Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Udaipur successfully organized the Supply Chain Excursus on 18th Jan'2014, the third Excursus in a span of two months. The theme of this event was 'Supply Chain 2020'. The Excursus provided a platform for students and corporate to discuss about the future of Supply Chain and how tomorrow's supply chain leaders need to think differently in order to manage the ever-growing customer needs.
The event was flagged off by Prof. Janat Shah, Director - IIM Udaipur, where he highlighted how being one of the youngest IIMs, IIMU was leveraging the opportunity to establish itself as a completely different institute, focusing more on industry interactions, live projects and research.
The first panel, represented by the senior supply chain management team from Wipro, Ranbaxy, Microsoft and one of India's largest FMCG companies, discussed on the topic 'Collaboration in future supply chains'. It was a very enriching discussion, where the esteemed panelists mentioned that team-work is an extremely crucial element in ensuring the success of supply chains. The panelist from Wipro emphasized that mutual trust forms the backbone of collaboration and companies should increasingly focus on collaboration to manage their complex supply chains.
This Excursus comprised of a Poster Competition, a common practice followed in US B-schools. The top 5 students battled it out in the final round by giving a 2-minute elevator pitch on various burning issues in today's supply chain - containerization, impact of social media, use of hi-tech weather forecasting technologies, etc.
The second panel discussion on 'Supply Chain Innovations and their impact' was represented by the supply chain heads from Bharti Airtel, Ernst & Young and a leading pharmaceutical company. All the esteemed panelists stressed on the need to build the culture of innovation in organizations. The panelist from Bharti Airtel mentioned how innovations in the service industry have transformed the business models and made it more and more customer-centric.
The Excursus concluded with the declaration of the Poster Competition results, followed by a vote of thanks. Supply chain is indeed moving from being a cost-centre to a profit-centre, and more and more companies are acknowledging this change. The event proved to be a great learning experience for the entire IIMU student community, since not everyday do you get to interact with supply chain leaders having such diverse profiles.
The event was flagged off by Prof. Janat Shah, Director - IIM Udaipur, where he highlighted how being one of the youngest IIMs, IIMU was leveraging the opportunity to establish itself as a completely different institute, focusing more on industry interactions, live projects and research.
The first panel, represented by the senior supply chain management team from Wipro, Ranbaxy, Microsoft and one of India's largest FMCG companies, discussed on the topic 'Collaboration in future supply chains'. It was a very enriching discussion, where the esteemed panelists mentioned that team-work is an extremely crucial element in ensuring the success of supply chains. The panelist from Wipro emphasized that mutual trust forms the backbone of collaboration and companies should increasingly focus on collaboration to manage their complex supply chains.
This Excursus comprised of a Poster Competition, a common practice followed in US B-schools. The top 5 students battled it out in the final round by giving a 2-minute elevator pitch on various burning issues in today's supply chain - containerization, impact of social media, use of hi-tech weather forecasting technologies, etc.
The second panel discussion on 'Supply Chain Innovations and their impact' was represented by the supply chain heads from Bharti Airtel, Ernst & Young and a leading pharmaceutical company. All the esteemed panelists stressed on the need to build the culture of innovation in organizations. The panelist from Bharti Airtel mentioned how innovations in the service industry have transformed the business models and made it more and more customer-centric.
The Excursus concluded with the declaration of the Poster Competition results, followed by a vote of thanks. Supply chain is indeed moving from being a cost-centre to a profit-centre, and more and more companies are acknowledging this change. The event proved to be a great learning experience for the entire IIMU student community, since not everyday do you get to interact with supply chain leaders having such diverse profiles.