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Hey, good morning, good afternoon, good evening wherever you may be. Scott Luton and the one and only Corinne Bursa with you here today on Supply Chain Now. Welcome to today's livestream. Hey, Karin, how you doing today?

Hey, Scott. I'm doing great. And it is a great day to be in supply chain.

It is. It is. And you know what? It's a great day to be an Atlanta sports fan because not only did the Falcons win over the weekend against a tough Tempe team, but the Atlanta Hawks are out to a 2 and 1 start, even though it was a tough game last night. So, hey, I'll take that. And we've got an outstanding conversation teed up here today, huh?

Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. You've got some interesting articles. I can't wait to discuss what's happening in the world of supply chain with you and the Supply Chain now audience.

I thought you were going to let the cat out of the bag because we have a big guest here today. So, folks, it is the buzz as Corinne is referencing. And welcome all of y'all, all members of the Supply Chain now fam, wherever you may be. We come to you every Monday at 12, no Eastern time. As Karin mentioned, we share and discuss a variety of news and developments across global supply chain and global business. And today we've got some great stories. We're gonna touch on Halloween supply chain. We're gonna talk about one of our favorite topics, supply chain planning. We're gonna be talking about some of the manufacturing production shifts, especially in the western hemisphere. A few thoughts on supply chain M and A market. And when you just think maybe assuming you know what's going on there, we might surprise you on a few things. All that and a whole bunch more. So get ready, buckle up and we'd love to hear from you. And as Corinne mentioned, or she teased a bit, got a wonderful guest joining us in a few minutes as we're going to be joined by Madhav Durba with Relax, one of our dear friends of Dynamo. Two things where we get going. First off, give us your take in the comments, whether you're tuned in via LinkedIn, YouTube, X, Facebook, Twitch, no matter. Let us know what you think. Love to hear from you and secondly, if you enjoyed today's show, we ask you to share it with a friend or your network. They'll be glad you did. Okay. So Corinne, you ready to get in and dive in?

I'm ready.

And unpack things. We got a lot going on, so we want to start, as always, with some resources. And you know, yesterday we published the 100th edition of with that said, 100 editions. And Corinne, as you know, no one cares about that number except the folks that create a navy. So with that said published yesterday, we started by celebrating Diwali, which is coming up this week. Beautiful Festival of Lights, which in part symbolizes the triumph of light over darkness. What a wonderful, wonderful special celebration. So to all of our friends around the world that celebrate, we wish you a happy and safe Diwali. Now, Corinne, we also offered perspective from some of our friends from across the supply chain now ecosystem. Lee Klaskow on the transportation markets. I think he calls his weekly message logistics Lee's lowdown. Corinne, I love that.

Say that three times. Fast Tongue twisted challenge.

Marty Parker, one of our co hosts, wrote about some ERP and a recent podcast with our friends at dos, which is doing some really cool things. Amir Ganad on leadership and how important followership is. Wan Ting Ray, who offered a great recap from one of our recent podcasts. And Corinne, we've been talking more about trust in the last few years than perhaps ever before. Kim Reuter shared a few thoughts on E commerce, supply chain and trust. Love that. Also, one last thing, we shared our most recent blog article, which recognized innovative work being done by folks over at 4 Kites High Robotics and Package. And of course, always you can find news, upcoming programs, and a whole bunch more. With that said, almost every weekend, Corinne, we bake in a little flexibility there. What stood out in this week's edition to you? Corinne?

Yeah, well, first of all, Congratulations on the 100th edition of what that said. It is a milestone. So congrats to you and the whole team on that. It's a great recap. What I like about it is it's a really good recap of everything that's happened during the week. And so if I've missed something, it's a great way to go back and kind of listen in or read the material. And I really appreciate that. Festival of Lights, I love that. The heart of good overcoming evil or light overcoming darkness. I just think that that's a wonderful celebration. I love that image.

I'm with you. And you know, I'm learning a lot about Diwali and we had a great article submitted from one of our community members. So y'all got checked? Yes, we published it. With that said, one of the other elements that I understand about Diwali is it also celebrates knowledge kind of over ignorance. And I may have got that right. And we're all have a blind spot in what we know, what we're learning. And that is a wonderful and timely aspect of celebration as well. So folks, if you celebrate happy, happy and safe, Diwali to you. Okay, also speaking of resources, Corinne, we want to talk about the if you want to put your finger on the pulse of the U.S. freight market, you want to sign up for the free US Bank Freight Payment Index now, folks, it comes out every quarter. It's packed with freight supply chain economic data and a whole bunch of observations. Plus, you should tune into our quarterly livestream where we dive into all the data more and compare it, Corinne, against what we're seeing out in the marketplace. And up next, we've got Kathy Mara Roberson who's set to join us on November 7th at 12 noon Eastern Time. And we've got the link, folks. We got you covered. We got the link. So you can check out the US Bank Freight Payment Index right there, one click away and let us know what you think. Corinne, it's really important not only to know what's going on in any freight market, including the domestic one, however, to compare and contrast what the data says versus what practitioners are actually seeing out in the market. That's an important discussion to be had, huh?

It absolutely is. And Scott, I can't remember how long you've been covering this on a quarterly basis, but it seems like years now.

So 27 years.

Yeah. I like the fact that it, you know, that there's a little accountability piece too in the conversation of what we thought was going to happen. Did it happen? Is the trend right? Is the trend your friend, or do we need to take some actions in the future? So it's a valuable discussion no matter what your role is in supply chain.

Well said, Corinne. And you know, one of my favorite elements of all that in this tidal wave of data that we're all hit with, organizations are hit with, practitioners are hit with. It gives us an opportunity through these important discussions to pay attention to the signals and not everything else because everything I think I can say, this is not relevant. So we got to tune into the important signals and truths. So folks, join us on November 7th at 12 noon Eastern Time for that event. Okay, so we tackled with that said, we tackled domestic freight market. How about tackling Halloween? Corinne, you're gonna like this graphic I got. I'll take give you one guess who came up with it. Our friend AI. Well, we got one item we want to tackle before Madav joins us here momentarily and that's Halloween is also coming up this week on Thursday, October 31st here in the state. So I want to take a look at this interesting read from our friends at Thomas which was entitled the not so Mysterious Halloween Supply Chain. Now Kris, we're talking in the green room a second ago. I think there's one disconnect between Thomas and the source data from the National Retail Federation which talks about how much Americans are going to be spending on Halloween. And actually Americans aren't going to be spending as much on Halloween as they did last year. Last year was like an all time record $12.2 billion on Halloween stuff. This year they're projecting 11.6 billion which is still plenty. So imports of Halloween related products rose 18% over last year which is I thought, I think pretty interesting. Now peak season for Halloween product shipping runs from May to July and typically July is the peak month each year. But as we've talked about time and time again, retailers that smearing effect plus there's been a ton of pent up Halloween demand it seems like. So retail has been bringing in those Halloween products much earlier. And so this year June was the peak month this year. Now here's something that may surprise you, Corinne. Did you know that Halloween is the biggest holiday of the entire year for candy sales? That surprises me. Americans are going to spend some $3.5 billion on candy alone for Halloween. And I'm not sure who's driving the second Factoid, Corinne, but $500 million on Halloween greeting cards. I've never gotten a Halloween greeting card in my entire life. Have you Karin?

I have shout out to my mother in law. She is so good. There is no holiday that goes uncelebrated with her. We get greeting cards for everything.

So.

So I have gotten a Halloween card.

Okay, okay. I'm learning something new. 500 million. So plenty of folks are sending in and getting them. Let's see here. So no surprise here, right? We all know this. Tons of supply chain planning has got to come together to meet all the Halloween demand. Big players like Hershey's, they plan some 18 to 24 months in advance. So there's plenty of Heath bars and Bubble Yum and Kit Kats go around spirit Halloween. The famous pop up stores only open from Aug August, November, but it spends the entire year planning for Halloween alone. And one last thought here, Corinne, looking forward to get your thoughts. The demand for Halloween costumes is a really interesting one. It's similar to our conversation the other day about the fashion industry. And Corinne, you were actually making a point. We could all learn from planners in the fashion industry, right? If a big movie comes out in August or September, well, costume manufacturers have got to be able to pivot, produce and prosper and meet that new demand for new products. But, Corinne, your thoughts on the not so mysterious Halloween supply chain?

Yeah, so I think the Halloween supply chain is just a great example of seasonality. So it's like seasonality on steroids when we think about fashion or when we think about just the merchandise that moves into market. And I am continually shocked by how Americans love Halloween. In my neighborhood, the decorations are crazy. Have you seen these 12 and a half foot skeletons in the yards? There's a house down the street from me that's got like two of those giant ones and a half dozen small ones. So they're having a skeleton party. I don't know. Yes, it's an army of skeletons, all in good fun. But all I can think of when I see all that, Scott, is where do you store that the rest of the year?

Right, right. I'm with you. But they're making Costco really happy. Amanda, and who's behind the scenes helped make it happen, says each of those are like 150 bucks a piece. The tall giant ones, Corinne.

Well, you know, Home Depot has had a hard time keeping in the stock. It seems like the day or day or two when they come in, they're sold out. So they've even nicknamed them, I think the nickname is Scully or Skelly. So, yeah, Home Depot, which is headquartered here in Atlanta, is loving the trend to decorate your yard and prepare for the Halloween festivities, if you will. But I will tell you about the candy.

Yes.

I think at the Bursa household, what happens is we buy like two bags to give away and we buy a bag that we keep, too. I can't even say, you know, we all.

Yeah, I appreciate you keeping it real. We gotta keep it real. And the dentists probably love Halloween each year, right? So, folks, hey, take a look at this article. Let us know what you think. We've got the link right there in the chat. Don't take our word for it. Check it out and let us know what you think.

Well, Scott, on that article, one factoid from that article is, I think it was 3.5 billion in candy sales, right? That's right. And for us as supply chain experts, right, nobody wants to buy Halloween decorated candy in November. They think it's old even though it's got a shelf life associated with it. But it just gives you again, that reminder of seasonality, that special packaging that the candy manufacturers put together that all have Halloween, you know, designs on them, but that just ages that inventory very quickly because you're definitely not going to want to be buying it in late November and December even though the candy is probably just fine at that point. It's the fact that it's packaged for a holiday.

Excellent call out. Excellent call out. And you know, I'm not sure if I've ever thrown away any expired candy. I'm not telling myself. But kidding aside, you know, there's a lot of interesting in the world of chocolate, there's a lot of interesting factors that we're going to probably be hearing a lot more about and having to tackle in new ways now and into the next few years. So a lot of good stuff there. Corinne. So much goes in to these big holidays that all families enjoy. Most folks enjoy. We've identified in the pre show. Corinne. Keeping it real. Halloween's not my favorite holiday of all times. Probably my, not probably. It's my least favorite. There's a contingent. I've got some fellow kindred spirits in that regard. But anyway, let's see here. I think this is Amanda. We have to buy our Halloween candy like the day before otherwise it won't make it the Halloween night a lot of us can relate to there. Hey, T Squared's back with us. Holds down for it for us on YouTube. Bring it on. That good, good supply chain management nourishment. Well, stay tuned. We got a great show for you. T Squared and Korak Jose. I just caught up with him last week. My favorite stores, Kara says changed to Home Depot and Costco quite dramatically. We know Costco's been, I guess they've been both competing on those big 20 foot skeletons because they have been moving at our local Costco as well. Corinne, tough to keep those things in stock. Indeed. Okay, one more question, Corinne, before we bring on Madhav, the one and only Madhav Derpa backed by Popper Demand. So Corinne, your favorite Halloween candy of all time, right?

Okay. So my favorite, it's probably a toss up between the Heath bar and the peanut butter Snickers, which is like kryptonite. I can't resist that. But I will tell you that it is never candy corn oh, I'm with you.

I'm with you. And a quick shout out to Jolene. That was one of Jolene's favorite. Right? And it's kind of like licorice. You know, folks love it or hate it. I think candy corn's the same way. I'm a big nerds fan for candy candy. They have made a incredible. The last couple years has been incredible growth for nerds. But for chocolate, Kit Kat, Twix, Snickers, that's my trifecta. That is my trifecta. So. But I love the Heath bar, Corinne, you mentioned. That's a good one. And if you remember, the Score bar back in the day, I think that was discontinued. That was a big Heath competitor. Anyway. All right, now that you got me starving for lunch here, we've had an outstanding guest joining us again today. We've enjoyed past in person and webinar conversations with this business leader who always shares outstanding perspective on a welcome in Madhav Durba Group vice president, CPG Manufacturing with Relex Solutions. Hey, Madhav, how you doing?

Doing great. How are you, Scott?

Wonderful, wonderful.

Good to see you.

Good to see you too.

I'm going to pick back up where we left off. Mod off. And Corinne and we were just talking mod off about some of our favorite candies. Right. Tis the season we got this big old candy. This is like when they dump out the bags and they start trading and stuff. Or as Amanda shared earlier, parents start stealing. Right. That happens. But man off, when you think about the wide world of candy, Halloween or otherwise, what's one of your favorites?

Chocolate covered peanuts.

Okay, okay. Is that I think Goobers or is that is Goobers. Chocolate covered raisins. I might be getting that wrong, but chocolate covered peanuts, I love it. Like the Eminem peanut candies.

Yeah. Peanut candy.

Eat those about a handful. Corinne, do you like peanut M&Ms? I do.

I do like peanut MMs.

All right, talking candy. We mentioned Jolene and she says, Jolene says I still stand behind candy corn as the best Halloween candy. But chocolate trumps all Halloween candy. Especially, she says, Reese's peanut butter cups. And she's looking forward to Bob joining us here today. We are too. We are too. And hey, mom. Leah Luton from Aiken, South Carolina, Great to see you. Love you. Looking forward to seeing you soon. Okay, Monoff and Corinne, we got a lot to get into here today. Mono, great to have you back. It's been a little while. So for, you know, a lot of folks know you and follow you and they Enjoy your supply chain perspective. But I bet we've got some new audience members that are just meeting you here for the first time. So for them let's add some context if you would tell us a little bit about your background.

Sure. By training, I was trained to be a chemical engineer but never pursued the craft. And in fact I started my career in supply chain 25 years ago with a little company called Itwo Technologies. For those who may remember, Itwo from i2i transitioned into JDA now called Blue Yonder. From JDA, my journey led me to Kinexys and I spent a couple of years at Kinexys and then Llamasoft. If you follow the pattern, it's IJKL until that point in time i2jda can access Llamasoft and then the chain broke. Llamasoft got acquired by Coupa. So spend management company and spent some time at Coupa and then took a year of sabbatical planned sabbatical. I traveled the world and did some fun stuff at that time and then relax came along and here I am with Relex. And through my career I crisscrossed between building and launching products into the market and in go to market roles as well. So you know, kind of I put on a variety of hats, if you will, in the world of supply chain and especially supply chain planning, which remains a passion of mine.

Oh well, we have got, between you and Corinne, we have got a wonderful conversation teed up here today. Now Corinne, when you hear about Manov's journey, right. And gosh, we know we love our acronyms around there and Madhav shared another one with us. But what did you hear in that journey leading up to the sabbatical and of course the big things he's doing now?

Well, what I heard is that Madhab has been with a number of innovators in the industry, so we should pay attention as he continues to contribute in the industry as a whole. But certainly ITWO was a real innovator in the early days and we've seen a lot of talent that had time at itwo participate in a number of different companies over the years and inspire some innovative new ways of thinking. So I have known Madhav, I've seen him in the industry for years, so I'm always interested to see what he's up to.

You know, Madhav, we've enjoyed a variety of conversations, but you surprised me with the chemical engineering thing. We've never taught chemistry and that's a good thing because I'm good at a lot of stuff and I'm not good at a lot of stuff and chemistry falls on the latter list. That was not meant to be a chemist, but I love that we'll have to talk more about your early career days in chemical engineering and I bet it's a tough field. Okay, but today we're going to be talking supply chain planning. We're going to be talking manufacturing, production chefs. We're going to be talking the supply chain M and A market, which is going to be an interesting one with the two of y'all. And folks, we welcome Yalls take on Andy's topics as well. We will talk about your attendance of Gartner's recent planning summit in London. You shared some of your key takeaways about two weeks ago and I'd love for you to share some of those here with our audience here today.

Sure. Or I'll it was a very good networking event most of all, but had an opportunity to attend a number of sessions too. So few things that struck with me. One is there was a session by Joe Graham, one of the analysts in Kotler supply chain planning, and he talked about how AI is a collection of algorithms. That's the right practical way for business leaders to think about it. Oftentimes business leaders get questioned on, hey, what are we doing about AI? What are we doing about machine learning or genai? And so on and so forth. His advice was start with business problem first. Define the business problem and pick the right algorithm for the job, whether it is optimization, heuristics, simulation, knowledge, graphs, machine learning, gen AI, whatever you want to call it. Think of these as a collection of algorithms and pick the right algorithm for the right job. I think that's a very practical way of looking at it. The second thing that also is Malachy Doyle of Value of Foods. His presentation was quite interesting. He also happens to be a relaxed customer. One of the things he called out in that is the importance of the people and the skill sets. Said before you start on an implementation journey, make sure that you have the right people with the right skill sets. Either they're internal, you hire them, or you bring them in as partners as part of the deployment. Make sure of bringing in the people, focus. The other thing that stuck with me, he said, was around data quality. Oftentimes. How many times do we hear this right? My data quality is not good. I don't know if I'm ready for this AI journey. His point is that, hey, it's never perfect. You got to start somewhere. One of the byproducts in my experience of starting with an AI powered supply chain plan planning transformation is that it actually surfaces some of the imperfections and inconsistencies in the data. And Karin, you spent enough time in this space, so I'm sure you would appreciate that. The third thing which is really surprising, but not so surprising if you think about it, is the planning systems that companies roll out. The adoption tends to be fairly low. The adoption is only about 35 to 40%. This is something Pia Land, another analyst from Gartner, she shared from her research. 35 to 40% adoption of planning tool that's given to business users. Just ponder upon that, right? One of the things she talks about is sometimes companies underestimate the change management and the education that is required. And when you talk about planner education, it's not just showing them the mouse clicks and which button to click, it's more about why they do what they do, making sure that they understand that it's actually a transformation, it's a new way of decision making as opposed to just automating the old. Couple of other things in that regard is one Quite a few companies talked about this idea of touchless planning, right? Where it's not that human is completely taken out of the loop, but a planning paradigm where things run in an autonomous manner to the degree practical, using AI. And then humans intervene on an exception based decision making. So that's the other thing that was called out. And the last thing is just a very inspiring presentation about nothing about supply chain planning, but about what's our superpower in the world of digital. When you think about the good old days, it's about knowledge. Knowledge was superpower. The more you write, more you understand. It was your superpower. Then came the world of Google Google searches. So information became superpower. Now we are transitioning from the world of searches to answers with chatgpt and anthropic and so on and so forth. Now what do you think is the superpower? It's not knowledge or it's not information. It's our own attention. Our attention spans have become so much shorter. So if I can spend and doing deep thinking for an hour without getting distracted by the next text message that is popping up that is actually superpower if you can hold your attention. So lots of lots of great insights but just wanted to call out a few.

I love it. And folks, before I go to Corinne and get her take on somewhat Madhav shared, let us know your favorite takeaway from what Madhav just shared. I think he shared about five or six key takeaways. And Karin, one of my favorites and one of my things that I don't think we talk enough about as an industry is adoption. Right. Especially given all the different platforms and technologies and new ways of doing things. But we have not made enough progress in driving real practical adoption gains. But Corinne, what you hear there, and I want to put this out there. Corinne and Madhav will be in Denver in December for the next Gartner Supply chain Planning Summit. So Corinne, what'd you hear in the first one, though?

Yeah, so great takeaways. I'll start with the last one. So attention. I love that. I'm famous for saying focus, focus. You've got to focus. So same idea, right? We've got to be able to really apply that human creativity to what the systems are generating for us and they will continue to evolve and generate more and more. So I like the discussion mix of both analytic AI with generative AI because they are complementary and they do. The generative AI in particular is going to change the way we as users in interact with the systems. Maybe our adoption rate will go up as a result. We'll see. We really have to do everything we can to get our users out of spreadsheets. They're still disconnected or they're holding onto those spreadsheets like they're a security blanket because they're afraid to give it up or they don't trust the system that has been deployed. So as solution providers, we need to be conscious of that and continue to help move that adoption so that we get higher and higher adoption rates. So I think lots of good stuff coming and I'm looking forward to the December event.

Yes, I can't wait. I think you're gonna monov. You're gonna be there in Denver as well. We'll get the two of y'all together and that'll be the center of the supply chain planning universe, at least for an hour. Monof, you're about to respond to something Corinne said.

I think, by the way, it's a winter event, not summer event. Karen, just correcting that. And just to add to what Karin brought up in terms of analytical AI and generative AI, at Ramux, we like to think of specialized AI and gen AI, right? One is about computations, one is about the heavy math that you need to perform in supply chain. The other one, gen AI, is about adding that context around those computations. And what I am encouraged by Karin is that I think it can frankly open up a newer types of user Personas who don't need to be trained on a user interface, which button to click, which report do I go to. Instead just ask queries, make queries in natural language and get responses, you know. So I think it can open up a newer types of Personas as well, along with increasing adoption.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think also Madhav, your point on data. We've been saying for years data is the new oil, right. But it's really the ability to access and transform that data into actionable insights. So we need to not only get the data, we need to be able to interpret it or find the signal in the noise and then help the business user to know. You know, here are the top three things to consider or here's a recommended path and allow them to apply their business acumen to that. And it's also helping us with, you'll hear a term synthetic data. It sounds crazy but it's the ability to interrogate the data which is not always perfect, clean it up and augment it when when needed so that we can automate as much of the planning process as possible.

Love it. Corinne and Mata, good stuff. And we've got a couple of great comments here in the chat. Nothing about candy corn. So Jolene, we're taking a survey. Any other candy corn fans out there. But that Shankar is talking about, he concurs with the comment on change management, data inconsistency and adoption level of planning systems. I do as well. Good stuff there. Nalima, two favorite takeaways start with the business problem and attention as a superpower. You know that last one Manov, your last key takeaway and Corinne, you kind of spoke to this in your response there and Nalima of course calls it out. You know we got to explore and shine a bigger light on that goldfish attention span that I think all of us struggle with and adoption rates. Right. Because I bet if we can find more engaging ways and maybe condensed ways through implementation, onboarding and all the training and so a lot of the aftercare that goes on, I bet we'd move the needle a little bit more on the adoption side of things. Just a hunch. Just a hunch. Manov.

Yeah, I just wanted to add one comment there and in fact here is a practical way of genai and how it is improving adoption. Right? At Relux last year we launched what we call as vpot, our own genai agent. What we are seeing is almost 30% improvement in productivity of our own internal consultants, but our customers as well. Why if they're stuck on some particular piece of functionality, they can just go and ask natural language queries. Right. You no longer have to parse through a 500 page product, wiki or manual anymore. You can immediately get answers. It removes a lot of frustration and it also helps improve onboarding of your employees. This is one of the side benefits our customers have found. So just wanted to bring up that example.

Love it. Hey Corinne, I'll give you the last word here on this. One of definitely your favorite topics and certainly one of my favorite topics. But taking friction out, I don't care what friction it is, but getting more and more friction out of the equation, chemical or otherwise, is always a good thing. Corinne, your final word here.

Yeah, I think it was a great point. I think being able to coach somebody in process as they're doing it is really important. It's stickier, they remember it. They remember the business challenge that they were addressing at the time versus just leaving that in the classroom. So the ability to really accelerate and have access to that on demand when needed to prompt the user is really, really valuable.

Outstanding. Good point there, Corinne. All right, so one more quick event and you'll find this. And with that said, we talk about T Fest TFest 2024 which is coming up in November and Karai is going to be joining TFest I think as a speaker and he's just putting a little disclaimer there. I'll just appointed vice chair for the conference. Will they pick the right individual? Kara Kose, Congratulations. It was great to catch up last week, my friend. Okay, I want to shift gears over to a different topic and I do have a graphic for this one folks, I promise you this comes to us from Manufacturing Dive where they offer a few key takeaways from what I think is an interesting KPMG survey of some 250 US based executives which all hail from companies with over a billion dollars in revenue. Okay, so some of these findings I bet aren't going to surprise any of us here. The localization of production continues to eat away at globalization. For example, supply chains in north and South America that serve the United States are expected to increase. However, it is projected that North America, the US and Canada supply chain markets are going to lose volume in terms of those supplier supply chains, if that makes sense. Mexico, that rock and roll market down there is projected to gain significant market share, which again, if you've been tracking what's going on in Mexico, that shouldn't surprise. Most know that Mexico supplanted China as the import market for the US Just Last year, more and more companies are looking to reduce the number of steps or locations that products must cycle through. According to KPMG data and projections, the average number of supply chain locations is set to fall from 2.7 to 2.4 in the next three years. Right. Streamlining. Streamlining. Streamlining. Taking some friction and some distance out of some of these equations. Monop. Your thoughts here? No big surprises, at least to me. Your thoughts?

Actually, one head scratcher. I'll get to that in a minute, but I think the report called out quite a few very interesting observations. Right. But it's a simple law of physics and math. When you reduce the time for something to travel, the variability around that comes down. It's just a simple law of math and physics. So I think it all comes down to how do I reduce the length of my supply chain and how do I reduce the number of nodes in my network that a product needs to pass through before it gets to the end consumer? So when you put the two together, I think the article makes a lot of sense. Now, there are a number of terms that get used, thrown around, right? You think about near shoring, onshoring, offshoring. Friendshoring was a term that was being used for some time. One term that I really liked in the article is they call it strategic story. Right? Making the right decision in terms of where to make and where to source from. I think one caveat that I want to apply here is that just because we unshore something doesn't mean that the risk goes away. So I'll take a very simple example. My wife is a physician and she alerted me to it. I don't know if you guys know this or not. There is currently IV fluid shortage in hospitals across US. That's because in the North Carolina floods, there is a particular facility that produces 60% of the IV fluids within U.S. hospitals. And that was taken offline. And when that happens, it hit the hospital's heart. Right. So what we want to be cognizant about is we have to live with the fact that the disruptions will continue, but we can at least reduce the number of disruptions. So that is a positive on the report. There's a little bit of a head scratcher. You want me to get to that now or should we get Kareem Stake first?

I'll tell you what, it's a great, great option you're giving me here. Mona, thank you so much. Corinne, why don't we get you to respond first? And one of the things that might have just shared That I really we need to spike the football on is on. Shoring doesn't eliminate the risk. It's not a magic wand that moves us into magic fairyland where nothing, there's no risk. It's really important. Corinne, your thoughts though on this article and some of these big shifts?

Oh, it may not eliminate, but it might shift the risk to a different type of risk. But just as in Covid, one of the big learnings in Covid, which, you know, most companies or many companies really made cost based decisions on where their plants operated and they went to low cost markets to do that. That came with a risk. Right. And some of it was challenged further if they were single sourced versus multi sourced. Madhav has just given us a great example of certainly with IV packets we're not single sourced but we are concentrated in supply in a particular market. So you have to evaluate the total risk in your network. So I do think though nearshoring or getting closer to your markets allows you in general to hold less inventory so your time to market decreases, which does help accelerate the turns of your inventory. You don't need to hold as much, you don't have as much inventory in transition or in transport coming into a marketplace. But bottom line is all of these things just underscore the need for supply chain planning solutions because you've got to evaluate a multitude of variables and look at your desired inventory positions, your desired service levels and evaluate risk where those choke points or where particular nodes or key suppliers may present a risk.

Good stuff there Corinne. And on a related note, we're talking IV medical supplies and what the pharmaceutical industry has got some interesting and tougher decisions make when it comes to some of these desired production shifts because of some of the constraints related to the active ingredients and some of the limitations of where we can source those things. So very interesting. I bet we have to bring Madhav's wife the doctor on and we're going to talk about medical supply chain modav. That would be interesting. Madhav, you were about to share one head scratcher before we leave and talk M and A and get your observations there. So share the head scratcher if you would.

Yeah, the head scratcher for me is when I look at this report, especially the numbers for a little mind blowing when you think about it. They were talking about over the next three years US is expected to see its share drop to 44% from 62% in terms of the share of the operations of the business and then Canada dropping to 30% from 39%. I did see in the report that Mexico, Brazil and some of these countries picking up some of the slack, but not enough to make up for such a staggering falling short too. Which is also very interesting when we think about the government policy and how they are trying to shape and shift to stimulate more production on show in United States. So bit of a head scratcher not to refute any of the arguments made in the document itself, but something to ponder upon to see how this shift happens. But one thing that is true is supply chains are getting restructured right in front of our eyes. We are kind of watching that movie play out in slow motion right now.

We really are. And Manav and Karen, I'm going to get your last thought here. But Manov, I think maybe one of the things at least what I took away from diving in was there was a lot of projections from the participants. And you know, when we're talking about projections first versus what actually is happening, there can be some big disparities. So we'll see, we'll see how things play out over the next three years for sure. Corinne, your final word on this interesting thought provoking study from our friends at KPMG via Manufacturing Dive.

Yeah, absolutely. So Manav has a really good point and he spent a number of years doing supply chain design and leaning into what it means, where those nodes should be. So he's got some great insights there. I was surprised to see that the US contribution was going to be lower because there's so much talk about bringing manufacturing back to the U.S. right. So I was surprised to see that the survey indicated that that's not the case. That's not what they anticipate right now. If I can though, Scott, at the end of that article, at the end of the article is a mention of 80 acres farm. Oh yeah, and I have to give a shout out. I have a good friend, Mike Zelkin who is the co founder and CEO of 80 Acre Farm. So I don't know how his team got him in that article, but it was exciting to see and it was fun because it's a great example. This is in the produce sector, right? So you've got very short product life cycles associated with that. He was also recognized last week by Goldman Sachs as one of the most exceptional entrepreneurs in 2024. So congratulations to Mike Zelk and to 80 Acre Farms, man.

Outstanding. So Amanda or Tricia, let's see if we can't find the link to 80 acre farms. Drop it in the chat so more folks can check it out. Thank you for sharing that, Karin. And congrats to Mike and the whole team. All right, so folks, again, got the link right here to Manufacturing Dive, which provides, I think, a link to the actual KPMG survey data. So check it out, let us know what you think. And we got some more friction in the chat, folks. T squared says love candy corn, but he adds in moderation. Okay, that's not too much friction. D squared. Love it. So where are we going next? Well, I know where we're going. We're going to the M and A industry here. And I've got this. How about this? This bull here. You got one of these sitting in your den anywhere. Corinne Madav Pretty cool. So switching over to getting a few observations on the current supply chain M and A market. So interesting read here from Forbes, which is it really comes from Steve Banker. Many of y'all may be tracking Steve. Great insights each and every time. Very consistent. So I'm gonna call out a few highlights and then we're gonna get Manov to weigh in here. So Steve points out that supply chain firms and technologies represent 15 to 20% of total venture capital investment. That's according to Kearney Data. And after a dramatic decrease in total investment volumes and number of deals since the pandemic highs, investment is certainly returning. More than 150 supply chain startups have been acquired just in the last two years. Venture capital investments in supply chain technology vendors and tech based 3 pls topped 15 billion in 2024 just thus far. And other big non VC players have been investing big time as well. Amazon, Maersk, ups, dhl, Walmart, you name it. So Monov, couple questions for you, for you and Corinne. Starting with you, Monov, what are your observations about this current market and maybe where we're headed?

Sure. No, I think the tide is starting to turn in the venture market. If you're familiar with the venture capital and startup space. There was a little bit of a winter period, for lack of better words, right over the last couple of years after the COVID induced excitement kind of cooled off a little bit. What that caused was this interesting issue where even with the interest rates going up too, it started choking a little bit of the capital flow and started slowing down the exits. But what we have seen recently is the pickup in terms of the companies getting acquired. So what that does is it releases capital again and a company goes through an acquisition. The shareholders in the VC firms, the limited partners, they get paid. When they get paid, they get their returns. Now they need to redeploy the capital. Right. So the capital starts flowing through the market again. So because of that through an investor lens, I'm pretty excited about where this is going. Now if you look at the larger companies too, they're deploying capital. I mean you're seeing news of companies acquiring other companies, more so in the supply chain space recently. One example that I can give you is Relux acquired a company called Optimity at the beginning of this year. Okay, so I can double click into that. Maybe we'll get current stake. But I want to give some cautions as well in terms of M and A and what companies need to watch for and how do they thoughtfully bring innovation. And maybe I'll build on the Relux Optimity example.

That sounds great, Madhav. So Corinne, really quick, given all the activity coming back, which is a good thing for so many of our friends across those entrepreneurs like Mike, you were talking earlier about. Corinne, your thoughts on what we're seeing currently in M and A activity across supply chain?

Yeah, so I guess two points, one investment and the other around actual merger and acquisition. It's great to see investment coming back and not just in the logistics arena. The article does talk fairly extensively about investments in logistic or services and 3 PL, but in the planning space and innovation. And with the investments in artificial intelligence, creating new architectures, reaching into data, you know, and transforming that. I think it's important for us all to remember that when it comes to M and A, it doesn't mean that a company has failed if it's acquired. There's a whole lot involved in being a successful technology solution provider. And the technology may be fantastic. It just needs bigger market reach. So there are a lot of these acquisitions that create a one plus one equals three scenario. And I think Madhav's got a little perspective on that.

Yep, undoubtedly. And how does M and A activity really beef up a company's portfolio wherewithal and the ability to maybe do more and bring more value to the table for its customers.

So couple of things. I think there are two kinds of mday that I see. There are some companies that simply acquire companies as a roll up strategy, which is you bring two companies together, take out any extraneous costs that you can, any synergies that you can gain out of that. That is one strategy. But I think where I've seen M and A be very successful is a more thoughtful, strategic kind of M and A, where you are acquiring an entity, bringing in some unique IP from that entity. See, before you do anything like that, A company goes through a build versus buy kind of process, Right. To say, what would it take for me to develop similar capability internally and how long will it take? And you can't assume that the market is staying static during that time. Right. So you have to make an assumption that the market keeps moving. So can I build this internally with enough velocity and scale it up? That is one thought. But the other thought is if I come to the conclusion that no, I'll be too slow to the market, then a strategic acquisition would make sense. So just double clicking into strategic acquisitions, sometimes I've seen those kind of acquisitions not go too well either. Oftentimes it's not a technology clash, it's a culture clash within the company. Okay. Of more often than not, these acquisitions can fail because there is a culture clash. Right. So that's why Relux has exercised the muzzle of M and A over the years and has done few very successful acquisitions. So specifically in the context of optimity, why did we acquire optimity? Relex is known for its very strong retail presence and brand owner retailer collaboration. But there was this strong desire actually driven by our own customers and in fact quite a few vertically integrated retailers as well. We started getting interest in terms of beefing up our manufacturing capabilities. It's adding capabilities like production planning, production scheduling, purchase planning, even going upstream. Then again, Relux went through this buy versus build kind of decision making and looked at variety of companies and honed in on optimity because optimity is already well beyond a product market. Okay, so that's point number one. Point number two is a young company. Given its cloud native kind of architecture, there are a lot of synergies from a technology perspective. Number three is Relux is headquartered of Finland and optimity grew out of Sweden. So there is a lot of cultural similarities. And in fact, we've been very successful in retaining the optimity talent we acquired. And now we are bringing the technology together. It might require some recording, re platforming, so on and so forth, but bringing the technologies together enables a true end to end unified planning. So that's the kind of vision that we are driving towards. Right. So I just wanted to hone in on that as one example. But these are the kind of thought process that companies go through when they think about every day.

All right, so Corinne, two thoughts and let me give you your final response. I wish we had a couple more hours here today, folks. I've really enjoyed both of your perspectives and of course the comments across our supply chain now fam Corinne, first off, Unity, that was not just a song by. Oh gosh, Amanda, Trisha, let me know. It's on tip of my tongue. Unity, you and I ty. All right, hook me up. And then secondly, Karin, secondly, that buy versus Build, right, What Monov talked about. Because a lot of organizations kind of go through those decision cycles, right? And that takes me back to your mantra of focus, focus, focus, focus on what we speaking generally, what we any organization's best at, the value we are experts in creating and delivering. And that buy versus build decision that is such an important one for so many not just supply chain leaders out there, but business leaders as they are navigating through this M and A environment and a lot more. But Corinne, your response, what Madhav shared there or in general, your final word on what we're seeing out there in the M and A market?

Number one, I do think culture is critically important. It's important to getting the full value out of any acquisition. And if you're acquiring a technology base, you're doing it because of not only what the product does, but how the team can bring that product to market and deliver value for the customer. So I do echo his sentiments there. And it's a hard thing to gauge in the acquisition process because everybody's happy around the table. But we need to make sure that when it comes across the organization and how we're focused on customers and go to market strategy, that that culture permeates all the way through to the whole team. So very, very important. Please don't make me sing though. I can't do the unity song.

So.

All right. So Corinne, thank you. And I sing very cautiously because I don't want to lose audience members, but that was Queen Latifah Unity back in the day, long time ago. That's back when Queen Latifah was still wrapped versus had a big time acting career. Man, times have changed. And don't worry, folks, I won't sing anymore, at least today. All right. But kidding aside, for both of y'all to call out the cultural piece and that critical strategic and tactical wiring that's got to take place through any of these acquisitions, the wiring of the cultures and a whole bunch more. And then I also want to call out, Greg is back with us from good old Milwaukee. Greg says, hey, it's still cheaper. Do some stuff out of the usa. Will be interesting to see how working with South America will work with China moving heavier into South America. That's right. China's working hard. Not just in South America, but working hard to enter the Mexico market in a variety of different ways. Casey says so true. Buy versus build and which is best for the company can often boil down to a culture issue. Excellent point there, Kasey. Great to have you with us here today. All right, so we gotta leave that there. Manov, really appreciate you and Corinne, your observations on the M and A market and really M and A market, the manufacturing, production shifts and supply chain planning, which y'all are basically like quite a one two punch in heavyweights. One's Mike Tyson and one's Lennox Lewis. I'll let y'all figure out who is who. All right. But I want to finish with this. We love providing resources. Madhav and Corinne knows it. Very passionate about that. And y'all got a really interesting virtual event coming up on November 14th. If you would tell us more about what folks can expect.

Madhav sure. We're going to be talking a lot about our general demand sensing. There is an increased need in the market I'm seeing to improve forecast accuracy. So it's going to be a fantastic conversation to I'll be participating in that as well. We're going to dive deep into what are organizations looking for, what does demand sensing mean and how should organizations go about this journey. So really looking forward to this event.

Outstanding folks. We're going to make it really easy. Learn more. You got one click right there in the comments and check it out. And I bet Madhav would welcome to hear your perspective at that event as well on November 14. Madhav and friends and relax colleagues. All right, so I've got got one question more for each of y'all. So madav first for you is how can other than this event, how can folks connect with you and compare notes, learn from your observations and your journey or just connect with you over what was your favorite candy again? Chocolate covered peanuts. Maybe they want to just exchange chemistry candy notes. How can folks track you down? Madhav?

LinkedIn is the best way to get to me. Look for Madhav Durba and of course I live in Atlanta so if you want to grab a cup of coffee, always game for that and just follow Relax Solutions. And sometimes you see my points of being published through Relax Solutions social media channels as well.

Outstanding. And folks, I want to call out Monoff shared some of the expounder on some of these key takeaways in a previous LinkedIn post. So connect with him, follow him, whatever. You'll find that about four or five posts back. Good stuff there. And hey, share what you think too, there's been some great comments there, including from some of the presenters. I keep looking over here because I've got it pulled up right here. Modov's my cheat sheet over the last hour. All right. So Corinne, your final question. So, folks, you'll find Corinne and Madhav at the Gartner Supply Chain Planning summit, which is December 3rd through the 4th, just over a month away in beautiful Denver, Colorado. So these events have gotten a lot. I've heard so much about these events. Of course, Mike Griswold, Karin, who you know well, joined us once a month, has shared all kinds of great feedback they've gotten at Gartner. So Corinne, I bet my hunch is you'd welcome a conversation or a dozen at the planning summit coming up in Denver too, huh?

Oh, yeah, absolutely. I love to connect with any of our audience, any of our supply chain now family that might be there. Look me up. I will be at the event and I'm sure running from one session to another, but there's plenty of time for coffee or adult beverage after hours.

Outstanding. And folks, you also ought to connect with and follow Karen Bursa on LinkedIn as well. All right. Right, folks, I'm not sure what we couldn't solve with Madhav and Karin, especially across the world of global supply chain, but Madhav Durba with Relex, always a pleasure, my friend. I'm looking forward to our next lunch, but really appreciate you being here with us here today.

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

You bet. Corinne Bursa, always a pleasure. I'd say we've had a string of great conversations here today. Really appreciate your perspective and expertise. So thanks for joining me on this very busy Monday.

I had a great time. I mean, we covered a lot of topics from Halloween decorations right through to strategic network design and mergers and acquisitions. So it's been a pretty lively discussion today.

It really, really, really has been a big, heavy bag of all kinds of different topics, like a big Halloween candy bag, but good stuff. Monov and Corinne and hey Scott, I feel your pain. Scott Curtis, the UK and USA Scott says not activating daylight savings at the same time caught me out once again. I was eagerly waiting for 5pm Scott, we got to do something about these time and daylight savings. We'll figure that out, Scott, but great to have you here today. Looking forward to your perspective. And of course, our North Star is our audience that shows up every Monday at 12 noon. No, we couldn't hit everybody's comments and questions, but thank you so much for being here, folks. Make sure you connect with Modoff. Make sure you connect with Corinne whether it's in person out in Denver in December or socially. But a big opportunity there to really reduce your blind spot and we all have them, right? And Supply Chain and otherwise, we got to tackle that goldfish attention span too. Manov and Corinne about to revisit that later. But folks, as I wrap here on behalf of the entire team here at Supply Chain Now, Scott Luton challenging you, hey, do good, give forward, be the change that's needed and we'll see you next time right back here at Supply Chain now. Thanks everybody.

Thanks for being a part of our Supply Chain now community. Check out all of our programming@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.