18 February, 2020: The inaugural Supply Chain Startup Solutions (S³) conference, jointly organized by the Supply Chain Management Centre (SCMC) and NSRCEL, which are Centres of Excellence at IIM Bangalore, was held on Saturday (Feb. 14) and drew audience from diverse industry sectors, comprising established corporations and start-ups.
The delegates were welcomed by Prof. Jitamitra Desai, Chair, SCMC, and Prof. Venkatesh Panchapagesan, Chair, NSRCEL, explaining the rationale for organizing the conference and the expectations therefrom.
Corporate sponsors of SCMC made individual presentations on their respective businesses, pain points and expectations from startups to provide related solutions. Speakers included Dr. Radha Krishna, Supply Chain Strategic Program Manager, Intel Corporation, USA; Ramakrishnan S, Chief General Manager, IMM & PPP, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited, Mumbai; and Dr. Sabesan, Head – Knowledge Management, TVS Supply Chain Solutions Limited, Chennai. Vijay Kasi, Sr. Principal, Supply Chain Practice, A T Kearney, spoke about the gaps in India’s supply chain covering ‘Plan, Source, Make, Deliver’, with special reference to the FMCG sector.
There was individual presentations from start-ups who were part of the 10K programme at NSRCEL sponsored by Goldman Sachs, covering their respective businesses and solutions they can offer to corporates. Nikkitha Shanker, Co-Founder Shoppre.com, an online ‘Shopping India International Shipping’ portal; Zaiba Sarang, Co-Founder iThink Logistics, an e-commerce shipping solution in India; and Manpreet Kaur, Founder & CEO Vivantaa Capital, an international Supply chain and trade finance venture, shared their c successes and challenges.
The Q&A session after each presentation was intense and very interactive.
The session speakers thereafter participated in a panel discussion moderated by Prof. Rishikesha T. Krishnan, faculty from the Strategy area at IIMB, where the start-ups discussed their expectations and support required from corporations to be successful and the corporations in turn spelled out key attributes to enable association with start-ups, the primary one being ‘trust’.
To take this forward NSRCEL has offered to engage with corporations and recommend relevant start-ups who have undergone incubation at NSRCEL.
Prof. Jitamitra Desai, Chair, SCMC, proposed a vote of thanks and stated that the initiative of the S³ Conference would be taken forward suitably and at a frequency to realize its full potential.
Click here for photo gallery