From Navy Discipline To Data-Driven Fulfilment: How Dr Ashvini Jakhar Is Redefining Supply Chains In India

As India’s retail, e-commerce, and quick-commerce ecosystems mature, fulfilment has become a competitive differentiator rather than a backend function. In an interview with Dr. Ashvini Jakhar, Founder & CEO of Prozo, he explained how his journey across the Navy, management consulting, and entrepreneurship shaped his leadership approach to high-pressure operating environments and influenced Prozo’s model of integrated, data-led fulfilment. He discusses the structural gaps the company set out to solve, the rise of multi-channel retail, how volatility has become the new baseline, and why the next phase of supply chain design will be omni-channel, hyperlocal, and pay-per-use.

You moved from the Navy to consulting and then entrepreneurship. How did that journey shape how you approach leadership and decision-making in high-pressure operating environments like supply chains?
My early years in the Navy shaped how I approach leadership in environments where outcomes depend on discipline, coordination, and clarity of command. In high-pressure systems like supply chains, decisions often have to be taken without complete information. The Navy instilled a deep reliance on process, preparation, and decisive leadership, because hesitation or ambiguity can trigger cascading operational failures. Consulting added a second dimension, learning how to break down complex systems, identify structural weaknesses, and design operating models that can scale. Entrepreneurship then brought both these approaches into daily execution. At Prozo, where we operate a national supply chain network with 5,000 people, leadership is about creating predictability, defining clear operating rules, and ensuring decisions are executed consistently across teams and locations. In high-pressure environments, calm and structured execution consistently outperforms reactive decision-making.

Prozo works with both large enterprises and fast-growing brands. What problem do you think Prozo solves today that wasn’t being solved well when the company started?
When we started Prozo, the most significant gap in the market was the absence of an integrated operating layer across the supply chain. Brands were forced to stitch together separate warehousing providers, multiple transport partners, and disconnected technology systems, which weakened accountability and made execution inconsistent. As brands expanded across general trade, marketplaces, and direct-to-consumer channels, this fragmentation multiplied rapidly. Today, Prozo manages end-to-end fulfillment for large enterprises and fast-growing brands across channels, bringing warehousing, logistics, and technology together under a single operating system and a unified set of SLAs. With 3 million square feet of warehousing across 20 cities and a pay-per-use model, Prozo enables brands to scale nationally without long-term infrastructure lock-ins. This has become critical in an environment where demand volatility is no longer seasonal, but structural.

As brands operate across general trade, marketplaces, and quick commerce simultaneously, what does it really take to support them without fragmenting inventory, teams, or accountability?
Supporting multi-channel brands requires a unified operational backbone where inventory, orders, and movement are managed through a single system. Fragmentation typically occurs when each channel operates with separate inventory pools, partners, and processes, leading to hidden stock, delayed replenishment, and inconsistent service levels. What brands often underestimate is the coordination cost of managing this complexity. A brand operating six warehouses with six transport partners can end up managing dozens of daily handoffs between warehousing and logistics teams. Over time, this creates thousands of coordination points where delays and disputes can emerge. At Prozo, we remove these handoffs through integrated execution, where warehousing and logistics are orchestrated together with real-time visibility. By reducing coordination complexity, accountability remains clear while brands retain the flexibility to serve multiple channels without operational sprawl.

With demand volatility now structural rather than seasonal, what do you think brands are still underestimating when it comes to fulfilment and network planning?
Many brands are still designing their supply chain networks around average demand rather than sustained peak intensity. This worked when volatility was limited to festive periods, but it breaks down when elevated demand becomes the baseline. What is often underestimated is the speed at which inventory needs to be rebalanced across the network and how costly daily exceptions become when systems are perpetually stretched. India is rapidly becoming a time-sensitive market, driven by the growth of quick commerce and faster delivery expectations across categories. Once customers expect same-day or next-day delivery, the supply chain must be designed for speed from day one. Speed cannot be retrofitted later without significant cost. Planning engines, node strategy, and throughput design all need to reflect this reality upfront.

As supply chains become more data-driven and multi-partner, where do systems clearly outperform human judgment, and how should companies think about governance, trust, and data privacy across the ecosystem?
As supply chains scale in complexity, data-driven systems outperform humans in high-frequency operational decisions that require speed and consistency. These include order routing, carrier selection, SLA prioritisation, inventory visibility, and early detection of exceptions. Machines can process large volumes of signals without fatigue or bias, making them essential at scale. Human judgement remains critical in designing the operating model and governance framework. Decisions around network design, service-level trade-offs, partner strategy, and escalation during disruptions still require experience, context, and accountability. As supply chains become increasingly multi-partner, trust and data governance are as important as operational efficiency. Brands need clear data ownership, role-based access controls, and strong safeguards around sensitive information such as customer data, pricing, and inventory positions. Governance must enable collaboration and visibility without compromising security or slowing execution. At Prozo, technology manages executional complexity, while leadership oversight and system-led governance ensure operations remain fast, secure, and accountable as networks scale.

What fundamental shift do you believe is underway in how supply chains are designed, compared to even five or six years ago?
We believe the future to be omni-channel, hyperlocal and pay-per-use. As the “front-end” customer expectations and experience changes with the rise of hyperlocal commerce, the “back-end” supply chain needs to align for enterprises to match faster fulfillment.  In essence, supply chains are no longer designed primarily for efficiency under stable conditions. They are now designed to manage variability as a permanent feature of the market. Five or six years ago, optimisation focused on cost and scale. Today, the focus has shifted to responsiveness, visibility, and reliability across channels. This is evident in the rise of multi-client warehouses, asset light expansion into Tier II and Tier III cities, and growing demand for flexible infrastructure. Networks are increasingly structured as interconnected nodes that can be dynamically reconfigured as demand patterns shift, rather than as fixed assets tied to a single channel or geography. Advanced analytics and AI now enable predictive demand planning, real-time inventory rebalancing, and intelligent routing, allowing brands to scale across cities and channels without compromising speed or reliability.