Published on August 28, 2023
27 supply chain experts from 12 Tata companies spent two days (August 17-18, 2023) at BigBasket, Bengaluru, to understand practices pertaining to buying, last mile delivery, warehouse operations and use of analytics in the supply chain function. The day started with a welcome address and overview of BigBasket’s scale of operations by Balakumar TK, COO, BigBasket.com. In his talk, he touched upon the importance of profitable growth and a maniacal focus which BigBasket maintains on serving its customers. He further elaborated on learnings from operations in T1 and T2 cities, BB now business model, key performance metrics, 3C-focus (customer experience, capacity management and cost management), BigBasket private label brands, innovation, use of technology to optimise delivery, sustainable practices such as focus on electric vehicles, paperless billing, and synergy with group companies.
Thereafter, MA Shyam, National Head - Replenishment, detailed out BigBasket’s practices pertaining to range rationalisation, liquidation, forecasting and new initiatives. Gopala Krishna, National Head - Supply Chain, shared practices on inbound and outbound material handling, 5S implementation, inventory management, transport management system and innovations in inventory categorisation, cage picking and order allocation. Post that Lalita Aggarwal, National Head - Last Mile & Transportation, shared her approaches for cash handling, manpower planning and route process flow. Sanjeev Kumar, Head - Analytics, shared practices on use of analytics for supplies, merchandising, replenishment, logistics and fulfilment. He explained in detail the application of machines - learning driven customer experience at BigBasket in terms of smart basket, recommendations, frequently bought together and perishables forecasting.
On day 2, participants visited BigBasket’s distribution centres, 5K dock store and BB now stores. Here participants could gain visibility to inbound and outbound material handling up to last mile delivery. From these visits they could take away key learnings in terms of inventory planning, gate entry automation, advance shipment notice, one click GRN, cages for loading and unloading, BB matrix platform, capacity planning and making last mile delivery more visual.
In the session, Tata Play was felicitated by Tata Business Excellence Group (TBExG) for implementation of learnings from the Tata Motors warehouse (dense racking, de-palletised stacking, use of latching belts and robot pallets) and supporting Tata Power Delhi Distribution (Tata Power-DDL), Infiniti Retail and Nelco in their improvement initiatives. In the past, Tata Power-DDL would automate its e-way bill generation and Infiniti Retail could update its third party due diligence process based on learnings shared by Tata Play.