Walk through the complexities of growing a manufacturing business and learn how to sidestep ongoing production delays.
Manufacturing operations are highly intricate, and issues often arise in unforeseen ways. Even a small modification to the system can have far-reaching effects on costs and production.
But for Manufactured.com’s founder Pranay Srinivasan, a future with faster delivery times, cheaper production costs, and happier customers is totally attainable.
In this episode of The Checkout, Pranay walks us through a career’s worth of insights from the manufacturing world. We dive into the complexities of growing a manufacturing business and what it takes to succeed — especially in today’s unprecedented times.
Tune in and learn:
- What impact technology has on global trade
- The main roadblocks faced by manufacturers — and how to remove them
- How to holistically assess your manufacturing needs
- Why physical products are important to the provision of services
- The intricacies of the product lifecycle
““A lot of the problems that stem from the universal supply chain cashflow come from not having a full understanding on both sides: on the buy side and the sell side of what businesses are doing. And that's critical to the business succeeding.”Pranay Srinivasan, founder & CEO at Manufactured.com
Meet Pranay Srinivasan
Pranay Srinivasan is the founder of Manufactured.com. And he is widely considered the leading expert in brand design, manufacturing, and financing inventory production.
Before Manufactured, Pranay had his hands in various entrepreneurial projects in the production space. This includes co-founding eVItaran, a supply chain software, and offering white-label manufacturing operations via Sourceeasy.
But why manufacturing? Easy – Pranay believes in the power of technology to move goods worldwide.
Connect with Pranay on: LinkedIn | Twitter
About Manufactured.com
Manufactured.com is a product-sourcing platform that provides entrepreneurs access to a network of manufacturing companies across the globe. The platform focuses on helping brands operate and manage their supply chains from a single vantage point.
Learn more about Manufactured.com on: Twitter | Website
The Checkout episode 16 highlights:
Pranay’s entrepreneurial background
- At the early age of 14, Pranay learned how to operate an end-to-end manufacturing business, thanks to his entrepreneurial father
- “I had a tremendous amount of privilege in that I could take what [my father] had learned, make it my own, and grow from there. I didn’t have any of the antecedent fears that my father had. Like if you sell anything for more than a dollar, it’s too expensive.”
Starting Manufactured.com
- In 2013, Pranay launched Sourceeasy, a digital platform that manufactured and distributed apparel globally. Pranay raised $6M in equity but incurred nearly $9M in debt which led the business to shut down in 2017
- Luckily, the same investors decided to back Manufactured.com, which he launched in 2018
- Manufactured.com is a product-sourcing platform that connects entrepreneurs to a network of manufacturing companies across the world
There’s a wide gap in manufacturing expertise
- More and more entrepreneurs are discovering new product ideas without learning how to navigate the complex supply chain.
- Many entrepreneurs hit a brick wall when sourcing products. For instance, 8000Kicks CEO Bernardo Carreira spent thousands of dollars developing hemp fabric and had to deal with million-dollar production problems before he was able to diversify his supply chain
- “If you look at the graph, the expertise has stayed pretty much at a linear kind of growth. Whereas the number of people wanting to manufacture products has grown exponentially.”
Understanding a product’s lifecycle
- “At Manufactured.com, we don’t look at a physical product as something that needs to be made, sold or financed. We look at it as this complete end-to-end lifecycle.”
- When launching a product, you have to first understand its lifecycle (from design and development to manufacturing and delivery)
- “We want to become a central platform where we can make inventory predictable for any brand or any merchant in the world because we want to understand the entire lifecycle of the product and then financially bet on it.”
Manufacturing lessons you can’t learn soon enough
- “Your product discussion and your manufacturing discussion should not sit in a silo,” Both business areas should be brought together to be discussed holistically
- Understand your business vision and how your products fit into it
- “9 out of 10 times, manufacturing is so transactional, inventory is so transactional, finance is so transactional, customer acquisition is so transactional that the problem is they don’t really lead up to a bigger goal. And that’s where businesses fail.”
Taking a “therapy approach” to understand manufacturing needs
- “A lot of the problems that stem from the universal supply chain cashflow come from not having a full understanding on both sides — on the buy side and the sell side of what businesses are doing. And that’s critical to the business succeeding.”
- Businesses need to take a “therapy approach” when manufacturing. Meaning you need to gain clarity on the manufacturing process as it relates to your mission and vision, then work from there
The power of automated systems to anticipate problems
- Pranay believes that growing businesses have the power to automate their systems up to 90% and that building these processes and systems can help you get ahead of potential problems
- “As long as your business is growing and you’re aware of the problems, you don’t have to be paranoid. You can sleep at night knowing that you have mechanisms in place that will solve the problem.”
Proactive inventory planning leads to greater profitability
- By closely monitoring variations in your customers’ behavior and the product lifecycle, you can predict periods of decline and growth in your business (AKA, seasonality) and build smarter production schedules to ensure you can meet demand
- “If you know how to provision your inventory, your raw materials, and your components, you can actually time faster deliveries because you provisioned it in advance.”
- If you predict a product’s demand for the next 18 months, you could reduce the cost of goods by up to 50% by negotiating better terms with suppliers
A grim economic outlook requires planning ahead
- “We’re entering a terrible time, especially with inflation hitting. A recession is coming, and these sorts of geopolitical instability. It’s gonna be a really bleak two or three years.”
- Pranay suggests extending your demand forecasts by 6 months. Then, keep ~3 months of safety stock on hand to ensure you can meet demand without selling out (Psst – you can create this growth plan in Cogsy)
![Your Guide To Improving Multi-Location Inventory Management [7 Strategies]](https://cogsy.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Multi-location-inventory-management-scaled.jpg)
