Personal profile

Personal profile

Dr LakshmiNarasimhan Chari after graduating as a Chemical engineer worked as a software programmer in India and came to UK to pursue higher education.  After Masters he completed his PhD on the benefits gained by Mid Sized Manufacturing Businesses from the adoption of Enterprise Systems.  His PhD was the outcome of the support he offered to SMEs in improving their business performance using digital technologies. While working at the University of Bolton, he has managed and delivered several regional development projects funded by ERDF and ESF (Around £3M) targeting SMEs. He lectured on Operations and Supply Chain Management to professionals in Africa (Malawi, Zambia), the Far East (Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam) and key member of the off campus division of the university.

At Middlesex University, he closely worked with London Borough of Barnet - undertook research on the business support needs for local SMEs, part of the team that developed first local economic strategy for Barnet, developed small business growth club and so on. Collaborating with Informa Plc, he delivered a full online MBA Oil and Gas programme that attracted senior oil and gas professionals across the globe. Partnering through Novus, he helped year 2 students gain year-long supply chain internships in very large firms. He was part of a team that undertook impact evaluation of Innovation and Knowledge Centres and ERDF projects and reported findings and recommendations to UKRI and GLA. He authored CIPS level 4 book on logistics management.

He joined Royal Holloway at Oct 2021 and has been teaching a variety of under-graduate and post graduate modules. Some interesting experiences include accompanying Post Graduate Supply Chain students to Wincanton and Arla on study tours; winning a team commendation in college teaching prize for MN1105 – Quantitative Methods module and winning an internal research grant (£750) for studying research ethics approval process across UK business schools. His paper on the role of university research on Entrepreneurial Finance Ecosystem received the best research and knowledge exchange award at ISBE 2021 conference.

Currently he’s interested to learn about emerging technologies and how they are impacting operations & supply chain and more importantly, examine how technology can be used for reducing carbon footprint in logistics.

The above list are some of the major milestones and accomplishments of my career. However, I love this work mainly because there are plenty of soul satisfying memories that can be achieved only in academia! Here are some!

  1. Teaching Supply Chain Management to Supply Chain professionals for three full days during my doctoral days – it was nerve wracking!
  2. Students who learnt with me years back reaching out to me during lock down just to say ‘hello’ and check on me – it was heart warming
  3. Supporting a pregnant student to get a job she wanted – a work from home consulting job with a leading supply chain consulting firm
  4. Student came straight from airport after a long flight to attend my lecture because he loved my class
  5. Supporting supply chain students in Africa to improve delivery performance – resulting in improved drug distribution to remote areas and reduced wastage
  6. Seeing the reaction of parents during graduation

The list is endless but I hope you get a flavour!

 

 

Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals

In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):

  • SDG 9 - Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure
  • SDG 13 - Climate Action

Keywords

  • Management studies
  • operations management
  • Supply Chain Management
  • SAP
  • Enterprise Systems

Collaborations and top research areas from the last five years

Recent external collaboration on country/territory level. Dive into details by clicking on the dots or