Twenty Years, Multiple Warehouses, One Lesson

Twenty years ago I learned a lesson that's shaped every supply chain role since: the best warehouse operators aren't the ones working hardest — they're the ones whose systems do the thinking so people can do the work.

I've spent my career on both sides of that equation. At Ford, I led a WMS rollout that cut inventory costs by 15%. At Petco, I led the team that selected and implemented a proprietary TMS across 10 distribution centers and 1,400 stores — a project that saved $3M. At XPO, supporting Boeing's 787 program, I took a bin-management point-of-use solution from concept to a system now running across XPO's North American network, cutting inventory carrying costs by 13% along the way.

None of those numbers came from working longer hours. They came from getting the technology — WMS, TMS, slotting, yard management — to actually fit how the operation runs, and getting the people who run it bought in.

That's the thread running through everything I'll be posting the next few weeks: a practical, executive-level look at the systems that make or break a distribution network, and what I've learned building them for Fortune 100 operations.

What's the biggest lesson your own operation taught you the hard way?

#SupplyChainLeadership #WarehouseManagement #SupplyChainTechnology #Logistics #OperationalExcellence

20 Years, Four Industries, One Thread: What Actually Transfers

Whirlpool. GE Capital/Penske. Petco. Boeing's 787 program through XPO. Expeditors. On paper, that's manufacturing, financial services, retail, aerospace, and global logistics — four very different industries and a supply chain technology thread running straight through all of them.

Here's what I've learned holds constant no matter what's being shipped, stored, or manufactured:

●      The technology is never the hard part. The stakeholder alignment is.

●      Every "we've always done it this way" system has a person attached to it who needs a real reason, not a directive, to let it go.

●      The best technology roadmaps are built with the business, not handed to it.

●      A team that trusts its leader will outperform a team that just respects their leader's resume.

Some of the numbers behind that thread: a $3M budget and an eight-person team standing up a proprietary TMS across 10 distribution centers in 12 months, on time, on budget, cutting costs by $3M and raising service levels to 98%. A global bin management rollout that came in on an $850K budget, on time, and cut inventory carrying costs by 13%. A 12-person globally distributed engineering team holding 24/7/365 uptime for mission-critical freight forwarding platforms across GNS and Transcon operations.

Different industries, same operating principle: supply chain technology succeeds or fails on how well it's adopted, not how well it's architected.

If you're navigating a technology transformation right now, what's the "we've always done it this way" system nobody's willing to touch yet?

Keywords: supply chain technology, transportation management systems, warehouse management systems, logistics technology, TMS, WMS, digital transformation, technology roadmap, aerospace supply chain, 3PL

Hashtags: #SupplyChainTechnology #Logistics #DigitalTransformation #TMS #WMS #TechLeadership #3PL

Executive Leadership

The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker
The Five Habits of an Effective Executive

1. Know Thy Time (Capital and People is based on supply and demand. Time is a scarce resource and is totally inelastic. Yesterday’s time is gone and will never come back.)

- Record it

- Manage it

- Consolidate it

2. Focus on outward contribution – What results are expected of me rather than what work has to be done?

3. Build on strengths – own strengths, strengths of superiors, colleagues, and subordinates; and on the strengths in the situation. Start with what I can do and not what I cannot do

4. 80-20 rule – Focus on a few major areas of superior performance to produce outstanding results and set priorities and stay with the priority decisions

5. Make effective decisions even when it is not the most popular with Integrity and which is in alignment with the organization's charter quickly

As Peter Drucker states an effective executive asks these three questions:

1. What needs to be done?

2. What needs to be done now?

3. What is right for the enterprise?

How to emulate great leaders? - Part 2

Continuing on the previous post of What leaders do? - this post will cover the mindset of effective leaders. To re-emphasize the point that Charisma or Personality is an individual trait and not to be confused with leadership traits. It is a different discussion point that people in leadership roles who might not have had an aura about them often begin to exude charisma that gets enhanced when they take on an executive position of authority.

I recently came across a fantastic book The President as a Leader by Michael Siegel who highlights four specific qualities that define the mindset of a great leader.

1. A compelling vision: Great Leaders and Effective Executives have a compelling vision of what they want to accomplish in office.

2. A wherewithal to execute on the vision: The leader needs to create a team of professionals - Team of Rivals by Dorris Kearn Goodwin is a great read in going about building teams who can help develop and influence policy and strategy to execute on the vision.

3. Focus on a few goals at a time: Knowing the critical few objectives, the North Star goals is absolutely vital. (As Michael Siegel points out in his book ~ When asked by his domestic policy adviser what his goals were, Jimmy Carter delivered an A-to-Z list, from abortion to Zaire. In contrast, Reagan focused on three to four major goals immediately after his election. He hit the ground running and got a large part of his agenda implemented)

4. Effective Decision Making: Create conditions for decision making such that decisions are not made in vacuum. The best treatise on decision making in my view is Peter Drucker's classic The Effective Executive
It is about answering these three questions:

a. What needs to be done?
b. What needs to be done now?
c. What is right for the enterprise?

In my next post, I will cover the five levels of leadership, until then Happy Hanukkah!

How to emulate great Leaders? - Part 1

Lately, I have had an opportunity to read some great books on leadership by prominent authors and have had a chance to observe leaders at work from close quarters to validate my hypothesis. And to my delight, I was able to see a distinct pattern on this subject.

While most leadership books focus on who leaders are - their character, personality, style and charisma, the focus of this blog post is on what leaders do. The shift in emphasis has a practical objective, it is to model the skills of what a leader does, instead of trying to become someone you aren't. Because leadership at it's fundamental level is about authenticity, and using that as a foundation to practice certain learned skills that produce effective results. Because a Mohandas.K.Gandhi had a different personality style then that of President Roosevelt, although both were highly admired leaders and extremely effective at their day jobs.

One thing a student of leadership can take solace in is that more often than not followers are forgiving as long as they know that the leader is authentic and has integrity & is willing to level with them.

That brings us to the basic question of - What do leaders consistently do?

1. Establish the overall vision, values, strategy-goals and objectives

2. Create the structure, conditions, and infrastructure in which others could effectively carry out their tasks

3. Evaluate and then reward, those leaders down the line who successfully motivated their followers to behave in ways, consistent with the vision

In the next post I will cover the strategy and mindset great leaders adopt to execute on the above. Until then, Happy Thanks giving!

How to scale a value based business?

How to scale a value based business?

I recently read an interesting article here .No matter how altruistic a mission of an organization; it is important to have a sound business model, transparency and profitability to sustain the business. The three factors that often get overlooked:

1. Customer Service: Focus on giving great value to the customer. Customer service is the best form of PR – word of mouth publicity beats any other kind of marketing hands down

2. Educate: Educate the customer on the offerings, options and services. Engage in constant communication and transparency.

Note: I still vividly remember a case study discussion that bordered on a passionate debate in my MBA class years ago, where the topic revolved around “Is it a service provider’s obligation to offer additional products and services if they think it is going to add value to the customer’s bottom line?”

3. Adaptability: Having the wisdom to staying agile and flexible to reevaluate the vision, mission and adapt to the dynamic business environment; & importantly revisit the business model if necessary

How to make emotionally intelligent executive decisions?

The most important trait of an effective executive according to Peter Drucker is to make decisions and effective ones at that. It is the prime reason an executive is hired, to lead and to make decisions. There have been many books written on different mathematical models of the decision making process (Six Sigma, Fishbone, Decision Tree etc) that can be used when confronted with major decisions at work or in personal life.

However I was reading another interesting article about a simple credo of decision making when constrained by time – which I thought was brilliant.

This particular technique resonates with Malcolm Gladwell’s bestselling book ‘Blink’ where he discusses the power of thinking without thinking and the reason some people are brilliant decision makers and some are inept.

This technique is the simple but effective concept of ‘Hell Yeah’ or No. (You can read more here – the origin of this simple but effective credo)

• If you don’t experience the WOW factor when making a choice, that it is a no brainer, an absolutely amazing choice – a Hell Yeah choice, then the answer needs to be a NO

• You are either doing it with a full commitment and giving your best, or you are not doing it. Moreover, you are not saying ‘Yes’ simply to look good when you should be saying a firm ‘No’

• According to Gladwell’s research in his book- Snap judgments are often more accurate than careful analysis of a situation, however one needs to also account for biases that don’t necessarily permeate the realm of conscious thoughts but nevertheless exists in the background.

I believe that people are effective because they say no…because they say ‘this isn’t for me. Practicing what Drucker calls “systematic abandonment”—stepping back, at regular intervals, to determine which of our present activities can be scaled back or eliminated is a trait of self leadership. Only then can we make way for something more fruitful.

How to prepare and give effective feedback?

As the adage goes "Feedback is the breakfast of Champions". However, not everyone is comfortable and receptive to giving and receiving feedback as it involves a certain skill set, the wisdom to know the timing of it, and importantly having an authentic conversation for the best interests of the entities involved.

Even the great Winston Churchill used to say "Personally, I am always willing to learn, but I don't like being taught".

As we are aware, dealing with people either on the professional or personal front, there are times when we are either at the giving or receiving end of the feedback process. So, below are three powerful questions that when considered can help make this an effective and sometimes even a pleasurable process.

• Is it true? Is it necessary? Is it helpful/useful? - What’s my objective?

• Check for receptivity and evaluate timing – Ask – are you open to some feedback?

• Provide feedback by reiterating the best interest of the individual, share concerns or observations as the case might be, long term impact and state benefits of implementing on the feedback, end on an appreciative note

How to quickly assess risks to make a sound decision?

As we all know risks are part and parcel of every project or big initiative we undertake. Risk also known as peril is defined as the possibility of loss or injury. Often times in the context of business the loss can mean financial losses, losing a competitive edge thereby causing an emotional setback to entities undertaking the project.

Risks can be managed in three ways by identifying, prioritizing and assessing them:

1. Risk mitigation: reducing the risk

2. Risk elimination: elimination of unacceptable risks

3. Risk avoidance : maintaining status quo and not pursuing the initiative

Organizations undertaking major initiatives need to follow a systematic process like ISO 31000 to deal with risks – highly recommended.

However often times executives need a quick process to evaluate a project’s risk to make a go/no-go decision. Below is an effective formulation do just that:

Composite Risk Index = Impact of Risk event X Probability of Risk occurrence

The impact of the risk event is commonly assessed on a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 and 5 represent the minimum and maximum possible impact of an occurrence of a risk. Similarly, the probability of occurrence can be assessed on a scale from 1 to 5, where 1 represents a very low probability of the risk event actually occurring while 5 represents a very high probability of occurrence. The Composite Index thus can take values ranging from 1 through 25 where the range can be divided into Low, Medium and High.

Based on the Composite Risk Index score, an executive can make an educated estimate of the severity of the risk involved.

How to ensure meetings are effective?

As professionals and executives, meetings are part and parcel of our daily lives. However, the smartest executives ensure that meetings are effective by following an outcome based thinking process.

Below are 5 steps to consider before walking into a conference room or a board meeting:

o What’s the aim and objective of the meeting?

o What’s my position?

o How do I simplify my communication to articulate my position?

o Prepare well and ready to listen for new ideas and angles

o What’s the conclusion and take away?

How to make an effective pitch to Angel Investors?

I had an excellent opportunity to attend the BPC (Business Plan Competition) session at Foster School of Business (UW) last week. It had a great mix of technology entrepreneurs, students and investors. There was a healthy brainstorming and presentation of ideas as to what constitutes a good business plan pitch. Some key takeaways for your quick reference:

1. Know your audience - Angel investors

2. What are they really looking for? - Can they trust you with their money?

3. What is more important - an idea or execution of an idea? It is always about the execution of an idea

4. What should the business plan address? a logical statement of the problem and its solution, a battery of facts based on credible sources of research, and a well thought out process to address risks

5. What are the risk factors that needs to be addressed in the business plan?

• Technology Risk

• Market Risk

• Financial Risk

• Product Risk

• People Risk

• Competitive Risk

6. Your financial projections need to include at the most 3 years out - anything more than that in today's day and age is regarded as a fantasy
7. Finally remember an angel investor is investing with an option to be able to exit with a maximum ROI

Leadership Wisdom

An enlightening interview with our former President with regards to the 'Clinton Global Initiative' by Huffington Post. Read Here

Highlights are below:

Confidence: The ability to make a living anywhere and to support my family is a tremendous empowering belief and a great confidence booster. Hence economic empowerment is critical for social change – intelligence, talent and willingness to work is common across the world but opportunities are not.

On Leadership:

It starts with asking the right questions.

1. Explain where we are and decide where we want to go

2. Figure out a way to get there

3. Get good people and trust them to do the job as long as they are competent, realistic and flexible to change

4. Keep score – Are we better off? How and How many?

How to Motivate, Team work and Collaboration:

The main skills required are good listening and ability to build consensus for action. The main traits required are a belief that creative networks of cooperation work better than constant conflict, a call for action, and a willingness to change course if what you're doing isn't working.

People who believe in ‘Creative networks of cooperation’, instead of constant conflict, ability to build consensus, call for action. Willingness to change course if what we are doing is not working

The best strategy is to replicate a successful model – the willingness to reject the glamour of being first for the wisdom of being second

On Failure:

It is better to be caught in the act of trying than to not try because of fear of failure. Be willing to learn to change course if what we are doing is not working. Be willing to indulge in Creative Experiment

On Life:

If you have lost your yesterdays – Welcome to the human race

· They can take away everything, but not your heart or your mind. Don’t hold on to past grievances, let it go.

· Don’t let anyone define your worth, your tomorrows – no matter what