Ajith John

Business Partnering : Developed.& Maintained effective working relationships across cross functional stakeholders to elevate business challenges and identify and work on the the areas of most impact while building and leading team capabilities.

Functional Areas

• Plan: Supply & Demand Planning , S&OP
• Deliver: Logistics (Ocean & Road), Warehousing (Bonded, Ambient & Frozen)
• Product Supply: Domestic/Import/Export
• Food Categories: Packed Wheat Flour (Atta) /Ready to Cook/Ice Creams/Energy Bars/Frozen Ready to Eat Foods
• Dimensions: 30 units (Plants & CFAs),
• Channels: B2C - Modern Format/Ecommerce/Traditional Trade,CSD, B2B - QSRs/Distributors, Ecom Wholesale

Key initiatives till date:

• Profitability improvement: Drove margin improvement from Nil to mid teens for Atta through - Supply Network: Network redesign for cost & service levels aligned to GTM strategy resulting iin move from 5% to 96% direct service model Sourcing: Improving cost to serve by taking distribution spends to market through auctions and tools for route/load optimisation
• Covid Response Agility: Led Plan/Deliver delivering 2X growth through concurrent planning, demand sensing & Government liasoning to ensure facilities operated and ensured zero supply downtime during covid led lockdowns.
• Demand Planning: Driving improvement in Forecast accuracy sustainably bringing to 80-85%@M-3 through deployment of Statistical Models , Forecast segmentation and Value Addition (FVA) assessments followed by. Demand planning solution/tool to further strengthen the process and optimise it.
• Supply Planning & Customer Service: Customer Service Improvement through optimal inventory design, Centralisation of Order management, Customer collaboration ( ecommerce/exports) , VMI Model deployments for Key partners and enhancing adherence to plans for manufacturing units by implementing Make Governance
• Export: Led Ocean sourcing initiatives to drive improved cost & availability (90%+) Including benchmarking and direct ocean liner contracting, Ocean Vessel tracking solution for better supply chain visibility and planning.
• Frozen Supply Chain: During the pandemic, evolved & operated a basic direct to home model for frozen delivery of Ice Cream. Adopted learnings for optimise supply models and evolved a 4PL format to leverage partner scale.
• Digital Roadmap: Benchmarked processes externally to identify opportunity areas for digital augmentation. Created a 3 year digital roadmap for Supply. Deployment started with Transporter Management System (TMS) . Ocean Freight Visibility and Demand Planning with further tools on other areas in pipeline.
• People : Rebult an entire Supply Chain team which was hit by the Great Resignation into a team known for it's capability, innovativeness and reslience. Strengthened people engagment through a slew of initiatives to improve employee engagment score by 20%
• Compliance & Controls: Worked closely with the Internal audit team to enhance controls on various areas of revenue recognition, SOD, and process design enhancements
• CSR: Actively lead/support CSR initiatives including food donation to identified partners apart from designing new initiatives under agreed Pillars.
• Startup Engagment : Actively engage with the startup ecosystem to scout for new ideas, capabilities to identify use cases. Work with them through small pilots to validate/pivot ideas to solve business problems.

Handled the following portfolios & promoted through roles in Supply Performance/Luxury Sourcing/General Manager & Senior General Manager.

• Imports supply chain – Imports and distribution for imported Finished Products (E.g., Johnnie Walker series) & more than 15 varieties of Bulk Whisky Concentrates in service of topline sales ~800mn$ top line sales in India
• Exports Supply Chain – Export of India Origin Products (No.1 Whisky, Royal Challenge Whisky) to Emerging markets of Middle East, Africa, North America/Canada worth 20mn$
• Warehousing: Pan India warehousing to support sell out of Goods in different states of India through appro 25+ warehouses in India supporting sales worth 115mn US$
• Sourcing: Direct Material (RM/PM) and Indirect Sourcing managing 45m$/year within agreed plan

Initiatives :

• Supported 25% CAGR growth for Johnnie Walker Variants & Single Malts through strong business partnering, driving improved forecasting behaviours with sales teams, advance/longer horizon planning for scarce single malts, optimal inventory norms and great collaboration with Marketing teams on deployment of new products and variants to drive excitment & availability in the portfolio.
• Improved Warehousing infrastructure and Safety culture by moving to compliance with Safety standards (Electrical/Fire) and successfully achieved use of safety equipment (PPE) during routine operations in Depots
• Drove a total of 12mn$ savings on spend of 45mn$/year as supply performance manager /luxury sourcing for direct & indirect spends (period: 2012, ) through a combination of supplier development, increased spend coverage, category management, value engineering initiatives.
• Designed & Setup a Postponment Centre for Johnie Walker in India driving value for the business through innovation capability and local sourcing.
• Recognised internally for operating the best planning team which managed exports end to end planning. This involved close patnering with business teams and distirbutors to improve demand visibility and enhance customer service (95% service even for unplanned demand )
• Closely partnered with Global Supply teams to esure 95% + servicing of demand for imported products ( Johnnie Walker/Single Malts etc).

Managed sourcing of bulk commodities, pigments, Packaging and traded goods worth $62M

• Value: Drove value in the pigment /drier sourcing exercise by strategic sourcing Levers and vendor development initiatives in that space to deliver value to a tune of 8-10%
• Traded goods : Managed this portfolio of stainers & wall puty profitably in conjunction with supply partners. Ventured into new categories such as wall textures,Auto refinish, special effect tools to address new market opportunities. Used Market benchmarking and sales inputs to create new products to compete effectively in Zinc Rich Paints segments.
• Improved Brand equity and On Shelf Appeal of products through roll out of ink standards to drive artwork reproduction accuracy & improved performance of shipper cartons through quality improvements.
• Sustainable Sourcing: Reduced usage of Steel, polymer & cleaning solvents used for packaging by 10% through specification optimization and design changes retaining performance measures
• Planning: Worked on improving MRP Planning by optimising order MoQ to Supplier EOQs and Transportation MoQs to optimise sourcing cost and inventory..

Transformed packaging procurement with spend of $23M to improve competition & governance through

• Bought out Model: Evaluated make-vs-buy for Rigid packaging and led a large scale transformation to a buy-out model which reduced capital investment and boosted competitiveness transforming the portfolio significantly
• Supplier Performance: Developed & deployed a simple vendor rating system . Used it to transparently link forward business allocation to the prior performance creating a clear link between business award and prior supply performance.
• Market Intelligence: Drove value in commodity sourcing through export data analysis, supply market analysis , engagement with existing and prospective partners to secure benefit mark to market for 14 months.
• Innovation : Identified ecosystem to enable digital promotions and partnered with brand marketing teams to deploy an industry first digital promotion as part of FIFA partnership in 2009.
• Pack Rationalization : Worked closely with global teams to rollout and anchor the pack rationalization initiatives to drive efficiency as well as focus in the product portfolio
• Worked as IT Business Analyst for Supply to scope out improvement initiatives and project managing them for Supply Chain & Sourcing eg digitally signed POs, Control Tower initiative and ERP enhancements.

• Sourced Capital goods (18mn$) for establishing a steel facility within agreed time and costs
• Build and established a well-respected team of buyers from fresh engineering trainees who have gone on to lead teams over time across different geographies and industries.
• Deployed and customised SAP MM Module for Project Procurement to improve utilisation and simplification.