Joannes Vermorel - Lokad

October 2020

Lokad - Aiming for One Percent of the Global Economy

Founded in 2008, Joannes Vermorel and his team at Lokad have tried to break barriers by challenging the status quo, following the philosophy of ‘incorrect recipes’ and making a dent in tech world. Lokad aims at optimising supply chains through cutting edge science and technology such as dynamic forecasting methods, artificial intelligence and blockchain.

Here is a video that gives an overview of the company:

Lokad was early in the supply chain multi-billion dollar industry. With no investors or venture capitalists, the company grew from ground up by learning all about that there was to supply chains. They took advice from MIT professors and studied hundreds and thousands of academic papers. The first four years brought quick success, high growth rate, steady profits and capturing market share. However, while Lokad was on this path, Joannes believed that something was fundamentally wrong. He believed and knew that the technology was completely dysfunctional, as were the existing studies of supply chains. Joannes was confident that his company would shut down and fail had he continued on the same path. A little paradoxical, isn’t it?

To quote Joannes, “Was I not too arrogant to think that the half a million existing papers on supply chain were fundamentally flawed?”

Mr. Joannes Vermorel giving a talk on his Youtube channel

He studied the trajectory of existing companies as well as his technology to see what was wrong. Having re-written the rules of his company and his technology, Lokad adopted a completely new framework for forecasting trends. Instead of following the conventional methods of over-forecasting or under-forecasting data, he focused on more dynamic strategies. One such strategy was to study the forecast for an enormous amount of buyers in the market for a product. Through data science and artificial intelligence he tried and tested other solutions that he believed worked best.

After this breakthrough, Lokad continued to see sustainable success. While some find their approach bizarre and unconventional, Lokad takes pride in the same. In 2014, Lokad released Envision, a Lokad-built programming language. Some of Lokad’s clients today consist of Air France, 3 sprouts, Mister Auto and several more. With their team of supply chain scientists, they believe that they are set to achieve greater heights. Lokad’s long term goal is to have created enough impact to make a 1% difference to the global economy.

Joannes’ advice to future entrepreneurs is double-edged. The first is “to focus on problems that will not take six months to a year to fix but rather something that would take over two decades.” Only a handful of entrepreneurs and thinkers in the world truly focus and invest their time in problems that take over decades to find a solution to. His second piece of advice is “to focus on ideas and problems that are not impossible but rather on those are that are unthinkable.” He advises creators and entrepreneurs to think bigger than ever, to break existing barriers and eventually make a difference to the story of humanity.

Still curious about supply chains? You can learn all you want about supply chain through their online web series Lokad TV, blog and newsletter.

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