How Technology Accelerates Logistics Engines that Drive Global Supply Chains

welcome Adolf and Sunil delighted to have you both here for another episode of Simply shipped but before we dive into formalities could you please just share with our listeners what they're going to get in return for tuning in for the next few minutes yeah today we want to talk a little bit about uh you know what the life of a logistician looks like on a day-to-day basis and what is the kind of technology that they have at their disposal because it's a very challenging job that they have within the organizations and as most people know Logistics is the lifeline of Global Supply chains so it's going to be a very interesting topic yeah I can't wait to get into it well you know what before we get into it though let's go ahead and start with introductions so both Adolf I and Sunil if you could both give us just a brief introduction of who you are and just what it is you do within the industry Adolf can you go ahead and start us off yeah thank you Gabby so my background is is supply chain and that's what I've been doing uh right through my career I currently am the CEO of E2 log which is a logistics technology company based here at Houston fantastic and so now hey I am Sunil Mahajan I'm based out of Pune in India and I come with about two decades of experience in the managed Services BPO BPS kind of industry within the supply chain uh you know horizontal and what I'm what I do is I look at the Domain sales for supply chain look at the solutions and solving problems for customers in the supply chain domain fantastic well you know what my first question for both of you is just how E2 log and Wipro are collaborating so what are you both hoping to achieve together I think ever since the pandemic has come in and we know that we're hearing a lot of issues around Logistics and overall supply chain we've already seen a huge impact across the industries and this is not particular to any industry and what we've seen is there's a there's a cross industry issues and challenges where there's been a domino effect ever since the beginning of 2020 and you know everyone and every organization in the world today is looking for a solution for their Logistics now that could be around their freight costs that could be around the turnaround times that could be around how do you get a product to the customer faster cheaper and then the most efficient way how do you you know look at some of the shortages that we are having for Commodities or products in the market and this is these are the kind of challenges that they are approaching organizations like Wipro for have been aware they want certain help coming in for the logistics area solving some of their challenges and not just looking at uh you know solving in a piecemeal manner but looking at a broader transformational change in their Logistics to ensure that be it the current pandemic or be it any other Calamity in the future or any any other disruption in the future they are ready to take on these challenges in the future as well and this is where I think the partnership of vapor one E2 log is really critical uh you know we've been working together for the last few months and we believe that together we have a solution a transformative solution where we are able to solve one of the biggest challenges for the international logisticians that we've been seeing it will all bringsing brings in their uh you know best of breed technology uh best of breed platform and we bring in the years and Decades of experience in the supply chain processes and with the right skills to come and integrate all three elements of people process and technology and help some of the customers solve their challenges in the in the logistics space sounds like a recipe for success and Adolf can you please give us a little bit insight into what you're hoping to achieve with this partnership firstly we're very excited to be joining forces with Wipro which is one of the world's leaders when it comes to manage services and one of the things we've been an advocate for a long time about is relative to how does technology get into an organization and technology is not a silver bullet you just can't slap it on top of a bad process and expect it to magically deliver results be a great Advocates of people processing technology and this Alliance actually helps us strengthen that position because going into certain organizations you know they are actually looking for the help to come in from from an external party which brings in a combination of these three components and that's where I think they're very well positioned Wipro has a tremendous amount of experience and is a market leader in this space and having their Services powered by the interlock technology makes it a phenomenally strong combination so we're very excited to be here we're excited to be joining forces with the world leader and we do believe we can make a significant contribution to the market at this very challenging time it's a very exciting partnership for sure and we are so excited to see what you all can accomplish together but you know Adolf I wanted to start off by asking you what a day in the life of an international logistician would even look like you know what levels of complexity are involved within that role that's a great question Gabby because uh you know I actually started my career at one of the lowest runs within a logistics organization and I gradually went through a different levels so I've lived and experienced this firsthand very often times a lot of organizations don't really have a deep appreciation for what the life of a logistician looks like and the simplest way to break it down is like this a legislation is basically dealing with information on a day-to-day basis uh really not uh you know carrying boxes on their shoulders and transporting it across the world right they're relying on different parties to do this and they're receiving information and they're giving information they're working with internal teams they're working with external teams and the complexity of this is is huge because when you think of an international Logistics operation so if you look at how a global Corporation may work they may be easily having a presence in 40 50 70 80 countries around the world and within each of these countries they've got their internal stakeholders who are their operations teams planning teams procurement teams projects Etc then there are the external groups which are their Freight forwarders custom Brokers carriers Etc the logistics stations are required to work with these both groups internal and external on a constant basis and in each country there are these two groups two groups of stakeholders and then you multiply this by the number of countries they're working in so it's extremely complex and it's a very demanding role that logisticians have to play because they constantly have to deal with evolving circumstances around the supply chain the Geo political situations that are occurring the disruptions that are part and parcel of the lives that we live in and being able to manage this process around the complexity of moving Goods around the world on a day-to-day basis is very challenging it sounds like a challenge and you know so now this next question is for you because speaking to challenges what are the key challenges that happen in logistics that just end up creating supply chain issues to begin with do you have any specific examples of this I think toward it all said uh you know the life of a logistician is very difficult because we you know as we Pro are running some of these large operations or Logistics operations for some of the global 500 customers or even even beyond that what happens is when you have such a decentralized team who have who do not have access to the right set of tools and Technologies are sitting there and you know while we are trying to solve some of the uh you know process level challenges in terms of getting the processes harmonized across countries standardized and bring them to a level where there is some sort of Sanity Across the logistician's Life I think without the right set of Technology it's very difficult to to do away with multiple instances of erps multiple systems that the customer ID environment may have uh depending a lot on Excel sheets a lot of communication that happens back and forth between all the stakeholders in the logistics value chain through phone calls through chats through emails and you know having a sense of it all in in one place is is very difficult so it's not just stressful there's a lot of opportunity to make mistakes there's a lot of opportunity of error and what happens is eventually the End customer who is waiting to receive the good is impacted the life or the experience of that customer is always impacted so so we've seen this multiple times in the past where customers have tried to throw uh you know a particular technology at a particular problem in the logistics logisticians value chain uh but that really doesn't help I think where we are need to log are working together to change the customer Behavior we are changing the way we are approaching this problem by looking at the entire end-to-end journey and bringing in a platform and the right set of processes to to manage uh some of these challenges that exist and change the complete perspective of how we deal with these challenges going forward absolutely and you know dealing with these challenges moving forward and we're going to work with tech probably right that would be probably one of the first steps forward so I want to ask you Adolf you know how can uh Technology support logisticians with these challenges that we're speaking about and more broadly just supply chain teams to be more successful in the near future to get me the simplest way to look at it is uh with an analogy that I will draw to a day-to-day situation that most of us deal with at some point in time think of this that if you need some handiwork done at your home you would typically call a handyman service company and say Hey you know I have this problem can you send somebody across to have a look at it and fix it so what do they do this they dispatch somebody from their team out in the field come and look at the problem the person comes in has a look at the problem that is there at your home and they then pull out their tools to fix the problem so think of this if the handyman showed up he or she could figure out that there is a problem and let's say there is a plumbing problem and if he or she don't have the tools to be able to fix the plumbing problem what's going to happen it's going to be a either the job doesn't get done or it's a partially complete job or you know the problem is not completely solved you still have some kind of a leak or some problem right so it's exactly what happens in the world of logistics too logisticians are going out there they're tackling a very hard problem from what we described earlier and to be able to effectively tackle the problem they need to have the right tools the way Logistics is done today is very different from the way it was done 20 years ago the kinds of stresses and strains and Supply chains today is immense and logisticians need to have tools at their disposal they need to have information at their disposal they they need to have the ability to intervene intercept course correct on a on a day-to-day basis multiple times a day depending on the complexity of what they're dealing with and for this leaders need to make sure that they have the right tools it's as simple as that now when you look at the the landscape of what tools are available uh unfortunately it tends to be a mishmash of of different things and in some instances the more mature organizations may have deployed some kind of Enterprise Transportation kind of a solution or in some cases which more likely is is the case there are some point Solutions which are deployed either for visibility or booking as an example but there is so much of international Logistics that is just run off email spreadsheets and phone calls that it is just unimaginable and when you think of the the limitations these logisticians have in the ability to execute just go back to the example that I give it's like a handyman showing up at your doorstep without the right tools this is the day-to-day in the life of a legislation and what we are saying is that we need to bring in technology which is user friendly which is addressing the problems that logisticians have and giving them the tools and the ability to intervene intercept course correct with the information at their fingertips so this is really the most simplest way to look at what technology can bring to the table uh and the potential impact that technology can have on the day-to-day life of a logistician is huge very often times when when leaders and companies are thinking about technology you know there's a lot of it is around uh you know fancy digitalization initiatives and transformational initiatives Etc and there's a lot of it is around aggregating data at an Enterprise level and having the ability to access that readily and use that information which is absolutely right but I think it's very important to also think about technology from a standpoint of the end user the person who is actually going to be executing the logistics and what tools do they need at their fingertips to be able to be efficiently managing this complex process well yeah you're very correct I mean to succeed in any challenge that you're taking on you're going to need the right Tools in order for success and you know we just spoke to the technology aspects but Sunil is also wondering if you could maybe speak to the people aspect as well I think the problem has evolved over the last few years uh you know what happens is all the traditional ways of handling Logistics Global Logistics and all you know the the traditional way of using spreadsheets calls emails works till the day it doesn't and you know I think what has happened is in the last few years most organizations are seeing that that day has come and I think the attitude towards solving the problem at hand is changing I think that is where uh the entire aspect of not just throwing a technology at a problem but I think what how Wipro and E2 log have completely aligned is bringing all the people process and Technology together so what we've started doing is looking at the life of a logistician and everyone around the logisticians as well which means that we are looking at different personas across the logistics value chain and not just passing the problem from the logistician to somebody else maybe a 3pl maybe one of the internal stakeholders but look at the life of all the stakeholders in that Journey and look at where those challenges lie what are those verbal term statements that they're making in terms of how we could really come in and solve the lives for those everyone in in the value chain right so I think I think it's very important to look at the perspective of every Persona in that Logistics value chain and ensure that all the challenges that they are facing are met and that is achieved through the right set of processes the right set of people uh involved in the processes and how do you centralize and run it as a single unit instead of having you know working in silos looking at some of these challenges in pockets and that's never going to help you achieve some of the outcomes that you have so I think bringing in this entire orchestration layer that we call it uh around customer and user Journeys to be able to to be able to have a vision and a particular goal and outcome in mind and then solving some of these problems everything from visibility everything from transactional as well as the process related issues I think that is how we are trying to solve this problem for customers well you know you just mentioned the term and when you're explaining that and it's Logistics orchestration it's a term that's being used a lot more often these days and you know I would love it if you could maybe describe what this term means sure I think orchestration is basically taking a complete end-to-end journey and look at a customer or a user Journey from the lens of outside in as well as inside out which means that I think traditionally uh you know in the industry in the services industry I can tell you order to cash Finance and Accounting these are some of the journeys that are quite well established quite well matured but I think Logistics as a orchestration journey has not been well looked at in the past and I think that is what we're challenging we're challenging the current operating model uh that the international Logistics are run in and we are coming bringing in a completely different perspective where we look at uh you know if as soon as uh you know from as soon as the journey starts right from the time the customer places and order and then the entire Logistics value chain which starts from the logistics procurement the pre-booking the booking the track and Trace and the entire value chain until the freight payments and the freight audits are done we're looking at it as a single Journey we are measuring uh you know the performance of that Journey as a single parameter end to end and not look at individual pockets and we are taking into consideration the challenges and the problems that lie at every point in that orchestration journey and solving it from Bottoms Up and not bringing in a a top-down view which means that start with the visibility of maybe how uh where are your challenges but start from the bottom where we are solving the problem and as a as a natural outcome uh to that you get a visibility or a control tower which shows you how well you're doing and and you are able to predict certain areas or certain challenges in your journey and you are able to preempt and predict and solve some of those problems much earlier than it becomes when it becomes a very big problem at the end uh yes Gabby I think Samuel has described it very well but I'll again give it a bit of a real while a real world spin in terms of how you know we look at orchestration I mean obviously it comes from the word Orchestra and when you think about uh what happens within an orchestra is that there are multiple players involved each one has got one instrument that they play and uh They're all playing in in harmony with each other and there is the conductor of the orchestra who is basically making sure that everyone plays their part to be able to make sure that you know you have good music Logistics is very similar there are multiple stakeholders involved in the end-to-end process each of these stakeholders has a role to play and there is a strong interdependency between each of these players which requires them to make sure that they not only play their part but they also a hand over once they have completed their phase of the activity with a certain set of information with a certain set of documents to the next person so this whole ability to be able to do this if efficiently effectively and in harmony end to end is really what Logistics is all about so the term orchestration is actually a very apt use of the word because that is really what the world of logistics is all about now the challenges which the the modern day supply chains face is that the need for that orchestration to be in perfect harmony with each other is greater now than ever before there is just so little room for error there's so much interdependency between what happens in each step of the process and therefore having the ability to orchestrate your International Logistics end-to-end has just grown significantly so I think it's a term which is being used very correctly by the industry it is not one of those you know buzzwords that people have come up with and you know just trying to use it in a salesy manner so I think it's very important that it is thought about as an process of orchestration and the fact that logisticians need the tools to be able to efficiently and effectively Orchestra absolutely it ties back to your earlier point and you know Adolf I want to switch gears a little bit here by asking you by all of the experience that you've had you know what's the best way to get a business case for Logistics Tech Over The Line yeah that's a that's a really good question and I'll I'll say this that it it varies by company but there are certain fundamental elements Gabby which uh which absolutely come into play in every organization I think the first thing is for for an organization to think about is what is the outcome that they're looking for from technology because at the end of the day uh the purchase of technology or the investment in technology is really the process of buying an outcome that's what it is so to be able to get the deployment of logistics technology or the approval of the c-suite to deploy technology within an organization the first thing an organization needs to do or its leadership needs to do is Define clearly the outcomes that they're looking for that's the first step the Second Step they have to understand is what do they need to do to accomplish that outcome and typically it ends up being a combination of people process and Technology the three things that they need to do the next aspect is to be able to to actually engage with the stakeholders who play different roles within the organization so whether it's your planning teams your operations teams your your supply chain groups whatever the teams may be to be able to understand what their problem sets are and what outcomes they can expect as a process of deployment of technology and through a combination of all of this a company has to be able to go and and present clue it's c-suite as to what is the outcome that they can expect in these different areas and it's not about hey you know we're on this digitalization journey so now we need to invest X number of dollars to be able to to deploy this orchestration technology as an example it will never fly any CEO any CFO will look to understand what is the ROI that they can expect to receive on this any CEO as an example would want to know how their operations or projects are going to get more efficient than it used to be before any any Chief compliance officer would like to know how the business is going to be more compliant as a process of the introduction of new technology anyone who's at a desk level wants to know how does this make my life easier as compared to what I do today so being able to define the ROI being able to make sure that the deployment of Technology resonates at every tier of the organization where every stakeholder at that strategic level of tier understands as to how that is going to positively impact them or their function in a good way is really what leadership needs to do and it's a process of bringing all of this together and packaging it well to be able to make the business case effectively is what is critical so it's not a straightforward process and very often times what we see is that sometimes leaders have all good intentions of doing this they believe in their minds that that this is going to benefit them which is generally true but if they're not able to spelled out and articulate the value proposition in a very effective manner then unfortunately it meets with resistance as it goes through different levels of the organization well you know so now this last question goes out to you but for those organizations that you're seeing adapt and take advantage of these new technologies what sort of outcomes are you ultimately seeing I think this is uh you know in continuation to what at all said I think it's very important uh you know for organizations to understand what they have set out to achieve I think supply chain for many years or traditionally has been focused on cost but I think what has changed I would say in the last decade or so is customers are looking to move away from cost Focus to an experience focused and thereby some of the outcomes that they're trying to achieve as part of their supply chain transformation or Logistics transformation have changed I think where we are able to help with with because we have experience across Industries across multiple customers and regions and we understand the nuances some of the benchmarks of the industry where we are able to help the customer is exactly those three areas where at all said you know they need to strategize before they embark on this journey which is identifying what are these outcomes that will create the largest value or the best value for them as an organization it is not only about cost but what is the value that those outcomes can achieve so help them Define those outcomes help them understand what are some of these underlying challenges across the different stakeholders within their organization and then guide them as a true partner in this in in terms of what are realistic outcomes and what are some aspirational outcomes that they should be targeting so it is not about the customer prescribing a certain solution to us but I think E2 log Wipro and our customers are true Partners in that Journey where we are able to guide them through our experience to for to achieve the best outcome and the best business value for their organization I think that is that is the key uh you know key perspective that we try to educate our customers with and I think we've seen the most success when we work together as partners all right well that wraps up the podcast for today so a big thank you to Adolf and Sunil for joining us today on this episode of Simply if you want to learn more about these topics and more they're actually going to be speaking live at the Gartner supply chain Symposium and which is going to be in London on the 29th of September so be sure to check that out if you want to learn some more and look for this conversation on Spotify Apple music or wherever it is you get your podcast at thanks so much for tuning in and thank you Ada from Sunil foreign [Music]

2023-01-10 04:02

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