Deepak Asokan is a Lecturer in Operations and Supply Chain Management within the Faculty of Business and Law. He holds an MSc and has completed his PhD in Logistics and Supply Chain Management.  Prior to commencing his PhD, Deepak has worked in global supply chains in roles including sourcing, production, and project management. During this time, he has also gained experience in deploying and rolling out core ERP systems such as SAP and providing user training for post-adoption usage.  

Deepak’s research interests lie at the intersection of Industry 4.0 and sustainable supply chain management, especially in understanding challenges and critical success factors for adoption and continued usage. His mechanical engineering background combined with expertise on digitalising supply chains for sustainability is highly relevant to the project from the perspective of operationalising academic research. He has worked as a Research Associate on an Innovate UK project where he explored the deployment of a novel Big Data & Artificial Intelligence store assistant for holistic sustainable performance across customer store locations. This partnership was focused on collaboratively improving industry adoptions of sustainable technology with research-informed iterative system rollouts.

Deepak’s expertise is at the intersection of Industry 4.0 and supply chain management, with a focus on socially responsible supply chain management. As part of his research, he interviewed and analysed data from across 30 organisations globally, who are working on digitalising their supply chains from a sustainability perspective. His past research has already been published in highly ranked academic journals and conferences, and his current work is on understanding the impacts of blockchain, big data and artificial intelligence across industries.