across industries are stuck in the industrial age practices of paper-and-pen or plagued with disjointed automation technologies, around core monolithic ERP systems. In such an environment, it's critical for both Supply Chain practitioners and leaders to understand the basic building blocks of process automation that can enable the vision or mega plan for a hands-free supply chain. Effect of COVID-19 In today's world plagued with the COVID-19 pandemic, the appetite for transformational change has significantly increased. And this includes changes in business processes and digitalization of traditional areas like inbound logistics, warehousing, outbound logistics and overall fulfillment execution till the last mile. This transformation includes need for touch-less operations, especially in high manual activity areas. For example, iden

Sustainability agendas across many industries are still stuck in only Board room discussions, analyst meets and Corporate Communications' multifarious outputs in the form of Annual reports, company website, e-brochures and promo videos. But what the planet at large, and increasingly consumers, business partners, employees, policy leaders and general public are looking out for is more meaningful action beyond the words. On one hand are climate activists, who rain anger at world forums to get a shot at the Nobel prize, and on the other hand are spin masters who perpetuate public guilt that switching of our home appliances, on time, is the bane for all evils.  But the reality is that the Corporate world that operate from the oilfields, farmlands and factories to the supermarket shelves and homes, have a far bigger contribution to reducing Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions, eliminating plastics, preventing freshwater depletion and halting excessive consumption of rare materials, to name a

Anupam Rasayan India Ltd's plans to go public has rightfully triggered a frenzied desire to know more about this company. After all a Rs 760 crore IPO is bound to attract investor interest. To top it off, the Sensex seems to be on steroids. And added to the mix, is the recent success  of several speciality chemical companies to provide greater than 20% returns on Day 1 of listing. So when a relatively unknown Chemical industry player comes out in the open, there is reason for speculation, analysis and frantic search for information on this new entrant. Dynamics of contract manufacturing in the Indian Chemical industry: Anupam Rasayan has publicly declared its play in contract manufacturing for several customers including a few marque Japanese and European chemical companies. So it's important to understand how this space operates. Several mid-sized chemical companies have evolved and stepped up the value chain, via contract manufacturing. This is especially true for off pa