Recently there has been a lot of hue and cry over the outsourcing and the job losses that followed. Major companies have been accused of exporting jobs to Asian countries such as China when there has been an ever increasing need of job creation in their native countries. To this companies argue that they are creating a lot of jobs indirectly by creating opportunities and if the jobs are not moved to save efficiencies, eventually it will lead to further job losses!

While we look at spaces with tremendous current potential for servicing clients and increasing business engagements, I believe what sets us apart is the conscious effort towards looking into the future and placing our bets in areas that are likely to see traction over the next few years. Big data management is such an area where I am seeing a lot of client intent that is backed by the willingness to shell out real dollar investments. The volume of data that is getting generated in today's digital world is staggering...

• 4 Billion - Bits of content shared every day on Facebook!
• 1000 Petabytes - Data stored by the US discrete manufacturing firms in 2010 and is the largest among all the sectors in the US. Government sector at 850 Petabytes,
• Communication at 720 Petabytes and Process Manufacturing at 700 Petabytes are other huge opportunities.
• €300 Billion - is the cost reduction that can be brought about by Big data management in Europe
• $60 Billion - is the potential play for Big data management in Social networking and technologies space...

As once Aristotle said, Man by nature is a social animal, a man who lives alone is either an angel or a beast. 'Social being, social health, social pyschology, social marketing, social media, social customers, social enterprises'...The word 'Social' has never been exploited as much as it is being today. And there is an inherit merit in the exploitation.

There has been cultural shift in the way we live,learn, work and play. Organizations and individual alike are looking for 'Engagement' and social media seems to be best bet to accomplish this.

Let us look at a purchase cycle which starts with Awareness of needs, Assessment of alternatives, alleviation of risks, decision and achievement of results. Every stage of the purchase cycle is driven by customer needs. Organizations are tapping into the social media to understand customer needs, buyers are finding is easier to interact with other customers for assessment of alternatives rather than follow a product campaign, buyers meet and discuss their preferences with likeminded people on the web for better decision making and alleviating risks of a purchase. Traditionally the process was marketer generated, today, the buying process is user or customer generated.

Sajit Kumar C N, Principal Consultant, Manufacturing, Infosys

The trigger for this blog was from here- an interesting and animated discussion on Supply Chain Visibility and Collaboration between Atul Chandra Pandey from Infosys and David Johnston of JDA- in the Thought Leaders video discussion hosted by SC Digest editor Dan Gilmore.

According to them, now that recession-fears are behind us to a large extend, the organizations have started focusing more on top-line growth as against cost containment which was the focus during past couple of years. Not just growth-'profitable' growth. In order to achieve that kind of growth, the organizations have to be more innovative in managing their supply chain.

Ketan Chinchalkar, Senior Project Manager, MFG-ADT Online, Infosys

• At one end of the spectrum, we have several large hi-tech companies with constrained production capabilities that are coming out with block-buster products (mobiles, tablets, music players, cameras etc) with short shelf-lives. The biggest challenge for them remains getting the product out of the door as quickly as possible with the best quality and into the hands of the super-eager consumer. Lean principles most likely take a back-seat in such situations where time to market becomes the single most important thing.

• In the middle portion of the spectrum, we have process manufacturers and resource providers where the nature of the process can pose significant challenges to applying lean principles.

• At the far end of the spectrum, we have automotive and aerospace companies who have relatively longer product evolution cycles and long shelf lives (with mature, evolved processes to boot). Lean principles mean a whole lot to these enterprises. In discrete/industrial manufacturing, automotive and aerospace sectors, strong focus on lean supported by appropriate software can be a big game-changer.

Most manufacturing organization struggle when it comes to relating the business objectives to the day-to-day operational measures, until that gets too late in the game resulting in sub-optimal performance, quality of delivered goods and in ability to take right decisions when they had to be taken.

Supply chain objective is to have the right material in the right quantities at the right time, at the right place and at minimal cost.  Supply chain network has to function with suppliers, internal organizations (Marketing, Sales, Planning, Manufacturing, Quality and Engineering change control), distributors, retailers and customers. These stakeholders may be locally or globally located. Having proper communication methodology is vital for supply chain success.  Someone said 'Change is inevitable' & another said 'The only constant thing in life is Change'. In High Tech industry, I believe that in a span of 18 months, a processor size reduces by half and its speed increases twice. For example, the mobile phone that I bought last year (latest model) is one of the oldest models today. It becomes more complex to meet supply chain objective when one or more changes occur in the value chain.

Last time when I was in the US, my interaction with friends while shopping, were mostly identifying the right price of an item or how many Greens (dollar bills) it would cost? And as part of the conversation we also discussed various evolutionary modes of payment like credit cards, gift cards, debit cards, pre-paid cards and so on. Among all these, what intrigued me was how a simple looking plastic card can replace our hurdles of carrying Cash/Greens. And whatever form these cards may come in, they would still be made of plastic. And we all know plastic cards are made up of PVC (Poly Vinyl Chloride)! Does it ring a bell? PVC - a toxic compound that produces carcinogens and toxins including chlorine residue and heavy-metal pollutants.