[00:00:37] Good morning and welcome to another episode of Supply Chain Now. My name is Enrique Alvarez and today we have a very, very interesting guest of honor. But before I tell you who’s good, saying hello to Monica. Monica, how are you? How are you? Good morning.
[00:00:53] Hello Enrique, good morning. Very good. Happy to be here. How about you?
[00:00:57] Perfect and very, very happy about the interview we are going to have. He is a person who has been in logistics all his life or most of his professional career, not only in Mexico, but in the United States, and he has an extremely important position.
[00:01:13] Yes, now he’s got quite an interesting trajectory and we’re going to listen to him.
[00:01:20] All right, well, without further ado, a very warm welcome to Humberto Martinez SDP of Supply Chain for Buddy Kouchner Beto, how are you? How are you?
[00:01:33] Hello, how are you? Hello, Enrique. Hi, Monica.
[00:01:36] Good morning.
[00:01:38] Good morning.
[00:01:41] Well, Humberto, thank you very much for being here. Welcome to the program. We are so glad to have you and well, I’d love to start by telling you a little bit about yourself and your childhood. Where did you grow up in general? Know you?
[00:01:57] Ok, well, yeah well, I was born in Mexico City, I’m Mexican. I was born there, grew up there, married practically everything and 5 years ago I moved here to California, in the United States, and I am the third of four siblings. I mean, I’m the sandwich and the ham sandwich or the cheese. This is a close-knit family, but as fate would have it, the whole family is now living abroad. My brother lives in Spain, I have a sister in Houston, Texas and my parents and my younger sister moved to Aguascalientes. So we are a united family. We’ve been lucky enough to get together when we see each other. It’s very intense, but obviously everyone lives on their own. East. I am married to Mariana, my wife of 14 years and I have two daughters, Jimena, 11 and Lucia, 10. I would consider my childhood to be quite normal. This like any other non middle class person is very normal. There I met Enrique who was the momentanea in Let’s go together from the scales for several years that I think in a way that we knew each other and things of life. Now we have succeeded in what Supply Chain in logistics.
[00:03:32] Very interesting industry in which we somehow managed to reconnect this something in the past, already focusing a little bit more on your career and the position you hold now and for several years. As a young person some experience that helped you form your character or who you were, or that started to give you some kind of foundation to be successful in especially in the logistics part later on.
[00:04:01] Okay, son, I’d say two. One is and I think it would be a bit of scouting and linking it perseverance. I really don’t know why he was going to the camps. Another day is wet. Me, I’m cold. It is to be cold, it is something that bothered me a lot and in the 5-day camp, that is, 5 full nights, right? And I said, but what am I doing here? I’m not coming back? And the next year there it was. So that perseverance, I think that’s where I took this one and the good one and the other one, that I think that end forged my character very strong. I had to start college in ’94. And I don’t know if they remember. Well, many will not remember because they were not born, but there was a very strong economic crisis in the transition from the Salinas government with Zedillo and this the exchange rate was Balboa. My dad was out of work. East. Well, I entered ITAM to study economics, because it wasn’t cheap and I put a topic that there was no money in the house. Then I started to work, but as the economy was destroyed, it’s not like you could come up with a very sophisticated business, right? Because there was no money, right? That’s what we came up with.
[00:05:30] It was supplying food to restaurants and making supermarkets, which is now fashionable, but back then it wasn’t, and we made supermarkets for families. Then give us your list and we’ll go to the central market. We bought everything and they distributed, right? This was my first logistics business. I had no idea, but in the Caribbean that was our picking, because we would buy, we would do this, we would buy in boxes, obviously we would do the picking of the orders, we would go up and then at the beginning, well, I was the driver too. Later on we managed to get a driver, but definitely my my master’s degree was gone. How old would you be? A 19 year old, 18, 19 years in this in having an idea of how a Tucson center works, Formigal to the east and very futuristic, because I think that if that business had happened ten years later, well, maybe right now I wouldn’t work for you, even though
[00:06:30] I know you’d have an island somewhere in the Pacific or something.
[00:06:34] Thus. Timing in business is very important, isn’t it? Neither before nor after. But well, that one gave me a lot of idea of logistics, but also a bit of character, no? Because it was getting up at 5 4 in the morning and it was the central supply, do all your Piquín, send the driver and then go to hell. So, like me, like why it would be at 10, 10:30, I had finished doing all the distribution and then I changed my hood to study, right? So I think this character issue, this really shaped me a lot and I think it was by far the most stressful situation that we had to live through as a family. So this good, because resilience I think is something very important in the theme of your beach. That restlessness within your life builds that resilience, because when things start to go wrong, and I think that right now we have to live together, everything starts to go wrong. So you’re going to get rid of that the most important resource of SUPLI is not that you learn to be resilient, this is super important.
[00:07:53] Right, and more good, going back to the point you made about the perseverance you learned when you were younger. I think that is also reflected here and also in the entrepreneurial part, because when you have a complicated situation and it is for your future, for your family. The truth is that we do the impossible to get ahead and to improve in everything. So how interesting that as a first experience of logistics was this way, I would say that many years later you would be here. So, within logistics you have a lot of experience in different industries. I’d also love to hear a little bit more about your professional career, the sectors you’ve been in. Tell us about it.
[00:08:35] Ok, perfect. Look, I have experience in basically the toy industries where I spent a good part of my career working for Mattel and currently at Beauty Counter, which is cosmetics, don’t believe it. But surprisingly I didn’t get into his play as I studied Economics. I started between, I started working for by casting of worse, that is, the point of sale by casting to decide what products we told them in the season, which was a much more commercial function and from there followed me Commercial and Seals Administration. Then I was the head of sales working to get into the head of sales for Walmart and at Mattel. Good, you know Walmart is the most important customer. From there I went through marketing very quickly and then entered Supply Chain. Then after having taken several management positions, let’s say in the commercial area, they gave me the opportunity to be promoted to director of Supply Chain for Mattel Mexico.
[00:09:44] It’s something that you actively sought out, because I mean even going through marketing, which is totally different. How? How did your transition to Supply Chain happen?
[00:09:56] It was very natural because when I had that administration, it was very linked to his play and so I got into his planning, I got into his pipeline and things like that, I got in, I got in, I got in and even though I had never been in his Chain plan, it was seen that I had a certain ability. And the second one is, for example, when I was in sales, I was the only one in sales that at the end of the year had a budget, I mean, like that and that, I think that’s an insight, but each function has like a certain personality or a certain skill set within people, right? Those in finance have a certain way of thinking, reasoning, respect, etc. sales, marketing, etc. So the sales guy is selling as much as he can with the budget he has and he’s, he’s even committing next year’s budget. No, no and I was the only one that kind of planned, I mean, I better try to look for my client’s profitability. I was trying to improve my client’s inventories, our inventories. Profitability as a vision, I would say a little more holistic, wouldn’t you say? Then it was this and at the end of the year and literally I was the only one with a budget. So I kind of think that. It’s not that I actively asked for it, but I think the General Management realized that I had another way of processing then and there were certain opportunities in Supply Chain.
[00:11:28] Well, by the way, and that’s also for those who are very young. That did not touch them before there was no Supply Chain, it was operations and a lot of it. The mentality there was to move the boxes. In other words, the one who moves the boxes is the one in operations. Of course, because before a lot of planning went more towards finance, because planning is related to inventories and as inventory has a cost of capital, they said that it reports to finance. So like operations was it logistics or was it product flow? And the planning was on the other side. So it’s not until you say like in the nineties, where they say there’s supply chain, what does that mean? Well, that’s just it. If you connect planning to the operation, then you have a system that you can optimize. Of course. No, no, nothing else is running. When you do the planning and run a system, what you can optimize. Then, obviously Procter and the big companies already had Supply Chain for many years, but Mattel continued with that idea of operations and in fact the direction filled operations and this, as I came from commercial, they gave the opportunity for me to take planning, to take operations and then the title of Director of operations was changed for the first time to director of their CHAIN.
[00:12:55] And Villaguay, this Mexico within the whole world, Mattel was the first country to take this structure, like it was the laboratory of Mattel worldwide. For this one put this structure, this one touched me. I think it was a double challenge, so I mean, because it was the first time that Planning and Operations was together or logistics, but also I was a manager or senior manager before and it was my first experience as a functional leader, not a director. This reporting to the General Manager that that particular change is a super difficult change. If it’s the most brutal. I don’t know if it’s difficult, but it’s the most challenging, because you have to change your leadership style, you have to change a little bit how you build consensus. This is the change that I have found to be the most complex in my career. After that I spent four years in Mexico. She is doing very well. I’m with a super strong team that I’m super proud of, very good results, and so on. And based on the results this one from Mexico as a subsidiary, they started to give us the rest of Latin America. First they gave us everything but Brazil and then they gave us this Brazil and we have already taken all of Latin America.
[00:14:24] And based on those results they invited me to be the first pee-pee of their US plan. U.S. is about 50 percent on sale. So what it looks like done as for me. Well, there I’m going to delay a bit. Mexico was the first country to take Supply Chain and then, little by little Europe began to take the model, so it began to take the model. This is the rest of the world, already had that model, but America being the corporate and. A little bit more, it’s a very big organization, but it took them longer, because they still had the old structure. Then I was invited to train as Vice President, to take Supply Chain North America to the United States and Canada. And replicating the model there, it is even more complex, because being corporate today there is a little bit more politics that you have to take care of and because of the size and the change is a little bit slower. While in Latin America I believe that the. As a competitive advantage, the pace of execution and how fast we could make decisions because there was so much autonomy and in corporate, et cetera, I think you have to learn other skills, right? I was there for two years and from there I went to another toy store.
[00:15:51] And there corporate was also in California.
[00:15:53] The Esa itself is a 15-story tower and there I was setting up corporate as the North American subsidiary, and now there was an extremely thin division.
[00:16:05] Hey, how proud not only to be not only the first to implement it worldwide in Mexico being Mexican, but also the first to do it in the United States, something interesting to be the first and break these paradigms. I imagine another change, coming from Mexico, in charge of all of Latin America. Then take over the position in the United States for North America. What I felt at that moment, apart from the great responsibility you had, I imagine it was a lot of pride being Mexican, to reach a position of such relevance. How did the cultural change go a little bit there? When do you arrive in the United States?
[00:16:48] This look was challenging. 1 Because you’re moving your family, right? In other words, in addition to the professional issue there is also the family issue. Then my daughters were 5 years old, 6 and 5 years old and a year before that. Lucia, the youngest of my two daughters, had been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. So we were coming as I wanted that theme. And then the next year moving which was positive because the treatment unfortunately or fortunately for me, but not unfortunately here is more advanced. So, it was a positive change in terms of her insulin pump, her monitor, the whole treatment and all the support that Childrens Hospital gave us. But we were coming from a stress as a family, not with diabetes, coupling up and then moving to a new country, etcetera. So that’s where I’m a bit complex. The other is. I had an idea of what I did in Mexico, with certain variables of decision making, of very fast execution, and here it was a little bit more of a post environment, slower in decision making, but not so much autonomy and also a little bit of a policy that had to be taken care of, no? So if the pride, if no one takes it away from you, this one.
[00:18:25] But quickly you have to understand that it wasn’t a copy paste or it wasn’t replicating exactly what had already been done, not this one. But hey, there will be a lot of learning. Learning to work with another culture that had already done so when he took Latin America. You understand that the Colombian in his culture is not the same as the Chilean, nor the same as the Peruvian, nor the Argentinean, nor the Brazilian, which are like the countries I had the good fortune to work with. All equally successful. However, the way of processing information, the way of interrelating, and so on, is different. And you have to understand that the American is also different. There is no barrier. Here was given a little language, not this one. We’ve all learned English in some way, but it’s one thing to learn English at school, so being here and ten hours of meetings in English, in English, at first for me Ciara. Honestly, yes, it was a bit tiring.
[00:19:33] I wasn’t trying to replicate a model that you may have just developed in another country and now you have to adapt it to both their way of working and their culture and explain it well in another language. So that’s a challenge as well.
[00:19:48] Yes, Laura, yes, a super challenge. So that’s it. Well, after two years I got out and I decided to leave the East, I’m going to another toy store there I think the learning that I took and that would be another of my insights so that it is not being seen, is. When you work in a company, good company, not the Unilever, Nestle, and so on. That’s right. Like rules of behavior that you take for granted. No, but in my case mater, of course. And I kind of didn’t or didn’t pay as much attention to validating the culture. And so it’s super, super, super important that when they make a decision to change companies, which I understand that the new generations are much more open to changing companies every two, three years, they are open to change, that they validate the culture.
[00:20:52] Culture is a very important topic and well, in fact I have a particular attraction for, for, for companies and culture in companies, the development of employees within a company, how, how would you define a good culture in a company and how with your positions or throughout your career? How have you managed to push for a good culture, what would be the keys to align the culture a little bit with the vision of the business?
[00:21:23] Sure, you see, I, like I would say a culture is like. The rules in a house. I don’t know if I’m making myself clear. If you don’t yell, you don’t hit. That’s it, that’s the basic rules for a house to function well, because that’s the minimum necessary for a company to function well. So how do you handle conflict? Open at the bottom, not at the back, etc… How do you deal with this stress, this stress that is allowed and this stress that is not allowed? When I interview, that is, when I’m interviewing for a position, it’s not when I’m interviewing someone, it’s what you ask to see how the conflict is handled. I hear he talked on the toughest Board they’ve ever had and they have who spoke, who spoke, etc. It’s all trade or no trade. That’s how and that’s why I would say how you analyze a now very fashionable constellation or how you analyze a family system, well, that same one. In a way that same analysis is what you have to do for a company. That’s what I would call culture. But there is something else. You also have to know yourself and the culture in which you perform best. Capacitor is a very upfront person and oil, sugar. That’s how you grew up, you go ahead and tell it like it is.
[00:22:58] If you go to a hypersensitive culture. Or is it just going to last a long time without being able to be successful? People are going to see you as very rude or on the contrary, if at home you never learned how to handle conflict and all that and you get to a company where everyone is very rude, very confrontational, well, maybe it’s not the best place for you. That in addition to that, which is not so much of culture, but it is related to you knowing yourself, your personality, but Tamientos Hills, that is to say your skills, that you know which is the best company for you. And there I have more or less thought something. And let’s see if the discussion is open, whether being out or not, but before him. What are over market all companies have three things People well, people, processes and systems don’t they? And place it. The combination of the three is what makes the success or failure of any business. There are people who work very well, with very tight processes. And there are people who suffocate, who say this is not for me, and prefer more relaxed environments, where there is more creativity and more innovation, and while not everything is mapped out, things come up and you have to solve them and the bombshell and in between there is an infinity.
[00:24:27] Okay, you must know yourself. You have then there my recipe is how capital intensive the industry or the company you’re going to be in is going to define both the processes and the systems. What comes to mind in that example is automotive. Obviously this is setting up an automotive plant, well, I imagine it’s millions of dollars. I don’t know how much it is, but it must be many millions for the whole, as the investor invests millions or billions of dollars in a plant. Processes and systems have to be perfect. Then you need people who are like a Swiss watch. Absolutely nothing can be diverted, otherwise the cost of capital suffers. And some people find it works well for them. I personally don’t think I’d be sold on this one, but that’s okay. On the other hand, there are other companies where the cost of capital is almost zero. Just imagine someone in a kitchen making the mixture and filling the bottles, right? Imagine, let’s imagine. Obviously, the incentive to have robust processes and systems is zero. It is going to be extremely flexible. So you have to know yourself and try to place yourself in that industry where you can be successful. Here I would say that in the house of the blind the one-eyed man is king.
[00:25:53] So, if you put yourself slightly above in terms of capital. No, sorry, if you get light. If you are looking for a company slightly below your level of competence in processes and systems, you are going to be the one-eyed of the blind. Of course, of course. But if you make the mistake and put yourself in a company where the capital is slightly above your competencies. You’re not going to be a little bit deficient because everything is going to be talking about Six Sigma, you’re going to be talking about sophistication, refinement, processes and decisions, and you’re going to be lacking the technical knowledge to be efficient. Of course, now there is neither good nor bad. Because if you take someone from the automotive industry and put them in an industry on this side or they blow up, not like let’s see, but explain to me where the procedures manual is. No, there is nothing else. You have to figure out that you have 50 containers sitting at the port and you have to bring them in yesterday because you have to ship to Walmart because the order is due on Monday. So it’s not because all of a sudden we have this bias of thinking that the automaker is the perfect one, right? In other words, in different terms it is different and nothing more. He knows very well. So that you know where you can shine best.
[00:27:22] It is an excellent recommendation for all those who are listening to us and I share your way of seeing it and I think the way you explained it is quite didactic and easy to understand. I think at the end of the day the hardest part of someone’s career is not so much the external part, but the introspection and getting to know yourself. And the truth. I speak for myself, but many times we get lazy or we always leave it. In the end we are always trying to solve external things with everyone, clients, suppliers, family, spouse, etcetera and that introspection is what we usually leave at the end. So that’s a very, very good comment for people to think about and pay a little bit of attention to, because that’s what can make you successful and make you enjoy your work, which I imagine is what made you move on to the next stage of your life, I imagine.
[00:28:20] Yes, and you do it very well. This will allow you to be successful, but above all to enjoy your work. Yes, because if you’re not in the right place you’re going to suffer. It’s a lot of stress, don’t you understand? I think the most important thing is to enjoy it.
[00:28:38] If you notice it, it counts in the end and clients notice it and don’t notice it and it becomes, it becomes a job for the money which obviously we all need. Money.
[00:28:49] We are.
[00:28:50] But. But if you put aside a little bit that you’re enjoying or developing intellectually, professionally, culturally, whatever, but. Tell us more, please, Humberto, so you don’t leave the other toy store?
[00:29:04] Well, if what happened a long time ago, yeah.
[00:29:08] You were, you were the automotive in the. In the automotive industry
[00:29:13] And from there, I had the opportunity to enter Stories, which is another extraordinary Australian toy culture. And who doesn’t? If anyone has the opportunity to work for Australians I recommend it. Very casual, like very. As there is not as much as so much hierarchy. I mean, I liked it, I liked the company, that’s all. There I was in charge of Senovilla of the global Sanofi, a medium-sized toy company and they didn’t have to talk much about those developers in Office, which I think is what happens to a lot of companies. They use the name phenotypes. Sounds nice, but no, there wasn’t much.
[00:29:55] What is it in Haiti for those who
[00:29:57] They are listeners in Operations Planning Project, which is for me is like. Well, one of the processes was obviously the Supply Chain protective bias, but to me it would be one of the most important processes in any company, because it’s nothing more than taking the sales input or the forex after well, that whatever you have from marketing, from promotions, et cetera. In other words, put all the inputs from the whole company, Finance, Supply, etcetera, and bring together the management of the company and say well, this is what we are based on the forcas that we have, the inventories that we have, etcetera. This is the picture that we have and from there make decisions of any business decision that has any promotion or if you want to go and increase your weeks of inventory or any decision, is for me as if it were an airport, the control tower of any company to make the best decisions. This axis is sanofi. So I was very happy there, but from there came the opportunity to come to a priori Counter, which is where I am now. The role is to say this but that asks Supply Chain, is that it is not only to take in OPI, but to take logistics, took planning, took surfing. I also got customer experience beauty country see commerce. So Customer experience is very important. So, of course, I also have the good fortune to be in charge of it and I am also responsible for all the Project Management that takes the Product Lunch, the launching of new products, so it is a much more important role.
[00:31:44] Integral,
[00:31:45] Integral to what they had
[00:31:46] Lots and lots and lots of things at your expense.
[00:31:49] And that it was very similar to what I carried in my past experiences. So I think it was the right decision. And well, there, there’s another, another reason. I don’t know if it happens to everybody, but when you work for a company and especially in Supply Chain, at least I had a lot of concerns, like sustainability, not environment, etc. But then you try to talk to your boss in whatever and they say well, and the cost is not true. It still doesn’t give. I don’t understand that technologies are innovating, but we haven’t reached this tipping point yet. So it’s like you really like your job, but you know it’s not as sustainable as you’d like it to be. And from there I learned that there is something called Lobby Corporation, which is very strong in the United States and also has a presence in Australia. In Europe I don’t know about Latin America, but Big Corporation. Nestlé is the largest Big Corporation in the world. This ibid of Benefit Benefit Corporation is companies that decide that their profitability is not the only objective of their charter, but define that in a benefit corporation, in a broader way that involves social impact, impact to the environment and others, definitely the profitability of the company, but it is a much more holistic approach. So what I said is the next company I work for is going to be a Big Corporation. How well it has to have the culture, which I think is closely linked to Big Corporation, because part of the Big Corporation is to evaluate the culture of companies and it will be a role that I want to change industry at the time and I think that already the toys already, already
[00:33:45] He is the expert on all the toys.
[00:33:48] It is then this I want to change industry and Eric Counters brought me the three things. I am currently not very happy, it is a very good company. We are the leaders in Clan Beauty this eliminating eighteen hundred chemicals from our products and making them effective because they are not placebos, they are products that are effective in the cosmetic industry. But we eliminate eighteen hundred chemicals that have, that have, that we have, that are supposed to be harmful to people, right?
[00:34:24] And you’re back to the same thing. Well, I like to remember how your beginnings to today from everything you’ve been learning in different positions, in the places you’ve been, to and what you were saying about knowing yourself to be able to say well, now the next step in my career is this and to be able to implement it. And I think something I’d also like to mention about this industry, which is very nice but sometimes complicated, is that we have to know how to make decisions. Then both the personal and the professional part comes to a point where you say ok, now I really want this for myself, and you not only stayed with the idea of well, I’d like to be more sustainable, but you carry it out. So that’s what makes a lot of difference sometimes between achieving your goals or only getting halfway there. So, where are you now, and considering how the world is with the pandemic? Well, all the challenges we’ve had. What do you think will happen in the future? How do you see the logistical situation for next year? I don’t know what you think is going to happen.
[00:35:36] Okay, before I answer your question, I want to make a clarification because you were telling me that it’s good that I actively decide, and there I think I have two stages. When I worked at Mattel, at the beginning, when I was in Commercial, the truth is that they promoted me or gave me a new assignment every year, like I was the pitcher that fixed cars, so every year I had a different role and the truth is that I didn’t worry about my career, I mean, I knew that since I thought that I was there dad, this is the manager, this is the manager that I was kind of putting and from there everything that sequence that I just told you about, but when I left Mattel, I was promoted to a new role. There was like a change of mentality, I mean, you don’t have to start looking at your career this way and from that point on, all this that I’m talking about happened. No, I’m not telling them to. To the people who are listening to us, who have to do it this way, I think it was an opportunity on my part, I think I was possibly a little passive, but the truth is that in my career I was going upwards, so I never, I never had that concern, but well, it doesn’t appear to me like confessing and making the clarification, but I think it will be important. I would rather Take Away that yes, that everyone has to see for his career and more now where those plans to stay in a company for 16 years as I did. Well, the truth is that not anymore, the labor market is much more flexible now. So I think it was more of a generational thing. Now everyone has to take their own career into their own hands,
[00:37:27] Even within the companies themselves, because there are some that are already open to give their opinion, raise their hands, say, let’s see, I think we could improve this. And it is just that part of the culture of the companies to know that you are in the right place for you to grow, to propose, because there are companies that are open, let’s see, hey, we don’t have to be square, we are not going to improve and they let you make those decisions and it is also something very cool to learn within the same company. Sometimes, even nowadays, you sometimes hear that there are people who change jobs a lot. But well, I speak for the millennials, but I also identify myself as someone who does like the industry, I love my job, I love the place where I am, but I also know that I can grow a lot and learn from different areas and that if you raise your hand and I have a good proposal, it will be taken into account then. What a father or know how different? At the end of the day, you started in the same place and your career took you to something you loved and then you changed your mind to say well, now I want to do this, but also today there are so many ways to get to where you want to be and to keep improving, that it’s really interesting to hear about it. And now if I ask you again
[00:38:43] Robin Si,
[00:38:45] Exactly. In other words, it’s impossible not to talk about it. I know we’ve heard it a thousand times, but hey, it’s been a challenge in the industry. Two thousand and twenty-two. What do you think will happen?
[00:38:58] Ok, before I answer Javier, let me talk. Let’s see, I think this was already brewing even before COBIT, I think and it’s my opinion, right? I mean, just an opinion, not this one. How can there be my. Eh? Let’s see, because this is all maritime trade, it’s a Swiss watch. No, or T flows between continent, country, and so on. It’s like a mecca, like a demand mechanism in your movie and it’s adjusting quickly. That’s perfect, isn’t it? And that has allowed the rates to go down and down and down and down and the cost per mile traveled was not the same, because obviously an Asia from Asia America, well it’s more expensive than the empty ones that you have to move empty containers. And in that José Enrique can give as a professor. It does not exist, but if I explain myself. It’s a sophistication that took many, many years to get to that refinement, because you’re adjusting rates, et cetera, to make sure that the vacuum can get back to where you need it, et cetera. No, I think for me it all started a little bit when the good strong administration declares war on China and starts raising tariffs. At that time began what was exported from the United States to China, it was no longer like that and began to see certain distortions. And it doesn’t always make you agree, but I think that from that point on there started to be certain distortions that were no longer there. I mean, we didn’t start in the best place, let’s say. Obviously there is buffered inventory of container inventory and so it is absorbing it, but I think from there a problem had already started. Then two. And I’m going to change the subject a little bit. But back to my topic of concern, sustainability. Yes, yes, we are already close to a strong climate issue. In January 2020, that is, two months before COBIT broke out, the Central Bank of central banks, which I do not remember what it is called, but it is like all the major US Fed, bank, etc.. The major banks in the United States created a Central Bank as an institution.
[00:41:29] The International Monetary Fund
[00:41:32] It is neither the Fund nor the Central Bank has another name than Agustín Carstens professional or that was the director. But anyway, they came out with a paper and talked about the Green Swan. Recall that the Black Swan is a term that was coined for the 2008 crisis, to decide that it is like the black swan that no one saw coming, which was the U.S. mortgage crisis. And that’s where the Black Swan came from, by the way. But this paper, which is about 80 pages long, talks about the next world crisis is going to start being Greenspan. And we are green swans, because of ecological, ecological disruptions that could be hurricanes. Whatever you want. Floods, etc. He’s not from here, mind you. Who does it come from? From the Central Bank of Central Banks. What he’s telling the central banks is that they have to create monetary policy policies, blah, blah, blah, blah, to begin to deal with economic crises that are going to happen because of ecological issues. And COBIT was the first GREENS. Green Swan or not? I really don’t know. I mean, obviously I don’t think you know that. What is known is that we have broken ecosystems, not a bat that is in a jungle, it lives there.
[00:43:12] But if the jungle ends, then the bat has to migrate. Now, whether that was the origin or not, we don’t know. But the issue, why I bring it up is because we have COBIT, but already the Central Bank of Central Banks, which are the financial ones, which are the ones that are looking for stability. No, it’s nobody’s conspiracy theory. In January 2020 he is saying get your act together because there are going to be these disruptors coming because of ecological phenomena, not natural phenomena. Even somewhere, the PP states that this could jeopardize the existence of the human race. One thing yes, but well, again, I repeat, it is not. E The source is a source that is typically overly serious in that it doesn’t just jump into anything. So I don’t know why this Pepper went unnoticed, do you? Now if your question is sorry young man, the 22nd and 23rd, but before you answer the question, how much stability did we enjoy in the past? We also got used to it and started to take it like the automotive industry, as our own. Not as our role should not be and we started to build your plan Chetniks, which were very complicated, you produce a raw material here in Vietnam and from there you send it to India to make 2 3 machines and from there you send it to China and then you take it to the United States.
[00:45:01] So. And why is that? Because we get used to living in an environment of stability. And of stability, of uncertainty. So, for two cents, for three cents, we make whatever decision it is and start building your plan. James As very fragile. Very long with Lita. Extremely long, with immense complexity. This is not your case. A Czech car. How many components and from how many companies and from which different countries does it come from? Well, it’s a. It’s a puzzle you have to put together. Well, it was good because the world in the past was extremely true. No certainty was not economic stability, political stability, social stability. Everything was there. But from now on we have to get used to the fact that the rules of the game have changed and I think COBIT is the first one, but there will be more to come. So, what do we have to do? It is to reduce lists. So that already that your component of Asia because it is super cheap, may not be the best option. No? Then this do with this shorter leadthings me. Second, digitization. I mean, I understand that in Latin America we’re like.
[00:46:28] A little bit back,
[00:46:29] A little bit behind, but well, also, don’t think it’s very different here, but we’re doing well. We have visibility of our supplier. No, you have to go now. What is the visibility of your supplier’s supplier? Sea Second Fire. To start to see a little bit how to build the Supply Chain system, but not only within your company, but the whole system. That is, from the raw material to the final product. We’re going to have to do that and it’s in the technology, there’s blockchain and so on. I mean, there’s a way to start doing it, it’s just going to take time. So I think we’re going to have to change. I’m not going to get into that too much. Well, it’s not a quick topic. This same man who brought out the Black Swan also brought out a new one. Concept called anti-fragility mind. Why is it that resilience was defined against the fragile? Noc, which means a bridge, which is resilience, is not trembling. The bridge moves, but returns to its original state. He held fragile against resistant and he says no, the new one, what we have to do is anti fragility, that would be evolving systems. A After the destroyer, I mean, in the bridge analogy you have the shaking, the bridge learns that it moved a lot, and then instead of being a bridge or just a bridge, so let’s assume from an example I have of that. For example, your muscles. When you do weights you literally break down muscle. Then the muscle learns and gets bigger. Before the disruptor, the muscle is growing that since the process of weights not this then. Let’s see, it’s a novel concept and it wasn’t applied much to your plan, but we have to learn, I mean, with all the digital information, because we already have information in real time. What is very important is nothing else, you have to connect the information in real time, etc.. We can go on creating, evolving, creating supply chains that are anti-fragile, that in the face of the disruptor we can make decisions in real time to make the system much more robust.
[00:49:06] Yes it could be, maybe, I don’t know what you mentioned just now, and there are some, especially in manufacturing or maquila industries, because different countries are involved, different means of transport and maybe before it was cheaper to do it that way, but maybe now in terms of time and security, that you will have the raw material or the stock, well, maybe you can even develop to see this, I don’t know, this fabric and we can make it in the country where it is going to be made up or we can bring the inputs here, we can manufacture it, Well, maybe you can even develop this, I don’t know, this fabric and we can make it in the country where it is going to be made up or we can bring the inputs here and manufacture it, I don’t know, or know ways to cut back a little bit, so much triangulation of material or I don’t know, better to bring the machinery here or maybe it is not to increase a little bit the salaries of the maquiladoras so we don’t have to produce in another country. And maybe that costs you less than everything. I don’t know the freight stuff, but I guess that’s kind of what you’re getting at, if I’m understanding correctly.
[00:50:05] That is to reduce Typekit that yes, I think all companies are doing carsharing, as it became fashionable, no? And it would obviously be necessary to start creating a regional or local infrastructure to be able to do it. That would be producing items, which is what you mentioned. Anti-fragility would be more like it. Given that not all companies have it, but given that a lot of the information that you’re going to start getting is in real time, because you have this blockchain, you have the. In other words, the technology is already there for the whole system, the ecosystem of your planchen, to be connected globally. What we have to do is that when the disruptor arrives, in this case it was COBIT, that automatically the system is evolving to become stronger. I can’t tell you what it is because it’s hardly a new concept. But for example. Well I don’t know, no, the truth is that I partly regret saying I give an example, but it’s more like a concept that I think I’m refining.
[00:51:19] This is what we learn from this whole pandemic and the problem that we have in the ports or in the infrastructure of the countries, in all that. So that’s where I think you’re giving us a view not just of 2022 as the question indicated, but rather a more general view of what’s best for the next 20 years. I think that’s where I think Split’s Supply Chain position is going to continue to develop. Maybe someone from your Chain is going to have to understand this concept of anti-fragility which is quite, quite interesting and in fact we will try to include some of the notes and see if we can find the Green Sun article as well. To put it in the notes of the interview, send us a thread with the
[00:52:03] Interview data. If the guides and this thing I’m talking about fragility, it should come supported by machine learning. Simple thing. Already once you have the system connected, the system, a machine learning or some other tool, artificial intelligence is what would allow the system to evolve. But let’s see if as Enrique says, it’s not 2022 or 23, but I think it’s something that’s coming. Now I’m going to answer question 23 and it’s just me. I mean, no, but let’s see, on the maritime trade side we have seen other crises. It is not the first time it has happened. No, not to this extent, but it has happened. What I believe is. Next year the Kings are going to stay very similar. But the service will gradually improve. So a first quarter, second quarter, but still give something there. Of service issues. But I hope that by next year’s season it will be a matter of paying a lot for the service, but it’s already good service, but there will be good service. This and what is going to be that as the rates so high. This, because that money is going to be invested precisely in correcting the balance that they have to contain them worldwide, right? And I also understand that it’s a local transportation issue that they’re not having.
[00:53:41] If not, then this one will have to be corrected. In other words, there is money in the system because they are paying excessively high rates that are going to correct the service issue, not the cost. And it would not be until 2023 with a corrected service that the rates for supply and demand will begin to improve. What I am doing internally is I am dividing. As all the movements that we have in two one is inflationary effects of what I call Supply Chain Supply Demand Time Balance, that is a balance of supply and demand. Why? Because an imbalance of supply and demand is temporary. Be that as maritime rates go up, but they’re going down, they’re going down. We don’t know how much, but they’re going down. But an inflationary effect that is going to be sustained over time. For example, I give an example, there is a little bit of increase in salaries in that is inflationary, it is not going to go down. You should project it and it should be in your system because you know that it is going to be maintained and it is going to go up. But the maritime part you know it’s going to go up and it’s going to go down. It’s understanding when you start to get cost pressure, knowing where it’s coming from. It will let you know. How to negotiate?
[00:55:17] Sure, I wanted to adjust the rest of your supply chain accordingly, but exactly.
[00:55:23] Yeah, well, now I did answer the question, didn’t I?
[00:55:27] If I believe in myself, in my point of view, I think you not only answered the question, but you opened up a million other questions at the same time. This I find not only very interesting, but it is going to be the topic of discussion for the next five to ten or fifteen years. I don’t think so. This topic you bring up is very interesting and something we will probably have to bother you again in the future. Maybe in 2022 or sooner for you to give us another interview, because one can see that you have an enviable experience in logistics. I think you’ve seen the logistics of all of Latin America, North America, Europe or you know logistics worldwide. 2. I think you have. A person who is very focused on who he is, what he wants, where he wants to be successful, which is admirable in whatever industry or job he’s in. And well, we thank you very much for wanting to talk to us a little bit. I’m sure people listening to this interview or watching this interview are going to be, are going to be delighted and nothing more. I wanted to thank you for your time.
[00:56:41] Yeah, right. Yes, well, if I can add one last question, I know we’ve already gone a little overboard, but I have to take advantage of the fact that you’re here. And that’s more of a personal question. So, if you could go back twenty years or fifteen years with the Humberto of that time, what advice would you give him? They can be for your personal or professional life, but what is something you would tell yourself that can help everyone who is listening.
[00:57:22] Ok, I think I know two things. One is very personal to me. But possibly someone who listens to us will find it useful and I think at the beginning of my career. I thought it was all like very, I mean, everybody knew, I mean, people upstairs, et cetera. Everyone knew what they were doing and everyone else, so things were more complex than I thought. Then I kind of kept quiet in a lot of meetings, like how? How to say? Was it shielded? Maybe, this could be it. And then I grew up. No? So. That is, to me. I should be more bold and open topics and participates more in the boards and danby and. And give your point of view. Et cetera. I don’t think the new generations have that problem. Then this one. But that would be advice to me. But the other piece of advice I would give myself, and fortunately in a way I’ve followed it. It is. Because a lot of us in your country are like relieved for goals, like what we like to solve and everything, and when you’re like that. Possibly what you’re looking for is like that target san when I’m vice president or when I’m and you’re totally focused on that.
[00:58:59] And I think the advice I would give myself is don’t so much like the outcome as enjoy the journey. I mean, I think this exists because if it’s that when I’m Bepi I’m going to be happy or when I have the house I’m going to be happy, or when I have the house I’m going to be happy, or blah blah blah. What do you mean? You are always putting your happiness in the future and in something external. And I don’t think it goes like that. I mean, I think you have to define. Like that your life in a more holistic way is not going to be well physical well-being. Not exercising, emotional well-being, healthy interpersonal relationships, spiritual well-being. Whatever you define it to be, it doesn’t have to be a religion, of course, but whatever you define it to be, it’s a simple thing to define it as in a more holistic way and keeping in mind. And the rest will follow. But when you put everything like in the future or on the outside. Possibly you’re going to get there and it’s not a bit empty because they weren’t what you were expecting. So this good, I think a little bit. The question was the answer to the question was it good? I think the answer is a bit complex, but I hope you understand,
[01:00:26] It is not understood. Perfect. Thank you very much. Now I’m really sticking with. With this very important message of what you say, that sometimes it happens to me a lot that I say I don’t want to do, I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m getting there and suddenly you also stop a little bit and say well, but you have to. So, what did I do for myself today? Or I don’t know. You have to enjoy everything and that’s something I also love about this industry. It’s tiring, yes, it’s complicated. You have to learn to solve, but at the same time I like how I like that space. So I feel it’s something that everyone should also consider for their careers and professional life. So I won’t take up any more of your time. Thank you very much for. To solve one more question.
[01:01:17] No? Perfect. Thank you very much, Monica and Enrique. I’ll be here whenever you want me to be. This is the truth. It’s a pleasure. I really enjoyed the talk and if it can help the people who are listening, it’s wonderful to always be available to help in any way I can and, well, to share my experience.
[01:01:39] Well, thank you very much. I think a lot of people might want to look for the best way to contact you and talk to you. Linkedin I imagine if there is someone who has a particular question or something they would like to tell you about or just look you up, what would be the best thing to do?
[01:02:00] Lo. I have it online, that is, I check it daily. Then this link has Humberto Martinez and if not put The Lovely Counter and it will surely come out.
[01:02:11] Perfect and thank you very much. It is a great pride as a Mexican to see and interview someone who not only shared part of my childhood info, but who has become a very important person in supply chains and logistics and in the world we are living in. So I’m in. Thank you very much, my pleasure and have a nice day.
