Guest Lecture By Mr Avinash Talwar, Director - Supply Chain Management (Strategic & Plant Sourcing), Dr Reddy's Laboratories

On 25th October 2018, the Vinod Gupta School of Management, IIT Kharagpur had the privilege of hosting Mr Avinash Talwar, Director - Supply Chain Management (Strategic & Plant Sourcing) at Dr Reddy's Laboratories under the 'Vaarta' guest lecture series. With 27 years of experience in the Pharmaceutical sector, Mr Avinash has contributed to the development of the Pharma industry with MNCs like Ranbaxy Laboratories Limited, Nestor Pharmaceuticals and Max Pharma, Delhi. He was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award for his outstanding achievement in Pharma-Packaging by Express Pharma, an arm of The Indian Express Group at Pharma Packaging and Labelling Conclave on 15th March 2018. He has a rich and varied experience in Supply Chain Management and has touched upon various areas like procurement, vendor management, inventory control, packaging development, cost reduction and many more.     Mr Avinash began the session by defining the aim of developing implementable supply planning methodologies to reduce the demand-supply gap. He discussed the importance of customer delight and customer satisfaction and how Supply Chain Management (SCM) can help enhance the customer experience at every step. He started his talk by grazing through the history of SCM from the times of Napoleon and Alexander to the modern history of the past few decades. He discussed the pivot points of SCM strategies in each era and the technology advancements that played an important role to accomplish them. He highlighted that SCM is all around us and we must continuously be working towards its improvement. In the next segment of the session, he focused on the Pharma Supply Chain from its current state and flaws to a detailed discussion on how it is evolving with the changing times. He cited the importance of quality management, especially in the case of Pharma, as it is a sector where the quality of products has no scope of compromise to be made. To succeed, Pharma Supply Chain must be lean, low-cost and flexible without sacrificing on the quality and service. He mentioned that we must determine the business priorities for each product and customer segment and integrate better with the suppliers as the best supply chain model depends on the product and sector characteristics. The audience got an opportunity to learn the various concepts and aspects of Supply Chain Management from the perspective of the Pharma sector. Towards the closure of the session, he discussed the innovations taking place in the Pharma sector and shared a few examples of solutions provided by Dr Reddy's Laboratories. Mr Avinash enthusiastically answered a variety of questions put forward by the intriguing crowd. It was a very informative session and the budding managers were exposed to various new dimensions of Supply Chain Management. We hope to have more opportunities to interact with our esteemed guest in the times to come.