[00:00:00] Mike Griswold: What our research is showing us is AI is taking, you know, intermittent slivers of time out of people’s days, but that intermittent sliver of time cannot be reaggregated into a chunk of time to be redeployed.
[00:00:32] Scott W. Luton: Hey, good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you may be. Scott Luton and always special guest Mike Griswold with you here on Supply Chain Now. Welcome to today’s show. Hey, Mike, how you doing today?
[00:00:44] Mike Griswold: Scott, I’m doing well. Thanks. It’s always, uh, good to be with you, and I’m excited for the October version of this session
[00:00:52] Scott W. Luton: Mike, I am too. You know, uh, this is a good one coming. I can’t wait to get your take on some topics. Folks, we continue today one of our longest running and most popular series, Supply Chain Today and Tomorrow with Mike Griswold with Gartner. Now Mike, of course, serves as vice president analyst with Gartner, and today, folks, we got some interesting topics.
[00:01:11] Scott W. Luton: We’re going to get into some listener mail of sorts. We’re gonna dive into some of your comments on, on a few of the themes we’ve been talking about on this series. We’re taking a look at what General Mills is up to with its supply chain revamp, and we’re gonna be talking about supply chain management education, especially at the undergraduate level.
[00:01:28] Scott W. Luton: We may touch on a couple things that might need to change as our industry continues to evolve, right? Stay tuned for all that and much, much more right here today on Supply Chain Now with our friend Mike Griswold. So Mike, are you ready to go, my friend?
[00:01:45] Mike Griswold: Yes, sir.
[00:01:46] Scott W. Luton: All right. Well, we’re gonna h- we’re gonna hit the toughest, most divisive topic on the front end with the fun warm-up question because, um, we’re talking candy, Halloween candy.
[00:01:58] Scott W. Luton: It’s October 28th, couple days away from Halloween, which is still my least favorite holiday. So I wanna talk about the most important component of the Halloween supply chain. That’s the candy, folks. But I got a little bit of bad news before I ask Mike his take. Research from FinanceBuzz has found that the average price for a 100-piece bag of Halloween candy has increased 71% since 2021, reaching on average $16.96 in 2026.
[00:02:28] Scott W. Luton: That’s more than triple the cumulative inflation rate of about 22% over the same period. Oh my gosh, we should be investing in candy, not stocks, Mike. Uh, but, but I gotta ask you, all that to bring th- this question to you. What is your favorite and your least favorite candies when it comes to Halloween, Mike?
[00:02:50] Mike Griswold: Yeah, let’s, uh, let’s start with the favorites. I, I’ve always been, and the grandkids love them, I’ve always been a big fan of Smarties, right? The little, the little individual candies that come in the little wrapper. You can grab a handful of those. The kid- the grandkids are always like, “Hey, can we have some Smarties for the ride home?”
[00:03:08] Mike Griswold: So I love Smarties, and I, I also, um, you can’t go wrong with, with a Reese’s, Right.
[00:03:15] Mike Griswold: The regular Reese’s. None of these like con- con… You know, we were talking before the show about mixing our Costco water flavors. So none of this mixing. It’s chocolate and peanut butter in the traditional Reese’s. My least favorite is probably gonna be polarizing like pineapple on a pizza.
[00:03:35] Mike Griswold: I, I am not a fan of candy corn. I could, I could eat maybe two or three pieces of candy corn, and then it’s like, I’m done. My wife loves candy corn. She just bought a big bag. I said, “They’re all yours.” So candy corn is by far my least favorite. Not even close to anything else.
[00:03:56] Scott W. Luton: I’m with you. Uh, I am, I am not a fan of candy corn. I can have a couple pieces and that’s it. But a couple pieces once a year and really I’m good. Um, also when we trick-or-treated as a kid, to this day I’ve never understood the wax teeth mouth thing with dropping our bags. Never got that. Um, but I go with the traditional.
[00:04:17] Scott W. Luton: I, I love Snickers, love Kit Kats, uh, I love Smarties. Although, if you kind of eat them the, the whole or half of the roll at a time, I’ve had occasions, Mike, and maybe I’m doing it wrong, where the two little pieces will pinch my tongue. And so it’s a safety hazard. I got to slow down a little bit. But, um, folks, let us know your favorite candies, favorite Halloween experiences.
[00:04:41] Scott W. Luton: But, uh, it is, it is a time to be moving candy across global business for sure. Um, all right, so Mike We gotta move along from Halloween. We got so much to get into here today, and I’m gonna start with talking about one of our endlessly favorite topics, supply chain planning. Now, on our last episode, we spoke about some recent Gartner research that pointed to some of the top barriers preventing planners from performing their best.
[00:05:06] Scott W. Luton: And I took the message, and I, I was sharing it across social, right? Including this quote here from that Gartner research, quote, “Despite growing spending on AI training, 54% of chief supply chain officers say that skills gaps in the talent pool are the biggest hindrance to supply chain priorities.” And then also just to refresh our folks view, watching this or listening to us, we also shared in that same message what we were talking about, which is, is, um, some of these barriers, right, to planners from doing their best work.
[00:05:39] Scott W. Luton: And, and just to recap the top three, far and away 67%, number one was planners struggle to keep up with the pace of change. Number two, at 55%, planners do not have the digital skills they need. And number three, at 44%, planners do not have the soft skills or functional knowledge needed. So we just recap that, right?
[00:05:58] Scott W. Luton: So Mike, I put that out on social, and I’m going to get your reaction to some of the comments we got, okay? So I’m gonna start here with two of my dear friends, Vin Facista, who joins us here from time to time, he’s brilliant, and Antonio, who I love to, um, uh, track across social. So Vin says, “Hey, if you’re laying off people because of AI, you’re also losing the domain expertise you need to get value out of your AI investments.
[00:06:26] Scott W. Luton: Thank you for continuing to spread the message.” That’s from Vin. And then Antonio shares a longer message, so bear with me one minute, Mike, and let me get your reaction to both of these. Antonio says, “Hey, you’re spot on about the human side of tech adoption, but here lies the real failure. Companies are burning massive budgets sending people to external courses to learn prompting, yet wonder why adoption stalls.
[00:06:48] Scott W. Luton: Prompt tricks aren’t the answer. Generative and agentic tools only work when anchored in real domain context. Instead of treating training like a compliance checkbox, HR and leadership must build internal learning communities of practice. True capability comes from peer exchange, safe spaces where colleagues test ideas, share workflows, and solve everyday bottlenecks together.”
[00:07:12] Scott W. Luton: That hits the 70/20/10 learning reality dead on. And then finally, get this quote, Mike, because I was using a Ferrari analogy of how maybe in some cases we’re leaving, uh, uh, uh, we’re, we’re giving the Ferrari keys to a 16-year-old, right? Antonio says, “Until leaders stop outsourcing enablement and start fostering internal culture, the Ferrari will stay locked in the garage.”
[00:07:36] Scott W. Luton: All right, so Mike, between Vin and Antonio, I’d love to get your reaction
[00:07:41] Mike Griswold: Yeah, I, I think first of all, uh, appreciate Vin and Antonio, um, you know, joining us and then sending their feedback. It’s, uh, I appreciate the- them, you know, taking the time to do that. It- it’s interesting, Scott, the Vin in particular, let me start with that one. I- I– that aligns very well with some of the things we hear from our clients around the, the what are we gonna do with entry-level positions?
[00:08:09] Scott W. Luton: Right
[00:08:09] Mike Griswold: And, you know, Gartner’s position has always been you’re gonna continue to need entry-level positions. AI should not be seen as a replacement for those entry-level roles. Because to Vin’s point, the entry-level roles is where that, that institutional knowledge is built and kept and fostered, that’s gonna allow organizations to get the most out of these AI tools.
[00:08:34] Mike Griswold: So it becomes really important that folks are understanding the role that they want AI to play in their organization and, and how do they foster that, you know, within the organization. The other comment I think is, is fascinating from the standpoint, uh, from Antonio in that he’s jumping Right
[00:08:57] Mike Griswold: to a very specific kind of use case, which is prompts and agents and, and those types of things.
[00:09:06] Mike Griswold: And I agree with Antonio from the standpoint that jumping into that deep end of the pool is, is probably not where most organizations are anyway, right? There’s still a lot of learning around the data that you currently have, how do you want to apply that or have AI apply that data and context to, to whatever use cases and challenges you’re facing.
[00:09:33] Mike Griswold: I think the other risk that you run into is the more, the more that people get involved down in the weeds, which I’m– and I’m not suggesting they don’t need to get into the weeds, but the more that people get into the weeds around things like prompts, it’s very easy for people to start to ask themselves the questions, right?
[00:09:54] Mike Griswold: Well, i- if I’m developing all these prompts and all– and AI is answering all these prompts and all of these, um, you know, questions, then what are they gonna need me for, right? So it’s very easy for people to start to head down that road, which isn’t helpful, productive, and in many instances, you know, we are still, as we’ve talked a lot, Scott, you know, we’re gonna continue to need people even in a heavy AI environment.
[00:10:20] Mike Griswold: So I think both of those comments are spot on because they highlight the importance and the continued importance of having people within the process
[00:10:30] Scott W. Luton: Yep. Love that. Love that message. Great, great message, Landon, there. And thank you, Vin and Antonio. Love y’all’s perspective. Let’s go to the next two, uh, batch here. So Manuel says, “Strong leadership means removing systemic barriers, not merely demanding better planning. Supply chain resilience starts with empowering planners to make informed decisions.”
[00:10:51] Scott W. Luton: Kind of what you were just landing on there, Mike. And then Bob Carver, one of my favorite cybersecurity pros to follow. I think Bob spent, uh, 20 years at Verizon back in the day, I think. Uh, doing a lot of great work now. Bob says, “People in supply chain retrained plus AI for the win.” I like that, Bob. All right, so Manuel and Bob, your reaction, Mike
[00:11:12] Mike Griswold: Yeah. I mean, it, it, it’s interesting. We’ve got some research coming out that I think, um, is gonna, is gonna be very eye-opening for folks, particularly around this assumption that AI is gonna take significant chunks of time out of a people, out of a person’s day, and that significant chunk of time can then be redeployed. What our research is showing us is AI is taking, you know, intermittent slivers of time out of people’s days, but that intermittent sliver of time cannot be reaggregated into a chunk of time to be redeployed. The analogy we’re using is email, right? When email first came out, there was this thought that there’ll be a, there’ll be a standard chunk of time that we can take out and do other things with, and that wasn’t really the case with email either, right?
[00:12:11] Mike Griswold: It’s fragmented. So th- this idea that the, that we’re gonna have these, these huge time savings, I think, is, is not gonna be proven true, and we’re gonna have to go back to some of those comments around, we’re gonna need people to work within the system, we’re gonna need people to augment the, the decisions, bring their experiences and their knowledge of the business and the industry into those, uh, into those planning activities, and that’s where the true value is gonna be unlocked.
[00:12:45] Mike Griswold: It’s not gonna be unlocked in, in these huge time-saving things that maybe we originally thought
[00:12:52] Scott W. Luton: Yep. I like that, Mike. And gosh, weren’t we wrong about email back in the day? Um,
[00:12:58] Mike Griswold: Yes. Oh my goodness, yes.
[00:13:01] Scott W. Luton: all right, I got one more pair of comments to get you to react to. And folks, y’all keep these comments coming. I love to hear from all the folks out there, whether they’re, they’re, uh, you know, sharing their thoughts on some of these themes on social or whether you’re tuning in and, and giving us your comments that way.
[00:13:16] Scott W. Luton: Here, this is from, uh, David and Barry. So David says, looks like he’s a CEO of a logistics firm, uh, Zipline Logistics, says, “Great example highlighting adoption and the power of change management.” You know, a lot of folks are sleeping on change management, I think. That, I think we’re seeing it, uh, kind of play out.
[00:13:33] Scott W. Luton: But then Mike, Barry, I got a kick out of Barry’s comment here, and you never know where it’s gonna get, right? Barry says, “I do not agree to AI governance or leadership nor accept it. Please go elsewhere.” Now, uh, we all have to have a good sense of humor, and maybe Barry was, you know, jerking on my chain a bit.
[00:13:53] Scott W. Luton: But comment on what we heard there from David and Barry, Mike
[00:13:56] Mike Griswold: Yeah, the, the change management is, is huge. I have, um, on my team, I have, um, three or four people that cover change management all the time. You know, we have, within Gartner, clients have access to these, these, these engagements called strategy sessions, and one of the most popular strategy sessions my team does is on change management.
[00:14:19] Mike Griswold: So there, there is never, um, there is never too much that an organization can learn and understand and deploy around change management, particularly now in this environment with AI, because there are so many misconceptions. Um, we, we see many organizations that haven’t articulated their AI and supply chain strategy.
[00:14:43] Mike Griswold: Without that, it’s very difficult to help people navigate, “This is where we are, this is where we’re going.” Um, Barry’s comment is interesting. If you bring that back up, Scott, I, I’m wondering, a-again, this is where the, the problem with social media is there’s no context at all, Right.
[00:15:00] Mike Griswold: My guess, Right
[00:15:02] Mike Griswold: uh, so I think there’s, there’s two things happening here.
[00:15:05] Mike Griswold: Either Barry is giving us a hard time, or, which is fine, or the context I think might be Barry saying that we’re not gonna have AI be the governance model. That I would 100% endorse, that yes, we do not want AI setting governance or having its own governance, and definitely we do not want AI in any type of, let’s call it leadership role.
[00:15:35] Mike Griswold: If that’s where he was coming from, could not agree more, right? We need human governance. We need humans to put the guardrails in around how we want to use AI, and it becomes even more important, I think, as we’ve talked in the past, as agents start to become more and more prevalent, humans need to be the ones that are reining in those agents.
[00:15:58] Mike Griswold: So I’m gonna choose to think that that’s where Barry was going, not that he was necessarily giving us a hard time
[00:16:06] Scott W. Luton: Yeah, that’s why you’re the smartest guy in the room. I think I, I completely didn’t think about that take. And Barry, uh, if that is what you are communicating, I wholeheartedly agree with Mike, uh, because, you know, humans still have the superpowers, and we gotta use them. We gotta use them. So good stuff there.
[00:16:23] Scott W. Luton: David, Barry, Van, Antonio, uh, all the folks that took, uh, uh, some time out their day. Yeah, really appreciate that. Um, okay. So Mike, we’re gonna move on. We’ve talked candy, we’ve talked comments, now we’re talking cereal. We’re gonna make everybody hungry. Uh, I wanna talk about what General Mills is up to. So from our friends at Supply Chain Dive from earlier this summer, a couple months ago, they reported on how General Mills is t- is undertaking a major supply chain transformation as part of an ambitious plan to generate $3 billion in cumulative cost savings by 2030.
[00:17:02] Scott W. Luton: Company leaders acknowledge that its existing supply chain network was designed for a different era, with lower volumes and less complexity. The overhaul will continue to focus on faster product innovation, greater packaging flexibility, smarter technology adoption, and more efficient operations.
[00:17:20] Scott W. Luton: Approximately one billion of the savings target is gonna come from improvements in business processes, technology, and operating models, including the supply chain redesign. But the bigger objective, build a more agile, responsive supply chain that can better accommodate shifting consumer demand, offset inflation, and drive profitable growth.
[00:17:41] Scott W. Luton: So Mike, in light of this story, and in light of the fact that we all love our cereals, and we probably have some favorites, and including some of the General Mills cereals, which I’m gonna share here. So folks, if you don’t know who, who makes what cereal, think Lucky Charms, and Trix, and Reese’s Puffs, Cheerios, all of those, Cocoa Puffs, all of those are General Mills brands.
[00:18:04] Scott W. Luton: So Mike, react to this story and give me your best one or two cereal analogies while you do
[00:18:11] Mike Griswold: Yeah. I mean, I, I think the headline w- was an interesting headline because I think when we, when we think about The supply chain, and I think if we think about how we want to reposition the supply chain. Supply chain and cost-cutting, I think, have been used synonymously for quite some time, and I would really like us to try to move us as an industry to move away from using supply chain and cost-cutting kinda synonymously and start using supply chain as an enabler, as a value driver, as a s- as a enabler of innovation, Right. All of those things which are, which are underlying in that article, and they’re underlying in the recap that you gave, yet the headline is still linking the supply chain and, uh, and cost savings. And yes, we s- we do need to be d- uh, be able to support that. But if you look at our top 25 companies, just as an example, many if not most of those companies do not see their supply chain as something that’s gonna be, yes, it’s driving cost out, but it is a much bigger enabler.
[00:19:32] Mike Griswold: So that’s kinda my, my editorial comment. When it, when it comes to cereals, it, it, it’s, it, it’s interesting, Scott, you know, my wife and I will walk down the cereal aisle in Walmart, and I can’t help but think of, of the Henry Ford quote, “You can have a car of any color that you want as long as it’s black.”
[00:19:53] Mike Griswold: And I just, I can’t get over the, the abundance and the mutations of, of cereals, right? E- even if you go back to the example that you showed of the General Mills flavors, a lot of those are just kind of repackaging. Like, okay, we’ve got Cheerios, we’ve got Mini Cheerios, we’ve got like four different types of Cheerios.
[00:20:18] Mike Griswold: If you look at Lucky Charms, they’re basically some other cereal that we just decided to add marshmallows to. And then, oh, by the way, we’ve taken Trix and now we’ve added marshmallows. So I think m- my supply chain takeaway here, and the story was about General Mills, but we could certainly go down the Kellogg aisle, right?
[00:20:38] Mike Griswold: And we can see the same thing that’s happened to one of my all-time favorites, which is Frosted Flakes, right? And how that has been mutated. Th- th- the, the cereal example, whether it’s General Mills or, or anyone else, i- is a great example of, you know, the balance between category management, innovation, customer demand, and then the supply chain’s ability to support that.
[00:21:06] Mike Griswold: Because if, if you look at just that example of Cheerios, and we’ve got four different flavors, we’ve now in some ways fragmented the Cheerio market, but now we have to figure out how to demand plan for those different flavors. What does the supply plan look like, and what does that mean for our, for our overarching inventory?
[00:21:28] Mike Griswold: You know, you, you highlighted, um, in the General Mills story kind of a new era supply chain, and I think it was our last episode we talked about, or maybe the one before, where we talked about just in time, Right
[00:21:41] Mike Griswold: And is just in time gone, and, you know, what, what’s the new inventory strategy? And I think the, the– we definitely are in a new era for consumer products companies for sure, Right
[00:21:54] Mike Griswold: And we’re gonna have an, a supply chain environment where we’ve got multiple flavors, permutations. We need to, to figure out what does that mean for our inventory strategy. Does it now mean I’ve got to deploy more SKUs but less inventory in multiple locations? So the, the cereal i- e- example I think is a very good analogy for all the consumer products as they deal with this SKU proliferation, this balance between kind of what do you want versus what do I want, and how do we as a supply chain deliver that, um, and deliver that in a way where it’s not necessarily about just driving cost out, it’s about how do we enable that variation.
[00:22:42] Mike Griswold: So that’s what I think of when I look at all of these different proliferations of cereals.
[00:22:47] Scott W. Luton: Uh, all right, so I’ve got three quick comments, and I’d love to get your reaction. The first, you know, when I go back to this visual, and you pointed out, you know, uh, uh, an excellent observation. You know, they’ve taken the standard cereals that have been so successful and start cross-pollinating them to give the consumer something new, right?
[00:23:07] Scott W. Luton: And that’s based on a blend of, of proven trends. Like right now, everything’s spicy. It’s a proven trend. Consumers want spicy. Um, not so much in cereal, but you know what I’m saying. Um, but you know, also there’s a timing component, right? I think of the C-3PO cereal back in the ’80s that was not good cereal, but it was leveraging the Star Wars tidal wave, right?
[00:23:29] Scott W. Luton: And it made sense in the moment, and then when that faded, you saw the, the cereal leave the shelves. Two other things. I tried my best to come up with a little dad joke play on General Mills brands, so bear with me, Mike. Number one, based on the story, back on their, uh, initiative, General Mills is trying to take the Lucky Charms out of supply chain management.
[00:23:51] Scott W. Luton: There’s nothing magical about improving margins, but that bigger opportunity, as I see it at least, is building that more agile operation that can better respond to ever-changing consumer demand without sacrificing service or product availability. All of that takes much more than luck. And then my last comment here, General Mills can’t afford to be a bunch of Cocoa Puffs.
[00:24:16] Scott W. Luton: As igni- as it acknowledges, the company’s supply chain organization was designed for an arguably easier era. It’s got to buckle up and transform for where we are and where we’re going, not where we’ve been. So get your final reaction o- on all things cereal
[00:24:33] Mike Griswold: Yeah. I mean, you’re exactly right, Scott. I mean, the, the demand profiles have changed, and the, the ability to respond to that in a, in A profitable manner is really now, I think, the, the, the, the remit of the supply chain, right? If, if the category teams are going to create the– And I love the way you described it, that, that those were the words I was trying to find, cross-pollinate, right?
[00:25:02] Mike Griswold: If, if we’re gonna cross-pollinate… And didn’t the, uh, Honey Nut Cheerios, don’t they have a bee as their, as their
[00:25:10] Scott W. Luton: That’s
[00:25:10] Mike Griswold: So as, as we’re trying to, cross-pollinate, right, it, it just makes
[00:25:14] Scott W. Luton: of pun.
[00:25:15] Mike Griswold: It makes the, the, the supply chain super complex. My last comment, and I will, I will date myself for sure, but I’d love our listeners to see if they’ve had the same experience.
[00:25:26] Mike Griswold: When I was a kid, my, my decision tree for cereal was what is the little prize in the box? That was usually my decision tree. And I would come home, it would drive my parents nuts. I would come home, I would open the box, I would open the cereal, I would dump all the box into a big bowl so I could pull out my little submarine with the baking soda, and then I would try to put the cereal back in the box, in the bag, and then reseal it.
[00:25:55] Mike Griswold: But now when you wa- when you walk down the cereal aisle, there’s like no, there’s no in cereal promotions, there’s No. in cereal. So I’m wondering when did that stop? Um, but anyway, sorry, I meant, didn’t mean to digress, but that, that’s my cereal, cereal memories
[00:26:09] Scott W. Luton: I’m gonna have to dive into that and, and try to figure out when we made this big pivot. I’m sure the digital era has something to do with it, but, uh, that’s, I was just saying, and I, and I can’t… One last comment about cereal. For me, Mike, Post makes Fruity Pebbles, and I ate truckloads of Fruity Pebbles back in the day.
[00:26:28] Scott W. Luton: You had to eat it before it got soggy like most cereals, but oh my gosh. Um, okay. Well, gosh, we’re talking candy, cereal, now we’re gonna talk McDonald’s. Oh my gosh. All right. So Mike, I wanna share, yeah, I’m gonna share this story with you. Of course, McDonald’s is a member of the Gartner Top 25 Master Circle, if I’m not mistaken, Mike.
[00:26:47] Scott W. Luton: Um, the company is planning to invest $8.5 billion through 2036 to modernize its restaurant operations with AI automation and better use of data playing big roles. Mickey D’s is developing technology that could improve drive-thru ordering, inventory management, employee scheduling, and order accuracy. Uh, this AI-powered drive-thru system is called Archie, which by the way, I think is based off McDonald’s first or second ever, uh, mascot, by the way.
[00:27:19] Scott W. Luton: Anyway, it’s already reporting accuracy above 90%, while other technologies are being deployed to help restaurants catch missing items before orders reach customers. There’s nothing worse, right? But as I write this, uh, a few weeks ago, I was writing about this initiative, Mike, and the press release that, at least the one I read that made its way into news outlets, uh, included this quote that I’m showing here from a current McDonald’s human team member, and it really struck me.
[00:27:47] Scott W. Luton: Uh, the quote was, uh, quote, “Archie is basically like another employee to us.” Now, that I’m sure for, in many circles, that’s kind of a throwaway comment, and it really shows, uh, um, the positive way they’re trying to embrace it and bring it into the culture. But, and, and, and it’s also a catchy way to describe the technology.
[00:28:08] Scott W. Luton: But my take, just my humble take, Mike, especially in this era of massive layoffs and corporate restructuring, I hate equating technology to the human workforce. I know the two are attached at the hip, I get that, but the comparison, I think, couldn’t be more apples and oranges. And I think that to me, this story and this quote illustrates an opportunity in terms of how we as leaders have got to roll up our sleeves and really ramp up our storytelling and, and communication game as we continue to up our technology game.
[00:28:41] Scott W. Luton: Just my take. Mike, your thoughts
[00:28:44] Mike Griswold: Yeah. When, when you sent this through the other day, it, it was, it’s fascinating. Um, you are in the heart of SEC country, and if Arch, if Arch Manning isn’t careful, Archie is gon- that’s gonna be Archie’s hand coming through the drive-through. So anyway, like I said, Scott, I was fascinated when you sent this across.
[00:29:05] Mike Griswold: I, I, I wanna give, ’cause I’m a glass half full guy 99% of the time, I wanna give props to the marketing folks. I think Archie is a brilliant, um, name for this tool. I also think they, they, they missed the mark, frankly, in how they are describing the human interaction and the human component to this. Um, I, I agree completely with you, Scott.
[00:29:35] Mike Griswold: I think There, there’s probably more that could have come and should have come kind of before and after that particular quote. You know, we talked earlier about context and how context matters. I, I think framing this i- from the standpoint of, of in some ways that’s a good message from the standpoint that associates aren’t feeling threatened by interacting with that tool, which I mean, as we’ve talked about, th- that whole interacting with the tool and, and being side by side by, with a tool certainly creates a lot of angst for a lot of folks.
[00:30:15] Mike Griswold: So I think the one element to that story about, about the kind of the, the less reservations is, is good, I think. But you need some stuff around that, that particular quote to say like, why do we have this? How is it working? How, how it, how are humans interacting with it to make it better? Right?
[00:30:37] Mike Griswold: Those are all the things that, uh, are kind of missing around the edges to this, which I think would’ve, for you and for me, would’ve, would’ve made this quote not quite as like eye-opening as it, as it ended up being, Right
[00:30:56] Mike Griswold: Because when you read, when you read just the quote, it’s like, okay, if you’re not careful, the only people that will be there are Archie, Right
[00:31:06] Mike Griswold: Or the… I shouldn’t even say that, I shouldn’t even say people. The only thing that will be there is Archie. Um, so I, I do wanna give McDonald’s a lot of props, Right.
[00:31:16] Mike Griswold: For the standpoint of, for someone in the fast food industry, they, they have traditionally been in, i- the leaders in some of that technology and tech… I mean, we had, a couple of years ago, they were doing some real-time things on their drive-through menu boards, Right
[00:31:36] Mike Griswold: So on a hot day, their menu board is reflecting cold drinks and those types of things.
[00:31:41] Mike Griswold: So I, I wanna give them a lot of props for embracing technology, particularly in an industry that you may not necessarily see the connection. But I think they also need to be careful around how they’re positioning that use of technology
[00:31:58] Scott W. Luton: That’s right. Uh, you make some great points. And on, on, on innovation side, it’s hard to find a, uh, restaurant business, fast service model, whatever you wanna call it these days, that has innovated this industry as much as McDonald’s has, right? And, and, and so they deserve the props. And as commenters on my post, uh, shared, hey, it is a tough, much like everywhere else in the industry, the workforce and the recruiting and the talent management, it is a tough industry to manage all of that.
[00:32:30] Scott W. Luton: I get it. But, you know, going back to the quote, uh, Archie is a tool, it’s a system, and I think it is best viewed as empowering the human element at McDonald’s to better serve the human consumers. That’s my, that’s my take. So, hey, I look forward to looking how it evolves. I can’t wait to see the, um… I love the fact that it’s double-checking and making sure that when you order Chicken McNuggets, they’re not missing from the bag.
[00:32:59] Scott W. Luton: Love that. And I just gotta say, Mike, I don’t know if you remember this. Back in the early ’90s, I think, McDonald’s came out with, I wanna say it was either a, it was a chicken burrito, I think. And I ate those by the bunches, and I would love for them to bring them back. They were delicious, Mike, and they were like a buck a piece, maybe even less than that.
[00:33:20] Scott W. Luton: So we’ll see. But, uh, it’s making me re- it’s really making me hungry. Mike, you wanna go grab, um, a Big Mac and some fries?
[00:33:27] Mike Griswold: I, I’m, I’m, Yes
[00:33:29] Mike Griswold: Uh, I’m thinking though, if, if we were to replace, you know, Skynet is an employee just like us, um, pe- people would be very, very concerned. Uh, but as long as it’s Archie, we’ll be okay.
[00:33:43] Scott W. Luton: That’s right. Uh, l- uh, so looking forward to seeing how this rolls out and how it impacts McDonald’s operations really around the globe. Um, all right, so I wanna do this. I wanna go back to, we’ve got an event coming up today. So today’s Oc- October 28th. We got an event in a couple of hours, and I’m gonna pop this visual up here, and it’s a good one.
[00:34:02] Scott W. Luton: It’s a very unique one for us here at Supply Chain Now. We’ve got some great leaders from several of the top-ranked supply chain programs in the US, uh, the University of Arkansas, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and of course, Georgia Institute of Technology right here in Atlanta. Uh, and we’re gonna be talking about where supply chain management undergraduate programs, where they are, like current state, and where they need to evolve to meet the ongoing, ever-evolving demands of this global industry of ours.
[00:34:31] Scott W. Luton: And I’m, I’m delighted to be, uh, co-hosted, um, uh, Laura Cecere joining me as a co-host. So Mike, the question to you, let’s envision you have got the captive audience. You’re at, uh, the Waldorf Astoria. You’ve got 2,000 chairs, so 4,000 eyeballs looking at you. You’ve got the leaders of academia that’s shaping and leading supply chain undergraduate programs.
[00:34:55] Scott W. Luton: And if you had to give them a piece of advice in terms of how the programs today must evolve, what would be the advice you’d share with them?
[00:35:05] Mike Griswold: Well first, Scott, um, thank you for thinking that someone would think I’m important enough to put in the Waldorf Astoria. I, I, I’m more likely to be put in the Best Western, so I, I appreciate you elevating me to the Waldorf Astoria. It’s inter- it’s interesting, Scott, as we were going through kind of the, the Runna show, and we were gonna talk about this, uh, first of all, congrats on getting Laura.
[00:35:29] Mike Griswold: She’ll be, she’ll do a great job. She is a, an incredibly smart, um, highly thought-provoking, um, person to talk to academia, so congrats on, on you and her doing that, uh, that episode. I was, I was thinking about the v- how we, how we kicked this off with the comments, right? And you showed those two stats, uh, and from, from our research, and I was thinking how closely that really should align to the supply chain curriculums.
[00:36:01] Mike Griswold: If you noticed in those graphics, there was no discussion really about technology, right? So, so part of my advice would be, let’s not worry so much about the different flavors of AI, because we know tomorrow there’ll be, you know, figuratively tomorrow there’ll be a new flavor. So trying to keep up with that technology is, is probably not a good use of people’s time.
[00:36:27] Mike Griswold: What will be a good use of people’s time is, is how do we, how do we, you know, merge business insights with the technology in, in ways that become more and more efficient and more and more seamless. So things like change management, Right
[00:36:48] Mike Griswold: How do we, how do we as a, as an educational vehicle start to impart the value and the process around change management, as an example.
[00:36:58] Mike Griswold: I also think We’ve talked about this before, Scott, th- this idea around soft skills and how do we continue to reinforce the importance of soft skills in environments where people want to rapidly automate all these decisions. At some point though, two people have to sit down in a room like you and I are doing and talk about the results of a demand plan or a supply plan, or we wanna talk about, um, how AI has now given us our five best suppliers for a product.
[00:37:33] Mike Griswold: Do we think those are the five best suppliers? So there is still a lot of communication and discussion and consensus building that are soft skills that I don’t know how much we are reinforcing within our, within our curriculum. So to me, that would be my message is let’s be less fixated on trying to keep fluent in technology and let’s spend more energy around how we’re actually gonna deploy.
[00:38:04] Mike Griswold: What are the use cases? How are we gonna bring people together to talk about these outputs that come out of these tools so that we can drive our business forward?
[00:38:14] Scott W. Luton: Hmm. Well said, Mike. Well said. Um, and I like your opening comments a-around focusing a little bit less on the latest and greatest technology and more about the powerful concepts that are gonna weave together the best continually evolving practices no matter what the technology is. So really good stuff there, Mike.
[00:38:35] Scott W. Luton: Um, okay. Speaking of great places to learn, we’ve got a great event coming up just, uh, by the time we publish this podcast, about a week a- week or so away. And folks, if this isn’t on your calendar, man, you’re behind the times. It’s one of the best events in the industry, especially if you love supply chain planning.
[00:38:55] Scott W. Luton: In fact, I, I would, uh, challenge you to find a better singular event that dives deeper in a more, in a more powerful fashion than Gartner Supply Chain Planning Summit. Uh, you’ve got one in London each year, you got one in Denver each year, and the next one is in Denver November 2nd and 3rd. Uh, me and several members of the Supply Chain Now team will be there.
[00:39:19] Scott W. Luton: We’ll be interviewing the movers and shakers. Uh, I cannot wait to get back. And Mike, I wanna ask you this, and I bet I know your answer ’cause I know you pretty well now seven or eight years in. Why has this event continued to get bigger and more popular and more valuable? Your thoughts, Mike
[00:39:40] Mike Griswold: I, I think it’s because, Scott, we, Gartner in general, I think does a really good job in their events of understanding who are we trying to bring to the event and what, what do they want to hear from us in, in this event? So we know that our symposiums are for CSCOs and their direct reports. We know in these summits we wanna get to that, that next layer of leader, Right
[00:40:12] Mike Griswold: We just had the procurement summit, uh, our first ever procurement summit, uh, earlier this year. And our… You mentioned our London event, uh, did really, really well, our London planning summit, by all of our measures. More people, they got higher value out of it, our sessions did better, uh, and we’re gonna continue to iterate on those sessions that maybe didn’t do as well as we would’ve liked, iterate on those to try to make them better for Denver.
[00:40:40] Mike Griswold: But it really, to, to your question, Scott, it’s because we give people what they, what they wanna know, and in an environment where they can ask other people in the same boat, like, “What are you doing?” And there just aren’t, there, at least, you’ve heard me say this before, I mean, uh, full disclosure, I’m not objective when I, when I make this statement, but I don’t know where else you’re gonna get, you know, more than 1,000 planners in one location for two and a half days to talk about planning stuff.
[00:41:12] Mike Griswold: And I think the beauty of Gartner is you also have this whole, uh, technology vendor ecosystem in the same place,
[00:41:23] Scott W. Luton: Right
[00:41:24] Mike Griswold: right? So if you wanna go hang out with vendors, you can go do that. If you, if you come with a list of some specific vendors you’re checking out, there’s a high likelihood that they’re gonna be at the event.
[00:41:35] Mike Griswold: So it is that mix of networking, Gartner insights, and the technology element that I think separates us from any other event people might be thinking about going to
[00:41:47] Scott W. Luton: Uh, I agree. And I’ve only been to one. I’ve been to many more symposiums than I have the planning summit, but last year was outstanding. Had some outstanding conversations. We’re lining up a powerful interview lineup this go around. And folks, come join us November 2nd through the 3rd. And if it’s too late, ’cause it’s only, you know, a week out, go ahead and make plans for next year.
[00:42:08] Scott W. Luton: It’s never too early to start planning, right? London and Denver, and we hope to see you this year or next. All right, Mike Griswold, this has been a great episode. We’ve, we’ve really run the gamut on a variety of things, all made us hungry. I’m having Chicken McNuggets for dinner tonight now, I’ve decided that.
[00:42:25] Scott W. Luton: Um, but let’s make sure folks know how to connect with you because they were tip of the iceberg on all that you help organizations and leaders with. How can folks reach out and have a conversation with you?
[00:42:35] Mike Griswold: Yeah, LinkedIn, uh, and email, mike.griswold@gartner.com. As soon as we’re done here, uh, I’m gonna go through the McDonald’s drive-through on my way to see my dad, uh, figure out what I wanna get, uh, there. But yes, definitely, uh, i- if, if people somehow between the candy, the McDonald’s, um, and the cereal, if you somehow leave this, uh, and aren’t hungry, uh, more power to you because you’re a better person than I am ’cause I’m, I’m really hungry now
[00:43:07] Scott W. Luton: Same. Uh, Mike, it’s always a pleasure. I really enjoyed your perspective here today. As always, I’m looking forward to the next session. Folks, hope you have a wonderful and a safe Halloween if you participate. Um, and let us know your favorite candies and your least favorite candies or anything, really any feedback on today’s wide-ranging conversation.
[00:43:26] Scott W. Luton: And your homework, y’all know what it is, right? Mike shared a wealth of information. Take one thing, share it with your team, do something with it. You know the power of deeds, not words. And with all that said, uh, on behalf of me and Mike Griswold, we’re all challenging you to do good, give forward, be the change that’s needed, and we’ll see you next time right back here on Supply Chain Now.
[00:43:47] Scott W. Luton: Thanks, everybody.
