The supply chain is an ecosystem that needs care. Large organisations have a very important role to play in supporting SMEs in their journey to digital and carbon neutral supply chains. We spoke to Mike Bhaskaran, COO of Digital Technology & Logistics at DP World, about different projects DP World is working on, how they are supporting environmental pledges and digitisation. You can watch the full video interview below.
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DP World has helped local Rwandan coffee farmers to improve their exports. Can you tell us more about the project and what happened?
Three years ago we started working on a project called World Logistics Passport, which allows the acceleration of goods through countries. You can think about it as a green channel, helping merchants with new markets. Rwanda was one of the first countries that actually signed up to this program.
One of the conversations we had with them was about their great coffee and the challenge they had with packaging. At this time we were developing new routes and solutions for Latin America and Africa, we did not anticipate packaging to be a challenge.
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We spoke to a company we work with and discussed how this premium coffee can be packaged and showcased on our retail page. We wanted to make it possible for customers to see this on dubuy.com which is our B2B platform.
We are very proud of the work we did and there are so many opportunities that came up out of it. Packaging and presentation has become an equally important part of digitisation in the supply chain, along with many other aspects we work on.
What is the role of organisations like DP World in supporting smaller, local producers to enter global markets?
I think we have an important role to play. We do almost 80 million plus containers through our ports. We handle more than 10% of global container trade and a sizable part of this are SMEs. We play an important role in facilitating access to markets for them.
We can also provide them with the much needed working capital. In addition, we play a broader supply chain role by providing a good user experience with services like dubuy.com. We can also provide ERP solutions that can provide information about costs, demand and environmental impact.
How is digitisation going? Is the supply chain reaching its own goals in this area?
When we first started we asked ourselves if it is better to solve it in parts or as a whole. We think that solving it in parts is better.
We concentrated on different areas and we also noticed that different companies are very good at different aspects of digitisation. Some might be great in the ERP area and we are developing solutions that can fit in a gap and be plugged in instantly.
Do you think the industry will be able to reach the climate goals for 2030 and 2050?
Today we have a method to capture the amount of CO2 a container emits during a trip from Shanghai to LA, for example. There are then offset market places which can provide the ability to offset this. Of course, this is not a process a small farmer in Africa can do without help. We can tell them how much carbon can be offset and we think spreading this is a very important role for us to play.
You can watch the full interview with Mike Bhaskaran, COO of Digital Technology & Logistics at DP World, with more details on the projects DP World is working on. ✷
