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Supply Chain Now
Resilience, Strategy, and Orchestration: Supply Chain Leadership Lessons from NFL Champions
00:46:25
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There is this thing called a reverse supply chain, reverse logistics, returns management, whatever you want to call it. There was a stat at one time that for, for many retailers, the volume of returns, right. The aggregate dollars of returns, if it was a supplier would be a top five supplier for most organizations. So we're dedicating more resources, more horsepower, more brain power to figure out how do we do this effectively because like many other things, it's not going to go away. Welcome to Supply Chain now the number one voice of supply chain. Join us as we share critical news, key insights and real supply chain leadership.
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From across the globe.
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One conversation at a time.
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Hey, good morning, good afternoon, good evening wherever you may be, Scott Lewton and the always special co host, guest co host Mike Griswold here with you on Supply Chain now. Welcome to today's show. Hey Mike, how you doing today?
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A
I'm doing very well, Scott. Great to see you. Good to be here. Looking forward to today's discussion.
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So I got, you know, you know, you see me sitting here in short sleeve shirts, although the weather's kind of cooled down a little bit here in the Atlanta area is still in the low 80s. And I see you with a hoodie on. But Mike, is it, has it gotten.
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A
Brisk up where you are a little bit? Actually it's probably more a function of the air conditioning in the upstairs of the house than necessarily outside the we're still in the upper 80s here in Boise. We are going to drop into the 70s over the week. But multiple years ago I made the decision I wanted to have the biggest air conditioner on the block. I have succeeded. And now the upstairs from time to time does get a bit chilly.
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Outstanding. You have some extra refrigerator space as needed maybe. Well, good stuff. I tell you this, one of the most beautiful times across the states is upon us soon as we get into early fall and it's just a lot of beautiful time to be outside. And that's gonna be a little bit of a theme here in just a minute, folks, as today we continue one of our longest running podcast series, one of the most popular series at that supply chain today and tomorrow with Mike Griswold from Gartner. So Mike, of course serves as, as vice president analyst with Gartner. We've got a fun, informative conversation teed up here today. So as I mentioned, it's late summer, early fall, it's time for back to school and of course, American football. So what inspiration can supply chain leaders find from this season of the year? Well, we've got Mike here to fearlessly weigh in with actual perspective, as always. So stay tuned as we walk through an outstanding discussion with the one and only Mike Griswold. Okay, so Mike, let's get going with a fun warm up question. So today when we publish this podcast, it will be September 29, 2025. Goodness gracious, where did the year go today, folks? Couple things here. It's International Day of Awareness for food loss and waste. And by the way, did you know the USDA estimates that we waste here in the States about 30 to 40% of all food?
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Wow.
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It is National Silent Movie Day. I can't say I've ever watched one of those famous silent movies. Maybe you have. And it's National Coffee Day. So I would argue there's two things that keep global supply chains running. Coffee and wine. Or maybe beer. Or maybe. So I want to explore National Coffee Day with you, Mike. Two questions. What is the best coffee that you. One of the best coffees you've ever recalled having. And number two, what's your daily coffee routine? Mike?
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A
So this will probably be a one of our shortest segments, Scott, Because I'm actually a tea drinker. I will drink coffee from time to time. I'm going to go back home to visit my parents. They have some Dunkin Donuts. I love a Dunkin Donuts coffee. My best coffee experience, though, I will tell you, is I had a meeting in the Starbucks offices in Seattle and I was sitting in on their sales and operations planning meeting and they kick off a lot of their large meetings with coffee tastings. So someone in the meeting will bring in one of the Starbucks coffees, either one that's been around or a newer one that maybe is going to launch in their stores. And they all have a tasting. The person goes through the history, like where was it made, stuff about the beans, all things that were frankly Greek to me. But it was fascinating because there is definitely, as you would expect, a coffee culture that's ingrained in Starbucks. So my morning routine is basically make myself a cup of usually Earl Grey breakfast tea and I'm off. I'm off. So sorry about the. The not a great coffee story for our folks that are going to be listening and watching.
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B
That's okay. My son's a big T fan, as a matter of fact, so I'll have to steal some best practices from you. But I love the Starbucks component. My favorite coffee of all time is in the mom and pop coffee places. I think just the vibe. I've never, I don't think I can Recall having ever a bad cup of coffee? Oh sure. At the local mom and pop places around the world, from Cape Town for that matter, to Atlanta to, to, you know, across the country. And then secondly, I drink cough. Me and Amanda both drink coffee religiously every day, but we don't drink as much as we used to. We used to drink easily the full pot and sometimes think about a little bit more. But now it's about, for me it's about two cups and for Amanda it's about 20. So you got to put it with me. So.
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Yes, yes.
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One more thing. You mentioned going to Starbucks, the corporate and kind of having that experience. Similarly, I went to Lamb Weston, one of their production sites in the Pacific Northwest, years and years ago. And of course at the time, they still may do it now at the time they made most, if not all of Chick Fil A's crinkle cut french fries from this facility. Right. And we started a meeting. The best way you could ever start a meeting if it's not coffee and it is perfectly fried Chick Fil? A french fries. And I'm telling you, Mike, I had to restrain myself from, you know, grabbing fistfuls of these perfect, perfect treats. Yep. Is that we should start all meetings with Chick Fil? A french fries, huh?
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The Chick Fil A waffle fries are unbelievable. My, my oldest granddaughter has started playing soccer and I've been taking her to Chick Fil? A before practice and then going to practice. So I used to, for some unknown reason, swap out the waffle fries for the side salad. And the side salad was quite good and it was probably much better for me. But yeah, it's really hard to beat the, the Chick Fil? A waffle fries.
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B
That's right. That's right. So kudos if Lynn Wesson still produces all those delicious fries. Kudos to the whole team and all those wonderful frontline professionals making it happen so we all get to enjoy them. So we gotta get to work. We're talking about big two big topics here today, Mike. I'm going to start with this back to school season that we're all in. For some of us, our kids have been in school since early August here in Georgia. Like August 1st or 2nd, as I recall. For others, they've just started a few weeks ago, which must be nice. But regardless, Mike, when I think of back to school, in many ways, I think of back to the basics. Because at least for those early weeks in the school season, teachers are making sure a firm foundation is in place with all the students back in School so they can build on top of that foundation with new skills, tools, lessons and more. So when you think of this season, this back to school, back to basic season, when it comes to the supply chain world, what comes to mind for you?
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Yeah, I think there's two things, Scott, to come to mind. One is a topic that we've talked a lot about over our time together over the years, which is just the general idea of planning, right? Forecasting, replenishment. I mentioned sales and operations planning from Starbucks, but this whole idea of how are we going to match demand and supply. And if you think about the back to school season is really the beginning of a whole set of planning challenges for supply chain or at least in many instances it could be the execution component. Now because we would have planned for back to school, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, post Christmas, all of those things probably were planned months if not years ago. And now we're in execution mode. But I think what's a little bit different, picking up on the idea of we've got these core foundations, but now we need to start augmenting them. I think last year to a degree, but I think moving forward we're going to see much more of a role of AI in this idea of planning and execution. And I think the skill that's required now is figuring out where does AI fit within these planning and execution processes. Whether it's upfront and using AI to give us a better demand signal, or whether it's using AI to help us do a better job around positioning the inventory right wherever it needs to go, whenever it needs to be there. So that idea of planning, I think always comes to mind for me when I think about the back to school season. Because if you think about it, we're running from one major demand signal to another, right? The back to school as I mentioned. Then we have Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, right. Those demand signals and how we respond to that are a big chunk of most companies business, right. Happens in that last quarter. So that's the first one that comes to mind when we think about the back to school season.
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So quick comment. Because it is getting. It's go time, it's go time. This is our time of year, the supply chain shines and especially those that don't make the headlines. If supply chains aren't in the headlines, that's a good thing. But hey, really quick, Mike, speaking of planning and I love your mentioning of AI because we're seeing AI manifest itself and really change the nature of planning in so many different ways. I was at the reverse logistics association private leadership event a week or two ago, actually several weeks now. And I was, it was a closed session, so I couldn't record anything. And, and we're getting, we're getting outstanding insights, especially from retail leaders, about what they're seeing from a reverse and returns management standpoint. And one of the coolest things I heard was the gains we're making when it comes to better planning for returns, which is outstanding from a technology standpoint to disseminating best practices so we can have better visibility into the reverse side, you name it. But we've got to get better because Mike, returns last year, according to NRF, National Retail Federation, $890 billion in returns in just the US in one year alone. So I'm hoping that we can build on some foundations we made when it comes to reverse and returns management. Your thought? Mike?
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Yeah, I think it's a great perspective, Scott. I mean, I think we've had this conversation as well. I think for the longest time, supply chains in general were one direction, right. I need to get stuff out. I need to get it from A to B in my, my job is done when I get it to be whatever B might be. Right. I think what we've realized now over time, particularly in the retail segment, but I don't think it's not just the retail environment. What we've now realized is there is this thing called a reverse supply chain, reverse logistics, returns management, whatever you want to call it. And I think there was a stat at one time that for many retailers, the volume of returns, right. The aggregate dollars of returns, if it was a supplier, would be a top five supplier for most organizations. So I think we've kind of realized now that this is another component of our supply chain. We're dedicating more resources, more horsepower, more brain power to figure out how do we do this effectively because like many other things, it's not going to go away. So we can't like put our head in the sand and ignore it. So it definitely with folks like NRF pointing out some of those statistics, I think it has created a sense of urgency for organizations to now recognize we have this reverse supply chain. We need to treat it like our regular supply chain from kind of an intellectual perspective and, and many, many organizations are now doing that.
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Mike, you're so right on so many levels. And really quick, before we get your second back, back to basic thought, just to close the loop on returns, the number one theme I heard through two days spent with, with leaders on the front line of handling returns and of Course, the reverse world, Fraud, fraud and more fraud, fraud, bad actors, fraud is, is, is innovating as much as anything else in supply chain. Secondly, to your point, we've got to invest in professional development curriculum. Just like we've seen supply chain on the forward side just explode in the last 20, 30 years. We need that same movement taking place when it comes to returns, management and reverse logistics, dedicated programs. And then lastly, while this came to my mind in the first place is of course January comes the tidal wave of returns each year, although it's, it's throughout the year, but January, of course, after the holidays, folks take those paisley ties back and everything else.
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So.
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All right, Mike, we've come full circle. You've got one more key thought when it comes to back to the basics for supply chain.
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Yeah, it's, it's a recurring theme across a lot of conversations we have at Gartner, which is just the, the general concept of agility. And I think when we think about the back to school season and what we just talked about in terms of planning. Planning, right. None of our plans are going to be completely perfect and we know that. So the ability to be responsive, both from a demand signal perspective, but also the supply response to that from an agility perspective becomes really important. So things like how much inventory and where do we put it when all of those types of things for retailers, the allocation strategy around where are we going to pre position inventory. But the more agile a company can make their supply chain, both from a process perspective, but also the physical placement of stuff. We typically think of inventory, but it could be things like trucks and drivers and those types of things as well. We need to create some agility within our supply chain, particularly this part of the year, because we have to be responsive, right? We have to be able to use some of the advanced tools that we're getting from AI around demand sensing. And we have to be able to shape and respond to that. And the only way we're able to do that is through agility, which means we can't lock inventory too much inventory ahead of time in a particular location. As we think about, we haven't used the T word today. Maybe we can get away from not using the T word, but you know, we need to become much more global with how we think about where we source stuff from and where we place our inventory. And that is another element to how we can be, you know, more agile.
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Our excellent comments. I love your holistic definition of agility and just how important it is across the ecosystem in a Variety of iterations, but I got to go ahead and break the seal on that T word. So tariffs. One more, one more thought. One of the things I picked up at the Reverse Logistics association event was there's not as much visibility, but tariffs apply to returns, too. And that is creating multiple headaches from a returns and reverse standpoint. So the plot thickens, folks. The plot thickens. Let's, let's talk football. So we'll get away from tariffs. Talk football for a minute. So the grand tradition, Mike, that late summer and early fall brings each year, American football, college football, is getting deep into its schedule. The NFL is already several weeks in all kinds of stories, all kinds of fantasy sports, the losers and winners and all points in between. So, Mike, when you think of hall of Fame football teams or champions or individuals, legendary figures in the game, what supply chain analogies come to mind? And let's start with the first one. We got three. Let's start the first one.
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Yeah. And I think what I want to do, Scott, is, is I'll use American football teams as a starting point. But I think to your question, the lessons that at least I pull out of these three teams, I think are, you know, they cut across sports because I'm sure there's, there's an international soccer team that has had similar experiences. And the lessons that they've learned, my guess, are pretty similar to some of the lessons that we've learned from the American football teams.
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Yes.
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So the first one I'm going to use, and I'll provide a little bit of context, and I'm, I'm from western New York, which is home of the Buffalo Bills. And there was a stretch in the 1990s where the Buffalo Bills went to four straight Super Bowls, which is the championship game in American football, and they lost all four games. They lost the infamous for us in western New York, the wide right game against the Giants. They got hammered pretty well by the Redskins and they got beat pretty handily twice by the Cowboys. But the story there is really, I think, for the Bills over that four year stretch is a story of resilience. They recognized kind of who they were. They recognized that they had assembled a very strong nucleus. Right. So for those Buffalo fans, that's the Jim Kelly, Thurman Thomas, Bruce Smith, Marv Levy, Andre, the wide receiver named escaping me.
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But anyway, Andre Reed, very good.
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Thank you. And I think all of those, just to name a few, were all, are all hall of Famers currently. So there wasn't which, which you tend to see in, in business Right. Even though success in the NFL is defined by winning a Super bowl, getting to the super bowl and getting to the super bowl four straight years is no small feat and has not been repeated by anyone since the 90s. So from a supply chain perspective, the operation was very sound. The fundamentals were very sound. They were able to avoid things like, I will call like the shiny object syndrome. They didn't fire the coach. Free agency was different, salary cap was different, or maybe even non existent in the 90s for that matter. But there wasn't a mass exodus of players. They liked the culture in Buffalo, they liked the coach. And I think as it relates to supply chain, it's around understanding what success looks like and what good looks like and not necessarily beating yourself up if you don't win. Whatever your, your equivalent of a Super bowl is. The Bills were, you know, had had a team over the course of four years which was incredibly strong. They had a bit of bad luck against the Giants, they ran into some better teams in some of their other Super Bowls, but they were able to remain consistent, remain true to who they were and not fall into the trap of, okay, we, you know, particularly after losing the second super bowl, it would have been very easy for someone to come in and blow everything up, right, and say, hey, this isn't working. We need to replace this, we need to replace that. They didn't do that and were able to, well, not win the super bowl, get to the Super Bowl. So to me, it's a great example of resilience.
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I'm with you. You know, we could talk about this one example for an hour, but a couple thoughts. As I, as I heard, listen to you unpack that, number one, argue arguably, I gotta say, it's gotta be tougher to get to the super bowl four straight years in a row than winning once. And maybe, maybe I'm wrong. But to your point, to overcome the let down and not let that impact the system, not let that impact the, the aspects of the formula that work well in the core of the culture and all to your point, it's remarkable. It is absolutely remarkable. And when I think of how you tied that to supply chain, supply chain and sales have a lot in common. Sales, you get no's all the time. And you, you got, you know, you got to take the hits and keep on moving, right? Because the more nos you get eventually, the more yes, you get. And in supply chain, unfortunately, the nature of what it is, there are lots and lots of opportunities for things not to go right. And that doesn't even include the surprises that we get big and small, right. And the successful organizations and teams that can process all those letdowns and keep on moving. Those are the super bowl winners or the teams that show up at the super bowl knocking on the door for straight years. So, Mike, that is a terrific one out of the gate. And, and folks, check out. Is it the Falls of Buffalo, Mike, the documentary on ESPN that tracks all four of those teams? I think it is Hard knock, folks. Check out that 30 for 30. It's a great. Then the. Could be. Well, I know Hard Knocks focused on the Bills too, but there's a documentary, okay, ESPN 30 for 30 that I think is called the Falls of Buffalo and it goes through all four seasons.
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Oh. Oh, wow. Okay, Excellent.
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All right, so we got more. There's. Wait, folks, there's more. So the second supply chain leadership analogy when we think of American football is I think a team up in Baltimore, right?
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Yes, the Baltimore Ravens, Super bowl winners, 2001 and I think 2013. Quite a span, two different teams. But I think the, the, the supply chain example that I think of when I think of Baltimore is around this idea of core competencies and recognizing what you are really, really good at and surrounding yourself with enough other high quality capabilities to get the job done. Baltimore, over the course of its history has really been known for its defense. In 2001, 2013, probably two of the better defenses the NFL has seen, that's the Ray Lewis and Ed Reed and a whole bunch of other folks. What people probably couldn't name or may not name easily was who were the winning quarterbacks for those two Super Bowls, right? Trent Dilfer and Joe Flacco. Now, Joe Flacco is still around. He's the starting quarterback or at least when this airs, he may or may not be, but at the beginning of September, starting quarterback for the. For the Cleveland Browns. Neither of those two, I think, are going to go into the hall of Fame. I think they would be probably classified as game managers. But what the Ravens were able to do was, was say our core competency is going to be defense. From a supply chain perspective, it's what is our core competency going to be around our supply chain. And let's ensure those other areas around it are good enough to enable the defense. What I mean by that is when you have a defense like the Ravens, you need a quarterback that's not going to hurt your team, right? Not going to turn the ball over, not give your. Make your defense work on a short field play. Complementary football is how they would describe it. When you have whatever your core competency is going to be for your supply chain, you need those complementary capabilities around that, right? So if you're. Let's say your core competency is going to be speed, right. Then you need ancillary functions within your supply chain that are going to support that core mission around speed. When I was early in my career at a company called amr, before we got bought by Gartner, there was a gentleman who was kind of leading our research who said Walmart is a supply chain company that just happens to have thousands of stores. Right, Right. Walmart's core competency is the supply chain and they support that by having lots and lots of. Of well run store locations. But I don't think anyone would put Walmart and I'll say a Wegmans shopping experiences on the same level. So for folks out there, the less. The lesson I would leave you with from the Ravens is identify your core competency as a supply chain, whatever it might be, speed, cost, service, whatever it might be, and ensure that those areas around that are able to support whatever that core competency is going to be. And I think the Ravens have demonstrated that for sure with those two Super Bowls.
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Mike loved that. And I tell you, the 2025 Ravens and the recent Ravens teams look a lot different. They've got the superstar Lamar Jackson at quarterback, and I gotta tell you, I wasn't a big Lamar Jackson fan in college because he gave my Clemson Tiger teams fits. But I'm a big fan now. I'm a big fan. And we'll see if he can take the Ravens to the promised land. We'll see, Mike.
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Yeah, I mean, okay. I think if you look at. And I hear a lot of the, the announcers and analysts talk about this, right. The, the. The perception now of the Ravens has shifted to Lamar Jackson and Derrick Henry. Right. And the defense is, is much less of a focal point and the pendulum may be shifting, but at some point the Ravens will have to stop somebody. We'll need their defense to show up if they want to get to the Super Bowl.
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That's right. Ray Lewis is over there gritting and smiling probably, because I'll tell you, that was. Those were quite some defensive teams with some hall of Famers. Okay. Number three in this interesting supply chain, analogies found in football. I love this stuff. Mike, let's talk about the Patriots. The Patriots. The Patriots. Your thoughts?
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I'm sure the, the, the. There will be a significant number of the American audience who say, oh my gosh not more Patriots talk. And by no means am I, I'm not a huge Patriots fan, but I think.
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Right.
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Similarly to what the Bills put together for that four year stretch, right. In terms of kind of sustained excellence, I think the same would be said over the Patriots for a longer period of time. But they did it in a very different way. Where, you know, if we go back to the Ravens example, right, they had a core competency which was defense. I think the Patriots had a core competency around and a, a what we would think about from a supply chain perspective as, as orchestration. If you think about how as a team, as a coaching staff, right. It was all built around kind of the, this philosophy of, of Belichick and Kraft and, and then embraced by the players where no one person is bigger than the team. Right. In order for us to be successful, offense, defense, special teams, we, we all have to play our part. We all have to do our job. We all have to know what, what our kind of lane is and our boundaries are and we're going to be the best that we can be within each of our boundaries, within each of our swim lanes, for lack of a better term. Yes, it doesn't hurt to have one of the greatest of all time quarterbacks. Does it hurt to have one of the greatest all time coaches? But you also have to have 53 people buy into that, buy into the fact that I'm not going to be doing, you know, super exciting press conferences. I may not be doing any press conferences. My job is to do whatever my job is so that we win games and ultimately win Super Bowls. When the dust settles on all of this, I think what we're going to see is, is the stretch the Patriots had Tom Brady and Belichick will be one of the greatest stretches we've seen in NFL history. But if you look at the composition of those teams, much like the composition of a supply chain, right. It is a perfect example of, of a case where the sum of the parts is definitely greater than the whole, even though the whole delivered a whole lot of success. You know, you will not find probably a whole lot of hall of Famers spread across those super bowl teams. You'll certainly find some, but you won't find them, say, in the quantity that you might find in other teams that won far fewer Super Bowls.
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Yeah.
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And the reason for that, just like a well run supply chain, is everyone knew what they needed to do and they did it to the best of their ability. So in a supply chain, right. The demand planning team says our Job is to create the best demand and supply plan that we can and that's what we're going to get really, really good at. I'm not going to worry about how other people do demand plans. This is how we're going to do it because it fits with how we want to run our supply chain. If you think about kind of how that team was constructed, right. It was constructed over time so that the offense and the defense were highly complementary. Again, doesn't hurt. They had one of the greatest kickers of all time, clutch kickers of all time in Adam Vinateri. But if you look at when they got Randy Moss as an example, the offense got a lot more explosive. When they didn't have Randy Moss, the offense was still highly effective, but it wasn't a big play offense. The defense was always, because of Belichick's back background, the defense was always going to be solid and consistent, not make mistakes. Right. I think as we think about supply chains and the Patriots, Patriots were. They weren't going to lose because of self inflicted wounds, right. Turnovers, penalties, supply chains need to ensure they're going to be successful by not creating their own self inflicted wounds. Bad forecasts, bad inventory decisions and so on. So I think the Patriots are a great supply chain example, albeit a little bit different than what we talked about with the Bills and the ratings.
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B
Yeah, Mike, lots of good stuff there. And the orchestration where you started, it's perfect. And I would argue I've never seen a system count to your point. A system or a really a. An enterprise. An enterprise. When it comes to Patriots, they were so synced up and aligned from ownership all the way down to probably the water water boys and stuff. Everyone knew what their role was and that's why they it produced I think six super bowl championships. The proof is in the pudding, Mike. Right?
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Yeah. I mean I think we were talking kind of in the green room beforehand about. I'm a long suffering frustrated Cowboys fan. Right. And if you just look at just one element as it relates to the supply chain. Right. If you think about Bob Kraft versus Jerry Jones. Yeah, Bob Kraft and you know, use the word enterprise, I think that's a great word. You know, Bob Kraft, it was his enterprise. But he was smart enough to delegate what needed to be delegated to push things down to the level of people that had the most insight to make the decision. Right. He wasn't talking about the draft. That what he has a general manager for. He wasn't talking about coaching. That's what he had Bill Belichick for you, contrast that with Jerry Jones, who I would argue had probably more talent to work with within the Cowboy structure than than Kraft had with the Patriots. Right. And, and Jerry's inability to delegate, inability to push things to the levels where the best decisions could be made by the best people lead you to a just to a complete divergence and success of two franchises that had, I would say both had an equal chance to be successful. One had a much better leader than the other. And then obviously the results speak for themselves over the last, you know, 12 to 15 years.
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B
Well said. And folks, I can't remember the name of it, but if you're a Cowboys fan or if you find intrigue in, in the Cowboys, especially their 90s teams, right, where they turned it around from like 1 in 15 or the winless year, whatever that was, to winning several Super Bowls and then what followed kind of the some of the futility that, that Mike's talking about. Go check out the current Netflix documentary. It is incredible even for non Cowboys fans like me. Okay, one last tie in and we're gonna give a sneak peek of those of things coming up at Gardner. So I had a little as you're talking about the Patriots, I had a little flash flashback because when I went to basic training for United States Air force, that was 1994 and I had a one of the 50 or so folks in my flight. We're talking about the Patriots. They had the new uniforms, they had Willie McGinnis who they drafted in the first round as a linebacker out of USC. And he was, I think playing pretty well. And that I didn't know until what you were sharing here. That was Bob Kraft's first year as an owner and gosh, he had no idea what he in that organization was going to have in their hands. But a lot of good stuff. I really enjoyed your perspective as always. And Mike, I think we're kindred spirits. And one of my favorite things about your analysis is how we can find business leadership and supply chain lessons in so much of life outside of the business world. So I really enjoyed the American football analogies here today.
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A
Well, think about it, Scott. We have done that. I don't know how well they're archived, but we have done so we've done football, we've done movies.
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B
Yeah.
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A
We've done songs or music and I believe we've done books that were non business books. So there's, there's four things right there that I think I hope people find interesting. I because it's very easy to find supply chain stuff in our kind of day to day stuff. I always think it's fun to go to some of these other, take these other avenues or go to these other kind of aspects to pull out supply chain learnings. Because you're, you're a hundred percent correct, Scott, that they are out there everywhere. Right. We just need to work for them.
- [36:16]
B
I'm with you 100%. Okay, so let's talk about what's coming up next. Ed Gartner, before we wrap here. And hey, it's, it's planning season in a number of different ways. We got some really popular planning summits that the gardener team has been putting on for several years now. We've got the planning summit in London in the United Kingdom in November 2025. And we've got the Denver Planning Summit coming up in December out in beautiful Colorado. I'll be, I'll be at that one and that'll be my first planning summit. So we, me and the team will be out there looking forward to that. Mike, Y' all have gotten a lot of praise and recognition from the market of on these tightly focused and targeted. When they say planning summit folks, it is a planning summit. All the presentations, all the conversations and it's a really targeted audience as well. Tell us what folks can expect, Mike.
- [37:11]
A
So we really try to tailor these events to the audience, both from the content perspective, but also the level of content. So if you think about our symposium, really targeted at chief supply chain officers and their direct reports, you'll find that content probably 60, 65% at kind of that strategic level for Cseos and then certainly some hands on stuff for their direct reports that gets flipped on its head when we call come into the summits. Right? Because we will have people that own planning teams for sure. Right. We might have the head of planning that reports to the CSCO. So we still need 25, 30% of our content, you know, at that strategic level. But 70% of our stuff is for planners, right? It's for the people that do the job day to day. We added a track this year around talent, which we think is growing to be a huge component of the success of a planning team is who's in it, right. And what skills do they have and even in today's age, what skills do they need to acquire. So there is a lot more hands on type of activity both in the breakout sessions that we present, the workshops that we do that are really, really hands on. So that's the big difference is that mix between strategic and tactical because of who we're targeting know to be at these events.
- [38:45]
B
Yep, Mike, a lot of good stuff and I really I'm a nerd out in December as I'm at the planning summit in Denver. I'm really looking forward to it and I bet I love the addition additional focus on talent. It's so timely and my hunch, Mike, is we're going to learn all sorts of the good, the bad and ugly when it comes to adopting AI in our planning activities. I bet we're going to hear some of what went well and some of what never will be tried again. Mike, your thoughts?
- [39:13]
A
No, I would agree. I think there's a lot of emerging lessons learned for sure. There's also a lot of emerging use cases around how do we deploy the AI tools to the best of our ability to support. I think one of the underlying themes you'll hear though is really around kind of an augmentation strategy. I think our position at Gartner is we've seen many, many more instances of AI augmenting processes with people than we see AI replacing people, particularly in the planning environment. That may not be true across the board. There may be other areas where AI has a higher propensity to be able to do things faster than people. Planning is not the is not one of those instances that we see planning as a heavily augmented space where AI will provide value add right to decisions that people are making all the time. I will caution people, first of all, I have no control over the venues or the dates. I would be watching whatever your local weather app is. London in November, Colorado in December. Who knows what you're going to get. It's probably safe to say you will not need shorts and T shirts. Other than that, I think just keep an eye on the weather.
- [40:43]
B
Mike, as always, the old saying we all everybody talks about the weather, no one does anything about it. We'll see what the weather looks like in Colorado in December. Hey, one last note and then we're gonna make sure folks want to connect with you. Mike. A couple weeks back on an episode of the Buzz, I spoke about some research from the World Economic Forum and it focused on chief people officers right around the world, not just in supply chain but across all sectors. And as you might imagine, AI adoption is a big concern that these talent, these incredible talent managers think about and act on. And get this, the top AI adoption concerns. I found this interesting the the top two out of all their polling the CPOs around the world, number one employees not adapting or learning quickly enough. Makes sense right but number two is almost in the other direction. Career stagnation and skills loss from over reliance on AI. Isn't that two interesting bookends when it comes to the challenges of AI adoption?
- [41:44]
A
Yeah, we, I was sitting in an internal meeting a few weeks ago and we're getting close to the broader Gartner issuing our predicts. So these are the things that we think are going to happen over the next three to five years. Not surprisingly, almost all of the predicts have some AI related theme. The first two that really resonate with me selfishly because they affect the team that I look after, which is talent. One of our predicts is around. In the not too distant future, there's going to need to be a requirement for AI certification that as part of the recruiting process, people are going to look for people that have been AI certified. I think the question right now is no one's doing that. Right. There is no real entity or entities that are going about creating. This is a standard AI curriculum. Do this and you can be certified. So I think that's going to be an up and coming thing to watch. The second predict is exactly aligned with what you just mentioned, which is within the next two years there is going to be a significant degradation in non AI skills, critical thinking, things like conflict resolution, things like consensus building, people skills, what we would call soft skills. A very real prediction around the decline of those for the exact reason you mentioned, Scott, which is a reliance, I would maybe say, over reliance on AI and some of these like thinking for yourself, independent thinking skills we're just going to not use. And I don't think that's a good thing. I think that is something we definitely need to keep an eye out for.
- [43:33]
B
Mike. Well said. In supply chain in academia, I think of the, the AI experimentation that my kids are doing, you know, in middle school and high school because we, we, it's such a fine line to walk to. We're, you know, using and utilizing in an optimized fashion artificial intelligence. But then that over reliance where we almost stop thinking.
- [43:54]
A
Yes.
- [43:55]
B
And just go over to AI with hallucinations and all.
- [43:58]
A
Yeah.
- [43:58]
B
So it'll be interesting. We're going to have to have Mike, we're going to have to find some deep AI technologists and explore this risk in a future episode. But for now, for now, Mike, lots of great stuff going on. Big fan of the great work you continue to do within the gardener ecosystem and outside of it. We got, we'll, we'll explore your latest coaching exploits on the next conversation. But in the meantime, how can folks connect with the one and only Mike.
- [44:26]
A
Griswold from Gartner LinkedIn and by all means, just drop me an email. Mike Griswold@gartner.com still pretty old school around that. As a quick side note, right, we were, we were talking a lot about our summits. We've just kicked off internally our call to papers process for our symposiums in May. So maybe in the October, November time frame, you know, we could talk a little bit about what, what Symposium 2026 looks like because there's some exciting things coming for in that area as well.
- [44:58]
B
Oh, I can't wait. Can't wait to be a great topic. But regardless folks, big thanks Mike Grizzled, vice president analyst with Gartner as you heard it from him. Reach out, compare notes, let him know what you agree with, let them know what you disagree with. And who knows, you may be part of the next episode. But Mike Griswold, as always, thanks for being here.
- [45:17]
A
Thanks for having me, Scott. Great conversation as always.
- [45:20]
B
You bet folks. You can also venture over to gartner.com where you can learn all about the planning, summit, symposiums, research the top 25, you name it, right? All kinds of good stuff over there. So check out gartner.com so hope you've enjoyed folks this conversation as much as I have. I'll tell you, Mike really makes you think. And in a fun, informative, educating fashion, right? Let us know what you agree with. I love. I know we got a lot of football fans out in our audience. I'd love to get your thoughts on this. There's lots of opportunities out there to change how supply chain happens both today and tomorrow. But it's powered by deeds, not words. With all that said, Scott Luden, challenge you, do good, give forward, be the change that's needed. We'll see you next time right back here on Supply Chain Now. Thanks for buying.
- [46:07]
A
Join the Supply Chain now community. For more Supply chain perspectives, news and innovation, check out supply chain now.com subscribe to to supply chain now on YouTube and follow and listen to Supply Chain now. Wherever you get your podcasts.