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Supply Chain Spotlight: Global Economies, Tariffs, & the Power of Positive Assumptions
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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.
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Hey, good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Scott Lewton here with you on Supply Chain. Now on today's podcast, I'm going to be sharing perspective on several topics I've been writing about. We're gonna cover four different topics. Number one, global economic factoids. I'm a big data nerd, as y' all may know by now. Two, just a random collection of market news and notes, all related, perhaps, maybe a common thread there is what companies are doing to get through these uncertain times. Number three, the power of mutual positive assumptions. And number four, a few upcoming events I hope to see you out at. As always, I welcome your own thoughts and perspective on these topics or really any other topics. Keep the great feedback coming. All right, up first, I want to start with a few factoids related to global economics. Now a couple disclaimers. Number one, I've never been mistaken in my entire life for an economist of any sort. Okay. Number two, this is going to be a tariff free zone on the podcast today. Maybe almost a tariff free zone. We'll see. But what I'm really interested in sharing here up first is a few highlights from an interesting read over at Visual Capitalist. Great resource, great site, especially if, as the name suggests, you're a visual learner like I am. So they've got a interesting piece on the world's top economies and how things have shifted over the last 10 years. So as it stands here in 2025, the top 10 economies across the globe are as follows. Number one, the United States with $30.3 trillion GDP inflation adjusted, projected for 2025. Okay, it's number one. Number two, China. 3. Germany, 4. Japan, 5. India, 6 the United Kingdom, 7 France, 8 Italy, 9 Canada and 10 Brazil. And Brazil comes in at $2.3 trillion GDP projected for 2025. All of that data comes from the International monetary fund, right? IMF. But get this over the last 10 years the Chinese economy, which of course we all hear about every day, has grown by a whopping 74% which is so much bigger of a growth number than any really of the top 50 economies. But what you don't hear about perhaps every day is India's economy. Over the last 10 year time frame it grew 77% even faster than the Chinese economy from 2015 to 2025. In fact, the IMF projects that India will be the world's third largest economy, overtaking Japan and Germany by 2027. Gosh, it's less than two years away. All right, in the two block here, want to move over to a few observations from end to end, the end to end supply chain market out across the globe here. We're going to start with gosh, US Ports, they are bustling supply chain dive reports quote. Cargo volumes at US Ports are expected to remain elevated for the next three months in the face of continued tariff pressure according to the National Retail Federation and Hackett Associates. They go on to say that there's a projected 6 port point 1% year over year increase for the month of February. For the month of March, volumes are set are Projected to increase almost 11% and port volumes here across US ports will remain elevated in April and May as well. All right, so I guess we're going to touch on tariffs a little bit more because tariff headaches certainly bring opportunity, especially for logistics technology, logistics management technology companies, Logtech, as many folks refers to that sector now as the Wall Street Journal reports, quote, One of these startups, Project44 said it recently has helped big multinational companies in retail and other sectors customize systems to figure out whether it makes sense to get ahead of a levy or pay the extra cost of a shipment. Software company Resilink is developing an AI agent to tell customers how tariffs are affecting their supply chains and find ways to alleviate the costs. Another firm, Altana, launched a tariff simulator to quantify costs and help customers find alternative suppliers. Transformation a good Year from For more than 125 years, Goodyear has been making tires round and black and out the back. That's the mantra that my friend Billy Ray Taylor, the one and only, memorably shared with me a while back. Now the company is amidst a timely two year transformation project they like to call Goodyear forward. Now CNBC reports quote the plan includes doubling operating income margin to 10%, enacting top line and cost reductions of $1.5 billion and bringing in gross proceeds of 2 billion in business asset sales to assist the company is investing in and deploying artificial intelligence technologies and 3D printing for things such as tread teeth, as well as using simulation to speed development and production of its products. End quote. All right, in the three block. Next up. Oh, the things you can learn from school line. School car line logistics. School car line logistics. Now folks, if you know me, you may know that I love to take my kids to school in the morning and then I love to pick them up in the afternoon. It's a big blessing and I'm very grateful for that opportunity. The simple pleasures in life. At least I'm grateful for that opportunity. Most days y' all might can relate. Parents of teenagers because they don't always get along, which can make a car ride anywhere five minutes or five hours pretty painful. Now, the other morning, we're driving to school and my daughter Brantley was spilling some tea. You know, that's what the kids call gossip these days. Tea from school is what she was sharing. Drama, drama, drama. Now, Gracie overheard what she was saying, but not completely inaccurately, and she immediately replied, brantley, you better shut your mouth talking about me. So as me and Amanda shared with Gracie that Brantley was talking about other folks, folks outside the car, Gracie responded kind of sheepishly. Well, if she had been talking about me, she better shut up. Oh, we love. Yeah, I love these little interactions. Love our kids to death, love watching them grow up and deal with all of that, what that brings. And also thank goodness for comic relief, right? But more importantly, this little exchange on this fast paced and furious school morning car drive, it reminded me about the danger of assumptions. Raise your hand if you've ever jumped to conclusions, just like my dear Gracie did. Right? Come on, we all have. Right? And that rarely works out. Works out well for us. We all know, I think the phrase when we all assume, if you break up the word as it's been said for years, when we all assume, it makes an ass out of you and out of me, right? It can't be the first time y' all have heard that. Well, years ago, in a galaxy far, far, far away, I worked with a wonderful food manufacturing company that had an extraordinary, a remarkable culture. Positive, empowering, trust filled, constructive, respectful, all that added up to enable the company to deliver exceptional outcomes, transformational growth. Well, one of the top principles that the leadership team baked into that culture very intentionally, day in and day out, was this notion of mutually positive assumptions. Meaning rather than giving in to the natural and oftentimes subconscious human ability to assume the worst, especially when it comes to others, especially when confronted with limited information. This MPA principle was focused on doing just the opposite, right? Assuming the most positive assumptions, right? Not jumping to all the negative and the what ifs, and assuming what people think or what they're doing when you're not in the room. All of that is very, very caustic. So not only did this approach help team members to build a more positive or not only did this approach help team members build more positive relationships with each other, which I saw very tangibly out across the facilities. But even better, this MPA element of the culture, well, it encouraged and trained the company's employees to ask the tough questions and lean into the candid conversations with in any situation, doing so is much, much, much more effective than assuming to know anything about a particular situation. And even worse, making consequential decisions based on a very limited set of facts. Does culture eat strategy for breakfast, as Peter Drucker famously once said? Well, I tend to subscribe to that theory, even if strategy is is immensely important. But if you can have both, hey, why not pour a bowl of Fruity Pebbles and eat them too? In this highly I love some Fruity Pebbles. That doesn't square with my dietary goals here in 2025, but that is a weakness of mine. Hey, but kidding aside, in this highly divisive world where you can find friction every single place you look, any sound productive, positive approach to building more effective relationships, especially in the workplace, but really wherever else as well, all of that is really good news to me. School, school car line Logistics man. The gift that certainly keeps on giving. All right folks, I'm going to wrap up on the four block here. Finally, have you heard Promat is expected to have 50,000 people in attendance this year. Up in Chicago is set to kick off next week as it runs from March 17th through the 20th. And folks, by the way, it's free to attend. We'll try to include the link in the notes, of course. You can also Google Chromat Chicago and you can find it. I will be there up in Promat up at promat on the first day, Monday, March 17th, where we are set to speak with about a dozen industry leaders and Companies to include EasyMetrics, Bastion Solutions, Locus Robotics, Invista Blue Grace Logistics, Auto Scheduler. My one of my favorites. Kathy Fulton with the American Logistics Aid Network. I love what they're doing. All those folks and a whole bunch more. So if you see me on the trade show floor, please come up and introduce yourself. I'd love to shake your hand, meet you for a second and even grab a picture. And folks, also on a side note, speaking of events, mark your calendars because National Supply Chain Day is going to be here before you know it. April 29th. Go and circle whether it's your physical or your digital calendar. Right now, April 29, we have a midday event, a live event. We're going to be featuring folks from across, in the end, Supply Chain. Hey, come join us to celebrate our industry, especially all the people that make it all happen. And if you don't join us, that's okay. Celebrate your own corner of the world, but make sure you celebrate, make sure you recognize those folks that make it happen. All right, folks, as we wrap up here, I want to encourage him with all of those things said. And on behalf the entire team here at Supply Chain now, Scott Luton, challenge you to do good, give forward, and be the change that's needed. And we'll see you next time right back here at Supply Chain Now. Thanks, everybody.
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