Articles

On Behalf of India Supply Chain Network (ISCN), I am proposing to the SCM Professionals across India to identify a day dedicated to the cause of Supply Chain Management. Please recommend a day with a suitable reasoning why it should be selected as an SCM Day? Let us hear from everyone and settle on a day and then ISCN will spearhead promoting the selected day as an SCM Day. Click here to Join ISCN - a LinkedIn Group connecting SCM Professionals across India   How does an SCM Day help our profession? [1] SCM is a cross-functional discipline where we work with different...

Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) is a great tool for organisations to document and streamline their business processes. SOPs are equally beneficial for startups, small, medium and large organisations. It is a great low-cost tool to transform an organisation from being a person-driven one to a process-driven one. The purpose of this article is to highlight some of the unique benefits of developing SOPs for your organisation.     Be it a new employee or an experienced employee, training with the aid of an SOP will sharpen their skills and reduce defects or errors in their day-to-day activities.   SOP conveys an...

When we think about a professional certification in Supply Chain Management, the one that immediately comes to our mind is "Certified Supply Chain Professional" (CSCP) offered by APICS, USA. Today, CSCP is considered as the gold standard credential for the supply chain professionals. The CSCP program helps you to demonstrate your knowledge and organizational skills for developing more streamlined operations. Since its launch in 2006, more than 24,000 professionals in 100 countries have earned the CSCP credentials. As an APICS Recognised Trainer, I come across the following three questions from the CSCP aspirants, which I would like to address through...

You might have heard of nature vs. nurture debate for most of the human skills and traits. Now add business analysis too in that list. Does my business analysis skill set come by nature or acquired through training? I am born as a business analyst This was my belief till eight years ago. Meaning, I am good at business analysis and no training or certification can add any value to me. Let us go further back to the year 1991, while I was performing the role of a business analyst for an engineering company. I had various titles except the...

Organisation is defined as a group of people working towards a common goal to deliver value to the customers. To explore the fundamentals of an organisation, let us define organisation in terms of capabilities. An organisation is an amalgamation of capabilities in terms of people, processes and systems, to deliver products and services to customers. Again, these products and services are also capabilities. After all, why would anyone buy a product which doesn’t add/deliver any capabilities to him/her. Any new organisation that is coming up must be very diligent in answering these three questions. (1) Who is my Customer? (2) What is the...