ISMM represented at IFPSM’s APCON 2013

The International Federation of Purchasing and Supply Management’s Asia Pacific Council Meeting and the Indian Institute of Materials Management’s APCON 2013 International Conference were held from 16 to 18 May at the Sheraton, Bangalore.

The ISMM delegation consisting of Past President and Senior delegate G.A. Hidelaratchi, Alternate Delegate and President of ISMM Anil Ponweera, Maj. Gen. T. Sivashanmugam USP (Past President), Director Training Dr. Kingsley Wickremasuriya, Vice Presidents Noel Wickremasinghe and Gayani de Alwis, Asst. Secretary Mr. Lal Weerasinghe and Council members Sarath Gamage, and Dimuka Hemantha and Lt. (S) Priyangani Jayasundara attended same. The theme for the conference was ‘Unleashing innovation in value chain to drive business growth’.

The Conference was inaugurated by the National President of IIMM Subbakrishna with Chairman of APCON Lovekar presenting the theme of the conference and the reason for selecting same. The keynote speech was delivered by R.S. Sodhi, MD of Amul India who spoke about ‘cow to consumer’ 365X2 value chain.  

Amul was the brainchild of Dr. Vergese Kurien who made the white revolution in India with his milk value chain which now has grown to a huge supply chain network. The Amul supply chain deals with 3.2 million farmers in 17,000 villages, producing milk in 49 dairy plants with a throughput of 20 million pouches of milk reaching the population across India daily.

The uniqueness of Amul SC is that they manage all four types of distribution (frozen, chilled, ambient and fresh). He also opined that to unleash innovation in the value chain, it must start from the beginning of the chain. Their milk train which delivers 800,000 litres of milk to Kanpur once a week throughout the year is something that is unique and one of a kind – they claim it is world’s first.

This was followed by the Chief Guest’s address Gopal Singh, MD of Central Coal fields. Singh was also presented with the most distinguished CEO award from IIMM.

At the end of the session, the National President of IIMM recognised all the foreign delegates by calling each delegation to the stage and presenting the delegates with garlands. When the Sri Lankan delegation was called and garlanded, ISMM President Anil Ponweera presented C. Subbakrishna, the National President of IIMM, with a plaque in appreciation of the successful conclusion of the conference and facilities provided to the delegations.

Post morning tea, an open session was conducted with a panel discussion on the theme ‘Unleashing innovation for business growth’. Technical sessions were held post lunch themed ‘Value chain for fuelling growth’ and ‘Role of IFPSM in promoting supply management profession’. The latter was delivered by Mary Lewis, Director General of IFPSM.  

The talk by Prof. Anil Gupta on open source innovation was an eye opener and a new concept for the audience. His honeybee network of open innovation platform consists of a pool of 157,000 projects in a repository (www.techpedia.in).

Another interesting speech was made by the CEO of the lifestyle retail chain Reliance India, Bijon Kurien. He noted that the market in India is worth $ 500 billion and is the second biggest in Asia and organised retailing contributes to 7% of the market. It also employs 8% of the workforce in the country and contributes to 11% of India’s GDP.

The retail value chain is different to other value chains: The chain consists of plan, buy/make, move and sell on B2B and B2C value chain platforms. He concluded his presentation by identifying the critical success factors of the value chain and how challenges could be overcome with a change in mindset, towards innovation. The day ended with a technical session on leveraging technology for innovation in value chain.

A conference dinner and cultural show was held on the first day at the WTC building where IIMM awards were presented to eminent professional who have contributed to the profession in the areas of material management, logistics and procurement.

Day two commenced with the keynote address delivered by Ushari T., Senior VP of Manhattan Associates, and the distribution of souvenirs and awards, followed by four technical sessions. They were themed as follows: ‘Building a culture of continuous innovation’, ‘Innovation through collaboration’, ‘Continuous learning for skill development’ and ‘Excellence in value chain- tools and apps’.

A technical visit was arranged in the afternoon for foreign delegates to the WIPRO and INFOSYS campuses.

The IFPSM Council Meeting was held on 18 May and was attended by delegates from Hong Kong, Thailand, Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka and the Philippines in the presence of Director General of the IFPSM Mary Lewis. Each country representative presented a review on their chapters.  

The President of ISMM gave an overview of the ISMM’s activities and its progress. Prof. Stephen Ng, IVP, made a presentation on effective SC from a CEO’s perspective. The Indonesian delegate presented their public procurement reform framework which was a progressive approach that they started with the institute together with the government. The Philippines’ senior delegate presented the work done on PMI in their country.

Topics discussed at the meetings included learning outcomes, a presentation by Past President of the IFPSM Ashok Sharma on SC status and standards in India – he spoke about traditional and corporate SC in India citing ‘dabawala’ (tiffin carriers) and ‘akshaya patra’ (school meal program) case studies, a presentation by Ashok Sharma, GM of Procurement, Wipro Technologies on procurement processes and procedures in the IT and software industries and future trends, ethics survey results and findings and how we should ensure code of ethics among our members and professional in the industry and the Procurement Manager’s Index (PMI) update.

The next IFPSM world congress will be held in Bangkok from 20 and 21 September 2013 and the congress theme ‘Power through synergy – developing your association through difficult times’, was shared with the delegates at the meeting. The Thai team informed the gathering that the PSMT conference will be held prior to the world congress on 17 September. The IFPSM board meeting and Asia Pacific council meeting will be held on 18 and 19 respectively.

The Sri Lankan delegation attended the meeting as observers. It was agreed that the ISMM will start PMI and also work on the ethics framework.