Mihir Paramane, Planning & Logistics Head, FMCG at Reliance Consumer Products Limited, says relying on historical festive sales is a widespread trap, since preferences shift rapidly.
The industry now favours staged manufacturing over committing capacity upfront: raw materials are locked in early to hedge price volatility, while packaging and assembly stay flexible. Rolling weekly production plans, driven by live sell-out data, let factories ramp up a trending combo pack or throttle back a lagging one before dead inventory forces post-season markdowns.
Pulling procurement weeks upstream
Quick commerce now expects same-day fulfilment, so procurement can no longer wait for distributor orders to trickle in. Planning moves weeks upstream, with capacity reservation agreements and volume-flexibility clauses that let components be pulled forward overnight, with schedules built backward from dark-store stocking triggers.
Customising close to the market
Serving dark stores, marketplaces and general trade together means stock can no longer sit in one warehouse. Inventory is held in generic, semi-packed states deeper in the network, with final customisation happening at the last possible node as real-time orders arrive, keeping working capital out of rigid stock pools.
Postponement protects export shelf life in transit
For short shelf-life confectionery exports, goods idling on warm docks invite rejected shipments. Manufacturers rely on postponement: bulk manufacturing happens under controlled conditions, while final packing and palletisation happen in temperature-controlled staging just before loading, with IoT data loggers tracking conditions so anomalies are caught before customs.
