Guest Lecture: Mr. Manoj Soni (President-Suppy Chain, Jubilant Life Sciences Ltd)

SCM starts and ends with the customer

Supply chain is always considered an important factor of any business, more so for a manufacturing organization and future managers should have familiarity with this aspect. DoMS, IIT Roorkee got an opportunity on 23^rd Jan 2013 to strengthen the knowledge and listen to Mr. Manoj Soni, President – Supply Chain at Jubilant Life sciences Ltd. Mr. Soni is an engineering graduate from NIT Jamshedpur and having two decades of experience in Supply Chain and Operations.

The session started with welcoming Mr. Manoj Soni by Dr. S. Rangnekar, HoD, DoMS. Then Mr. Soni is introduced to the department, its values and strengths. Afterwards the session began with a note that supply chain is an integral part of any business. Contrary to popular belief of being it between suppliers to buyers, it actually starts and ends with the customer. Mr. Soni mentioned Walmart as an example to explain how supply chain can do wonders for an organization. According to him, Supply Chain Management (SCM) is not only about cost effectiveness but is also related to agility and adaptability where interests are aligned with the customers.

He also emphasized that one should not only understand SCM of its own organization but also of competitors in order to provide better value. Dominos delivery deadline of 30 minutes is given as an example to describe the case. Then the speaker talked about SCOR measurement. He said that it is vital to measure the effectiveness in quantitative terms. The SCOR model has four functions of planning, sourcing, making and delivering functions. This model captures more than 100 matrices though organizations usually work on 50-75 matrices. Mr. Soni stated that planning function is the most important among all of them. The session was concluded with a stress on the need of customer profiling.

A question-answer round was followed after the question. The students had put a diverse range of questions related to ethical, operational, environmental, safety and human related aspects. These queries were aptly responded by Mr. Soni by citing Jubilant as an example. He opined that leakage in supply chain occurs mainly due to the absence of a proper control mechanism. He spoke about some of the unethical practises in pharmaceutical companies. Another main concern is lack of discipline in India to which speaker suggested greater regulations a way forward. The discussion began to end on this note.

Overall it was an enlightening and satisfying session and students got an opportunity to learn firsthand experience of supply chain management. This session proved immensely helpful their professional growth.