Abhijit joined 4flow almost three years ago after his journey at Bosch, which led him to work in five different countries. Now he is a vice president for digital transformation at 4flow consulting. In the interview, he shares his perspective on digital transformation and AI at 4flow, his passion for different cultures, and how he promotes diversity – at 4flow and in his free time.
What sparked your interest in supply chain?
I was raised in a port industrial area in India, where my family was running an international logistics business. Therefore, I spent a lot of time at a harbor, where I saw big cargo ships coming from all over the world. I was always fascinated by how the goods came there from far away and reached their destination in a perfectly organized way. I think that’s why I wanted to work in supply chain in the first place.
Later at university, a professor told me that a supply chain is like cooking a meal in your kitchen. All the different ingredients need to be procured and transported to your home. Then you do your inventory management, as some goods go in the fridge, and some are stored differently. The cooking afterwards is like the production. This taught me that supply chain touches everybody’s life every single day. That’s why I wanted to be a part of it and started my journey at Bosch, where I worked on topics related to the digital transformation of supply chains, before changing to 4flow.
Can you tell us a bit about your current role at 4flow?
I am a vice president for digital transformation. Together with my team, I work on digital supply chain solutions for our customers. We want to build a digital product and service portfolio to enable 4flow’s vision of being the trusted global leader in supply chain optimization. In this role, I had the opportunity to get to know the industry and many clients fast.
And what are your goals at 4flow in terms of digital transformation?
I want to use digitization to make a sustainable impact for our customers, the environment and society. With data science and innovative technologies such as AI, we can automate repetitive tasks and develop solutions for efficient problem-solving. This will enhance productivity, both for us and for our customers, and free up time to focus on more complex tasks or create a better work-life balance. I believe that the combination of artificial and human intelligence will give us a superpower to address the challenges of our time. I’m happy that 4flow is such a future-oriented company and allows me to work on these topics.
What do you like most about working at 4flow?
Definitely the team – 4flow is full of smart and helpful people. I also appreciate the cultural diversity at 4flow because I love connecting with people from different countries. I, myself, am from India originally and have been living and working in the USA, Mexico and Japan before I moved to Germany.
How was your experience living and working in so many different countries?
It’s been an interesting journey because every culture and hence also the working culture is so different. When I started in India, the culture was mostly service-oriented and relationship-based. In the USA, there was more of an innovation focus and result orientation, but in Mexico the mentality was again service-oriented and driven by traditional values. In Japan, however, the main focus was on quality and discipline. Here in Germany, everything is structured, efficiency-driven and goal oriented. All these cultures are motivated to get an excellent product on the market, but the approach is different.
How can you use your international background in your role at 4flow?
I have a very diverse team with five different ethnic and cultural backgrounds. My international experience helps me to relate to people from different cultures and encourage their unique qualities. I think that diversity is both about the cultural background and the different ways of thinking. With a diverse team, we can benefit from all the different ideas and approaches to find the best solution. I believe that this makes us more successful in designing future-oriented solutions for our customers. That’s why I’m also involved in the diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) initiative at 4flow.
What do you do in the DE&I initiative at 4flow?
I think it’s important to make everyone feel appreciated and heard. In the initiative, we are discussing actionable steps to make 4flow even more diverse and build a more inclusive environment. I am a big promoter of these topics and also founded an initiative with some friends in my free time, where we also want to support cultural diversity.
Sounds interesting – can you tell us a bit more about your initiative?
It’s called Maitree e.V., which means friendship in Indian language. Our main goal is to give back to society. We celebrate cultural diversity by organizing events that give artists and performers from different countries a platform to showcase their cultures. Additionally, we collaborate with social organizations to support underprivileged communities and promote young talent in developing countries. To me, it’s rewarding to connect people from different cultural backgrounds and support individuals to find the right path in life, while at the same time contributing to a sustainable society for the future.
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