The SupplyChainBrain Podcast

How do U.S. executives view the future of manufacturing? Some of the answers are contained in a new report from the accounting and consulting firm of Grant Thornton LLP. In a survey of more than 375 U.S. manufacturers, it asked them to detail the major forces that are shaping their industries. They were also invited to describe the steps they're taking to adapt to those changes. On this episo...

A new wave of protectionism is threatening the stability of global supply chains. A worldwide backlash against free trade and globalization is posing new risks for supply chains. That's the conclusion of a new report from the Atlantic Council and Zurich Insurance Group. It examines a variety of geopolitical trends that could have a significant impact on economic growth, and, as a result, glob...

Can the cloud protect us from cyber attacks? Or does it just make us more vulnerable? The early days of cloud computing raised deep concerns among I.T. experts about cybersecurity. Wasn't it riskier to shift systems and data to shared servers that lay beyond the firewall? What's more, system designers seemed to be doing little to insure security in the cloud. But that attitude is changin...

More and more women today are stepping up as entrepreneurs. What will it take for them to succeed? The world of entrepreneurs has largely been dominated by men. Now, that's beginning to change. According to the U.S. Census, there's been more than a 30-percent jump in female business owners. Still, their path to success might be somewhat different than that of men. On this episode, the se...

The entrepreneur has taken on near-mythic status in modern-day society. But who is this individual really? You can't deny the importance of the entrepreneur: the individual who challenges conventional wisdom, and makes something new and transformational. We look up to the individual who pursues a goal with relentless passion, builds a business from its beginnings in a humble garage, and reali...

Can't wait to ditch that old phone, computer, car or sweater? You're a victim of planned obsolescence. As consumers, we often bemoan the poor quality of products, blaming manufacturers for deliberately designing them with a short lifespan. Then we scramble to buy the latest version of the hot new item. Planned obsolescence is a reality, and it's killing the earth, says Kamila Pope,...

How long can our society get by without trucks? How about five days? A new documentary, Be Prepared to Stop, presents a portrait of the trucking industry in crisis. Chief among its woes is the nation's crumbling infrastructure, with no solution in sight for funding critical repair, maintenance and construction of roads, highways and bridges. But the film goes even further, to show us the ever...

The so-called platform economy promises to drastically change the nature of work. Is that a bad thing, or a good thing? Call it the ''platform'' or ''gig'' economy: the blending of powerful computing with the growth of networks, digitizing the means by which work is assigned and carried out. Uber and Airbnb are obvious examples, but there are an estimated 1,...

In the age of the omnichannel, is there any hope for traditional retail chains? The signs aren't especially encouraging. Old-line retailers such as Sears, Roebuck & Co., Kmart Corp. and J.C. Penney Co., Inc. have struggled to stay profitable while battling competition from two directions: big-box giants such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Target Corp. on one side, and the e-commerce wave, le...

The blockchain has emerged from the shadows. Now it might hold the key to transforming global supply chains. The blockchain was originally intended as a system of record for the digital cryptocurrency bitcoin. Now, however, the blockchain finds itself poised to play a much larger role in global commerce – and, especially, the supply chain. The blockchain provides all partners in a transaction with...

How can a new company break into the venerable freight-forwarding business? Technology holds the key. For decades, freight forwarding was dominated by a host of smallish, regional firms, many of them family-owned and passed down through generations. Later, the function got swallowed up in the global mega-providers who offer a whole range of logistics services. That has made it tough for new entran...

The cash-to-cash cycle is a key metric for measuring the efficiency of a supply chain. But many companies seem unable to deploy it with success. ''Cash-to-cash'' is defined as the period from when a company spends its first dollar on materials for a product, to when it gets back a dollar of revenue from the buyer. It's an extremely useful tool for assessing the way in whic...

So the major driver behind all those lost American jobs is free trade? Not so fast. Trade has indeed caused many manufacturers to shift their operations offshore. And there's no denying that a hefty portion of the U.S. manufacturing base has been decimated over the past couple of decades. But is the first trend really to blame for the second? On this episode, we hear a nuanced perspective on...

Going up against the behemoth that is Amazon.com, does the smaller e-commerce provider have a chance? The answer is yes, provided that the small or medium-sized e-tailer can find a way to match Amazon's level of service, as well as differentiate its product in the marketplace. On this episode, we get some tips on how that daunting task might be achieved, in our conversation with Dan Coll. He...

Somebody out there is talking about your product. And you had better be listening. Social media can be the bane of a brand's existence. Justified or not, a complaint can quickly go viral on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and the like, causing irreparable damage to a company's reputation. But there's a positive side to the explosion of social media. Through the techniques of social lis...

Companies today need to cut costs, speed up fulfillment processes and manage growth. All the while providing ''the perfect order.'' It's a tough set of challenges to meet. Scrambling to keep pace with rising customer demands, supply-chain managers are unable to step back, take a breath and review the most basic processes. And there's little room for error. A few bad d...

American manufacturing is in need of a reboot. Steven L. Blue calls it ''Manufacturing 2.0.'' That's the title of his new book, in which he imparts guidance on how to create a competitive yet humane manufacturing environment. His experience in the matter is more than academic; Blue is chief executive officer of Miller Ingenuity, a global producer of locomotive and freight-...

It's tough enough stopping the use of conflict minerals from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. How about attacking the larger issue of human trafficking throughout the supply chain? On one hand, the Securities & Exchange Commission's disclosure rule on conflict minerals in manufactured goods can serve as a guide for broadening the fight against human trafficking on a global scale...

Big data is threatening to swamp small companies. The good news is that there's more data than ever before with which to manage global supply chains effectively. The bad news is that the cost of that effort can be punishingly high. That's not a problem for big multinationals, but how is a smaller entity supposed to keep up? Storage costs alone can be prohibitive. At least until now: new...

Cyber thieves, hackers and terrorists are targeting the Internet of Things. Every device that's connected to the internet is vulnerable. Witness last fall's massive distributed denial of service (DDOS) attack on the internet infrastructure provider Dyn. The incident took down some of the net's most heavily trafficked websites. It was a distressing demonstration of the inadequate sec...

At some point, every organization must change in order to survive. How do we combat the natural human tendency to resist it? The ability to manage organizational change lies at the very heart of executive leadership skills. Change is disruptive, to be sure, but it's also essential to the health of a business, educational institution, or any group that has come together with a common purpose....

Without effective freight-cost management, you're leaving millions of dollars a year on the table. The age of big data, coupled with the global nature of most supply chains, has made the job of managing freight spend tougher than ever. It's no longer sufficient just to be able to pay one's bills (as if that task were easy). Companies today need to incorporate sophisticated analytics...

Supply-chain professionals, assuming they sought out the position in the first place, have typically learned the ropes by doing the job. Not anymore. Today, training has become an essential part of the profession. The reason? Supply chain, which used to function largely as a cost center for the organization, has become a key component of corporate profitability. It makes eminent sense that supply-...

''It is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future.'' So said a Danish wit nearly 80 years ago. But when it comes to divining the direction of the economy, why try? Economists and money managers stake their reputations on the ability to foresee economic trends, even if they're frequently wrong. Perhaps a more honest approach would be to admit ignorance, the...

Whistleblowers play an essential role in uncovering corporate and government fraud. But they often pay a heavy price for their actions. Michael G. Winston was the executive at Countrywide Financial, the giant provider of single-family mortgages, who called out the company on its fraudulent practices in the early 2000s. The subsequent collapse of Countrywide was a major factor in the crash of the m...