Monday, 26 May 2014 00:00
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5 foreign supply chain specialists to address the key topics
Following the successful inaugural Colombo Supply Chain forum in 2013, Next Institute of Supply Chain Management (NISCM, the organisers) have confirmed that the event for 2014 will be held on 17 and 18 June.
The 2014 conference will have a mixture of foreign and local speakers. The event is planned for two days covering eight major and very relevant supply chain topics for the Sri Lankan business environment (both for companies operating in the domestic and international markets).
Elaborating on the Conference, NISCM Director Kumudu Abeyawardane stated, “The theme of this year’s conference is centred on delivering a winning customer value proposition with a least cost supply chain. During the conference areas discussed would consist of examining, whether customers are at the heart of designing and executing an organisations supply chain, the impact of disloyal customers, are we ready for the fast exploding on line channel. Also looked at will be where our supply chain and people are against the back drop of these key emerging challenges and what have to do to achieve world class levels.”
“To help address these challenges, the speakers will be looking at case studies and evaluating how well known companies in the west have addressed it as well have how some of our Sri Lankan companies have achieved world class levels.
The two day program will be structured on four key themes. The first would be to ‘Plan & Target’ that would be about an organisations customer value proposition and developing a clear supply chain strategy for growth.”
“The second would be about ‘Source & Select’. This topic will shine a light on what is world class procurement and how the on line channels can enable an organisation to take significant costs out of their supply chains.
The third would be on ‘Order & Deliver’ that will cover the impact of logistics and give a deep insight into some of the best known retail supply chains.
The fourth and final section would be on ‘Trade & Improve’. This topic would cover operations management and how to maximise the return on your supply chain assets and at the same time keep operating costs to a minimum. All this is not possible without the right supply chain talent . Hence the forum will also look at how the best are extracting the most out of their people.”
Abeyawardane, went on to add, “This year we are very lucky to have reputed speakers from very large and reputed organisations facilitating the sessions. We will have the former head of supply chain of Tesco (the biggest supermarket chain in the UK), Head of Program management for Kingfisher Global sourcing (the second biggest home improvement company in the world), Category commercial director for B & Q and the head of Digital at Coats PLC.”
“One foreign and one local speaker will facilitate each topic. This will give the participants an insight into both international and local best practices, the latest trends and the key challenges faced by Sri Lankan organisations. We are proposing to spend one to two hours on each topic giving adequate time for the participants to ask questions and more importantly create an environment for discussion and debate to flourish,” she added.
This is a great opportunity to understand how big names like Tesco, Nike and Kingfisher have addressed these challenges but also to discuss how this impacts Sri Lankan companies and also how to adopt these best practices. Finally, as these big companies source majority of their products from emerging markets, we will also have a great understanding of what is expected from our supply chains that exports to foreign markets.
For further information log on to www.next.Ik or contact: Kumudu Abeyawardane , Director - NEXT Institute of Supply Chain Management, 320 TB Jayah Mawatha, Colombo 10 or email: [email protected].