Rob Lopez

Supply Chain Now is the voice of the supply chain industry, and our hosts are experts in the field. Podcast listeners and webinar viewers tune in to hear the sage advice of host Jake Barr, heralded as an architect of global supply chain strategy and creator of “profit powerhouses.” Earning His Spot on Stage Barr today is the CEO of BlueWorld Supply Chain Consulting, which provides support to such Fortune 500 companies as Cargill, Caterpillar, 3M, PepsiCo, and Pfizer and helps them bring products to market. “We place a premium on accelerating speed to market by leveraging supply chain transformation,” he says. “The result is better operating margin performance and the opportunity to drive faster growth in revenue.” During his more than 33 years with Procter & Gamble, Barr served as the global director of supply network operations and led the end-to-end planning transformation project, which created control towers that now manage the daily business globally and earned him recognition as the architect for the company’s demand-driven supply chain strategy. He served on the MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics advisory council for its Supply Chain 2020 Project, was named to the League of Leaders for retail and consumer goods…

Special Guest Blog Post written by Demostenes (Demo) Perez, Photo by Rikin Katyal   After more than 25 years in logistics and supply chain management and having led over 200 regional distribution projects, I’ve come to realize that the questions people don’t ask are often the most important. Throughout my career, I’ve worked with global multinationals, emerging brands, and family-run businesses. I’ve helped move everything from underground mining equipment to high-fashion goods, from pharmaceuticals and food to toys and chemicals. Some supply chain models I helped design are still thriving today; others were shut down after a few years. Many didn’t even make it past the drawing board. In that time, I’ve had the privilege of collaborating with logistics professionals from nearly every corner of the world and making lifelong friends in the process. Yet no matter the company size or product type, I still wish more people would ask these five questions before launching or scaling their operations in Latin America: 1. How well do I understand the diversity within Latin America? “Latin America” is often treated as a single market. It’s not. Logistics conditions in Mexico are completely different from those in Brazil. Colombia, Argentina, Peru, and Chile…