GLCS Logisym 2015 conference

20 Nov 15

MISI was well represented at the GLCS Logisym 2015 conference: MISI Dr Shardul Phadnis moderated one of the panel sessions and MISI class 2016 students volunteered to help with conference organisation.

About LogiSYM Conference
The theme of this year’s LogiSYM conference theme was “Breaking Regional Barriers: ASEAN and Beyond”. The speakers and panelists included supply chain academics and industry experts from multi-national companies, SMEs and to start-ups. Their talks varied from supply chain globalization to localization, to innovations in supply chain sustainability to innovations in supply chain policies, and to the ongoing academic research in supply chain and logistics.

“The students in MISI’s full-time MSCM program received rave reviews for their volunteering work at the LogiSYM conference held on Oct 7th and 8th in Subang Jaya, near Kuala Lampur. The students helped with several “logistics” tasks to ensure smooth running of the conference, such as registration, management of booths, organization of multimedia, time-keeping for speeches and panel sessions, and so on”

Mr. Darryl Judd, the Chief Operating Officer for Global Operations at Logistics Executive, the organizer of the conference, praised the students for their work. In his words…

“I can honestly say that partnering with MISI to provide resources to the GLCS Logisym Malaysia conference was fundamental in the success of this high profile supply chain event. It was clear from the get go that the MISI Students have a passion for the supply chain that far exceeds what we see across other regions. Their high participation rate in each of the sessions and contribution to topics was for me a highlight. MISI should be proud of its programs that create the environment for knowledge and of its student’s for their professionalism, energy and hungry to play a role in this vital industry sector. We are looking for to collaborating with MISI on further events and knowledge learning opportunities.”

What’s even more pleasing is that this high appreciation was complemented by the high value the students remarked about getting out of the conference. They highlighted learning a great deal about emerging supply chain trends in the ASEAN markets, evolution of supply chains from SC 1.0 to SC 4.0, supply chain complexities, and disruptive innovations in supply chain markets. The conference also provided them an opportunity to network with the supply chain experts and industry executives attending the conference from various countries. Every student received several business cards and was encouraged to contact for jobs.

With such a symbiotic meeting, it is no wonder that MISI and Logistics Executive are eagerly looking forward to the next opportunity to collaborate!

The “TED” talk for Logistics and Supply Chain Professionals

“The past is only open to interpretation. The present is fleeting. The future can be shaped.” – stated Kris Kosmala, a keynote speaker at GLCS LogiSYM.

Darryl Judd has done it for the fourth time around, GLCS LogiSYM Malaysia 2015 was held on the 7th and 8th of October at the Empire Hotel, Selangor. GLCS LogiSYM is a Global Logistics and Supply Chain Symposium which was on many lines equivalent to a TED talk except this one was directed to all those Logistics and Supply Chain Professionals in the ASEAN region. Darryl and his team brought to us one of the finest symposium’s in Asia with around 50 international speakers.

The theme of the event was “Future Supply Chain Excellence”. This was aimed at helping professionals from all spheres to watch out for and probably overcome some of the challenges Asia’s Supply Chain keeps throwing at them, by the year 2020. The spotlight was on the ASEAN region, Asia has seen a downturn for the past couple of months and it was stated that “It is often during these downward cycles, that we see new ideas and paradigm shifts.” This is the exact time when constant shifts in Business models and Supply Chain models occur, which makes it a bigger challenge and brings with it a whole lot of opportunities in the Supply Chain industry. Another reason why conferences like this are essential to learn from.

As a very great personality once told me, “We not only learn from our mistakes, but we’ve got to learn from the mistakes of others because we don’t have the time to make all those mistakes on our own.”
The MSCM batch of 2016 had the pleasure of being volunteers for this prestigious event. We worked in various spheres right from registrations to time keeping to video editing to informal photographers for the event to shadowing the event organisers. Conferences always ring a “Boring” bell in every student’s mind but this time around it was different for a few of us who didn’t know what people would actually bring forth in a conference this big, we all wanted to learn as to what each industry was doing and how well they were collaborating with their partners downstream and upstream, what the mind-set of Supply Chain leaders and the trends and innovations in the market today. We had the extra edge as volunteers for hearing the passionate and lively keynotes and debates by the Who’s Who in the field of Supply Chain.

All of us gained a few brownie points in terms of our learning curve as Supply Chain students with the variety of topics that a lot of speakers brought forth at the conference. We also got to have enthusiastic conversations with the speaker’s offline which helped in enhancing our knowledge. Most importantly, we grew our network as students. It didn’t end there, the organisers were more than happy with the volunteering work that we did with a lot of appreciation coming our way. I felt that, more than they could have benefited from us, we did from them. For us as students, we took back with us a lot of learnings, goodies, business cards, interviews, memories and a whole lot of food. It offered us a chance to take a step back and actually think of what we wanted to do after graduation.
A big Thank you to MISI, Susobitha Menon and Manju Vijayan from Logistics Executive for giving us the opportunity to take part in the conference and believing in our capabilities.