Note to the chronically unemployed: To stand out from the crowd, you have to demonstrate passion, a servant mentality, a sense of humor, courage, and a tirelessly innovative spirit.
Art van Bodegraven was, among other roles, chief design officer for the DES Leadership Academy. He passed away on June 18, 2017. He will be greatly missed.
We remain somewhat surrounded by a hard-core cohort of chronically unemployed, who've been enduring endless months without work or flitting through a series of short-lived jobs, each one a step down from the previous adventure. We are plagued by the sad spectacle in the midst of a crippling talent shortage in supply chain management, but the challenge also affects manufacturing—in fact, all business operations.
At almost any gathering in which introductions are de rigeur, one after another rises to announce something like "My name is Aloysius and I am in transition." The callous cynic asks, "Transition to what, exactly?" Buying a red rubber nose and floppy shoes to sign on with Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey? Why can we not say things like "I am between jobs." Or "I'm looking for a new job with more challenge?"
GETTING FROM THERE TO HERE
Never mind all that. The real question is what factors have put people into such uncomfortable situations. I've written and spoken often about some of them, but a recap might be helpful.
A major issue is the failure of the lumberjack (or lumberjill—this is not a gender-specific condition) to keep his/her ax sharp. Face it: Anyone facing 21st century needs with a 20th century toolkit is at a distinct disadvantage. A Phillips-head screwdriver is no longer advanced technology, and anyone who has not been on a continuous learning path risks looking like a rube among the Princeton faculty when competing with a recent graduate.
The argument that evil corporations are looking to hire talent at the lowest possible price is a lazy copout for not having kept up. They are buying talent, current knowledge, and potential at market rates. The amateur HR mavens who complain about age discrimination are often way off the mark in this equation.
There's more, of course. Bad enough that the more mature candidate shows up with a knowledge base that is the practitioner's equivalent of a polyester Nehru jacket. Worse is that he/she equates tenure with market value. Thirty years on the job and not knowing how to use pivot tables in Excel is not going to command top dollar.
A huge issue is how an individual views his/her role: Is it a matter of performing a specific job function well, or is it a series of assignments of challenge, import, and diversity that further the performance—financially and operationally—of the entire enterprise? The enterprise perspective will trump limited technical skills in any enlightened organization that is on an upward trajectory. A company that does not value the broader view might not be the place to be for the long haul.
On a related topic, when the choice comes down to candidates who are somewhat equivalent, the one who can demonstrate accomplishment, measurable outcomes, and enterprise impact will crush a talented competitor who can only talk about titles, responsibilities, and number of direct reports. And often, an employer will select a less-experienced candidate who shows promise in the realm of delivering outcomes, when the 30-year veteran has not yet learned how to couch his/her experience in terms of concrete results.
SAM, YOU MADE THE PANTS TOO LONG
There is a basketful of little things that make a difference: enthusiasm, attitude, flexibility, and fluency of communications. But there is one major factor that very few like to talk about, though it's as real as things get: fit. That is, does the person's attitude and work style match the workplace's prevailing culture?
This is not to say that everyone in a company has to be poured from the same mold. There are such organizations, and although they can prosper for some time, they sooner or later collapse because they contain no internal counterbalances.
It's important to note that the fit has to be genuine. Too often, the by-now-desperate job seeker will adopt positions that seem to fit a prevailing culture in order to get the job. Get real; you can only fake this stuff for so long. When the charade is over, so is the job. When neither the company nor the candidate understands the importance of fit, the eventual day of reckoning can get ugly.
But when approached the right way, "fitness" tests can be used to enormous strategic advantage. For instance, one company, which will remain nameless, is in its fifth decade of growth and profitability, and has used tests of fit from Day One to get the right people. Its reasoning is simple and clear: The right people will be happy and make their customers happy. The right people will make the company a winner, day after day, every day.
The company doesn't try to make all of its people look and think alike in all things. But it does obsessively look for three elements of fit that have proved to be the keys to win-win-win relationships with the company, its employees, and its customers.
That's right. Only three things out of the many that might be evaluated. It's a given that any candidate must be functionally qualified for the position in question. Charm is no substitute for proficiency at the moment of truth.
The company's hiring criteria focus on elements that are integral to corporate values. One is what it calls a warrior spirit, a desire to excel, to be courageous, to innovate, and to stay at it (persevere).
Another is a servant's heart, being proactive, treating everyone—even certifiable idiots—with respect, and putting others (colleagues and customers) first. The third is being fun-loving, not taking oneself seriously, showing joy, and acting and doing things with passion.
The core of evaluating these is not, even though they are written and are integral to corporate culture and values, to see if applicants agree with them, but to determine if the candidate is already living them.
BOTTOM LINE
How important are these? Important enough that a job will go unfilled until someone with the right fit appears. And these values are baked into performance appraisals and evaluations for promotion. This is one industry leader's approach to acquiring and keeping the best talent. The strategy is paying off for it, and no one in its industry vertical comes close.
It's an amazingly powerful way of getting people who don't think they have a job, but do have a calling—one they can be proud of.
So, everyone in transition is not going to find a counterpart employer. But they can stand out from the crowd by demonstrating passion, a servant mentality, a sense of humor (forget the one-liners, though), courage, and a tirelessly innovative spirit.
I'll submit that our profession is, in fact, a calling. To not treat it as such might mean that "in transition" ought to indicate a career change is in order.
That changing landscape is forcing companies to adapt or replace their traditional approaches to product design and production. Specifically, many are changing the way they run factories by optimizing supply chains, increasing sustainability, and integrating after-sales services into their business models.
“North American manufacturers have embraced the factory of the future. Working with service providers, many companies are using AI and the cloud to make production systems more efficient and resilient,” Bob Krohn, partner at ISG, said in the “2024 ISG Provider Lens Manufacturing Industry Services and Solutions report for North America.”
To get there, companies in the region are aggressively investing in digital technologies, especially AI and ML, for product design and production, ISG says. Under pressure to bring new products to market faster, manufacturers are using AI-enabled tools for more efficient design and rapid prototyping. And generative AI platforms are already in use at some companies, streamlining product design and engineering.
At the same time, North American manufacturers are seeking to increase both revenue and customer satisfaction by introducing services alongside or instead of traditional products, the report says. That includes implementing business models that may include offering subscription, pay-per-use, and asset-as-a-service options. And they hope to extend product life cycles through an increasing focus on after-sales servicing, repairs. and condition monitoring.
Additional benefits of manufacturers’ increased focus on tech include better handling of cybersecurity threats and data privacy regulations. It also helps build improved resilience to cope with supply chain disruptions by adopting cloud-based supply chain management, advanced analytics, real-time IoT tracking, and AI-enabled optimization.
“The changes of the past several years have spurred manufacturers into action,” Jan Erik Aase, partner and global leader, ISG Provider Lens Research, said in a release. “Digital transformation and a culture of continuous improvement can position them for long-term success.”
Women are significantly underrepresented in the global transport sector workforce, comprising only 12% of transportation and storage workers worldwide as they face hurdles such as unfavorable workplace policies and significant gender gaps in operational, technical and leadership roles, a study from the World Bank Group shows.
This underrepresentation limits diverse perspectives in service design and decision-making, negatively affects businesses and undermines economic growth, according to the report, “Addressing Barriers to Women’s Participation in Transport.” The paper—which covers global trends and provides in-depth analysis of the women’s role in the transport sector in Europe and Central Asia (ECA) and Middle East and North Africa (MENA)—was prepared jointly by the World Bank Group, the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ), the European Investment Bank (EIB), and the International Transport Forum (ITF).
The slim proportion of women in the sector comes at a cost, since increasing female participation and leadership can drive innovation, enhance team performance, and improve service delivery for diverse users, while boosting GDP and addressing critical labor shortages, researchers said.
To drive solutions, the researchers today unveiled the Women in Transport (WiT) Network, which is designed to bring together transport stakeholders dedicated to empowering women across all facets and levels of the transport sector, and to serve as a forum for networking, recruitment, information exchange, training, and mentorship opportunities for women.
Initially, the WiT network will cover only the Europe and Central Asia and the Middle East and North Africa regions, but it is expected to gradually expand into a global initiative.
“When transport services are inclusive, economies thrive. Yet, as this joint report and our work at the EIB reveal, few transport companies fully leverage policies to better attract, retain and promote women,” Laura Piovesan, the European Investment Bank (EIB)’s Director General of the Projects Directorate, said in a release. “The Women in Transport Network enables us to unite efforts and scale impactful solutions - benefiting women, employers, communities and the climate.”
Oh, you work in logistics, too? Then you’ve probably met my friends Truedi, Lumi, and Roger.
No, you haven’t swapped business cards with those guys or eaten appetizers together at a trade-show social hour. But the chances are good that you’ve had conversations with them. That’s because they’re the online chatbots “employed” by three companies operating in the supply chain arena—TrueCommerce,Blue Yonder, and Truckstop. And there’s more where they came from. A number of other logistics-focused companies—like ChargePoint,Packsize,FedEx, and Inspectorio—have also jumped in the game.
While chatbots are actually highly technical applications, most of us know them as the small text boxes that pop up whenever you visit a company’s home page, eagerly asking questions like:
“I’m Truedi, the virtual assistant for TrueCommerce. Can I help you find what you need?”
“Hey! Want to connect with a rep from our team now?”
“Hi there. Can I ask you a quick question?”
Chatbots have proved particularly popular among retailers—an October survey by artificial intelligence (AI) specialist NLX found that a full 92% of U.S. merchants planned to have generative AI (GenAI) chatbots in place for the holiday shopping season. The companies said they planned to use those bots for both consumer-facing applications—like conversation-based product recommendations and customer service automation—and for employee-facing applications like automating business processes in buying and merchandising.
But how smart are these chatbots really? It varies. At the high end of the scale, there’s “Rufus,” Amazon’s GenAI-powered shopping assistant. Amazon says millions of consumers have used Rufus over the past year, asking it questions either by typing or speaking. The tool then searches Amazon’s product listings, customer reviews, and community Q&A forums to come up with answers. The bot can also compare different products, make product recommendations based on the weather where a consumer lives, and provide info on the latest fashion trends, according to the retailer.
Another top-shelf chatbot is “Manhattan Active Maven,” a GenAI-powered tool from supply chain software developer Manhattan Associates that was recently adopted by the Army and Air Force Exchange Service. The Exchange Service, which is the 54th-largest retailer in the U.S., is using Maven to answer inquiries from customers—largely U.S. soldiers, airmen, and their families—including requests for information related to order status, order changes, shipping, and returns.
However, not all chatbots are that sophisticated, and not all are equipped with AI, according to IBM. The earliest generation—known as “FAQ chatbots”—are only clever enough to recognize certain keywords in a list of known questions and then respond with preprogrammed answers. In contrast, modern chatbots increasingly use conversational AI techniques such as natural language processing to “understand” users’ questions, IBM said. It added that the next generation of chatbots with GenAI capabilities will be able to grasp and respond to increasingly complex queries and even adapt to a user’s style of conversation.
Given their wide range of capabilities, it’s not always easy to know just how “smart” the chatbot you’re talking to is. But come to think of it, maybe that’s also true of the live workers we come in contact with each day. Depending on who picks up the phone, you might find yourself speaking with an intern who’s still learning the ropes or a seasoned professional who can handle most any challenge. Either way, the best way to interact with our new chatbot colleagues is probably to take the same approach you would with their human counterparts: Start out simple, and be respectful; you never know what you’ll learn.
With the hourglass dwindling before steep tariffs threatened by the new Trump Administration will impose new taxes on U.S. companies importing goods from abroad, organizations need to deploy strategies to handle those spiraling costs.
American companies with far-flung supply chains have been hanging for weeks in a “wait-and-see” situation to learn if they will have to pay increased fees to U.S. Customs and Border Enforcement agents for every container they import from certain nations. After paying those levies, companies face the stark choice of either cutting their own profit margins or passing the increased cost on to U.S. consumers in the form of higher prices.
The impact could be particularly harsh for American manufacturers, according to Kerrie Jordan, Group Vice President, Product Management at supply chain software vendor Epicor. “If higher tariffs go into effect, imported goods will cost more,” Jordan said in a statement. “Companies must assess the impact of higher prices and create resilient strategies to absorb, offset, or reduce the impact of higher costs. For companies that import foreign goods, they will have to find alternatives or pay the tariffs and somehow offset the cost to the business. This can take the form of building up inventory before tariffs go into effect or finding an equivalent domestic alternative if they don’t want to pay the tariff.”
Tariffs could be particularly painful for U.S. manufacturers that import raw materials—such as steel, aluminum, or rare earth minerals—since the impact would have a domino effect throughout their operations, according to a statement from Matt Lekstutis, Director at consulting firm Efficio. “Based on the industry, there could be a large detrimental impact on a company's operations. If there is an increase in raw materials or a delay in those shipments, as being the first step in materials / supply chain process, there is the possibility of a ripple down effect into the rest of the supply chain operations,” Lekstutis said.
New tariffs could also hurt consumer packaged goods (CPG) retailers, which are already being hit by the mere threat of tariffs in the form of inventory fluctuations seen as companies have rushed many imports into the country before the new administration began, according to a report from Iowa-based third party logistics provider (3PL) JT Logistics. That jump in imported goods has quickly led to escalating demands for expanded warehousing, since CPG companies need a place to store all that material, Jamie Cord, president and CEO of JT Logistics, said in a release
Immediate strategies to cope with that disruption include adopting strategies that prioritize agility, including capacity planning and risk diversification by leveraging multiple fulfillment partners, and strategic inventory positioning across regional warehouses to bypass bottlenecks caused by trade restrictions, JT Logistics said. And long-term resilience recommendations include scenario-based planning, expanded supplier networks, inventory buffering, multimodal transportation solutions, and investment in automation and AI for insights and smarter operations, the firm said.
“Navigating the complexities of tariff-driven disruptions requires forward-thinking strategies,” Cord said. “By leveraging predictive modeling, diversifying warehouse networks, and strategically positioning inventory, JT Logistics is empowering CPG brands to remain adaptive, minimize risks, and remain competitive in the current dynamic market."
With so many variables at play, no company can predict the final impact of the potential Trump tariffs, so American companies should start planning for all potential outcomes at once, according to a statement from Nari Viswanathan, senior director of supply chain strategy at Coupa Software. Faced with layers of disruption—with the possible tariffs coming on top of pre-existing geopolitical conflicts and security risks—logistics hubs and businesses must prepare for any what-if scenario. In fact, the strongest companies will have scenarios planned as far out as the next three to five years, Viswanathan said.
Grocery shoppers at select IGA, Price Less, and Food Giant stores will soon be able to use an upgraded in-store digital commerce experience, since store chain operator Houchens Food Group said it would deploy technology from eGrowcery, provider of a retail food industry white-label digital commerce platform.
Kentucky-based Houchens Food Group, which owns and operates more than 400 grocery, convenience, hardware/DIY, and foodservice locations in 15 states, said the move would empower retailers to rethink how and when to engage their shoppers best.
“At HFG we are focused on technology vendors that allow for highly targeted and personalized customer experiences, data-driven decision making, and e-commerce capabilities that do not interrupt day to day customer service at store level. We are thrilled to partner with eGrowcery to assist us in targeting the right audience with the right message at the right time,” Craig Knies, Chief Marketing Officer of Houchens Food Group, said in a release.
Michigan-based eGrowcery, which operates both in the United States and abroad, says it gives retail groups like Houchens Food Group the ability to provide a white-label e-commerce platform to the retailers it supplies, and integrate the program into the company’s overall technology offering. “Houchens Food Group is a great example of an organization that is working hard to simultaneously enhance its technology offering, engage shoppers through more channels and alleviate some of the administrative burden for its staff,” Patrick Hughes, CEO of eGrowcery, said.