Soumya Choudhury, Co-Founder, Visilogix LLP, Prof of Supply Chain, IFIM Business School

Soumya Choudhury, Co-Founder, Visilogix LLP, Prof of Supply Chain, IFIM Business School

He is one of the three co-founders of a Supply Chain Planning, Procurement & Optimization startup which is focused on tools and solutions for B2B customers in retail, e-Commerce, FMCG/FMEG, and manufacturing sector.

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Our guest for today, Soumya Choudhury, is a Supply Chain expert. He has been in this industry for a very long time. He has seen it changing and developing. He has not only worked there but also taught Supply Chain.

Soumya Choudhury is the co-founder and director of Visilogix LLP. He is also the professor of Supply Chain at the IFIM Business School. 

About Visilogix LLP

Visilogix is a supply chain planning and optimization SAS organization. It was initially started with the purpose of solving the logistics problem in India. 

Soumya tells us that in the mid-2000s he had started a business that exported auto components from India to Europe. This brought his attention to the supply chain. As Soumya was working for IBM, he understood the technology quite well.

He grew passionate about combining technology, supply chain, and his business development experience to provide solutions for the supply chain, especially in India. This is how Visilogix LLP came into existence.

Supply chain challenges Soumya faced

• Soumya tells us that the supply chain in India did not change much for the past twenty years until recently. He says that there were tools and techniques but they were not adopted well enough. 
• Another challenge he talks about is the intent and the mindset of the supply chain participants. They do not believe that the vendor is part of their own ecosystem and are very protective of their data. Soumya couldn’t help to change this mindset.
• Integration of the use of transactional data is a big challenge. Soumya tells us that ERP is used primarily for financial reporting. They wanted to create more advanced analytics. But they were not able to educate the market that ERP and advanced planning and optimization are separate things.
• They were not able to separate themselves from the ERP layer, as most of the people in the market had not used optimizers till then 

Soumya’s views on how technology like AI is impacting Supply Chain

Soumya tells us that the technology is being used at various levels of the supply chain. One of the prominent areas where it is being used is warehousing. Many companies have started using smart warehousing. According to Soumya, there are two companies that are using it the best.

They are Amazon and Alibaba.com. Soumya tells us that they are not using it just for technology’s sake, but they are integrating it with human labor so that the technology and human synchronization can be effective.

He says that similar technology that is being used in warehouse management, is also being used in the transport management system. However, he believes that it still can improve and be fully automated. 

How is fast delivery impacting the supply chain?

In Soumya’s opinion, the new trend of 10-minute delivery or 30 minutes delivery from grocery e-commerce platforms, is disrupting the supply chain systems. He says that the very fast delivery trend can work efficiently if the company is in control of the end-to-end supply chain.

If they have another partner in between, it might get difficult to run it efficiently. Soumya also believes that these companies can work in metro cities but not as efficiently in rural areas.

He also says that one of the most important things the company has to take into consideration is the anticipation of demand if they are running a 10-minute delivery project.

Business advise from Soumya Choudhury

Talking about entrepreneurship and scaling up, Soumya tells us that he believes that the best stage for being an entrepreneur is when you have a minimum of five years of experience of working in a large-sized firm, where you do not lose your creativity and you are able to take a lot of risks.

Soumya Choudhury is a Supply Chain expert. He has been in this industry for a very long time. He has seen it changing and developing. He has not only worked there but also taught Supply Chain.

Soumya Choudhury is the co-founder and director of Visilogix LLP. He is also the professor of Supply Chain at the IFIM Business School.