Welcome back to The Procuretech Podcast!

We're continuing our series of interviews with industry experts and thought leaders to get their take on digital procurement. In this episode, we're going to extend that a little bit and talk about supply chain.
Democratising Supply Chain Training - Dr. Muddassir Ahmed from SCMDOJO 
Today's guest is a big personality in the supply chain space: Dr. Muddassir Ahmed, CEO of SCMDOJO. 

He's got a YouTube channel with almost 10,000 subscribers and a complete resource platform for online courses. 

But before we talk about that, let's get some background on how he got there.

 
Dr. Muddassir Ahmed's background – From corporate to SCM thought leadership
Muddassir studied abroad in Sweden, where he earned a masters in production and supply chain. He then moved to the UK for a PhD scholarship. Settling in Birmingham, he began work for the manufacturing company Eaton. 

Muddassir started work as a demand planner, but got to experience a wide range of roles at Eaton. He gained experience in supply chain across different departments; electrical, automotive, aerospace, hydraulics. So he's hardcore supply chain guy, through and through.

When he finished his PhD in 2015, he realised that most content in the supply chain space was pretty archaic in nature. FinTech content at the time was a lot more attractive: Punchy articles, simple “How To...” guides, easy to read lists. 

He thought he'd try to bring this bite-sized content to the world of supply chain, and it worked!

What started out as a personal blog quickly grew into a brand in its own right, taking on the name SCMDOJO in July 2018.

SCMDOJO now gets 50,000 visitors every month, and the YouTube channel is growing too.

Dojo is a Japanese word which means place to stay and meditate. And that's exactly what SCMDOJO does. It gives the supply chain community  knowledge, tools and best practices, to help them survive and thrive.

Last year, Muddassir took his biggest risk yet, when he left his job to focus on SCM Dojo.

What impacts has Muddassir seen from disruptive procurement technology?
Muddassir thinks we have a lot of catching up to do, in procurement. We're easily a decade behind FinTech when it comes to digitisation.

He often gets criticised by the big ERP providers for saying this, but he thinks they're really slowing us down. If the same four ERP providers didn't have a stranglehold on 80% of the market, things would change more quickly. 

There has been a move to adopting digital tools lately, but the downside from Muddassir's perspective is that they're rarely made by supply chain people. 

Every supply chain is very vertical driven, and needs to be customised to the user's business model. This takes consultation and a lot of time. As a result, transformation in supply chain has been slow. 

It might be 10 years late, but better late than never. 

The flurry of startups in recent years presents some problems. Everyone wants to go the SaaS route, but there's no clear guide on which software to use, how to use it, or how best to customise it.