The Retail Supply Chain Summit shares Best Practices in the Sector

10 May 2007

The India Supply Chain Council (ISCC) and the Global Supply Chain Council organised a one-day programme on Retail Supply Chain, in New Delhi. HCL & Birlasoft were the sponsors for the event, with Third Eyesight as the knowledge partner. Indiaretailing.com was the official online media partner for this event. The event was attended by leading supply chain professionals from across India.

The sessions covered a wide range of topics: Leveraging Supply Chain to Improve Retail Profitability by Deepak Gupta, director – Product Supply, P&G; Insights on Best Practices by Bimal Sareen, CEO, Avanna; Supply Chain Challenges by Harsharan Marwah, chief - Supply Chain, Domino's Pizza India; Impact of Modern Retail in Supply Chain Evolution, by Devangshu Dutta, CEO, Third Eyesight; and International Expectations for the Future of CP and Retail Chain by Drs. Ard Jan Vethman, principal consultant at CAPGEMINI among others.

As Harsharan Marwah reflected, “The challenge lies in expansion of businesses at an astonishing rate, owing to aggressive strategies and limited choice of suppliers due to the unique nature of materials and the strict quality guidelines.”

Standing on the threshold of a retail revolution and witnessing a fast-changing retail landscape, India is all set to experience the phenomenon of a global village. India presents a grand opportunity to the world at large, to use it as a business hub. Devangshu Dutta added, “In the next 3 years we will witness improved and better infrastructure, with storage, processing, transport and technology playing a vital role in track and trace (RFID, etc.), planning, forecasting, dynamic pricing/profit optimisation.”

Discussing demand-driven retailing, Amit Shekhar, global head - Supply Chain Management, HCL Technologies, stated that demand-driven retailing is a system of technologies which responds to real-time demand and would improve the agility to become more responsive and proactive to changes in supply chain.

Birlasoft is in the process of developing a go-to-market solution, keeping in mind the evolving market need for a collaborative technology between manufacturer and retailer.