Leadership Archives - Page 9 of 10 - Supply Chain Game Changer™

There Are Not Enough Women Supply Chain Leaders!

Seasoned Leadership in Action™ – An Interview with Kristie Syndikus, VP Procurement at Maple Leaf Foods!

Women have made tremendous strides in the Supply Chain Management profession. However a new survey shows that the percentage of women Supply Chain leaders is still low.

Time was, Supply Chain Management was seen as an outgrowth of a blue collar profession. Logistics Managers, Manufacturing Directors and other Supply Chain leaders often rose from the shop floor, from front-line warehousing and transportation positions.

As a result, the field was overwhelmingly male: because mostly men occupied those front-line roles, and educational opportunities to get into the field were limited, the leadership reflected that demographic.

But as we chronicle on the Argentus blog, the field has changed. Supply Chain is no longer a back-office, transactional function.

World Class Inventory Turnover Infographic!

Featuring Our 10 Best Inventory Management Articles!

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Achieving World Class Inventory turnover performance is an aspiration, a requirement and a challenge for many companies. We’ve written several blogs on this subject to share our experiences in achieving truly game changing results in inventory management.

Attacking just a single element of inventory has, in our experience and observation, proven to be an insufficient approach to making significant, sustainable changes. The entire ecosystem of processes, variables, and stakeholders requires taking a holistic approach enlisting a variety of tools and techniques (eg. lean inventory management) to drive game changing inventory performance.

Given the breadth, depth and complexity of the Inventory Turnover management ecosystem it is not surprising that there is much to be addressed in this area. We’ve captured much of this in our article Featuring our Top 10 Inventory Management articles.

In this blog article we’ve captured much of this content in a single Infographic

Climbing Mount Kilimanjaro! Lessons for Life and Business!

10 Mountain Climbing Strategies and Lessons for Optimum Results!

I spent a year working in Colorado. In Colorado you can’t help but be drawn to the beauty of the mountains. Eventually I started climbing those peaks (called the Fourteeners, as they are over 14,000 feet high) in my spare time. I hadn’t even thought about Mount Kilimanjaro at that point.

At the same time I started reading all of the books I could find on mountain climbing. One in particular, the “Seven Summits“, by Dick Bass and Frank Wells, with Rick Ridgeway, really caught my attention. It tells the story about these guys who got the idea to climb the highest summit on each continent.

By the time I had finished the book I got the idea in my head that I wanted to climb Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa. That became the start of an adventure of a lifetime.

Indirect Procurement – It’s Time to Rise and Shine!

What’s the Difference between Procurement and Purchasing? (Infographic)

Indirect procurement of goods and services can be one of the largest areas of expenditure in any company. And the operational impact that the provision of Indirect goods and services can have on a company can be significant, either positively or negatively.

Yet the lack of attention and focus that Indirect Procurement is often given is inconsistent with the true importance of this area. Indirect Procurement takes a back seat to Direct Procurement unfortunately.

But it is time for Indirect Procurement to stand up and be counted!

Outsourcing Sourcing! 5 Lessons from Around the Globe!

What is Virtual Procurement and Why Should You Care?

Doing business with suppliers located overseas or in another country can be an overwhelming and daunting task even for expert Sourcing professionals. But what if you considered Outsourcing Sourcing?

Recently a friend of mine asked me to have lunch with him and one of his associates. The other gentleman had invented a new product. He had a marketing plan. He knew what his cost point had to be on the product which meant that he had to have the product manufactured overseas.

But beyond that he had no idea on where to start to source his product.

Introducing Lean In Retail … Start in the Backroom!

The Agile Supply Chain! Why Agility is Trumping Lean!

The Retail company I had just joined was undergoing a massive transformation. Fundamentally the new merchandising strategy was to curate a dramatically different set of products from that which was carried historically, but in addition to what was carried historically. What did this mean for the backroom in every store?

This meant that an enormous number of the business processes had to be transformed to support the new product set because management of the new merchandise required much different capabilities in all aspects of running a retail company. Not only did this transformation require new capabilities but it also required improvements to productivity and efficiency throughout the company. And overall this meant a need for cultural change.

I decided that I would introduce Lean process improvement techniques to this company.

From Click to Ship in 4 Minutes! Ultimate Principles for World Class Fulfillment!

Disruptive Warehouse Technologies for Any Company!

The capability we had in E-Commerce order fulfillment was rather basic. We had employees manually pushing carts up and down standard warehouse racking aisles picking goods off of shelves. And when they had completed an order or a set of orders they would then push the entire cart back to a centralized order packing station.

As a Supply Chain Services company we needed a dramatically better capability if we were wanted to have customers trust their growing E-Commerce business with us. Pushing carts around a warehouse is both inefficient and lacks innovation.

We had to go back to the drawing board. But in doing so we would end up with a World Class solution!

Is Your Supply Chain A Cost Centre or a Value Creator?

It’s Time to Welcome The Supply Chain CEO!

The Supply Chain function within your company has many responsibilities. From planning to negotiating to buying, from moving goods to processing goods, and from managing data to managing inventory. These responsibilities are at the core of making your company run. But is Supply Chain a Cost Centre or a Value Creator?

Yet often the Supply Chain is undervalued. While every function must help your company grow and prosper when the heat is on uninformed Executives can view Supply Chain as merely a Cost Centre. As such there can be unrelenting pressure to continue to cut costs.

Why is Supply Chain often undervalued? And how do you increase the value of Supply Chain in the eyes of your Executives and other functions?

Pain Points – An Opportunity to Innovate and Expand!

Pain points are a part of business. They create opportunities to innovate, diversify and grow. Without customer pain points, there is no reason to be in business. Trading goods and services is as old as mankind itself.

Social Media Tips for Supply Chain Leaders!

For busy executives, being active on social media and leveraging social media tips is kind of like networking. It’s one of those things that everyone says you absolutely have to do to benefit your career, but it’s hard to make it part of your daily routine.

Let’s be honest: it’s even harder for those who came of age before social media became ubiquitous. It can be tough to pin down what channels you should be on, what you should be posting, and the specific ways that a strong social media presence will bolster your career.

Supply Chain Collaboration – The New Way to Drive Value!

Create Collaborative Innovation with Suppliers!

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Supply chain collaboration is a hot topic today and no wonder: companies that collaborate effectively across the supply chain have enjoyed dramatic reductions in inventories and costs, together with improvements in speed, service levels, and customer satisfaction.

Supplier chain collaboration itself isn’t new. What’s new is that it’s taken on a much greater urgency and importance.

To Infinity and Beyond! Ultimate Principles for Creating a World Class Team!

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The Supply Chain team was generally viewed as lacking in skill and capability by those outside the organization. Customers and other internal functions viewed Supply Chain as a dysfunctional organization as evidenced by the poor Supply Chain performance metrics. And external benchmarking placed our Supply Chain last amongst our competitors. Going to infinity and beyond was a tall task to say the least.

Inside the Supply Chain organization there were a lot of very smart people. But there was no trust, teamwork or synergy. The culture was one more of complacency than of trend setting. And there was a lack of inspired leadership.

Something had to change!

Seasoned Leadership in Action™ – Our 2020 All Stars!

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This is our third year of publishing interviews with great leaders. Our 2020 All Stars are leaders that have been exceptional this year, as they and people from all walks of life have been impacted by the Coronavirus pandemic.

The interviews are generally amongst our highest viewed articles. This further underscores the fundamental objective of Supply Chain Game Changer which is to share experiences and expertise from professionals around the world.

People want to hear from others and learn the lessons they can share. They want to hear about experiences and get advice and guidance.

We are honoured to present, in order of publication, our compilation of Seasoned Leadership In Action™ interviews from 2020!

Please take the time to view them all. There is value to be learned from every single one of these exceptional leaders! Here are our 2020 All Stars!

Gartner Top 25 Supply Chain List! Is it Relevant?

5 Trends in the Gartner Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies

Gartner recently announced their Top 25 Supply Chains List. I always find it interesting to see the list, to see who came out on top, and to hear what their views are on prevailing trends.

But as I review the list, compare it to prior years, and consider the scoring methodology I do wonder whether the list in its current form continues to be relevant for identifying the best of the Supply Chain.

Our 2021 All Star Seasoned Leadership in Action™ Interviews!

2021 has been one of the most turbulent years in history for Supply Chain. Across every company, every industry, every country, and every aspect of Supply Chain there has been some level of upheaval.

In some circumstances things are improving. In others, such as Chip shortages and Shipping Logistics, things seem to be only getting worse.

It is during these trying times when it’s important to hear from our best leaders. Here we have compiled a summary of our 2021 Seasoned Leadership in Action™ interviews.