Supply Chain Podcast - Our First Episode with Bill Marrin

Episode 1

Highlights from the Conversation

Supply Chain Trends

• Supply chain and its leaders are becoming more predictive. The ability to anticipate and respond rapidly are essential skills.
• Supply chain leaders are gaining more functional responsibilities. Formerly a subservient “go get it” role, departments like IT and operations are now reporting to supply chain managers.
• End-to-end visibility for supply chain is a key goal. There’s a huge opportunity to see virtualization as a shared resource with suppliers. The companies that are getting this right have a leader with a vision for a platform that constitutes a single source of truth and for removing data silos.
• There is no one playbook for digitizing your supply chain. It’s about augmenting the strategy that works to achieve your business goals. It’s important to recognize that this isn’t easy – supply chain is often seen as the one part of the business that cannot fail, and this can make supply chain managers risk averse. Many have scars to show from attempting wholesale digitization instead of a step by step approach.
• Productivity and better service to customers are also main drivers.

The Changing Business Landscape

• Data rights issues need more attention. Telecom is leading the way to a better approach to security and data challenges, especially the monitoring and analyzing of proprietary information.
• The smartest companies right now are disrupting the disruptors. In a form of reverse mentoring, established brands are buying startups not to absorb them, but to learn from them. For example, when Unilever bought Dollar Shave Club, they found a great opportunity to learn more about what their market wants and provide better service to their customers.

How Do You Grow Your Career in the Next Five to Ten Years?

• Keep pace with the rise of analytics. Functional skill sets have changed in the last five years. Supply chain professionals are leveraging analytics and benefitting from data’s ability to help them think about problems in a new way.
• Ensure you have technology skills in your bag of tricks. But these skills aren’t out of reach for anyone – it’s about building a team that helps you get better. Collaboration is the key to advancement, and talent acquisition and retention are going to become more important than ever before.

About Bill Marrin

Since the 1980s Bill Marrin has been one of supply chain’s most important thinkers. He has worked for innovative start ups as well as Eastman Kodak, and has worked closely with companies like Apple and Adobe to help improve product delivery as the print and publishing industry adopted networked services in the 1990s. As Bill says, “We were doing cloud before cloud computing was cool.”

In 2007, Bill joined World 50, an invitation-only peer organization that provides a forum for C-level executives at the world’s top companies to exchange ideas in pursuit of growth. The supply chain subgroup, Supply Chain 50, was started by Bill.

Connect with Bill on LinkedIn >

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