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Hey, good morning, good afternoon, good evening wherever you may be.

Scott Luton and the one and only Kevin L.

Jackson with you here on supply Chain now.

Welcome to today's live stream.

Hey, Kevin, how you doing today?

Hey, that's another buzz.

A DT buzz.

I love buzz.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

You bet.

It's great to have you back.

I tell you, you're flying here, there and everywhere.

Oh, yeah.

On vip private jet.

I had to go to Alpena, Michigan.

Okay.

Last week on the up at the very top, I was on the shores of Lake Huron.

Okay, so folks, first trivia question of the hour here in the Buzz.

What is Alpena, Michigan?

What are they known for?

Put.

We'd love to hear from you.

But with that said, Kevin, welcome back.

Always enjoy our monthly chats here, folks.

It's the Buzz where every Monday at 12 noon Eastern time, we discuss a variety of news and developments across global supply chain and business and especially technology when Kevin joins us.

But folks, I gotta tell you, we've got a big, big show here today.

Not only are we gonna tackle some big topics such as transformation and what it can deliver global supply chain, we're gonna offer up Frank takes on the state of globalization and a whole bunch more.

Hang on to your socks on that one.

Key takeaways from the world procurement Congress and I believe the London defense conference and an update on the space race from a lead logistics point of view.

So if that was enough, that's a bunch of work for me and Kevin.

But you know what?

We brought in the easy button, one of the smartest easy buttons around about 12:15pm Eastern Time.

Karai Kozay, special guest, one of our longtime faves is joining us.

Karai, of course, the CEO and chief analyst of Kozay Advisory.

Kevin, I sure hope you ate your wheaties and took your vitamins.

We had a lot to get to today.

I hope Curry brought his crystal ball because he always brings tomorrow's news today.

That's nice, Kevin.

It's a nice take.

And he does, folks, I think he, he seriously sees into the future more.

Stay tuned, don't test us.

And folks, two quick things.

Give us your take in the comments, whether you're tuned into via LinkedIn, YouTube X Facebook, Twitch, no matter, let us know what you think.

And secondly, if you enjoy the show today, we'd love for you to share it with your friend and your network.

Hey, at the supply chain now catches you sharing it, you may just get something from the the goodie bag.

So do that and we'll see how you get rewarded.

All right, Kevin, we got three things to get into before Karako, the one only joins us.

Are you ready to go?

I think so.

Let's go.

You're always ready, man.

You're always ready.

Let's start with with that set.

So, folks, if you're a regular here, you know, with that said is our almost weekly edition that usually publishes over the weekend.

In this latest edition, which we dropped yesterday, we shared news from across industry as well as some of our live programming resources and much more.

By the way, folks, if you'd like to join our live programming like today's Buzz, we always put our live programming for the upcoming week in each edition.

So it's a very timely reminder.

You can pick and choose.

All right, so the news that we shared, Kevin, I'm going to hit a couple of these nuggets here.

So starting with in light of the tariff and trade landscape, which is a tough one, we shared an interesting read on the automotive supply chain world, including.

Check this out, Kevin, this insight from Ford Motor Company CEO Jim Farley.

He was being asked about, you know, amidst all the push to reshore, automotive supply chains at 15 to 20% of commoditized vehicle parts are very challenging, if not downright impossible to attempt to source in the US and he also said, quote, we can move everything to the U.S.

but if every Ford is $50,000, we're not going to win as a company, end quote.

Kevin, quick comment there.

Would you buy a ford Festiva for 50 grand if they still make the Festivas or not?

I don't know.

You're dating yourself there.

But you know, the whole idea of having a global supply chain is to be more efficient.

That's right.

We need to do this smart.

Do it smart.

You heard that from Kevin.

Do it smart.

And by the way, folks, we're dropping the with that said link right there.

Thank you, Tris.

Y' all, check it out.

All right.

Couple of quick nuggets from with that said, we touched on the rise in freight rates and lanes focused on China to the U.S.

of course, that's as a result of some good news.

Actually, the tentative deal that the two countries struck a week or so ago, they got 90 more days of planned negotiation.

So it's just a whole new flavor of uncertainty.

Yes, it's not good.

I mean, it's like more uncertainty.

More uncertainty.

CEOs don't like uncertainty.

That's what I hear every day.

I would agree.

I hate uncertainty.

I can't stand.

And I love taking some risks, but still, Alan's saving me.

It's the Ford Fiesta I was thinking about.

Thank you, Alan.

Ford Fiesta.

And I would not buy that for $50,000.

I don't think Kevin would either.

All right, where we going next?

Oh, the latest supply chain blog article, folks.

And you're going to find all of these things and a whole bunch more.

And with that said, in our latest blog article, we touch on a variety of issues that are currently or potentially impacting supply chains.

Kevin, have you heard of the pending legislation called Guaranteeing Overtime for Truckers Act, AKA Got Truckers act, which seeks to force employers to offer overtime pay to their professional truck drivers?

Right now they're exempted from that.

It's been winding its way through Congress for quite some time.

You heard of that, Kevin?

I had not heard about that.

But I mean, is this, this another way to raise the cost of everything?

I thought we were trying to fight against inflation.

I don't know.

We're going the wrong direction here.

Lots of mixed signals.

Lots of mixed signals.

But folks, check out the supply chain blog, which you'll find with that said, for a quick update on things like that.

And finally, Kevin, as I mentioned, live programming.

We got a great one come up this Friday, a very focused edition of the Bridge, which is our newest series, monthly series here we're talking workforce development in the aviation industry.

And we have an outstanding panel.

Kevin, Suzanne, Ryan and Becky.

Becky is a fellow pilot.

Okay.

Not for me.

You one of your fellow pilots?

She's also doing big things at Embry Riddle, which I'm sure you've heard of, Kevin.

Yes, I have.

We've had trouble with the workforce and FAA since Reagan, right.

When he got rid of all of the air traffic controllers because they were on strike.

And we've been struggling try to get the workforce back in shape since then.

Tell you.

Well, I'm sure we'll touch on the controllers.

We're also going to touch on, especially the maintenance folks.

That's my biggest love is is giving some recognition.

You were a aircraft maintenance monkey, right?

I was a data analyst that made all the maintenance folks angry.

I was the data nerd.

But hey, that was a lifetime ago.

But I do love the maintenance professionals out there that keep our military and our public private sector fleets moving forward and never get any love.

So we're in touch on that and the important recruiting pipeline for that again, that's coming up this Friday, May 23rd at 12 noon Eastern Time.

So mark your calendars for that.

Okay, Kevin, we gotta keep moving here.

We got two more things to hit and we are falling behind.

But it's my fault.

All right, Kevin, I'm gonna check this out from our friends at easypost.

Great new resources from Lori, Kevin and our folks, the team on the move over at easypost.

So the modern warehouse faces a ton of challenges, folks.

You know this stuff.

Labor shortages, skyrocketing E commerce volumes, ever increasing cost pressures and a whole bunch more.

And it demands smarter, more efficient fulfillment strategies.

So to stay ahead, folks, you can't just simply automate.

You got to get well past that, look for new strategies to do it smartly, as Kevin mentioned earlier.

So if you want to learn more about what can help your warehousing operation grow its competitive advantage and optimize that critical customer experience, check out this ebook from easypost.

And we're going to drop the link right there in the chat.

Finally, Kevin, we got this great blog article here right before Kurai Kozay, in the flesh the one and only joins us.

I want to get your thoughts here from our friends at EZBI comes this blog article that touches on the advantages of transformation for logistics and overall supply chain operations.

Kevin, you are MDT, Mr.

Digital Transformer.

So I want you to give us your take on this read and the topic.

Well, first of all, it's really talking about how logistics and supply chain is really shifting because of technology, technological advances, the tools, technologies are really simplifying operations and cutting down on expenses so that it can quickly adapt to market needs.

But this also requires a lot of other aspects of the business, leadership techniques that drive digital innovation, creating scalable IT infrastructures and being able to measure your performance in logistics.

If you don't measure it, you don't make it right.

These are really driving logistics and the supply chain industry with new ideas, new techniques, new strategies every day.

So you got to stay up to you got to stay online with supply chain now in order know what to do, when to do it.

I love that, Kevin.

Unsolicited spike the football on that.

A lot of good stuff there.

And folks, check out the read.

Kevin, you mentioned lots of important words, but one, I want to pull out scalable.

So folks, as businesses grow, y' all know, supply chains, they often become more complex and more demanding.

That requires technology solutions that not only optimize current operations, but they also scale seamlessly as the business and the complexity grows.

So implementing, as Kevin mentioned there, implementing scalable technology, well that enables companies to handle increased order volumes or multi channel fulfillment or global problems, global logistics, you name it.

Without compromising efficiency, visibility or customer experience.

Right?

You can't just buy the tech that you need now.

You gotta keep your eye on what you may need tomorrow or next month or next year.

So I want to pull that one word out Kevin, because I think a lot of times in those selection processes we got so much pain in the solve the here and now and we buy like that, it can create more pain later because some of these platforms aren't as scalable as others.

Kevin, your final thought there.

Believe in the future.

It's coming.

It's very important to know that change is natural and be ready for change.

Don't be afraid.

Don't be afraid of change folks.

Don't be scared.

Don't be scared as we like to say right here.

Kevin.

Okay Kevin, I got one more quick thing I'll throw out there folks.

Folks check out with that said that we hit on earlier and if you share your key takeaway here today from with that said, you're going to be in the running for some caffeine.

That's right.

Starbucks gift card.

Who can't get enough caffeine here in 2025.

Fill it up.

So folks, check it out.

Let us know what you think and we'd be grateful to get your feedback.

Okay, we have an outstanding guest, Kevin.

And I get Kevin and Karai in the same show.

Man, I tell you what.

So great guest coming out, longtime friend of the show joining us here on the Buzz.

Our guest is a futurist, a technology and AI evangelist, a renowned public speaker.

I've seen him in action.

He is an expert on geopolitical risk and value chain and certainly supply chain.

He holds positions as a board member, adjunct professor, lecturer, CPO researcher and multilingual thought leader.

Kevin, get this.

As a trusted advisor, supply chain practitioner and published author, he's got over 20 years of success working with the entire C suite, CEOs, CSCOs, CPOs, CIOs and all other C level executives, investors and stakeholders folks.

And he brings his highly successful crystal ball with him here today.

Let's welcome in Korai Kozay, founder, CEO and chief analyst with co advisory.

Hey.

Hey Kara, how you doing?

I appreciate the kind intro.

It sounds like loads but I thank you very much for the very kind invitation today.

And seeing Kevin, you know on the same show is an honor.

So thanks for having Me?

Oh, no.

Where's your crystal ball?

Okay.

That's the only reason we're here.

It's coming.

It's coming, folks.

It's coming.

And we were talking pre show about some of the things, some of the topics we're gonna get to here today.

And by my count, Korai, I had about eight things on a longer list of items where you could say, see, I told you so, but you're too modest for that.

Folks, we'll get to that in a second, But I want to start with this.

Kara and Kevin, little fun, warm up question, right?

Let's celebrate a holiday here today.

It is plant something day here in the u.

S.

Plant something day.

So I got a question for you both.

Let's assume we all have incredible green thumbs, right?

That the process and know how is not a barrier.

I would love to start with you co right here.

What's one thing that you would love to plant in your yard?

Front yard, backyard, side yard.

No matter what would that be?

I would pick lavender because it has variety of effects such as, you know, traditionally used to treat anxiety, depression, pain relief.

And I think what we're going through right now leads a lot of lavender, but it also is nice as an aromatherapy, so it relaxes you and so you can see clear, and it treats insomnia.

Right.

So all these sleepless nights that we're going through, maybe in the next couple of quarters.

I think lavender would be a good choice.

That is an excellent, excellent, and very practical choice, Kara.

Plus is a.

It's a beautiful blossoming flower as well, I believe all those great properties.

All right, Kevin, that's gonna be a tough one.

I'm throwing seeds right now.

Lavender seeds in my backyard.

Karai, based on all the properties there, Kevin, what would you plant?

Well, you know, talking about lavender makes me think about when I used to live in Monterey, California, and the eucalyptus was everywhere.

I mean, that was.

But to be honest, there's one thing that I would love to be able to go outside and pick off the tree at any time, but I'd have to move.

And that would be an orange tree.

I'll put an orange tree.

You got that aroma.

You get your vitamin C.

It's so refreshing when you, you know, crack open an orange.

I'm with you.

Big orange fan.

And I love that, as you pointed out, that citrusy smell, Right?

There's a great poker player.

I can't remember his name.

Famous professional poker player.

And he hated being in all the smoky casinos.

So he was known for having an orange sitting at the table that he could, you know, kind of put his fingernail in a smell from time to time, which took his mind from the smoky hall poker rooms and tables.

I got to look him, look him up.

Anyway, folks, I would just add, Karai, your lavender.

Kevin, your oranges.

I've been trying to grow tomatoes my entire life.

I've been successful and very kindly, generously successful, like exactly one year.

And wouldn't you know, Karai and Kevin, the one year I was successful, me and Amanda had a beach trip and when I came back, the birds and the deer and had wiped out our crop.

And I have never been able to grow homegrown, really good tomatoes.

So we'll see.

We'll take another crack at it.

Okay, Karai and Kevin, we have got a lot to get to here today.

I want to start with this, though, Karai, now that we've had a little fun, you've been on the show countless times, really enjoyed our past, whether they're episodes of the Buzz or some of our podcasts that we have collaborated on together.

But for our new audience members, right, the three people out there that don't know you yet, Karai K.

Share a little about yourself and what COZE Advisory does, please.

Yeah, it's basically a practitioner turned analyst.

And then from the analyst, big firms like X Gartner, I decided to take it on myself and be more direct, more profound in the topics that I choose, of course, and advise companies that are looking for technologies.

And right now, a lot of things are evolving really fast.

So getting the true insights from a unbiased voice in industry is extremely helpful for companies itself, but then also for technology firms to really understand the wants and needs of the companies that require, for instance, technologies in risk management, supply chain management, procurement, to help them to talk the same language and at the end of the day, really drive successful growth in the market that is product led and not just marketing led in that context.

So working on both sides.

And finally, of course, the fuel meaning like the VCs and PEs funding the technology industry, working with them to pick out the right great ideas where their money is worth spending or investing actually not spending and drives the benefit for everyone.

You know, a good technology utilized across many companies drives growth, but also of course, then the investment return for private equity and venture capitalist firms.

So working through that triangle, critical, critical triangle.

And you stay extremely busy working through that triangle.

Korai, I tell you what, the firm is off to an incredibly blazing fast start.

But I want to pull one thing out.

Kevin One word my go to today Kuras said unbiased.

Kevin, we can't get enough unbiased true expert perspectives in this crazy environment.

That's 2025, can we?

No.

And especially the other aspect of what he's doing is the linkage in the cross with geopolitics.

I mean that's a very scary intersection to be at nowadays.

And I know, correct.

There's a lot of travel.

You were just in the uk, right?

That's right.

The last two weeks I spent in London there were the two big conferences.

One is London Defence Conference where Liberty policymakers shapers are meeting and then on the other side diving deep into the world of procurement at, you know, World Procurement Congress where you have more than $1 trillion spent on the management attending and a lot of CPO's from grant names are there and taking time off their busy calendars right now to attend the congress and congregate actually literally talking about what they can do now but more so what's on deck and where they need to shift, maybe even gears or walk away from.

So we're going to get to his key takeaways and observations on both of those events, especially the latter.

So stay tuned folks until we got a jam up show here today.

Okay, so Korab, before we get there I want to talk about this great article and folks look at the graphic we paired it with that is someone not sleeping at night because of everything that's on their mind.

Check that out.

And I did not draw that.

I promise.

So this was grabbed from Kurai's latest Forbes article which we're dropping right here folks.

You can check it out right here and you're going to want to As I was sharing with Korai and Kevin ahead of time, I gave chat GPT the article to summarize and it really struggled to summarize it.

I can tell you.

He had sweat on its brow.

He was wiping it as he's trying to deliver.

So I said you know what, I got to do it the old fashioned way.

It is a really good piece that's very tightly connected so folks come check it out.

But what I'm going to do is I'm going to pull four thoughts from the article here Karai, and then we're going to get you to share some thoughts that you hope readers take away.

And then we're going to Kevin's perspective as well on this Forbes article entitled In Chaos We Must Create Trade Tech and Power in a New World Order.

And Karai paints an intriguing picture.

Capture some of these assertions, number one, China has not only caught up to the US in areas such as AI and supply chain tech, but has surpassed the US in those areas.

Number two, when it comes new tariffs and global trade policies, you mentioned a stark quote by Frederic Bastier.

Hope I said that right.

French business leader who said quote when goods stop crossing borders, soldiers will end quote.

Yikes, that's a stark quote.

Thirdly, supply chain leaders must not only brace for major disruption, but they must not panic as well as they must act fast, including taking a critical step by leveraging innovative supply chain risk tech platforms.

And then lastly, I love the Turkish saying that you close the article with Karai and this is really tied to that last thought.

Quote, the brave die once but cowards die every day.

End quote.

I'm going to cheat a little bit.

Kevin, you're about to say something on that earlier quote from Bastier.

When good stop crossing borders, soldiers will Your quick thought there before I go.

Back to Karay countries just like individuals do things that's in their best interests.

And remember the Japanese attacked Pearl harbor because the United States stopped allowing them to get oil.

Goods stopped going across the border that caused the attack on Pearl Harbor.

That's a great call out in Kara.

I think we talked about that last time you're on the buzz because that is a small piece of forgotten history for a lot of folks out there.

I'm not sure if that's even taught those indirect root causes for the world's greatest conflict ever.

But Karai, going back to this great read that really makes you think.

Once you wrap this, reading this article, it's like sitting down with Karai.

You walk away with 18 thoughts including am I doing it right?

Am I doing it right?

But Karai, what do you want folks to leave with after reading that latest piece in Forbes?

What I try to put together is literally a piece that takes you out of your echo chamber as supply chain professionals and procurement professionals.

Very often you talk to like minded people in the very same vertical and you don't see the signals that will impact your doings day to day.

So you may talk maybe to peripherals like technology vendors or you know, technology analysts, but that is not enough for you to really move your supply chain forward.

And we always talk about resiliency in that context and truly build up that capability when you disregard a major pillar which is geopolitics.

Just saying like oh we're too far away, we don't really have any coal, we don't have any knowledge in that space and we do not feel comfortable with that.

Well, you know, the same issue is on the other side.

So in the policymakers and shapers, they don't really understand supply chains to the full context until it's too late.

And then in politics, you put policies into play and a lot of funding into play, but then the execution is literally disconnected from the realities of the industry.

So you see the disconnect on both sides.

And on the one hand, side, people talk about a seat at the table and the other one talks about resolution of fragilities, and they're literally not talking to each other.

So at the end of the day, it is hopefully the death sentence for the narrative in the chief procurement officer space that has been for decades, always saying, like, oh, we need to have a seat at the table.

And they completely disregard, you know, that they own the seat.

And on the other side, it's, oh, we're going to throw policies and money at the problem.

And then the industry, the market, quote unquote, will fix it.

But if you have such a disconnect, it doesn't fix it.

So a lot of efficiency is maybe focused on the procurement side, but not much effectiveness.

And then on the other side, you have a lot of effectiveness, maybe with policy and money being thrown into it, but not a lot of efficiency.

And this piece is trying to bring it together and to give everybody a boost of confidence, maybe a little bit through fear, doubt and uncertainty.

But at the end of the day, we all have it in us to make a changing world order work for us because we will be confronted with it no matter what.

All right, Kevin, I'm going to give you your first reaction to what Korad just shared there.

So in that article, you stated sentence that jumped out at me, it said, we're in a reset phase.

There's so many things that's happening.

Government struggling with AI regulations, corporations facing supply chain fragmentation, but they also have to meet the ESG requirements.

We're entering both proxy and direct conflicts when it comes to the geopolitics.

You know, countries are falling and coming into existence, you know, seemingly every month.

And these rival economies are just trying to figure out what to do and the influence to the products that are driving the changes in our supply chain.

Logistics are really reshaping global frameworks.

And with the bully us leading the pack, it's really hard.

We're trying to figure out who took my normal.

Right.

So we're resetting, trying to find.

I mean, we used to say this all the time.

Your new normal over the pandemic that's what everyone said, right?

Hey, we're not there yet.

I'm just going to say, Kevin, we aren't going to find our normal, just like we'll never find Jimmy Hoffa's body.

That's the reality.

Like Karai mentioned, I want to be connected to that reality, right?

In Karai, that fresh, frank dose of reality is what I think.

You have developed a wonderful reputation and track record for delivery.

A lot of times we don't want to hear it.

As Jerry Levy talks about building supply chain and great, see you, Jerry.

Building supply chains requires something I don't often see, contingency planning.

Everyone seeks to solve today's cost service challenge and move on.

We are all guilty.

Interesting comment there.

Interesting comment.

You know, I was just thinking after looking at that article, I was wondering if Coray even thinks, is there a such thing as reset?

Is there a such thing as normal?

Are we in constant search?

We are in a way, because we are always in flux.

I call out the Kondratiev cycles, right?

So the fifth cycle was all about digital transformation, which started around the year 2000.

And we were all ERP crazy and MRP crazy and P2P crazy, S2C crazy.

And we're like, oh, you know, these solutions will help us for decades to be extremely effective and efficient.

Well, turns out there was something called AI and space and also biotech breakthroughs that now started to come into the sixth Kondratiev cycle, which is just about starting.

But it requires a complete reset of our value chains and how we operate and how we generate value.

And that is not in everybody's mind or comfort zone.

So assertive leaders like you called out the US but we have assertive leaders in Russia, China and Turkey.

We have assertive leadership coming across in Argentina as well, just as a call out there, right?

And a lot of that came through democratic elections.

It's not like they just come into power through coup d' etat.

So at the end of the day, these assertive leaders give you a little bit of that comfort, but they drive the reset even further and quicker than usually we are used to.

So when we are thinking about that reset, it honestly is almost like a wipe format.

C because the way you're going to create value in the future and how and where and what you're going to do is go going to likely change very much from your PNL construct that you have lived on the last decade or so.

So French shoring we talk about, right?

Or on shoring, near shoring, that is all means of the fractures that are going through the global trade environment that we know since the Cold War ended and the Berlin Wall was actually, you know, eliminated.

So we're faced with a reality that we sometimes live too long in denial.

So I hope this article helps a little bit, especially thinking about robotics and, you know, AI in this context.

I think it does.

So folks, again, you got homework.

Check this out.

Report back with the thoughts it provokes in your own mind because as we all need it offers an important dose of reality.

And we've got to embrace reality to get through incredibly disruptive time.

We sign up for disruption in supply chain.

Right.

So let's separate that over here.

But 2025 has offered some unique elements of the disruption formula.

I want to add Claudia, we were talking about predicting the future a second ago in the crystal ball that Karaz got.

Claudia, great to see you.

Really enjoyed you on the buzz a week or two ago.

Adding to Karai Kozay's great quotes, she says Peter Drucker said, quote, predicting the future can only get you into trouble.

That task is to manage what is there and to work to create what could and should be in quote.

And that was from Managing in turbulent times from 1980.

Kara, respond to that really quick.

And then we're getting into the World Procurement Congress.

Well, you know, I like to get in trouble.

That usually is not intended.

I just enjoy then the debate.

But quite honestly when I look at that as we need to be more confident in looking forward and not just in the rearview mirror and think about the good times in the past and those suppliers were really awesome in the past.

But you need to look forward.

And you know, for me, the crystal ball wasn't really a crystal ball when I was talking about COVID in January 2020.

To say this is is going to disrupt the lives that we are actually enjoyed for a decade.

And it really did disrupt it.

When I wrote about what if Russia invades Ukraine early February, a month before they actually invaded Ukraine was because I saw indicators, not because I'm sitting in a dark room and have Turkish coffee and read it, which I like to read as well, which we talked about in the past shows.

But when I look for instance into the indicators, you know, and we see gold come up 33% year over year, but then every other mineral, like silver or lithium for instance, dropped 40%.

Those are all industrial goods and they are cheaper.

That usually means that the industrial environment is slowing down.

The same thing is happening with crude oil at 60 plus dollars with a 20% reduced pricing year over year.

So those indicators are there that usually then create a forward looking perspective of the world that we're facing.

So in that context I would actually say forecasting is different than seeing or being a futurist, because forecasting has a huge margin of error, has a very limited view on the variables that you're utilizing.

And what I'm trying to do is bring a broader variety of those contexts together into a very specific outcome and an action.

So in this note I was talking about and that was published end of April, I said cash is still cheap.

And as we talked in the pre show, Moody's downgraded the US from AAA to double A1, which actually will have an impact on the interest rate and the weighted average cost of capital.

So, you know, read my stuff, don't take everything too serious and do take action.

And you will be probably lending more often than not on the right side of the boom or the left side, you know, whatever military context you grew up with.

But that usually means like don't stand in the middle of it and just react to it.

So make sure you're navigating out of it.

And maybe as a last note, and one happy thing I saw is there's a couple of those leading technology providers.

In fact it was from our industry, from supply chain risk management.

I was very happy to see a company, for instance, like Exeger to be at the London Defense Conference.

I was like, wow.

I mean there is slowly a movement starting of the companies that can connect and weave it together.

Because technology as a triangle that I discovered, you know, and many discovered people process technology as the main triangle is actually not the only one.

There is a connecting point in the article that talks about there is a second triangle.

You need to take economics and geopolitics into your decision making.

And even that's uncomfortable.

And Kevin, you said it right.

Uncomfortableness is probably the main driver for your development.

So why are we not developing ourselves?

Is a little bit of that inertia I have been observing at World Procurement Congress a little bit, to be honest.

We gotta come up with a T shirt about breakthrough, the inertia or something like that.

We'll get it ginned up and get the merch factory going.

All right.

For the sake of time, I wish we had a special double hour edition of the Buzz here, but we'll have Korai back.

Kevin, let's do this.

We've already touched on those couple events a couple of times now.

The World Procurement Congress prior to that, the London Defense Conference and I Think you mentioned one of those two events might have been the first one, World Procurement Congress.

The attendees had 1 trillion in spend.

Is that right, Karai?

Yeah.

So if you would, and we're not going to do this justice in 5, 10 minutes, but give us some of your key takeaways.

Actually I want to share.

I think we got a great James Bond photograph.

You look at the spiffy.

All right, coz Hollywood picturing.

Who's that gentleman there to your right?

That's actually Fuad who just said hello from London, you know, so.

Oh, outstanding.

Small world in that context.

Yes it is.

This gentleman right here.

Fuad, great to have you here.

And you look just like Karai, you look like a million bucks.

So it's great to see you.

It is a small world.

How about that?

So Karai, give us a couple key takeaways, key observations and then I'll get Kevin to react.

So on the technology side, I think there is really still the early stages, baby steps going on.

There was a day that called itself like the AI forum, but what I've seen a lot of that was like literally companies exploring and to some extent exploring too little too late.

But there is a little bit of that planting the right seed back to the special day today.

But I think there needs to be some more activity and some more assertiveness in utilizing that.

That's one.

However, there was a point of self reflection where you know, when you talk to those CPOs one on one where the most powerful sentence from one CPO was like we became the problem.

And I think that is the first step to solving the problem because avoiding it and saying like always the same playbook, let's get the seat at the table, yada yada, yada, yada.

No, like if you realize that you are the problem, you then can take the diagnosis a step further and fix the root cause.

And what is that like?

For one thing it is like don't get entrapped always in the CFO playbook, which is like savings containment.

And then under the nice umbrella of some analysts calling it cost optimization, you get caught up in things that are really short term, not necessarily a strategy.

And it's very tactical still.

So that realization was actually for me at least refreshing because what I did with my session, I brought the former UK Secretary of Defense and Foreign Affairs, Tobias Albert to my session as well as a current sitting member of the Ukrainian Parliament, Sasha Ustinova.

And what we talked about in the context with the technology provider, in that context it was exeger just as One of the major quadrant leaders as well that we see right now, which was published by Gartner just a couple of weeks ago.

Having that connection there between the politics shapers, then a full room of CPOs and a technology perspective to it, you could see how they started to connect the dots and from becoming the problem they are becoming the solution and the solution for driving top line for companies that are going to be profitable no matter what happens in the market.

And I think think that is really where in the beginning of it, it's very fragile.

Technology providers, careful, you can break this by providing too much of a marketing narrative, not a product strength because that realization can break the trust early on.

And on the other side for CPOs, you know, be more bold in the investment requirements you have against your CFO and the ROI timeline.

Not everything has to pay off in three months and everything has to pay off in six months.

Some of the things are just fundamental changes to your enterprise network and your supply chain design and your supply chain network design.

So some things are going to be collateral damage, unfortunately.

And I think that realization of never have anything go south has changed to there will be damage, but there will be the trade off that is hopefully always positive if we are more assertive but intelligently doing so, not just because of a major opinion going around or Kevin, you mentioned also the hype cycle, right?

Waiting for the productivity plateau to set in before you decide for a technology which is a safe bet of an analyst is not going to cut it.

So so in that context, maybe smaller firms like ours that are more independent or they are totally independent, unbiased in that.

Right?

That is where you can suddenly get the specific technology advice also following supply chain now and say like the people you bring on the show, the technology providers, right.

You're going through a very selective bunch before they actually are.

You know, relating with your brand is a good way to, you know, go through that jungle of of providers and pick the right ones.

So I saw that it's a scary.

Jungle out there too.

Correct.

But Kevin, he just gave about an eight minute masterclass on not just observations from the sessions and industry, but also he challenged not just procurement leaders, but business leaders to act differently and when it comes to challenging the norms when it comes to ROI and payback period.

He mentioned of course the T word trust, whether it's with your team members or with your suppliers or with your customers or with your brand.

Right.

And those folks that expect certain things from that brand.

But anyway, Kevin, what'd you hear from Karai what really got your attention there?

So the view of technology has changed the most.

Maybe no revolutionary technology ever may be artificial intelligence.

And it's not because it does what technology normally do.

Because normally technology helps you do something that you already do better, faster, quicker, cheaper.

So it just improves what you're doing.

Artificial intelligence is not that kind of technology.

AI is a technology for your mind.

It enables you to create better ideas faster.

It enables you to do new things quicker.

So all of the measures and metrics that you use for traditional technologies don't apply.

You know, doing something better, doing something faster.

That's why if you're using AI, you got to think about what are we going to be doing different?

What's the new idea that's going to change our future?

And that Corre talked about smaller advisory firms, because those are the firms that are giving you the new ideas, the new processes.

The larger companies are sort of set in their old ways.

They have technical debt.

They have to tell you and work with you to use or do what you are already doing better.

That's not the path to the future.

So, Correa, thank you.

Hit it right on the mark.

I tell you, he always does.

If he was a baseball hitter, he'd be hitting.450.

Karai would be.

And Kevin, you wouldn't be far behind him.

Hey, really quick, I want to write right up here against this segment, but Claudia says people and culture should also be part of the new triangle of planning.

Hey, you know what?

Great comment, Claudia.

And I would say maybe it's, we should be talking rhombuses and parallelograms and pentagons.

We need bigger shapes with more corners and intersections and stuff.

Okay, so Karai, let's do this.

I'm sure there's so much more we couldn't get to here today from the sessions and the sidebar conversations and what you're observing out in the industry.

But the good news is, folks, Korai is one of the best.

He loves talking shop and industry.

And how can folks reach you to do just that?

Korai?

Well, one way is through LinkedIn.

I'm somewhat active there.

Not as good as supply chain now.

So there's always a role model.

Right.

So, and of course, Kevin, you are.

And the other way is like, of course, just through my webpage, reach out and I'll be, I'll be swiftly following up.

Yep.

And promise no AI bots.

So I'll be, I'll be the one you're talking to.

And folks, he will drop a lot of hot takes and finger on the pulse insights on LinkedIn in particular.

So we dropped his link profile there.

And if you want to venture over and learn more about Kose Advisory, it's simple.

Kose K O S E advisory dot com.

And as Korai says, you don't talk to bots, you talk to him.

And by the way, that's better, in case you were curious.

Okay, Korai.

Kozay.

Kevin, really quick for Korai goes.

We got to have him back again soon.

It's been too long.

But what was one of your favorite things that Korai touched on here before we bit him a dude?

Those triangles.

I think that's really important to understand the interactions between your point of action and how geopolitics is really an important aspect of that.

A geometry lesson in geopolitics and supply chain expertise here today, Korai Kozay with Koze Advisory.

Thanks for being here, my friend.

Thanks for having me.

Appreciate it.

Always a pleasure.

Thanks, Kevin.

See you again.

Thank you.

We'll see you soon.

Hey, Kevin, I told you, I told you to hang on to your socks when Kurod joins.

And he delivered again, didn't he?

Yes.

You know, that was a broad and deep conversation.

I don't know how we did that in the last 45 minutes.

That was so.

Oh, my gosh, it is.

I gotta go back and slow it down so I can catch up with both of y' all.

But hey, we got a couple more things we're gonna hit on.

On today's jam packed edition of the buzz.

We've already tackled Kevin's favorite takeaway from that session.

Let us know yours.

We'd love to get your take your favorite part of what Korai shared here today.

All right, so let's do this.

We touc technology.

Let's talk about bots.

Let's talk about bots.

You know, you remember our friend Max Garland with Supply chain Dive.

He joined us last month.

And Kevin, you and I had a great time talking with and learning from Max.

Remember Max?

Yes.

Of the fine episode.

Just like Kurai's got his finger on the pulse, so he's got his latest read out over at Supply chain dive and it focuses on some really cool things at the big A.

So Amazon folks is rolling out a new series of robots for a warehouse operations as they attempt to significantly reduce or even eliminate some of the heavy manual work that humans are largely now performing at their sites.

For example, a robot doesn't look like these two robots here, but a robot they call Echelon will aim to eliminate Manual handling of packages on conveyor belts.

And another robot they call Tipper will be seeking to eliminate the manual unloading of packages from carts to conveyor belts.

Many of these robots, I think there's about eight or nine total, different functional areas, different manual work and other work is looking to reduce or eliminate.

Well, many of the robots will be deployed first in Europe prior to broader deployment globally.

Now, Kevin, it doesn't surprise you or me, and it shouldn't surprise many of our smartest audience members in all of global supply chain out there, but what do you find most interesting about this announced initiative?

Well, actually, there was a statistic that was in that article.

There are more than 750,000 robots currently deployed in the Amazon network and they participate or play a role in completing over 75% of their customer orders.

So think about that.

And they're going up from there, right?

Right.

I mean, she's as huge.

It is huge.

And I cannot wait to see the early returns, to be fair.

Of course, Amazon has had its fair share of complaints over the years from a ergonomic and safety issue.

So that was probably another driver here.

But given their volume and given what they do each and every day, the scale of this, the scale of what they do, number one, is just mind blowing.

But to see this, I cannot wait to hear early returns and how this largely will free up humans a variety of different ways.

But, you know, who wants to, to spend all day, you know, killing your back and the turning, you know, moving packages?

I mean, you know, it.

So much of this work can be automated.

And for those that want to learn new things, like we talk about all the time, learn new things, raise your hand, volunteer whatever you can find new, more fulfilling work out there at Amazon and other places.

So I imagine we're going to see, as always, there's copycats with what Amazon does.

And Kevin, I imagine we'll see more of these types of efforts at warehouses and other sites elsewhere, huh?

A million robots on their network, tell you what.

And you know, tying it back to Karai's article, and I could not find it here in perfect timing, but he had mentioned that robot to human worker ratio that some research firms out there regularly track.

And do you know the country that is atop the list of that robot ratio, Kevin, might surprise you.

The thing that I think about is China, actually.

Okay, so your China is your guess, is that right?

Yeah.

Okay.

It is actually South Korea that has the highest ratio in terms of robots per human worker.

So folks, stay tuned.

We're going to watch this rollout.

Go check out the article.

You can find all the different robots that can be rolling out and where.

But another great article by our friend Max Garland.

Yeah, before we drop this, I want to throw out a term we talked about before, Cobalt.

So I wonder how many of these robots that are operating autonomously are actually cobots working with humans.

Yes.

All right, I'm gonna share a couple things here, and then we're gonna get one quick, quick space logistics update.

I wanna start with this.

Solomon.

Solomon's talking my love language here.

Get this.

Solomon says to improve on the supply chain output, we should endeavor as much as possible to do away with the silo mentality in the execution of the function.

Solomon, as I mentioned, that's my love language.

We got way too.

In a time when technology and many other modern ways of managing supply chains should allow us to bust those silos down.

That's a great comment, Solomon.

And Kevin, check out this tomcat is back.

That's right, Tom Cat.

Yes.

And he's got a Haku here.

Tomcat says supply chain now live.

Luton Jackson.

Insights Flow News that matters.

Now tomcat.

Love it, my friend.

Love it.

Okay, Kevin, last thing here.

We just enjoyed a terrific conversation that was published, I don't know, a few weeks back with Dr.

David Beck and Richard Donaldson and you and me, and we really.

If you love space and you love supply chain and where those things intersect, check out this podcast episode.

I promise you'll like it.

But I want to ask you, Kevin, can you touch on Rogue Space Systems and its current mission that they're on, and maybe in doing so, give us a very quick brief primer on space logistics.

So, first of all, I'm mad at you.

I mean, space is never a short topic.

I do this about, I know, seven days and you give me four minutes.

But I know, terrible, unfair.

With that said, space logistics is huge.

You know, as we grew up, you talking about space exploration and all the exciting things that have happened, but we're now getting down to business in space.

And that was.

The last article was about, you know, launch and trans transporting things in a low space orbit.

That's logistics.

And once you get up in orbit, you may need to have a space tug.

This is something that Rogue Space, one of our launch partners, actually I have a day job, as they say, and we work with rogue space and they put up a payload for us.

But they also do space tugs.

They call them orbital transfer vehicles, where you.

You reposition satellites or supplies in space.

You actually got to service these satellites and assemble and manufacture these satellites.

And what about resupplying these satellites and taking the waste away?

You know, the space station has waste.

They put it in a satellite and they put it in, let it burn up in the atmosphere.

The payload I was working on is communications and navigation protection, protecting the communications of commerce against quantum attack.

And that's the payload that I've been working on.

How about managing space traffic?

That's logistics, to be honest.

And debris mitigation.

Another thing that rogue space does is they go up and get rid of the old satellites that are in orbit.

And all this needs regulatory management and security.

So this drives commercial and strategic logistics about low earth orbit.

So we talked a lot about that when we were with Dr.

Beck.

I hope we can get him back on because to be honest, you know, supply chain logistics.

We're doing it in low earth orbit today.

And if you're in supply chain and logistics, it may be be your tomorrow.

Hey, love that Kevin.

That was a great primer.

Very timely primer and you hit the time.

You hit the mark.

And by the way, big shout out to Richard Donaldson too, who's also a pilot like Kevin.

And Richard joined us.

He's also a fellow space nerd like me.

And it was just a great episode.

So we're going to work hard to get Dr.

David Beck and Richard Beck together along with Kevin, and I'll learn more about this space tug.

The tugboat image popped in my brain, except maybe has a few rock pockets on either side.

Kevin, that is cool stuff.

All right.

I hate to wrap today's episode.

The Buzz.

What a great.

I had a ton of fun, learned a ton from Kevin and Korai Kozay.

I want to thank first off, our special guest Korakoze with Kozay advisory.

Folks, connect with Korai, follow him, check out his site, check out those blog articles he drops on LinkedIn.

I promise you.

And they aren't heavy.

They are heavy, man.

Watch out.

Out.

Don't get a hernia.

Don't get a hernia.

You may have to get one of those robots from the big A to help you out.

Maybe, but he keeps it real and we need so much more of that in 2025.

So big thanks to Korai, big thanks to Kevin L.

Jackson, the one and only.

Be sure to connect with and follow Kevin across social.

Kevin, great to have you here as always.

No, this is fun.

Thank you very much.

It was big thanks to Amanda Trisha behind the scenes who makes the buzz happen each and every week along with with all the other.

If we do production here, Amanda and Trisha keep the factory running.

I'm very thankful for that.

Happy birthday to one Amanda Luton out there.

We're not gonna sing to you here.

Yeah.

Oh, you said not sing.

I don't want to ruin people's lunch.

But hey, most importantly, big thanks to our global audience for being here with us.

From Fuad to Claudia to Tomcat to you name it, all the folks that we couldn't get to here today.

Thanks for being here there.

But you've got some homework, folks.

You got some homework.

Take one thing you heard here from Korai or from Kevin.

Put it into practice, share it with your team.

Act on it, right.

It's all about deeds, not words.

That's the name of the game.

So with all that said, on behalf the entire Supply Chain now team Scott Lewton challenging you.

Do good, get forward, be the change that's needed.

And we'll see you next time right back here on Supply chain Now.

Thanks, everybody.

Join the Supply Chain now community.

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