Make the stock account work on the shop floor

The annual stock count once looked like a decisive answer to our inventory questions. We closed shops, counted carefully and produced a list of differences. In 2018, as operations director, I supported that approach without asking enough about the trading movements around the count. A review of 480 item-location pairs found seventy-four apparent differences. Fifty-one were explained by timing or posting after the movement records were reconciled; twenty-three still required investigation. The first list could not responsibly be described as seventy-four proven losses. I had allowed the event of counting to carry more meaning than its unresolved evidence supported. Changing the approach required cooperation between shop teams, the hub and finance, not simply a request for more careful counters.

I now lead operations at Kelqashi Stationery in Coimbatore. Sixteen shops and a replenishment hub serve customers buying writing instruments, paper products and office stationery. The company has 326 colleagues; my operating remit covers 248 through four leaders and ₹19 crore annual operating expense. Merchandise purchases and capital approvals sit outside that delegated expense figure. I work with CEO Arun Vervqali and CFO Leela Derqnavi to connect the practical operation with its enterprise consequences. A shop can hold the right product but the wrong quantity, or receive a useful carton whose contents have been recorded as one unit. Those distinctions affect replenishment, working space and the confidence of colleagues who must answer a customer.

My recent work includes correcting pack-level receiving and creating a selective break-pack service at the hub. Neither decision was simply a system switch. The receiving repair needed product information and physical verification. Smaller deliveries needed handling space, labour, packaging and a clear account of which lines could be split appropriately. I want a network that can offer those choices without hiding the support they consume. I would consider another operating mandate with that practical scope, and a first outside board contribution after further preparation. I hold a small employee shareholding but no statutory appointment. Any outside role would need its own assessment of relationships, capacity and suitability; an executive presentation is not equivalent to service as a director.

Current focus

Replenishment and stock-control practices that support the shop without concealing the work transferred to the hub.

Conversations I welcome

An operating leadership mandate in a consumer network and, after further preparation, one suitable first outside board role.