ContentsVolume 5 / Issue 1 / March 2014

10Theory of Constraints and the Value Chain of Higher Education Institutions •Shelja Jose Kuruvilla, Ph.D., Professor,

ITM - Business School, Kharghar, Navi Mumbai, India.

6INTERVIEWApurva MankadFounder & CEO, WebXpress- India’s leading logistics IT solution suite

Viability Analysis of Trucking Operations in India •Mahendra Parihar, Ph.D., Assistant Professor,

Economics and Management, Thadomal Shahani Engineering College, University of Mumbai, Mumbai, India.

8

22Cold Chain Logistics in India – An Overview •P. C. Tungare, Professor of Operations Management,

ITM - Business School, Kharghar, Navi Mumbai, India.

•Shatabdi S. Das, Research Associate, ITM - Business School, Kharghar, Navi Mumbai, India.

Supply Chain of Bicycle - A Case Study of Shops in Kanpur•Manoj Jhawar, MBA, IIT Kanpur, India.

•Shivraj Shellagi, MBA, Delhi Technological University(DCE),Delhi,India.36

Supply Chain Pulse / Volume 5 / Issue 2 / June 2014 6

INTERVIEW

Apurva Mankad

Mr. Apurva Mankad is Founder & CEO of ECFY Consulting Private Limited, owner of brand WebXpress India’s leading logistics IT solution suite.

Apurva is an Engineer with Post-Graduation in Management from Mumbai University, India. Apurva has over 18 years of experience in Technology Solutions and Transportation and Logistics industry. Apurva has worked in IT industry with organization such as Global Telesystems, Satyam Infoway and Infosys before starting his consulting practice in year 2000.

Apurva founded WebXpress in 2004 with a belief that Indian Logistics Industry needs solutions customized to Indian scenario using best available technology. Today, WebXpress has over 50 customers across India with over 8000 users.

Some of WebXpress customers are leading names such as Future Supply Chains, DTDC, Jabong.com, Safexpress, Transocean, Delex, Surat Goods Transport, Coldex among others. Apurva also works with Transport Industry Bodies and technology partners such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft and Motorola Solutions to keep a tab on latest trends, technologies and best practices.

As recognition of his work over the years, he was awarded “Logistics technology person of the year 2012” by Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport, India. Apurva is also associated with Management Education and is a faculty for E-commerce and Logistics at Welingkar Institute of Management since 1998.

1. What are the Supply Chain expectations for cloud systems to suit different supply chain structures?

Every supply chain structure is made of multiple components and partners. The basic expectation is availability of information cutting across supply chain legs and players. Based on specific business, information needed for supply chain can vary- for example Cold Chain will need temperature information on cloud, high value items needs GPS location at smaller intervals compared to normal cargo. Etc.

2. Could you elaborate on the business models for cloud systems to suit different supply chain structures?

The business models can be based on per month per user basis or per transaction basis. There can be variation in terms of variable models with a cap on maximum transactions or users. There may be separate components for telephonic support, on site visits, custom development etc. Overall, cloud converts Capital Expenditure of customers into Operational Expenditure.

3. Which data attributes drive the need for a cloud system in the supply chain?

Track and trace data is of primary requirement followed by document scans and images, sensor data. All of these grow very fast and need lot of resources, thus making cloud storage and retrieval

Interviewed by Prof. Ankush Guha

very attractive. Of course, the transaction application itself can be on cloud.

4. In your concerted opinion is the modern supply chain firm ready for the implementation of the cloud system?

This changes from organization to organization and geography to geography. Smaller, regional organizations can adopt cloud easily as their business complexity is less. Larger and global organizations have multiple IT systems in place. Thus, their approach to cloud is more measured and phase wise.

5. What type of infrastructure and processes would be needed for implementation of a cloud system?

Cloud provides all infrastructure, thus all one needs is good and stable Internet connectivity/ Mobile connectivity. The processes needed to deploy an IT system are needed whether cloud system is used or a traditional software is used. Yes, cloud system makes it easier to deploy a system across locations.

6. How does one align the cloud system’s goals with the supply chain’s strategic objectives, could you illustrate with an example?

A supply chain needs to first set its goals in terms of Key Performance Indicators. A cloud system can then be deployed

Supply Chain Pulse / Volume 5 / Issue 2 / June 2014 7

INTERVIEWto measure these indicators from daily transactions. The cloud system can then be aligned to provide information to meet strategic goals. Also, the speed and size of expansion plans of any supply chain will drive usage of cloud. For example, when an MNC wants to enter India, it may be prudent to use a Standard Cloud based system to begin with while the company settles. Later as business grows and specific needs increase, additional features of cloud system can be enabled.

7. How do one audit skills and competencies required for successful implementation of the cloud system?

One has to select the right partner for the same. Partner can be evaluated on deployments already done, technology knowledge and supply chain domain knowledge. Also, organization must have people to use the cloud based system well.

8. How does one evaluate the cloud system provider?

As mentioned above, one needs to look at track record, cloud system already deployed, business continuity assurance, financial stability, ability to provide data backup when needed etc.

9. How does one assess the success of the implementation of a cloud project?

Moving to cloud is one part but the success of such migration can be measured as follows:

• Improved bandwidth and speed of application

• Better application performance in peak hours

• Lower downtime incidents due to infrastructure issues

• No impact on performance even in face of good growth

• Overall lower total cost of ownership

10. How does one measure ROI in the cloud system implementation?

• ROI should be measured on Total Cost of Operations

• Thus, cost of application, cloud infrastructure, maintenance, data security and backup will form TCO- these should be taken over a 3 year period at least

• The return will be a little tricky to measure as the application may run essential operations and financials- these are needed

to run an organization• One can introduce an Index of Automation

to measure how much of work is done using Cloud Application and how much is manual

11. Which type of leadership is most effective in the implementation of a cloud based system?

• Cloud implementation requires an IT and Executive leadership open to new ideas and innovation

• They are willing to try new concepts even when things are working otherwise

• They also try to look at global best practices and make it a point to introduce them to their customers

• A leadership only focused on costs and waiting for others to move first may not be suitable for cloud architecture

12. How does one assess the risk and volatility in supply chain integration, using the cloud system?

• Cloud can enable integration in a supply chain. For example, tracking data from LSP can be sent over to customer electronically using could applications

• Better data integration leaders to better

visibility for all stakeholders. This helps to reduce risks and react to volatility in an organized manner

• In absence of cloud systems, there may be data islands in each segment of supply chain resulting in slower decision making

13. How does one measure the robustness of the cloud system in the supply chain?

• Firstly, the track record and technology of cloud service provider needs to be assessed

• Then the deployment done for a given initiative should be checked for instances of downtimes and slowness

• The real test will be when an event occurs that shoots up usage of systems- say year-end sales, holiday season, sudden demand due to natural calamity/ war etc.

• KPIs such as Transaction entry TAT, Number of downtime instances, Mean time to closure of downtime, transactions handled per hour, concurrent users supported etc. can help measure robustness

14. What are the security attributes that would be needed for reliable cloud system implementation?

• Security is of utmost importance for any IT

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system, especially cloud based• Security can be divided into transaction

security, business continuity and disaster recovery

• A cloud system should be secure enough so that transactions stored in cloud are not accessed by any unauthorized person

• Business Continuity requires that cloud system as well as service provider are available in long run – thus they need to have a viable business model and good customer based and sound financials

• Disaster recovery will require that cloud infrastructure is ready in case one part of the infrastructure is compromised / is unavailable. Thus it is important for cloud service provider to have multiple facilities, backup restoration procedures etc. in place

15. How does one monitor the cloud system performance?

• As mentioned above, one needs to devise KPIs (Key Performance Indicators)

• KPIs can be technical in nature- downtime, concurrent users, bandwidth usage, time to download, resource utilization of CPU/ memory etc.

• KPIs can be functional- number of transactions handled- on an average and at peak, ability to handle load in season/ month end/ events etc.

• These should be measured regularly and comparison made with industry benchmarks

16. What are the critical success factors for development and implementation of the cloud system in a company’s supply chain?

• CSF for cloud systems are:• Development- Availability of manpower/

partner to design application suitable for cloud, infrastructure within organization to access cloud based systems,

• Implementation- quality of users in company’s supply chain, ability of partners to leverage cloud to collaborate and share data

17. What are the key factors for development and upgrade cycles of the cloud system?

• One of key differences of a cloud based system is that service provider will have a uniform platform for multiple customers, thus users of cloud are required to upgrade as per schedule of cloud provider

• It is thus important to understand the options to opt in or opt out of cloud platform upgrades

• Also, it is important to understand configuration options of cloud so that a particular upgrade can be tuned off for your organization

• The upgrades will also entail continuous

training to team

18. How does one draw an SLA with a Cloud service provider?

• SLA is the most important document with cloud providers

• Generally, cloud provider will provide a standard SLA for uptime, performance, upgrade etc.

• One can review the same and add conditions or KPIs suitable to each organization- for example, number of trainings, backup restoration etc.

• It is also important to understand how cloud provider will furnish numbers and reports to showcase SLAs. These should be reviewed regularly to confirm whether SLA is met with

19. How does one assess the appropriate cloud system’s resources required for a given supply chain setting?

• This will vary depending on a specific supply chain of a given industry/ geography/ size of organization etc.

• Some of the measured to decide on appropriateness are: Number of transactions, locations of usage, types of access devices- PC/ Laptop/ Mobile, Type of transaction- do they involve video, images- how many, Data integration with customer/supplier systems

20. How does one remedy the shortages (Cloud - Resource Gaps) in the resources required for cloud system implementation?

• Generally, cloud provides much larger- if not unlimited- resource pool for infrastructure

• The shortage can be for manpower to manage and use cloud based systems implementation

• One can take help of specialized organizations to support in-house teams for the same

21. Could the choice of the cloud system (ERP-CRM, Ecommerce solution, reduce the cost of the corporate IT Function?

• Yes, the choice of application will drive costs as well as savings

• Some of the direct cost reductions are for• Provision of extra resources to handle

growth or peaks, • Manpower needed to manage in-house

infrastructure, • Space utilization of such servers, • Management bandwidth for IT functions

etc.

22. Could the choice of the cloud system improve business - IT alignment?

Yes, in many ways. • Cloud will help business to deploy more

systems quickly without getting into full procurement cycle

• As most cloud investments are Opex based, faster decision making is possible. Also, the initiative can be dropped if not found to be useful

• This will put much lesser load on IT and thus enable them to help business- resulting in better alignment

23. Would the use of an external provider (i.e. outsourcing the cloud solution) rather than running in-house result in a responsible and reliable functioning of the organization’s computing resources?

• Cloud provider will only help on server side resources and management- a big help

• But in-house team will continue to provide other resources such as networking , connectivity, security etc. for overall organization

• Yes, the fact that critical systems are now handled by expert outsider will free up IT resources

• These should be realigned as Governance mechanism to manage Cloud service provider and measure SLAs

24. Could the on-demand cloud system in a supply chain setting complement the already existing installed investments, if so how?

• This is possible to do. Suppose organization has ERP deployed as on premise solution. Now there is a need say for a freight audit system

• A cloud based system for freight audit can then be deployed on top of ERP thus leveraging data from ERP at the same time getting a key functional solution on cloud

• Thus, if done correctly, cloud can enhance existing IT investment and there may not be a need to change all systems

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25. What is the impact of cloud systems on IT corporate governance?

• This has many impacts:1. Impact on security policy- as cloud

provider is external, this will require changes in security policy

2. BCP/DRP- changes in BCP/DRP plans to include cloud applications

3. Roles and responsibilities- the role of IT team members will change from execution to monitoring and SLA measurement

4. IT budgets- as discussed above there will be implications on procurements cycles

26. What are the core parameters for an organization’s business systems that could be managed with the cloud system’s implementation to ensure the implementation achieves their business goals?

• With today’s technology- most of the business systems are now available on cloud

• Thus, choice of system will depend on• Current systems in place and their maturity. • Are these systems end of life or can still be

used for foreseeable future• Are these legacy systems that are needed

27. What are the base-line requirements that a cloud system provider must meet?

Following can be base line requirements:• Own certified cloud infrastructure or tie up

with leading cloud infra provider • Customer base using cloud system• Onsite or online training and support

offerings• Customization/ configuration options and

methodology

28. How will the supply chain adapt to the new cloud system solution?

• Ideally the supply chains should only use and application to get information or get transactions done

• Sign of a good cloud system is that users do not realize the complexity of cloud system and same is hidden from users

• Thus, the supply chains should adapt by aligning processes in line of cloud system availability