Features

More new hires for warehousing solutions start-up

MHD talks with uTenant’s Katharina Attana, Director of Business Development, and Chanika Dias, Head of Supply Chain Solutions, who have recently joined the team to expand its supply chain offering and implement a broader vision for the future.

Warehousing matchmaker uTenant is continuing to expand its pool of talented personnel, and in so doing build on its core business model – as a platform that connects tenants and landlords – to offer clients a broader range of warehousing solutions.

Recently, it has made two key hires – each of whom will be integral to the increasingly diverse offering available to uTenant’s clients in the years ahead.

Katharina Attana, the new Director of Business Development at uTenant, has spent 20 years in supply chain, having started off in Germany at the headquarters of Hellmann Worldwide Logistics. She had been studying International Business Management at the time and – although she wasn’t decided on a certain career path then – Hellman’s then Global HR Manager spotted a unique talent and gave her her first job in the industry. She has found her passion in supply chain and made a success of her career in various leadership roles including project management, business process management and business development across the globe.

Katharina Attana, Director of Business Development at uTenant.

Chanika Dias has also been brought on as uTenant’s Head of Supply Chain Solutions. His childhood dream was actually to become a fighter pilot – which he admits is somewhat different to being a supply chain strategist – but when it came time to make a different career choice, his then girlfriend (now wife) dissuaded him from pursuing his military ambitions.

“I was actually selected for a combat training course, but by the time I chose to pull out I had also missed my chance for university enrolment,” says Chanika. “One of my mentors was in the shipping industry – and introduced me to the great career paths – so I set my objectives more in that direction. I managed to find a management trainee job in a local conglomerate who were pioneers in 3PL business – and had the opportunity to do a lot of warehouse design consultancy.”

Later Chanika joined DHL (then operating under Exel Logistics) as its second employee in Sri Lanka – which is where, he says, he really learnt the fundamentals of supply chain. “DHL was like a university for me,” he says. “I was able to gain insight into some really detailed solution design processes which still form the foundations of my approach for solutions to this day. It really gave me a career path in supply chain.”

Chanika’s career took him many places including Finlay Cold Storage, Linfox and Silk Logisics, giving him exposure to various industry sectors in Australia and Asia. As Head of Supply Chain Solutions at uTenant – what will he bring to the table?

Chanika Dias, Head of Supply Chain Solutions at uTenant.

“My role is to add a vertical to uTenant’s business that will add value to its core function as a matchmaking service,” Chanika says. “But we are not limiting ourselves to just those solutions that we ourselves can provide – in a sense we are broadening our matchmaking capacity to other aspects of supply chain. What we want to do is to help our clients at a strategic level in planning for the next five or ten years; understanding how they want to position themselves – whether it’s a cost-leadership approach or a responsive-based approach – and help them develop a supply chain network that will facilitate their business strategy. In organising their supply chain network design, we are advising clients on facilities, capacities, connections – helping to put together a holistic supply chain solution.”

For Katharina, her role as Director of Business Development at uTenant is to oversee the company’s core strategy of matching tenants with landlords while devising ways to add further value for its clients. “I’ll be working with the team to connect our clients to 3PLs, to facilitate DC designs, tenders, analytics, and aligning business strategy with supply chain strategy,” she says. “But beyond that – and this is part of what drew me to join uTenant – I want to contribute to the company’s passion for sustainability, empowerment of talent and for industry education. I see my role at uTenant as sharing its vision with the world – and adding to that vision with the knowledge I’ve built up over 20 years.”

Looking ahead at the next five to 10 years, Chanika and Katharina see great opportunities for uTenant to pursue.

Chanika is excited by the goal of creating and optimising uTenant’s portal such that it’s easy for clients to upload data sets relating to operations, and that he and the team can then analyse with increasingly sophisticated technological tools to reap strategic insights. “The goal is to be able to assess what an operation looks like, then analyse data that the business has provided to advise them on what properties best suit their requirements,” he says.

Chanika believes that the process of data gathering and analysis can be continually refined to the point it reaches near automation – meaning uTenant will be able to supply data insights to clients in a matter of hours; insights that for many companies take sometimes weeks to develop. “By developing such a fast data analysis process, we can deliver insights that help our clients inform their strategic supply chain decisions well before the time comes when they have to make them.”

For Katharina, she believes that uTenant’s current product portfolio is already well sorted, and that it’s now a matter of hiring the right people with the right expertise to grow and develop uTenant’s offerings. “I see a real opportunity to fine-tune our technologies and bring the best expertise to bear on client needs,” she says. “In the mid-term, we also expect to grow into other markets. We are excited to refine our service offerings within the Australian market with the view to extend into other markets throughout Asia Pacific and beyond.”

Both Chanika and Katharina are in agreement that uTenant’s overall goal going forward is to expand the potential and capacities of its unique platform to encompass the full ambit of supply chain solutions.

“uTenant can become a centralised platform where you can source all solutions related to warehousing and supply chain” Katharina says.

For more information on uTenant, click here

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