IoT, Warehouse Automation, Robotics Will Help Businesses Reduce COVID-19’S Impact On Supply Chain :

Originally Posted: Yourstory

According to Amit Kumar Alsisaria, Co-founder and MD at Polestar Solutions & Services India, businesses need to design an agile and adaptive supply chain to better react to changing demand and supply scenarios.

COVID-19 has not only destroyed the financial health of the country but also caused widespread unemployment and job losses. It has affected the MSME industry quite hard, with businesses running out of cash, and some even shutting down.

Companies and businesses — especially MSMEs — need to learn how to innovate and become agile, says Amit Kumar Alsisaria, Co-founder and Managing Director at Polestar Solutions & Services India. Founded in 2013 by Amit, Chetan Alsisaria, and Ajay Goenka, the Delhi-based analytics company provides technology-backed solutions to businesses.

Amit has expertise in supply chain management and data analytics, and has previously worked with Accenture Consulting. In a conversation with SMBStory, he explains how MSMEs can work to reduce the impact of COVID-19 on the supply chain.

Edited excerpts from the interview.

SMBStory (SMBS): COVID-19 has led to cash flows drying up and businesses shutting down. What was lacking in the business ecosystem? Amit Alsisaria (AA): COVID-19 has proven to be a wake up call for businesses to become more agile. A lot of things were lacking. For instance, organisations did not know how to harvest data.

Everyone was too focussed towards transactions and how to get them right. This is where data analytics comes in, which is so important in today’s time. Analytics helps integrate operations into the business and ensures that everyone is speaking the same language right from the top to the bottom.

COVID-19 will hopefully teach businesses to connect these and further, I believe that something like data analytics should be democratised.

SMBS: Can you elaborate more on how data analytics can be democratised in a business?

AA: In simple terms, the democratisation of data analytics means putting the power of analytics in the hands of business users. No longer do business users need to depend on their IT teams to generate meaningful insights from all the data that the organisation has in their systems.

At Polestar, we make sure that we provide business users with a platform where they can generate their own KPIs by means of a simple drag and drop. Business users can easily choose models, run scenarios, and support their decisions with the insights generated by them.