DC Velocity - November 2011

thoughtleaders D.G. MACPHERSON

can be much narrower margins, so it can be a very different ballgame.

QWhich of your skills do you believe serve you best as you go about the daily business of managing Grainger’s global supply chain?

AThere are a couple of things that I think are impor- tant. One is making sure that we stay very focused on what delivers value for the customer. The other, I think, is just being comfortable working with multiple levels of our organization, multiple functions, and working and cross collaborating with the commercial side of the business. It is important to be able to go from discussions with sales and marketing and then translate the key points for my team, every level of my team, effectively. I think those are the things that are important—making sure you have a strategic focus that is based on customer value and then working with all levels of the organization to communicate that to all team members successfully.

our performance. Our suppliers do a great job of providing us with products of very high quality, but I think we can probably do things on the collaboration side with suppliers. For us, it is specific probably because we have got so many. We’ve got thousands of suppliers and some of them are very small businesses, some are very big businesses. The challenges of achieving transparency, visibility, and collaboration in ways that improve performance—I think that is really the area where we could probably improve the most.

QPut on a futurist’s hat for a moment. What do you see as the next big thing in logistics and supply chain management?

AConnectivity to our suppliers and collaboration with our suppliers that allows us to improve that part of

QWhat advice would you give to a young person inter- ested in a career in supply chain management? AThere are two bits of advice I would give them. The first is make sure that you get out and understand customers, that you actually visit customers and develop a visceral understanding of what your customers need. I think you really need to get out there and touch and feel what the customer does.

The other thing is to think carefully about where they go. In some organizations, supply chain and operations are absolutely core to strategy and kind of one and the same. In others, they are not. I think you will get kind of a different level of interaction with core strategy and what the business does depending on where you go. Both can be great, but you need to think about it because it can have an influence on the overall business. ;

The Perfect Fit for Your Supply Chain Needs

Reduce Your DC-to-Store Cost per Trip Rehrig Pacific’s new generation 48" × 40" Nestable Retail Pallet offers superior performance, increased service life and seamless integration. These injection molded plastic pallets provide improved handling, higher load capacity, greater impact resistance and increased load security over other types of molded pallets. Thicker material where it’s needed most Higher strength-to-weight ratio Asset identification options 100% recyclable Contains post-consumer recycled material No loose fasteners or boards and won’t absorb moisture Contact Rehrig today for more information about our comprehensive warranty and Material Buyback Programs.