Sustainability in Supply Chains: Insights from Osa Commerce’s Padhu Raman

This is Techron tv. Hello and welcome to techron tv. I'm Bonnie Schneider, and today we're joined by PDU Ramen, the co-founder and CEO of asat Commerce.

With over two decades of experience in supply chain technology, Paju is here to share his insights into building more sustainable supply chains. Paju, thanks so much for joining us. Thank you.

Thank you, Bernie. Thanks. Mm-Hmm.

Thanks for the opportunity. Yes. Can you share more about your journey and the experiences and passions that have led you as to find founder company, and also what drives you in the field of supply chain technology?

Um, I've been in this supply chain, e-commerce for close to 25 years now. And, uh, this is the one field where you are able to actually connect across multiple ecosystems, right? mal, there are, whether it's a, from a distributor view or a brand view or a retailer view or end customer view, everybody is connected in this ecosystem.

And that is what fascinates me, because that is where when we have multiple entities, multiple challenges, you're able to, uh, look at those challenges, make the life of an, um, user a more easy and free to, uh, flow, right? And that is what it differentiates, and that is where I'm more excited to be in this, uh, field. That's great.

So, um, let's talk about the advancements in technology, particularly within the IT sector for Techstrong tv, we have a lot of folks watching that work in the IT sector, and they're interested in, um, supply chains and how they can, um, supply chains, supply chains in general can be more environmentally friendly and efficient. Do you have any suggestions? Yeah, no.

If you think about entire supply chain, what it is primarily doing is, is trying to track the entire product journey from a customer viewpoint, right? It is, right? The journey starts from where, how the product is manufactured, how it is sourced, how it is actually pick back and then shift over to Ocean if it is being outsourced.

And then coming through the freight forwarding, coming through the different ports, going through different challenges. Today as you see, uh, about Red Sea Channel, Panama Channel, everywhere, there's the challenges, how the disruption affects, and then it comes to your different ports and then to your distribution centers, find it to the store or to the om in all its audit, right? It tracks the entire product journey.

And there are a lot of challenges as the product goes through this journey, right? The idea behind the supply chain and being optimization and focusing on sustainability is primarily how do you provide a streamlined view? And the entire technology is focused towards creating that collaboration, connecting across entities, making the product journey as simple as possible through real-time communication, establishing better collaboration, and then ultimately providing a better customer experience, right?

That is what it, the entire journey of supply chain is. And if you see the, the past, uh, uh, two decades, so three decades when the e-commerce, uh, really started, we are focused on, um, more on, if you think about, initially it was more retail, everything was optimized from a store perspective, how the stores are set up. Then the e-commerce came, and the e-commerce developed into a, a more aspect, but the e-commerce actually lost efficiency in transportation logistics, and in that increase of fuel, uh, consumption.

And that disturbed the economy, the packaging problems, right? And then now you, you want to focus that on all those aspects and improvising those aspects today. And with connecting of social commerce, that has accelerated more, right?

To looking at, okay, how do I source a product in a more sustainable way? And that is where the technology advancement's happening. That's great.

Um, can you explain the term circular supply chains and how do they contribute to sustainability? The, the, the primary objective of surplus supply chain is to actually, how do we reduce wastage, right? Today, every product goes to a lot of wastage cycle in the consumption cycle.

How do we make the product that probably used for at one time, a couple of time to be reused recourse, right? That way we are reducing the waste maximum, uh, uh, usage of that. And also it not only how do we reduce waste, not only post-product, uh, production, but pre-product production, right?

How we do that, basically providing a clear visibility in terms of what needs to be manufactured, when do we have the product available, uh, to the consumer at the right time, at the right place, at the right quantity, so that you are optimizing your manufacturing cycle. You are reducing the, uh, transportation challenges, reducing the waste wastage in the transportation, reducing the inventory wastage, and then ultimately building up better supply chain. And that is where the circular supply chain comes into picture, right?

The second aspect of circular supply chain and some products may need to be damaged or consumed or trashed, right? But that also lead to a lot of eco ecological balances, imbalances. How do you balance that, right?

So that is also a, uh, aspect of, so social supply chain or circle supply chain and, and, and providing a better visibility, uh, and contributing that end-to-end, um, focus with the realtime access of information can lead to sustainable practices. That makes sense. Um, how do tech innovation, um, play a role in implementing circular?

Well, it's three parts, right? One, providing visibility by connecting across the ecosystems, right? Example, a manufacturer should have visibility where the demand is somebody ordering, say, sitting in New York and ordering a pair of glasses and, and somebody ordering in Floridas a different product.

The manufacturer of that should have a real-time visibility. What will be the, uh, demand? How much is being consumed?

So providing a visibility with a real-time communication that's that the, it, it helps them to producing the right product and the right quantity. That ability to communicate right between the customer, the, the distributor, the manufacturer, or everybody connecting and communicating and, and exchanging real-time information. And then finally collaborating, right?

The collaboration of, okay, I do have the right data through right visibility, I do have the right co product and manufacturing. Now, better collaboration exists, which also translates into better coordination with the transportation provider, the logistics provider, the, the distribution centers, the entire labor is optimized, the skills, the, the fuel, uh, on transportation cost are optimized. And then that way the technology is focused on the connecting the ecosystem, providing better communication and then collaborating.

Uh, can you explain some of these specific IT solutions or tools that Oside Commerce offers to help organizations optimize supply chains for sustainability and cost efficiency? Yeah, so primarily we focused our solutions to consolidate data, breaking the data silos, which is a primary driver in terms of providing visibility and managing the c circular supply chain and sustainability. We enable a unified commerce platform, which primarily connects to across all the demand channels, number one.

Number two, it connects to all the inventory sources. It could be a distribution center, it could be a manufacturing, uh, site, or it could be an, uh, uh, store operations connecting to those in, uh, fulfillment centers, optimizing across a carrier to find the right geo proximity solution and cost optimization, where the customer demand is and where the inventory is available, orchestrating the best possible way. So we provide an unified visible commerce visibility platform.

We provide an order management, we provide a sustainable, various solution to optimize its entire orchestration in a better way. And then finally, traceability in the last mile delivery, right? That way the entire end-to-end supply chain visibility is created.

And then that drives a better cost optimization, better customer experience, and increased revenue. So, uh, what is collaborative visibility? Can you explain the term Collaborative visibility is primarily connecting both a visible entity of data aggregation and ability to execute, right?

If you think about just providing data and just visibility in a more reactive manner and a more proactive manner in a time lag, it doesn't serve that much real purpose. What collaborative visibility primarily offers is it provides a real time visibility with actionable insights where you're able to take real-time actions and then continuously optimize. A classic example is there's challenges in the Red Sea, a disruption in the, uh, freight movement of the ships quick reaction to move the products or ships from the Red Sea area to all to the cape, uh, end of the, taking the longer route during the, uh, and then delivering it, adding additional week, two weeks in your entire transportation life cycle.

How do we quickly react? What are the implications? What are the downstream upstream implications?

Providing the visibility and automatically taking that collaborative action in a more, uh, prescriptive manner, right? Uh, with all the AI build tools that offers, and that is what the collaborative visibility, it's providing both visibility, the centralized views, and also providing the action items and taking the actions items in a more prescriptive way. And that's what, that makes Sense.

Um, can, can you explain, um, in what ways the collaborative visibility reduces emissions and costs Primarily through data access, real-time access, right? So if I take a product journey from a manufacturer, the manufacturer is putting out the information for the different supply chain nodes to consume. It could be a, a freight forwarder, it could be a customs broker, it could be a distribution operator, it could be an, uh, store operator.

And finally, the carrier that delivering the product, they're able to understand when the product will be shipped out, what are the different disruptions that could happen, automatically plan different optimized. Maybe I have two, uh, providers, uh, shipping or two manufacturers shipping this different products in the same area. I can consolidate those loads and then ship it out.

So they're creating that visibility and optimization consolidation. And ultimately the really plan is planning the scheduling, uh, the, the corresponding cascading effect of labor planning and all the entity, uh, creating more realtime execution drives the reduction in the emissions as well as as the cost, because the optimize continuous optimization is what is driving that. Uh, what tech trends do you foresee in the future?

Uh, in the realm of supply chain sustainability, I think more will be driven through prescriptive AI-based solutions where the system is continuously looking at the data and then making those decisions, and then driving optimization, right? Which ultimately drives better experience, better convenience and engagement, which all drives to a better sustainable execution as well. That that is where the continuous execution is going to be.

There could be, there'll be more AI based solutions that is coming out, which is looking at different segments of the supply chain in different perspective, right? One in the transportation perspective, optimized load. One in looking within the distribution center, how to pick back and ship efficiently in a more, uh, um, elegant and a more cost effective way.

Looking at the returns, how do we disposition the product in a best efficient way? So different mo areas co collaborating, and then all these AI models and AI tools collaborating themselves to make it better efficient. Well, that was a interesting perspective.

Thank you du Raman, co-founder and CEO of OSSA Commerce. Thank sharing your valuable insights and to sustainable supply chains and the innovative role that technology plays in achieving these goals. We appreciate having you on text today.

Thank you. I Enjoy. Great.

Well, stay with us. We're gonna have more great interviews like this one coming up on text.