Unlock the secrets to cost-saving and elevating your customer service through strategic supply chain optimizations and partnerships in this insightful episode of Supply Chain Now.

Join hosts Scott W. Luton and Marty Parker as they sit down with industry experts Megan Bowen, Senior Director of Warehousing at Nolan Transportation Group, and David Phillips, Senior Director of Solutions at Transportation Insight. Discover how companies can navigate the complexities of logistics and supply chain management, leveraging continuous analysis, automation, and strategic partnerships to drive innovation and sustainability.

Listen in as David shares how his team conducts regular network alignment analysis to achieve efficiency gains and recounts a case where optimizing inventory led to a 15% reduction in supply chain expenses without changing physical locations. Megan underscores the importance of choosing the right warehousing providers and the role of flexibility and scalability in maintaining an agile supply chain.

Explore practical strategies for improving outbound shipping, such as consolidation, full truckload hauls, and leveraging warehouse partnerships, and understand why a holistic view of your supply chain is essential for handling disruptions and making informed shipping decisions. This episode is packed with actionable insights for improving supply chain operations, strengthening partnerships, and driving business success.

Tune in now and take the first step towards a more efficient, resilient, and cooperative supply chain.

Narrator [00:00:04]:

Welcome to Supply Chain Now. The voice of global supply chain. Supply Chain Now focuses on the best in the business for our worldwide audience, the people, the technologies, the best practices, and today’s critical issues, the challenges and opportunities. Stay tuned to hear from those making global business happen right here on Supply Chain Now.

Scott W. Luton [00:00:32]:

Hey, good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you may be. Scott Luton and Marty Parker with you here on Supply Chain Now. Welcome to today’s show. Hey, Marty, how you doing?

Marty Parker [00:00:41]:

I am great. I am just so excited to learn from Megan and David today.

Scott W. Luton [00:00:47]:

I am, too. And you let our cat out of the bag. We got two outstanding guests here. We’re going to be introducing in just a second. But I’m excited too, because, Marty, not only do we have great guests, but we’ve got an outstanding topic, really important topic, right? Focus on how to build more resilient, more successful warehousing networks. We’re going to be gaining valuable perspective and expertise from a couple of business leaders that you mentioned that are out there making it happen, especially in a really challenging, complex, costly landscape. So stay tuned, folks, for an informative, enlightening, entertaining and actual conversation. Marty should be a good one, huh?

Marty Parker [00:01:22]:

Outstanding. Can’t wait.

Scott W. Luton [00:01:24]:

All right, so let’s not waste any more time then. I want to introduce our guests here today, Megan Bowen, senior director of warehousing with Nolan Transportation Group, and David Phillips, senior director of solutions with transportation insight. Hey. Hey, Megan, how you doing today?

Megan Bowen [00:01:41]:

I’m doing great. How are you?

Scott W. Luton [00:01:43]:

Wonderful. Great to see you. Great to see you. And David, how are you doing?

David Phillips [00:01:47]:

Doing great, Scott. Thanks.

Scott W. Luton [00:01:49]:

You bet. Enjoyed our pre show conversation. And Marty, that’s where we’re going to start because not only do we have two great practitioners, we got two great characters here today. So, Megan, you live in Nashville, Tennessee, right? Although you’ve got some strong Mississippi family ties that bond. Right. But tell us about Lola and Winnie. Who is Lola and Winnie?

Megan Bowen [00:02:11]:

Yes. So Lola is my Brittany spaniel, and I’ve also got a rescue, actually on Valentine’s day. Her name is Winnie. So a lot of my time outside of work is spent playing with them, obviously taking them on a lot of play dates and things like that. They are both crazy and we love them for sure.

Scott W. Luton [00:02:31]:

Oh, I love it. What a great Valentine’s Day gift. So Lola and Winnie and Marty, before I go to David here, Marty, I know you love animals as well, and you’ve got a cat that’s been around the block a time or two. Is that right, Marty? Yeah.

Marty Parker [00:02:44]:

Esther is 17 and she is got quite the personality. Let’s hope she doesn’t join us because she can be quite personal.

Scott W. Luton [00:02:52]:

Hey, come on. Come on. Esther, Lola, Winnie, all the kids. Let’s bring them all in. But. All right. So, David, great to see you. So you call Louisville, Kentucky home, although you’ve got some strong Tennessee DNA in your bones.

Scott W. Luton [00:03:07]:

Now, what we hear is that you love, if you’re not out there solving big time supply chain challenges, you’re on the water somewhere. What do you do on the water, David?

David Phillips [00:03:15]:

That’s very true, Scott. Um, I’m a lake guy, so that’s a common question. It’s like, what kind of water? Prefer the lake? Have been at the lake every summer for almost my whole life. Um, and on the water pretty much will do anything. Tube, wakeboard, ski, you name it, I can do it. Now. I didn’t say I could do it well, but I can do it. Um, I just enjoy being out there, so.

David Phillips [00:03:41]:

And now I have three little kids, like I mentioned, so it makes it all the more fun.

Scott W. Luton [00:03:44]:

Oh, I bet. So you said, Marty, I’m hearing, David. I can see it now. And there’s three kids shooting across the lake, no matter what vehicle or tube he’s on. Marty, there’s some good times, I bet, huh?

Marty Parker [00:03:55]:

Absolutely. Little evil Knievel, if you go date me a little bit. Trying all the master tricks in the water.

Scott W. Luton [00:04:02]:

Oh, I love it. What a great analogy, too. Well, Megan and David, welcome to you both. Marty and I are really looking forward to today’s conversation. So let’s do this. As we dive into a supply chain conversation. Imagine that. But we’re talking about really optimizing and building more successful warehousing networks, which is critical in this day and age where you got inflation, you got supply chain costs, complexity.

Scott W. Luton [00:04:24]:

Everything is a battle these days. So let’s offer our audience some context, though. So, Megan, I’ll start with you if you tell us briefly about Nolan Transportation Group and your role there.

Megan Bowen [00:04:35]:

Yeah, absolutely. So, Nolan Transportation Group, or NTG, we are one of the largest freight brokerages in the United States. We are currently moving over 1 million loads annually. So we connect 14,000 shippers to multimodal capacity from over 80,000 carriers. And that’s across Drayage, Truckload, LTL, and final mile services. More recently, we started offering the warehousing services. We saw a major boost in our drayage growth in 2020, 2021, like everyone else. So now we’re able to provide the warehousing capacity, more than 2200 customers across 5000 warehouse locations.

Scott W. Luton [00:05:16]:

Man. Okay, and Megan, you do what? I mean, I bet you love out there helping organizations grow and do supply chain better, huh?

Megan Bowen [00:05:24]:

Absolutely. Yes. We certainly thrive in chaos, and that’s warehousing for you. So, yeah, as a senior director of warehousing, I oversee everything from beginning to end when it comes to warehousing strategy and the procurement of those relationships and really looking into, you know, what. What their needs are and finding that, you know. Right. Solution.

Scott W. Luton [00:05:45]:

Love it. Marty, before I go to David, 80,000 carriers. What a quite an ecosystem that Megan can bring to bear, huh?

Marty Parker [00:05:53]:

It’s crazy. It’s enormous. And they have a reputation of being one of the best in the world at it, so that’s just amazing.

Scott W. Luton [00:06:01]:

It is. Okay, so, David, if you would tell us briefly the same question about transportation insight and your role there.

David Phillips [00:06:09]:

Yeah, absolutely. So while we have NTG that serves transactional clients, I’m with transportation insight, and we’re a leading logistics provider of managed transportation and parcel optimization solutions with a real focus on logistics strategy, technology, and data intelligence. And so we offer everything from audit solutions, TMS analytics, supply chain consulting. We do that across all modes of transportation. So there’s not a lot that we can’t do for shippers that we partner with.

Scott W. Luton [00:06:41]:

How about that? And, David, where do you play in that outstanding supply chain equation?

David Phillips [00:06:47]:

Right. So, in my role, I serve as the senior director of solutions. So I lead our solutions design group, which is a team of engineers who are tasked with supporting all opportunity types across both new and current customers. So we’re constantly evaluating the needs and challenges that shippers are facing in the market, and we’re looking to build future stage solutions that allow those shippers to address those needs, but also reach goals that they have.

Scott W. Luton [00:07:12]:

Okay, man. So, Marty, my ears, all the cool things that David just shared, data intelligence, because as I can’t remember which semiconductor company, the CEO said, data is a new oil. And a lot of folks that agree with that. But, Marty, what’d you hear there from David?

Marty Parker [00:07:29]:

A key thing is our supply chain, supply chains have to be flexible. And so having that data, having that optimization, which I’ve personally done for 1015 years, because things change. And so you need a company like Ti that can change and grow with you as you’re growing your business.

Scott W. Luton [00:07:47]:

That’s right. Well said. And it sounds like you are leveraging an army of engineers out there, David, to make it happen and make it happen smarter. So appreciate what you. How you and Megan have kind of set the table for us here today. All right, so as we’ve talked about. Our main theme for today’s conversation is going to be really focused on building more resilient, more successful, more actionable, more powerful and robust. One of my favorite words, warehousing networks.

Scott W. Luton [00:08:14]:

Right. So we want to start with you, Megan, because we want to start by kind of putting together a list of some key considerations when folks out there are looking for warehousing providers, how would you build that list?

Megan Bowen [00:08:27]:

Right. So outside of the typical location, pricing terms, service, those sort of things, our key considerations are going to be the experience, flexibility. Marty just said it. That’s going to be a word used a lot today, I’m sure. Scalability along with that and then overall capabilities and technology, that’s a huge buzzword. Obviously, there’s a lot of different types of warehouses out there. You need to understand what exactly you’re looking for and then make sure you’re choosing the right one out of that umbrella. So very, very important that provider selection is probably the most important thing.

Megan Bowen [00:09:05]:

You want to know what you’re looking for and find the right partner at the right time. You also want to make sure that once you do find that provider, how they work works with you. So you want to make sure you’re very, very upfront and honest with how your business works and be as transparent as possible. That’s the only way this works as a three Pl. We in the last few years, really being able to get sticky with warehousing was through transparency, through selecting the right providers, and strategically looking at where we wanted to add and who we needed to add to make sure that we could, you know, optimize our customers supply chain. So, you know, a lot of people ask us, how do three pls operate with warehousing? You know, we mentioned those 80,000 carriers, those 80,000 partnerships, relationships that we have. We were able to really leverage those relationships and look at what we were able to offer. And warehousing was a huge opportunity for us through that network.

Megan Bowen [00:10:07]:

We really can piece together that port to port from beginning to end with warehousing being such a key piece today. And one of those most important things is that visibility, especially the importance of inbound visibility and just visibility overall with technology and being able to really operate. The more we can get our hands on, the stickier you get, the more visibility, the less headache, the more operational efficiency overall. So yeah, those are our key considerations.

Scott W. Luton [00:10:40]:

Megan, I love this, getting sticky with it. That was a great part of your response there, knowing the business right, getting cohesive with your customers and their supply chain partners, Marty, beyond getting sticky with it, which I love. Megan, that’s going to come up a couple times, rest of the conversation. I love her first part of her response, which is so critical. Whether you’re looking for a warehousing provider or many other things in global business, really not even supply chain. What are we looking for? How about let’s start with that. Marty, your thoughts?

Marty Parker [00:11:11]:

Yeah, as an engineer myself, we’d call it the scope of work. And so you bring a partner in that really knows what they’re doing, to look at what you want and what you’re doing and where you’re going over the next three to five years and really parse that out and then figure out the solution that fits that scope.

Scott W. Luton [00:11:30]:

Yes, that is right. Makes it happen, creates the success that we’re looking for. And I think the other thing that you kind of implied there, Marty, finding the right partner and warehousing provider, that’s going to really learn your business. Right? Because as businesses scale, grow, or encounter different parts of different chapters of the journey, their needs may change and evolve. Typically they do so having a partner that is more dynamic than static, because, you know, as the business changes and grows and evolves, you just not set it and forget it. Right? Like our friend Ron Papil loved those infomercials way back in the day. It’s anything but. So, David, I want to bring you in here because I want to, as a kind of a follow up to the question and a great list of considerations that Megan just shared, what would you consider to be strategic considerations for, say, warehouse and locations types? You name it.

Scott W. Luton [00:12:23]:

David, what would be your, your shortlist there?

David Phillips [00:12:27]:

Yeah, for sure. I like what Megan shared. And as I think about strategic considerations for your warehousing, your distribution network, it’s all about network alignment. And I think about that across a few different categories, customers, suppliers, operations. And there’s more. But that’s kind of where I’m going to focus on this particular question, because when I’m thinking about warehousing or distribution strategy, I’m thinking about start with customer footprint. So do you have a regional or national customer base? Geographically, where are your distribution points related to that customer demand? Because in theory, you want your locations to align very well with who’s buying your products. Right? So I think that’s important.

David Phillips [00:13:11]:

On the flip side, you have to balance out with your supplier footprint as well. So considering where your materials or your products are coming from as well, whether you’re manufacturing, you’re buying from suppliers, those suppliers may be domestic, they may be global. So you got to have balance within the supply chain as well, across your supplier network, your distribution, your customer footprint in order to really maximize efficiencies there. The third component that I’m thinking about strategically, and this has become more and more important over the last, let’s call it five years, okay? But customer experience, this matters maybe more than it’s ever mattered before, because what’s happened is you’ve got many large companies that have had consumers that say, I want my order in one to two days. I want to be able to track it through the entirety of the lifecycle from ship point to my doorstep. And, oh, by the way, I also want it to be in a really aesthetically pleasing box. You have preferences that all round out this customer experience. Now, that’s different than what it’s been 10, 20, 30 years ago.

David Phillips [00:14:18]:

So customer experience can really make or break you as a company. And your distribution network, along with partners within that network, are going to have an enormous impact on what that customer experience is. And this topic is no different. So those are three really critical components of what I’m thinking of and what I’m having conversations with shippers about when they’re thinking about evolving or changing what their warehousing or distribution network looks like.

Scott W. Luton [00:14:43]:

I love that. David, we should, we could do a whole show on that last response there, I think, Marty, but would you? Picking out what he thought, some of the most important stuff from David’s response was, Marty, what would that be?

Marty Parker [00:14:55]:

So I agree with customer experience, because if I am going to have you help me or turn over this part of my business to you, I need my customers satisfied. And frankly, I’m going to trust you to even do that better than I do. So I think that’s mission critical.

Scott W. Luton [00:15:16]:

Completely agree. And I bet David, as a quick follow up before we move on, I bet you and your team are doing that network alignment analysis, very holistic analysis, on a regular basis, because as you point out, there’s a huge need for that out in the market, huh?

David Phillips [00:15:31]:

Yeah, absolutely. We do that every day. We have a specific team in place. That’s our supply chain analytics and consulting group, and that is a team who is neck deep in network optimization studies all the time. And thinking about this question, I thought it’s ironic that you asked me that, because if you don’t mind, I really like to tell stories. I think that helps make things a little bit more relevant for people that are out there listening to this. You know, you ask me, what are things that I’m considering strategically, when I’m looking at networks, right. Majority of people at the onset of that question are going to think, how many locations do I have and where are my locations? But I’ll give you a kind of a subcategory that can be as impactful or more impactful than looking at just where your locations are, how many that you have, and that’s going to be inventory.

David Phillips [00:16:21]:

So my quick story is that we worked on a network optimization project recently for a customer who had this same question. They’re looking at their network, they think, not exactly sure that it aligns with my customers, with my supplier base. We maybe need more, we maybe need less, help us understand what we need to do here. And what happened was, is that they nearly had their locations in the exact locations and the number that they needed across the United States. What we found was that their inventory and how they were stocking those at each location didn’t align with their distribution network. And so through a process of inventory rationalization, creating a strategy around what inventory is stored, where, how to restock at each location, kind of the strategy around how we are carrying inventory at each of these locations that they had across the country, they were able to remove 15% out of their supply chain expense on an annual basis just by adjusting inventory. They didn’t have to change a single location. They didn’t have to add or remove, they didn’t have to go through the disruption of that.

David Phillips [00:17:28]:

It was all about, we got to have the right products in the right place because demand is what’s going to drive that. Right. So I thought that was a really great example to say location matters, where those locations are, how many absolutely matters. But it’s not the only criteria that could really determine you really maximizing the efficiency within your network.

Scott W. Luton [00:17:51]:

David. Oh, I’m so glad you share stories. They’re timelessly important and valuable because it takes concepts and gives us practical, tangible examples of why it matters. Right. And Megan, I’d love to get you to comment there. 15%. Taking 15% of supply chain expenses out of the equation. I bet y’all say this in Mississippi and Tennessee and Kentucky, that dog will hunt.

Scott W. Luton [00:18:15]:

I know we say that here. Georgia, Marty, Megan, any comments there on David’s story?

Megan Bowen [00:18:20]:

Huge. And that’s part that why our partnership is so important for these customers is finding things like what Dave is talking about. That’s supply chain altering. That’s a huge solution, obviously. So we really want to ensure that we’re continuing to dive in. And I think that’s something David and I have talked about here recently is how frequently customers are looking into that. How often are you checking into how your business is running? And I don’t think customers are doing it enough, especially in the last couple of years. The amount of disruption that we’ve seen and a lot of acquisitions and things going on right now, a lot of people’s inventory is changing.

Megan Bowen [00:18:56]:

The way they do business is changing. And then the things that we’re out here offering is obviously changing. Day to day is extremely, extremely important.

Scott W. Luton [00:19:04]:

That’s right. Supply chain altering, Marty, is what Megan called it. And she’s right. It’s transformation. Gosh, 15%. And I bet the example that David pointed out, Marty, I bet that was not a small operation where 5% would be big, but 15%. Marty, your thoughts?

Marty Parker [00:19:20]:

So there are so many variables in this. 30, 40, 50. And the combination is a factorial. And companies think they can do that with spreadsheets and pieces of paper. I see that all the time. And you simply can’t do it. What David’s talking about, what Megan’s talking about, really can save you a lot of money and improve the service and customer experience at the same time. You just simply can’t do that by hand with spreadsheets and pieces of paper.

Scott W. Luton [00:19:48]:

That’s right. That is right. And now you said factorial. Gosh, a shiver went up my spine. Math. Math is not my thing here, Martin, so hopefully there’s not going to be a quiz later. All right, so, David, a lot of good stuff here. So y’all keep the stories coming.

Scott W. Luton [00:20:03]:

By the way, David and Megan, whatever y’all want to share here, I want to get to my next question. David, for you, and that comes to you. How can supply chain leaders make outbound shipping more efficient? David, additional thoughts there.

David Phillips [00:20:18]:

It’s a large question, Scott, to be honest with you, you talked about having a podcast around a single topic. That’s one where we could spend a lot of time. So I’ll start by saying there is no absolutely perfect answer. Every shipper is a little bit different. What you can really take on operationally may look different from one shipper to the next. Product considerations come into that as well. But one of the things that, you know, if you think about that in mind, you got to consider shipping strategies that align with what you can take on operationally and then align with your customer experience goals, just like I mentioned before. So a couple of things within that.

David Phillips [00:21:00]:

If you’re a single distribution point shipper, maybe this looks like consolidation. You know, I’ve worked with shippers I had one in particular that worked out of that one operating center out of Greensboro, North Carolina. But they ship nationally to customers all over the country. So how do you create more density? That’s a keyword for carriers, right? They want density within their network. They want nice, pretty pallets, all of the things. How can you aggregate those shipments to create more density and pricing incentives with the carriers?

Scott W. Luton [00:21:30]:

David, they don’t want that ugly freight, right?

David Phillips [00:21:34]:

They don’t, not unless you’re willing to pay for it.

Scott W. Luton [00:21:36]:

Yeah, they will take it all day.

David Phillips [00:21:38]:

They will take it all day for a price that will speak volumes. But can you create that density? Can you create full truckload lime hauls to different regions of the country and then create a milk run network for final mile delivery? There are different strategies that you can employ, but it depends on, again, who you are as a shipper. What can you handle? What can your network handle operationally? Customer experience, goals you have, and a lot of that, again, and Megan can comment on this too, depends on what type of partners that you leverage. From a warehousing perspective, what can they handle? How can they help fulfill some of the different goals and strategies that you want to implement? Because at some point they are going to impact your process. They are going to impact the network. So you got to have partners that can support some of the different initiatives that you have as well. I mentioned a single point shipper. You might be a multi distribution point shipper.

David Phillips [00:22:29]:

This could look like, again, some of this network alignment, network optimization project level support that we talked about in the previous question, but also looking at optimizing your carrier strategy. Do you leverage both a national and regional carrier network based upon where you’re geographically located and who can serve your business well? It could also look like how do you leverage customer pickups or even just looking at your warehouse pick pack stage strategy. All of this will go into how do you create an efficient operating network. So those are a couple of things that come to mind, but I love what Marty said about things are always going to need to be flexible. That’s right. I use the word all the time. Supply chain is dynamic. You’re going to hear me say the word dynamic several more times throughout this podcast.

David Phillips [00:23:18]:

You have to be willing to analyze how your business changes have affected your ability to be efficient. So if you allow me, we work with a lot of customers that are high growth companies, which is amazing. We love growth. Everybody loves growth. It means good things are happening. But what happens with these high growth companies is that they start acquiring other companies that are fairly consistent at a fairly consistent rate where they’re, they’re growing market share, they’re expanding product lines. But what we see in this activity is that their logistics strategy remains stagnant. Nothing actually changes.

David Phillips [00:23:52]:

Right. So you have these companies that end up with distribution overlap, you’ve got locations consolidated in the same regions, you’re shipping across lanes all over the country. You also have multiple systems and multiple sources of truth, which means that you can never have real holistic visibility to what’s happening within your supply chain, let alone how you can make better improved shipping behaviors or shipping decisions to be able to improve over time. So that’s the second component in summary, is to be willing to analyze how your changes have impacted your ability to be successful and put plans in place to address that.

Scott W. Luton [00:24:30]:

Yep, everybody’s got their own spreadsheet oftentimes as Marty was talking about earlier. And it’s tough to find that single source of truth for sure. Before I come back to Marty for your comments on Dave’s response, Megan on circle back to you because he brought out, you know, that partnership selection and how important that is, it doubled down on that. I think that’s critical because in this state of constant change, old complexity, new complexity, stuff we’ve seen before, that’s tough to deal with, things that are new, new curveballs. Megan, comment really quick on the importance of selecting the right partners.

Megan Bowen [00:25:03]:

There probably is the most important, like he mentioned that we’ve said, flexibility, scalability. Like we said, everyone wants to guess correctly. You want to be able to find the right person, right time, and then nothing change. Obviously that doesn’t happen in this business. Too volatile, things are going to change. David mentioned a lot of different examples of different things that could possibly change. And with that, you have to have a partner that is willing to flex up or down with you, that is willing to look at The SoLUtIoN and be a problem SOLver for you as well. So that’s where, you know, at the very beginning, I talked about experience that is crucial to find somebody that doesn’t just have the warehouse experience, but the overall supply chain experience that can look at, um, you know, what is changing and really be able to provide that, that solution.

Megan Bowen [00:25:49]:

That’s how you find a reliable LOng term paRtner.

Scott W. Luton [00:25:52]:

That’s what I’m talking about. Dynamic. David says Come up time and time agAin. MEGan, you’re like scaling up, scaling down. You got to have a direct partner that can, I can work with you there. Marty, we’ve caught a lot of ground in the last couple of minutes. But what do you want to pull out and make sure our audience takes away from that last response from David and Megan.

Marty Parker [00:26:09]:

So I think most companies warehouses and manufacturing locations are accidents of history, and so they are often in the wrong place. I had a factory that we located because the girlfriend of the consultant loved to ski. So we put a factory in Rutland, Vermont. And so when that occurs, then often you’re not optimized. You add M and A’s and acquisitions, and then suddenly you’ve got a real mess on your hand. So having experts to look at that for you and think about it as you would design it, rather than an accident of history, I think is a great practice.

Scott W. Luton [00:26:51]:

Excellent point there. What a great example there. More to that story there, Marty, we’ll have to get to another episode.

David Phillips [00:26:58]:

All right.

Scott W. Luton [00:26:58]:

And one other thing to call out, Marty, David and Megan, you know, we had Robin Meyer, I believe, Robin, with transportation insight. And, you know, David, I think you brought up carrier diversification, and I think this is important. Lesson learned. We’re talking warehousing and logistics and freight in particular. No matter your size of your organization, no matter your shipping volumes, there’s tremendous opportunities. I think they were. Robert had used this example of working with a customer that ships about 2 million in annual volume parcel shipping, and they found tremendous savings by again revisiting, learning new things, finding that alignment that both David, Megan and Marty all have been talking about on a variety of different levels. So don’t, if you’re not a big shipper.

Scott W. Luton [00:27:45]:

Right? Hey, savings and new ways of doing things and innovation isn’t just for the big enterprises out there. Don’t let that persuade you from not revisiting how you, how you ship and how you, how you do supply chain. Okay, let’s see here. David, I want to come back to you with another question here, because being able to handle, we’ve touched on this a little bit through the first part of this conversation, been able to handle in terms of organizations and their supply chains, these significant network changes. Right. That can disrupt their supply chain operations. What are some of the ways that you would suggest the business leaders out there, how they can insulate themselves a bit and be able to handle that disruption a lot better?

David Phillips [00:28:28]:

Yeah, for sure. Well, I’ll start where I left off in that we live in a dynamic world. Things are changing every day. And so I think it really starts with what I mentioned earlier. You have to be willing to look at your supply chain network more strategically and understand how it all fits together. And I tell shippers this all the time when we have these conversations, you don’t have a great feel for how each component works together within your network and something breaks, it’s a lot harder to figure out what broke, how it broke, and a solution to resolve it. Right? And your supply chain network’s no different. If you think about your warehousing distribution network, if something goes wrong and you don’t understand, from materials suppliers, transportation, to manufacturing, to distribution, to final customer, how all of that interconnects, because it does interconnect, all of those pieces will affect one another and ultimately impact that customer experience we talked about before.

David Phillips [00:29:24]:

If you don’t understand that, it’s that much harder to figure out, how do we actually resolve this and make sure that we have a sustainable resolution so that this doesn’t continue to happen in the future. So I think that’s key. The second thing for me is having a mentality of strategic planning all the time. Because what I know for a fact is that no one woke up in March of 2020 and thought the world was going to shut down. We were going to end our pandemic. And yet, no way to get critical materials from your suppliers. For example, no one knew that earlier this year a container ship was going to run into a bridge in Baltimore and cause a ripple effect around the country from a network, operations, drayage, ports, you name it, no one knew these things were going to happen. But we know disruptions right around the corner every day.

David Phillips [00:30:17]:

So how are you going to respond when it does? What resources do you need to have in place to make sure you can mitigate that risk? And one of the things that you can do, and somebody mentioned it earlier, maybe it was Marty. I agree with 100%, is having really strong partnerships, and I mean, partnerships with warehouses for sure, but really further than that, carriers, your supplier base, warehousing, distribution points, logistics solutions, all of it. Most companies aren’t set up to really manage full scale supply chain disruptions like this on their own. And partnerships can be absolutely the difference and key to being able to maintain your customer experience. And ultimately, what it all ties back to in the end, for shippers who are listening to this, is profitability. How can you maintain profitability through times of disruption and actually make times like that a competitive advantage? It’s the best companies out there that have plans like this that are able to create advantages through disruption, rather than seeing disruption cause their operations to crumble.

Scott W. Luton [00:31:22]:

Man, preach it. David Phillips, deacon of the First Church of global supply chain here today, we’re all getting baptized.

David Phillips [00:31:30]:

That’s at first.

Scott W. Luton [00:31:32]:

So, Megan, I would give you a chance. David weighed in heavily there and of course he talked about partnerships again. And also what’s really important is the profitability. Right. Because you can have the best meetings, you can have the best plans, but if all the partners aren’t making money, it’s not going to be sustainable. Right. But Megan, anything else, you want to weigh in there as we were talking about ensuring our supply chains can handle the huge network changes and other disruptions that can be thrown at them.

Megan Bowen [00:32:02]:

Yeah. To David’s point, finding those correct those right partnerships and what we strive to do is make sure that you’re going after the experienced partner, that seasoned partner, not just in warehousing, but the overall supply chain, being able to have those relationships already in place with all the big players. And essentially in doing so, that provider is able to not only anticipate and respond to these changes in market that we’re talking about these disruptions and be that long term partner for you, but they’re also able to, you know, make sure they’re not just, you know, you don’t just want to make sure that your goods are moved, you know, stored, handled properly. You also want to make sure that you’re getting, you know, competitive pricing. That experience with existing relationships with seasoned providers. That’s key.

Scott W. Luton [00:32:52]:

Excellent point there. Gosh, Marty, I think I feel like we’re getting like a certification here today from Mecca and David, a lot of good stuff, but what you hear there. So, Marty, again, when it comes to not only picking the right partners, develop those, those right relationships, planning regularly, right, not just once every three years, but let’s try to, let’s try to act like supply chain practitioners and actually plan regularly, but again, to handle these big time disruptions and network changes that Megan and David were both speaking to. What say you, Marty?

Marty Parker [00:33:23]:

Two really important points. First, Murphy’s law, what can go wrong will go wrong. And the models that David builds out allows you to do what if scenarios to think about those things. And then Megan builds out a robust network to allow you to be able to do it. And then secondly, partners, people do business with people, so you need the data and analytics. But I also need people that I know and trust that know my business and I know their business and what they’re doing for me. You have those two things. Your supply chain is just going to kill it.

Scott W. Luton [00:34:03]:

Excellent point, Marty. Creating an ecosystem of folks that want to, are willing to invest the time and elbow grease into really learning the business. And the week in, week out changes sometimes day in, day out changes, if you know what I’m talking about. So I love those two key things there. Marty, Megan, David, Marty, I think we’re having a, quite a conversation that I think Esther, Lola, Winnie and David Phillips army of evil knievels are, would be proud of. So I love this stuff. I wish we had a couple more hours. I want to start this up.

Scott W. Luton [00:34:35]:

As we start to wind down, Megan and David, you know, we’re kind of, kind of not necessarily summarize everything we’ve been that we’ve gone through here today, but really want to focus on those key takeaways, right? Because all of it, I think, has been valuable perspective. But if you had to pick a few things that folks got to remember from today’s conversation, when it comes to business leaders out there trying to build a resilient and efficient and more successful supply chain, what are those key takeaways from today’s discussion? Megan?

Megan Bowen [00:35:07]:

Yeah, I think certainly key from this discussion is finding the partner that understands your business, able to analyze that business, understand it, and then want to make it better and also, you know, looking for that, the right solution at the right time. But like we’ve talked about today, there’s always going to be disruption. So the kicker here is making sure that you’re also connecting with the experienced supply chain experts who can anticipate, respond to those changes appropriately and really be reliable long term. So, you know, don’t wait. Look, look into what you’re doing today, see how it can improve. If it doesn’t feel right, it’s probably not right. You want to be happy who you’re working with. You want to have that good feedback.

Megan Bowen [00:35:50]:

You want to give them more, more to look at, more to do. And, you know, it’s out there. That opportunity is out there. Those correct partners are out there. We’re working with them today. And, you know, they could be working with you.

Scott W. Luton [00:36:02]:

Wonderful. Megan, before I go to David, Marty, I’ll pull you in on a couple of things from Megan’s response in terms of key takeaways, always disruption. We got to count on that, right? Count on that. But anticipation, anticipation, because thankfully, in this wonderful modern world of global supply chain, even with all the complexity and whatnot, the technologies and the partners out there that help you see around corners, the opportunities we have there are immense. And one other thing, Marty, the feedback cycles, Megan, you know, mentioned is so important, right? How can our partners know how to perform if we’re not telling them what they’re being judged on? Right? Let’s let’s communicate and bake those cycles into the overall communication cadences. But Marty, what’d you hear there from Megan?

Marty Parker [00:36:52]:

So two things. One is that ongoing strategic relationship where you’re thinking both short and long term about where you’re going and working with a partner that helps you get there, but also having those tie ins with all of your data, having the visibility to those partners and then back to you so that together you can make great decisions.

Scott W. Luton [00:37:15]:

That’s right. That is right. Together, where the customer has a wonderful experience. Right. Your suppliers have a wonderful experience, your team members have a wonderful experience because they can succeed more easily every day, right. Because they want to win. David good stuff. I’ll tell you, Megan, we’ve got a great list so far of key takeaways from this conversation.

Scott W. Luton [00:37:38]:

What would you add to it?

David Phillips [00:37:39]:

David yeah, for sure. I think I’ll tie back to where I started, which is evaluate your warehousing and distribution network with a strategic guy, focusing on balancing those key components, your network footprint across customers and suppliers, your inventory, your customer experience. How do we have that optimal balance for proximity, cost, operational efficiency, and ultimately profitability? The partnerships are so key, and I cannot stress that enough. Continuing to build upon those existing key partnerships and continuing to identify new ones as well, across your carriers, your suppliers, your warehousing network, that’s going to allow you to mitigate the risk of disruption more than anything else potentially, that we’ve talked about today. Third thing for me is consolidated holistic data across your network. A lot of times, if you don’t have that, you won’t have visibility to these challenges or these inefficiencies in the first place. So being able to, whether that’s through a partner or through your own internal resources, figuring out a way to get consistent trust, data that you can trust across your entire network, is only going to allow you to start running through some of these different exercises that we talked about. Loved what Marty said about what if scenarios.

David Phillips [00:38:57]:

You know, I’m pushing shippers every day. Can we be more proactive instead of reactive? You can’t be proactive unless you have the data first. And so that’s a key takeaway for me.

Scott W. Luton [00:39:08]:

Love it. Marty, that balance and alignment David’s been talking about, isn’t that music to my ears. Right. Uh, it brings like a sense of serenity, and it’s tough to find serenity if I’m saying that word right into his global supply chain environment. And of course, Data. Data, Marty, we got to have it. And I would just say y’all may disagree, may agree. What I have found is there is more data in organizations oftentimes than business leaders are aware of.

Scott W. Luton [00:39:37]:

But sometimes you need that outside eye, those experts like Megan and David, to come in and help you find it, help you find the right data and help you make it into a more actionable fountain of data so that you can actually improve your operation. But Marty, what’d you hear there from David?

Marty Parker [00:39:53]:

So I think a fallacy is that companies think if I save money, somehow my service is going to decline. But the reality of looking at these optimizations and building out these partnerships is I can do both. I can improve my customer experience, I can deliver better service to my customers, and I can save money at the same time. And who doesn’t want to do that? And then my second would be, as a customer of these services, I want to focus on things like sales and marketing and launching new products. I want the experts like David and Megan to really help me with all of the logistics and delivery of the supply chain, because they do it for all these other companies and customers and they’ve seen and done everything. I have sort of the blinders of the particular business that I’m in. But why not take advantage of their knowledge across all these industries and across all these networks? So those would be two big takeaways for me.

Scott W. Luton [00:40:59]:

I love that. Marty, man, these one, two punches you’re bringing throughout the conversation, on top of what Megan and David is mentioning, I would just add double down. Something you shared there is, you know, the stronger your operations are, the stronger your. Whether it’s your warehousing approach, your supply chain, sheer performance, right? The blocking and tackling, in some cases, not to oversimplify, but the better we are at all of that, whether leveraging partners or investing our teams and technologies, the better you are. To your point, Marty, innovating, making sustainability gains, doing other things add so much more value. Right? Because, Marty, I love you. I love this as well. You can do it all.

Scott W. Luton [00:41:37]:

You can have it all. They don’t let folks tell you you can’t. All right, a lot of good stuff here, Megan, David and Marty. So let’s do this. I’m hoping. I bet some folks want to reach out to you after they show, talk shop, maybe over in a delicious adult beverage or at a football game or who knows, going on a lake across lake at 60 miles an hour. David, just got to catch up with you to be able to talk supply chain. So let’s make sure folks know how to connect with both of you.

Scott W. Luton [00:42:02]:

All and let’s start with Megan. Megan Bowen, how can folks connect with you?

Megan Bowen [00:42:06]:

Megan, I would love for any sort of connection through LinkedIn. Easy, simple. And I’m always, always checking, checking there.

Scott W. Luton [00:42:15]:

Wonderful, Megan, really appreciate it. I look forward to exchanging football experiences with, with all three of you all here today. So we’ll stay in touch. David Phillips, how can folks connect with you?

David Phillips [00:42:28]:

Yeah, LinkedIn is great. I’m on there a lot. Would love to connect with anybody out there and have deeper conversations about these topics. I don’t know if you can tell through the podcast is what gets me excited. So would love to be able to have more conversations about it. So, yes, please connect with me there.

Scott W. Luton [00:42:44]:

No doubt. And Marty, I don’t know about you. Dave’s talking about how much passion he has. If we just hook up the city power grid to David Phillips, we might be able to power some communities on some real, true renewable energy. All right. It’s pretty palpable. Marty, before we bid ado, we got to get the patented Marty Parker key takeaway here today. If you, if you survey the whole conversation here, what’s the one thing the audience has got to keep front and center?

Marty Parker [00:43:13]:

For me, we’re always better when we do things together and we do things together with experienced partners like David and Megan. They’ve been there, done that, seen it, and can really help us be the best company and the best people that we can be.

Scott W. Luton [00:43:29]:

That’s right. I love that. What a great note to wrap on here today. So big thanks to our guests. Megan Bowen, senior director of warehousing with Nolan Transportation Group. Megan, a pleasure to connect with you here.

Megan Bowen [00:43:42]:

Same. This is fun.

Scott W. Luton [00:43:43]:

It was a bunch of fun, I’ll tell you. And David Phillips, senior director of solutions with transportation Insight. Great to have you here, David.

David Phillips [00:43:51]:

Absolutely. It’s been a blast. Thanks for having me. And I look forward to round two.

Scott W. Luton [00:43:55]:

That’s right. It’s coming up soon. We’ll do it on the lake next time. But big thanks to Marty Parker. Always a pleasure, Marty, to knock out these conversations with you.

Marty Parker [00:44:03]:

Thrilled to be here with you, Scott, and with David and Megan as well.

Scott W. Luton [00:44:07]:

Looking forward to the next one. So most importantly, though, big thanks to our global audience out there, being a big part of our community and journey. Appreciate all the support and the feedback, and hopefully you’ve enjoyed this conversation as much as I have. But here’s the deal. You got to take something that Megan and David and Marty, it brought a bunch of brilliance. Take one thing, just one thing, at least put it into action. These not words. Your team is ready to do business better and different in an innovative fashion so they can have more success day in and day out.

Scott W. Luton [00:44:34]:

With all that said, on behalf of the entire team here at Supply Chain Now, Scott Ludin challenging you to do good, give forward, be the change that’s needed. And we’ll see you next time. Right back here at Suppache now. Thanks, everybody.

Narrator [00:44:47]:

Thanks for being a part of our Supply Chain Now community. Check out all of our programming at supplychainnow.com and make sure you subscribe to Supply Chain Now anywhere you listen to podcasts and follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram. See you next time on Supply Chain Now.