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Supply Chain Leadership in the Never Normal: A Power Panel of Supply Chain Leaders Rewriting the Rules
00:53:48
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- [00:00]
Mario Mori
The beauty of AI is that it collapses the distance between understanding and acting. In the past, we would take weeks, maybe sometimes a month to understand why we missed the forecast, why the in stock was not good in that region, why I had an issue in the transportation there. Just getting into data and digging into to understand what happened today. It's pretty fast. It can take minutes. So that distance between understanding and acting to me is one of the beauty of AI.
- [00:29]
Supply Chain Now Announcer
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 from across the globe, one conversation at a time.
- [00:42]
Scott Luton
Hey, good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you may be. Scott Luton with you here on Supply Chain now. Welcome. Last September, we kicked off a new series here at Supply Chain now where we gathered a panel of elite senior supply chain leaders and we share their perspective on a multitude of topics, all couched under this big theme of this never normal that global business continues to find itself in a never normal that, mind you, continues to evolve by the day, sometimes by the hour. The September event was hosted by the one and only Corinne Bursa, right here on Supply Chain now. And she was joined by an incredible panel of exceptional supply chain leaders. It was a hit. We received a ton of feedback. So I'm delighted to be hosting a second installment of this new series backed by pauper Demand.
- [01:33]
Mike Gomez
Folks.
- [01:33]
Scott Luton
We got another extraordinary panel and we're going to touch on a variety of topics, leadership challenges, customer centric supply chains and how they've evolved, how AI is transforming, organizational performance and much, much more. And get ready for the next installment of the Never normal series right here on Supply Chain now. Okay, we're going to get to work. I'm going to try to keep up with this power power panel we've got here. I'm going to introduce each of them, starting with Mario Mori, vice president, integrated planning with Sam's Club. Mario is joined by Rodrigo Alponte, senior vice president, global supply chain with Stata Group. And Mike Gomez, vice president of supply Chain North America with Perfetti Van Mel. I bet we've got a close to a century of proven supply chain leadership here today. Want to bring in Mario, Rodrigo and Mike.
- [02:25]
Rodrigo Alponte
Hey.
- [02:25]
Scott Luton
Hey, Mario. Good afternoon, good evening, good morning. How you doing?
- [02:30]
Mario Mori
I'm doing pretty well, thank you.
- [02:32]
Scott Luton
Great to see you, Mike. How you doing today?
- [02:34]
Mike Gomez
I'm doing fantastic. Thank you for the invitation, Scott.
- [02:38]
Scott Luton
You bet. And of course, Rodrigo, how are you doing today, my friend?
- [02:42]
Rodrigo Alponte
Great as well, Scott. Thank you very much. And it's an Honor to be here with you. Thank you for invitation.
- [02:47]
Scott Luton
Same same. Well I've really enjoyed the opportunity to get to know each of y' all kind of in the pre show session a bit. I want to give our audience a chance to get know you a little bit better before we get into a lot of big topics. And Mike, I want to start with you. Tell us a little bit about yourself and organization.
- [03:02]
Mike Gomez
Yes. Mike Gomez, I'm the vice president of Intuition supply chain for Perfect Perfective on Melee. You probably know all the products so we produce Mentos gone Mentos candy all the dentin tried stride vibes in is the home of my airheads as well. I've been very fortunate to have the opportunity to learn from great schools in the past. I'm sure you can look into my resume and see that and also learn from from the masters people like Jay Bars and others. So I'm very glad to be here. I have responsibilities as I say for end to end supply chain, basically Canada, all that is the US Mexico in Latin America from manufacturing plan and delivery, rtq, quality procurement in a safe health and safety in environment.
- [04:00]
Scott Luton
I'm glad to be here Mike, great to have you. And by the way folks, little aside when Mike gets a little free time cooking bonsai trees and physics. Love studying physics. We might touch on some of that later on. But Mike, great to have you here today. Rodrigo, enjoy getting to know you earlier prior to the show. Tell us a little about yourself.
- [04:21]
Rodrigo Alponte
Thank you Scott. So I am as you all know Rodrigo, I am a naval engineer and I have the pleasure to lead the global supply chain for Stata. Stada is a German based pharmaceutical company present in more than 100 countries. We have a three pillar strategy. So we sell generics, consumer healthcare and specialty pharmaceuticals which is basically biologicals. Our business is strongly present mainly in Europe, Asia, Middle East, Africa and a very small part of the business in America. I would say supply chain. Specifically in supply chain we have approximately a thousand collaborators in the community of supply chain and we are divided into five different word streams. So we have distribution, planning, customer service, supply chain excellence and launches. This is the structure that we have and the way we are moving supply chain ahead is through mainly three different strategic choices. One is the operational excellence. Without operational excellence nothing will happen. Second is innovation and bringing a lot of new technologies, AI tools that we are going to talk about solutions. And the third work stream which I think is the most important one is the development of our people from a technical standpoint and from a leadership standpoint. We're going to talk more about that. Thank you very much, Rodrigo.
- [05:51]
Scott Luton
I loved especially that last one. You touched on the development of the the precious and beautiful human element that makes global supply chain happen every single day. And by the way, when you can't find Rodrigo doing big things in supply chain movies including Jerry Maguire and Any Given Sunday and many others and chasing his kids in the park where he likes to spend some of his free time. So great to have you here, Rodrigo. Mario, great to see you here today. Same thing as we kind of round out the panel. Tell us about yourself and the organization.
- [06:20]
Mario Mori
Thanks again for having me here. It's a pleasure to be with Rodrigo and Mike. I think I'm going to learn a lot today on these three great leaders. 100% I don't want to learn about physics, Mike. I'm good with that. I'm not at that level, but I'd love to learn to that. Today I lead integrated planning for Sam's Club. My career has been entirely in supply chain. I had a privilege to work in leading industry companies. I had the privilege to work with good mentors like Jake Barr in beginning my career and png. So I think my progression has been mostly in the supply chain area. What my team does in Sam's club and by the way, for those who are in countries where we do not operate, Sam's club is from the Walmart family. We are a 90 billion to $100 billion company and we are a club channel and a club channel mobile. We serve members in clubs, e commerce in every single possible way. So my team does what my team does connecting the dots of the strategy and execution. We bring that in place. We do all the demand planning pieces. The astronauts we all know, we also do flow. We do all the optimization of inbound. So that's what basically we do my team does in sand club. I think that we are facing a lot of great changes now that a lot to learn today which is how we are going to evolve our supply chain with the AI and how we do different industries. So the big of this panel today, Scott is that different industries, different companies and I can guarantee you the cross pollination is always positive. So happy to be here.
- [07:51]
Scott Luton
Mark. You touched on lots of beautiful things there that cross pollination, how sectors, industries learn from each other. One of my favorite things about these different conversations we have here and by the way, we're talking about Rodrigo chasing kids in the park. If Mario chases anybody, he may catch them because he specializes in triathlons, marathons and he's running his 10th Chicago Marathon coming up. Is that right, Mario?
- [08:14]
Mario Mori
Yep, that's right.
- [08:15]
Scott Luton
Yeah, man, I'm impressed. Okay, you have to give us some tips later. And Mike, I want to start with you on my first question. So when you look at the last 12 to 18 months, which, yes, feels like maybe 27 years, what's one disruption or shift that fundamentally changed how you think about supply chain leadership? Mike, great question.
- [08:36]
Mike Gomez
I can think about what I call two realities. The first one is the labor reality that we are living after Covid and it's continued to evolve. But the other one is the interception. What I'm seeing in particular in the food industry, which I believe is also true for all the industry, on the high level of variability that I'm seeing in the supply chain or throughout the supply chain, driven by different factors that many times reinforce each other. And when I mean variability, then I'm talking about the extra risk that we have today in the supply chain. We change a lot the way that we used to think about the supply chain. We think about lower cost, fast supply chain efficiencies. We put a lot of focus on efficiencies and the intersection of those two realities that are talking. The literacy thoughts need to start evolving to resilience and business continuity plan. Because I tell you one thing, the more expensive product that we can have is the one we don't have on the shelf and the one is not meeting the customer needs. So given the high level of variability that at the end produces and risk or leaders today need to be thinking on the different possibilities, probabilities and scenarios on top of the cost. So cost is no longer going to be driving the decisions, but all those probabilities that you have, because again, you don't want to get to a point where you fail in your supply chain and then you don't have the product on the shelf and that will be the more expensive situation that you can have. Then going back to the core of the question, what do we need to do? Different visibility just to all the supply chain is not making it anymore. You need the visibility, but then you need to be comfortable thinking in the different scenarios that can be present down the road. And you need to be feeling confident and comfortable making decisions in a very volatile environment. And then very important, you need to have, as I said, efficiency, cost. But you got to add the business continuity plan, meaning the short term right now, what are the options and how you're going to play them. You got to have them all very well digested plan for it. But then you need to think in the longer term as this variability continues. Because one important factor that is there driving this is consumer preference has changed. We have influences, influencers, we have all the endless information coming from different media. We have geopolitical factors happening today. Tariff for instance. We got regulatory things in food, we got natural colors. So when all this plays together, you see the level of variability and you need to start thinking scenarios, not just static points in the future. And then you got to build robust plans for have a resilient supply chain that meet the needs today can attack very quickly. It has cost effective but knowing the cheapest solution that you will have in the past but also survive to the future. So very interesting challenge for for the leaders these days. Even where we're living day to day.
- [11:56]
Scott Luton
Mike, man, we're getting right out of the gate. I tell you what Mike, setting the bar high. And I'll tell you two quick things where I get your take. Mario, I loved your comment about the most expensive product is the one that's not on the shelf, especially when the customer is ready for it. And this there's speaking the customer those really fast shifting, ever faster shifting consumer preferences and expectations. You know, the micro bursts we're seeing man. Supply chain, not for the faint of heart. Okay Mario, same question. When you look at the last year and a half or so disruptions or shifts that really have changed your thinking of what supply chain leadership is.
- [12:33]
Mario Mori
I think maybe what Michael's mentioned about variability, what we face today, maybe it's not only for the last 18 monthly after Covid, but we see a lot of disruption in how we operate. I think that two things changed my perspective. Number one is that they're thinking about supply chains being more linear. I think it's gone for sure. I think supply chains nowadays are more like living systems. And the way to embrace that is to really create mechanics into the supply chain that can provide flexibility on take your actions, define new ways of working. And it's sort of only focused on how we are doing, how we are delivering. It's more on how can we do better on that. So to me, number one is that living systems is in place. Okay. There's not a moral way for us to be 100% sure. The certainty is not there. The learning for sure is. The second component is about what AI is bringing to us. Right. The pace of decisions, the pace of how we can have scenarios built has to be parallel how people embrace the same decisions. Okay. I think the variability that we see can be managed and tackled by the AI. But how we address organization, how build system to be flexible, agile and provide autonomy for people to take decisions to me is key. We just finished a holiday season at Sam's Club, right? An intense, amazing one holiday season. And I would say that the best way for us to prep for that was not exactly have the right planning in every place, but have the mechanics to be ready in case of any variability to address immediately those changes that we had. I think another point that I will mention about just to close here from my leadership perspective that I've been learning is really it's good to have the right questions, not have the right answer.
- [14:21]
Scott Luton
Mario, that is a brilliant finish. And we're going to circle back on that towards the end of the session, but just touched on a couple things. Living systems, some folks don't like it. I think ecosystem is such an apropos way of thinking about our supply chains. And you're right, the pace, oh my gosh, some days I think man, I could barely keep up with the with my kids marathon, much less the Chicago marathon, the obstacle course race that is global supply chain. Good stuff there, Mario. Rodrigo, what would you add? You know, Mike and Mario kind of shared looking back how supply chain leadership has evolved in their minds.
- [14:57]
Mike Gomez
What about you?
- [14:58]
Rodrigo Alponte
You know Scott, after talking about after these two great guys here is not going to be easy. Let me try to add something, right. So. So the way I we have been seeing in healthcare, at least in pharmaceutical is the challenges are coming from. From COVID is longer than. Than 18 months I would say. And the disruptions that we have been seeing have been significant combined with a much more granular and integrated supply chain. I have examples of products that go through four and five or five countries, two or three continents before they reach the patients for us to complete the whole production process. So the disruptions combined with these more integrated supply chain brings a new challenge for us. And just to give you very few examples. So when we had one route closed in Belarus, we had to find another route of products to Ukraine through Turkey, just. And this happened in two days. Otherwise we could have problems with the product. We also have coaching products, we have some products that go to the hospitals, some products that are treating oncology. And in our case, if we don't reach the final destination in the right timing, we may be disrupting the treatment of a patient. So I would say that when we talk about this, the leadership of supply chain, that environment we are working and we are going to talk more about that. But we are working on three main points. One is is to ensure that the systems are accurate enough and we are bringing, we are facilitating the decision making of our planners in one side. The second point is that we are proving the capability of our planners from a technical standpoint, from a leadership standpoint, and finally we are empowering them to make decisions quicker. So important for us to get agility. So the only word that I didn't hear from Mike and from Mario is that one extra word that we are working a lot, which is adaptability. So as I said, another example is that we had problems in the Red Sea and we could not send products from China to UK we had in one day we had to change the routes to go around Africa. Suddenly from one day to another, we added 10 days to our lead times. So this is also important for us to have in mind. So just adding to what has been said, the adaptability in this very different environment is one of the key points as well.
- [17:41]
Scott Luton
Rodrigo, I love that. And I tell you what, I bet the pharmaceutical industry, which I've never been a part of, I didn't lose any of my nine lives in that industry. But I bet it's challenging enough on like good days, much less days where you know you've got red Sea problems bubble up or, or other some of the challenges you're talking about where it's adding days and you've got to find new ways of, of tackling said complexity and new complexity. So good stuff there. Rodrigo. Okay, so Mike, I'm circle back to you here because I'd love to hear your thoughts and the panel's thoughts on this on the notion of what being customer centric means and how that's evolved in the new never normal.
- [18:18]
Mike Gomez
Correct. The core definition of the customer centric service has not changed. We still have the obligation, responsibility and expectations to deliver in full on time and the products that they were requested. What is changing though, if I want to play this in the different, in the context that I explained earlier, is at the customer side they have learned also that lower price, fast supply chain means not a lot if they collapse and again the product becomes very expensive if it's not available. So the change in behavior that I'm observing and the last six months is a clear example of this is they are very open to work together with us to sit down with the supply chain and understand what the options are every time we detect high end risk, every time that we see the different scenario that we were planning changing and they appreciate that. So if I turn the table that into what is the leadership behavior that we should be displaying it goes along with that. So we gotta be as I mentioned earlier being prepared with the menu of options, the menu of the scenarios in the short and in the long term maybe we want to grow the business with them to be able to in a timely manner go back to them, raise the flag and sit down on the table and discuss in a transparent way. They appreciate transparency. What is the situation that we're seeing, what are the risk that we are perceiving and what is a proposed solution? And you will be surprised more times than not we have got to a solution and an option that is in between the one that we were bringing to the table. This is fantastic in my eyes because the link and the closingness between the sales, the supply chain, the customers I'm seeing closer than ever in my career and in the other end the true values are coming to the table which I really appreciate. The customers appreciate timely and transparency, timely information and transparency and they reward you for that. The other areas too in some cases we miss the communication and we were provide some strong feedback. So we then as a leaders then we need to keep this in mind and continue to work on our relationship with our customers, have our scenarios clear and be ready to raise the flag and sit down with them on the table and we'll find solution as we were finding.
- [21:01]
Scott Luton
Mike, I love it. One quick comment that I heard you in my. In my ears at least is there's plenty of constraints out there but we don't need to create false constraints and assume false constraints. And usually there's more options than you know especially if you sit down and have the real conversations, ask questions you need and you're proactive man. Nothing creates more options than being more proactive than what we what some folks are. Okay Mario, same question. How has customer centricity evolved in.
- [21:30]
Mike Gomez
In.
- [21:30]
Scott Luton
In your mind?
- [21:32]
Mario Mori
I remember Dev Scott I think was seven to eight years ago was in a garner conference and in one of the discussions it was said that the the end game of a supply chain to have the the perfect order. I think it still is as Mike said but I think the evolution that we have is a SAM club is to understand that the. The best way to provide good customer experience is to understand the members lives and work around them not necessarily react to them. A moment of execution of the supply chain has to be connected with the experience that the member wants to have. I remember that I saw Mauro de Grande here. We worked together in Monsanto there just to give a different interest experience. We always wanted to Be faster to deliver seeds and insecticides and funicides to the farmers. But when we did a customer journey, we found out that the farmer takes 40 decisions before just buying and receiving the item. And we could understand that. We could act on pre buying, testing, selling, storing. So create a customer experience to me is more than just the delivering fact or having the most efficient one, but understanding the journey that that specific customer, member, client is going to have so that you can embrace the entire journey. And to Mike, just close you to Mike's point, I think the game now for customer centricity is a company's game. Okay. It's a cross couple collaboration game. And that's how I see the combination of journey and being very cross collaborative in how we approach the survey to the members or customers or clients.
- [23:13]
Scott Luton
Mario, I appreciate your holistic approach there and the focus of course on member experiences or consumer experiences. And we've got to your point, it's not all about delivery. Delivery is important. But there's many more priorities to the modern day consumers that we got to take into account or leave out at our own peril. Rodrigo, same question. Customer centricity, how has it evolved in your mind?
- [23:41]
Rodrigo Alponte
Well Scott, cost per centricity is already in the heart of the vision of estada. Right. I remember years ago that we were talking about integration snop and plan together the future. And I think this evolved to much more than that. I think both Mike and Mario talked about this. Now we are planning and we are doing the risk management together with our customers because we have in mind that our ultimate goal is to ensure that our patients are well served and our patients receive the right medicines in the right time. So more and more this is happening in the, in the environment. And I would only add one point which is that the health authorities in the countries are also getting into this relationship and this interaction to ensure that the whole ecosystem, industry, retail and patient is working well because at the end this is the only way for us to improve the the access to medicines to, to the whole population.
- [24:56]
Scott Luton
Yeah, Robert, great point. A very special trinity that you mentioned there. And hey, regulatory concerns are playing a part in many old and new ways moving forward. You know we referenced the food industry earlier here in the States. We got a big deadline coming up that FDA traceability wise, FDA has in place that it's about two years from now. So we shall see. Rodrigo, let's stick with you for a minute. What comes to mind when some of the. You've probably laid out some things earlier but the biggest challenge is Right now your team's working on.
- [25:25]
Rodrigo Alponte
Okay, scrub. Let me just give a little bit of a background first. So Snyder has been growing in the double digit in the top and bottom line over the past five, six years. So we are more or less doubling the company each four or five years. Wow. And, and for supply chain, this, this becomes a real challenge. Right. So right now in this very highly regulated market, we have 25,000 SKUs with an average of five months of lead time. So these becomes very complex for us because then we do not only to have a good. A good forecast, but we also need to manage well the risks that we foresee over the next months. The major challenge that I think we have this year is, is related to planning. We are reviewing all the processes in planning. We are upgrading the system in planning. We are moving to ibp, the module of SAP. And we are also adding AI in the demand and in the supply planning part of the business. So all of these together. So in this he presents the first piece of changes. The second piece of the change goes into the people. As I said, it's not enough for us to have a good system and process. We also need to have one, the mastery of our people. So all our planners are going to have sipping the certified production and inventory management certification to the end of the year. And we are heavily investing in the leadership to ensure that they not only know what to do, but they are able to influence the organization in the right way. So all of these together with empowerment because if they are not empowered, they won't be able to make the right decisions. So these are the things that I would say the biggest change that we have on 26 for us to ensure that we continue or we will allow the company to continue growing. And one piece of information that is important is that we are also based on what we call local heroes. These means that we go to local brands and the growth of the company necessarily goes into the increase of SKUs. So that's why we need to be prepared to avoid becoming a bottleneck in the, in the growth of the company. This is my, my challenge in 2016. Our biggest one.
- [27:47]
Scott Luton
Rodrigo, there's so much gold there and for the sake of time, I just want to pull one out. I love how you talk about the risk of not empowering your people and how you mentioned it's not good enough to have a strong, excellent system. We've got to invest in our people so they continue to add more and more skills and capabilities.
- [28:04]
Mario Mori
Love that.
- [28:06]
Scott Luton
Let's see here. Mike, tell us Your biggest challenge right now.
- [28:08]
Mike Gomez
I appreciate Rodrigo, you are making a lot of focus on the people at the end. That's what's the most important thing. And my challenge goes in that, in that direction. So just to make a long story short, we used to operate as individual and independent countries and I bring in started in 25 and I finished in 26. All that under a business yearly structure. So which requires changing the organization, changing processes, changing behavior of the leaders, bringing a set of standards, all these. So we are building the airplane, the regional Americas business unit airplane as we are flying it and as we are flying it to where through the turbulence that I was describing earlier, there's a lot of hull. So we also fog on the windows and we're building the airplane. So making sure that the rallies are in place, making sure that the transition happens smoothly while we continue to serve the businesses. And we are bringing. Rodrigo, you were mentioning standard tools like Hana is four. We are coming after the startup four weeks ago. You can imagine the level of activity that we are going through. So it's a very interesting times. But this is what makes our business fun. So it's looking Forward to a 2026 Organize as a business unit with the right leaders, empower and develop to be real leaders, which is fantastic for our people.
- [29:41]
Scott Luton
Mike, Love, love that. And one call one thing out. I think it's become a luxury to be able to completely build the airplane and then take off. I think that's become a luxury in today's global supply chain.
- [29:51]
Mike Gomez
I don't know.
- [29:52]
Scott Luton
All right, Mario, you're the home run hitter here. This question, biggest challenge you're working on.
- [29:58]
Mario Mori
I think that on top of what Rodrigo, Mike already said, I think that our biggest challenge here is how do we simplify the decision making environment in such a complex supply chain, such a complex situation here. I think that, you know, Walmart has been very much upfront on the use of AI. We have a strong partnership with OpenAI. And so just for as example, every single employee in the club, they have OpenAI in their apps, in their tools. So that is powerful, that democratize the use of AI, but also that creates the need of ways of working or how do we align those decisions, right? How do we make that group, this big group that we have at Sam's Club, organized from the demand after the execution. So I think that to me is still a challenge. How do we simplify that decision when everybody has a unique capability? So how do you simplify and organize and make a common theme, a common thread? Because Every one of us, you, Scott, Rodrigo, Mike, if you work Sam's club can create our own AI tools. But how do they connect and how do they, how do we simplify decision in a way that we bundle that together. So to me is our biggest challenge now. I think we always going to be for the people. I think that, I think good that Rodrigo and Mike brought the same topic. If you go to Walmart Identity it says that we are a people led company enabled by technology. That's how I think we are. But at some point I can tell you now it's our how do we organize that decision making process?
- [31:33]
Scott Luton
I love it. Mario. Hey, you know what? We gotta be careful not to fall into some of the old traps with AI. Do you remember we still, I bet we still go to some meetings where everybody has their own spreadsheet. Well, we don't need to have everybody have their own AI. Right? It's gotta be all synced to your point and simplicity still hasn't and never will go out of style and we can never forget that. Good stuff, Mario. I Bet we've said AI like most supply chain conversations about 27 times so far. I've been counting. Mario, what do you think about how AI is going to continue to transform supply chain performance? Right. What comes to your mind? Mario?
- [32:09]
Mario Mori
Love that. I think now we are in the seat to be enabler of the company strategy, right? To be enabler of new business models. Not just serving, not just operating. I think that's the beauty and I think that AI helps us to do that as well. I think the beauty of AI is that it collapses the distance between understanding and acting. In the past we would take weeks, maybe sometimes a month to understand why we missed the forecast, why the in stock was not good in that region, why I had an issue in the transportation there. Just getting into data and digging into to understand what happened today. It's pretty fast, it can take minutes. So that distance between, between understanding and acting to me is one of the beauty of AI. I think that AI enabled supply chains are feasible. They can be predictive, can be adaptive as Ravi was mentioning. They help us to be much more faster than the past. But I think that to me the biggest concept is that AI I consider a co pilot for our people. I think just not a black box and I think helps our people to grow because I think we are going to use more minds than muscles. Muscles mean excel analysis, right? Weeks, days doing that and then they're going to be able to use their brains, their minds. We are Hiring very intelligent people from colleges, right from the best colleges in the world. Three companies are highly strong people, but then we take them to do Excel spreadsheets. I think AI give them more time to think about the trade offs, the customer value, the risks and to be more into the different perspectives. I think there's a lot of to come and I, I foresee if we go can organize well a beautiful era ahead of us.
- [33:54]
Scott Luton
I'm with you Mario. You paint a great beautiful picture and we don't even know what we don't know six months from now, good and bad probably. All right, so Mike, same thing. AI how it continues to transform supply chain performance. Your thoughts?
- [34:07]
Mike Gomez
Well, I'm pretty certainly with Mario. I want to say supply chain has become a competitive advantage for the business. So for all the context that we describe, the way we manage that, the leaders we are preparing, how close we are getting to the customers, I think we are definitely competitive advantage for the business. And I see more often than less new CEOs been appointed from the hierarchy of the supply chain leadership because the challenge today is coming to the supply chain versus the traditional marketing and commercial. So my thoughts are very aligned with Mario. I think in the past I always was worried about the percentage allocation of my talent was put in me to try to find the data, try to get to understand what happened. We call it 70, 30, 60, 40, give me a percentage. But the majority of the time I found that talent trying to understand what happened, collecting data and trying to make sense out of that and just a little piece of time making decisions. I think with with AI as Mario was saying, we shot talented leaders, those that want to take advantage of this. So it's very important to have the willingness otherwise you stay and I got everything that I need. I take it in easy can expand their brain power. I mean connecting the dots and getting the extra mile, driving the business forward to places that they didn't even thought that was possible because more fundamental questions and analysis are being produced instantaneously. So fantastic. And the second one which had me super excited is building capability on my people. In the past I needed to invest in external resources. I need to invest my weekends or my People's Weekend creating PowerPoints training files, trying to keep all of the today almost instantaneously. I can create a postcard, a podcast of I did it recently with integrated LIN six Sigma, you know, and my people can be and it's very professional. You have your file, this translating in the podcast and then your people can even be riding their bike. Listen to that learning. So I use it for things like introducing snlp. I think Rodrigo, you mentioned that we're doing the same. So right now, with all the information that is connected and available out there leveraging AI, we can develop people fast enough faster than we ever thought about it. I remember talking the days when we say it's harder to catch up and keep the learning of the people, the speed of the change. Right now we have a tool that will allow us to do that. And for that I'm super excited.
- [36:51]
Scott Luton
Hey, sign me up for the Mike Gomez podcast talks leadership. Hey, I'll be your first subscriber, Mike. So we'll make that happen. A lot of good stuff. I'm getting a master class from Mario and Mike Rodriguez. I want to give you a chance to talk about AI and how it's transforming performance.
- [37:06]
Rodrigo Alponte
Yeah, no, basically as I was saying, we are working a lot in productivity and the quality of data. Right. Productivity because we need to increase this capability and to avoid us from being a bottleneck in the growth of the company in one side. The other is the quality of the data which is important for us or our planners to make the right decisions. And we've very, very quickly.
- [37:27]
Mike Gomez
Right.
- [37:27]
Rodrigo Alponte
And as Mike was mentioning as well, I'd like to one of the examples is that we are creating trainings in minutes instead of in days. In the past now in minutes. And we have been able to train people very, very fastly. And it's. It's a much better way now to. To get productivity and be able to move forward with the capacity in. In with our people.
- [37:52]
Scott Luton
Yeah, good stuff there. Rodrigo. Mike and Mario, we could be here all all afternoon talking about that One question I bet especially do given some of the great innovative things you and your teams are doing. And Mario, I want to go to you next with this next question. It's a good one. What separates organizations that absorb volatility from those that convert it into advantage? Mario?
- [38:15]
Mario Mori
I think the biggest difference in my opinion, Scott is intentionality. I think some companies embraces and tackle variability to survive. Others get as an opportunity to learn. I think what I see more often for the really companies like what we do at Sam's Club, we try to learn every single time. I think we are open even to make mistakes. We don't expect for perfection. We don't go for perfection but we go for a system where we can embrace that variability. Just give an example. I think I was mentioning before we had a good holiday season, we had a record breaking in stock in our clubs. So yes, we tackled variability. Everything was fine. Let's go to the next one. We're gonna. No, we're gonna stop this week. We're doing that right now. Learning, understanding, what have we done that was good? What can we do better? What kind of mistakes we've made? Are we better than the competition? So I think that learning the culture helps you to embrace the variability because resilience is not a buffer, it's a capability. And how you address that, how you build systems internally to me is super important. I'll come back to the ways of working, how you do the collaborative approach. And Mike was mentioning at the beginning about customer centricity and I was reinforcing. It's a cross functional game to me. Companies, we are happy to be vulnerable and connect, happy to share bad news when they happen and open to learn faster than the issues come. They are going to embrace. And that I would say it's. Sometimes we have fun, right? Just understand what's happening, what can be done differently. I can tell you we left Covid with a very difficult situation at the ports at Sandclub. Okay. A lot of containers, hard to move inventory, lots of inventory. This year, as we all know, we had a tariff situation right there could be a nightmare. I can tell you we had an incredibly good operation because of the learning process we had. And I can tell you we took a lot of time learning what we could have done better. So we're not expecting another situation like that. I think the learning process makes you excited for what's coming. And vulnerability sometimes is good. You can learn more of that.
- [40:23]
Scott Luton
Mario, well said. And back to your comment about having fun. That might sound cheesy in some ears, but I think it's really important because if we stay under pressure every minute of the day and don't have that release valve, that comic relief and a little bit of fun is talk about burnout. Oh my gosh. Or worse tomorrow. Great comment there, Rodrigo. Taking volatility and turning into a competitive.
- [40:47]
Rodrigo Alponte
I'd say that Mario said everything. I would mention mentality, which is basically what he said. Right. Mentality is what we, we. We bring having fun for sure. And to add a little bit on what Mario said, we also try to learn from the external. So we look at a lot our competitors, we go to, to sessions with Gartner and we find what is going on in the market and we try to learn from others as well. Not only from our mistakes and our successes, but also from, from the external. This is, but I, I like very much this Part of the mentality and and how the mindset and how they.
- [41:25]
Scott Luton
I'm with you and and hey gathered market intel on your competitors or else elsewhere out across the market that's still really, really important and can unlock all all sorts of innovation. Mike talking V the volatility, turning it into competitive advantage. Your thoughts?
- [41:41]
Mike Gomez
Yeah, I'm going to be quick and I want to do it with an analogy. So the fighter jets. The fighter jets are being designed to be unstable. So that's why with the flyer yet doesn't fly with the computer.
- [41:56]
Scott Luton
They go down like a rock.
- [41:58]
Mike Gomez
But the computer make it stay at absorbing all that variability. That was by design to be able to maneuver and to have the agility that have in comparison with one of these big gliders that go across ocean through the storms in the absorbing all the storm and get to destination. I think the question is do you want to be the fighter jet that is using all this technology we have being stable and ag agile, innovative and fast or do you want to cruise through all these and get to your destination?
- [42:35]
Scott Luton
I love that I'm a big old aviation nerd, Mike. And I love that fighter jet versus glider analogy. We're dive deeper on the Mike Gomez podcast. Coming to a.
- [42:46]
Mario Mori
Hey, don't forget that Mike likes physics. Right? So it's good, right, Mario?
- [42:50]
Scott Luton
That's right. Okay, we're gonna. I've got a couple questions. I wish we had a couple more hours with y', all, but I want to wrap on kind of some quicker hitters. Right. And as y' all reflect on your own journey and on leadership itself. First question. I think one of y' all mentioned earlier on the front end the value of the questions we ask. Mike, what's one question leaders should be asking their teams more often, but they don't.
- [43:13]
Mike Gomez
I'm going to go to a very fundamental question that one day we have more time. I'll tell you a whole story but shape my beginnings and I believe who I am today. And it was asked to me during the first three weeks when I was at my job and my first job in supply chain. It is a simple question. What are you doing about it? I remember being a general manager on the floor, third shift as usual, running a shift, very new acquisition, very unsife operation. A lot of accidents not to enter in a lot of detail. I was horrified. Wait for the plant manager, shy as I am. I told him, my friend, plan manager, this is unsafe and nobody's doing anything about it. He look straight to my eye, say, what are you doing? Everybody. And I realized at that very moment I was doing nothing to me make things better. And I have no right to complain about nothing. And then from there on I start saying I'm going to do my best and then complain. And I found that every time I do my best to solve something I want to complain about is fixed. So the need for complaining goes away. So I think we got to be asking more people, what are you really doing about it? We want to spark their mind to think the possibilities and the good ones, the ones that are thirsty, they're going to stop complaining and they're going to move forward and own their own destiny.
- [44:30]
Scott Luton
Mike. Love that, man. The power of ownership. And when that light bulb goes off of our ability to put some in a headlock and do something about it. Mario, Question leaders should be asking more often.
- [44:41]
Mario Mori
I think I started to put the question maybe two or three years ago to my teams, which is, what are we learning faster than the competitors? And most of the time we're not learning faster than the competitors. I agree with that. So to me, it's a question on everything that we are doing. The plans, the strategy, are they set for the win? Are we set to be the best in the industry? And sometimes we are not. So I keep making the question. I mean, what are we learning faster than the competitors? Are we really sure that we are in the right pace? Sometimes they have to go outside. I love what Rodrigo said. I come back to the cross pollination. Right. I can tell you what we have in Sam's club today. It's a blending. It's a mosaic of different industries and a lot of collaboration with the suppliers. Mike in the beginning mentioned about collaboration with suppliers. I can tell you we learn a lot from our suppliers. So coming back and I'm going to make the question in our end of your review, it's going to be January. What are we learning faster than our competitors?
- [45:43]
Scott Luton
Love it. And by the way, my favorite Sam's club is right there in Snellville, Georgia. All right, Rodrigo, same thing. What questions should we be asking?
- [45:54]
Rodrigo Alponte
I would say basically two questions, Scott. The first one is are we aligned? Not only aligned with the strategies of the company, but are we helping the company to reach their goals? Right. Are we integrated to the company? We are not separated from the company. Right. We are not a supply chain company. We are a pharmaceutical company. So our strategies in supply chain are helping the company to reach their targets and their goals. For this is the first one. The second one that I ask my team always is the. The Operational excellence is the day to day a set of targets that you need to deliver. So what is the legacy that you are leaving to your next person? Not only the operational excellence, but the legacy that will last for long years. This is an important part as well.
- [46:43]
Scott Luton
Rodrigo. Love that. It's important to live in the moment, but it's also important to think about the great thing we're leaving others or the big old pile, big old bucket of mud we might be living others. Okay, one thing I'd add folks, and in meetings especially, especially when you got quiet folks that question, what do you think? Seek out the quiet folks. They got tons and tons of ideas. They may not have the confidence to share them though. So just add that to the great things Mario, Rodrigo and Mike shared. Okay, fast and furious finish. I can't skip over this question, so hopefully y' all bear with me to go a minute or two over perhaps. But Mike, what piece of advice would you give your younger self or the audience here that wants to accelerate and be in a senior leadership offices like all three of y' all are?
- [47:28]
Mike Gomez
Well, an advisor I, I got, I gave all this really valuable and thirsty is don't let anybody define who you are, who you want to be. So that's the most important and beautiful part of our professional path and for life discovering who you are and then where you are going. And once you know that, just go for it. You listen, you learn and then you leave in your own terms and you produce no harm to no one. But don't be a victim. As I mentioned before, take your life in your control and drive it. Okay? So define who you are and go brainlessly towards that.
- [48:10]
Scott Luton
I love it, Mike.
- [48:10]
Mario Mori
Love it.
- [48:11]
Scott Luton
And by the way folks, we didn't mention this earlier, but if you any fellow airhead lovers out there, we have Mike and the team at Perfetti Van Mel to thank for that. That's one of their many great products. So for all of my kids, on behalf of all of them, thank you Mike and team Rodrigo. Advice for your younger self or others out there?
- [48:31]
Rodrigo Alponte
My, my advice would be to take the lead, be in the decision making table, be the champion of the the changes in the company, be a protagonist. I think this is the way for us to drive the improvements and also grow in the careers. This is my outstanding, my advice to Marcel.
- [48:52]
Scott Luton
Good advice as well. And Mario, I got so excited talking about airheads, I jumped right ahead. But Mario, your advice you'd give to your younger self or others out there.
- [49:02]
Mario Mori
You know we have to buy all the MIC products in Sam's club. I mean big packages for the family. So keep doing that. Unfortunately, we don't sell your products here, so. But if you do it, if you did, I would tell Scott to sell as well. I'll tell maybe the younger Mario to optimize for learning, not for certainty. I think I stress on myself a lot trying to be correct from the beginning. Even my first years like in PC png. Remember how stressful I was trying to be right all the time. I think you felt optimized for learning is much better than for certainty. And I think the second piece is about have very clear what's your purpose. I think Michael, you brought that perspective. I think that we are international leaders here. We have to face the challenge of moving to different countries and that having the right purpose, you can make it if you are yourself. So two things. Optimize for learning after certainty and define your purpose. Go for it. Have the courage to live life. Life is beautiful.
- [50:01]
Scott Luton
I would say Mario, I love that. Especially that Optimize for learning. That is such a valuable piece of all three of y' all. Brought the advice for today. A master class here today. I hate to to start to wrap up the show because I've got my 27 pages of notes and I feel like I've gotten a bit of a degree but we'll have you back. We're going to have you back. Let's really quick round the horn. I want to make sure folks know how to connect with each of y' all to learn more leadership advice and supply chain. Been there, done that advice. Big thanks to Mario Mori, Vice president Integrated planning with Sam's Club. Mario, what's the best how can folks connect with you?
- [50:36]
Mario Mori
I think we could do LinkedIn or you can also maybe later on said Mario movie@sam's club.com so LinkedIn is always there. I'm pretty much available. Love to interact to learn from you guys.
- [50:50]
Scott Luton
That is outstanding. And Maria, I'm like you great session to bring in the new year and and hey from my family to yours, Maria, great to have you here as always. Rodrigo Alponte, Senior Vice president, Global Supply chain Starter group. How can folks connect with you, Rodrigo?
- [51:06]
Rodrigo Alponte
The same as Mario. I think the best way is through LinkedIn. My email is rodeo.arponti.com but I think LinkedIn is the best one.
- [51:17]
Scott Luton
Outstanding. Well, great to have you here and thank you for I know you got a snowstorm where you are Rodrigo and you brave through it. So thank you for being here. And Mike Gomez, the Newest podcast star coming to you. A podcast player near you. Vice President, Supply Chain North America, Perfetti Van Mel Mike, how can folks connect with you?
- [51:38]
Mike Gomez
Likewise, I think link it in is the best way. Most my email is Mike Gomez with an S at teretti, ban mes or one word. Com. I try and I like to interact to link it in too. So it's a good way to get over me.
- [51:54]
Scott Luton
Outstanding, Mike. Appreciate that. Three leaders, three great perspectives, some commonalities and some very also very unique valuable differences between them. I love both. All right, so folks, one more thing before I sign off here. First off, big thanks to the whole panel for taking time out of their busy, busy calendar and sharing their expertise and valuable perspective and reflections with us all. If you like this panel though, you know I'm all about sharing resources. It's our almost weekly newsletter. You're not only going to find upcoming programming just like today's super panel, but you're going to find wide variety of news, perspectives and tools you can put to good use. So check that out. Again, big thanks to Rodrigo, Mario and Mike. Really appreciate, look forward to having you all back this year. Big thanks to Joshua and Amanda behind the scenes, outstanding production here today. And most importantly, big thanks to our outstanding, our beloved Supply Chain Now Global fam. We couldn't, you know, y', all while we do all of this. With all that said, folks, you know you got homework. I tell you, Mike and Mario and Rodrigo, they brought the train and backed it up and dumped a ton of actionable takeaways and perspective here today. But your homework, you got to take one thing, at least one thing they dropped here today. Put it in action, share it with your team. Deeds, not words. That's how we're going to continue to transform global Supply chain. And with all that said here in the new never normal. Yeah, we're all don't like hearing it, but it's true and it's evolving by the hour. But on behalf the whole Supply Chain Now Team Scott l challenge you. Do good, get forward, be the change that's needed and we'll see you next time right back here on Supply Chain Now.
- [53:29]
Rodrigo Alponte
Thanks for buying.
- [53:31]
Supply Chain Now Announcer
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