Supply chain risk management is at the top of every corporate priority list right now. And while businesses have never had a time free from risk, the stakes are so high right now that the issue has become all-consuming. Since it is not an option to wait the risk out, wise organizations are investing in their own resilience and partnering with suppliers to strengthen their options.

Today’s business challenges are creating demand for a “new risk management,” one that turns visibility into actionability and connects enterprise responsibility with individual incentives for improved outcomes that stand the test of time.

In this episode, based on a Dial P for Procurement livestream, riskmethods’ Chief Product Officer & Managing Director of the Americas, Bill DeMartino, and Senior Director of Product & Solutions Marketing, Constantine Limberakis, discuss rebuilding confidence in the face of risk by establishing a single source of truth that people can trust and act upon:

– How companies can bolster the capabilities and confidence of their decision makers in the face of never-ending disruption

– Whether the uncertainty of the supply chain has taught procurement to truly partner with suppliers

– The difference between having visibility into the nth tier of the supply chain and achieving actionable transparency

Intro/Outro (00:03):

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 Luton (00:31):

Hey, hey, good afternoon, everybody. Scott Luton and Kelly Barner with you here on Supply Chain Now. Hey, it’s Dial P for Procurement once again. Kelly, how you doing?

Kelly Barner (00:40):

I am doing great. Scott, how are you?

Scott Luton (00:42):

We are doing wonderful. You know, we already knocked out all of our cheesy jokes in the green room with our outstanding panel. My inventory is running a little bit low, but we’ll see. We got a great –

Kelly Barner (00:53):

Don’t you worry. It’ll just fill itself right back up.

Scott Luton (00:56):

We’ve got a great conversation here today. Of course, Dial P for Procurement is presented jointly with our friends over at Buyers Meeting Point. And, today, Kelly, today, we’re going to get the secrets out to what it takes to build supply chain resilience, right?

Kelly Barner (01:11):

Which is so funny because if you’ve been anywhere except under a rock for the last 18 months, all you’ve heard about is supply chain risk and resilience, right? Every single one of us has faced funny questions from relatives. You know, we’ve seen it on every single newspaper, but I think the point we’re going to make today is that there’s very different way that general people in society might think about the supply chain and respond to what they read versus how trained professionals with the right kind of tools approach the challenges that it leads to.

Scott Luton (01:38):

Outstanding. I’m with you. And, you know, if you’re sick of hearing about supply chain risk this year, just wait because next year it’s going to be five-fold, six-fold. It’s the name of the game these days, right?

Kelly Barner (01:51):

It absolutely is. And, you know, it’s good and bad, right? Because it’s raising the visibility of everybody in the profession. It’s giving companies a huge opportunity to really stretch their supply chains, but it is also constant. So, the challenges are very real. So, absolutely this is going to set us up to be ready for 2022.

Scott Luton (02:09):

Wonderful. All right. So, the last thing we want to do before we bring on our guests here today and we’re going to be featuring Bill and Constantine with riskmethods. So, y’all stay tuned. Let’s recognize a few of the folks that have already joined us here. So, the one and only Jeff Ostrander is back with us. Now, Jeff was a guest –

Kelly Barner (02:26):

Good morning, Jeff.

Scott Luton (02:26):

I want to say Jeff was a guest in one of the earliest Dial P shows, right?

Kelly Barner (02:32):

He was. I believe he was number two.

Scott Luton (02:35):

Number two. And, he had his graphics team, cutting-edge graphics team, with us in Episode 2, right?

Kelly Barner (02:42):

Yeah. He sure did he came prepared with artwork. We’ve never done Dial P arts and crafts, but Jeff was ready. We were like, “Yeah, we don’t do slides. This is a livestream.” He’s like, “Oh, that’s okay. I bring my own.” I just – always ready.

Scott Luton (02:54):

I think he constructed it as we were having a conversation so he is a wonderful guest and beyond his sense of humor in his – in the moment resourcefulness. He is a heck of an expert in all things procurement and supply chain related. Jason says, “Wait, no cheesy jokes.”

Kelly Barner (03:14):

No, no. Don’t leave, Jason. Stay. He didn’t mean it. There will be cheesy jokes.

Scott Luton (03:16):

That is right. I’m just kidding. Hey, Jason, let us know where you’re tuned in from, of course you’re on LinkedIn and we’d love to know where you’re watching us. Clay, Diesel, Phillips, Diesel, Kelly, you know why? Right? The engine never stopped running with Clay. Great to see you here. The dawg. His UGA team is having quite a season, Kelly.

Kelly Barner (03:37):

That’s dawg with a WG.

Scott Luton (03:42):

Oh, Clay. We’re going to convert Kelly before she knows. How about that? Phil Addison with a dear friend and art of procurement amongst other things. Phil’s with us in the house today, Kelly.

Kelly Barner (03:54):

Always glad to have him.

Scott Luton (03:55):

Always glad to have Phil. Now, you know, on that note, the 2022 Supply Chain & Procurement Awards, it’s a global affair, has been rescheduled to May 18th next year. And, folks, we’ve got you here. We’d love for you to go check it out at supplychainprocurementawards.com and we can drop that link in the comments. But the reason, Kelly, we wanted to have more lead time is we want to really make that event to be very educational about this travesty that’s actually increasing global slavery across the global business world. It’s terribly sad. And that lack of awareness is one of the big challenges, right?

Kelly Barner (04:33):

It absolutely is. And, you talk about risk and consequences and all of those things, it literally puts a face on the problem and it’s something all supply chain professionals have an opportunity to address.

Scott Luton (04:43):

That’s right. So, we partnered with the wonderful non-profit, Hope for Justice Organization, along with Buyers Meeting Point and Phil with R to Procurement and Supply Chain Now. So, mark your calendar, May 18th. We’re going to celebrate successes across global business really with great purpose. So, Phil, great to have you here today. Christopher is with us from Detroit, the research at Detroit.

Kelly Barner (05:07):

Hello, Christopher.

Scott Luton (05:09):

He’s listened to the podcast for quite some time, but first time viewing. Christopher that is – wonderful to have you.

Kelly Barner (05:14):

You won’t ever want to go back to not being with us live. The podcast is great, but being here live, it’s such an event.

Scott Luton (05:20):

That is right. And we want to hear from you today, right, throughout as we have the conversation with Bill and Constantine. We’ve got a lot of supply chain goodness to walk through and procurement goodness to walk through on today’s show. But, hey, we want to hear from you as we work our way through it and let us know what the temp is up in Detroit. And I’m not talking about the Lions. I think it might be cold in Detroit, but it is colder in that Lion’s organization. Hey, and just all in good fun, Christopher. Great to have you here today. Marin, Maran maybe Maran, hello from snowy Montreal via LinkedIn.

Kelly Barner (05:52):

And some winter.

Scott Luton (05:53):

No kidding. Getting ready for the holidays up there. Okay. Rich Brown, one last one here. Hey, there from the 2021 major league baseball championship city and we’re talking about the home of the Braves, Atlanta GA. Rich, great to have you back with us here today.

Scott Luton (06:10):

Okay. Welcome, everybody. I know we couldn’t get to it to all the folks here today, but great show teed up. Kelly, are we ready to introduce our esteemed panel?

Kelly Barner (06:21):

We absolutely are ready.

Scott Luton (06:23):

All right. So I got to, you know, Christopher’s, first time he’s joining for a livestream. So, hey, got to make complete circle. No lines talk here. Hey, Christopher, I won’t reference the Lions any further. Hey, don’t forget, while the Atlanta Braves are setting, you know, set the world on fire, Falcons haven’t. So, we’re copacetic with you here today, Christopher. Great to have you.

Scott Luton (06:48):

All right. So, let’s introduce, Kelly, if it works for you, let’s introduce our wonderful guests here today. We had a heck of a time in the green room before going live here today. I want to welcome in Bill DeMartino, chief product officer and managing director of the Americas with riskmethods, and his colleague, Constantine Limberakis, senior director of product and solutions marketing with riskmethods as well. Hey, hey, Constantine, Bill. How are we doing?

Bill DeMartino (07:14):

Terrific, Scott. Thanks for having us today.

Kelly Barner (07:17):

Hi, guys.

Constantine Limberakis (07:17):

Great. Thank you.

Scott Luton (07:19):

You bet. Well, you see that we – the first five or six minutes kind of ran the gamut, all kinds of things from football to weather to risk. And, we’re really delighted to have you both here with us today.

Bill DeMartino (07:30):

Fantastic.

Scott Luton (07:32):

So, on that note, Kelly, you know, we’ve been talking we’ve – we’ve discovered that food is a universal love amongst our global extended network and community and v fam, right, virtual family. So, Bill and Constantine, if it’s okay with you, we’d like to chat a little bit about food on the front end. Y’all game?

Constantine Limberakis (07:51):

Absolutely.

Scott Luton (07:53):

All right. So, I want to set the table here. So, we heard from our –

Kelly Barner (07:57):

Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute.

Scott Luton (07:58):

Yes, yes.

Kelly Barner (08:00):

Was that a cheesy dad joke?

Scott Luton (08:02):

Again. No. It wasn’t. That just kind of came out. In fact, Kelly –

Kelly Barner (08:05):

Okay. I’m just going to tune down my calibration that I was worried about your cheesy dad jokes, and then you were going to set the table so we could talk about food. Okay. All right. Proceed. I’m just checking.

Scott Luton (08:14):

All right. Good. Thank you very much. So, we heard from Gene Pledger in the last week or two. Now, Gene Pledger is from LA, Lower Alabama, and he ventured up Chicago and had aided a couple of wonderful places including this was that Harry Carray’s Restaurant, which looks like shrimp and filet, and then, of course Giordano’s for the best deep dish pizza. I don’t think all of the world, all of the land. So, Gene, thank you for sending us those shots. So, with that as the standard and setting the bar there, Bill you’re from the Boston area and that is home to a wonderful culinary scene as well. I know right now you’re in Germany, but you hail from Boston. What do you love about the Boston food scene?

Bill DeMartino (08:58):

Well, the Boston food scenes have been difficult to get to of late. But I came from Connecticut and I’ve always been a very big pizza eater. Somewhat, I think, picky. And, my heritage is in the Neopolitan as Constantine will probably elaborate on what that means in more detail later. But, there is an excellent pizza tradition in New Haven, Connecticut, which followed me up to Boston, which was searching for the perfect pizza that’s thin, slightly burnt and sticks to traditional recipes. So, there’s a few of those places in Boston if you know where to go and what to seek out.

Scott Luton (09:41):

Wonderful.

Bill DeMartino (09:42):

And we have showed before, it’s food, but I wouldn’t call it pizza.

Scott Luton (09:47):

Okay. All right, man. Hey, Gene Pledger, if you’re with us here today, then it’s fighting words. All right. So, Bill, one quick follow up. Do you want to name in, don’t feel compelled, but you want to drop the name of your favorite restaurant that offers the Bill DeMartino approved pizza?

Bill DeMartino (10:05):

Well, my favorite place isn’t in Boston. So, that makes it challenging.

Scott Luton (10:09):

New Haven is what – okay.

Bill DeMartino (10:13):

New Haven, yeah.

Scott Luton (10:13):

I gotcha.

Bill DeMartino (10:13):

So, if you’re in New Haven, the best place to go is Pepe’s which is something that I grew up on. If you’re in Boston, I am partial to Santarpio’s so that’s in East Boston. It’s a little bit off the beaten path, but it’s worth your trip.

Scott Luton (10:31):

I love that Bill, and, Kelly, I want to say we heard Santarpio’s, I think if I said that right, after one of our last Dial P’s –

Kelly Barner (10:40):

I think we did.

Scott Luton (10:40):

From a gentleman. Has Santarpio’s been around for like a hundred years, Bill?

Bill DeMartino (10:45):

It’s been around for, I think, 70 or 80. Yeah.

Scott Luton (10:48):

I bet it’s the same place. Good stuff. We’ll have to dive in deep. So, Bill, thank you for [inaudible] with your –

Constantine Limberakis (10:54):

There’s another one, Kelly.

Kelly Barner (10:57):

Good pick-up, Constantine. Now, we’re all listening for it.

Scott Luton (11:00):

Man, I’ll tell you what. Ever feel like you’re being targeted and cornered, but Constantine you’re going to fit right in with us. I love it. We enjoyed our pre-show. So, now Constantine, a little different here. You are from Chicago and I think you’re in Chicago now.

Constantine Limberakis (11:15):

Yes.

Scott Luton (11:16):

So, an all-world city from a variety of perspectives. Let’s talk food. What’s your go-to? If you wanna – if you have visitors come in the Chicago, where do you take them where you can just wow them?

Constantine Limberakis (11:28):

Well, it depends on how ethnic they want to get. Right? We’ve got a Greek town. We’ve got little Italy. We’ve got Chinatown. It depends on what they want. But I have to say my go-to, if they really want just to get it all greased up, is go to Portillo’s. You got to get the Italian beef.

Scott Luton (11:46):

Oh, man, that sounds delicious. One or two?

Constantine Limberakis (11:52):

I guess one is enough.

Kelly Barner (11:54):

Yes. [Inaudible] like a family.

Constantine Limberakis (11:55):

Unless you want to like that Chicago style, hot dogs. So, you know, that’s got every ethnicity in it. Right? You got the peppers and you’ve got the green, the neon green, radioactive green relish, all of that. So yeah, that’s the go-to for me. If you’ve eaten all that, you’re going to have people satisfied.

Scott Luton (12:12):

All right, so my vote is we do a Dial P roadshow next year, Kelly. We’ll scoop up Bill and Boston, head north and hit the place in New Haven, right, and then we’re got Pepe, I think Pepe’s, and then we’ll head over west and wrap up with Italian beef in Chicago with Constantine. Sound like one heck of a trip.

Kelly Barner (12:33):

We can do it on little food truck road race thing, Dial P wrap around the country.

Scott Luton (12:38):

All right. So, Kelly, before we continue, I want to share just a couple of quick comments here. Going back to football. Jeffrey is a big Cincinnati fan. I didn’t know that. So, they’ve got that bi-week redemption I think this week. They’re having an undefeated season as well. Peter missed the start of our conversation. He continues – this is the hardest working guy, Peter Bolle all night and all day. He has project after project whenever he’s not saving the world from a procurement standpoint. Maria is tuned in via LinkedIn from the Philippines.

Kelly Barner (13:05):

Welcome, Maria.

Scott Luton (13:06):

Welcome, Maria. Great to see here today. Peter says he was hungry and then a pinch had a slice of Costco Pepperoni after shopping for dinner. Bill, we’ll compare and contrast [inaudible] after today’s show. And, Stacy is tuned in from Zambia, once again, via LinkedIn. Great to have you here, Stacy. And Gene, we were just talking about you a second ago. We shared your images from your culinary ventures up in Chicago. Great to have you here today. Okay. So, Kelly, where are we talking next with Bill and Constantine?

Kelly Barner (13:40):

So, we’re just going to start talk a little bit about supply chain risk. Now, this doesn’t matter if you’re in procurement or if you actually have a supply chain title. If the number one phrase in 2020 was you’re on mute, probably the number two phrase or question was why can’t I find any toilet paper? So, given that you guys are not only in supply chain, but focus in supply chain risk, I’m guessing that there’s been a couple of family conversations or casual questions about supply chain, where people assume you have answers that you couldn’t possibly have. So, Constantine, let me start with you. Have you had anybody ask you a funny question about supply chain that you could not remotely have the answer to based on what you actually do?

Constantine Limberakis (14:23):

Yeah. It’s crazy. People thinking like you’re going to know, you know, what’s going to happen next and you know, why are, why are all these things going on? I don’t know. It’s just such a hard question to answer, Kelly. It’s just – even, even trying to explain. I’ll tell you this. I think the key here is trying to explain to your college daughters what supply chain risk management is. That takes it to a whole other level. So, yeah. You know, I just try to make sure they understand that context, right? It’s like why is this stuff going on? And how do you manage that? Well, we use this AI tool and then you lost them. So, that’s kind of sometimes it happens.

Kelly Barner (15:02):

They just want to know Amazon package is, Constantine. They don’t actually want to know what’s happening off Long Beach. No, no, no. Just where’s my box. I just want to know where my package is.

Constantine Limberakis (15:09):

Exactly. I could attest to that. I had a set of boxes in my garage, five feet high by six feet wide, of Amazon boxes before they went off to college. So, absolutely spot on.

Kelly Barner (15:20):

How much you, Bill? Any funny questions you could not remotely have the answer to?

Bill DeMartino (15:24):

Well, mine was much closer to home. We were building a house and I failed in many capacities, which my wife didn’t understand. Our solution is supply chain risk management. And I try to employ risk management techniques by delaying the move out date where, to a point where I thought to be significant buffer. And then, when the house was further delayed because materials weren’t there, my wife turned to me and asked the supply chain failed. Why didn’t you pick up on that and help them? And why didn’t you employ proper risk management techniques? So, it was a challenging situation, my inability to answer those questions.

Scott Luton (16:05):

Bill, did you put together a PowerPoint and sit down and have a wrap-up call with your wife for that project?

Bill DeMartino (16:12):

It was more gifting, Scott, and things like that.

Scott Luton (16:16):

Okay. All right. Awesome, Bill.

Kelly Barner (16:18):

Smart end.

Scott Luton (16:19):

It is. So, Kelly, and I couldn’t imagine buying a house. When did that – if I could ask you one quick follow-up, when did that project wrap up, Bill, the house?

Bill DeMartino (16:28):

We wrapped up June of this year. Yeah.

Scott Luton (16:31):

I bet you could write a book on those, your experiences with that.

Bill DeMartino (16:35):

It was, it was painful.

Scott Luton (16:38):

All right. Well, moving right along from there, Kelly, to more around a deeper dive into risk management and what we’re seeing in supply chain and really beyond. So, where are we going next, Kelly?

Kelly Barner (16:51):

So, we’re actually going to talk about how risk management has or hasn’t changed. So, Bill, just to stay with you, how has the practice of risk management, not necessarily how we talk about it, but the actual practice of risk management, how has it changed over the last couple of years?

Bill DeMartino (17:07):

Yeah. So, I think the – I would say it’s been a gradual evolution and that a bang, and I think the change is historically everyone has been thinking about and doing different types of risk management techniques, right? It’s not like this is a new idea, but what’s changed is everyone is looking at more types of risks and looking at them for more entities. So, before was these are my key suppliers, I’m going to worry about financial health and maybe a little bit of compliance and that’ll be enough. And, now its threats can come from anywhere. Any one of my suppliers can stop my production line or impact my brand image so I need to basically expand everything at the same time, yet I’m not giving any more people or any more time to get that job done. So, now what do I do? And that’s I think the challenge that many folks are faced with right now.

Kelly Barner (17:58):

And it’s funny because even facing that new scope and scale of challenge, I know risk methods has done some research with Hackett Group and not a surprise, you know, almost 80% of people are still using Excel spreadsheets to attempt to manage risk in the supply chain, doesn’t scale particularly well. Have you seen a change in mindset towards bringing technology into that practice, or are we sort of like so much is changing, we’re just going to cling to those spreadsheets and refuse to embrace anything new?.

Bill DeMartino (18:28):

Yeah. So, I think the change is happening and it’s scale scope, but it’s also timeliness factor. How can I keep up with everything? I can’t do Google search 24/7 on 10,000 suppliers, sort through all the responses and find out what’s appropriate to me. And I can’t marry all of these threats that are going on around the globe with the impacts of my supply chain. And so, the straw that broke the camel’s back was undoubtedly the pandemic because the compounding risks and the connectedness of all of the threats. And so, technology is really the only chance we have. And as Constantine mentioned, you know, really using artificial intelligence to identify what’s relevant to you and specific to the actors or the entities in your supply chain is really part and parcel for how to go forward from here.

Kelly Barner (19:21):

Absolutely. But then, Constantine, where does that leave supply chain practitioners and risk managers, right? I mean, have people taking a shot to their confidence? What can people do to make sure that their confidence level is where it needs to be in order to handle what is going to continue to be an onslaught of supply chain risk issues for us to address?

Constantine Limberakis (19:43):

Yeah. That’s a great question. I think it kind of comes down to what your, or where you’re getting your information and, you know, the bottom line is, is if we think about our day-to-day routine, right, what are we doing? We’re looking at our phones or we’re reading articles constantly just imbibing all this stuff. Right? So, from a confidence standpoint, I would think it’s like, well, how do I make sure? And I think, Bill, you were into meeting at this a little bit, getting the right information that’s relevant so that I know that every time I go to that source or that technology, that it’s spot on and I’m not worrying about, “Oh, is this, is this the right data?” I mean, how often have we gone to like spreadsheets? Right? And you’re like, yeah, I think I want to go back and look at that and do another pivot table because that data doesn’t look right to me. Right?

Constantine Limberakis (20:29):

And I think that’s just it. It’s just the confidence. And I think this power of computing and, you know, we throw AI kind of cheaply around, but, you know, sometimes people think of it. It’s like, “What do I do? How do I manage it?” Well, that’s just it. It’s the power of the computing. It’s pulled it in. It’s pulled the data in it and it’s creating its relevance for me to go back to and say, “I trust this source. I want to keep going back to it ’cause that’s why I know that I’m going to go to it again.” And I think that that’s the confidence right there.

Scott Luton (20:56):

I love that. Hey, Kelly, really quick. Let me share a couple of quick comments before we keep on driving there. And with confidence, you can move mountains, especially if the confidence in the data [inaudible] Constantine, hey, especially if you got confidence in the data and there’s alignment in the data, right. I think the other challenge with spreadsheets to your point, Kelly, is everyone’s got one. And so, often times everyone’s got different data, right? And then, that leads to rabbit holes of kind of figuring out where everybody got their data from.

Scott Luton (21:22):

So, I want to share this from Stacy. “I agree with Bill. Risk management has been gradual and then a bang in the past two years. And now we’re scaling, scoping the risks in a much more wider perspective.” Jeff talks about having alternate models, kind of the what if, based on your region of operations and it’s great tools out there like supply chain guru. Peter says, “Repeat after me. Diversify your supplier base. Simple as that, a balanced portfolio will help you to keep you secure and then nurture those relationships.” One final one. Sylvia says, “You’re hitting the nail on the head. Confidence and AI solutions is going to be key.”

Scott Luton (21:57):

Okay. Kelly, no shortage. Constantine and Bill are really – everyone’s juice is going here. So, what are we going to talk with them about next?

Kelly Barner (22:08):

We’ll take our lead from our friend Peter Bolle. So, Constantine when it comes to suppliers, right, can we manage supply chain risk alone or is it more of a, you know, it takes a village kind of a thing to address the scale of the risks that we’re seeing now?

Constantine Limberakis (22:23):

Yeah. I think it, you know, always – it takes different approaches, right? I mean, you know, this taking a village is how coordinated is the village, right? You know, I think that’s part of the key. That’s been the big challenge is, is making sure that there’s an alignment and aligning around a common goal, aligning around what you’re trying to manage in terms of whether it’s resilience or just trying to manage the risks at hand. And I think that’s part of the challenge, right? Making sure you have a common way of talking lingua franca, if you will, across the board to say, this is what we’re doing, this is how we’re managing our supply chain processes. And, that I think is you need that baseline in order to really be able to create change and make sure that you’re not missing something that someone might be thinking in a tribal way, right, in their isolation. Having a common language I think is really critical.

Kelly Barner (23:12):

But to that point about sort of thinking tribally and I know this is an incredible procurement stereotype, but it’s an old one and a tested one for a reason. Especially when we’re under pressure, we have a tendency to think, I’m not sure how much I should discuss with my suppliers ’cause, you know, knowledge is power. And, if I say too much, then I’m going to undermine my future negotiating leverage, or I’m not going to seem like an as appealing of a business partner. How honest can we or should we be with suppliers when we’re trying to assess and address risk?

Constantine Limberakis (23:46):

Well, I think this is kind of this new normal and what you’re kind of hinting at it this thing with COVID right. This ability to share information is I think essential for just survival. It’s become this pivotal point where you can’t share everything all the time, but the ability to share a common language or common view of things and say, by me helping you, it’s going to help everybody else. And having the technology to do that and being able to have this collaborative approach now is I think really a part of that. And I think that’s changing the game and that’s really one of the things that we’re talking about here at riskmethod. It’s just taking this collaboration to a new level. And it’s not just saying, oh, I know something you don’t. It’s share this with me so we have an ability to be more impactful and ever present and the ability to be resilient.

Kelly Barner (24:37):

And, you actually had data to back this up, right? I mean that same research I was talking about before. Over a third of companies that implemented tools for supply chain risk management actually saw a correlated increase in supplier performance, not necessarily suppliers saying that they’re happier or that they consider them a customer choice, but performance measure really went up.

Kelly Barner (24:59):

So, Bill, when we think about that, do you think people in procurement and supply chain are doing a better job collaborating? I mean, for so long we’ve talked about supplier relationship management, right? As being SRM, non-supplier performance management relationships, we talk relationship, but we actually execute performance. Have we learned our lesson? I mean, are we really and truly getting more relational and having trust-based engagements with our suppliers now?

Bill DeMartino (25:29):

I think we’re learning it. I think we’ve gotten past middle school, maybe.

Kelly Barner (25:35):

Maybe. It depends on the day.

Bill DeMartino (25:37):

I think we’re not really given a choice anymore across a number of dimensions. One is technology is lifting the veil on all the data that we were trying to hide before and who all your suppliers are. There’s lots of different ways of trying to figure that out. Two is regulation and policy and compliance topics are mandating this level of sharing and transparency. And the fact that the top of the food chain organization is not responsible across the supply chain means that they have to cooperate, share, and trust.

Bill DeMartino (26:11):

And, we, if you look back at some of what happened when we went through the whole evolution of all the ESG topics, you saw a lot of people. I’m sorry. Larger organizations were empowering, teaching, training, measuring, assessing, setting expectations for their suppliers because they weren’t exactly sure what they needed to do. And that level of ownership and guidance and really, you know, leadership of the supply network I think is something that’s going to happen as well in the whole risk topic, which is what is expected? How do we cooperate? What should I be doing? I don’t have the resources and the knowledge and the expertise that you have. Maybe, you can help me to get there. And in so doing, we start to do this collaboration thing better than we were before.

Scott Luton (27:00):

I want to share a couple of quick comments here. You know, anytime you bring up spreadsheets, we get about 1800 comments, which I love. Dimitri though has a great comment. The use of spreadsheets can be tied closely to two factors, one the maturity of the risk program and, two, control the data and concerns around securities when dealing with third-party tools. This is from his experience. Great comment there, Dimitri.

Kelly Barner (27:23):

Thank you, Dimitri.

Scott Luton (27:25):

Definitely. Let’s see here. Jeff says strong push towards low cost country blinded some to risk of a single zone of supply. Global alternatives need to be cultivated and built, especially not overnight. It’s next to impossible. [Inaudible] that overnight, right?

Scott Luton (27:42):

Peter. I’m not sure if it was blinding or simply profit-driven by leadership. Make the money now and figured out later. But he’s seen it over and over again. Let’s push out the work this quarter and cover it the next quarter. I called it, Peter says, chasing the solution in the meeting and was admonished for it. I bet there’s a story there, Peter. Stupid is as stupid does. You will always have to pay the piper. Peter puts it as it is each and every time. Great to have you here, Peter and Jeff and Dimitri.

Scott Luton (28:10):

Okay. Kelly, always a lively conversation. I hate that we only have an hour with Bill and Constantine. I feel like we could build quite the masterpiece. There’s so much more here. But where are we going next related to our conversation with supply chain risk?

Kelly Barner (28:26):

Yes. So, I have one more question for these guys around collaboration before we kind of move on and start talking about actionable visibility. So, here’s the big question to me. Things are starting to go a little bit more back to normal. We’re still dealing with supply chain disruptions and challenges, but at least in terms of a COVID impact, things are starting to kind of roll again. How can we start to relax a little bit? Because you can’t sustain that sort of panic response all the time. How can we start to relax a little bit without letting our guard down or going back to old practices? Right. So, Bill, some of these habits like we talked about with being clingy around information or not wanting to have to trust those supply relationships, how can we guard against going back to old habits? Any advice there?

Bill DeMartino (29:11):

Yeah. I think learning lessons might help. So, you know, one of the topics that I hear over and over again from our customers was the success of the war room concept. And what does that mean? And, we’ve been successful mitigating disruptions and limiting the impact. And, why is that? You know, there’s a couple of reasons and, you know, we call this the prepared will prevail, keeping on the P and clearly preparedness is a big part of it.

Bill DeMartino (29:35):

But if you look under the covers of why these war rooms are so successful is you’ve brought together all of the stakeholders that need to be aligned to make decisions to make them quickly. And that is knocking down organizational barriers. It’s establishing that common source of truth that Constantine talked about, so that you all can decide on. This is the situation that we’re in. This is the mitigation strategy that we’re going to employ, and now let’s go and act. And, if you can achieve that alignment and keep that alignment going forward in terms of a structured approach to the topic and the planning, you’re going to be in much better shape.

Scott Luton (30:13):

Decision-making –

Bill DeMartino (30:14):

Build those relationships later.

Scott Luton (30:16):

Yeah. Decision-making velocity. The things that you’re speaking to right there allows you to move faster with more confidence that you’re going to be making the writer, the best decisions on the best aligned data that folks feel good about. So, I love that example, Bill.

Kelly Barner (30:33):

Constantine, any additional thoughts on how we don’t relapse? How we cannot go back to those old habits?

Constantine Limberakis (30:39):

Well, I think if COVID has taught us anything, it’s just that, you know, how fragile everything is at the incidence. And one thing that I remember seeing a statistic back in 20, was at 2019, and they looked at this data point, I forgot who it was. And it basically said, what do you think is as big as the disruption that’s going to happen? And it was like, you know, earthquake and global warming and all this stuff and way at the bottom was a pandemic. It’s like pandemic.

Kelly Barner (31:05):

Interesting.

Constantine Limberakis (31:06):

It’s like, we’re not, you know, Black Plague. It’s not 1300. It doesn’t, you know, none of that happens anymore. Right? Who would have thought? So, I think the lessons learned is, is just the fragility of things and how connected we have to be in terms of just understanding and constantly being in tune with what’s going on, just understanding the relationships, not only that are through the technology, but just human relationships and how are we maintaining these through these kinds of digital technologies like we’re, you know, engaging in here. And, I think that’s the other lesson. It’s just truly taking, going a step beyond just trying to hide behind a screen and really understanding that it’s that much harder. So, I think that’s the lesson we’ve also learned is that you still need those human dynamics.

Scott Luton (31:50):

I love that. And, you know, earlier in his response, Kelly, Constantine mentioned the word fragility. And, I’ll tell you, I love that word and love using that word rather than resilience, as we’ve talked about a lot here at Supply Chain Now, especially Greg. But I can’t help every time I hear the word fragile and fragility, I think of the Christmas story, which is going to be played a thousand times now in the end of the year.

Kelly Barner (32:14):

You mean Fra-gee-lay?

Scott Luton (32:16):

Yes. That classic story. That’s where my mind goes each and every time. And, Peter, thank you for picking up on my misstatements here. Yes. Writer or the bestest decisions. We talk in the King’s English, I guess. All right. So, a lot of good stuff –

Bill DeMartino (32:31):

Maybe, one quick add to this ’cause I’m going back to the days when Kelly and I were working together. And if you look at the evolution we – all the comments have been about low cost country sourcing and diversification. Look at the evolution of the procurement function started off as basically really starting to get strategic when were doing sourcing events and we were totally focused on cost. And, we’ve gone through a TCO and a total value and now the biggest lesson learned is to factor in the cost of risk in your decisions. This is the ultimate lesson to ensure that your decisions include the cost of risk.

Constantine Limberakis (33:10):

And how do you define that risk? That’s –

Scott Luton (33:13):

Yes. That last comment is not only a massive [inaudible], but, Kelly, I think that is one of the biggest takeaways of folks have to take in and take away from this conversation, right? Because it’s not just a couple of things as Constantine mentioned, when it comes to risk. It’s how your organizations, how your leadership, how your shareholders, whatever, how they define that risk because while there might be some common elements from organization to organization it’s probably a lot of very unique elements to how we define risk. Right?

Kelly Barner (33:45):

Yeah. And I think that is partially the power of that war room concept, Bill, right? Part of it is in aligning everyone around what you can see and how you’re making decisions and breaking down silos. But part of it is back to that point of confidence that we’ve talked about and whether you’re collaborating with other functional decision-makers or whether you’re actually working in a trust-based setting with suppliers. You can in fact do more when you don’t feel like you’re addressing a problem alone. I think that’s incredibly important.

Scott Luton (34:13):

Excellent point. I completely agree. Baptize me in the first church of Kelly Barner ’cause you’re making some great, excellent point. So, where are we – but we’re going to be moving into visibility, right? Visibility with Bill and Constantine.

Scott Luton (34:27):

And, before we do that, I want to mention Dr. Rhonda Bompensa-Zimmerman is back with us here today. She was with us yesterday on that cyber, that digital transformers version of the Supply Chain Buzz. But we’re having some commenting issues. So, Rhonda we’ll look into that. Between all the different platforms, sometimes we’ve seen some LinkedIn snafus. So, hang in there, keep it calm and hope this finds you well out in Arizona.

Scott Luton (34:50):

Okay. So Kelly, Reverend Kelly Barner, where are we going next with Bill and Constantine?

Kelly Barner (34:57):

So we are going to talk about visibility and why it’s important, but it’s not enough. So, first quick procurement terminology primer, we hear all the time. People don’t love our terminology. So, when we talk about getting multi-tiered visibility, right, your first tier suppliers are your suppliers. They are the suppliers you pay and they give you stuff. Tier two is your supplier’s suppliers. And it goes on and on and on. When you want to talk about everybody, it’s the nth tier, right? Just using n as a placeholder.

Kelly Barner (35:27):

So, Constantine, we keep pushing, we want deeper visibility. I want to know all the way back to the mine if it’s metals, back to the source, right, if it’s something being manufactured and kit it up. We’re so focused on getting this visibility, but ultimately the value is in what we do with that visibility. So, how can companies and teams start to make the leap from focusing to compile all this information and drill down and be able to see to actually being able and willing to act upon it?

Constantine Limberakis (35:57):

Yeah. That’s the million dollar question, right. Like, what –

Kelly Barner (36:02):

But you’re going to answer it for us. That’s why we’re all here, Constantine. No pressure.

Constantine Limberakis (36:07):

Multimillion-dollar question. Well, you know, we’ve been asked that. You know, this is the question that’s coming up a lot, right, about nth tier, multi-tiered, how far down do you want to go? At what point does that just become nonsense? Like, it’s just – you just can’t go that far. And I think it comes down to the question, the question that you’re trying to answer. What is it that you’re looking for? And I think I was alluding to this before in terms of what you want to share and what you want to get so that you have some type of relevance to how far down is this channel do you want to go? And I don’t think we’ve really even solved that because this is not only a supply chain question. This has become a question behind regulation.

Constantine Limberakis (36:48):

You know, when you were guys were hinting at it earlier about, you know, the human rights aspects, and you’re talking about, you know, I need to know where the tin tank, tungsten, tantalum and gold are with this conflict minerals. You know, have we really figured that out? Well, what is it that you’re trying to understand and allude to? So, you know, the way we look at it is it kind of goes back again to, you know, understanding what is it that other party will get it. You know, you could go off on your own. Like, today you can go off on your own and try to map everything and try to think that you have that figured out through business entities. I know Bill and I have talked about this. How do you look at through those structures, but at the same time, what’s actually real and how real are those supply chains and what are you really trying to track and what’s the relevance of that? And it goes back then to knowing where those relationships are and what that really means to you.

Constantine Limberakis (37:38):

So, again, how and why? There’s a lot of different ways to approach it. And, I think it goes back to knowing what’s the goal? What’s the goal? And you try and attract that into your – you know, for manufacturing companies, it’s going to be very different than say a services based company and you can’t do it at that same level. And so, I don’t think in the end, I don’t know if I can provide one answer to that. And I think it really, it goes back to it depends. I don’t know. Bill, maybe you could also take an allusion to that question ’cause that’s a loaded one, right?

Bill DeMartino (38:07):

Yes. That’s what he does. He passes the problem [inaudible].

Kelly Barner (38:11):

I actually think he made the question harder.

Bill DeMartino (38:13):

He did. So, my take on it is I think about it from a category perspective, right? The scope here is too large for us to have a broad this is the way you should do it. But I think organizations need to figure out, unfortunately, category by category, what is their risk appetite? What level of visibility do I need? Where do I want to invest my scarce resources on managing? And you even trying to get visibility is the first task I think, right. As opposed to saying, you know, I’ve had a couple of folks say to me I just want to [inaudible] visibility. Can you give me that? So I can check the box for my board.

Kelly Barner (38:48):

That I have it, right.

Bill DeMartino (38:49):

And I’m thinking to myself, well, that’s not probably the right approach because you’re not going to really accomplish anything yet, but I can check the box. In some categories, it does make sense to go really deeply. If it comes down to five minds, though, it’s not about mapping the supply chain. You know what the five minds are. You can figure that out. You put them in into your systems and your solutions and you watch them.

Bill DeMartino (39:12):

I think we just, Constantine and I actually just spent some time with Forester doing a webinar. And we talked about 76% of the threats to disruption are going to be at tier one or tier two. So, that kind of gives you a sense for where you should focus most of your energies at least initially. Because once you get deeper than that, you’re basically looking at industry maps, right? There’s no sense of relevance, especially if you start getting into high tech and you work in some distributors and then some value added resellers and all of a sudden things get really, really messy.

Bill DeMartino (39:46):

But so, I mean, my advice really is to figure out where you want to invest your efforts and this is an opportunity for collaboration. Because, really, it’s only your tier one suppliers that can tell you who in the tier two is really most relevant to you and impactful for what’s going on. And then, from there, I think there’s a lot of different ways that we can generate additional visibility. We have to think about, do we have the resources and the time to be able to manage and to do anything with that information as well.

Scott Luton (40:18):

Yeah. Hey, Kelly, I’m going to –

Kelly Barner (40:19):

Go ahead, Scott. Yeah.

Scott Luton (40:21):

Interject really quick. I want to point out. We’ve heard a lot about this 60 minutes piece on freight expectations. I think it was maybe Sunday night or maybe over the weekend, and we’ve heard a lot and Sylvia points out again, talks about how it drilled down the current crisis in our global supply chain and the tendency to finger point, right, rather than collectively finding a means to navigate there through the rough seas. So, thanks for bringing that to our attention. Once again, I’ll check it up this evening. Andy, going back to the question just a moment ago. It is the million-dollar question, the trilliod-dollar question. What do we do with the data? We pay all this money to collect it, but what do we do with it? Right?

Scott Luton (41:02):

And Peter says, “Working towards the best solution for your organization that meets the business needs at the time. Nothing is ever perfect. Making a decision is what is needed.” Okay. Good stuff there.

Scott Luton (41:17):

All right. So, Kelly, where are we next with Bill and Constantine here?

Kelly Barner (41:23):

I’m actually going back before we go forward, because I think, Bill, what you just shared is so important. Actually, feel like we need to say it again. Share that statistic about what percent of the risks are in tier one and tier two.

Bill DeMartino (41:34):

About 76%.

Kelly Barner (41:36):

So, I think when I think about what that actually means, right, ’cause we’re going to live by our own rules or we’re going to not just be impressed by this statistic, which we are, but we’re going to make it actionable. What you’re actually saying is that three quarters of the time, the risk is a heck of a lot closer to us than we think. So if we get distracted, right, by saying, well, which mine, right? It’s we may be building out more complexity for ourselves than we actually need. So, it’s about, you know, what do they say? Some huge percentage of accidents actually happened within like two miles of your house and people are always shocked to hear that. That same principle kind of applies here, which on the one hand is very empowering because at tier one and tier two, there’s an awful lot companies can do to partner with their suppliers.

Kelly Barner (42:22):

But on the other hand, it means there’s an awful lot we need to be doing to partner with our suppliers to mitigate these risks. Right? I think that is a huge piece of data that it’s a lot closer to us. We think, oh, global and we think ports and we think all this stuff, you know, container ships and everything. But tier one and two, I mean, that’s close. And so it really is. Like you said about on a category basis, making those decisions and setting those priorities, getting the visibility and acting on it. I’m going to jump ahead, Scott, if anybody takes anything away from this it’s most of the risks are so much closer to home than any of us think.

Scott Luton (43:01):

Agreed, agreed. So, are we good? Can I move forward? ‘Cause I know I want to pick both Constantine’s and Bill’s brain around companies who are just starting their formal risk management program. Can I go ahead and share that?

Kelly Barner (43:16):

Yeah. Absolutely.

Scott Luton (43:01):

Okay. So, you know, it’s hard to imagine any company just now starting their risk management journey, but I bet there’s companies, and of course are startups and early stage companies, but I bet a lot of companies in my hunch, I’ll defer to the experts, that risk management for them may have been more informal up until recent years. And then, they figured out how to really bake it into their overall strategy in a very formal way. But that’s just my hunch, Constantine and Bill. Constantine, what advice would you give regardless to leaders and companies that are just starting their formal and, you know, building out that formal risk management program?

Constantine Limberakis (43:56):

I think the first thing I would tell them is get an inventory of where you think all those things are. I think that, you know, different risks that we were – I think we were alluding to this before. How are you defining risks? It depends and it’s in the eye of the beholder risk to a contract person is going to be in the contract. It’s going to be in the force majeure. Risk to a procurement person might be in the supply relationship. Risk to a CFO is going to be, you know, am I going to hit my numbers? Are we going to hit the revenue targets? So, those are all the different aspects that are defining risks.

Constantine Limberakis (44:26):

So, I think one of the best ways, and we’re seeing this market evolve is that there’s a lot of different information about your supply base in your business partners out there. Take a good inventory of what you’re currently using and then understand where you think you need to put some finality to it. And it kind of goes back to, well, where are you going to start? Well, how do I know when a risk occurs because you got to make sure. You know, how am I gathering that information? How am I mitigating that? And how do I take that straight through? And I think if you could do that, that’ll help you understand where you need to fill in those gaps. Sometimes that gap might be, I just don’t have the right process in place because I can’t communicate with the right survey with the supplier. How are we serving our suppliers? In other cases, it might even just be, we don’t even have a common view or map of where our suppliers are based.

Constantine Limberakis (45:17):

So I think that that’s key to get them started. And then you’ll start to see where those elements are that are inefficient, that will then give you and convey to you what you need to do better. And I can guarantee you one of those biggest problems are you going to keep seeing is harnessing all that information and putting all that data that you’re hearing about your suppliers into one place to say what is it, when there’s a risk that occurs, what do I need to do? Who’s taken action on that? And I think that would – that’s another way to start.

Scott Luton (45:42):

Excellent advice, practical advice there, Constantine. Bill, what would you add to that?

Bill DeMartino (45:46):

So, I think in the end, it’s all about culture change and the whole idea and concept is as opposed to being an afterthought, it’s just an integral part to all of the decision-making that’s happening, right? Risk management is not a standalone thing. It really needs to be a part of supplier onboarding and awarding decision. It needs to be part of the ongoing relationship management. And we’re actually starting to see it bubbling up on to the sales side of the house. It’s now part of how you position and sell yourselves to your customers.

Bill DeMartino (45:19):

So to me, there’s different ways that you can ensure that this culture change happens. Different techniques, establishing a source of truth that Constantine talked about helps people because it gives them a common language. One of the techniques that we’ve seen that’s been like super successful is you tell the category teams that we’re going to take this risk measurement. And if your category has a certain threshold, you have to prepare a presentation to the head of supply chain, the head of the business unit, and explain why the configuration of supply chain is the way it is and what you’re going to do about it. And, I’ll tell you what, you’ll never see people become more proactive in your life to avoid that presentation.

Bill DeMartino (47:00):

But, you know, we’re really talking about changing a little bit job responsibilities and expectations. All of those things will really help to move the organization forward. But in order to do that, you need to have a common way to measure it. We all know that we can’t really affect change unless we can see that the change is actually having an impact. So, we have a have a common measurement so that we can then see what we’re doing and be able to keep people accountable for it.

Scott Luton (47:26):

I love that. You know, one of the common things I think we’ll have throughout this conversation here today is back to definition. You know, what it is, how we measure it to both of your points. You know, Charles Kettering, I think once said a problem well stated is half solved or something like that. And, you know, if we don’t know what we’re after, you know, we’re not going to – we’re certainly not going to end up across the finish line as if there is ever a finish line in the constant risk management chase.

Scott Luton (47:51):

But, Bill, as a follow-up, let’s talk about commitment, right. Commitment. So, what kind of commitment would you say companies should expect to make before their confidence level reaches that place that they want it to be?

Bill DeMartino (48:06):

So, I think right now we’re going to continue to tread water with the situation that we’re in. Right? I mean, there’s really no – there’s no way around that. So, there’s going to have to be a committed effort to stay afloat, but it’s time to start diverting some resources to preparing for the future. And, you know, people have to allocate time and make it a priority. And, I think what we’re talking about is a reshuffling of time, right? So, instead of spending two X time later on mitigating the challenge, we’re going to put in a little bit less time but it’s going to be an investment, right? This is – now we’re talking about making an investment. So, instead of buying maybe the new tool for the plant as an investment, in this case we’re going to invest in people’s time and make their preparedness and the collaboration and all of those things part of what we’re doing right now. That’s the commitment that has to be there. And, obviously, that’s got to come from the top-down in order to relieve those people of their other priorities to make that something that’s important to the organization.

Scott Luton (49:10):

Love that. All right. So, we’re going to make sure folks know how to connect with Constantine and Bill and riskmethods in just a minute. Kelly, I think we also want to mention a white paper that we want to put out there as a resource to folks. But if I can ask one more question, dumb question as the non-risk management expert in the formal discipline sense, right, with Constantine and Bill, when it comes to like a maturity model as y’all kind of assess organizations, expertise and overall success, I guess, of where they are in the current state, can you shed any light on that? How you identify the companies you work with, you know, where they are, whether they’re brand new, like we’re talking about a second ago, into establishing a formal risk management, or if they’re, you know, they’ve been doing it for years? Could you add any commentary there? Bill, let’s start with you.

Bill DeMartino (49:59):

Yeah. That’s actually a topic of passion for me. So, we’re not a consulting company, but we have developed what we call our own maturity model for supply chain risk management. And, the idea that we’ve really cultivated, it’s not about maturity, but it’s about understanding what are leading practices out there and whatever ones that make sense for my business that I should adopt. And, the concept is we want to think in terms of visibility. We want to think in terms of resilience. And then, what we’ve learned is you have to get your house in order. But once you have your house in order, what does it mean in terms of, I know you might not like it, Scott, but what does it mean in terms of network resilience? And, how can I foster my network, my ecosystem to think more holistically about this topic? Because in the end, I can’t fix everything myself. And if I try to, I will go out of business. So, how can I foster the right mindset, the right capabilities and the right tools across my supply ecosystem?

Scott Luton (51:04):

I love it. And I love it. Your first part of the answer, which I think is gold. It doesn’t matter how mature or how long you’ve been doing it. If it’s not working, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. All right. So, one last comment on Bill’s reflections there, Constantine, before we make sure folks know that I connect with you. Anything to add?

Constantine Limberakis (51:23):

I would basically say that, you know, whatever he said is said. I had to figure out the technology there.

Scott Luton (51:32):

Yes. Hey, join the crowd. We’re all figuring it out, aren’t we? Kelly.

Constantine Limberakis (51:35):

[Inaudible] awesome like a roadrunner.

Bill DeMartino (51:37):

There you go.

Scott Luton (51:40):

What a delight. Time to move into the new year. The threats abound the definition of what risks are, is just, we’re going to be dedicating full pages of the Funk and Wagnalls dictionary to risk before we blink. But, Kelly, a lot of good stuff here. Let’s make sure folks know how to connect with Bill and Constantine. Bill, how can folks connect with you?

Bill DeMartino (52:03):

I’m out there. So, yeah, obviously, anyone could reach out to me on LinkedIn. I love to have dialogues and conversations and I look forward to meeting with folks and connecting from this session.

Scott Luton (52:17):

Wonderful. So connect with Bill on LinkedIn. Of course, you can also visit riskmethods.

Kelly Barner (52:22):

I actually picked that up. Constantine, how would you like people to reach out? One of these days, somebody is actually going to say like carrier pigeon or telegram. So, I’m going to go out on a limb and guess LinkedIn. But just to confirm, how should folks get in touch with you?

Constantine Limberakis (52:37):

LinkedIn, Twitter, snail mail, email, if you don’t want to go too far back, but, yeah, absolutely.

Bill DeMartino (52:45):

You’re in the middle of the country. So, you’re easy to get to if they want to come to you.

Constantine Limberakis (52:48):

Railroad, you know, Chicago. Yeah, sure. Everybody come on over.

Kelly Barner (52:54):

And just ’cause we lost Scott as he was sharing it, I know we’ve been sharing the link to the white paper throughout. The web address for riskmethods is?

Constantine Limberakis (53:02):

www.riskmethods.net.

Kelly Barner (53:06):

Perfect. That net part I wanted to check on.

Constantine Limberakis (53:07):

Dot net.

Kelly Barner (53:08):

That is awesome. Well, thank you both so much you guys for being with me today. You’re both old friends. It was terrific to have you on Dial P. I appreciate your time. And, thanks again to everybody else who joined us for the livestream.

Bill DeMartino (53:21):

Thank you, Kelly.

Constantine Limberakis (53:22):

Thank you, Kelly. It’s a pleasure.

Bill DeMartino (53:23):

We miss your ready.

Constantine Limberakis (53:24):

Yes. Have a great Thanksgiving. Thank you.

Kelly Barner (53:27):

Same to you, guys.

Intro/Outro (53:27):

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.