Tag: supply chain

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News You Can Use: 5/10/2017

  • Microsoft’s CEO Just Gave Some Brilliant Career Advice…

    “I was reading it not in the context of business or work culture, but in the context of my children’s education. The author describes the simple metaphor of kids at school. One of them is a ‘know-it-all’ and the other is a ‘learn-it-all,’ and the ‘learn-it-all’ always will do better than the other one even if the ‘know-it-all’ kid starts with much more innate capability.”

    Going back to business: If that applies to boys and girls at school, I think it also applies to CEOs like me, and entire organizations, like Microsoft.”

    https://www.inc.com/justin-bariso/microsofts-ceo-just-gave-some-brilliant-career-advice-here-it-is-in-one-sentence.html

  • How to plan for future supply chain leadership

    To keep up with the growing demand for supply chain leadership, companies need to have a succession plan that helps them identify and develop new leaders who can replace existing leaders as they transition out of the company. Unfortunately, most have no such plan in place. According to a recent study from the American Management Association, only 18 percent of managers and executives have a succession plan in place to respond to a sudden loss of key executives—not nearly enough to keep business productivity up as people retire, despite the added number of supply chain undergraduate and graduate programs.

    http://www.supplychainquarterly.com/news/20170428-how-to-plan-for-future-supply-chain-leadership/

  • Alison Bing: ” High-impact Travel”
  • Tech employees quit their jobs mostly because of unfair work environments, study says

    The study looked at four main types of unfair treatment, behaviors and experiences: unfair people management practices, stereotyping, sexual harassment and bullying/hostility. As it turns out, turnover due to unfairness is a $16 billion per year problem, according to the study. The silver lining, as pointed out in the study, is that people would be down to stay if companies took steps to improve culture.

    Other takeaways from the study were that experiences differ dramatically among groups of people, depending on their race, gender and sexual orientation. For LGBT people and women, bullying was the main reason for reporting unfairness. For people of color, stereotypes were the main driver for leaving due to unfairness. Nearly one in four people of color surveyed (23%) reported being stereotyped at past jobs.

    https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/27/tech-employees-quit-their-jobs-mostly-because-of-unfair-work-environments-study-says/?ncid=rss

  • How to find friends when you move for your job

    Doing so takes a bit of creativity, plus courage to put yourself out there. Oh, and one other thing: “When you’re moving into a new community and trying to find your tribe, let your freak flag fly a little bit,” she says. It’s easier to find real friends when you’re sharing what you’re passionate about and not trying to fit in for the sake of making friends. Relationships built on false impressions aren’t the ones that are going to stick, anyway. And here are some ways you can find likely prospects.

    https://www.fastcompany.com/40413637/how-to-find-friends-when-you-move-for-your-job

Photo: Sam Burriss

Posted on

News You Can Use: 4/26/2017

  • Buy American, Hire American – Coming Soon to Impact a Supply Chain Near You

    The Buy American, Hire American order is two-fold. The Buy American agenda will: (1) instruct agencies to conduct comprehensive assessments; (2) target waivers and exceptions allowing foreign goods advantages in U.S. government procurement; (3) require a review of WTO’s Agreement on Government Procurement and other trade deals to ensure compliance with new standards; (4) require Buy American bidding processes to take into account unfair trade practices; and (5) promote American-made steel. The Hire American agenda will: (1) enforce laws governing entry of foreign workers in order to promote rising wages and more employment; and (2) direct agencies to propose reforms to H-1B program.

    Industry trade groups, including the American Petroleum Institute and Interstate Natural Gas Association of America, claim the order will reduce competition leading to higher prices. Ken Simonson of the Association of General Contractors, states he expects prices to go up on key materials for construction projects, such as fuel, lumber, steel, and copper. Simonson warns trade restrictions limit the ability of contractors and manufacturers to control costs leading to projects being deferred or even canceled.

    http://www.natlawreview.com/article/buy-american-hire-american-coming-soon-to-impact-supply-chain-near-you
    Note: I have been trying to keep up with this topic personally and put together this post last week and Episode 58 of SourceCast.

  • FCC Chairman Ajit Pai Faces Balancing Act in Net Neutrality Rollback

    No matter which path he eventually chooses—fast or slow—Mr. Pai might feel he has to start soon. That is because he faces at least some risk that the lone remaining Democrat on the commission, Mignon Clyburn, could leave at some point after her term expires in June. There are already two vacancies on the five-member commission, so her departure could leave the FCC without a quorum, at least until a successor is confirmed. Then it would be far more difficult for the agency to vote on major policy changes—even just initiating them.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/fcc-chairman-ajit-pai-faces-balancing-act-in-net-neutrality-rollback-1492340400

  • Has supply chain growth outpaced the talent it requires?

    “There have been a lot of changes. There’s more and more automation; transacting purchases with artificial intelligence (AI) is a radical change,” he told Supply Chain Dive. “Will you need people doing these things? [Currently] you find a supplier, put out the RFIs (requests for information) and get sourcing recommendations. I don’t know if that will be there in five or 10 years.”

    http://www.supplychaindive.com/news/talent-crisis-education-tech-supply-chain-nature/440392/
    Flashback to SourceCast Episode 55 – I go deep on this topic:

  • Most employees willing to share sensitive information, survey says

    According to an end user security survey released this morning, 72 percent of employees are willing to share confidential information. In the financial services sector, the percentage was even higher — 81 percent said they should share sensitive, confidential or regulated information.

    This is despite the fact that 65 percent said that it was their responsibility to protect confidential data.

    “There is an acknowledgment by employees that security is important,” said Brett Hansen, vice president for endpoint and data security at Dell, the company that sponsored the survey. “But their actions are not consistent with good data security.”

    http://www.csoonline.com/article/3191286/security/most-employees-willing-to-share-sensitive-information-survey-says.html

  • Why Tesla’s Future Is So Hard to Predict

    Earlier this month, Navigant Research published a report that declared the worldwide leader in self-driving tech is Ford, followed by GM, Renault-Nissan, Daimler, and Volkswagen—all car companies. Tesla finished 12th. One research report isn’t gospel. But it suggests that the “Tesla Is Apple, and Cars Are Smartphones” thesis has some serious limitations. In 2007, Apple’s competitors thought the iPhone was a terrible idea. But in 2017, almost all of Tesla’s competitors are engaged in a global race to build electric and autonomous vehicles, and some of them are arguably ahead of Musk in software and distribution capacity.

    https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/04/tesla-future-of-driving/523224/?utm_source=feed

Photo: Sebastian Unrau

Posted on

News You Can Use: 1/18/2017

  • What’s Adding To Supply Chain Risk? 3 IT Trends To Watch Out For

    This report mentioned the threat of “data overload” specifically in the context of health care, stating that it will be a “challenge for providers.” This is because the overwhelming bulk of data will create new and excessive amounts of work for industries to contend with.

    According to this report, the answer lies in customized alerts and filtering to help distinguish important data at any given time. It might work slightly differently, but the same principle could extend outward to other industries later on, with further devices connecting to the internet throughout the supply chain.

    http://www.strategicsourceror.com/2017/01/whats-adding-to-supply-chain-risk-3-it.html

  • Four Moves You Might Not Realize Make You Look Unprofessional in an Interview

    You Don’t Finish Your Homework
    But, cautions Adrian J. Hopkins, a Muse career coach, this isn’t homework you can half-ass. It’s not enough to spew off a couple of “top-line company facts.” If you want the job and wish to avoid looking unprofessional in any way, shape, or form, you’re going to have to “go above and beyond a basic understanding of the company.” Let the interviewer know how you plan to grow with the company and get him thinking that he can’t “believe” he hadn’t the good fortune of meeting you sooner.

    http://lifehacker.com/four-moves-you-might-not-realize-make-you-look-unprofes-1790770222

  • Christopher Kai: “Catapult Your Career Opportunities
  • 5 Steps to Organizing Your Life and Doing Great Things This Year

    Let it all go
    “Think of new goals, new expectations and new ways to achieve them,” he says.

    If you don’t have one already, buy a paper shredder and start shredding the piles around you that are just taking up space. Scan the files that are truly needed.

    “If you are realistic and hard on yourself, the ratio of what to shred to what to scan will be 10 to one,” Klosky says.

    https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/287141

  • Driverless Trucks, Robots and Chatbots Could Reshape the Supply Chain

    More than half of supply chain companies have so-called innovation centers to help test out new concepts. Of those, 20 percent have achieved a return on their investment, while half expect a payoff in the next two years.

    Robots are also on the rise, even though less than a quarter of organizations currently use them in their work, researchers found.

    Propelled by algorithms that allow them to accomplish more complex tasks, robots can help companies improve efficiency, cut costs, keep pace with competitors and limit errors, according to respondents.

    https://www.trucks.com/2017/01/05/driverless-trucks-robots-supply-chain/

Photo: Joshua Ness

Posted on

News You Can Use: 1/4/2017

  • Ethical Sourcing: Do Consumers and Companies Really Care?

    According to Steve Polski, senior director of responsible supply chains and sustainability at Cargill, consumers consistently say they want more sustainable products and services but are often unwilling to pay a premium. Polski has spent years researching this topic, and he has found that consumers care about a company’s sustainability and ethical sourcing efforts and may reward it with brand loyalty, but they generally don’t want to pay more for the products.

    Also:

    The survey also found just how much consumers said they were willing to pay for ethically and sustainable sourced products. Thirty percent said they would pay up to 5% more and 28% said they would pay up to 20% more for such products. A quarter of consumers also said they actively sought sourcing origin information when they made their most recent purchase.

    http://spendmatters.com/2016/12/26/ethical-critical-strategic-sorts-sourcing-supplier-management-best-posts-2016/

  • Why Your Annoying Boss Micromanages You

    The Science of Us explains that, like most people, when you feel powerless or helpless, your first instinct is to exert control over the things you do have some control over, and if you’re a boss or manager, that might mean your employees. While we know that most people work best when they’re given independence and autonomy, and when managers trust their teams to make the best calls when they need to, well, sometimes good old psychology just takes hold.

    http://lifehacker.com/why-your-annoying-boss-micromanages-you-1790380406

  • Simon Sinek on Millennials in the Workplace

    This fellow is a little smug, but he makes some really interesting points.
  • 3 Predictions For Apple’s Supply Chain In 2017

    China isn’t the only Asian country Apple could continue to work with. The Wall Street Journal reported that it may manufacture products in India and could be currently working toward a deal for this with the Indian government.

    However, this seems to be more of a matter of speculation and deduction than pure fact, since Apple did not comment and Tim Cook, the company’s CEO, openly said that there were no plans to start producing in the country earlier this year.

    Forbes contributor Tim Worstall also pointed out that most of the benefit would go to Apple, with the Indian economy itself not gaining too much from the company’s presence there. This sits in contrast to Apple’s work in China, which also benefits the country in addition to the business’ sales themselves.

    http://www.strategicsourceror.com/2016/12/3-predictions-for-apples-supply-chain.html

  • 7 things Silicon Valley needs to stop doing in 2017

    Stop acquiring companies and products just to kill them:
    Some of the greatest apps and sites ever created were acquired as they were rising in popularity, then terminated. Remember Posterous, Pownce, Dodgeball, reMail, Nextstop and Friendfeed? These were all innovative, powerful, well-designed apps or services that were terminated on purpose because they were so good.

    http://www.computerworld.com/article/3153884/it-industry/7-things-silicon-valley-needs-to-stop-doing-in-2017.html

Photo: Anchor Lee

Posted on

News You Can Use: 11/23/2016

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  • Are Women In Procurement Still Earning Less Than Men? It Seems So

    A female CPO, for example, can expect to earn around 94% of a male colleague’s salary. For regional category managers, women have been found to earn only 69% of a man’s wage.

    This tends to get compounded by the ‘glass-ceiling effect’, in which women find it difficult to break through into the higher levels of an organisation. Only 14% of our CPO sample last year were women.

    http://www.procurementleaders.com/blog/my-blog–jonathan-webb/are-women-in-procurement-still-earning-less-than-men-it-seems-so-649336

  • 7 Ways to Politely Shut Down a Conversation
    This one is my favorite…

    5. The ‘pass off.’
    When you are trapped in a rambling conversation, pull in another person to join you if possible. Introduce the topic to the new person, and once the other two get a conversation going, politely excuse yourself and don’t look back.

    https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/284492
    sn_conversation

  • DOD in ‘knife fight’ over supply chain, security chief says

    Department of Defense (DOD) officials increasingly view the Pentagon’s supply chain as a key vulnerability within the defense enterprise, with bad actors seeking to affect systems and steal innovative technologies. This risk extends beyond prime contractors, which have extensive resources to invest in security to medium and small contractors, which in turn may not have those resources.

    The Pentagon’s emphasis on affordability often pushes suppliers to use commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) items, said Frank Kendall, the DOD’s undersecretary for acquisition, technology and logistics.

    “All of this presents an opportunity for somebody with a nefarious purpose to get at our products,” Kendall said. “The thing that makes me most nervous is a high-end adversary who finds a way to hide something in our weapons systems and lets it sit there until it can be activated at the worst possible time.”

    https://about.bgov.com/blog/dod-knife-fight-supply-chain-security-chief-says/

  • Hang in there (from Seth Godin)

    Showing up day after day, week after week, sometimes for years, as your movement slowly gains steam, as your organization hits speed bumps, as the news goes from bad to worse…

    Showing up, it turns out, is the hardest part of making a difference.

    Make a list of the organizations and voices and movements that have made a difference. How old are they? How long have they been at it?

    Creating impact, building something of substance, changing the culture… this is the work of a lifetime, not merely a fun project.

    http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2016/11/hang-in-there.html
    sn_brucecampell

  • Amazon’s logistics venture has yet to make up for costs

    “A full-blown Amazon parcel delivery operation would likely take years to complete, so we believe [FedEx] and UPS would have time to react,” RBC Capital Markets analyst Mark Mahoney previously told Retail Dive. Similarly, although UPS and FedEx have decades of experience, Amazon’s entry to the logistics market comes with a learning curve, particularly when it comes to aircraft operations and regulations.

    The earliest signs of success, however, may come through the cost-to-sales comparison made by Seeking Alpha. If Amazon seeks to compete with UPS and FedEx, the company needs to see a downward trend in the metric, which would indicate the logistics services are driving profit to the company.

    http://www.supplychaindive.com/news/Amazon-logistics-UPS-FedEx-cost/429408/

Photo: Katie Montgomery