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.

As a girls’ basketball coach, Mike knows the sport inside and out, and we all know he is an expert on all things supply chain. So we decided to put the two together and see if Mike can provide some insights on the ‘bracket busters’ facing the supply chain world (and pick up a tip or two for our March Madness brackets as well!).

In this episode, which was created as part of a Supply Chain Now livestream, Mike shares his winning advice with co-hosts Greg White and Kelly Barner:

• An example of a supply chain strategy that looked “final four” but went out in the first round
• The supply chain philosophies and approaches that best weathered the storms of the last two years
• How to know when to make a change in the face of disruption and when to hold tight and follow the plan
• An early peek at the how the companies being evaluated for this year’s Gartner Supply Chain Top 25 are handling macro events

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 introduced Stay tuned to hear from those making global business happen right here on supply chain. Now,

Kelly Barner (00:32):

Hi, everybody. Welcome to today’s supply chain now livestream Kelly Barner, and Greg White here with you. How you doing today, Greg?

Greg White (00:39):

I’m doing great. It’s great to be back together with you again, Kelly.

Kelly Barner (00:44):

I know, and we are actually bringing in Mike Griswold in a few minutes for his monthly return, which will be a fun conversation. Um, just to sort of tease the theme behind today’s discussion. We’re gonna be talking a little bit of March madness, bracket breakers. It’s one of those few things you don’t actually have to know anything about sports to play. Right? You can do it based on what’s your favorite city, which one is the most fun to pronounce? We had a lot of fun with Gonzaga back when you were in the, in the green room. Um, so we’re gonna favorite

Greg White (01:14):

Colors,

Kelly Barner (01:15):

Right? Yeah. Favorite team colors. Exactly. Do you know somebody that went to any of the schools? Uh, because everybody’s brackets seemed to BR right off the right off the bat, are you a big bracket play guy, Greg?

Greg White (01:26):

I, you know, I should be, I, I love the game, but uh, no, I, you know, I hate to lose, so I,

Kelly Barner (01:34):

So why play

Greg White (01:35):

Right. Kind of that kind of that, uh, you know, when somebody’s offering you a billion dollars or whatever it is for a perfect bracket, how, how unbelievably difficult it is, right?

Kelly Barner (01:46):

Yes, absolutely. So we’re gonna talk through some of that, although more on the supply chain side than the basketball side. So don’t wanna get anybody too excited.

Greg White (01:55):

Well, with Mike here, we will definitely get some basketball talk in. We will,

Kelly Barner (01:58):

We’re gonna lace that in a little bit chain.

Greg White (02:00):

Yeah,

Kelly Barner (02:01):

Exactly. No. Before we bring Mike in a couple of quick programming notes for anybody that has not yet checked out the nomination opportunities around the supply chain and procurement awards, April 1st is our deadline. So we’ve got everything from technology trailblazers to unsung heroes. It’s actually gonna be a fantastic opportunity to celebrate the best that supply in and procurement have brought out. And we’ve heard an awful lot of great success stories over the last couple of years. Yeah. So let’s take some time to celebrate those, get your nominations in and slightly shorter term next week, over at art of procurement. My other hat that I wear, we’re running digital outcomes Tuesday through Thursday, uh, a couple of hours each day. It’s lot. It’s virtual. It’s completely free. So you have no excuses. There won’t be brackets or a billion dollars, but great speakers, great focus on digital outcomes. So I hope to see everybody there,

Greg White (02:55):

Maybe a billion dollar outcome from it. You never

Kelly Barner (02:58):

Know maybe a billion dollar outcome. Exactly. And maybe you don’t get to keep it, but maybe it’s good for your career to deliver a billion dollar outcome. Right?

Greg White (03:06):

That’s right. Chalk that chalk won up for you. That’s right.

Kelly Barner (03:10):

Exactly. So adding that to the list of things to do today, deliver a billion dollar outcome. Just putting that on the list somewhere after lunch, mid afternoon, during quiet billion dollars. But before we bring Mike in, let’s say hello to a few folks, somebody we’re missing today. Oh, Scott had better luck on the roulette table than he did with his brackets.

Greg White (03:31):

Wow. Well that tells you a lot table. Its tough

Kelly Barner (03:37):

Too. Absolutely does. So sorry. You’re not here on screen Scott, but we’ll, we’ll try to do you justice. And we also have Josh here with us. Hello, Josh. Now, as everybody says hello from all over the world, including Pakistan, which is very cool. Don’t hesitate to share any little tips or how you make decisions. If you do brackets, either with family are in the office, we’re gonna be pulling up some of those. And we have got gene from France. We have people from all over the place with us here today.

Greg White (04:10):

So Josh, it seems like every time Josh reaches out to us, Kelly it’s raining. So when he says slightly less rainy, I think that might be a good thing because he was in a, they use, if I recall the last time we, we heard from him. So

Kelly Barner (04:23):

That tells you everything you need to know about somebody’s weather slightly less rainy. It’s true. You know, somebody asked me how the weather here in Boston was today. And I said, we have some good melting,

Greg White (04:36):

Good

Kelly Barner (04:37):

Tell you, I don’t say like sunny in the lower cause that sounds depressing to people who live in Florida say, oh, we got some good melting going on outside the window.

Greg White (04:48):

It’s tough this time of year. Because you know, when you’re farther in the Southern part of the us, uh, like today it’s gonna be 75 or something like that in Atlanta. And yes, uh, you really forget it. I mean, until you watch the weather channel or something, you really forget what the weather is like up north and how significantly different it can be when you used to drive everywhere.

Kelly Barner (05:11):

That’s right.

Greg White (05:12):

You know, you got the point now that you can fly two hours from Atlanta to Boston. I, I had have to confess many years ago. I got in a bit of a hurry. I forgot to take an overcoat.

Kelly Barner (05:24):

Oh yeah. That is a classic mistake coming in.

Greg White (05:28):

Yep.

Kelly Barner (05:28):

Yeah. But see, this is where I think we need to add more to these conversations around weather. We need to be sort of like what’s your pest forecast cause anybody that’s ever talked to me about the weather knows that my way I process all that is to say, yeah, but we don’t have to Angelas or alligators. I would rather have a snowstorm with a nice day of melting than have tarantulas and alligators all day. And I just, I assume I don’t care if you’re in Austin, Texas, or Tallahassee, Florida or Atlanta, Georgia. I just assume your backyards are all full of tarantulas alligators. That, that goes a long way towards feeling better about dealing with snow storms

Greg White (06:02):

In the winter. Let’s we’re gonna let you have it. So you don’t feel so bad about the warm weather down here.

Kelly Barner (06:07):

There you go. Well, before we lose anybody who has a RA phobia, let’s go ahead and swish in Mike Griswold from Gartner. Hey Mike, how are you? Hey

Greg White (06:19):

Mike, Hey

Mike Griswold (06:20):

Everybody.

Greg White (06:21):

How’s the weather where you are.

Kelly Barner (06:22):

Yeah, exactly. And what bugs are in your backyard?

Mike Griswold (06:24):

So we Idaho doesn’t have, we have snakes, we have rattlesnakes, but for the most part, those are not where, where the people are. Weather here is nice. Greg wife. And I went out and golfed yesterday gonna be 60 today. Um, so yeah, we are starting to, uh, to start to turn the corner. Uh, every year I have to mow my lawn before my birthday, which is at the end of March. And I’m on schedule for that, uh, as well too. Really?

Greg White (06:49):

Yes.

Mike Griswold (06:49):

Yeah. I, my, my lawn mowing season is, uh, end of March through probably Halloween.

Greg White (06:55):

Wow. Yes.

Mike Griswold (06:57):

Yep.

Kelly Barner (06:57):

That’s a not too far off from Boston. Yeah.

Greg White (07:01):

You get a little bit of a break.

Kelly Barner (07:04):

Well, Ben

Greg White (07:05):

Boise is a, is a bit of a unique, uh, climate. Isn’t it? It is. You don’t get the heavy snows and whatnot

Mike Griswold (07:13):

Expects. I’m not a skier. So Boise itself, uh, which sits in the, in, uh, the base of a mountain range, but we see itself, we might get 20 inches a year. We have a, a climate very similar to Phoenix. You know, we’ll have 12, 13 days over a hundred, but that’s like a hundred, five. It’s not like a hundred and you know, 160,000 degrees that they get in Phoenix. So it’s, uh, it’s manageable, low humidity. So, which is bad add for me because I grew up in Western New York and now when it gets above 20%, I start to wh so I’ve yeah. I’ve I was spoil I’m spoiled here now. I mean, I grew up, I mean, similar to your well weather Kelly, you know, 85 degrees and 90% humidity was our summers. Yes. So

Kelly Barner (07:58):

Exactly.

Mike Griswold (07:59):

I I’ve gotten soft when it comes to humidity. I’m afraid,

Kelly Barner (08:03):

But not soft, hopefully when it comes to basketball. Oh no. And so we’re gonna do some, some bracket breaking today. Um, before we get into the actual supply chain talk, any tips, you know, we were asking before you joined us on screen, if people have fun ways that they decide who’s gonna in, cuz we know it has nothing to do with normal season results or basketball skills or money that the school has or likelihood of winning any unique approach that you have to filling out your bracket.

Mike Griswold (08:31):

So like, like Greg, I I’m a fairly serious bracket, filler outer. Uh, and I’m also of the belief that you get to submit one bracket. You know, these people that

Greg White (08:42):

Had

Mike Griswold (08:43):

Six, it’s like, it’s still hard, but there’s a lot of different bases you can cover with more than one bracket. My favorite picking technique though, was what mascot could be, what other mascot? So if you were like the, I think it’s the UC Davis, sea SLS, you had no chance, right. Everyone was gonna beat you. But if you were like, you know, a lion or a bear or the, you know, LSU tigers, right. You know, you do pretty well until you got into people that had firearms like U mass musketeer, you know, savior, Musketeers people with firearms Cowboys. So yeah, it really just depends on, on how literally do you wanna take the mascots?

Kelly Barner (09:24):

Yeah, no, that’s true. Well, I’m married into the Penn state cult call it cult. Oh boy. It’s um, and so exactly so, but my children were all trained when they heard right. Buckeye. Oh yeah. It’s just a nut that falls from a tree. Yes. Right. So maybe could, could a Buckeye like roll onto a sea slug. That would be a really tough

Mike Griswold (09:45):

One. That would be a tough

Kelly Barner (09:45):

One. If you had to use that in your bracket. Yes.

Mike Griswold (09:48):

Yes.

Greg White (09:49):

Well then you got the ones that are really hard to predict like a bill can,

Mike Griswold (09:54):

Right? Yes.

Kelly Barner (09:54):

Which, what is that?

Mike Griswold (09:55):

It’s a bird, it’s a

Greg White (09:56):

Goat.

Mike Griswold (09:56):

It’s a goat like

Kelly Barner (09:58):

Pelican.

Mike Griswold (09:59):

I thought it was a,

Greg White (10:00):

We got a conflict here. Yeah.

Mike Griswold (10:01):

I dunno. Whatever it is. It’s different. You don’t hear it a whole lot.

Greg White (10:06):

I’m gonna have to look it up now, look it up. I thought it was a, like a mountain goat kind of thing. Okay. I’m sure somebody is gonna have someone

Mike Griswold (10:13):

Will know the answer to that.

Greg White (10:15):

Yeah,

Kelly Barner (10:16):

Exactly. Somebody that went to whatever school either has something that looks like a Pelican or something that St.

Mike Griswold (10:21):

Louis, right. St. Louis bill agains

Greg White (10:24):

BIS All right. Yep. The bill is a charmed doll. So

Mike Griswold (10:31):

I think we’re

Greg White (10:32):

So, so you can’t, so that one doesn’t win. That’s like, if you were the, uh, so and so state fuzzy babies or something like that. Right.

Mike Griswold (10:42):

You might get some sentimental votes, but yeah. Other than that, no.

Kelly Barner (10:45):

All right. Well

Greg White (10:46):

Interesting. Yeah.

Kelly Barner (10:47):

The goal right of brackets and, you know, we were talking about potentially being able to win a, a million dollars, but if you can get to the final four and still have your bracket intact, that is, is a yes. Pretty huge deal almost as big a deal as being in the final four. So let’s kind of flip this over to supply chain. Mike, as we look back at all the disruption and unpredictability we’ve had over the last couple of years, when we think about some final four strategies or predictions for final four, what were those things should have worked, should have made it to the final four, but actually crept out in the first

Mike Griswold (11:22):

Round. Yeah, there there’s one, as I was thinking about, about that question, there’s one that, that we’ve talked a lot about. Now, you, you could potentially put an asterisk next to this one because of the pandemic. But I also think people were thinking about this before the pandemic and that’s this idea of just in time. I think what we found during the pandemic was just in time, got kicked out in the first round, up until the pandemic, just in time, you know, what was, was kind of the way people were thinking about how they wanted to manage inventory primarily because they had a much more predictable demand signal. The pandemic comes, the demand signal is all over the place, if it or even non-existent right, depending on what you were selling and what channel you had. And, and people found that just in time now meant basically no stuff.

Mike Griswold (12:15):

So, and it would be interesting to see as we come out of the pandemic, the way we’re headed now, will we revert to something that looks like just in time or have people evolved their thinking to say, you know what we need need inventory to, to, to be more responsive, to be more agile, to be more resilient. And we just have to carry some more stuff. Now, maybe we don’t need to carry it at the levels we carried at pre pandemic. Right. You know, I, I never met a retailer who wasn’t over assorted or had way too much inventory. Right. In fact, as we were coming into the pandemic, we had a lot of our retailer and consumer products companies talking to us about skew rationalization. Right. If you recall, very early in the pandemic, you know, we, we saw dramatic changes in choice, right? You may have been had four choices of ketchup. Now you had two, you know, I think there was a hope from us in the analyst community that, that we would use this as an opportunity to kinda rightsize our portfolios. I think unfortunately what’s happened is we’ve started to see and hear some of that skew lation start to come back. So to me, it’s, it’s that just into time concept is the one that I think pre pandemic, everyone saw is a slam dunk. If I use a basketball metaphor and I think, oh,

Greg White (13:43):

That was pretty good.

Mike Griswold (13:44):

Yeah. I, I, I stayed up all night thinking of that one, but, but now I, I think people are asking themselves the question, what is the right inventory strategy and, and how do we, how do we adopt that moving forward?

Kelly Barner (14:00):

Yeah. Well, and Greg, you actually had a, a story in your, your curation of stories this morning, specifically around retail and the debt, right. That companies are gonna be willing to carry. And that a little bit goes along with that just in time, because if you, it come completely changed your strategy on how much debt you’re willing to carry. Yeah. Um, if you’ve gotta hold more inventory, any additional thoughts there either, or if you wanna give a different strategy that should have made it to the final form got dropped off along the way, or, or thoughts based on Mike’s suggestion.

Greg White (14:31):

Mike alluded to it. I mean, in, in talking about, you know, in talking about Jeff us in time and it’s demand forecasting, demand forecasting, we all thought was final four. Yeah. You know, Mike and I have talked for many years about the fatal flaw of statistical regardless of, of how you approach it. Statistical forecasting has some really fatal flaws, which is to presume that the future will be some slight derivation or even radically different derivation of the past. And we saw during the pandemic that that was absolutely not the case to quote every stock broker ad you’ve ever seen past performances and no indication of future value. And, you know, I think what we discovered is that we have long rested on our laurels using techniques and forecasting that regardless of how much we change the algorithm, the foundational principle, which is taking the past and averaging it in some way, and then adapting it to try to reflect the future is it is more than a hundred years old.

Greg White (15:35):

And it is more than a hundred years outdated. So, you know, we have to think about what really makes demand occur. And we have to predict that predict people, predict their actions, predict the influencers on those people. And I don’t mean in like on TikTok. I mean, those things that actually make you buy, right? Yeah. That, that cause you to have a run on toilet paper, which we saw during the great toilet paper shortage of 2020, um, you know, there was nothing that could have predicted that. In fact, that was a, that was a viral effect of standing in Costco say, and seeing somebody fill up their cart and you’re, oh my gosh, right. We could be locked down. And if I don’t get mine now I may never get it. So, you know, we have to identify those things that can direct us to the cause of demand. All demand is causal. No demand is statistical statistical demand. Forecasting is a, it’s a surrogate for knowing the, that made a demand occurrence buck occur.

Kelly Barner (16:37):

Yeah. Well, let me pull in a couple of things. So this, I just have to share this because just no, right. Josh is sharing that.

Greg White (16:46):

There

Kelly Barner (16:47):

You go. Traffic delays,

Greg White (16:48):

New Mexico

Kelly Barner (16:49):

Because of tarantula migrations. No, I, I just not go home. Like that’s how, you know, it’s it’s time to move. Right. Um, if you’re dealing with tarantula migrations and that’s affecting your supply chain, you are in the wrong place. I’m sorry, Josh. That is just not, not okay. And thank you, Scott. Who’s got our backs. ABI is a mythical, good luck figure who run represents things as they ought to be. In other words, got it. Not a tarantula migration, just being totally clear on that point. So we’ve talked a little bit

Greg White (17:26):

Very that’s what a bill can represents. Yes.

Kelly Barner (17:28):

No tar

Greg White (17:28):

Lack of future tarantula migrations. I, I

Kelly Barner (17:31):

Like that. Exactly. Or the non factors that cause

Greg White (17:37):

Demand to, to rent.

Kelly Barner (17:38):

Yeah.

Greg White (17:39):

Oh yeah. Right.

Kelly Barner (17:40):

Got it. Just, just working all the way back through the back through the chain there. So we, we talked about what should have made it to the final forum. Didn’t how about Cinderella stories, Mike? Right. How about things that maybe they were old school strategies that were rediscovered, maybe they were sort of foundational or fundamental techniques that we hadn’t thought about in a while that proved themselves to be Val, any, any Cinderella stories you can think of this particular discussion.

Mike Griswold (18:08):

I’ve got two and I’ll, I’ll start with, with one of them. And then if we have time, I I’ll bring up the second one. I I think, and, and I think Kelly, you described this really well. And as I was thinking about this question to me again, somewhat pandemic related, it’s, it’s how people and companies are going back to work. And, and the reason I think that’s a Cinderella story is I, I think early in the pandemic, everything got shut down and we went to remote work cuz we had to. But I think, you know, as we were talking to clients, I think there was across multiple industries. I think there was a belief that this was, was a, a temporary and, and we can, you know, you can define temporary any way you want. But I think there was a general belief that this remote working was gonna be temporary, that at some point everyone would, would get out of their house and they would drive to work and they would be back in the office.

Mike Griswold (19:09):

I think what makes this as Cinderella story is the fact that a that’s not happening and B people are becoming much more comfortable with a hybrid type of approach. And they’re actually finding they can, they can be really productive and their businesses can succeed and they can thrive in a remote hybrid environment. And I think if, if you were to have asked people two years ago, do you see yourself in a remote hybrid environment? I think most people would’ve said no out of fear that we, we just couldn’t get the work done. And to me, the fact that we’ve gotten more work done, we’ve got people with, with an opportu to get better work life balance. We’re getting people, um, providing for many people more flexibility. And we’re, we’re being made aware that businesses and industries that we thought were, you know, had to be in person all the time, like retail as an example, what we’re finding is that’s just not the case.

Mike Griswold (20:15):

And, and to me, part of a Cinderella story, if we think about basketball is, is the fact that, you know, it’s a school that, you know, you really you’ll wanna root for, but they, they, you know, you, you don’t really see them having a chance maybe out of, of the first round. And I see that a lot with this, how companies are going back to work, right? We, we really wanted people to be able to, to work remotely. We didn’t know that we didn’t really have confidence that we’d be able to, we, the broader industry will be able to do that. And now we are, and you’re seeing story after story of companies that are completely reconfiguring how their office looks, they’re getting rid of large campuses and they’re going to much more smaller, more satellite type of, of office location. So to me, this was a fascinating thing to watch, and it was a fascinating thing for us at Gartner to be hearing and writing about and, and giving people advice about this. So that’s one that I think is a, is a Cinderella story is, is kind of how we’re going back to work.

Kelly Barner (21:24):

Greg thoughts before we have Mike sure. Second to Cinderella story.

Greg White (21:28):

Uh, yeah, I think automation is a, is a big kind of Cinderella story as well. Uh, you know, and, and it goes to how people are working. And I think the Cinderella story there is not that automation is being used or that it’s becoming prolific it’s that it’s becoming imperative. It’s an absolute necessity because some humans will never go back to do the Jobs’s that they did before. That’s and, and I think the, you know, the, um, fortune happenstance of that is, is we can cease to apologize something I talked about also in a, a summary recently we can cease to apologize for automation and cease, worry about it taking people’s jobs, because it’s literally taking jobs that’s that no one would take for two years. So, and I, I think that’s, that’s a good thing because, you know, when you think about repetitive use injuries and other dangers and the doldrums and, and the mind numbing nature of some jobs that we have had humans doing for yeah. Decades, sometimes centuries, it’s better that we use our, our true gifts and let automation, you know, use its true gifts, let humans do human things. I say, yeah. Right. And let technology do technology things. So yeah, I think that’s one and the, not just the pace, but the recognition that it is absolutely necessary going forward. That’s probably the Cinderella store I’d land on.

Kelly Barner (22:54):

When I think back from more of a procurement standpoint through this whole thing, you know, for a lot of years now, it’s been very sophisticated. Where do you get stuff from? Who do you buy it from? How many suppliers do you put in place? How long is the supply chain over the last two years? It was just get it period. Right. Whatever has to be done. Old school. Yeah. Wicked old school. Right. You know, there were cities and companies setting themselves up as importers of records so that they could bring things in directly. And it was, it was interesting. I had the opportunity to speak to the now former CPO of New York city who was still running it at the time. And he talked about waiting through like gray markets to get PPE and how awful it was, but there was never a question about whether they were gonna do it. Right. And so when you think about kind of an unglamorous thing to do that is absolutely essential. You know, I think from a procurement standpoint is just doing whatever is necessary to bring that stuff in, to keep companies running, not exciting. Right. But without that, so many things wouldn’t have happened over the last couple of years.

Greg White (24:01):

I think you could argue that procurement in and of itself is a Cinderella story. I mean, the right, the things that had to be done to keep factories, going to keep yes. Brands on the shelf to resource, right. To find new materials, new means of, of, of construction or production, all of those things had to change. And it is, I mean, it, it really speaks to the resourcefulness of people that most people don’t even know what the hell they do every day. Right.

Kelly Barner (24:30):

Exactly. So Mike, I’m curious, what’s your second Cinderella story.

Mike Griswold (24:34):

So the second one is an interesting one, I think because it’s, it’s been around for a little while and, and I, we’re definitely on the Gartner side seeing evolution and it’s, it’s this idea of control towers. If we think about control towers, not necessarily a new technology, it historically was used to really track physical assets. Where’s my trucks, where’s my ships. Where’s my containers. I think what makes for me is control towers. A Cinderella story is, is how that has evolved to really being one of the key visibility technologies that companies have used during the pandemic. And it has shifted, um, shift is probably not the right word. It’s now evolved to not only worrying about physical assets, but now we’re tracking data. We’re tracking inventory, we’re tracking orders, we’re tracking forecasts. You know, we’ve had, um, we’re in the middle of our top 25 season and we’ve had a number of briefings from companies that are using control towers and satellite imaging as an example, to monitor where their raw materials and how their raw materials are being processed. So everything from oil to tobacco, right? Using control towers, satellite imagery, to start to link the production and the use of these raw materials. So to me, it’s, it’s this evolution of a technology that fit a real need. Where’s my stuff to now really being an enabler of I’ll use the resiliency and agility words again, to be real enablers of that. And that to me, I think, was something that I don’t know, people saw coming as an additional use or a new use for control towers.

Kelly Barner (26:22):

Yeah. Well, and, and anything that we can take and augment or modify as new things become available, right. It takes something fundamental like a control tower, right. And it vastly expands what we can potentially do with it, which is huge. Now, when you talk about that resilience mic, let’s sort of switch you over to your coaching mindset for a minute here, and you find yourself in the second quarter of the game, it is not going according to plan. Right. Sounds familiar. How do we know, or how should companies know when they should trust the plan and stick to it? And it’s gonna work itself out by the final buzzer. And when do you make that risky call to make a change, make a switch because of what you’re seeing and experiencing.

Mike Griswold (27:05):

Yeah. I think that, it’s an interesting question. I mean, one of the things that, that we try, if I, if I put my coaching head on is, and I think it works for business is th there are times for you to try new things and that’s in practice. So you wanna get in practice or in, if I, if I then pivot to kind of the business world in, in, in building your day to day capabilities, you wanna understand what do you do well, and what do you necessarily still need to work on? And when you get into a game or you into the real world, you need to be able to execute the things that you’ve quote unquote, practiced. That’s what you wanna be executing on. That’s what, you know, if, if in practice, we’ve, let’s say we’ve put in a new play, right. You know, we, we are not gonna run that play at the end of a game if we’ve never practiced it.

Mike Griswold (28:05):

So what I tend to see some organizations do to your question, Kelly is trying to pivot into either markets, areas or capabilities that they’ve never practiced. And, and yes, you, you cannot practice everything, right? You do have to be able, able to make a game time decision or, or a business decision in the heat of the moment, but you really wanna draw on past experiences, past capabilities and past things that you’ve practiced. Uh, Chuck Noel used to I’ll date myself right today is old stuff. Day I’ll date myself, right? Chuck Noel is, uh, was coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers in the seventies. One of the best coaches in NFL history. He had a quote that says, you know, we don’t practice stuff to get it right. We practice stuff. So we never do it wrong. And when I think about kind of companies today, you know, where, where I see companies struggle is either kind chasing a shiny object that they don’t necessarily have use cases for, or know how it’s gonna fit within their broader company or supply chain strategy or companies, you know, doing things they haven’t practiced or not putting enough time into the things that they should be practicing.

Mike Griswold (29:24):

So if you think about, if, if I use a basketball analogy, right, you know, you need to be practicing every day, very simple things like dribbling, passing, and catching, even at the varsity level where I coach you still have to practice those things. If I think about the real world, things like sales and operations planning, right, is, is one of the things that has, has, you know, passed the test of time. You need to be able to do that. You need to have practiced it and you need to be good at it. So to me, kind of, if I, if I bring that my answer to a close, sorry, I was kind of a long one. It’s it’s do what you, you know, you can do well and make educated guesses on what you think you can do well, based on what you’ve practiced.

Kelly Barner (30:09):

Well, and it’s funny, cuz there’s a, there’s a commercial out right now and it’s really good. So it was probably paid for by some insurance company. I don’t remember where it’s, it’s the right up against the clock. And somebody comes from the stands maybe and the coaches, little white board and maps out this wicked complicated thing. And trust me, coach, it’s, it’s gonna work. And I’m pretty sure it ends with him hitting either a ref or the mascot in the face with the basketball, which is probably not the objective of that play. Yes. Right. So that’s not the goal, right. Not working towards that. It’s not about like we have nothing else to lose. And so we to hit the ref in the face with the ball, Greg, when we, when we take sort of this idea of knowing when to pivot and risky situations and apply it to maybe opening our consideration to some of the newer startups that have entered supply chain over the last couple years, cuz there’s been a ton of ’em huge influx of money, lots of people that are now for the very first time I’m gonna, you know, solve supply chain for the rest of us.

Kelly Barner (31:04):

How do we apply that idea of knowing when to change plan, but instead making it, knowing when to move from something more proven like a control tower, even augmented with something slightly new and try a completely new technology. How do you, how do you make that decision?

Greg White (31:19):

It’s interesting. You know, I made a career of doing that technology companies that replaced old technology or old techniques in supply chain. I’m at one today, you can’t see their logo, but it’s VEON. Um, who’s doing a similar thing and I, you know, what I have seen companies do in the past, and I know they will do is when the pain it’s the devil, you know, versus the devil you Don know, right. When the pain of what is harming hampering or, or killing your business becomes greater and more feared than the fear of the transition, both to new technology and new business processes and, and um, talent, um, pools. Then that’s when companies will typically make the, the, the shift, what I’ve long told my sales teams in many of the companies that I work with and advise now is companies don’t run fast towards ROI.

Greg White (32:16):

They run fast away from what is hurting their company. And if you have the solution to what is hurting their company, the, the will come to you. But I think that that’s one of the things that companies have to recognize is that they have to recognize that something is hurting or has the potential to hurt the company before it does, right. A preemptive strike against fragility. We talked about resiliency, Mike, but preemptive strikes against fragility is what’s really required now. And more companies need to be looking at the ability to reduce, to eliminate in the Chuck Knowles standard, to eliminate fragility, to eliminate the risk of failure in order to be successful. So when C, when, if you’re attacking a disruption, um, you have to first anticipate some kind of disruption and not the, you know, not the, the specific black Swan event, but the result of an event like that, if something bad happened, what would be the worst impact on the business? And then you build a, uh, a strategy, a tool set processes, people or technologies to attack and either prevent or rapidly respond and recover from those kinds of disruptions.

Kelly Barner (33:33):

Yeah. So lemme pull in a couple of comments from the audience, but first of all, Peter, no worries. I got them. Note, you are gonna be late, right? No need to, no need to stress it today. If you do have any bracket tips, though, we will take them. Likewise from Steven. I did not get a note on you though, so sorry, but, but I like the

Greg White (33:51):

Cover you’re in touch with the teacher.

Kelly Barner (33:53):

I know exactly. So we’re glad you’re here, but yes, Scott today is old stuff day. And so thank you first of all, for joining us. Thank you also for this week’s episode of this week in business history, Oreos are old stuff does not mean you should eat old Oreos, but the history of, of Oreos most popular snack in the country, um, definitely worth celebrating. So indeed Mike. Exactly. And now they have gluten free so we can all celebrate. So Mike, a minute ago you were starting to talk about the top 25 supply chains. Yes. And I know that the big release, all that information isn’t coming out until early summer, but are there any early insights or observations or things that you can share from us either about what those clearly very proven supply chain learned didn’t work or maybe some newer, more innovative strategies that you are seeing work for them?

Mike Griswold (34:46):

Yeah. I think the, the big, the big topic that I see being discussed more and more is sustainability. And, and within that, this idea of environmental, social and governance ESG. So if I rewind the clock and in this, and, and to me, the sustainability piece is one of those few things that was moving and continues to move regardless of the pandemic. So it is one of the few things I think within the supply chain that really was not influenced by a pandemic. People were, were moving in this direction. People continue to move in that direction. And if anything, we’re seeing Excel, we are seeing an acceleration of people’s ESG and sustainability ambitions. You know, despite the, the last couple of years, I think what we’ve seen at least what I’ve seen in talking to these companies in the last couple years is, is a definite change in mindset from even three to five years ago where we companies felt a need to, to talk about sustainability.

Mike Griswold (35:57):

They, you know, if you gave them true serum, you probably would’ve had mixed results around whether people actually believe what they were saying relative to sustainability, but they were saying it anyway, cuz they felt they needed to. And then low and behold, right? We start talking about, you know, these topics and, and we start to see, you know, trucks get more efficient. I drive less miles. I start to make more money in transportation. So people started to see kind of, not only obviously a social benefit, but they actually started to see a financial benefit around this as well. And then they said, well, maybe we’re onto something. So it, it is just kind of snowballs from there where we’re seeing more and more organizations, you know, not only talk about what they’re doing and actually doing stuff, but we’re seeing it baked into the supply chain.

Mike Griswold (36:51):

And I think, you know, if again, if we go back a few years, almost anything that you saw from a ability perspective came out of a corporate communications department. That’s, you know, the, this we’re doing this and it’s the byline is, is the corporate communication department fast forward to today. Almost everything you see from sustainability is coming from the supply chain, whether it’s a chief supply chain officer, whether it’s a chief sustainability officer works with the supply chain, the supply chain has. And I think for, for many, many great reasons, the supply chain has inherited this. And I think for what we’ve done with it is fantastic in terms of how, as a supply chain profession, we’ve taken this, this topic of sustainability, we’ve, we’ve run with it and we’ve advanced it. And more and more companies, if you look online are accelerating goals that maybe they had for 2030, they’re now gonna deliver them in 2025, we’ve got more companies being cognizant of things like a circular economy.

Mike Griswold (37:57):

How do I, I mean, we had great with our high tech companies around things like laptops and what they’re doing with old laptops and turning them from a chassis and frame perspective into new laptops. Microsoft has a mouse made completely from recycled plastic from the ocean, right? The companies are doing and becoming very creative. I bought, Greg will appreciate this. I bought a pair of golf shoes from Adidas made completely of recycled plastic. Haven’t tried ’em yet saw those haven’t tried ’em yet, but they were in, they were in my school colors, black and gold. So I had to buy ’em. So we’ll see. But there there’s more and more around circular economy. Biodiversity is now a topic. People recognizing that what they take out of the ground is, is as it’s as important to figure out what am I gonna put in the ground to replace that or use instead of that. So to me that that is such an, an important topic. And now when we layer in some of the, the social areas like diversity equity inclusion, we’re now seeing supply chains. Talk about that. So when I think about our top 25 companies, that’s, what’s really standing out to me now is how is how vocal and how leading these companies are in that ESG arena.

Kelly Barner (39:18):

Yeah. Now if we turn that into a bracket, here’s what I would be curious about Mike. Sure. In some cases I have a feeling operational teams are really hustling to keep up with the talk that’s already been done. And in other cases, companies are finally talking because they actually have the results and they are so excited not only to share their impact, but because there’s a competitive advantage associated with, with being good on this. If we have kind of a last final pairing here on, which is driving more of a difference, is it those verbal commitments that force the operation to come in and, and back up those words? Or is it that the work is actually be being done and now companies are getting to a point where they’re comfortable talking

Mike Griswold (39:58):

About it. Yeah, that, that’s a great question. This is, if I put it in the brackets, this is the nine eight matchup, right? The number nine seed, the number eight seed it’s it could go either way, but you have to pick someone in your bracket, right? There are no ties. Yeah. I would pick in. And it’s a great question, Kelly, in this bracket, I would pick it’s the, because companies are feeling pressure externally, right? We’ve got data that suggest that, you know, around 60% of customers are looking for a sustainable company when they buy stuff 70, 70, or 78% of people would actually boycot a, if they had, you know, a negative social impact because we’re getting these external influences, I’m going to answer your question from the standpoint is companies are now being held accountable to targets that they set and that’s, what’s driving them and the operations folks have to catch up.

Mike Griswold (40:56):

Yes, there are, there are some companies that maybe were a little bit hesitant to talk about what they were doing because maybe they didn’t feel, uh, even though they were doing really good stuff that may have felt that it, it, it wouldn’t stand up to what everyone else is talking about. But I think in today’s environment, companies are being forced to reexamine very public and disclose the things that they’re doing in this area. I mean, we, we’ve got top 25 companies that are now linking executive compensation to things like sustainability goals and de and I objectives. So that to me is, is where people are headed. At least that’s what we’re seeing in the top 25 companies.

Kelly Barner (41:39):

Yeah. What do you think, Greg, would you make the same pick?

Greg White (41:42):

Yeah. Unquestionably companies catching up to what they’ve been saying for years. Right. And the operations teams are finally, uh, finally get some actual support from management to be able to yeah. To attack some of those initiatives. Right. I think, I mean, it, I, I think everybody knows whatever you wanna call it, greenwash or lip service, whatever you wanna call it. That’s been going on for decades, frankly, around a lot of ESG initiatives. And now, again, not rushing towards something they’re running away from the fact that now negative perception, negative cost can all impact the business negatively. And, um, finally seeing the dollar signs and yeah. I mean, ultimately, hopefully the Goodwill that, that is generated by, by actually delivering on those sometimes decades old promises.

Mike Griswold (42:37):

Yeah. Greg. Yeah. And Greg, you, and I didn’t talk about this beforehand, but you raise a great point. We actually have a note from a couple of people on my team that are writing a note about greenwash. We have now I think gotten to the point where we actually have a name for it, right. Greenwash. And we actually have an environment of highly educated consumers and stakeholders who are now able to kind of sift through what is, I don’t wanna say true and untrue, what is true and what is maybe embellished? And the reason we write that we we’re writing that is there are, and you, you alluded to it, Greg, there are significant negative consequences. If someone thinks you’re greenwash that wasn’t the case, maybe three, four years ago, it is definitely the case now. And, and I encourage people when, when they’re putting out there publicly part of their organization, the things that they’re doing keep in mind, people will fact check you and you know, you need to have, you know, doing what you say you’re doing, do not be embellishing on what you’re doing.

Mike Griswold (43:48):

And if you maybe aren’t where you wanna be, you will get a lot more credit fessing up to, Hey, we’re a little bit behind on our 2025 goals than saying, you know, not only are we gonna hit 20, 25, we’re gonna do more stuff in 2030. People will see right through that. And, and greenwash is a huge risk for companies. And it’s only gonna get, I think, a greater risk as we, as we open up other areas for sustainability. And we just continue to get an educated set of stakeholders that will be able to call BS if you’re BSing

Kelly Barner (44:25):

Well. And I would actually say, I mean, it’s ironic, but the risks that have been taken around talking about sustainability, some of which counted as, as greenwash in the end have actually been a boon for the movement. I, you know, since early January, I’ve been focused on kind of the supplier diversity movement as part of ESG as part of my LinkedIn accelerator. And I actually think it’s a hesitancy on the part of, of companies to talk about diversity in all of its categories, because it’s people that we’re talking about. I actually think it’s holding the movement back a little bit. So it’s almost like there’s some amount of healthy greenwash that starts to build a little momentum. You don’t wanna be the one that gets caught. You don’t wanna be the one getting held accountable, but bringing it to that point where it consistently part of the conversation, there is something to be said for that in terms of how quickly the movement itself builds up momentum.

Mike Griswold (45:17):

Yeah. I agree with you completely supply supplier diversity, responsible sourcing, right? Those are huge topics for us now and on Gartner and they are, they are definitely topics of conversations within our top 25 companies. You know, I think of the things that you mentioned, Kelly, that I agree with completely is, is that diversity discussion period is a tough one for companies, whether that’s just that the composition of their workforce, whether it’s the composition of their suppliers, right? You talked about supplier diversity, I think, you know, and I would SU and I’m not gonna suggest that top 25, 5 companies have that figured out cuz they don’t. But I do what I do see in top 25 companies is an acknowledgement that it’s a hard conversation and an acknowledgement that it’s conversations we’re gonna have and a recognition that we will not always get the conversation. Right. But we’re still gonna try. Right. And that to me is as important, right. Is recognizing that we will not be perfect in this, but we’re still gonna try. Right. And we’re still gonna work through it cuz it’s important.

Kelly Barner (46:22):

Absolutely. Well, Mike, it was an absolute pleasure having you on for the live stream, giving us your bracket, tips, any final predictions you wanna make about mad before we have you share your contact information with folks and ride off into the Gonzaga sunset.

Mike Griswold (46:39):

Yeah. So I mean, if you’d asked me on sat before Saturday, I’d I’d thought I had an idea, but on Saturday in case people had missed it seven, seven of the top 10 all lost first time that’s ever happened in the history of the poll. So to me in, in years past, and I think Greg would agree with this in years past, there’s been a couple of teams that have kind of separated themselves. And the chances that one of those two teams or three teams was gonna win the tournament would, would, would be likely, I think this year it’s pretty deep. There’s probably eight or nine teams that, uh, on any given, um, you know, weekend right. Or stretch of a weekend can, can win the whole thing. So yeah, my, if you’re looking at the top 10, I would say that the winner is gonna come out of the top 10. I don’t think they’re gonna come out, uh, any deeper than

Kelly Barner (47:24):

That. Awesome. And if folks wanna get in touch and learn more about you or learn more about Gartner, what is the best place for you

Mike Griswold (47:29):

To go? You can email me directly happy to have that. Mike do Griswold gardner.com. I’m, I’m continuing my journey in LinkedIn getting better every, every day. Still not where still not where people, most people are. I’m sure with LinkedIn, but that’s another way, um, as well. And, and, but email, but I’m, I’m still an old school email guy, so feel free to send me emails.

Kelly Barner (47:51):

Awesome. Thank you so much, Mike, for being with us.

Mike Griswold (47:54):

Thanks, Mike. My pleasure. Great to see everyone have a great day. Bye-bye

Greg White (47:57):

Good care.

Kelly Barner (47:58):

All right, Greg. Well, that’s, that’s interesting. Now I do feel a little bit more comfortable talking about basketball now that we’ve had Mike here for a little while.

Greg White (48:04):

Well, Mike’s an old pro, right? Uh, yeah. And, and a head coach for anyone who doesn’t know had he coaches, ladies basketball at a high, at a high school at, I think right now, two different levels, varsity and junior varsity. So he knows of what he speaks because he lives it and quite well apparently. So

Kelly Barner (48:25):

How about basketball and supply

Greg White (48:26):

Chain? Undoubtedly, you know, a practitioner, right? When I, when I started working with Mike, which was some years ago, he had come out of industry as a practitioner of supply chain and procurement, by the way, somewhat. So he knows what he’s talking about and he’s got a vast amount of resources around him to help continually research how things are changing. And that’s, you know, that’s one of the beauties of groups like Gartner, who just continually, they have no other agenda than producing the information that helps us improve the craft. And they do that, not just in supply chain, but that’s the part we care. Yeah. Um,

Kelly Barner (49:06):

Well, and here’s the interesting thing. I think about something like a, a brackets, you know, football squares, if people did that at the, at the super bowl, is that it, it sort of makes the conversation more inclusive cuz it levels the, the playing field. I can’t help, but wonder if we’re going to going forward seeing a dynamic a little bit like that around supply chain because you know, you mentioned the great toilet paper scare of, you know, 20, 20, every buddy is now an expert on supply chain, at least in their own mind. And it reminds me of that story. I, we attributed as being a, a Boston story, cuz there’s always trucks getting stuck under overpasses, but who knows, it could have been anywhere where the truck is totally wedged and traffic’s all backed up and the little girl rolls her window down and says to the police officer, why don’t you just let the air out of the tires? And of course that gives them just enough space to be able to probably drag the truck through. At that point, you can’t help, but wonder if there’s somebody out there that wasn’t in supply chain, maybe wasn’t even operational, but is gonna look at some element of the challenges we’ve been facing or the opportunity and a unique enough way to totally revolutionize things. I can’t help, but think that’s a real possibility.

Greg White (50:14):

Yeah, I agree. I think people have been trying to do it for years and they have, you know, as we talked about with the forecasting technique, they have been stymied by the, this is the way we’ve always done it crowd. And there are a lot of things that got exposed. A lot of those ancient techniques that we use in supply chains that got exposed. And hopefully that ignites someone with both the intellect and the ambition to, you know, to take an, a different look at it. It is an incredibly complex problem. I can tell you that some of the problems I solved, I was vexed by for nearly a decade. So it’s an incredibly complex environment and that makes it exceptionally difficult. It’s not like it’s not as simple as a truck stuck. Right. But right. It’s not impossible. And um, and there are lots of really smart people doing it.

Greg White (51:03):

And we’ve observed over the years, people coming supply chain from physics and finance and various and sundry other, uh, businesses that take a completely different perspective and give us a new perspective. And I think Mike spoke to that, not just that, but uh, to this new perspective on supply chain, but also to the growing trans in supply chain. Yeah. You can’t hide in a dark corner of the, of the planet anymore and do bad deeds and not be found out. And I think that is a critical aspect of it too. I mean, there, there, one of the things we have to confess I’m able to confess because I don’t work for any of these people out there is that there are some intentional obfuscation. There is intentional misdirection. There is intentional pricing strategies that are not conducive to market forces are not responsive to market forces. There are all kinds of those things, but as those are surfaced and as transparency and things like control towers, give us a viewpoint to those things. Those things will change just like they have in other industries and other parts of the, of the world and other parts of society.

Kelly Barner (52:20):

Yeah. Well, it’ll be interested to see if there are any bigs to kind of stay with our bracket idea in, in this year’s top 25 supply chains, because sometimes the supply chains that have done the best under other conditions are sort of structured against being able to adapt quickly enough to succeed in different conditions. That’s right. One of my favorite business books of all times pencils out and everybody write this down. Yeah. The end of competitive advantage by Rita Gunther McGrath. I love that book. She talks in it about the fact that the things that allow companies to get big enough to kind of dominate a, a unique space that they cover up for themselves is the exact same thing that makes them at risk of disruption. That’s all right, because you have a little somebody, a little agile service as somebody that does it totally differently. Shoot in from the side and start to steal your market share. And you either don’t see it, you dismiss it by mistake or you recognize the, the failing in your system and you just can’t get things to move differently. Fast enough. It’s, it’s back to that moment in the game where you realize the plan isn’t working. Yeah. Right. Can you change the plan?

Greg White (53:30):

Yeah. As evidenced by companies like Sears and robot who literally in, in could, could mail you a house via mail order, the entire house and dramatically, I don’t even know. They weren’t even, it wasn’t even a dramatic failure because cuz they just sort of faded away during a time when a new age of mail order, right. That being e-commerce was thriving, a company that should have been able to adapt. That’s just one example and there are thousands more. Um, so yes, the disruptors will always disrupt the, the leaders and the leaders will always defend their methodology because they have so much invested in it. I think what we’re seeing Kelly though in, you know, in, in today’s day is more companies starting to absorb these disruptors or embrace these disruptors, agreed and make it a separate portion of their business and ultimately migrate their business that direction. Unless they go out of business, go the way to one like JC Penney, I think JC Penney’s outta business

Kelly Barner (54:28):

And the voice they choose to give those companies and the thought leaders at those companies. Right. Right. Do they just absorb sort of the capability, absorb the market, share, absorb the approach and the philosophy or do they actually allow the people that build that business to affect their larger business? That’s probably gonna end up being a question of advantage.

Greg White (54:45):

Yeah. Well and Walmart jet is a great example when they bought jet.com. I don’t know if people even remember that, but they bought jet.com and it took them years to integrate that into their standard business because they knew that the dynamics were dramatically different and they let the founders continue to run jet, which became walmart.com and walmart.com is an enormous force in eCommerce these days.

Kelly Barner (55:09):

Absolutely. So Greg, we’re coming to the end of our hour here. We had a great conversation with, I know, I know it, it wasn’t that fast. Yeah. Just brings so much with them and we had some great comments come in from the audience. Um, and now of course, even if we weren’t doing brackets, do you say doing brackets, playing brackets, I’m obviously not a bracket person.

Greg White (55:30):

Uh, but what’s

Kelly Barner (55:31):

The verb to brackets.

Greg White (55:32):

Yeah. Uh, busting is the only one I know busting is the only,

Kelly Barner (55:36):

That’s a bad sign. Yeah. But certainly we’re gonna look forward to hearing with everybody, keep sharing as your brackets, either break or, or you find Cinderella stories, but thank you for spending the, the hour with us live. Um, thank you for listening on demand. If you’re catching this later and Greg in lieu of Scott being here, it wouldn’t be a supply chain now live stream. If I did not say do good give forward and be the change that you wanna see in the world. Thank you so much for joining us. Everybody for today’s live stream, have a terrific rest of your day. Thank

Greg White (56:08):

Everyone. Thanks Kelly.

Intro/Outro (56:11):

Thanks for being a part of our supply chain. Now community check out all of our programming@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. A on supply chain now.