The Supply Chain Dialogues

In the world of books, movies, and plays, certain gems have the power to shift our perspectives and deeply resonate with us. As for books, over the years, I've come across several works that have stopped me in my tracks, causing me and countless others to re-evaluate our choices and actions. I've been an avid reader of business books, often devouring 2-3 per month during my global travels. I share...

What drives human behavior more than rules and regulations? Simple: our deep-rooted instincts for competition and, let's be honest, good old-fashioned greed. So why aren't we using these powerful forces in our fight for net zero? Welcome to an episode that throws the typical environmental playbook out the window. Forget the endless regulations and complex compliance frameworks. We're diving into s...

In drawing upon the iconic social science study conducted at Harvard, known as the Invisible Gorilla Experiment, we can relate it to the context of Mergers & Acquisitions and supply chains. Just as participants in the experiment would throw high-speed balls at each other, members of the management board and their M&A team and banks engage in a fast-paced exchange of ideas and actions. Thro...

CPO Nestle, Group CEO of CIPS, and CEO of British Crown Commercial Services are just some of the positions my guest held over his career. Malcolm Harrison is one of the most distinctive procurement and supply chain leaders in Europe and probably one of the most well-known and well-connected people I know in our field. Having been in charge of the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply Chain...

Do you have a good handle on your GHG emissions in your supply chain? Do you get all the data from your suppliers you need? Can you do Product Carbon footprint reporting? Do you know, where your low hanging fruits are to reduce your carbon footprint in your supply chain? If you are like many practitioners and leaders in the supply chain or operations areas, you struggle to get your suppliers to pr...

Did you or your company change the skill and competency framework based on what we have seen on the AI front? If not, just wait until your customers bring products out in half of the normal cycle time of the industry or at 30% less cost. ChatGPT is just the tip of a gigantic mushroom cloud of new applications, innovations, and job profiles that emerged in the last 12 months. And how about the engi...

Is net zero by 2030 a moon shot or a piece of moon cake? Last week, I had the privilege of being invited to be part of the Procurement Asia Summit in Shanghai. About 300 top international firms, many with a strong Asian footprint spend three days comparing notes around sourcing. I gave a keynote speech and was a juror on their prestigious China Procurement Success Award. This is the updated versio...

Visions are aspirational, emotionally charged statements describing the desired future state the company aims to achieve. They answer the question: “Where do we want to go?”. It provides a clear direction and long-term perspective for the organisation. But how does it fit with the other elements of the foundational pyramid of an enterprise: Purpose, mission, strategy, tactics, values and culture?...

Do you remember the act of ‘defragmenting’ your computer? For those less IT-inclined or on IOS, think of your computer playing perfect TETRIS® on your hard drive: Every gap is closed, and files and sections are packaged neatly together. When finished, your computer runs fast again- as it was designed to do. What would happen if we could defragment our business processes? Finding gaps, re-arranging...

In this episode of The Supply Chain Dialogues podcast, Daniel & Noah talk about a number of untold truths in commercial dealings from a procurement perspective. You have to decide for yourself, what is applicable and what not. Enjoy!

There is a field in economics, that is a good bet to excel in if you like to earn a Nobel prize. Up to now, 15 scientists have received it in this field. We're talking about game theory. Game theory solutions are applied to all walks of life including negotiations between states, and companies, or how to solve nearly unsolvable dilemmas for mankind. Now, besides scientists, there are companies tha...

Do you remember what it was like when you started a new job? The mix of anticipation and anxiety, navigating unfamiliar territory, and wishing you had a guidebook to help you through those early days? I certainly do, especially when I began my career in operations and progressed to higher positions within the corporate ladder. Someone who could provide a blueprint for success would have been so pr...

In our upcoming podcast, we've got the CEO & co-founder of ⁠contactify⁠ , Lars Sager, joining us in the studio. He's here to discuss transforming a category with an innovative concept towards net zero, perhaps even negative zero. We'll kick things off by diving into the broader goal of achieving net-zero emissions across all categories before 2050. Our starting point? Most of us have used some...

This one is a re-run from Season 1 due to popular demand. While we focus mainly on the "E" of ESG in this season, we have a powerful episode on the "S". Enjoy

This is a quick introduction to Season 2 of The Supply Chain Dialogues. We made some updates to the show, and hope the changes will be in line with the feedback we got from our listeners.

Picture your organization as a Formula 1 car. Would you want your star driver changing tires or tweaking engine settings when they should be focused on winning the race? Yet in business, we often have our top talent bogged down in the pit stops of daily operations. Welcome to an episode that challenges the status quo of corporate operations. With artificial intelligence and robotic process automat...

What have a cat, a typewriter, and Lego blocks in common? They are all part of a story about how to get out of the contractual B2B jungle many companies grow today. Enjoy!

Imagine driving your car using only the rearview mirror. Absurd? Yet that's exactly how most businesses navigate their future – steering by staring at last quarter's numbers while today's opportunities and tomorrow's challenges rush at them head-on. Welcome to an episode that's about to flip your perspective on business metrics. While your competitors are still squinting at delayed financial repor...

"Quality is like having an ice cream on a summer’s day: you must lick it constantly. Otherwise, you have a mess on your hands". Quality, most people assume, is a given. But is it? Do not most of us ‘have a mess on our hands’? Do you still remember the feeling when you bought a product at home that was DOA or broken shortly after use? Or the last time you ordered something, and it did not arrive in...

Welcome to the third and final instalment of our mini-series on organisation design. Today, we will delve deeply into the overarching theme of "division of labour," a concept many companies consider strangely as a given. By clearly defining roles and responsibilities, we believe an organisation can mitigate friction between functions, positions, and hierarchical levels, allocating resources to wor...

Remember when the biggest debate in procurement was "centralised or decentralised?" It's like asking whether you should drive a car or ride a bike – the answer depends on where you're going and what you're carrying. And just like transportation has evolved beyond this simple dichotomy, so has procurement. Welcome to Part 2 of our organizational design mini-series, where we challenge outdated assum...

Is your organization playing musical chairs with its structure? Matrix today, regional tomorrow, and who knows what next week? If you're nodding along, you're not alone in this corporate dance of reorganizations. In boardrooms worldwide, the eternal questions echo: How effective is our headquarters? Are regions aligned with corporate strategy? Is there a perfect organizational structure, or are we...

Stop playing nice and start getting paid! In our latest instalment of cash-flow optimization, we unveil the secrets of Days Sales Outstanding (DSO) aka Payments from Customers. Say goodbye to overdue payments and hello to better cash flow. Enjoy

In part 2 of our podcast mini-series on cash-flow optimization, we hone in on payments to suppliers, covered in Days Payable Outstanding (DPO). External materials & services purchased are the most significant cost block in most product-based companies. Hence, the cash flow improvement leverage is significant. Different from cash trapped in inventory, DPO management needs two to tango. Why is i...

This marks the beginning of a three-part mini-series on cash flow optimisation, focusing on the manufacturing and Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) industries. The series argues that while finance must report on cash flow, operations should own the metrics. For practitioners along a company's value chain, the three posts can also act as a refresher…Let’s start with inventory!