August 2014 - Quiz

The Quiz event organised by OPEP - The Operations and Supply Chain Management Club at IIM Raipur on the 21st of August 2014 saw an overwhelming response from the participants.The quiz has four rounds i.e,MCQs,connecting pictures,latest operations related questions and rapid fire questions.The event witnessed over 40 teams taking part, including both first year and second year students.

COGITATE - Crossword Key

INDUSTRIAL VISIT - JSPL

Industrial visits provide a welcome opportunity for us management students away from the gruelling academic sessions and rushing deadlines to gain a hands on experience of a plant functioning.

Continuing the tradition, the OPEP club organized the industrial visit for the current academic sessions for the whole 2013-15 PGP and 2013 FPM Batch at Jindal Steel & Power Limited Raipur Plant. The visit was scheduled from 9th Dec to 11th Dec 2013. Due to the large number of participants this year, the visit was conducted in three batches to facilitate the smooth conduct of the visit.

JSPL Raipur Plant is located 13 km from Raipur and operates as the machinery division. The plant is spread over an area of around 162000 m2 and manufactures critical equipment such as cranes, pressure vessels, ladles, and other steel castings used in steel, power, cement, and mining industries. The facilities available at the plant are steel foundry, centrifugal casting, machine shop with latest CNC machines, fabrication & assembly shops, shot-blasting, paint booth, heat treatment furnaces, etc.

The visiting batches of the students were given a brief introduction about JSPL and the machinery division by a panel of marketing, operations and safety managers of the plant. This was followed by a guided tour of the facility in small groups. The plant is divided in four units based on the processes such as casting, forging, machining and assembly. 

EQUINOX 4.0 Presents Cogitate

Cogitate is a case study event. The competition will be conducted online where the contestants apply their knowledge to provide practical solution to tackle Industrial problems. It will provide a platform to experience real time industry situations involving operations and supply chain. 

The event will be conducted in two stages.

Prelims: Online crossword competition (20*20) Duration 30 minutes

Finals: Case study, Cases will be mailed to the contestants who clear the prelims

Rules of the Game

1. The event is open to B – school students only
2. A team should comprise of two members from the same B-School
3. No changes in the team will be allowed after the registration
4. A participant can be a part of one team only
5. If any conflict arises, the decision of the organizing committee shall remain final and binding
6. In case of any query please contact the event coordinators.

Deadline for Registration - 8th December 2013

Cogitate - Register here
Contact
Vana - +91 8349501058

OPERATIONS AND SCM QUIZ

August 2013 - Quiz

The Quiz event organised by OPEP - The Operations and Supply Chain Management Club at IIM Raipur on the 18th of August 2013 saw overwhelming response from the participants. The event witnessed over 30 teams taking part, including both first year and second year students.

XPLORYZE 2.0- Case Study Competition

XPLORYZE is the flagship event of OPEP club conducted as part of IIM Raipur’s Annual Business  & Cultural Fest 'EQUINOX'. It is a case analysis competition in which teams from premium B-schools of the country compete against each other. The event was organised by Anubhav Sood and Abhijeet Srivastav, members of OPEP club. The case involved entry of a new retail store chain in Raipur. Students were to analyse the case based upon the data & situations given in case and come out with choice of location, format, layout & merchandising strategy.  In the first round, students from all B-schools across the country were invited to send their case analysis. On the basis of the analysis top 5 teams were to be selected for presenting their solution in front of judges and audience at IIM Raipur camps.  This time we had a total of 37 entries in the first round out of which top 5 teams were selected to present their analysis in the on-campus finale.

OPERATIONS & SCM QUIZ

                         

OPERATIONS QUIZ

As part of quiz series OPEP Club IIM Raipur organised an Operations Quiz on 30 August 2012 at Raipur campus. Students from 1st year and 2nd year participated in the event. The event got overwhelming response. More than 20 teams participated in event.

LATEST ISSUE OF STRIVE LAUNCHED

Strive, the biannual publication from OPEP (the Operations and Supply Chain Club of IIM Raipur), was launched on 24th of November, 2012, by Prof. B S Sahay, Director, IIM Raipur; Prof. Sanjeev Prashar, Chairman (Placement & Corporate Communication) IIM Raipur; Mr. Abraham Ranji, Director – HR, Delphi, along with other dignitaries during the Management Confluence 2012.

The first issue of the second volume of Strive magazine is a special issue on Manufacturing. Strive, was initiated last year to create a platform where experts from academia as well as industry and corporate world could contribute their views, opinions and experiences about the contemporary issues and challenges in the field of Operations and Supply Chain Management. It also represents an opportunity for the students of IIM Raipur to voice their interests, views and relevant experiences.

The main features of this publication include articles on Taguchi’s Design of Experiment by Prof. Maddulety, NITIE, Operations strategy by Dr. Dinesh Likhi, Director (Production and Marketing) and Member, Board, in Mishra Dhatu Nigam Limited and the views of Mr. Jawaharlal Aggarwal, Vice President (Projects), Danieli India Ltd., on project management in the steel industry.

From left: Prof. B S Sahay, the Director of IIM Raipur; Mr. Abraham Ranji, Director – HR, Delphi; Prof. Sanjeev Prashar, Chairman (Placement & Corporate Communication); Subhash Kumar, PGP 1^st year student

The publication also includes articles written by students about some of the contemporary issues in the manufacturing sector – ‘National Manufacturing Policy’- discusses the new manufacturing policy of the country. ‘Dark ages of Manufacturing’ discusses the challenges that stand in the way of the growth of the sector.

The emerging areas presented in the magazine are the impact of FDI on the manufacturing sector, the column Gurumantra which explains Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) and a debate on the importance of having a significant manufacturing base in an economy. Also included in the publication are the summer internship experiences shared by 2nd year PGP students of IIM Raipur, a book review of “The Toyota Way” and a brief account of a visit to Bhilai Steel Plant by IIM Raipur students.

The launch of the magazine was part of the Management confluence 2012, organized by the Indian Institute of Management Raipur. The efforts of the club in contributing to the sharing of knowledge on fields related to Operations and Supply Chain Management and bringing together the various aspects of and challenges in the Manufacturing sector were appreciated by Prof. Sahay, faculty and the dignitaries who were present on the occasion.

The magazine will now be available for students of all B-schools across India and abroad and also for industry-relevant professionals.

Future Supply Chains: on Cloud Nine with Cloud Computing

Last month, Pfizer, one of the major global pharmaceutical giants, completed transforming its complex and sensitive supply chain into a robust, more efficient and well-insulated one by moving it to “the cloud”. Needless to say, Pfizer isn’t the first company to do it. Philips, DHL, Nestle and Hewlett Packard are some of the other organizations who are already enjoying the fruits of mounting their respective supply chains on “the cloud”, and many more are likely to follow suit.

Let’s start by understanding the definition of cloud computing or “the cloud”. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), U.S. Department of Commerce, defines cloud computing as follows:
“Cloud computing is a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.”

The above definition is a brief, but somewhat exhaustive description in itself about the underlying benefits and attributes of this technology. It is widely believed that cloud computing could be the answer to the following woes of the modern supply chains:

1. Increasing Complexity: Globalization and internet have made it possible for organizations to build huge, global supply chains. But to manage them is a whole different game. And as these networks get more complicated and bulky, they might even fail to meet the very purpose they were built for. “The cloud” enables seamless sharing of information between the many partners (vendors, suppliers, buyers etc.), hence allowing them to function in sync with each other and take quick decisions to maximize profitability and efficiency of the whole supply chain.
2. High Set Up Costs: Cloud computing allows one to do away with the otherwise essential expenses - procurement of expensive software, building and maintaining infrastructure and hiring people to operate the system. So it is much cheaper and easier to set up. Besides, it allows the popular “pay as you use” model. All of this while providing any time access to the services.
3. Problems with Legacy Apps: The traditional on-premise enterprise software solutions are called legacy applications. Though in many cases, they might be good enough to handle the supply chain challenges at the present, the pace of change is high in this field. And upgrading legacy apps can be very tedious. Modern cloud based solutions are built to be highly configurable and adaptable in anticipation of rapid changes in the business.
4. Rising Competition: The famous adage “Organizations don’t compete, supply chains do” could have never been more correct. Since cloud computing is known to enhance the efficiency and productivity of the supply chain, it provides a significant edge over the competition. It has already been established that this technology will only accelerate the speed with which new products and service reach the markets.
5. Low Flexibility: Each organization or business has its own requirements that it expects its supply chain to meet. Going back to the case of Pfizer, it is worth mentioning that the company competes in two distinct drug markets – “patented” and “generic”. While the former calls for speedy and agile delivery strategies, even at higher costs, eg. overnight air delivery, the latter favours highly optimized logistics and tight control over inventory. Cloud computing ensures that the supply chain is flexible and adaptable enough to cater to such varied needs of the organization.


Now that we have listed almost all the benefits that come with “the cloud”, a few words of caution wouldn’t hurt.
1. Implementing cloud technology might require a lot of time (Pfizer took 18 months). More importantly, the decision to go for it usually involves several partners in the supply chain, which makes it vulnerable to even minor conflicts between these parties.
2. It should not be taken for granted that cloud computing would fit all the requirements of any supply chain or organization. Meticulous research is advisable.
3. Security of data could be a problem in cloud-based supply chain. This factor has gained even more prominence with some recent events which indicate the importance of securing one’s intellectual property.

In conclusion, it can be said that for most organizations, switching to cloud-based supply chain is a matter of “when” rather than “if”.


References
1. http://www.supplychaindigital.com/outsourcing/cloud-computing-in-the-supply-chain
2. http://www.logisticsmgmt.com/article/cloud_computing_and_supply_chain_a_natural_fit_for_the_future/
3. http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/1608e5d6-fc59-11e1-ac0f-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2AfeOg9o8
4. http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/800-145/SP800-145.pdf


This article has been written by Akshay Agarwal. He is a PGP student of Indian Institute of Management, Raipur and has done his B.Tech from Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati. He can be reached at pgp11004.akshay@iimraipur.ac.in.

An Insight into Apple's Supply chain

Agility or the ability to respond quickly and effectively to market demands has become an important competitive tool in the manufacturing industry. Companies that deploy global sourcing strategies need to balance the monetary benefits against the limitations of off shore productions. Improving supply chain performance is a key to achieving this, and the improvement largely depends upon the degree to which uncertainty can be reduced in the supply chain. As the industry saying goes "A dollar saved in the Supply Chain is worth 10 in the books". Supply chain management is one of the most important element in any business. And if you are the world's biggest company, it is all the more daunting. Apple has forever been known for its innovative products and awe inspiring designs but one factor that differentiates Apple in terms of services is their supply chain know-how.

Operations expertise is as big an asset for Apple as product innovation or marketing. Apple's new CEO Tim Cook may not be Steve Jobs when it comes to stunning the world with product launches or marketing campaigns, but he excels in the unglamorous but certainly essential task of managing a supply chain. Apple's operational efficiency can be affirmed by this example. When Apple's design master Jonathan Iverealized that the new MacBook should have a green light beside the webcam to indicate when it is turned on, the manufacturing team deemed it near impossible as it was not possible to shine light through a metal and they did not have equipment to drill such a small hole into the aluminum. To conquer this problem, Apple bought laser equipment from a U.S based company at $250,000 each machine (of course with an exclusivity agreement!) This shows the amount of dedication for the supply chain at Apple for something so small and hardly ever noticed by the customer. Apple's success has been credited to their ability to look from a user point of view and then work the supply chain backwards.

Apple is a very American company in many respects. But, their supplier management is more reminiscent of the Japanese way of doing business. Apple has built a closed ecosystem where it exerts control over nearly every piece of the supply chain, from design to retail store. This coupled with the volumes Apple operates today, brings in a ruthless cost efficiency which results in astonishing profit margins that competitors can only aspire to reach. When iPods sales were at a peak in the early 2000s Apple started shipping directly to the customer from their Chinese manufacturing factories, thereby reducing heavy logistics and airfreight costs. In their retail operations, teams are given the go ahead to spend what ever is required to get around a bottleneck of not availability or defective items.

Weeks before the famed Apple product launches, key part manufacturers and assembling units work overtime to meet the announced date of delivery. To see through that before launch there are no fallacies in their secrecy Apple places electronic monitors in few boxes of parts that allow observers in Cupertino to track them through Chinese factories, an effort meant to discourage leaks. Manufacturing is where Apple really flexes its financial muscle to deal with suppliers. They select their suppliers through a very stringent process, which even requires them to declare the profit margin that they acquire by this agreement. Apple's bargaining tactics coupled with their financial muscle allows them to consume all of the supplier effort and concentration that rival companies' wait time for key parts is increased massively. Before the release of the iPhone 4 in 2010 many of mobile manufacturers were not in a position to source their requirement of screens, as most of the screen manufacturers were busy fulfilling their Apple contracts.

But Apple is not all about the pie, there is a dark side to the story too. Data suggests that 3% of supply chain workforce was putting more than 60 hours a week into assembling Apple products at Foxconn, China. Apple has been criticized for the appalling working conditions and army style discipline at the plant. Although these were actually better than many of the other plants in China and most of the multi-national manufacturing operates in these conditions in other parts of the country, Apple has been made a lightning rod for the issue given its reputation as the world's largest company. Responding to this criticism Apple announced a wage increase of 25% for workers at Foxconn and also declared that it will be increasing the staff from 500,000 to 800,000.

With such efficiency in the supply chain, Apple is able to earn huge profit of upto 40% while positioning at a similar price range as the competitors, who earn far lesser profit margins. With operations experts like Tim Cook at the helm as CEO and with over $100 billion dollars in cash reserves with continuous investment into operational efficiency, things are looking brighter than ever in the supply chain at One Infinite Loop. This emphasis on efficiency is set to keep Apple poised at the zenith of technology industry for a long time.

And yes we agree with Tim Cook, nobody wants to buy sour milk.

References
http://www.zdnet.com/apples-real-iphone-5-ace-its-supply-chain-7000004214/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/22/apple-supply-chain-tim-cook_n_1905674.html
http://www.computerweekly.com/news/1280092935/Apple-retains-the-best-supply-chain
http://www.idownloadblog.com/2012/09/29/three-percent-of-apples-supply-chain-workforce-doing-60-hours-a-week/

The article has been contributed by Varun Bora, who is presently a first year PGP student at IIM Raipur.  His areas of interest include adventurous sports & technology.  He can be reached at pgp12012.varun@iimraipur.ac.in.

5S in Manufacturing

A work place organization method, developed to, create a comfortable working environment, increase productivity and efficiency and reduce waste. It is typically the first lean method, which also provided foundation on which other lean methods – six sigma, cellular manufacturing, just-in-time production, etc. were introduced.

The 5S methodology which originated in Japan, is based on the notion that the foundation of a good production system is a clean and safe work environment. The 5S – Seiri, Seiton, Seiso, Seiketsu and Shitsuke are translated from Japanese language to the closest English equivalents - Sort, Set in order, Shine, Standardize, and Sustain. Apart from the 5S’s, three other S’s are sometimes included – Safety, Security and Satisfaction. 

SORT – (seiri)

Organizing the work area, by keeping only the essential tools and materials to perform the required task, so as to increase the product quality and productivity. Sorting also helps reclaim valuable floor space. “Red tagging” is one effective visual method used for sorting (Red-tagged items are those not important to perform the required task).

SET IN ORDER – (seiton)

Systematically arranging necessary objects to eliminate waste in production and clerical activities. Placards to designate proper storage locations, outlining work areas are few of the strategies for effective set in order.

SHINE – (seiso)

Maintaining clean and well swept work area, which is safer and mess-free. Potential problems caused by any sources of contamination can be easily identified and rectified, by developing standards and norms for cleanliness.

STANDARDIZE – (seiketsu)

Developing and formulizing standard operating procedures for carrying out tasks and procedures. Orderliness is the core of “standardization”. The most widely used tools to standardize the practices are job cycle charts and visual cues.

SUSTAIN – (shitsuke)

It is the one that keeps the first four S’s going and perhaps is the most difficult S to implement. The prerequisites for sustaining the 5S cycle - Imparting the necessary training, encouraging workers to properly maintain and continuously improve operating procedures and the workplace environment.

5S – Its application at a manufacturing company – Toyota

Toyota was the first company to implement 5S and the main objectives to adopt 5S were to facilitate team work, eliminate wastes that contribute to errors, defects and injuries. The company had implemented 5S by imparting the necessary training to the workforce from the shop floor to the management and rewarded to encourage them, to maintain and continuously improve operating procedures.

5S being one of the important principles of Toyota company, helped it achieve high performance that continues to add value to customers.

Though 5S is a system designed to build a work ethic that is practical, efficient and highly disciplined, it has a few potential short comings like increased use of paints and cleaning supplies, increased waste generation leading to complications in waste handling. However, the advantages of 5S far outweigh the disadvantages. 

The article has been contributed by Sujitha Tikka, who is presently a first year PGP student at IIM Raipur. She has worked with Aarvee Associates architects engineers & Consultant Pvt Ltd for 25 months. Her areas of interest include Supply chain management & logistics.She can be reached at pgp12048.sujitha@iimraipur.ac.in.

References

www.lmsi.ca/5s.htm

http://www.clamshellbeachpress.com/html/book1_sample.pdf

The 14 Principles of the Toyota Way: An Executive Summary of the Culture behind TPS

Impact of FDI in Retail: A 360-Degree View

There is whole lot of mayhem about FDI in retail ever since it knocked the doors of Indian Economy. The mere word “FDI” has haunted the corridors of parliament, big retail outlets, mom n pop store owners, the middle men and even the end consumers. The arguments citing the advantages of FDI in retail mostly revolve around the following:

• Improvement in Retail capability building
• Improvement in management of supply chain
• Push to productivity

With the recent development in this context, it is very much essential to analyse the impact of FDI in retail without any bias. To cut the long story short:

What is FDI in Retail?

Now after all this media show, let’s try to figure out how it will affect entities across the supply chain.

Single Brand Retail: FDI investment till now was 0.03 % (INR 204 Cr) of total FDI investment from April 2000 to September 2011. This relaxation will increase FDI in retail sector through the entrance of new players (Foreign or Domestic), increase or buy outs in stake, M&A amongst existing single brand retailers, Joint ventures with foreign and existing players.

There will be sourcing norm of only 30% from local sources. This will lead to lower procurement locally. So MSME sector will lose but the luxury retail market will witness growth. This will surely lead to outflow of money from India. Growth in luxury retail market and low or no growth in MSME sector will lead to negligible employment generation.
Possibly, there will be changes in existing licensing/ distributor/ franchise arrangements being converted into joint ventures or complete buy out by foreign entrants.

Multi brand Retail: FDI here will lead to increased investments and growth in Indian retail sector. In this case too, new JV’s and M&A will be seen. Tactics of buying stakes or complete buyout will be played. This should provide options for existing Indian retail companies to raise long term capital for expansion.

This financial inflow will lead to development of retail infrastructure and value addition to the existing supply chain. The sector will see investment in setting up supply chain mechanism, transport infrastructure, cold storage, technology etc. This will directly enhance the operational efficiency of the entire supply chain.

Agriculture: The farmers/producers will be benefitted as they will get better price for their produce. Although the buy will be completely based on bulk buy i.e. entire stock based on quality. This means if the company decides to purchase only the quality produce then the not so good produce will find its way to local market (if it exists) or in garbage. Either way the farmer/producer will get paid for the quality produce. This in turn will encourage farmers/producer to improve their existing ways of farming/production. Again this will require investment in technology. 
Companies may go for contract farming and this again will lead to improvement in the method of farming by introduction of better seeds, better fertilizers, new farming equipment etc. provided by the companies.

FDI in retail to benefit the farmers & consumers

Middlemen: Another very visible impact will be the eradication of middlemen from the supply chain. It is usually believed that this would lead to lesser exploitation of the farmers/ producers and at the same time competitive process for the end consumers. But at the same time, the big retail brings in new breed of middlemen- quality controller, standardiser, certification agency, processor, packaging consultants etc. It is these middlemen who would now take their share from the farmers’ profits and the consumers’ savings.

Thus, it is premature to comment on how much the farmers and end consumers will gain out of this elimination of traditional middlemen and introduction of the new middlemen.

Employment: the Indian retail market is estimated to be around $ 400 billion with more than 12 million retailers employing 40 million people. A contrasting picture will be seen as the small retailers, “Kirana shops”, departmental stores etc. will find a tough time to compete or even exist in such scenario. In such scenario, the landless farmers or labours that turned into small time retailers will be worst hit. Government will have to face the question of how to compensate for their loss. This problem will further get intense considering the very low employability of such landless farmers/laborers. 
Another viewpoint is that the damage will not be so extensive as the big retailers will operate in the outskirts or in a very few locations in any city or town and the “Kirana shops” will co-exist in the interiors. In any of the cases, the sheer magnitude of impact to society will be intolerable.

What Retailers Think

Role of State government: As clarified by the central government, it will be on the state governments whether or not to allow multi-brand FDI in the respective state. But India, being a signatory to Bilateral Investment promotion and Protection Agreements (BIPAs), has to provide national treatment to the foreign investors. The fact that such agreements have been signed with more than 70 countries will certainly force the state governments to open up for big retailers.

It will be interesting to see the regulation norms set by the state governments as it will clearly guide the extent of FDI in their respective states. One thing is for sure that State government will be able to get more revenues by keeping FDI in place. But how that increased revenue will justify the lost livelihood of millions of people or what steps will the government take to minimize this loss.

India Speaks about FDI in Retail

Consumers: The consumer in this entire exercise will be delighted with increased number of choices, better quality and decreased prices due to tougher competition in the retail sector. But clearly the winners will be the foreign players who will able to make attractive market share and profits. The tale of FDI in retail sector may lead to monopolistic behaviour of retail players once the small time competitors are eliminated from the market.

References:

1.http://www.ey.com/IN/en/Industries/India-sectors/Retail---Wholesale/Retail_Expected-impact-of-FDI-in-Retail
2.http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/article3897906.ece
3.http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/industry-and-conomy/marketing/article3910402.ece

This article has been contributed by Harish Verma, who is presently a second year PGP student of IIM Raipur. He has worked with Essar Power Ltd. for 19 months. His areas of interest include project management, supply chain management & customer service. He can be reached at pgp11015.harish@iimraipur.ac.in.

Effect of Retail Channel Integration through use of IT

Most of the retailers now offer consumers with different channels to buy products. Consumers can buy products through traditional stores, online, mobile, call centres, kiosks etc. However these multiple channels have less integration with each other .For example, consumers dealing with the same organisation will find different pricing, inventories and policies depending on the channel being used. Moreover, the customer service personnel in the physical store may not be knowledgeable about the “in -store payment for online orders”, “in-store returns of online orders”, “online gift cards” etc for products brought through online. Since there is less integration with different channels, a consumer cannot pick the product from physical store which he/she has ordered through ecommerce site. These are the main issues faced by a consumer today due to lack of transparency between different channels within an organization. So it is the need of the retailers to provide consumer with cross-channel convenience.

IT is becoming one of the critical resources in multi channel service operations management as it provide share ability and reusability of information which is  necessary for business process integration. So it is important for the multi channel retailers to use IT effectively in integrating their activities. With retail chain integration, companies can provide advertising and publicity of one channel through another channel. This will encourage customers of one channel to use the others, and increase awareness of the different channels .For example, the physical store can be used as an advertising medium for the Website through brochures, receipts, carrying bags and posters. Likewise, the Website can provide contact information about the physical stores and announce in-store promotions.

 Some of the other major effects of retail channel integration through IT are as follows.

1. Offering customers to choose their preferred channel to buy and complete their purchases. In South Korea, Tesco’s Home Plus has found a way to help time-pressed commuters to shop on the go using their smart phones by building virtual stores on the platform of subway stations. Home Plus displayed images of food items  across the walls of train platforms and every item has a corresponding QR barcode associated with it. People waiting on the platform can scan the QR code of the required item using their mobile and adds products directly to their shopping cart. When the online purchase is done, it would be delivered to user’s home within hours.   

2. Ensuring the consistency of product and pricing information across different retail channels. This can be achieved by integrating product catalogues and ensuring that product descriptions, product categories, prices, and discounts are consistent in the various channels. It ensures the transparent flow of information between processes and reduces confusion arising from information inconsistencies

3. Providing customers to access information available in one channel from another channel. For example, the Website can allow customers to search for products available in the physical store through an integrated database. Likewise, information kiosks at the physical store can help customers search for product information, availability, and the store location of products from the Website. Information on real-time inventory can be made available online so that customers will not make wasted trips to the store when the product is not in stock.

4. Collecting customers online and offline transaction information and making it available across multiple channels. This increases the richness of the information available and the quality of services that can be provided. It allows the retailer to provide many value-added services such as personalized Web pages to users.

5. Providing services for customers to access service support in the channel of their choice. Support can be offered at physical stores for problems related to online purchases, such as allowing customers to return goods ordered online at a physical store and vice versa.

Bibliography

Lih-Bin Oha,Hock-Hai Teob, Vallabh Sambamurthy. The effects of retail channel integration through the use of information technologies on firm performance.

The article has been contributed by Thousif Mohammed, who is presently a first year PGP student at IIM Raipur. He has worked with TCS for 2 years. His areas of interest include Supply chain management & customer service.

IIM Raipur Launches Special Issue of Strive on Retail

On 11^th March 2012, the Operations and Supply Chain Club of IIM Raipur, OPEP, launched the second issue of its magazine Strive. This issue of Strive focuses on the Retail Sector, an area which has been in the headlines for quite some time and needs immediate attention. The Magazine was launched by Prof. B S Sahay, the Director of IIM Raipur, along with Mr. Satyan Mishra, Co-Founder & MD, Drishtee Foundation and Mr. Bahadur Ali, MD, IB Group. Prof. Sahay lauded the efforts of the club in bringing together the various aspects of and challenges in the retail sector in a special issue of the magazine.



From Left : Akshay Aggarwal, Rohit Bhagat (Editor, Strive) , Mr. Bahadur Ali (MD, IBGroup), Mr. Satyan Mishra (MD, Drishtee Foundation) , Prof. B.S. Sahay (Director, IIM Raipur) , Anshu Katiyar and Nitin Kuraien at the Launch.



Just as the inaugural issue, this issue of Strive has also been launched in a Tablet Friendly version which helps it to be viewed easily on smartphones and tablets. The magazine was launched on the second day of Enspirit 2012, the inaugural edition of the Entrepreneurship Summit of IIM Raipur. Other eminent personalities who graced the occasion were Mr. Abhishek Sinha, CEO, EKO India Financial Services, Mr. Nirmal Kumar, Founder, Nirmal Group, Mr. Snehanand Sinha, Advisor to Social Businesses, Mr. Phanindra Sama, CEO, Redbus, Mr. Rustam Sengupta, CEO, BOOND and Mrs. Rashmi Bansal, the well-known Author & Entrepreneur.

Speaking on this occasion the Editor of Magazine and a Second year student, Rohit Bhagat, highlighted the salient features of the magazine. The second issue of Strive contains articles from both academia and the industry with Companies like Jubilant Foodworks (formerly Domino’s

Pizza India Ltd.) and Technopak contributing articles for the magazine. The magazine features an exclusive interview of Mr Arvind Singhal, CMD, Technopak. Other noted contributors include Mr Ajay Kaul, CEO, Jubilant Foodworks, Prof. Bhalender Singh, Prof. Omkar Prasad Vaidya and Prof. Naval Bajpai.

Students have written articles on the role played by Farmers and Middle-Men in the Supply Chain, emergence of E-Tailing in India, Retail in China, Book Review of “It Happened in India” and Success stories of Amul and Walmart. The local challenge discussed in this issue is the upcoming Logistics Hub in Raipur. In addition to the earlier column on Summer Internship Experience, two more columns have been added. Through the column of Gurumantra, some relevant technical terms would be explained. In this issue, the RFID technology has been explained in details. The other column is a debate, where students have presented contrasting views on “Should India allow FDI in Retail?”

Rohit thanked his team for the successful release of the special issue of Strive. The magazine will now be available for students of all B-schools across India and abroad and also for Retail Professionals in the industry. To access the magazine, please click here.

Equinox ’12 Graced by Xploryze

Xploryze, the case study competition organized by Abhijeet Srivastava and Vishal Singh, members of the OPEP club and PGP 2011-13 students, proved to be a huge success.

The case presented to the candidates, written by Abhijeet, raises questions regarding the ethical dilemmas in medical profession – whether doctors should work for charity or for profits. It also asks the candidates to prepare a strategy for building and successfully running a hospital, while providing some details about the founders. The case is given below. 

Case Study: Xploryze

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In the first round of the competition, students from all over the country were invited to form teams of two and submit a short presentation on their proposed solution for the case. The event was a phenomenal success as entries were received from IIM Bangalore, IIM Rohtak, IIM Indore, IIM Raipur, NITIE Mumbai and SP Jain to name a few. The best four entries were selected and the teams were invited to IIM Raipur campus to present their case analysis and solutions in the presence of a judging panel and the students participating in Equinox ‘12. The members of the panel were Dr. Manish Mattoo, an ISB Hyderabad alumnus and Director of Fortis Escorts Hospital and Prof. O. S. Vaidya, Faculty of Operations & Supply Chain Management, IIM Raipur.

The presentations by the finalists reflected very meticulous research and in-depth analysis of an otherwise alien field (medical) with respect to management students. Each presentation was followed by a rigorous Q&A session where, along with the judges, other participants and students too got involved in the discussions. The first position was bagged by Team Chanakyas from NITIE Mumbai.

The judges lauded the OPEP club and the organizers for the successful completion of the event, which attracted such wide participation.

The winning presentation by NITIE Mumbai is given below.

Xploryze Case Solution by NITIE

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IIM Raipur Faculty and Students contribute Articles for Pan IIM Operations Magazine

The second edition of the Pan IIM Operations Magazine, “Opsworld” was released by Prof. Janat Shah, Director, IIM Udaipur during the International Operations Conference organized by Society of Operations Management at IIM Calcutta on 18th December 2011. The theme of the magazine is Sustainable Operations Management. The magazine would be hosted on SOM website alongside the prestigious operations management journals.

The magazine contains two corporate articles – one from Flipkart and the other from Ernst & Young. The magazine contains faculty as well as student opinion on Sustainability through two different sections. Also included are the general operations management articles in the General section.

The magazine can be downloaded from the following address as well. (http://paniimoperations.com/magazine/)

In the Editorial, The Editor in Chief has thanked IIM Raipur for their valuable support throughout the process.

In his article, “Jack of All Trades, Master of… Two”, Prof. Omkarprasad S Vaidya, Faculty in Operations Management and Quantitative Techniques Group at IIM Raipur has discussed some of the Management Problems and their possible solutions as a result of an interface of other streams with ‘Operations’ Management.    

Rohit Bhagat, a PGP 2010-12 Student of IIM Raipur has written an article on “Unique Challenges in Humanitarian Logistics”. The article starts with a description of the Disaster Profile of India and emphasises the need for research in the field of Humanitarian Logistics keeping in mind India’s risk profile. The article brings out the challenges that need to be addressed while undertaking humanitarian logistics.

Aditya Kumar Konathala and Amit Sharan Singh, PGP 2010-12 Students of IIM Raipur have discussed the positive impact of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) on Paddy Procurement and Public Distribution System (PDS) in Chhattisgarh in their article “ICT and Supply Chain Practices in PDS (Chhattisgarh)” .

Tarang Singhal, a PGP 2011-13 Student of IIM Raipur was a part of the Layout and Design Team.

IIM Raipur students win Second Position in Video Making Competition organized by NITIE

Chain to Excellence (C2X), The Supply Chain Interest group of NITIE Mumbai organized Optitude, a Video Making Competition. The participants were required to make a video on ‘Role of Supply Chain in Disaster Management’.

3 Students from IIM Raipur, Akshay Agarwal, Navjeet Sidhu and Rohit Bhagat participated in the Competition and won II Prize.  The winning team was from NITIE Mumbai.

This video starts with a description of the Disaster Profile of India and emphasises the need for effective Disaster Management using facts and figures. For instance, it has been found that according to the then UN Under-Secretary for Humanitarian Affairs (Jan Egeland): “In Niger in 2005, it would have cost $1 a day to prevent malnutrition among the children if the world had responded immediately. By July 2005, it was costing $80/day to save a malnourished child’s life.”

It is important to plan beforehand as during a disaster, Infrastructure is destabilised, Demand and Supply are unpredictable, last – mile connectivity is hampered and there is lack of coordination and training amongst the Relief Agencies.

An Effective Supply Chain can aid in Pre-Disaster by imparting Training and Education, Infrastructure Planning and Pre-Positioning of Resources. During a Disaster, Relief Operations need to be carried out and Last –Mile Connectivity for supply of food and medicine needs to be ensured. Post Disaster, Infrastructure needs to be rebuilt after cleaning the debris and communities need to be re-established.

P&G To Produce Locally

Though Procter and Gamble (P&G) is a world leader in FMCG, its market share in developing countries like India, China, Vietnam, Brazil etc. is meager in comparison to that of its archrival, Unilever. It is always anticipated that P&G will come out with a strategy which will make its products more affordable and competitive in the developing countries than its competitors. The recent decision of the company to stop the imports of major chunk of its products in India and to manufacture these products in India itself is one such step towards the goal mentioned above.

                                               

Till now, P&G imports most of its premium products manufactured in other countries to India for sale. The imports add an additional overhead to its products which put them on an unaffordable premium product shelves. The decision of P&G is to invest Rs. 700 crores to enhance the production capacity of P&G firms in India so that they can cater to the demands of its products and distribute them through its 1.3 million outlets across the country.

The localized production will help P&G in many ways. Firstly, it will save huge amounts of duties that it has to pay to the Government of India for importing its products. Secondly, the availability of large workforce at low price will further reduce the cost of production and will maximize the profits. Thirdly, it will also protect P&G from the fluctuation in the foreign exchange markets. It is obvious that when the currency of a country depreciates, it is the importers who have to bear the maximum loss as they could import only few items with the given amount in comparison to when currency appreciates. Fourthly, India has signed free trade agreements with many countries in Asia and Africa. P&G can take advantage of this to pump its products manufactured in India to these countries without any difficulties. In addition, it will also make P&G's Supply Chain more responsive by reducing the lead time for replenishment. As a result of which, the different elements of the Supply Chain i.e. retailers, dealers, manufacturer, suppliers etc. will have to maintain lower inventory levels, thus reducing inventory holding cost. All these factors will help in increasing the market share of P&G which in turn will improve its revenues.

But the biggest challenge for P&G would be to maintain the quality standards. Even the slightest degradation in the quality of its products might severely hurt its entire market shares in India. Moreover, it is a general perception among the Indian consumers that the imported products are better in quality. It would be a challenge for P&G to change this perception of the general Indian consumers.

No doubt that P&G has made a well calculated move by deciding to enhance the production of its premium and mass premium products in India. Whether it is going to be successful or not remains to be seen.

Reference

Article “P&G Plans Big Move, to Make More Locally” by Mr. Sagar Malviya in The Economic Times dated 14^th November 2011

The writer of this article, Abhay Shankar is a PGP student of Indian Institute of Management, Raipur and has done his B. Tech (Chemical Engineering) from BIT Sindri. Prior to joining IIM Raipur, Abhay was working at Vedanta Aluminium Ltd. Abhay can be reached at pgp11001.abhay@iimraipur.ac.in