Prabhath Kumar Panicker

Recruited into a greenfield leadership role to establish end-to-end procurement and supply chain systems for a large-scale manufacturing project, operating in a landlocked, logistics-constrained environment with strict production startup timelines.

• Led procurement strategy and execution for a USD 100M greenfield project, covering raw materials, utilities, logistics, and operational support packages.
• Designed and implemented supplier pre-qualification, compliance, and governance frameworks, ensuring continuity of supply and audit readiness.
• Managed a USD 60M+ annual procurement portfolio, balancing cost optimisation with schedule and supply reliability.
• Achieved 10%+ annual cost savings through vendor consolidation, commercial renegotiation, and sourcing strategy optimisation.
• Reduced projected stockouts by 15% and excess inventory by 12% via structured inventory and planning interventions.
• Strengthened inbound logistics and carrier frameworks, delivering 8% freight cost reduction and 20% OTIF improvement.
• Implemented ERP-linked procurement dashboards for spend, supplier performance, and risk visibility, improving reporting efficiency by 25%.
• Acted as the procurement interface between operations, finance, logistics, and senior leadership, supporting decision-making under schedule pressure.

Led procurement and supply chain operations supporting Oil & Gas, offshore, mining, and FMCG clients, including time-critical, project-driven supplies in high-risk and remote environments.

• Directed procurement and logistics for Oil & Gas and offshore support projects, ensuring uninterrupted supply of critical materials under tight delivery windows.
• Delivered 30% reduction in total procurement and logistics costs through vendor consolidation, sourcing strategy redesign, and contract optimisation.
• Achieved 98% OTIF for critical project and offshore supplies by strengthening supplier, freight, and expediting coordination.
• Reduced procurement cycle times by 20% through PO process optimisation and improved demand-to-delivery workflows.
• Accelerated customs clearance by 48 hours through proactive authority engagement and documentation discipline, reducing demurrage and schedule risk.
• Managed procurement for 1, 000+ SKUs across engineering, consumables, and FMCG categories.
• Built and led a 70-person cross-functional team (procurement, logistics, warehousing, operations), maintaining 100% HSE compliance.

Driving operational improvements, maximising the value of the asset base while ensuring tight control on operational costs. Responsible for monitoring and continually improving the performance standards and quality within operations. Improved operational efficiency through better interdepartmental communication and integrated direction. Provided mature leadership as operations manager with the aid of meticulous planning and execution.

• Managing a team of over 120 employees in a busy work environment
• Negotiating contracts, ensuring that they balance value and achieve maximum efficiency
• Establish and implement departmental policies, goals, objectives, and procedures
• Creating, managing and analysing performance data and other information
• Managing stocks withthe least financial errors using efficient inventory management.
• Liaised with vendors, government agencies and statutory authorities
• Ensuring that capacity and capability are continually planned
• Encouraging, identifying and developing best practice strategy
• Building and maintaining strong and effective relationships and communication with all stakeholders.
• Ensuring compliance with all Environmental Health & Safety objectives
• Implemented budget and cost control procedures for operational efficiencies.
• Reviewing customer feedback and responding to complaints and suggestions regarding product quality
• Working closely with the Financial Manager, Facilities Manager, IT Manager and HR department

Lead high performance teams and of successfully increasing efficiency and productivity whilst reducing costs and inefficiencies. Implemented and continuously verified HACCP quality management system. Attained substantial yield improvement in production system through various manual and non-manual techniques which enabled to improve the product recovery by 9%. Designed and implemented continuous staff training program for achieving the excellence.