Mike Griswold is the Vice President of Research at Gartner, specializing in retail with a particular focus on forecasting and replenishment. He is responsible for Gartner’s annual Top 25 Supply Chain ranking and joins Supply Chain Now on a monthly basis to discuss the latest in retail supply chains from an analyst’s perspective. Gartner held the 2021 Supply Chain Symposium/XPO focused on the EMEA region a few weeks ago, and many of the topics affect businesses and supply chains in every part of the globe. All of the macro trends that were discussed have a dual focus – doing well while doing good and making sure that the priorities of the customer (whether B2B or B2C) are understood and embraced by decision-makers. In this episode, Mike shares his key takeaways from the 2021 EMEA Supply Chain Symposium/XPO with co-hosts Scott Luton and Kelly Barner, host of Dial P for Procurement:
- Sustainable profit and sustainable profitability
- The importance of having a shared purpose
- Creating and strengthening value-aligned ecosystems
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In this episode of Supply Chain Now, Scott Luton sits down with two leaders shaping the future of reverse logistics from the floor to the classroom: Troy Campbell, Director of Reverse Logistics Centers at The Home Depot, and Dr. Glenn Richey, Jr., Harbert Eminent Scholar in Supply Chain Management at Auburn University. Troy opens the doors to Home Depot’s four Reverse Logistics Centers: Phoenix, Pittston (PA), McDonough (GA), and Indianapolis, showing why a people-first culture remains the operating system for returns at scale. He gets real about “automation when the box isn’t a box,” how rethinking inbound flows through 3PLs reduces touches and transportation cost, and why simple vendor conversations (like consolidating daily pallets into a single weekly load) can unlock outsized impact. His north star: make associates’ days easier, and the entire reverse network improves. Glenn zooms out to the macro shifts: the move from minimizing returns to maximizing returns within a circular economy, generative AI for scenario planning and real-time decision support, and reverse logistics as the operational backbone of sustainability. He maps the skills the next workforce will need, calls for clearer industry coding to separate reverse data from forward logistics, and outlines how universities can build…
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