Counterpoint Podcast

Join us on a journey through the transformative world of retail with Arvind Fashions on the Counterpoint Podcast. Host Shubham Agarwal sits down with MD & CEO, Shailesh Chaturvedi to explore their leap towards a more efficient, profitable supply chain. Learn about their strategy for optimizing inventory and enhancing gross margins. Listen now!

Delve into the dynamics of the real estate market with our latest Counterpoint Podcast episode. Understand the puzzling decline in Internal Rates of Return (IRR) despite a thriving demand. Tune in to this episode to access expert analyses and discover actionable strategies for enhanced profitability in real estate investment.

Tune in to the latest episode of the Counterpoint podcast where we delve into the complex issue of managing an ever-increasing product range within companies. In this insightful episode, Arvind Rana, Partner, Vector Consulting Group dissect the dilemmas faced by organizations, from conflicting demands of sales teams and NPD departments to the financial implications of expanding product ranges. He...

Pharma labs often need help with non-conformances, which hurts their business significantly. Over time, they have only been able to make minor tweaks in their processes, but they have not yet zeroed in on the core problem – Cognitive Overload. Achal Saran Pande, Partner at Vector Consulting Group, helps understand the issue of Cognitive Overload and details how to solve it.

Join us in this eye-opening episode as we plunge into the world of USFDA warning letters hitting pharma companies worldwide. Analyst error often takes the blame for quality issues, but is it truly the culprit? Let's delve deeper with Abhinav Srivastava, senior consultant at Vector Consulting Group.    Together, we'll break the barriers, get to the real root cause, and explore the groundbre...

There couldn't have been a more fitting topic to commemorate the 50th episode of the Counterpoint Podcast. In the previous episode, we delved into how Vector ensures flawless implementation and execution of solution elements for our esteemed clients. In this episode, we unveil the second and final tool that guarantees exceptional outcomes for all our clients.   Introducing 'Systemic Analys...

Whenever we have a brilliant idea in our heads, we tend to get attached to it and sometimes become obsessed with it. However, more often than not, the idea remains just an idea, never seeing the light of day. Obviously, an idea is valuable only when it is implemented and implemented well. In this episode with Visu, a senior consultant at the Vector Consulting Group, we explore how Vector has maste...

Manufacturing companies tend to be unaware of the 'Real Capacity' of their plants. Typically, companies make an estimate of their capacity based on a 'median' product mix they manufacture, capacity defined by equipment suppliers, or experience over time. This then becomes a benchmark used to measure plant efficiency. Companies may even elevate capacity when output consistently reac...

Vector Consulting Group has developed a unique thinking process that combines the work of great philosophers such as Aristotle, Francis Bacon, Karl Popper, scientist David Deutsche, and management guru Eli Goldratt. This approach that we call the Scientific and Systems Thinking approach, has been instrumental in helping us find breakthrough solutions for our clients. Our commitment to sharing our...

Thanks to all our listeners for the phenomenal positive feedback that you gave us for Season 1 of the Counterpoint Podcast. We are now back with Season 2. Companies launch new products and services frequently with the intention of offering customers new experiences while increasing their own market share. Unfortunately, there is a big risk - no one can guarantee the success of a new product. In th...

In the first part of this 2-episode series on software development, we discussed the challenges posed by both Waterfall and Agile (scrum) methodologies and why using these could lead to a loss in productivity. We had promised to come back with a new solution that can overcome these challenges and yield very high productivity jumps. So, in this episode, we have invited Anantha Keerti back to d...

'Meetings, meetings, everywhere, no value added!' Is this true for your organization too? Do you also have endless number of meetings every day? Do you also feel that you are just moving from one meeting to another without accomplishing anything or deciding on a concrete way forward? We know that a lot of you out there are tired of attending pointless meetings. So, in this episode we will discuss...

It is not uncommon for companies to have multiple improvement initiatives underway at the same time. But very often these projects are delayed or don’t deliver the results envisaged when they were initiated!  Vector has helped many companies undertake very successful transformation projects. So, in this 'less than ten minutes' episode Kiran Kothekar, Founding Director, shares a story of his meetin...

In this podcast we visit the challenges posed by Waterfall and Agile (scrum), the most popular methodologies for software development. While examining Agile, Anantha helps us question some of the assumptions behind few of its practices like - working with small ‘self-sufficient’ teams, keeping design and requirements fluid & use of standard sprint cycles. He describes how by understanding the...

Agri-equipment manufacturing companies tend to have a major challenge in managing operations since demand is significantly dependent on seasons, level of rainfall, festivals, etc. Mr. Antony Cherukara, discusses how by adopting a pull-based supply chain, companies can become flexible enough to adjust themselves to changing market demand in such a way that sales loss for the company can be prevente...

In this episode of the Counterpoint Podcast, we bring into focus the challenges that the pandemic has caused on the already disrupted supply chains of pharma companies in India and across the world. Achal Pande first gives us an analogy from the way train networks function to explain the real challenge with pharma operations. This makes it super-easy to understand the core problem in this environm...

In the last episode on Mystery Analysis, we set the groundwork for why and how to do an analysis that would help us reveal the causality behind our post-implementation results. We also touched upon two concepts or approaches that could be used for detecting the mystery. This episode goes into details of these methods and subsequent steps to be followed. Tune in! A useful article to read while tryi...

We are back with the Thinking Processes series. In the last episode of the series, we had promised to discuss about 'Mystery Analysis'. So, this episode elucidates the kind of analysis that is required to be done post-implementation of a change initiative if the results do not match expectations. If results are lower, then this analysis is needed to take necessary precautions in the future...

The fashion industry is known for its seasonality, for the seasons bring with it the need for change in the entire range of clothing. But for the clothing companies, this poses a big challenge, the challenge of huge inventories that are left behind with every switch of a season. Moreover, the inventories cannot be used in the subsequent year because of the fast-changing fashion trends. Hence, this...

It is important for effective control of organizational activities to establish clear accountability for desired outcomes. Hence, there is a practice of using KPIs or KRAs or a related term to define individual targets. But what if we claim that these individual targets do not achieve their intended purpose. In fact, they might often result in an organization being fraught with friction between te...

In the previous episode of this series, we discussed the challenges and probable pitfalls of implementing a pull distribution strategy as against a conventional push system. We left off the discussion at the end of the pilot phase. In this episode, we chart out the journey from the end of the pilot phase to the scale-up phase and look at how the nature of challenges change in this phase. We conclu...

Why is it that even though many companies realise that there is significant sales loss because they are not available in the huge number of small outlets, they still do not try for direct distribution of the full market? Is it really possible? Why is it that the industry conventionally uses weighted distribution & incremental growth and accepts incomplete distribution? Can using numeric distri...

Commodities like steel are a challenge to differentiate based on product features. So, conventionally, steel companies are forced to compete almost solely on price/margins to win orders from customers/dealers. Unfortunately, 'price' is very difficult factor to sustain as differentiator. However, there a way for companies to differentiate themselves using reliability of service in commoditised mark...

Enormous workload, high uncertainty and heavy dependence on external suppliers all have together made the task of new product development in the auto segment is very challenging and stressful. The process is riddled with rework, problems in production stabilisation, and delays in launch. However, by questioning the traditional paradigms of project management and resolving the core conflict in this...

The pandemic brought a totally new level of uncertainty in the business of distribution companies. Detailed plans and forecasts went haywire for many companies. But there were still that stood out from their counterparts in the industry who had unique supply chains designed for agility. These companies had re-designed their end to end supply chain, much before the pandemic,  to react rapidly to va...