ALEX MILLER IS THE WILLIAM B. STOKELY
Professor of Management and associate
dean for executive education at the
University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He oversees all executive education courses, including five executive M.B.A. programs, the full-time M.B.A. program, and over 30 non-degree and custom courses, as well as a
research budget of approximately $14 million. Miller is also the author of more than
30 journal articles and the leading textbook
Strategic Management.
But what makes Miller a Rainmaker is his legacy of creation, the institutions and initiatives that seem to sprout up
around him. According to U.S. News and World Report, the
University of Tennessee’s program ranks as one of the top
10 programs in supply chain and logistics, and Miller is a
major part of that. He was also instrumental in the creation
of four successful executive M.B.A. programs at the
University of Tennessee, including UT’s Aerospace
Executive M.B.A. program, the only program of its kind in
the United States. Miller also played a significant role in
developing UT’s National Defense Business Institute, the
first university-based institute focused on helping the
Department of Defense with its acquisition challenges from
an integrated life-cycle perspective.
Miller is at the nexus of a number of productive teaching
and research partnerships with the U.S. Air Force, the
Defense Acquisition University, and several internationally
recognized non-U.S. business schools. Could there be a
new international supply chain M.B.A. program coming?
Stay tuned.
improveme
tional security concerns. The push toward
globalization is the unstoppable force that is
colliding with the immovable object of
nations’ demand for security. If we don’t
solve this dilemma, we all lose.
The second is the shift in organizations’
outsourcing strategies from being focused
on effort-based contracting to performance-based contracting. Smarter ways to outsource materials and services offer tremendous opportunities for step-function
nt in supply chain performance.
The 21st century is a different world from what we
knew even a decade ago. What challenges do you see Q
facing academic institutions, and how must they evolve to
stay relevant?
A Academic institutions are just like rivals in any com- petitive market. To remain relevant, we must improve
on the dimensions that matter most to customers.
The challenges I see are twofold: what we deliver and how
we deliver it. Content must continue to evolve. The content
we deliver must reflect the realities of a changing economy,
globalization, and advancing technologies. How we deliver
the content is equally important. New delivery processes
must take advantage of emerging technologies (social networking, podcasts, blogs, and so on) and make learning
more convenient and efficient for students.
What challenges do you see facing the next generation of supply chain leaders? Q
A Of the long list of challenges, I see two that are game- changers. The first is the proliferation and globalization of supply chains in the face of national and interna-
In addition to your academic endeavors, you are a big
part of the family business, the Lick Skillet Cattle Co., Q
and were voted Outstanding Cattleman of the Year by the
Tennessee Cattlemen’s Association. In your “spare time,”
you are an ultra-endurance bicyclist, pilot, and sailor. Any
advice for the rest of us?
A What works best for me is a one-two punch. First, invest heavily in building a great team. Second, leverage that team by never doing what you can delegate.
Greg Johnson
GREG JOHNSON HAS SPENT NEARLY ALL
his career in the distribution side of the automotive aftermarket business. He started in
1982 as a part-timer doing picking and packing in a distribution center for what was then
Mid-State Automotive Distributors. After college, he took a position as retail systems manager for the company, working his way up to
director of information systems in 1997.
He joined O’Reilly Automotive as WMS systems manager when that company acquired
Mid-State in 2001, but after six months, he moved back into
retailer acqu
operations at the request of the company’s
CEO. Today, he is senior vice president of dis-
tribution operations, overseeing the fast-grow-
ing company’s distribution network. The
company operates more than 3,300 retail
stores and also serves thousands of auto main-
tenance and repair shops. It currently has 19
distribution centers, with more in the works.
Johnson has spent much of the past year
integrating the distribution operations of
CSK Auto, a large automotive aftermarket
ired in mid-2008, into O’Reilly’s network.
