S2E2: Learning From the Past to Predict the Future with CSCMP Leaders Tom Nightingale and Terry Esper

Intro: 0:00

Welcome to the Tennessee on Supply Chain Management podcast. Listen in as co-hosts Ted Stank and Tom Goldsby set sail into the world of end-to-end supply chain management, diving deep into today's most relevant business topics. They'll share insights and pressing industry issues and tackle the challenges keeping supply chain professionals up at night. If you're enjoying the ride, download and subscribe to Tennessee on Supply Chain Management on your favorite podcast platform now.

Thomas Goldsby: 0:27

Hello and welcome to another edition of Tennessee on Supply Chain Management coming to you from the Gaylord Resort, beautiful Orlando, florida. A special edition of the podcast today For a number of reasons. We got a couple of really good friends joining us on site here at the CSCMP Edge Conference. I've been trying to call it the TED conference for some time. Why? Because I very own Dr Ted Stank was honored this morning. Ted, you seen anything good in the last few days since you've been here?

Ted Stank: 0:56

It's all good. I love this conference because I can't walk 10 feet down the hall without seeing an old friend. I think it just took us about 45 minutes to get here from where we were before Now it was a long way. When you have conferences at the Gaylord, it's always a long way. It was, it was.

Thomas Goldsby: 1:13

It's because you see so many people that you know, We've been looking forward to this banner day Showed up in force from the big orange to see Dr Ted Stank, our co-host of the Tennessee on Supply Chain Management podcast, come across the stage and I congratulated you for that. You were able to walk out on stage without the cane, without my cane, offer some great remarks, very humble remarks. I'm sure those will land on YouTube here soon. Encourage folks to go out and see those and you also walk back on stage.

Ted Stank: 1:43

I did down steps too. Beautiful Down steps too.

Thomas Goldsby: 1:46

But what he's referring to is I had my hip replaced three weeks ago Exactly three weeks ago today, and it's the second of two hip replacements, but meanwhile the first one went a lot easier, right.

Ted Stank: 1:55

First one yeah, the first one was a PCK. It went two weeks and I was walking fine, so I thought this one would be the same Some of us were scheduling our heads.

Thomas Goldsby: 2:01

You're scheduling that surgery three weeks before You're big.

Ted Stank: 2:05

Oh, my bad ass wife likes we have a window of opportunity.

Thomas Goldsby: 2:09

You're doing it, it's going down. Well, hey, like I said, we're very fortunate to have a couple of good friends. It feels a little bit like a Christmas Carol, like Christmas past, present and future. It's CSCMP past, present and future. If you all, we've got the sitting board chair and Tom Nagel, who's joined us, and the incoming board chair and Dr Terry Esper, so we'll get to them in due order. But hey, there's been some action out there in the world and supply chain Seems as though a government shutdown is getting kicked down the road. I think 45 days from now, 44 days maybe will be gnashing teeth and wringing hands as to whether or not there's going to be a government shutdown.

Ted Stank: 2:46

Now there'll be some drama before then, supposedly this week, because several members of the Freedom Caucus are challenging McCarthy for leadership. But it'll all work out smoothly, because our government always works things out completely smoothly.

Thomas Goldsby: 3:00

Absolutely, Absolutely. UAW's still on strike. They seem to be going a little softer there.

Ted Stank: 3:08

This week. Yeah, a little friendlier there, Ford was. Ford last week, but this week is Stalantis, but I think they announced today though 7,000 more workers were going on strike.

Thomas Goldsby: 3:15

Was that right?

Ted Stank: 3:15

OK.

Thomas Goldsby: 3:16

It's kind of that interesting strategy.

Ted Stank: 3:18

That's kind of really a rollout thing. First time ever that they've struck all three US auto manufacturers at the same time, great. Usually they'll do one and try to get an agreement in place and then use that as the template for the other ones. So yeah, this whole kind of rolling strike is interesting.

Thomas Goldsby: 3:34

Yeah, it's kind of like bringing this strike to your supply chain. It's like they kind of understood this end to end notion. And I think where to take them out at the next Like a huge number of states that the facilities are into.

Thomas Goldsby: 3:45

So we're keeping tabs on that. But just to kind of keep things moving. You, on the way, in said that you saw the most recent logistics manager index, the LMI. Yeah, and I hadn't seen the Rogers and Rogers duo to ask them yet about what that number came out, but you said it's actually up a take.

Ted Stank: 4:00

Yeah, it came out late last week. It was 51.6, I think, which is the first time it's been above 50 in several months. So, like the purchasing managers index, any number above 50 suggests expansion and it was mostly due to inventory.

Thomas Goldsby: 4:14

Stocking levels are going back up and I don't know if that's adjusted for seasonality or not. I mean we're going into holidays and maybe the feeling is the inventories were getting right sized a little bit.

Ted Stank: 4:24

Well, I mean compared to where we'd been with inventory, where we were way over stocked and nobody was buying anything new. And I think manufacturing order numbers are up as well. It suggests that there is some confidence that in the holiday season we're going to move some product.

Thomas Goldsby: 4:38

As you know, as I've repeated on multiple occasions, I have a lot of confidence in the American consumer to step up, even if it means buying on credit more. But I think they're going to step up.

Ted Stank: 4:47

Where we are, though, is, like, so fragile, so it does make me wonder if we'd had this shut down, how would that have impacted holidays? It would have been the strongest. I was mainly worried about how I was going to get here and home.

Thomas Goldsby: 5:01

It's like, ok, flying down to Orlando might be fine, but heading back, we might be renting a bus to get back to.

Ted Stank: 5:07

Rocky Top. I was the academic geek yesterday at the airport making jokes with the TSA folks Like, hey, you're going to be able to buy dinner tonight, aren't you? Most of them laughed about it a couple of months ago.

Thomas Goldsby: 5:19

Shut up. This is your week, Ted. You can just with anybody you want.

Ted Stank: 5:24

I'm not sure they knew that.

Thomas Goldsby: 5:25

Probably not, hey. So LMI, kind of a high water mark on the way back. Speaking of high water, or I guess low water. Low water in the case of the Mississippi right. I know you've been monitoring that situation. Also, the Panama Canal's sailing schedules were affected.

Ted Stank: 5:40

You know, it's really big for the Mississippi this time of year too, because so many of our agricultural products move down the Mississippi on barge. And they're saying some areas of the Mississippi are like at two feet and so it's really limiting in terms of what kinds of traffic we can move on barge, which means you're going to have to look to alternatives like rail, which means that what's that? Due to rail capacity for typical products that move on rail, it just has that cascading effect. The Panama Canal is at all time lows, so they're really restricting the size of ships that can move through and the number that can move through. So interesting things to keep an eye on, with not typical things that we track but have a big impact on what we do in the supply chain.

Thomas Goldsby: 6:21

Something that we do track and track closely. Fuel prices heading upward, looking at $4 fuel and diesel higher than that something that I track.

Ted Stank: 6:31

I read a lot of different news because I feel like Josh King, our forum manager and our collaborative manager. He mentioned last night that I said one time that supply chains are about constellations and I think the idea there is we're just so interconnected to everything. I was really interested in the announcement a week or so ago about the agreement with Iran to release the hostages and the $6 billion that had been kept locked down from them and frozen, and I was looking for what was the real benefit there. And it was a really small announcement that Iran announced shortly after that agreement that they're going to start increasing their oil output and I'd be willing to bet that if we were sitting at that negotiating table, that that was the trade-off. It's like, hey, iran, we need you to start kicking up on oil because the Saudis and the Russians are not, you know, and cutting back, so maybe that will impact that oil price. But speculation of diesel going above well, not diesel Diesel's already above $4. But just regular gas going above $4.

Thomas Goldsby: 7:34

Yeah, and then you just say I mean again these things that could be straws on the camel's back right. And we just kind of teetered and continued to deal with the uncertainty.

Ted Stank: 7:43

Maybe we're all just getting immune to the news. It's just like we're just going to keep just living and forgetting about it, comfortably numb, do you think? There's some times when I read the news and thought if I didn't have the job I had, I would just shut it all down. I think you know, and just live in La La Land, immune to everything out there.

Thomas Goldsby: 7:58

Yeah, Now there's some bliss, maybe in ignorance, but hey, we can't be wholly ignorant.

Ted Stank: 8:04

We wouldn't be able to do podcasts.

Thomas Goldsby: 8:05

We wouldn't be able to do podcasts and you wouldn't be able to come up with analogies around constellations and then drawing those analogies to other cool things and applications. You know, coming to CSCMP is kind of that constellation too, right? I mean just in terms of, like you said, walking down the hall, you can't walk. Well, you can't walk, but with the aid of a cane you're walking a little bit, you get a couple of steps and you're running into someone that you've known and we had a great gathering last night to celebrate Ted. It was a toast and a roast and you took it well, my friend.

Ted Stank: 8:37

Oh, you guys are pretty easy on the toast.

Thomas Goldsby: 8:39

Well, you don't know what we have in store for you tonight, Anyway, so to build up your strength. It's just been great to be back here. I haven't missed one of these since 1995.

Ted Stank: 8:49

I've got a pretty good streak going, I think I had 29 in a row at one point and then we changed the timing.

Thomas Goldsby: 8:55

You can go to Europe. Yeah, I was in Europe with our executive MBAs. But a couple of dear friends that we count on running into. Not only running into, but we're looking to them for leadership. Now, in these tumultuous times, the current board chair, Tom Nightingale, and the incoming board chair, effective. What is it the stroke of midnight on the here seat, Terry, when you take over?

Tom Nightingale: 9:19

Dr Terry, One thing, one thing right. No, it's officially December. Oh right, officially.

Ted Stank: 9:24

When is the members vote meeting? Yeah, that's Tuesday.

Terry Esper: 9:28

Tuesday afternoon.

Ted Stank: 9:29

Yeah, yeah, that's when we count on the official Right.

Terry Esper: 9:31

You know, are we pre-presumptuous here, yeah, right, right.

Tom Nightingale: 9:34

Oh, my goodness, I didn't realize that could be too sad.

Thomas Goldsby: 9:37

I mean, you know, speaker McCarthy, I want some.

Terry Esper: 9:41

Right, exactly right. Some man gates might jump up and say hey. I don't know.

Thomas Goldsby: 9:46

So, guys, we can edit this if we need to, if Esper's not in fact in the audience.

Ted Stank: 9:50

Yeah, we'll get the next vote.

Thomas Goldsby: 9:51

We've never had to edit a podcast before it just runs, but if we really have to. But, tom, welcome Terry, welcome, great to have you on the podcast. I've been looking forward to this and again, you're both very distinguished in your own right and we really appreciate what you bring to our discipline and CSMP in particular, and we're kind of just kind of maybe hoping to get a little bit of background. Not everyone in the logistics supply chain world even some folks outside the logistics supply chain world listen to the podcast. Tom Nightingale gives a little background who you are and what brings you here.

Tom Nightingale: 10:24

So in the day job I run a company called ASF Logistics. We focus on four things we are a very large LTL, very large parcel and very large freight auto and payment provider. And then we are a small to mid-sized transportation management provider. Been a part of CSMP now for probably about 25, 27 years in total and I would say that active on the board level probably for about eight years and delayed to have had the opportunity to serve over the course of the past year and hopefully to leave Terry all my problems.

Thomas Goldsby: 11:00

Broad shoulders Terry, taking on Dr. Terry Esper. Hey man, what brings ?

Terry Esper: 11:05

Well, I don't know, man, it's been a long and crazy, winding road to get here, so I'm like you guys like you talked about being an academic nerd and geeking out. But yeah, I'm an educator. Right, I'm on the front line of the talent pipeline and supply chain and professor at the Ohio State University. You know, I've got to put the emphasis on that.

Ted Stank: 11:22

Legally right. Legally right it's fake. Oh yes, Isn't that legally? It is legally, yes, yes, yes, that's the whole story behind that.

Terry Esper: 11:30

But, getting here again, I'm a professor at Ohio State, but I also spent my time at other big schools, including Big Orange, right.

Ted Stank: 11:37

So Ted and I actually joined the faculty there Ted's got some big orange. Yeah, 10 years.

Terry Esper: 11:41

We ran together for 10 years there at Ohio State. I went back to my alma mater, arkansas, for about five years and I'm at Ohio State. I actually got here through, you know. In between all of that, you know CSCMP was a big part of my career actually started. I think my very first CSCMP was 96 as a graduate student and pretty much almost had a full streak until I remembered there were a couple of years there early in my career when I wasn't high up enough to actually travel. So I had a way excited.

Ted Stank: 12:09

Didn't make a traveling team, didn't make a traveling team. But ever since I made the traveling team, then, when you were at Hallmark.

Terry Esper: 12:14

That was at Hallmark, yeah, and. But ever since then I've been a part of CSCMP consistently, never missed one.

Thomas Goldsby: 12:19

You know, speaking of Terry being at UT, I remember I was on the faculty of Kentucky back in the late 2000s. I already know this, I already know what we're doing and I'm watching SEC football. Yes, terry Esper's beautiful mug on the face. He's the face of the University of Tennessee.

Intro: 12:35

Oh yeah, I was.

Ted Stank: 12:36

So go back.

Thomas Goldsby: 12:36

That's probably in the YouTube reel somewhere.

Ted Stank: 12:38

Yeah, and speaking of which, you know the promo commercial that every big school has every year for football games. Supply chain management is mentioned in Tennessee's promotion.

Terry Esper: 12:52

Yeah, and you know what, when it first aired, I was in a bar because the weather got bad. I was at an airport bar, not in the airport, but the hotel right outside of an airport and everybody's watching the game and I'm like, hey, that was just me, I had never seen the commercial before and somebody's like man, that wasn't you.

Ted Stank: 13:09

I'm like, no, that was just me, I was just on TV and, yeah, you drink for you the rest of the night.

Terry Esper: 13:14

Well, no, I wasn't. I wasn't that famous as was all. Nobody really believed it. It happened so fast. That's the part.

Ted Stank: 13:22

If you get, on X or TikTok and ask Taylor Swift for a date, you might be able to get to that level. Anything. The next Travis Jones? Get to that next level. Hey, Tom, big issue. Speaking about being on the front lines, the kind of business that you're in is literally on the front lines. We talk a lot about manufacturers and retailers Huge part of our economy but nothing happens. Nobody buys if we can't move the stuff to where people need it. What are the trends are you seeing out there in terms of where we are now and looking into the next few months, particularly as we head into the holiday buying season? What kind of things are you seeing out there?

Tom Nightingale: 13:57

Yeah. So we have a unique vantage point on the industry because we audit and pay about $11 billion of freight across all modes. We've got a pretty amazing sample of data to pull from and we do produce a freight index that's forward looking as well, and it really varies by mode. It's not the same story across every mode. Truckload has started to bump up. The bottom called that very early about a quarter ago. It's not inflected yet, but if I had to guess and we don't officially predict out past the quarter I think after we get through Chinese New Year, if enough inventory bleeds off and there isn't too much consumer demand destruction, truckload should start to definitively inflect. Now, it's not going to be a massive ski slope going back up, but it will be solid growth at least yeah, growth, and not just bumping. This bottom Parcel is weak, parcel is very weak.

Tom Nightingale: 14:50

We audit and pay about $4 billion worth of parcel and we've seen much more aggressive pricing coming out of the parcel carriers because they need to fill their networks and they're all juggling their networks UPS, obviously in their case, to try to offset labor cost and labor increases.

Tom Nightingale: 15:07

Fedex, as they continue to try to readjust their operations from disparate operations into an integrated operation. And then LCL got really crazy, going from a declining market to all of a sudden really just solidifying because of the yellow bankruptcy. Freight got moved and the capacity got absorbed, which was good, but it definitely stiffened up pricing and I think it will stay that way probably for another three months or so. And assuming that demand continues to fall gradually in the manufacturing sector, then I think LTA will be right back to where it was pre-yellow bankruptcy, which was falling at about a 3% to 4% quarter over quarter level. So it's a different story by mode. We don't predict ocean, we just don't have a large enough sample size there. But it's been interesting to watch the market ebb and flow and particularly if you match that up against our revenue model, it creates a lot of gyrations in our business.

Thomas Goldsby: 15:59

It was very curious when you have one of the big three LTL carriers closed its doors and I mean it was. It was that risk for a long long time. Right saw it coming but meanwhile in terms of absorbing it, so you're saying that the LTO industry largely was able to kind of absorb that and yeah, moving.

Ted Stank: 16:15

Yeah, it's probably helpful that it happened in a somewhat of a declining market. Yeah, absolutely Good point.

Tom Nightingale: 16:20

There was enough capacity out there and freight got moved. It didn't necessarily find his rightful home. Hmm, you know, somebody that was using yellow is probably not going to be happy with the pricing they have from somebody like, say, Old Dominion, and you'll see that reset over the next probably six to nine months as contracts normalize again. But at least freight didn't get stuck, it didn't get stranded, wasn't waiting on docks other than a handful of yellow facilities where they just kind of stopped working when the news started to get ugly and we did, we did a lot of kind of Saving of loads that were stranded out there. But other than that the industry handled it in good form.

Thomas Goldsby: 16:56

Dr. Esper, you pontificate routinely in front of students, your research leading scholar in our field. Conduct a lot of talks. What are the things you're witnessing? What's on your mind in this supply chain world?

Terry Esper: 17:09

Yeah, I guess just kind of picking up on this narrative. You know, I find it interesting that we talk about what happened with Yellow, the resilience of our industry. I know that over the last couple of years it seemed like doomsday. Right, when you think about the crisis and you know nowadays, like everybody's like, hey, what's going on in the supply chain space? Right, people who never even knew what supply chain management was are all concerned there right now, and and rightly so. Right, because we've had a lot of press about a lot of issues that we've kind of contend with. But you know what I'm actually just amazed by when I think about all that we've gone through, and even this most recent situation with Yellow, even the conversations that we were having, as we were, you know, preparing for what could have been a UPS strike. It's just how resilient we are in supply chain.

Terry Esper: 17:49

That's, that's the business. I mean, that's what we do, and I've had to kind of share that a few times. Like you know, we've had crises before and you probably didn't know about it because we've been so good at trying to it, at navigating around it and through it. Yeah, but the reality is that that's the business we're in the supply chain, right. I mean, it's a it's a roller coaster ride in this business and you know We've had our share of ups and downs over the years, you know, I think now they're more pronounced because they're more eyeballs, more visibility to what we're doing in supply chain.

Terry Esper: 18:16

It's always nice to kind of, after we get through these issues, to kind of step back and look at kind of where a Yellow situation Is in the grand scheme of all the different issues that we've had to continue with over the years, right, and so I'm always just thinking about, just at industry level and in the supply chain community, how we've been able to, just as you say, and flow. As you know, the environment changes all the stuff you guys just talked about. I mean, you know it's, it's an up and down for us and that's just kind of the the business that we're in. And having said that, you know, another thing that I'm just really watching and thinking about is just how the increased visibility that we have as a community Is starting to shift and shape our work, our discipline, right. You guys are seeing it at UT, like you said, you guys are on the commercial, more people concerned about what's going on in supply chain.

Ted Stank: 19:04

Yeah, I always say that prior, prior to the pandemic, nobody knew what supply chain management was. Now they still don't know what it is, but they've heard the term.

Tom Nightingale: 19:12

Yeah.

Thomas Goldsby: 19:17

Yeah, I think we've got kind of a responsibility as well to kind of seize and stretch that moment, if you will, right, right, and we're making movement. We looked at leading professional organization, cscmp, to kind of stretch that moment, make it, make it a movement. So tell us, tom, about what you've been undertaking during your time as board chair and some of the big initiatives here at CSCMP to make it a movement.

Tom Nightingale: 19:38

You know, as board chair you really have a pretty limited window to try to affect change. So you kind of have to pick your balance. And thankfully, you know, after 60 years of this, CSCMP is really good at a lot of things and the things that that we're really good at, I kind of didn't mess with them at all. The two areas that I focused on Most heavily during my tenure were the one that's under the warline, which is just creating better accountability, better visibility, better transparency for the board and management to ensure that we're aligned, so not the kind of thing a member would necessarily see or experience, but what they see and experience is the fact that we continue to get better and better at a faster and faster pace. The second area is go to market. So we made a lot of good strides and there are go to market strategy because, despite the general awareness of the world now about supply chain, the awareness of CSCMP is not where it needs to be.

Tom Nightingale: 20:32

The amount of value that we create for our members, the amount of knowledge that we bring to the table, the amount of opportunity that we create isn't as known as it should be, and we've had a great history of trying to tackle individualized items. You know a digital strategy or a member experience or a conference experience but we've never really looked at that as a comprehensive go to market strategy and really trying to focus in on our markets, our customers, our channels and our product and value proposition. So Elijah's been leading that and doing a nice job with it, got a long way to go with it. Still, it's a massive project. If Terry decides to keep it going in his reign of terror then yeah, we're really just in that top of the first inning right now. Long, long way to go. But it's the right thing to do for our members, because the more members we can bring in, the more content we create and it becomes a really virtuous cycle for everybody. My understanding is that corporate memberships are growing.

Ted Stank: 21:31

Yeah, I think so, like a wheel. I mean, a huge difference from when I was sitting in you guys chairs was we still were predominantly an individual membership, and I think it's interesting to talk more with you guys about the changing nature of professional organizations and the fact that it is more corporate. University of Tennessee is a corporate member, so what's your perspective on that?

Tom Nightingale: 21:54

I think it's a big deal, because I think that corporations recognize the fact that they want to attract the best talent and that the best talent wants to continue to grow after they get out of university. It's not to say that universities are failing. It's not to say that they're coming up short. It's to say that there is an ongoing need for professional development and this generation's coming up now looks at this as part of the corporation's responsibility to them to continue to grow, and the corporations look to them as part of their responsibility, as a good employer or teammate, to improve their skill set and their network so they can become better. So I think it's actually you're seeing, kind of the marketplace speaking, and the fact that corporate memberships are growing so well, yeah, so it is.

Terry Esper: 22:42

It's just next step in that talent pipeline, yeah, but I think it also raises a challenge, because now we have to be a little bit more heavy handed and a little bit more intentional and strategic about ensuring engagement right, because if you're a part of a corporate membership, you could technically become a member of the organization by reason of your corporation becoming a member and you might not necessarily lean into the membership right. That's one of the differences between those individual members that they were signing up, right if you're paying at a park, at pocket.

Terry Esper: 23:09

Yeah, they were signing up and they were engaged right. But if you are kind of a part of an umbrella of membership, you may lean into all the benefits and all the resources that we have. You might just kind of touch the edges a bit. So we have to be more intentional and focused on how do we ensure that we're bringing those corporate members into the organization.

Ted Stank: 23:27

So that whole awareness thing, you know, is really good. Yeah, absolutely. I gotta admit I'm somewhat unaware of all the different things that I can engage. Certainly, this conference, everything there's a biggie right, but so many other things that you can avail yourself of.

Terry Esper: 23:41

And I think that's where the you know. So, one of the things that we'll be really focusing on in 2024, I mean we did it in 23 and I wanna keep this going in 24, is the local round table, the local chapters, right. I mean, how do you take a nine to 10,000 member organization and make it feel like you belong? It's gonna be at the local level, right. I mean we come together every year at the conference, but the reality is that the local round tables that's where the rubber meets the rubber.

Ted Stank: 24:06

That's where the life goes. How ?

Tom Nightingale: 24:08

Well, we're north of 50 at this point, and it grew a lot last year. Membership overall grew 21% and the number of events grew 39%.

Ted Stank: 24:19

Yeah, I saw that in your presentation.

Tom Nightingale: 24:21

Yeah, and Terry's 100% right. This is conference is amazing and maybe that hasn't been should come, but it's a once a year event and you need that continuity, you need that recency, that frequency, and round tables are that local touch point. They're super powerful.

Ted Stank: 24:38

I mean, that's how I got involved with it.

Tom Nightingale: 24:39

Yeah, me too. Most

Tom Nightingale: 24:41

Yeah, me too. The Albany, New York round table.

Terry Esper: 24:43

I was at Atlanta, Kansas City, Hartland

Tom Nightingale: 24:49

Yeah, as a doctoral student.

Thomas Goldsby: 24:51

Yeah, and the round tables are really where the action is those other 51 weeks of the year. It's where you connect with your community and just some tremendous things. Of course, columbus has a tremendous one, right. I think about how supportive they are of the community and also, I'd just say, our student chapter on campus as well. Right, we think about the student chapters and it's just a robust group and it's great to see our students here. Yeah, it is, it really is.

Ted Stank: 25:15

Getting them here, I think, is a big way to get them jazzed about it, because at least when I was on the board, one of the big challenges we had was we had a pretty robust student participation in CSCMP through student memberships and then they would get out working and they would disappear and we couldn't find them. So how do you keep them sticky?

Terry Esper: 25:34

As an educator coming in the board chair role, I mean, that's something I'm passionate about and I feel like we've got someone who's in education. We might as well lean into that a bit. That's something that's on my mind, right. How do we continue that pipeline of membership and how do we not have that tapering off? And then they find their way back some years later, once their corporation becomes a member, or once they say hey, let me be individual.

Ted Stank: 25:53

Or is that right? Like you said, your first couple years with Walmart? Yeah, but I wasn't above the bar, right.

Terry Esper: 25:59

So we're thinking about that how do we enhance that connectivity between the student CSCMP experience, the YP experience, and how do we really nail that?

Ted Stank: 26:07

And the students are clearly involved to get a job. There's great content when they go to their meetings and stuff, but they're mainly there to get pizza and talk to Tom. Nightingale when he comes to talk to the round table because he might give him a job right.

Tom Nightingale: 26:21

I was giving a bunch of your guys a hard time the other day because they were all corralled into one circle. I walked up behind him I said hey guys, let me give you a pro tip. Don't talk to each other.

Ted Stank: 26:30

Don't talk to old people like me. Yeah, right, right. There are a lot of us walking around here. That dude doesn't have a job. Yeah, that's right.

Thomas Goldsby: 26:37

Again at the universities we get excited about the future. But I'm just curious about Tom you almost kind of described with regard to freight kind of body mount heading up. Sometimes we use the term buka. It's a highly volatile uncertainty.

Ted Stank: 26:50

Can you say that on a podcast?

Thomas Goldsby: 26:55

V-U-C-A: highly volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous future. But meanwhile, what are the things that excite you, as it might relate to the field, our opportunities, as well as the organization.

Tom Nightingale: 27:08

Tom, I'm going to leave you. I would say that we touched on this earlier and that the world does know what we do now, much more so than they did before. There's still some ambiguity about it. You know, supply chain include procurement, does it include demand planning? All these things that maybe people don't think about because they think about the truck on the road. But I think the overall awareness is really exciting. I think the level of education that's available now, both in university settings and outside of university settings, is amazing. You know, our SC Pro going on to LinkedIn Learning has been, I mean, 7,000 people. Now he said that the smaller started. Yeah, it's a tremendous SC Pro class on LinkedIn Learning. That's amazing reach for us as an organization and it's indicative of the hunger that's out there because now there's awareness. I mean I think about when I was going into undergrad nobody ever, ever, ever talked about getting a degree in supply chain management.

Ted Stank: 28:04

What was your undergrad degree? Mine was in marketing.

Tom Nightingale: 28:07

Marketing and management, and international business.

Ted Stank: 28:10

Mine was mechanical engineering and political science.

Thomas Goldsby: 28:14

Econ finance.

Tom Nightingale: 28:15

Yeah, I mean, it's just so none of us started people of a certain era, certain generation. It just wasn't really even an option.

Ted Stank: 28:21

And there's so many great options now and we're graduating 430 north of a year in supply chain and it's just staggering, yeah.

Terry Esper: 28:30

Oh man, we're much smaller than that. I'd say we're more close to well, what about across the two departments? Oh yeah, I mean we're definitely in the low hundreds. But yeah, across the two, right, but again, it's still just indicative of-.

Ted Stank: 28:42

Yeah, so to your point, Tom, there's a lot more people coming out with at least some basic knowledge.

Tom Nightingale: 28:48

Absolutely, and there's so many good options. And then you know, CSCMP continues to fill that role of proliferating that knowledge out, even at the we're talking high school levels now in some cases. Yeah, it's great, and I think that that level of awareness, that level of optionality in terms of education, and then the emerging set of tools that are out now, it's a lot sexier of a business than it used to be I mean when we were doing this on Green Bar and, yeah, it wasn't fun. But now all of a sudden we've got really interesting tools that are getting younger people excited about the business and they're seeing it as a career path into the CEO role. Absolutely, yeah, that's where you're at.

Terry Esper: 29:27

Yeah, if I could just add to that. I think you're spot on, tom, and I think you know. What's interesting to me, too is that, you know, I guess in my limited thinking of CSCMP, it's the gathering of supply chain people, right? But what I find perhaps more intriguing about these 7,000 folks that are on LinkedIn, learning and even what we're seeing in terms of, you know, attendance and little looks and crannies of, like, interesting pockets of attendees at the conference, now, these are not supply chain people. These are people who own sales finance, who feel the need to understand what's happening in supply chain, right. So it's interesting because it's not just about, you know, reinforcing the talent that's in supply chain. It's hard to hear.

Terry Esper: 30:05

Yeah, it's not someone who may never take a job in supply chain, but they feel the need to understand what's happening in supply chain in order to do their job better in finance or in sales.

Ted Stank: 30:13

Well, you know, organizationally that's been a battle we've been fighting for decades right. It's better recognition of the value we bring to the organization, and that recognition is huge.

Thomas Goldsby: 30:23

Well, I went into the opening day of the intro to supply chain management class, an alumni auditorium on campus probably taught in there. You know 500 students and you know a smattering of them have declared supply chain as a major congratulations. Maybe they got it figured out, but I went in with the message saying most of you in here will work some shape or form in supply chain. You just don't know it.

Thomas Goldsby: 30:48

I think all of us around this table would have been in that camp you know, some years ago, right?

Terry Esper: 30:52

Yeah, all our majors, right.

Thomas Goldsby: 30:53

It finds us but to the extent that we can find them right, and I think that's a really important thing. You know, we have this platform, we have this opportunity. It's largely impressive, in the time we've been in the field, to kind of take supply chain to them whether they're ready for it or not.

Ted Stank: 31:07

So to the extent that we can make them ready for it, Well, we've always said supply chain is kind of a perspective on managing a business and I think that perspective is starting to get more accepted, particularly given the disruptions. Terry, you said earlier that all these things disruptions have been going on forever but nobody really recognized it. It took like a major disruption that we had over the last few years for people to sit back and go, wow, when this stuff is broken, yeah, we don't do anything I've been saying.

Terry Esper: 31:38

Lke the financial crisis that we experienced back in the way of 909, that was one of the best things that happened to us

Terry Esper: 32:08

So it'll be interesting to see I mean we would cross out our digits that nothing else really significant happened under this experience the last couple of years. But the reality is that we know this business. We've been in it for decades.

Ted Stank: 32:20

Well, the global debt work shift that's going on now is generational. Yeah, yeah. Well, guys, we're wrapping up at our time. Let's end it by what kind of final passing advice would you all provide to young professionals that people want to enter this field, given your vantage points?

Tom Nightingale: 32:36

I would say just buckle up your chin strap. It's gonna be a wild ride. You know, the best years in supply chain are ahead of us. The tools are just absolutely transformational. The educational system that supports their career journey is amazing, and their opportunity to really make a difference in the world is enormous. So you know, brace yourself, it's gonna be awesome.

Terry Esper: 32:59

Yeah, I would say that, regardless of all the great analytical tools and all the great models and things we teach in the classroom as young professionals are starting out, supply chain is a people business. Right, this is. It's a people business and the soft skills of the difference maker. We've gotten so sophisticated with how we teach supply chain now all the technology. It's a new world, it's a new day, but the reality is that advancement and success in this career trajectory is gonna come down to people, and so, as you're preparing all those you know hard skills, be sure to also cultivate the soft skills, because that is what really makes a difference.

Thomas Goldsby: 33:31

Man, that also reinforces the network right.

Terry Esper: 33:33

Oh, absolutely. The constellation is the-.

Thomas Goldsby: 33:36

The constellation how comes back to the constellation and again the role in which CSMP is-.

Ted Stank: 33:42

And CSMP is Polaris. Everything broke.

Thomas Goldsby: 33:46

Well for all of our careers right.

Ted Stank: 33:48

Yeah, that's the top of mind.

Thomas Goldsby: 33:50

The undisputed primary driver of our careers, which is so thankful for. We're thankful for the two of you, gentlemen, for leading the organization. You know these are tumultuous times to head point it out for professional organizations, but hey, I'm convinced you all have the vision, you got the strategy, you got the wherewithal to make this happen and we're not only gonna be alone for the ride, we're gonna be active supporters, Supporters, participants in that. But hey, also it just let's close out by again recognizing Dr. Ted Stank. It's been the season of Ted. I just need to point out that. You know, not only is he this year's Distinguished Service Award winner, entering the Supply Chain Hall of Fame, but he was also part of the inaugural class of distinguished fellows here at CSCMP. So we had an opportunity yesterday to recognize that inaugural class, and your mentors were certainly part of that as well.

Ted Stank: 34:42

I feel like a distinguished fellow.

Thomas Goldsby: 34:44

Yeah, a distinguished fellow.

Terry Esper: 35:00

When you put in the work, you get the reward.

Thomas Goldsby: 35:04

That's the perfect way to close out the show, I think. Put in the work, you get the reward, and so thanks to all of you out there for listening. Thank you again, Terry, Tom, congratulations to our friends.

Ted Stank: 35:23

I get the final word, so I've been asked to do a promotional spot for our executive MBA program.

Ted Stank: 35:30

It's a 12 month program, with four residency periods of 10 days each. Three continents North America, Asia, and Europe. Terry, to your point, I mean these are generally people that have been out 15 to 18 years and the big focus we give them a lot of supply chain content every year. What they say to get the most out of it is the leadership content and the finance content about how they link what they're doing to financial benefit for the organization.

Thomas Goldsby: 35:57

And the peers right, I mean they're amongst.

Ted Stank: 35:59

Oh, the peer network that they developed, the constellation they developed.

Thomas Goldsby: 36:04

Hey, not to mention the organizational action plan that guarantees ROI, right, I mean it pays for itself in a matter of minutes, practically. So yeah, I'm glad you got that spot.

Ted Stank: 36:14

Okay, so with that, that's our promotional site, all right. You guys don't have to endorse that.

Thomas Goldsby: 36:22

And you're all got a new MS SCM Online. Yeah, we're excited about that.

Terry Esper: 36:24

That's fantastic, absolutely.

Ted Stank: 36:26

All right, you guys, thanks again. Everybody will see you next month. Thanks for staying with us. We'll talk to you soon.

Intro: 36:33

Thanks for tuning in to Tennessee on supply chain management. If you enjoyed the episode, subscribe today on your favorite listening platform to get all of our episodes as soon as they drop, and don't forget to take a moment to leave us a rating. Have any questions, thoughts or feedback? We'd love to hear from our listeners. Email us at gsci@ utk. edu. Join us next time as we continue pulling back the curtain on the world of supply chain, educating and entertaining you along the way. Until then, listeners.