importance of what we do as an industry. And we have
to help supply chain managers develop the confidence to
change, innovate, and involve—to make supply chains
more effective, efficient, and important to their individual
enterprises.
QHow do you accomplish those goals?
AWell, of course, you’ve got CSCMP as a network that can connect all kinds of people. Whether it’s based on a
particular business issue or it’s mentoring or just networking within the industry, we have the wherewithal to do that
because we have a lot of members who want to share either
information or experiences.
We also have a lot of educational information, a lot of
educational programs, a lot of pre-existing research that
can be helpful to people trying to solve problems for their
businesses. We’ve got all this content. The question is, how
do you make it readily available to people in such a way that
they recognize the importance or the
value it brings to their enterprise? That
is the tricky part.
Once they have that, it could help
them develop confidence to take chances, introduce innovations, and actually
try to look at the supply chain as something very positive for the enterprise.
I have seen this repeatedly, especially in 2008. In 2008, we hit the skids.
Supply chains became very important
to businesses. Why? Because the supply
chain had the ability to influence both
the top line through the way we dealt
with customers and the bottom line in
terms of saving money and decreasing
costs within the enterprise. When that
happened, it was almost like a switch
went on, and CEOs and CFOs suddenly realized that supply
chains could play an important role in making sure that the
companies, in some cases, literally survived that first couple
of years.
Now, as the environment improves, as the economy
improves, I think there’s a tendency to try to put supply
chain operations and supply chain management back into
the backroom and let the sexy marketing take over again.
That has been the premier activity within the enterprise.
I’m not sure that is wrong, but I think what is wrong is for
companies or enterprises to totally disregard the impor-
tance of supply chain even in good times. The ability to
control costs, to reduce costs for the enterprise, is very
important. More important, though, is the ability of the
supply chain to develop a relationship with the customers
and clients, so that those customers and clients want to
do more business with the enterprise. So to discount that
and push it off to the side and focus your company on just
marketing or just finance, I think you are losing something.
We have a challenge within CSCMP to bring all that out
into the open so CEOs and companies recognize the value
of supply chain not just in cutting costs, but also in growing
business.
QOne of the challenges, not just for CSCMP but for every trade organization, is holding onto and build-
ing membership. Why do you think that is so, and what
approach will CSCMP take to build membership?
AWhen did membership in professional organizations tart to wane? Some would say it was 9/11. A lot of
people were afraid of traveling, and companies used it as an
excuse to say, “Let’s curtail travel.” It actually started before
that. The advent of the Internet and the “wiki” world that
we live in, I think, has given people this
false impression of where they can get
knowledge and useful information.
I think it’s a very small percentage of
people that actually take that information and transform it into something
that’s really useful. I think as human
beings, (it is) much more important to
have interaction and to network with
people, especially the people who have
actually done what you’re trying to do.
So, we’ve got what we call “the life-cycle” at CSCMP. We try to get people
involved in CSCMP and supply chain
from the time they are college students
up to the time when they are senior
fellows like me. So we categorize people as students, young professionals,
mid-career, senior leaders, and senior fellows. You can
participate in CSCMP whether you’re 18 years old or 88.
You just participate at a different level. What we’re trying
to do is develop an information network where people are
able to participate no matter where they are in their career.
QYou’ve been a supply chain professional for a long time, and now, in your current role, you see a lot of
businesses. What do you see as the biggest challenges folks
in our profession are facing?
AAs I said before, I think a lot of it is economically driv- en through the C-suite. The challenge for CSCMP and
the challenge for enterprises over the next couple of years
will be to try to capitalize on supply chains and leverage
