Leadership Archives - Page 3 of 10 - Supply Chain Game Changer™

Seasoned Leadership in Action™! An Interview with John Heffernan, Chief Supply Chain Officer at ModusLink!

At Supply Chain Game Changer we believe in sharing experiences and expertise from people in every industry and from across the globe. As such we have introduced our “Seasoned Leadership in Action™” Interview series at Supply Chain Game Changer. This interview is with John Heffernan, Chief Supply Chain Officer at ModusLink.

I met John on my first day at ModusLink. He was presenting to the Board of Directors. John was one of the Global Operations Executives for the company. He had complete command of his facts, situation, direction and strategy. He was so knowledgable that his expertise and experience came shining through in everything that he said.

As John and I continued to work together we knew that we needed to make serious, game changing improvements around the world. John and I continued to positively challenge and build on each other’s ideas and thinking. This culminated in the deployment of a phenomenal program and the achievement of world class, industry leading results. We raised each other’s game to the benefit of all!

Leadership Techniques To Inspire Your Team!

Lessons from Bad Bosses!

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Leaders and leadership techniques are worth their salt are those who inspire others to be great.

Whether you’re a sales manager or a CEO, bringing out the best in people you work with is key to the success of your organization.

How Bitcoin Works!

Sure Fire Methods to Use Bitcoin for Profit!

Fortunately, describing what Bitcoin is, and how Bitcoin works, is simple. It’s just about the apps. Stock photographs of gleaming coins emblazoned with tweaked Thai baht icons should not be trusted.

Bitcoin is a protocol and a collection of entirely digital processes. Hundreds of imitators have followed in Bitcoin’s footsteps and culture. Still, the blockchain remains the biggest in terms of market capitalization, a position it has kept over the past decade.” BTC” is another abbreviation for Bitcoin. We’ll switch between these usages in this article.

Seasoned Leadership in Action™ Interview Excerpts: Lessons Learned by Global Leaders

Our fundamental objective at Supply Chain Game Changer is to share experiences and expertise and lessons learned. As such we have focussed on curating a wide range of content and resources that will have relevance to anyone at anytime no matter what their needs may be.

We began our Seasoned Leadership in Action™ Interview series in support of our objective to share experiences and expertise. And hearing from Industry leaders in this interview format has proven to be incredibly popular. People want to hear about the experiences of others and lessons learned from those who have been successful in their fields.

With many of these Seasoned Leadership in Action™ Interviews now published we thought it would be valuable to extract excerpts from these interviews along themes, starting with lessons learned.

As such we are presenting our first compilation of excerpts from these interviews which is focussed on Lessons Learned by these leaders throughout their careers.

Enjoy and look for nuggets of wisdom in these lessons learned.

Welcome To The Supply Chain Game Changer ™ Blog!

The Supply Chain Game Changer ™ Blog!

Welcome to the Supply Chain Game Changer ™ blog.

The Supply Chain touches all of our lives whether it be in business or personally. No matter what industry you are in or are touched by, all involve the movement of goods, services, and information. So the most efficient functioning of the Supply Chain affects us all. And it affects us in every aspect of our lives whether we are consumers, employees, or business leaders.

With a career spent in Supply Chain I’ve seen many ways of performing the processes involved in managing the Supply Chain. Many of these processes are highly efficient. Yet many more are highly inefficient. Regardless, everyone strives to improve the way things are done. And every experience has been an opportunity for growth.

In this blog I’d like to share my experiences, and those of others, in improving, working in, managing in and being managed by the Supply Chain.

There have been some remarkable achievements and there have been some missteps along the way. However there are lessons to be learned and experiences to be shared in every case. And I hope that this learning and shared experience will be of value as you seek to improve the Supply Chain you are a part of.

On top of that we want to share anything and everything related to Leadership, Change Management, Technology, Procurement, Purchasing, Distribution, Logistics, and much, much more.

Overall Supply Chain Game Changer can serve you as a guide as you do your jobs and as you progress through your career. The issues and challenges that you face will be different for everyone on any given day. There is something for everyone in Supply Chain Game Changer.

Additionally I invite you to comment and send me content. By learning, not only from successes but from failures, we will all be better going forward. There is a wonderful world of people and experiences that we can all learn from.

So again I welcome you to the Supply Chain Game Changer™ blog.

Let’s go!

Copyright © Mortson Enterprises Inc. All Rights Reserved.

What Exactly Is Supply Chain Management? 10 Different Definitions!

Starting a New Job? Be a Positive Impact Player to Succeed!

6 Reasons Supply Chain Employees Look For New Jobs!

I have seen many people join a new company and take a new job or leave for another company. While I don’t have the precise statistics it is fair to say that as many as half of the people joining a new company will do well. However atleast half of these people will struggle in their new roles and in their new companies. Many will fail altogether.

What makes someone more or less successful when making such a career move? What are the environmental factors which affect this outcome? And most importantly what is it that the new employee does or doesn’t do that makes them succeed or fail?

Naming Your Project Will Rally Everyone To Your Cause!

Naming a Product or Company? It’s Not That Easy!

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“I’d like you to join our company. One of the Projects you will lead is our ‘Productivity Initiative’ unless you will be naming your project. We need to transform all of our business processes and culture and improve our efficiencies everywhere.”

Wow! What a great challenge and opportunity to make a difference. But calling it the “Productivity Initiative”? That was as inspiring as watching paint dry or grass grow.

“I’ll do it! But we need to give this Project a NAME. A NAME that will inspire people, motivate people, and capture the essence of the change and cultural transformation that we are looking for. And this can’t be an ‘Initiative” … it has to be an ‘Imperative’ … this is not optional … we have to transform the business and we need everyone to rally around our cause!

International Expansion in Retail (Infographic)

Innovations in Offline Retail! (Infographic)

The road to international expansion in Retail has been successfully travelled but it is also lined with a lot of accidents and failures. But is it that easy?

“We are going to expand in to the U.S.!”

I heard this refrain many, many times. The growth and success that a Retailer experiences as they expand in their original, domestic market inspires a level of confidence in the company’s ability to expand beyond it’s geographic borders.

Driving the Need for Culture Change!

Creating the Culture to Break Barriers!

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You have determined that something has to change in your company! Customer satisfaction may be low. Employee morale may be in the dumps. Financial results and operating performance may be falling far short of your objectives. You need culture change!

Or maybe you don’t have any of these problems. But you view that your company is performing well now yet it is not well positioned to go to the next level and be successful in the future.

Or it could be any combination of these pressures. Whatever the reason, you have come to the realization that the culture of your company must change to get the results you need!

A Tale of Two Companies: Different Quality Management Beliefs!

Design in Quality First!

Company 1

The CEO came in to my office carrying a product and said, “The label is off centre on this item. It has a quality defect.” I responded, “Is that actually a quality defect? Quality is a measure of conformance to a standard, and we have no standards.” The CEO didn’t quite understand the distinction. Certainly the item was mis-labelled. But there was absolutely no Quality management process in the company.

Company 2

I toured all of the company’s facilities around the globe. It seemed like we had a tremendous amount of resource working on quality. But they were spending 100% of their time on inspection. A report subsequently confirmed my concerns. Over 10% of our entire direct workforce was spending the vast majority of their time doing 100% inspection. We had a Quality management system but it’s only principle was to inspect in quality.

Whichever the situation was, proper Quality management objectives required something to change in both cases!

Want Success? Integrate a Change Work Stream in your Transformation!

Change Leadership Success: Attack on all Fronts!

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The nature of the results you are trying to achieve will determine the type of change you need to create and the work stream to make it happen.

If you are making changes to a very small part of your job then your focus is very localized. If you are leading a project solely aimed at achieving a specific result then your change management focus is somewhat larger. But if you are leading a business-wide long term transformation then you need a comprehensive Change Leadership work stream and strategy.

While there are similar elements in driving change at any of these levels, the broader transformation requires a well thought out, well articulated Change Leadership program to be in place to lay the foundation for, and govern, your transformation.

Global Process Excellence ™ : A Journey From Disarray To Best In Class!

Global Process Excellence: Defining the Roadmap to Achieve Best In Class Results

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My first Management job was on the Manufacturing floor on 3rd shift. It was company policy … anyone’s first Management job was in Manufacturing. The principle was sound: to really understand how the business operated you needed to be at the very core of what it did, which in this case was Manufacturing. Only then could you really learn the business and how to work with people.

So as I started a new job further along in my career, with responsibility for Distribution Centres around the world, I knew that I was not going to learn what I needed to know from behind a desk looking at Powerpoint slides with pictures and statistics. I needed to go to each and every facility and learn about the operation right from the floor.

Are you a Game Changer? Tell us your Story!

Every day there are individuals and teams all around the world who are making a difference. They are driving transformational change in their jobs, in their Departments, in the Organization and in their Companies. And they are achieving amazing results that defy what they previously thought possible.

We want to hear your stories and we invite you to share those stories on https://supplychaingamechanger.com so that we can all applaud, and learn from, your tremendous efforts.

Value Stream Mapping the Current State Process!

Value Stream Mapping the Future State Process!

We had to begin the transformation of the company’s business processes to support the new business objectives. This would mean value stream mapping the current state process. Specifically the company was going to carry a dramatically different set of products which required a new set of capabilities in Strategic Planning, Merchandising, Marketing, Procurement, Inventory Management, Retail Operations and Logistics.

That scope defined the set of processes we needed to change first. The overall goal was to enable the transformation of the company which would manifest itself in higher revenue, improved growth and profitability, greater customer satisfaction and superior employee engagement.

We decided to attack this by introducing the Lean technique of Value Stream Mapping to the organization. We had to start with mapping the Current State process.

The History of Supply Chain Management! (Infographic)

What Exactly Is Supply Chain Management? 10 Different Definitions!

Over the last 100 plus years of the history of SCM (Supply Chain Management) has evolved from an initial focus on improving relatively simple, but very labor-intensive processes to the present day engineering and managing of extraordinarily complex global networks.

We will take you through the last 60 plus years below and end the post with an amazing infographic.