Supply Chain Conference
On 27th February 2015, a Supply Chain Conference was organised at our Singapore campus with a
great success. This was 6th in the series of such conferences, which were organised in our Singapore
and Dubai campuses in the last 7 years. In the past, Supply Chain and Logistics fraternity have
supported all our events in Singapore as well as in Dubai. We had a similar overwhelming response
this time as well.
The conference was attended by more than 60 delegates comprising of senior representatives from
organisations like Dell, Accenture, HP, KMS, Infosys, Zalora, Cognizant, Servion, Singapore Logistics
Association, Philip Morris, Modec, DNV-GL, Bernhard-Schulte, Auric Pacific, Singapore Government,
and many others. The conference started with a very dynamic presentation by Jim McAdam,
Founder & CEO TVS – Asianics (Singapore) and former President and CEO of APL Logistics, Singapore,
highlighted the importance of investment in logistics infrastructure, which in turn boosts the brand
image of a nation for future investments. He cited the examples of China and Singapore in this
regard.
This was followed by presentation of S P Jain research on a very contemporary topic of “Investigating
the link between Supply Chain Performance on Brand Performance” by Dr. Rajiv Aserkar. It was an
exploratory study to investigate the linkage of Supply Chain performance and brand performance.
The Global Rankings of Top 25-supply chain published by Gartner and Global Rankings of Top Brands
published by Milward Brown Optimor-BrandZ Top 100 were considered to establish the link.
The findings were as follows•
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17 brands were investigated in total, which appeared consistently in Gartner’s top supply
chain list and Brandz Top 100 list for the past 5 years
They belonged to Technology, Retail, Food & Beverages, FMCG & Automobile sectors
Brands like Apple, HP, Cisco, Coca-Cola, Nokia, PepsiCo, Tesco, Walmart & Amazon showed
strong linkage between their supply chain and brand ranking
The reasons for this linkage ranged from demand shaping (Apple), efficient last mile delivery
(Amazon), acquisition of leading bottlers for better control over distribution (Coca-Cola &
PepsiCo), agile supply chains for speedy reaction to market demand (Cisco), inability to
develop smart phones leading to drop in demand (Nokia) & keen competition from ecommerce segment and inability to create effective online presence (Wal-Mart & Tesco)
Brands like Dell, Nike and Amazon showed a partial linkage
Brands like IBM, Intel, Toyota, Colgate-Palmolive and McDonald showed absolutely no
linkage
This topic found immense interest in the audience, which was apparent in the enthusiastic question
and answer session at the end of this presentation.
The two panel discussions moderated by Jim McAdam, CEO TVS-Asianics (Singapore) and former
President and CEO of APL Logistics, Singapore , and Paul Bradley, Chairman & CEO Caprica
International were much appreciated and were followed by lively question and answer sessions.
Paul Bradley previously served as President of Arshiya International headquartered in India and as
Managing Director of IDS International (a member of the Li & Fung Group of companies, Hong Kong).
Selected by the World Economic Forum as one of the forty "New Asian Leaders" and as “Asian
Supply Chain Manager of the Year” by Lloyds FTB Publications in 2004.
The first panel, which was moderated by Jim McAdam, had Michele Ferrario from Zalora, Sandy
Gopalan from Cognizant and Kumud Jha from Accenture. This panel discussed the supply chain
strategies that the organisations must adopt to ensure that the supply meets the demand from the
Supply Chain Conference
market. The panel concluded that if the organisations can attain high service levels, which are the
result of accurate demand forecasting, prudent inventory policies and efficient transportation
infrastructure, it would have a positive impact on the brand value of the organization. The panel
cited the examples of iconic companies like Apple, Amazon, Dell, McDonald and Wal-Mart.
The second panel discussion, which was moderated by Paul Bradley, had Alison Curry, an
independent Brand Consultant, M.R. Sunderesan from Dell and Dr. Rajiv Aserkar from S P Jain School
of Global Management. This panel discussed the Emerging Trends in Supply Chain Management.
The important trends, which emerged from this discussion were— technology trends like Internet of
Things, Cloud and Mobile Technologies and 3D Printing. In addition, Data Security, Regulatory
Compliance, Free Trade Area agreements and Near Sourcing trends were discussed.
The conference concluded with informal discussions among the participation over networking lunch,
which followed the conference.