On February 20, 2021, students were invited to a Guest Lecture/Workshop Session as a part of Co-Curricular Activities of the module: Operations and Logistics Management. Event was organised by the PGBM (Postgraduate Business and Management) Team of The British College. The facilitator  of one whole day event was Mr Ashutosh Tiwari, Founder of SAFAL Partners. The workshop ran from 10 am till 6 PM at The Himalaya Hotel, Kupondole. 

The first hour was spent on registration and networking. Because of Covid-related lockdown, many of the students did not have a chance to meet in person for a long time. Some were meeting one another and the faculty members for the first time since the admission days. The first informal networking hour thus gave a sense of ease to everyone and helped all to network over coffee. The workshop started at around 11 am, with the Facilitator focusing on four attributes of any successful business: Innovation, Productivity, Scale and Sustainability. The Facilitator suggested that a company can do everything else – ie. marketing, sales, human resource management, etc. – right, but still not do well if it does not continuously strengthen those four attributes. It was stressed that in order to survive and thrive in the competitive market, it requires the use of innovation, scale, and sustainability. Although factors like capital, supply chain, human resources, marketing etc are important for the overall success of an organisation, an organization's ability to be innovative, sustainability and scalability gives it a competitive advantage over its competitors. 

The first session went on for two hours, and, with examples drawn from Nepal and abroad, it covered the differences between operations management and supply chain management. It defined logistics as the physical movement of goods. It showed that some of the world’s largest and richest companies – such as Apple, Amazon, McDonald’s, etc. -- were sophisticated supply chain players who could, through an optimal mix of technology and people, coordinate activities across geographies, cultures, markets and time. Before the lunch hour at 1 pm, the students did an individual exercise on how to manufacture dot-pens with different coloured caps by using the operations and logistics concepts they had just learnt.

After lunch, the session went on for three hours. The focus this time was on how a CEO or a General Manager oversees the operations and the supply chain of his/her company. Some of the operational KPIs were shared and discussed. Besides, this session showed how a CEO works with his or her management team to ensure that raw materials get to the factories, where they are transformed into finished products, and then shipped to the market to be sold. The students learnt that an operations manager needs to be an excellent people-person who can work and negotiate with all kinds of people. The students then were divided into seven groups and were given different case studies, which they had to read and find answers to the questions. They did so in the end, with each group making a short presentation. 

In this second session,  students got an opportunity to understand the importance of optimum use of resources for higher productivity, and capitalizing on global opportunities in the map of a sustainable organization. It also gave the opportunity to understand the complexities revolving around sustainability, and how companies today are bound to take sustainable measures due to the changing nature of work, values and principles of the contemporary world.

As per the feedback and conversation, it is believed that the workshop helped students to have a much broader and deeper understanding of various aspects regarding Operations and Logistics Management. The learning objectives of the session were well achieved and the format of the event was well-received by the students. 

-- This is a collaborative reflection of the facilitator, Mr Ashutosh Tiwari and the Students, Ms Priscilla Samuel and Ms Anisha Kafle.