News You Can Use: 5/20/2020


Photo by Luca Florio on Unsplash

  • Tech Workers Consider Escaping Silicon Valley’s Sky-High Rents

    Christy Lake, chief people officer at San Francisco-based Twilio Inc., says several employees have already approached their managers and HR representatives to discuss plans to relocate. The cloud communications company expects more than 20% of its office-based employees will transition to working remotely in the long term. “It’s percolating big-time,” Lake says. She expects the company will have to come up with formal policies and maybe offer a relocation bonus to employees who decide to make the jump.

    But the trend raises complicated questions. If employees move to a less expensive location, should Twilio adjust their salaries accordingly? “It’s probably not great business practice to pay Bay Area comps in Michigan,” Lake says. And when it comes time to promote, would those employees have the same opportunity to advance as everybody else? “We need to think proactively,” she says.

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-14/tech-workers-consider-escaping-silicon-valley-s-sky-high-rents

  • Why beef is the worst food for the climate

    My family’s trade is butchering and I have been paying attention to the meat global supply chain (it is weird when my job in supply chain and butchering connects in some way, but I always jump at the chance to make the connections). With the meat shortages, there is talk that the beef trade shouldn’t come back in the same way.
  • Hiring and Firing: How to Know When You Need to Let Someone Go

    There are two different spectrums on which people can perform their jobs — willing and able.

    When someone is able to do their job, it means they have the necessary skills, competence and expertise to perform their responsibilities.

    When someone is willing to do their job, it means that they are aligned with the company’s mission and values, and are enthusiastic about their role.

    People will fall into one of the following four categories, and if you can pinpoint where they are, you can figure out whether to let them go or give them the opportunity to improve.

    If an employee doesn’t have the skills to do the job well and they aren’t willing to get better, it’s time to let them go.

    https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/343684

News You Can Use: 1/13/2016

sn_windows_Ricky Kharawala

  • A.T. Kearney Is Just Plain Wrong

    Not only are more than half of US manufacturers considering reshoring now, we have some really great examples of success stories including GE Appliance Park, Starbucks, Apple and others. In addition, we can point to other companies such as Haier, Nissan and Smithfield Foods where Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) has directly resulted in the establishment of more manufacturing in America.

    All of the signs and statistics (other surveys by Boston Consulting Group, Alix Partners and several European studies) point to the rebuilding of manufacturing in America and in Western Europe. The trend is strong and we are very optimistic that it will continue to be so. US jobs loss to offshoring is now about equivalent to jobs created or reshored to America. We need to be reshoring supporters and make more of this happen, not detractors.

    http://www.scmr.com/article/a.t._kearney_is_just_plain_wrong

  • How Quitting Can Get You Exactly What You Want

    Quit selling those cheap houses to those unqualified, needy people who he didn’t like working with. If he was going to attract million-dollar sellers, he was going to have to give up on working with $100,000 homes. That meant reaching way out of his comfort zone and giving up on what he had built so far. If Jon was going to gain traction, pick up luxury sellers and earn more money, he was going to have to project the image of expertise, confidence and exclusivity. Exclusivity meaning he had to be selective of who he worked with. The days of taking on any old client were gone. If they didn’t fit the luxury mold, he had to refer them out.

    http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/253924

  • PAGING DR. ROBOT: THE COMING AI HEALTH CARE BOOM

    More than six billion dollars: That’s how much health care providers and consumers will be spending every year on artificial intelligence tools by 2021—a tenfold increase from today—according to a new report from research firm Frost & Sullivan. (Specifically, it will be a growth from $633.8 million in 2014 to $6,662.2 million in 2021.)

    http://www.fastcompany.com/3055256/elasticity/paging-dr-robot-the-coming-ai-health-care-boom

  • Strategic Sourcing predictions for 2016

    the doctor is already seeing a number of 2016 posts about how this is the year we replace “negotiate” with “collaborate” (which the thought leaders have been saying since strategic sourcing decision optimization started becoming common in the leading Sourcing organizations, also known as the Hackett Group top 8%), that analytics will take off (which is the same speech we heard 15 years ago when Business Objects and Cognos were the names in analytics), that the skills gap will finally be addressed (which reminds the doctor of conversations he was having nine years ago), and so on. It looks like the amount of future sh!t that is going to be dumped upon you this year is greater than the truckload Biff Tannen had dumped upon his head in the original Back to the Future movie, way back in 1985. (A reference that is very appropriate because every year at this time it seems we get taken back to the future.)

    http://sourcinginnovation.com/wordpress/2016/01/04/sis-prediction-for-2016-it-will-only-get-hotter/

  • To connect to last week’s podcast, How Millennials Are Affecting the Supply Chain

    Respondents said that the biggest impact millennials will have on the supply chain is in terms of how they change the way consumers buy. The move towards new marketplaces – online, mobile, via social media – will be one of the transformative ways supply chains will be affected.

    http://mhlnews.com/labor-management/how-millennials-are-affecting-supply-chain

  • In 2016, Intel’s Entire Supply Chain Will Be Conflict-Free

    Since Intel and other manufacturers began the program, the profits from mines have started flowing to miners themselves rather than to war. In the last study of three of the major materials—tungsten, tantalum, and tin—a nonprofit called the Enough Project found that the amount of money going to conflict had dropped 65%, and it continues to fall.

    http://www.fastcoexist.com/3055066/change-generation/in-2016-intels-entire-supply-chain-will-be-conflict-free

Photo: Ricky Kharawala

The Supply Chain: 1/28/2015

sn_SupplyChainManagement_o2

  • Should companies hire supply chain EHS leaders?

    Given this approach to supplier relationship management, it’s a wonder whether or not enterprises are creating environmental, health and safety positions within procurement departments. According to the National Association for Environmental Management, an EHS manager oversees internal and external operations to ensure all suppliers and staff are abiding by national EHS regulations in addition to supporting progressive environmental policies and worker safety programs.

    http://www.strategicsourceror.com/2015/01/should-organizations-hire-supply-chain.html

  • Demand forecast practices that make customers happy:

    For a company to identify and take advantage of the patterns related to demand forecasting, they need to follow three best practices:
    1.) Implement forecasting software
    2.) Improve processes relating to inventory and sales
    3.) Focus on the customer

    http://www.ebnonline.com/author.asp?section_id=3745&doc_id=276358

  • Turning supply chain into an innovation engine.
    Nothing we haven’t heard, but an good summary and it shows the projects we are looking to take on are in the right direction…

    For many companies, the simplest form of analytics is looking at customer demands and patterns; then leveraging the gathered insights to build innovative and differentiated services—delivering greater value to the consumer and the businesses bottom-line.

    http://blog.kinaxis.com/2015/01/how-to-turn-your-supply-chain-into-an-innovation-engine-guest-post-from-erwin-hermins/

  • Best practices for a lean international supply chain operation

    5. Adopt a control tower approach:
    Companies today want to increase their end-to-end supply chain visibility. This visibility, though, is much more than track and trace. Today’s global supply chain requires a high degree of operational readiness and synchronization of end-to-end activities, including integrating the flow of goods, information and money associated with the movement of goods. Best in class companies achieve this visibility using a control tower approach. A control tower approach is the cornerstone to agility, responsiveness, and visibility.
    With this approach, companies can reduce inventory, lower total landed costs and decrease cycle times by connecting planning and execution, from raw materials to delivery to the end customer. This end-to-end supply chain connection involves integrating import/export data and information from overseas suppliers, logistics providers, brokers and carriers. Without the big picture, it is nearly impossible to implement cost-saving strategies such as just-in-time inventory replenishment.

    http://www.scdigest.com/experts/Amberroad_15-01-22.php?cid=8899

  • The cheese has moved…

    Stated bluntly, many of today’s sourcing and procurement professionals are not going to be successful in this new world. Those who make the transition probably already demonstrated innovative and adaptive behaviors. CPOs should begin now to retool their organizations with the talent that enables rather than hinders transformation. CPOs should focus on five key competencies in rebuilding their organizations:
    1. Consultative attitude
    2. Financial sophistication
    3. Communication and change management skills
    4. Technical savvy
    5. Vendor management skills

    http://www.sdcexec.com/article/12036122/a-key-trend-affecting-procurement-is-the-basic-fact-that-old-jobs-are-going-away-and-new-jobs-emerging