Mary Kate Love

Stay up to date on all the latest conversations, interviews, and episodes we released this week here at Supply Chain Now. On Monday’s episode of Supply Chain Now, Scott Luton leads the conversation on reverse logistics and welcomes Tony Sciarrotta with RLA and Rich Bulger with Cisco to the show. On This Week in Business History, Scott tells the rags to riches story of Airbnb and more. On Tuesday we released a classic episode of TEKTOK in which Karin Bursa shares the 3 Things C-Level Execs Need to Know About Sales & Operations Planning and Inventory Optimization. On Tuesday we also released a new episode of TECHquila Sunrise. Greg White welcomed Kubera Venture Capital’s Balaji Gopinath and special guest Robin Gregg, CEO of RoadSync. On Wednesday, Scott had the opportunity to talk with some of the University of Georgia’s up-and-coming Supply Chain Rising stars, Jessie Bailey and Elena Griggs. We also released another episode of the Supply Chain Buzz featuring Mike Griswold, and presented by OMNIA Partners. Scott, Greg, and Mike discussed everything from rising COVID-19 infections impact of the supply chain to the United Nations response to climate change. On Friday, host Page Siplon sat down with Griff Lynch…

Special Guest Blog Post written by Bernadine Henderson Ms. Henderson, senior director of procurement at Protolabs, lifts the lid on buying in manufacturing and why relationships are central to it.   Simply put, the job of a buyer is really about buying the right thing at the right time for the right price. It sounds simple, but it really is very complicated because everything that’s going on in the world impacts the timing, the availability, and the price of the product. This means that buying has recently got a lot more complicated. World events have very real consequences on global supply chains. Just one example is the way in which buyers have responded to tariffs in the U.S. by re-routing sourcing locations. It takes a certain amount of agility to be a buyer in 2025, and this quick responsiveness is helped along by one key ingredient, and that is strong relationships with suppliers. Relationships Built on Trust A widely held misconception is that buyers are only interested in getting to the lowest price possible. In fact, the most important thing to a buyer is for suppliers to bring solutions that deliver overall value. In my experience, a really strong supplier…