We have seen many trends come and go over the last few years, and most of them stemmed from the COVID-19 pandemic. The Great Resignation, a surge in people voluntarily leaving their jobs starting in the fall of 2020, is likely to be one of the most impactful. Depending on the numbers you reference, the Great Resignation officially came to an end somewhere between December of 2022 and April of 2023, as the number and rate of resignations returned to pre-pandemic levels. During that time, the Grea...
Jul 06, 2023•26 min
Agility Robotics recently released the latest version of their humanoid warehouse robot: Digit. Digit is 5 foot 9, weighs 141 lbs, and can carry up to 35 pounds. It can pick and pack orders, unload trucks, and unpack pallets of shipments. Warehouse labor availability is always a challenge, and it usually represents 65 - 70 percent of operating costs. Automation is the future of warehouse operations. Period. And yet not all automation is the same. Conveyor belts and robotic arms are a far cry fro...
Jun 29, 2023•23 min
Human rights concerns are at the top of the priority list for supply chain and procurement professionals. Among the most horrifying human rights abuses is child labor, sending children into dangerous settings to work. FDR signed the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938, restricting the conditions and hours children under the age of 16 can work, and making it illegal for anyone under 18 to work in hazardous conditions. Unfortunately, that doesn’t prevent it from happening… in the United States… today...
Jun 22, 2023•24 min
In 2004, Dove revolutionized skincare marketing by launching their ‘Real Beauty’ Campaign. Celebrated for the decision to represent women of all shapes, sizes, ages, and skin tones in their ad campaigns, Dove was celebrated by marketing industry executives and embraced by consumers. They saw a 700 percent increase in sales in just six months. While the campaign continued, the celebration did not. Subsequent efforts in 2017 were met with ridicule and flat out rejection. But is Dove off-track, or ...
Jun 15, 2023•21 min
Many professionals are worried about the risk associated with advances in generative AI like ChatGPT. Predictions have been made about who and what will be rendered obsolete first, as though people living in 2023 are the first ever to face a challenge from new technology. This summer, the Tate Modern in London is running an exhibition called “Capturing the Moment: A Journey Through Painting and Photography.” It considers the rise of photography, first as a technology and then as a fine art, and ...
Jun 08, 2023•22 min
In his book, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Scottish Enlightenment thinker Adam Smith described the ‘invisible hand’ at play in free market economics. One of the keys to letting that invisible hand work efficiently is the concept of self-interested interdependence. Producers do what is best for themselves, consumers do what is best for themselves, and the economy reaches equilibrium. If only it were that simple in practice. In this week’s episode of Dial P for Pr...
Jun 01, 2023•21 min
Procurement is used to being under pressure to deliver savings, but is that pressure enough to make procurement break the law? That is exactly what happened at Kraft Heinz after their 2015 merger. The low-hanging fruit had all been picked, savings targets remained high, and all sense of oversight had fallen away in favor of a corporate culture that incentivized hitting targets no matter what the cost. In this week’s episode of Dial P for Procurement, host Kelly Barner covers: What happened at Kr...
May 25, 2023•25 min
In 1907, J.P. Morgan was called back from a trip to help stop a series of bank runs on Wall Street. After watching a string of insolvent banks fail, he decided that the Trust Company of America was worth saving. He said, "This is the place to stop the trouble, then." Over 100 years later, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon made a very similar decision about First Republic bank. He and treasury Secretary Janet Yellen came up with the idea of “stopping the contagion” affecting regional banks. When the...
May 18, 2023•23 min
Cyber attacks have been on the rise since 2020, occurring with increasing frequency and having a more detrimental impact to the companies affected. Cyber risk regularly tops C-level risk rankings as a high priority and short term concern. Almost 20% of all data breaches are associated with third-parties in a company’s supply chain. We can see how this plays out by looking at the case of Expeditors International and how a 2022 cyber attack not only impacted them as a company, but it also led to a...
May 11, 2023•25 min
Bed Bath & Beyond was founded in New Jersey in 1971. Popular for its effective use of the ‘superstore’ concept, packed stores, and 20% off coupons, the chain quickly expanded, peaking in 2013 with a market value of $17 Billion. Their end began in 2019, when activist investors pushed out much of the executive leadership team and brought in former Target Chief Merchandising Officer Mark Tritton. He only lasted 18 months in the position, and every effort to spark a turnaround led to accelerated fai...
May 04, 2023•22 min
The labor contract between UPS and the Teamsters union is the largest private collective bargaining agreement in North America - and it expires on July 31, 2023. It covers 70 percent of UPS employees: package car drivers, air drivers, feeder drivers, part-time loaders, unloaders, sorters, clerks and mechanics. The current contract was signed in 2018, and took effect even though 54 percent of the union membership voted against it. That act led to a change in Teamster leadership, and it is shaping...
Apr 27, 2023•21 min
In the 5th century BC, Socrates was teaching the Athenian people to think for themselves. He taught by asking questions: What is truth? How do you know? Is the truth good? Again - how do you know? 2,500 years later, we continue to struggle with big complex questions. Are we reducing costs if we have not eliminated human rights abuses in the supply chain? Is energy renewable if we are still reliant on rare earth minerals from China? Applying the Socratic Method may make it possible to answer thes...
Apr 20, 2023•24 min
On March 10th, there was a run on Silicon Valley Bank. Days of concerning news and regulatory filings from the bank caused depositors to panic and withdraw their cash. The bank had already been sitting on a gap - a $17B variance between the paper value of their bonds and their market value. When $42 Billion was withdrawn in a very short period of time, it was a “death blow” as characterized by Hugh Son, a banking reporter at CNBC. Although concerns weren’t raised publicly more than a couple of d...
Apr 13, 2023•20 min
In August of 2022, the relationship between FedEx Ground and their network of delivery contractors looked like it was about to implode. Led by major contractor and industry consultant Spencer Patton, thousands of contractors pushed back on the logistics giant - claiming that increasing costs were making it impossible for them to operate profitably. FedEx sued Route Consultant, Patton’s consultancy, and canceled the Ground territory held by his 4 firms. The case has now worked its way through the...
Apr 06, 2023•24 min
On February 3rd 2023, a Norfolk Southern train derailed in East Palestine, Ohio. 38 cars derailed, 11 of which contained hazardous materials, and 5 of those contained vinyl chloride - a chemical used to make polyvinyl chloride. The community, including both animals and humans, have been suffering from the side effects of the chemical, as has the local environment. This devastating story has much to teach, far beyond the rail industry. It is an opportunity to consider how data-driven decision mak...
Mar 30, 2023•28 min
Nothing that is simple is real, and nothing that is real is simple. Procurement and supply chain professionals excel at solving problems like supply uncertainty and cost mitigation against the backdrop of ESG initiatives, changing regulations, and high stakes geopolitics. There is never a dull moment, but would we want it any other way? After a brief break between seasons, Dial P for Procurement is back… ready to cover the complexity that surrounds us with a critical eye and endless enthusiasm a...
Mar 23, 2023•24 min
We all have advice from a trusted source that we carry with us everywhere and always. For Dial P host Kelly Barner, much of that advice came from her dad. In this uniquely personal episode, which first aired on what would be Timothy J. McCarthy’s 71st birthday, Kelly shares the best of his advice so that you can benefit from it too. • Embrace ownership in your life, whether that means learning to ride a bike or admitting to your mistakes. Unless you own your shortcomings, you can’t own your succ...
Dec 29, 2022•15 min•Season 1Ep. 56
2022 was a wild year… The speed and complexity of the world seem to keep increasing. The news stories that made headlines this year seemed to defy prediction and logic… and yet, each month brought new and surprising events. As we get ready to boldly go forward into 2023, host Kelly Barner pauses and takes a look back at the major procurement and supply chain news stories that captured the world’s attention this year. In this episode of Dial P, she reviews: • The results of a LinkedIn poll that g...
Dec 15, 2022•23 min•Season 1Ep. 54
The world is so complicated today… we could play the ‘what if’ game all day long. • What if the railroad workers push back? • What if retailers can’t shed all that unwanted inventory? • What if Ukraine starts to lose ground? • What if China invades Taiwan? There’s a ‘what if’ where we have evidence to consider: we can just look to Hong Kong. On July 1st, 1997, sovereignty over the city of Hong Kong transferred from the United Kingdom to China. The events that followed give us more than enough to...
Dec 08, 2022•16 min•Season 1Ep. 53
Energy costs are surging, partially because of a lack of supply and partially about the constraints placed on the movement of existing supplies. The Northeastern United States is in a particularly precarious position because of the supply chain modes used to transport the fuel needed to heat people's homes. As with all Dial P topics, energy is complicated - and the sources of fuel that we think of as separate actually quite interconnected. In this episode of Dial P, host Kelly Barner reviews a f...
Nov 17, 2022•19 min•Season 1Ep. 50
Last week’s business news was all Twitter all the time. With Elon Musk as the new owner of the company, and the company losing $4 Million per day, something had to give. Then came the announcement that about half of the company’s employees would be laid off, entire teams in some cases. And yet, Twitter is hardly the only company laying people off this year. There have been many stories in the papers about individual companies having layoffs. Less common are overarching discussions of all of the ...
Nov 10, 2022•25 min•Season 1Ep. 49
NATO was formed in 1949, in the aftermath of World War II, to ensure peace in Europe. Under article 5 of the treaty, an attack on one member nation is considered an attack on all - and therefore a military response is required. Since 2006, NATO countries have committed to spend a minimum of 2 percent of their GDP on the military - a promise most have not upheld. Now there is a proposal to standardize military equipment across countries. The hope is that this will make battlefield coordination ea...
Nov 03, 2022•20 min•Season 1Ep. 48
There’s a reason that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and there are many examples of this principle playing out in business today. Many of them boil down to two specific scenarios: -An idea is conceived of by one person, but handed over to another for execution, or -An idea that works when led as a one-off, but which does not scale well at all. One of those could easily be at play in a case of supplier diversity efforts gone wrong… in this case, at McDonald’s. They segment a port...
Oct 28, 2022•18 min
On September 19th, 2022, the European Commission released a proposal for a new Single Market Emergency Instrument. The instrument, which is effectively a toolbox of options that can be leveraged in case of future supply chain disruptions, is one of the many changes the world has seen since the start of the pandemic. The proposal includes flowery phrases like “unity and solidarity” and “cooperation and cohesion.” And they sound very nice - in theory. The question is whether they will survive both...
Oct 20, 2022•19 min•Season 1Ep. 46
Procurement never makes the news, but when we do, we don’t hold anything back. Case in point: a viral video featuring (former) Apple Vice President of Procurement Tony Blevins. He recently made headlines for all the wrong reasons. The question is whether he was truly fired for what he said in that viral TikTok or whether it was an opportunity for the company to distance themselves for his ‘old school’ approach to procurement, carried out in grand style over the last 22 years. In this week’s Dial...
Oct 13, 2022•22 min•Season 1Ep. 45
Global supply chains are decidedly intermodal, and rail plays a much larger role than many people may realize. The potential for a rail workers’ strike recently dominated news headlines… until it didn’t. The strike was averted at the 11th hour by efforts made by Labor Secretary Marty Walsh. But is the strike risk really behind us? Nothing is over until it is over, and the membership of the 12 unions involved in the agreement still have to vote. If they don’t ratify the agreement, the potential i...
Oct 06, 2022•16 min•Season 1Ep. 44
FedEx has been in the news a lot lately, and for all the wrong reasons. They are facing a challenge from many of the 6,000 contractors that handle their FedEx Ground and FedEx Ground Economy deliveries. Spencer Patton has been the loudest voice in the dispute. As FedEx’s largest Ground contractor – at least until August 26th when his contract was cancelled – he has used his voice to call attention to the financial and operational difficulties faced by contractors. Many of those independent servi...
Sep 29, 2022•16 min•Season 1Ep. 43
Banned Books Week is an annual effort to call attention to censorship and intellectual freedom. This year it runs from September 18th through the 24th. While Banned Books Week is mostly marked by libraries around the country, the drive behind it is something that all adults need to understand. Banned books are the physical representation of banned ideas. The idea of banning (or burning) a book, may send a chill up your spine, but are we taking the steps that are needed to protect the more abstra...
Sep 22, 2022•23 min•Season 1Ep. 42
Although the most memorable shortage of 2020 was toilet paper, there was a span of time in the spring and early summer when the food supply chain was under strain as well. Concerned about lockdowns and being able to feed their families, people bought huge quantities of groceries and stocked up their homes. This kicked off a strong bullwhip effect, clearing supermarket shelves and creating shortages that reverberated through the supply chain to wholesalers and distributors. ButcherBox is a Boston...
Sep 15, 2022•48 min•Season 1Ep. 41
The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which took effect on June 21, 2022, is aimed at stopping human rights abuses taking place in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region of China. All goods coming from the region are assumed to be the result of forced labor unless the importer can prove otherwise – an uphill climb to be sure. Despite the good intent behind the law, many challenges remain. The United Nations recently found that human rights concerns exist, but China still holds a seat on the U.N. Human...
Sep 08, 2022•19 min•Season 1Ep. 40
