| | JULY 20168Consultants ReviewCXO INSIGHTSNext Big Things in Supply Chain Industry ­ A Retail PerspectiveBy Mahesh Khetan, Astt Vice President, Aditya Birla Fashion & Retail Ltd (Pantaloons Division)Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Ltd. (ABFRL) emerged after the consolidation of the branded apparel businesses of Aditya Birla Group comprising ABNL's Madura Fashion division and ABNL's subsidiaries Pantaloons Fashion and Retail (PFRL) and Madura Fashion & Lifestyle (MFL) in May 2015. Mahesh Khetan has wide experience in Supply Chain Management, performs assessments of Business Excellence and World Class Manufacturing, designs Business Excellence Framework for Retail/Service industry at Pan India level.he consumer expectations have evolved to a great extent in the recent past. From a brick and mortar store being the only point of contact to order/collect/return the goods, now the consumers wish to have multiple channels and expect inter-convertibility between the channels at various stages of their purchase lifecycle. This poses tremendous challenges to the supply chain industry, particularly in a retail sector. Managing inventory and demand across all channels separately, cross channel reallocation of inventory, pooling of demand across all channels and integration of logistics for all channels are the next big things in the supply chain industry. This requires greater automation of inventory planning and high level of technical collaboration between stores, warehouses as well as logistics partners. Global megatrends are no longer business dependant. Building long term sustainability in supply chain strategy is needed to future proof the business. Needs for consultants are felt much more now than in the past due to these challenges. To get to the root of the supply chain issues and improve supply chain visibility one might want to consider hiring a consulting firm. Ways in which a consultant can help an organization gain supply chain visibility:Make up for lack of in-house Expertise Some organizations may not have supply chain specialists on hand to assess partner networks, identify choke points and drive improvement. Small and mid-market companies, in particular, tend to lack supply chain troubleshooting skills. A consultant can help enhance supply chain to eliminate bottlenecks and integrate rapidly with supply chain partners. Resources Augmentation - Companies often have short to medium-term staffing needs (in the case of government work, this can extend for several years) due to a variety of factors (e.g. recent downsizings, sudden expansion). Consultants in this situation "plug a hole" for the company by filling the role of full-time employees. While expensive, it's a common work for operational consultancies and to a lesser extent, for government consultancies. T12
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