Narrator [00:00:04]:

Welcome to Supply Chain Now, the voice of global supply chain. Supply Chain Now focuses on the best in the business for our worldwide audience, the people, the technologies, the best practices, and today's critical issues, the challenges, and opportunities. Stay tuned to hear from those making global business happen right here on Supply Chain Now.

Scott W. Luton [00:00:32]:

Hey, good morning, good afternoon, good evening wherever you may be. Scott Luton and always special guest Mike Griswold here with you on Supply Chain Now. Welcome to today's show. Hey Mike, how you doing today?

Mike Griswold [00:00:43]:

Doing well, Scott. It's always good to spend time with you, particularly as we get close to the holidays. So I'm looking forward to today's show.

Scott W. Luton [00:00:50]:

Vice versa. If you look at my intelligence on a line chart each month, every day you join us that once a month it just takes a little blip up, I get a little bit smarter. After an hour spent with the one and only Mike Griswold folks, as backed by Popper Demand, one of our longest running and most popular series, Supply Chain Today and tomorrow with Mike Griswold from Gartner. So Mike, of course serves as Vice President Analyst with Gartner. And folks, today here at the end of the year, it's always a prime time to not only reflect back on the previous 12 months, but project what global supply chain may bring us all whether we like it or not in 2025. So stay tuned as we dive into all that and more with the one and only Mike G. So Mike, Fun, one question here today is simple and it's appropriate. Last time you're with us was around Thanksgiving time and we talked about some of our favorite dishes back then, right.

Scott W. Luton [00:01:48]:

I think we found out that I am not a pumpkin pie fan. But you are right for sure. So we established that that's, that's kind of like licorice. Folks hate it or love it. But today, today I want to ask you with Christmas right around the corner and other plenty of other holidays, what's one of your most impactful Christmas gifts that you've ever received?

Mike Griswold [00:02:11]:

Hopefully I can give you two, Scott, because I have one when I was a kid and one when I was an adult. So as a kid I really like the GI Joe kind of collection. This is back when GI Joe was like a 12 inch figure, not the little 5 inch figures you might see now. So I, they had a GI Joe kind of command center. It was like three and a half feet long truck. It was, it was all of it. And just the evolution of the GI Joe character, right. Started with the plastic kind of all plastic that you had GI Joe with the kung fu grip so he could actually grab stuff.

Mike Griswold [00:02:44]:

Then he had GI Joe with length, like hair, which really wasn't lifelike, but it was better than the plastic kind of Three Stooges haircut that every GI Joe had. That was one of those things. I liked it because it spurred creativity, right? You, you could take that and you could create your own little universe, your own little scenarios, your own little challenges that, you know, GI Joe could fix. And then for my parents, it was like, okay, you know, birthday, Christmas, the next several years, we're all covered. Just get me some GI Joe stuff and we'll call it a day.

Scott W. Luton [00:03:16]:

Made it easy.

Mike Griswold [00:03:17]:

Yeah. Fast forward to probably seven, eight years ago. My wife has done a great job in giving me kind of really impactful Christmas gifts. So a few years ago, she got me a ride in a World War II vintage training plane, T6 Texas.

Scott W. Luton [00:03:37]:

Wow.

Mike Griswold [00:03:38]:

So spent about 30, 45 minutes in the air with him doing various acrobatics. Flew the plane for a little bit. But the one piece of advice that he gave me during the pre flight checklist that has stuck with me forever. I've used it in some of my openings and some of my conference presentations is we're doing the pre flight checklist. And he says, look, very safe. You won't have to do anything. But, you know, this is what you need to remember if we run into problems. And I say like, get out, get out, get out.

Mike Griswold [00:04:11]:

If you wait for the third get out, you're going to be in the plane all by yourself. So that, that had stuck with me, right, in terms of when people give you advice and all those types of things, but being able to spend, you know, 30, 45 minutes in the air doing some acrobatics and just, you know, flying an airplane that is considerably older than I am, it was a lot of fun. If you were kind enough to let me talk about two, those would be the two.

Scott W. Luton [00:04:39]:

Man, you're going to blow mine away. Hey, really quick, I missed, after you said, a World War II training plane. What was the model or the aircraft?

Mike Griswold [00:04:47]:

T6 Texan. So. And they're still flying today. We have a small airport here that has a World War II museum, and we have some, some Texans here. We have a couple P-51s here. We have a, an old P-40 here. We do what they call the Warbird roundup every August and they do restoration there. So I think they're rebuilding another P-51 there.

Mike Griswold [00:05:13]:

So very fortunate here. Every once in a while, I'll be out on my favorite golf course. And if you've heard those World War II planes fly, especially the P-51, it has its own unique sound. So I'll be on the golf course and every once in a while I'll hear that P-51 flying around and it's pretty cool.

Scott W. Luton [00:05:33]:

It is. The B-17 is my favorite World War II aircraft, the legendary B-17 Flying Fortress.

Mike Griswold [00:05:40]:

Before you give me your Christmas present, I'll give you a real quick public service announcement. If you have not read the book or seen the series on Apple, Masters of the Air, I would highly recommend it. It's about the, the air war in Europe late 1940s into 1945 and the B17 is the star in the show. So highly recommended. If you have not seen it and our audience, if you're interested in that stuff, I would highly recommend it.

Scott W. Luton [00:06:09]:

It's a great one. Apple, Apple's producing some great content. It's good that finally I guess back then it was Army Air Corps, right prior to 1947, they finally get their time to shine because of the amount of sacrifice for what all those fearless folks pilots, air crews went through and how they helped turn the tide of war. Needed much bigger spotlight. So that's great. Call it Masters of the Air, y'all. Check that out folks on Apple. Mike, we should have stuck with yours because mine are.

Scott W. Luton [00:06:40]:

Mine are nothing. So video games, right? The 80s was when the video game, modern day video game system really had its heyday, right? Long after Pong kind of was the first big hit. Then came along the Nintendo Entertainment System which we got in 1986 in the Luton household. That changed everything for us, right? Especially as kids. And then the 16 bit console started coming out which is nothing these days. But the Sega Genesis hit 1991 and that was a game changer. And Mike, me and my brother, Clay, and my two cousins Derek and John, we took John Madden Football which first came out on the Genesis and we, we had I think 11 Luton football seasons where we, we all had teams, we ran leagues. I kept all the statistics in this old book I cannot find somewhere.

Scott W. Luton [00:07:33]:

I won two LFL trophies over the years which were really hard fought and we used an old lamp that we stole from my parents and cut off the wire and took off the shade and that was a trophy. But anyway.

Mike Griswold [00:07:47]:

That's awesome.

Scott W. Luton [00:07:47]:

I promise I'll tell you, it was back in the day we had a wonderful time.

Mike Griswold [00:07:51]:

I will tell you as a parent, the whole evolution of video games was very helpful as well. Similar to my GI Joe story for my kid, my son in particular. You know, video games became a staple, right? We always knew that came come birthday or Christmas. We. We could get a couple of those and we could cross that off the list and then think about other things. But so, yeah, video games for sure are probably one of the most popular things probably even still today to see under the tree or in a stocking.

Scott W. Luton [00:08:22]:

No doubt. My kids are testimony to that for sure. Good times. Walking down through memory lane, I can't wait to see what this year and these holiday seasons will bring in terms of the next big gift that will start the next certain technology age. We'll see. We got a lot to get to here today. It's hard to believe we're almost into 2025. It's a perfect time to project and reflect, or maybe vice versa.

Scott W. Luton [00:08:47]:

Reflect and project. I want to start with reflecting on 2024. So, Mike, no shortage. We'd be here all day to even come up with a comprehensive list of key takeaways. But when you think of a couple that are up close to the top of your list of key supply chain takeaways from the last 12 months, what would that be?

Mike Griswold [00:09:05]:

Yeah, I think as I was thinking about our time together, Scott, you're right. The list could be pretty, pretty exhaustive. I think the two that I want to focus on are things that we've spent a lot of time talking about at Gartner in general and as a supply chain in particular. The first will be. We've talked about this topic over the course of some of our episodes. Even this year is just the continual rise of artificial intelligence and generative AI in the workplace and in the supply chain. If I think about just us at Gartner, right when this first started being a topic, if I look at all of Gartner, right, It was about 3% of our inquiries. If I fast forward to today, It's.

Mike Griswold [00:09:57]:

It's about 12%. So I mean, Gartner has. We have probably a thousand thereabouts, a thousand experts that talk to clients. You know, more than 1 in 10 of all of our conversations are around AI. If I think back to some of the similar conversations you know, we might have been having around Blockchain, just as an example. And I see how far and how different those conversations are today around gen AI and AI. It's remarkable. And I think that the biggest reason is people found very practical use cases and ways to use gen AI and AI that we're still in many ways still wrestling with, with things like blockchain, if I go back to my retail days, even things like rfid.

Mike Griswold [00:10:48]:

Right. So I think we're going to continue to see this growth in people talking to us about it at Gartner. I think we're going to continue to see growth in people actually finding valuable ways within their organization, whether it's a way to make processes more efficient and augment what people know, whether it's being able to make decisions faster with larger data sets. What we saw in 2024, I think we're going to continue to see and it's going to continue to grow as we move into 2025.

Scott W. Luton [00:11:26]:

That's a good one. That is a good one. What is. I think you had one other.

Mike Griswold [00:11:31]:

The second one is. And this I think is an offshoot of what we saw during the pandemic. And that is just a continual, continuous focus on people. And we talked about this. I don't think it was the November episode, it may have been the October one where we talked about the importance of investing in people, right. Both from a career development perspective, but also investing in your people from a relationship and a mental health perspective. And I think we're going to continue to see an investment in people as we move.

Mike Griswold [00:12:08]:

As we saw this year, I think we're going to see more of that in 2025. But as I reflect on 2024, things like the employee value proposition, things like helping people recognize and as managers and supervisors and leaders, recognizing the importance of work life balance and recognizing the whole dilemma around where people work and how people work and talking to people about how they like to work, right. And what is a more productive environment for them. When I look at all of the things that companies wanted to get done in 2024 and the things that we think we want to do in 2025, right. Even though to my previous topic, we've got Gen, AI and AI, we still need people. We need people to be engaged, we need people to be motivated, we need people to be mentally healthy, which means we've got the right work life balance for them.

Mike Griswold [00:13:13]:

That I think became much more of a central topic to our clients in 2024 than maybe we've seen in the past. And my hope is that continues for organizations in 2025.

Scott W. Luton [00:13:29]:

We're big kindred spirits on all that you shared, but especially the people side. We talk about the people. That's one of the common themes, I think, through all conversations going back years. And you were talking about some of the things we need from the human element. And I would Just add to your list, you know, the empathy and the context that the human mind still brings to the table. All of us are made differently and we have different levels of empathy as we, as maybe the holidays remind us each and every year. But getting aside, that is critical for these relational economics that you're kind of speaking to and, and how we ensure our team is good despite the ups and downs of what the pressures and stresses and the challenges and the great days and the big wins that global supply chain brings throughout the year. I want to add one more thing.

Scott W. Luton [00:14:15]:

As we look back at 2024 and you think of key supply chain takeaways, especially with kind of what you were talking about, an eye towards not just the past, but an eye towards what's to come. And I want to add just a little bit of a wrinkle on the democratization of technology and how that's changed threats, you know, when it comes to geopolitical and armed conflict. All you out there, did y'all know that the volume of merchant vessels passing through the Red Sea is still down 50% in November 2024 over November 2023 still. And that's despite advanced militaries like the US the UK, the French, you name it, all trying to contain the asymmetrical threat that the Houthis have posed to international trade passing through the area. So tying that back to how technology continues to evolve as it gets cheaper to acquire and develop, that PUTs Drones and UAVs and other technologies into the hands of any group that wants to ensure their voices are heard. And unfortunately, including times when they wield violence to do it. So that means that risk and that threat is going to constantly multiply in the months ahead, much less than the years ahead. As we look at other pinch points and other groups use other flash points to again, make sure their voices and their priorities are heard.

Scott W. Luton [00:15:40]:

Mike, it's really, it's amazing. I think we talked about this before. US Navy vessels have been sitting there in the Red Sea on, you know, months long deployments. And the level of sustained attack by the Houthis in this case led one battle group commander to talk about how it's the longest time that the U.S. navy has been under constant attack since World War II. And that stopped. I know I've said sure, that a couple times on here, but it stopped me in my tracks. Because unlike, say 10 years ago, when I would argue a similar situation may be quelled earlier.

Scott W. Luton [00:16:20]:

Right. We've seen the B2. Yeah, the B2 come in. And to BUs against these groups and some of their bases. It's amazing the resilience we've seen, largely buoyed by the technology they're using. Your quick thoughts there, Mike.

Mike Griswold [00:16:36]:

It's one of the things that for whatever reason, and I don't have a reason, it's probably something that the general, the general public is not aware of and probably needs to be for whatever reason. These stories around the challenges that our military faces everywhere, right. You know, since October 7th, they're just not being talked about enough. And maybe it's because people think there are other more important priorities, I don't know. But I think the American public needs to be more aware of the challenges we're facing. The drones are a perfect example, if I put this maybe in more of a business context, right. If we rewind the clock.

Mike Griswold [00:17:20]:

When drones were first being discussed, right. Amazon was kind of at the forefront. All we were talking about was, can this be used to, like, deliver packages? There was never any discussion around, for lack of a better term, kind of how do we weaponize this? And I think the lesson here is we always have to be looking for kind of an outside the box application of technology that can help us move forward. And by no means am I suggesting like the military approach to using technology, but I think even within our own businesses and Gen AI is, I think, a good example. We all have in our own mind probably the standard list of how we'd want to use that. But I think we need people in our organization to really be pressure testing what is possible with this technology that's going to create a competitive advantage for us or create some type of differentiation in the market. And how can we think about this technology that you're right, is now becoming cheaper, more accessible, easier to use, right.

Mike Griswold [00:18:33]:

I would suggest the first Amazon drone was probably, you know, a lot more complicated and had a lot less functionality than a drone that I could go buy at my local Walmart and probably control it with my phone. So I think all of us as supply chain leaders need to be really thinking about what are some of the different applications we could have for our technology. We have to be willing to say, you know what, there might be 10 ideas, nine of which are just really, really bad. But it's that one idea that can drive your company forward that can create some advantage for you. And I don't know that enough organizations have developed either the skill set or just the mental fortitude to say that we're going to expose. Because how long have drones been around, Scott? They've been Around a long time, relatively speaking, right.

Scott W. Luton [00:19:30]:

All right, good stuff there, Mike. I really and I appreciate how I set you to really spike that point home with in Shakespearean manner. So good stuff, Mike. And you're right, man. The threats and the permutations of them are radars in supply chain have to get bigger and bigger and bigger. This next question is not a fair one, but I'm going to ask it to you anyway because if anyone can answer it, I know Mike can. So when you consider all the companies that make up the 2024 Gartner supply chain top 25, you got 25 and then you got the master categories, right, which add a few more. What one or two companies had one of the strongest years here in 2024 when it comes to supply chain innovation that they were able to really leverage to make a really big impact.

Mike Griswold [00:20:19]:

So I have two and I put my glasses on because what I want to do and hopefully people have had a chance to read the top 25 that came out earlier this year. I want to read a snippet that we, that we put together for P&G and then maybe we could talk about P&G. And then I've got a snippet that I want to read from Diageo if that's okay. So those are the two companies that I want to highlight. We were somewhat joking before we kicked this off, Scott, about, you know, we are in the adult beverage season. So Diageo as a adult spirit makers seem like a good fit, but they are doing some pretty cool things. But let me start with P&G. So you alluded to they're one of our masters.

Mike Griswold [00:20:58]:

So they've had a top five score at least seven of the last 10 years. And I believe they were one of our original masters when we, when we first kicked off the supply chain top 25, which will this year be year 21. So one of the things they've been doing is they've had this five pillar approach that they call supply chain initiative. It's now on its third iteration. But the reason that I wanted to use P&G for this particular example is around what they're doing around AI and digital innovation. So from our report, P&G continues to be at the forefront of digital innovation, leveraging an internal AI factory to drive capabilities across the organization, including its own Gen AI tool and chatgpt. There's a focus on digitally synchronizing supply chain and helping cement P&G's position as an industry leader, investing in capabilities all the way back to the shelf and out across their suppliers. So we've had this conversation before, Scott, around.

Mike Griswold [00:22:09]:

When you get to some of these leading companies like P&G and I'll touch on Diageo, it's not that they're necessarily doing lots of new things. What separates them is finding that new thing like Gen AI and getting really good at it, right. We talk a lot about our top 25 companies and use words like consistency. And for our masters, it's consistency over an extended period of time. So again, as we've talked a lot on these episodes, it's not about necessarily gravitating to the next shiny object. It's finding the right shiny object for you and then getting really, really good at utilizing that shiny object. And I think P&G is one of the best companies that fine tuning.

Mike Griswold [00:22:31]:

We talk a lot about our top 25 companies and use words like consistency. And for our masters, it's consistency over an extended period of time. So again, as we've talked a lot on these episodes, it's not about necessarily gravitating to the next shiny object. It's finding the right shiny object for you and then getting really, really good at utilizing that shiny object. And I think P&G is one of the best companies.

Scott W. Luton [00:23:07]:

That fine tuning, right. We don't always have to come up with a new product, a new tool, a new technology. We've got pretty big toolkits already as supply chain practitioners and gosh, I've seen some really exciting ways both inside The Gartner top 25 and outside where leading organizations have repurposed tools that have been around for a while, maybe reinvented them a bit, found a new application, and it's been game changers in different sectors of their organization. So excellent point. I love, So P&G was the first one, and now we're going to shift gears over to Diageo, especially with the holiday themes in mind, huh?

Mike Griswold [00:24:31]:

Yeah. So they were landed at number six in this year's top 25, and they've been one of those companies that's been steadily climbing up the list. When I look at what they did and the reason I wanted to highlight them is the work that they're doing around sustainability and it's sustainability with kind of two focus points, right. One is let's do things that are going to help the planet, whether it's water usage, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, taking waste and bringing it back into the plants to run them more efficiently. But it's also about how do we do that and drive positive business outcomes. When I look at our leading organizations in the top 25, Diageo is one of them have moved from we're going to do sustainability stuff because everyone tells us we have to. We're going to do sustainability stuff because it actually can lead to better business outcomes.

Mike Griswold [00:25:37]:

Whether it's enhancing the brand from a consumer perspective, whether it's creating more efficiencies in our organization and in the supply chain, whether we're going to use that as a tool for recruitment, right.

Mike Griswold [00:25:53]:

More and more people, when they're getting to their place of work decisions are looking at things like what's your position on sustainability and how sustainable are you and how well are you moving towards your long term goals. So Diageo is a great example of someone that I think has embraced that idea of sustainability as a business driver outcome and really done a great job in some of the technology investments they've made. They do a really good job of telling their story around how sustainability has created value in the organization. So to me they were a good second example Scott, of someone that I think is really embracing innovation. It albeit a slightly different way.

Scott W. Luton [00:26:42]:

Love that Mike. And especially I love one element of that where organizations that get it see how sustainability is not a sunk cost even if the market's demanding it enhances the brand and that brand loyalty with the customers that demand it. But better yet than that is that they see it as a revenue generator and it can create some powerful new business opportunities. So excellent call out both with P&G and Diageo. And I would add one more. We just interviewed a supply chain leader from AstraZeneca, right AZ I think that sits at number 12 on the top 25 for 2024. And get this, by 2030 a couple of their bhags and folks hopefully you all know the acronym which stems from Jim Collins. At least he's the one that popularized it.

Scott W. Luton [00:27:33]:

Big hairy audacious goals, right? Bhags couple there's are by 2030 they're going to launch 20 new medicines. That is no small feat in that pharmaceutical space. They also plan on being carbon negative by 2030. How about that? So one of the ways that they're doing this as they were sharing with us is by powerfully transforming their organization, of course, digitally, but especially change the game when it comes to supply chain planning. And we've talked about this before, Mike, moving from that localized approach to a centralized global approach. In fact, get this, they spoke about including CO2 emissions as yet another planning parameter, helping to bake sustainability into their how they do supply chain each and every day. All those decisions, of course, leveraging digital twins as well, which has been around for a while, but that's talking about ways that we're finding established technology with new applications. They're leveraging digital twins not just in supply chain, but across the enterprise to help power experiments, pilots, scenario modeling and a whole bunch more.

Scott W. Luton [00:28:41]:

So we'll add AstraZeneca to the list, to your P&G and Diageo and celebrate what they have been able to get accomplished in 2024. How's that sound?

Mike Griswold [00:28:53]:

It sounds great. I mean, I think you hit the nail on the head, Scott, when you talked about just, I don't know if you don't spend time in that space. I don't think most people have an appreciation for the amount of work and time and money. It takes capital investment, intellectual property investment to bring a drug to market, and it's huge. And to bring that number in a relatively short period of time in the regulatory environment that we currently have for lots of good reasons, right around bringing drugs to market, that is a very ambitious goal. But without those, right. I mean, without ambitious goals, we never would have gotten to the moon. So they're another company that has really embraced the spirit of the top 25.

Mike Griswold [00:29:45]:

They're really good at sharing the things that they do to help the community become better supply chain practitioners. So, yeah, it's great to see them and great to hear the things that they want to work on.

Scott W. Luton [00:29:58]:

Mike, all that was the easy stuff, right now we're going to be getting into a tougher topic. I think that everyone is talking about, goodness gracious, tariffs, tariffs, more tariffs, right.

Scott W. Luton [00:30:11]:

Everybody's talking about the possible tariffs that the Trump administration may put into Place in January 2025. There's all sorts of speculation, of course, there's all sorts of social threats, I'll call it via X and other means of delivering them. Mike, what's your thoughts here?

Mike Griswold [00:30:29]:

It's a very easy topic to get very emotional about very quickly.

Scott W. Luton [00:30:35]:

Right, I agree.

Mike Griswold [00:30:37]:

My first piece of advice is let's see how things play out, right then there's a lot of stuff being thrown around in terms of the percentages the countries et cetera, et cetera. What I would ask organizations to think about now, given that there is still so much uncertainty in terms of what will happen and the magnitude of what would happen, is to think about two things. The first is start thinking about from a network modeling perspective, what might your supply network look like in some of these different scenarios? So let's say there's heavy tariffs on stuff coming in from China. Okay. What, what does that do? How would you model that scenario with your network design tools and capabilities to model different flows coming out of China, modeling potentially different alternative sources of product, right. What do tariffs do to the overall construct of your network? Network modeling tools, I mean, that's their sweet spot, right? Create these different scenarios, see what the impact might be and start to think about as we get more clarity on what is actually going to happen, right.

Mike Griswold [00:31:56]:

You might start to have some thoughts around if we tend to be trending in this direction. And I've run this scenario, this is what my operation has to look like. Use what we have, right. These, these plethora of network design tools that have gotten very good through the development of technology, even things with like AI. That would be my first observation. Second observation is, is again, start thinking about this from a demand perspective. So let's say again, let's use China as an example.

Mike Griswold [00:32:31]:

And all of a sudden the price of goods is going to increase 10%. That's going to get passed on to the consumer in some form or fashion. We would naturally think there's going to be an impact to demand, right. Prices go up, people may buy less.

Scott W. Luton [00:32:46]:

Just very simple example, a lot of retailers warning that, right already.

Mike Griswold [00:32:49]:

Exactly. Exactly. So start now thinking about those different scenarios from a demand planning perspective and what might that mean to demand? Do you now need to find alternative sources of supply? Do you now need to think about, I now need a more efficient. So that I can drive maybe costs out of my supply chain so that maybe I don't need to pass as much of that cost onto the consumer, right. So to me, there's two fundamental skills that we should already have as supply chain leaders looking at our network, thinking about reaction to demand that I think we could start looking at now and start to maybe not anticipate, but at least create some scenarios and then be better positioned to actually start to execute against them once we get more clarity. We've had this conversation in the past, Scott. People that wait for the final answer are going to be way behind.

Mike Griswold [00:33:54]:

These tools allow you to get ahead of the game and allow you to, without A whole lot of effort, start to see what some of these impacts could look like with enough lead time, particularly the network modeling piece with enough lead time where you could start to put some of these alternatives in place, maybe not necessarily execute against them, but, you know, you're not going to have, let's say, January 20th or whatever day the inauguration is. If you still have a blank piece of paper on January 20th, you're going to be in trouble. Yes, right. You should start filling in that piece of paper today. What's today? December 4th, right. You should start thinking about that piece of paper today.

Scott W. Luton [00:34:35]:

Well, it's kind of, kind of goes back to your, your pilot friend's advice, you know, if you wait till that third get out, you, you're gonna be the only one holding the bag. That's right.

Mike Griswold [00:34:44]:

That's right.

Scott W. Luton [00:34:45]:

I would also add, you know, no one kind of building on your advice there. We all know the numbers, all the data that comes out about your visibility that you lose as you go deeper in your tears in your supply chain, especially your biggest movers, where any business will make the bulk of its revenue, if you hadn't already. And so many leading organizations already are mapping all that out so they can act on it ahead of time, proactively. But if you're behind the game there, we're really trying to uncover throughout the tiers where your biggest exposure is. If these, if any level, any, any degree of these tariffs, which I think most people tend to agree, it may not be 25% on Canada and Mexico, maybe 10 to 12 or something, tariffs are most likely coming. Where is your greatest exposure and risk at? And then going back to course to options and finding, finding options, building out scenarios like Mike is suggesting. Okay, so let's get to a much more fun component of the today's conversation. Mike, I want to talk about 2025.

Scott W. Luton [00:35:49]:

We've already kind of alluded and applied a few things that will be coming, but bold predictions in global supply chain for 2025. What's on your radar there, Mike?

Mike Griswold [00:36:00]:

It's probably because of the team that I manage. I think there's going to be a continued doubling down on people in general in 2025. I think it's going to be a very hard look at how people and where are people most productive and productive. I think we're going to see in 2025 broadening that definition from, let's say, the traditional productivity of how many widgets can you crank out or whatever the equivalent is, say, in our current environment to how many widgets can you put out and still be a healthy, physically and mentally productive associate? I think more and more organizations are starting to realize that cycle of people leaving and having to rehire and retrain is becoming problematic both from a culture and morale perspective, but also from a pure dollar and cents perspective. It's just going to become more expensive to bring newer people in than keeping and investing in the people that you have. And I think my Hope prediction for 2025 is that we continue to build on the momentum we've had around things like the employee value proposition. You know, you referred to it, you know, at one point today, like this idea of the human deal, right.

Mike Griswold [00:37:39]:

The fact that people can be productive and have lives outside of work and how do we facilitate that? Right. How do we enable that for our associates? And I think we're going to see even more of an emphasis in 2025 on who we refer to as frontline workers. We saw a lot of that happen during the pandemic. People that had to go to factories, people that had to go to warehouses and distribution centers. How could we bring to them the level of flexibility that remote workers and office workers were experiencing? I think we were able to make some and get some momentum in that area and I think we're going to see that continue in 2025. So to me, this idea of investing in people, I think we're going to see even more of that happening at that frontline worker level because that's where I think where we still have the biggest gap. Partly because, right.

Mike Griswold [00:38:33]:

Some work still has to get done at a physical location like a DC but that doesn't mean we can't provide these flexible work life balance opportunities for those associates. And I think that's where companies are going to be focusing in 2025.

Scott W. Luton [00:38:48]:

Mike, I like it. I like that a lot. Especially what you were describing earlier in your response about kind of the, a more holistic, healthier way of looking at productivity, how we're redefining that. You got my vote. Let's do it. Let's make it happen broadly across industry. Here's a little fun. I'm not going to call this a prediction, but I do find this fascinating, especially with the, some of the water issues that we've seen through the Panama Canal for quite some time now.

Scott W. Luton [00:39:16]:

For years now, more than a decade, there's been rumor of a, of a Chinese invested new canal going through Nicaragua in Central America, right. That would really change the game in many ways, at least according to the bold, big old bold plan. I'm going to, in a fun way, tongue kind of somewhat planted in my cheek, predict that that might just break ground in some way, shape or form in 2025. Now, will it come through fully to fruition? I don't know. But I do know this. It'd be great to have some other options, right, that critical transportation of space, cutting off all those extra miles, especially in contingency situations. And also know that a Chinese government would love to kind of poke the US in the eye by making that happen and the role they would play in global supply chain.

Scott W. Luton [00:40:09]:

So we'll see. Mike, have you heard about this project? It's been rumored for forever.

Mike Griswold [00:40:15]:

I have not, Scott. It would not surprise me though, that to see something like that happen, particularly if we, if we couple that with, you know, a new administration, we couple that with the potential of tariffs. To your point, it's a perfect way for, for China to kind of, you know, tweak us in the nose and say, hey, we've got this, you know, this new mode of accessing across the east and the West. It will be interesting to see, though, kind of the world's reaction to this from the standpoint of two perspectives. One, we know China does not have any shortage of money, so funding this is not an issue. We also know that China has run fast and loosely with human rights. So it will be interesting to see where this ends up happening. The countries that are impacted, what impact does it have on the people in those areas? And what is the world's general reaction to China's approach to doing this? Right, because I think China would have and could have an opportunity to really change or at least start to change their narrative.

Mike Griswold [00:41:32]:

If they were building this, say, with an eye on human rights, if they were building this with an eye towards enhancing all commerce, it could start to alter a little bit people's perception of them depending on how they wanted to tackle this. But it definitely is worth keeping an eye on in terms of how this could come to fruition.

Scott W. Luton [00:41:57]:

I agree with you. And you know what? I would welcome all economic and trade and policy wars rather than actual geopolitical conflict and wars. So let's, let's let the competition be there rather than elsewhere. Okay, so we're recording this on the day that I think this is the final day or maybe the second day of the Gartner planting summit in Denver just like the one in London that preceded it. We're hearing tons of great key takeaways. It seems like these summits keep getting bigger and bigger. I think we're in the what, second, third year with them so far, Mike Is that right?

Mike Griswold [00:42:34]:

Year two.

Scott W. Luton [00:42:35]:

Year two. It's only year two and we're getting this much. But we'll blink. And just like the top 25, they'll be in year 21, if I heard you right earlier. But we've got also coming up in the spring, we got supply chain symposium. Tell us that next big thing on the radar there.

Mike Griswold [00:42:50]:

Mike it is, yeah. All of our experts, you know, we've got the agenda. I think we're pretty close. Our goal is to publish that before Christmas so everyone will get a sense of kind of the theme, the sessions. You know, people I'm sure know it's it's back in Orlando at the Dolphin and Swan. So, you know, as we come into Christmas, think of that almost as an early Christmas present from, from Gartner to you, letting you know exactly all the things that are going on at that event in May and then just a couple weeks after that, which is new for us, I think it's only two, maybe three at the most, will be in Barcelona. So by the end of May, our two symposiums will be done.

Scott W. Luton [00:43:34]:

Wow. Well, folks, if you haven't been, there's plenty of folks in the out in the audience because I get feedback quite a bit that love the Supply Chain Symposium. And I'm with you. I happen to be one of y'all kindred spirits with you if you haven't been, hey, check it out. There is the some of the best industry conversations and networking and kind of intel, intel sharing that you're going to find. And of course, it's in gorgeous Orlando where you'll meet some of your oldest and newest friends across global supply chain. So check that out. And Mike, folks can reach out to you or they can learn more about symposium at Gartner's website.

Mike Griswold [00:44:13]:

Correct. Gartner.com One of those things you probably want to check almost weekly because we're continuing to update as we get new keynotes, as we get new executive stories, as we get new things to add. But we're constantly updating that. But yeah, but by before Christmas we should have that locked down and people can really then make some decisions around what they want to see.

Scott W. Luton [00:44:34]:

Outstanding. Gartner.com folks. And Mike, how can folks track you down?

Mike Griswold [00:44:38]:

Email mike.griswold@gartner.com. LinkedIn I'm still old school, Scott.

Scott W. Luton [00:44:45]:

Or hopefully on the golf course at some point when it warms up in the neck of the woods, right? Yes, folks, hopefully you've enjoyed this episode as much as I have. Really big thanks to Mike Griswold, Vice President Analyst with Gartner. Mike, always a pleasure. I'm not sure we're not approaching 21 years, but I want to say we've probably been doing this close to five years, I bet. Especially when we flip the counter to 2025, don't you think?

Mike Griswold [00:45:09]:

I think you're right, Scott. Looking forward to it. I really enjoy time and enjoy being able to interact with folks. So looking forward to next year as well.

Scott W. Luton [00:45:18]:

And I, I really appreciate my little monthly blip increases in my intelligence each month after I spend an hour with you, Mike, but always a pleasure. Happy holidays and merry Christmas to your family, Mike, and folks, all of you out there, to all of our audience across the globe, happy holidays, Merry Christmas to you. Hope you have a wonderful end of the year and as you springboard into 2025. But hey, you got homework here and it's good homework. Take one thing from what Mike shared here today and put it into practice. Share it with your team, right? Let's find ways of converting the words into deeds and outcomes. And that's what it's all about. So folks, again, have a wonderful holiday season.

Scott W. Luton [00:46:00]:

And on behalf of the entire team here at Supply Chain Now, Scott Luton, challenging you. Do good. Give forward. Be the change that's needed. We'll see you next time right back here at Supply Chain Now. Thanks, everybody.

Narrator [00:46:12]:

Thanks for being a part of our Supply Chain Now community. Check out all of our programming at supplychainnow.com and make sure you subscribe to Supply Chain Now anywhere you listen to podcasts and Follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram. See you next time on Supply Chain Now.