Meghana Patil: A Global Leader With Insights In Digitizing Logistics & Delivering Analytics
Meghana Patil
Vice President - Analytics & Innovation
Reason for withholding Analytics implementation could be due to multiple reasons, however, at WebXpress, it understands that their customers should spend their time managing operations rather than running around to implement the software solution for months. Web Xpress solution comprises operational modules along with Analytics, and alerts. These huge responsibilities of analytics and implementing are handled by a global leader Meghana Patil who realized her passion towards Supply Chain Management and recognized the huge scope of leveraging technology to make processes efficient.
Engaging with a team of CEO Insights for an exclusive interaction with Meghana shares the story of her journey as the Vice President Analytics and Innovation, of the pioneer Supply Chain Management company WebXpress.
Give us a brief detail about your educational and professional background prior to WebXpress Transportation Software.
My education is a blend of technical & management skills.I have completed my Diploma and Bachelors in Computers Engineering. After working for two years, went on to enhance business management skills by completing a Master's in Management Studies.
After completing my engineering, I started my career as a programmer in a small firm-providing value added service to telecom service providers and worked as a visiting faculty for BSC-IT students on weekends. I feel fortunate to secure an internship at Navneet Publication Factory during Master's studies, where I got a holistic view of all the stages involved in the process right from Planning Procurement Manufacturing Warehousing &Transportation. Post my MBA, I joined WebXpress as a Business Analyst. This role helped to understand the power of data especially when processed and presented in a way simple to understand and get clues of organization's performance health. These experiences helped me in bringing efficiency and improvement in operations. In such ways I was able to identify untapped areas and gaps which cannot be bridged by software solutions alone.
What different roles have you been undertaking at WebXpress? How is your professional experience helping you?
My primary role is to provide our customers with Analytics and insights not only to their top
management but to each user of the software, irrespective of user's level in the hierarchy or the functional department they belong to. I am part of data management in collaboration with our CTO, identify channels to deliver the analysis, supervise testing, regularly connect with customers to take their feedback for further improvements, monitor usage, and release updated versions frequently.
I am also responsible for bringing innovative solutions using IoT or by integrating data from various sources to ensure that the entire ecosystem required for logistics operations is available for our customers. The Analytics team and Product team work together and help each other in improving both the services. This helps us to capture and process any data required for analysis faster than any other company. Our customers are not only the ones who benefit from our solution, but their customers also get benefited. While working on analysis, we ensure to consider all these factors and make it suitable for any industry or business or logistics model.
How do you develop your product strategy to ensure that it meets the vision and goals of WebXpress? How do you connect new ideas to your business strategy?
Succeeding in a product strategy is possible only if it is aligned with the company's goal. At WebXpress, our goal is to ensure that each user, stakeholder of WebXpress product is benefited. That means we want our product to increase producti vity and make all the users capable of making informed decisions at their level.
For delivering analytics as a service, we focus on providing analysis of only what matters to the user rather than loading up with irrelevant details. Access to the analysis is based on role and rights. These are easily configurable and customized as required. Some of the standard parameters we consider while developing our product strategy are type of analysis, depth of analysis or date range to consider, channel/ medium of accessing the analysis and frequency or time at which insights are delivered.
Our business strategy is to empower Logistics Service Providers (LSPs) and Shippers with IT solutions, irrespective of the size of the company/business model/geography. Our Solution should be easy & quick to deploy, minimal training required by the users, have seamless data flow across functions involved in logistics operations, and accessible from anywhere/any device. While working on any new idea, we ensure it is aligned with our business strategy. Accordingly, we add Analysis or embed new features which are easy to adapt without disrupting any existing workflow.
I am also responsible for bringing innovative solutions using IoT or by integrating data from various sources to ensure that the entire ecosystem required for logistics operations is available for our customers. The Analytics team and Product team work together and help each other in improving both the services. This helps us to capture and process any data required for analysis faster than any other company. Our customers are not only the ones who benefit from our solution, but their customers also get benefited. While working on analysis, we ensure to consider all these factors and make it suitable for any industry or business or logistics model.
For delivering analytics as a service,we focus on providing analysis of only what matters to the user rather than loading up with irrelevant details
How do you develop your product strategy to ensure that it meets the vision and goals of WebXpress? How do you connect new ideas to your business strategy?
Succeeding in a product strategy is possible only if it is aligned with the company's goal. At WebXpress, our goal is to ensure that each user, stakeholder of WebXpress product is benefited. That means we want our product to increase producti vity and make all the users capable of making informed decisions at their level.
For delivering analytics as a service, we focus on providing analysis of only what matters to the user rather than loading up with irrelevant details. Access to the analysis is based on role and rights. These are easily configurable and customized as required. Some of the standard parameters we consider while developing our product strategy are type of analysis, depth of analysis or date range to consider, channel/ medium of accessing the analysis and frequency or time at which insights are delivered.
Our business strategy is to empower Logistics Service Providers (LSPs) and Shippers with IT solutions, irrespective of the size of the company/business model/geography. Our Solution should be easy & quick to deploy, minimal training required by the users, have seamless data flow across functions involved in logistics operations, and accessible from anywhere/any device. While working on any new idea, we ensure it is aligned with our business strategy. Accordingly, we add Analysis or embed new features which are easy to adapt without disrupting any existing workflow.
In your professional journey so far, which are the milestones that bestowed you with utmost satisfaction both as an individual and as a CAO?
As an individual Iam grateful for receiving invitations for conducting workshops/seminars/lectures for B-School's operations batch which gives me an opportunity to guide and answer the queries of the future leaders & entrepreneurs.I am part of Academy Advisor board meetings of B-School which is focused on restructuring the programs such that the students gain competency to attain their dream jobs and perform best in a challenging environment at work. Successfully managing continuous learning and gaining various certifications/ licenses along with my professional responsibility.
My team has successfully adopted another BI tool Kibana which is being extensively used by all our customers since its release. We have also been able to reduce the TAT of launching new analysis. From the adoption aspect, 100 percent of our customers are using all the analysis. The usage per customer has also increased at least by 30 percent.
How do you stay fresh on new techno logies and how would you describe your product roadmap process?
I make sure to spend at least 30 mins a day on reading or watching a video, webinar, and listening to a podcast of technology new to me. I also find it interesting to learn its application in any other domain. Regular discussions and casual chats with our WebXpress' Tech team is also an enlightening experience, every one in the team is very much updated on much different technology.
Our product team is not limited to a few sets of people, we encourage and include ideas shared by each employee of WebXpress. We ensure that all the inputs are considered and embedded before finalizing the development of a product, which can be used for analysis. Our product roadmap is to deliver insights and analysis using different channels like SMS, WhatsApp, Emails, Push notifications and much more. This analytical solution is ready to use dashboards loaded with your data from day 1 of transactions, configur able alerts on WhatsApp/SMS/email. Count of transport related analysis is at least 25+ dashboards having approximately 150 charts.
Meghana Patil, Vice President Analytics & Innovation, WebXpress
Meghana's professional journey has been unconventional so far from the beginning of her career, she has enjoyed working in the logistics across different functions. Meghana has created immense value for her customers by contributing to the growth of their business. For instance, she has developed an International Partner Ecosystem at Aurionpro. She has formed Strategic Alliance and created an Ecosystem which made Mahindra Logistics ‘one stop solution provider'and completed initial phase of Digitization of Procurement Process at Mahindra Logistics.
Hobby: Dancing, Traveling and Reading Books
Favorite Cuisine: Indian
Favorite Book: Bhagavad Gita, The Alchemist, Wings of Fire and Dual Transfor mation by Scott D. Anthony, Clark Gilbert, and Mark W. Johnson
Travel Destination: Any place close to nature or having cultural heritage buildings
As an individual Iam grateful for receiving invitations for conducting workshops/seminars/lectures for B-School's operations batch which gives me an opportunity to guide and answer the queries of the future leaders & entrepreneurs.I am part of Academy Advisor board meetings of B-School which is focused on restructuring the programs such that the students gain competency to attain their dream jobs and perform best in a challenging environment at work. Successfully managing continuous learning and gaining various certifications/ licenses along with my professional responsibility.
My team has successfully adopted another BI tool Kibana which is being extensively used by all our customers since its release. We have also been able to reduce the TAT of launching new analysis. From the adoption aspect, 100 percent of our customers are using all the analysis. The usage per customer has also increased at least by 30 percent.
How do you stay fresh on new techno logies and how would you describe your product roadmap process?
I make sure to spend at least 30 mins a day on reading or watching a video, webinar, and listening to a podcast of technology new to me. I also find it interesting to learn its application in any other domain. Regular discussions and casual chats with our WebXpress' Tech team is also an enlightening experience, every one in the team is very much updated on much different technology.
Our product team is not limited to a few sets of people, we encourage and include ideas shared by each employee of WebXpress. We ensure that all the inputs are considered and embedded before finalizing the development of a product, which can be used for analysis. Our product roadmap is to deliver insights and analysis using different channels like SMS, WhatsApp, Emails, Push notifications and much more. This analytical solution is ready to use dashboards loaded with your data from day 1 of transactions, configur able alerts on WhatsApp/SMS/email. Count of transport related analysis is at least 25+ dashboards having approximately 150 charts.
Meghana Patil, Vice President Analytics & Innovation, WebXpress
Meghana's professional journey has been unconventional so far from the beginning of her career, she has enjoyed working in the logistics across different functions. Meghana has created immense value for her customers by contributing to the growth of their business. For instance, she has developed an International Partner Ecosystem at Aurionpro. She has formed Strategic Alliance and created an Ecosystem which made Mahindra Logistics ‘one stop solution provider'and completed initial phase of Digitization of Procurement Process at Mahindra Logistics.
Hobby: Dancing, Traveling and Reading Books
Favorite Cuisine: Indian
Favorite Book: Bhagavad Gita, The Alchemist, Wings of Fire and Dual Transfor mation by Scott D. Anthony, Clark Gilbert, and Mark W. Johnson
Travel Destination: Any place close to nature or having cultural heritage buildings