The recent fiasco in Europe over substituted horse meat for beef has raised crucial questions about the security of food supply chains provided by bigwigs like Tesco, Iceland, Aldi and Findus. This is just one of the more scandals - even Apple has been in headlines when poor working conditions were discovered at a factory belonging to one of its suppliers, Foxconn, in China. Is it the lack of supply chain solutions or transparency led to such worse scenarios and repeated flaws? Today most of the bigwigs are under pressure to win the trust over the customers amidst these threats in the supply chain industry.

Though the top grocers like Tesco had strict control in place to ensure the quality of its meat products, including regular audits and tests, yet the supplier somehow slipped through the net, apparently buying meat from an unapproved Polish supplier for as long as a year. Such scenario calls for to understand the CIOs' ability to trace problems and truly understand the importance of audit trail in supply chain. Such repeated incidents in the market, is putting CIOs under pressure to find the right solutions for the enterprises and forefend such flaws.

Research studies have shown most supply chain failures are attributable to internal process problems, customer-related issues, and inappropriate demand management. One of the most effective guards against these unwanted discoveries is transparency. Increasingly, retailers are working to ensure they have contact with every level of their supply base, well beyond first tier direct suppliers.

Presently as there is huge number of ERP solutions either based on magnitude or business of organizations and vendors in the market, the selection of suitable ERP solution or vendor makes CIOs of any FMCG company even tougher. Most of the ERP vendors deliver their solutions that do not acknowledge the specific need of the clients and forcefully tries to fit the solutions to their client’s requirement which results in loss of confidence of clients. The key is that either the CIO should be smart enough to identify whether ERP vendor will be able to deliver the solutions or should be transparent enough to open about the things which it cannot provide in its solutions to avoid another Horsemeat Scandal.

To better comprehend about the supply chain challenges, this issue we have an in depth conversation with Irfan A Khan, Senior Vice President, Global Field Operations of Bristlecone, a Mahindra Group company that fuels supply chain management across multiple industries including High Technology and Semiconductor, Automotive, Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG), Industrial Machinery and Components, Oil and Gas, Pharmaceuticals and Chemicals with its wide range of services spanning from implementation of integrated solutions, proof of concept, consulting, managed services, information management, technology and integration support, asset services and go-live assistance. Khan, with his two decades of experience, is recognized in the industry for his strong consultative and practical approach and his proven competency in initiating, leading and managing turnaround growth strategies in both complex multi-channel distribution as well as business-to-business environments.