S2E9: Effective Leadership with SC Johnson CPO Martha Buffington

Introduction: 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 in 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.

Ted Stank: 0:27

Hello everyone and welcome to the ninth episode of the second season of Tennessee on Supply Chain Management. I'm here with my good friend, Tom Goldsby, who's just returned from a trip to Europe. He doesn't look very jet lagged, but we'll see if that's the way he feels he might have had several cups of coffee already this morning. We're also joined by our good friend, Martha Buffington at SC Johnson, and we're going to bring Martha in later. We're going to talk about some leadership issues from her perspective. Tom, what are you thinking about these days? What's going on?

Tom Goldsby: 0:56

You're absolutely right. I did just get back a couple of days ago from a week in Italy. It's a marvelous trip, a really great time to be there, a little bit ahead of the tourist crowd, spent some time in Venice and did some teaching in Verona and Vicenza the three Vs of Northeast Italy and really had a great time with Yvonne Russo, our good friend at the University of Verona. He hosted me and I ate well, I drank well, I got to engage with a lot of really bright, brilliant students and faculty over there in Verona, and hey, live to tell about it. But it's good to be back home.

Ted Stank: 1:32

Yeah, you know that University of Verona relationship with University of Tennessee goes back some at least 15 years, maybe longer, and Yvonne was a doctoral student who had come over and joined us for a short period of time back when I had first gotten here to University of Tennessee, so it's maybe more like 20 years.

Tom Goldsby: 1:50

Yeah, he had a lot of memories and also a lot of old pictures from the time together. So it was fun to see his visual memories and to hear him talk about his life and times. He speaks very fondly of his time at Rocky Top. To hear him talk about his life and times. He speaks very fondly of his time at Rocky Top and of course, we were able to host his doctoral student, Benedetta, here at Rocky Top this spring. So it is, as you point out, a relationship's been going on for a long time and we expect it to continue into the future.

Tom Goldsby: 2:17

But hey, let's get back to the good old US ofA and what's going on around the neighborhood. I think we're kind of a little bit in between some of the economic indicators that we usually speak of. I think later this week we'll see PPI and CPI and some of those things. I did see a consumer sentiment index, but I don't put a lot of faith in what people say about their sentiments. I look at what they do. But I will say that the consumer sentiment index was down, I think, to one of the lowest levels and I think it's in large part because inflation just continues to kind of loom and has people a little bit gloomy, but they're still buying.

Ted Stank: 2:56

You're right. We are in the middle of a lot of things. There are some indications. I mean everything that I've been reading. I always try to make sure everybody knows I am not an economist. Tom is an undergraduate economics major, but I am not. I've had one course, I think exactly in economics, and that was probably in 1979 or something.

Tom Goldsby: 3:13

Did you pass?

Ted Stank: 3:14

that class, ted, I did. I think I got a pretty good grade in it, but notwithstanding. But I've been reading a lot trying to make sure that I stay up on it and everything seems to show right now that the economy is cooling off, that we are going to have that proverbial soft landing. I think that that's what everyone's hoping for. Most of the recent data that came out in early May jobs report was lower than expectations. The number of unemployment has stayed about stable. Gdp in the first quarter was relatively low 1.6% so maybe that's showing a little bit of cooling as well. But, as you said, everybody's waiting for this new Consumer Price Index report, which is due out Today is Monday for those of you listening May 13th. The jobs inflation report is due out this Wednesday and certainly all the markets are just hovering waiting for that news.

Tom Goldsby: 4:07

You know, I was away for a week and the Dow just soared the entire week I was away, which just makes me think maybe I need to plan another trip somewhere. I didn't get a single note from my wife saying the market's tanking, the market's tanking. I came back and, lo and behold, we're approaching that. You know 40,000. So it's a big deal. But you're right, you know we're just kind of waiting pins and needles a little bit. You know still a lot of uncertainty out there. But you know, something that we don't reference very often is the global supply chain pressure index, and I know there's a lot of scrutiny of that. Perhaps it's justified, but the New York Fed has been putting this out for a few years and it's been sub-zero for a little while now and it continues to go that way, which means that things are fairly stable on a historical basis, based upon manufacturing and transportation indices that it references not only domestically but around the world. And you know it does seem like maybe you know, we still haven't cleared the wreckage of the dolly from Baltimore.

Ted Stank: 5:12

That's supposed to happen today, by the way. Okay, it got delayed from yesterday due to weather. It's supposed to get cleared from the deck of the dolly today and then they expect to refloat the dolly, if everything goes well on, I think, tomorrow or the following day. It's aground right now and they want to keep it aground until they can assess damage.

Tom Goldsby: 5:33

Okay, but something that I did get asked about, probably about 10 days ago, were the two Canadian railroads striking the CN and the CP. And I'll have to admit I've been away and haven't checked to see what's going on, but my response to the reporter was that supply chain managers are just kind of like, yeah, what's next? And I think that we've become battle tested over these last four or five years to chaos and uncertainty and hey, we're just figuring out how to navigate. Oh, so you're saying that you know the one transcontinental railroad that we have is going to shut down, perhaps? All right, well, I guess we better look into trucking a lot more stuff, or what have you.

Ted Stank: 6:14

May 22nd is the date, tom, although the Canadian Federal Labor Relations Board is looking into it, so that may delay things as well. I'd be very interested as we bring our guest in to get her take on whether that's a ho-hum scenario or not. But yeah, you know, I think that I mean everybody's looking at the Middle East and the situation in the Red Sea Suez Canal seems to be much better off from an available water scenario than we had originally anticipated. So hopefully that crunch has abated somewhat. There are some signs the transportation recession is easing, that freight is coming back and transportation pricing and available capacity starting to stabilize as well. I looked at the purchasing managers index for both manufacturing and services. They are just slightly under 50, which means that's a slight contraction. That means that purchasing managers know there's some additional easing I guess slowing in the logistics marketplace as well.

Ted Stank: 7:30

So you know I always love this podcast because I can say ridiculous things and because we don't have a live audience, I guess nobody can really take me on about it. But I sit here looking at these financial markets. So I my entire career, have been a Main Street business person, right? Not a Wall Street business person. And the thing that bothers me about Wall Street is they just play with money. It's all like this giant casino gambling speculation hall where they look at little things. It kind of galls me that, when business is doing well, the market's tube Because well, what's the Fed going to do to rates and our ability to make money on other people's money? So that's my rant, you know. We're sitting here looking at a 1.6 percent GDP growth in the first quarter is good compared to a four point whatever it was percent in the fourth quarter of 2023. And it just kind of bugs me.

Tom Goldsby: 8:21

Yeah, I hear what you're saying and, by the way, I was an econ finance double major as an undergrad, so I feel marginally qualified. But you're right, it's that notion of the indefinite time horizon, when things are going well but it doesn't seem to be reflected in the market. It's like, well, it's already been baked in, but meanwhile someone sneezes and suddenly things go tanking and it's like, okay, didn't you like bake in? You know that we might. It's allergy season from crying out loud. You know that we might sneeze every now and then and it's like this sudden shock.

Tom Goldsby: 8:55

And the market does tend to react to bad news a lot more than it reacts to positive news. So that's where I'm really getting excited. Like I said, we're kind of in between, but when we start getting those quarterly reports here for second quarter, that's where it's going to be really telling to me. I mean, I sense that businesses by and large are doing quite well and you know there is again some stability despite, you know, chaos out there. But hey, something I do want to talk a little bit about, and I don't know if now's the right time, but a little bit of the European scene and what I experienced, because you know the awful lot of volatility that we experience here. We talk about it podcasts in, podcasts out, but I'll tell you what. You're even closer to the fire in Europe and I got a strong read on that.

Ted Stank: 9:38

Tom, before we do that, let me bring up another railroad scenario that's been going on and that's this kind of breakaway shareholder group for Norfolk Southern that's been trying to oust the current management team over precision railroading or the degree to which the management team implements precision railroading. There's been a lot of controversy with that company over recent months and just late last week the overall shareholders resisted that breakaway group's desire to replace the management team. So I think for shippers that's probably good news, because precision railroading tends to not necessarily help shippers. At least that's what shippers have been saying about some of these.

Tom Goldsby: 10:22

Yeah, and I'd been reading a little something about that. You know I'll tell you when the rails come into the news, you know it's it's like oh yeah, most everything moves by truck at some point in its distribution and we kind of assume a rail out there and then when there's again a hiccup of some kind or some major form of disruption, it comes to the forefront. I mean, something I'm keen to point out when I'm teaching transportation is that if you look at the metric of ton miles, the hybrid measure of distance and volume, we're extremely dependent on rail in this country, on this continent, much more so than any other place on the planet. It's largely because pretty reliable system, you know, particularly intermodal. So that's good to hear that perhaps there's going to be some continuity there.

Ted Stank: 11:10

Yeah, all right. Now to the Europe scene.

Tom Goldsby: 11:14

To the Europe desk.

Ted Stank: 11:15

Yeah, the Europe desk.

Tom Goldsby: 11:17

All right, yeah, so I was just kind of suggesting that. You know, while we feel we've been walking on eggshells here in North America for quite some time trying to find our footing again, it was really interesting to spend time in Europe and have some long conversations over some really good wine and risotto in Verona with Yvonne and talk to some business professionals, and that was what was great is, they were actually launching two new master's programs at the University of Verona, and so I got to attend the big launch party for that last week, got to meet an Italian astronaut. It was really a great venue, but it gave me a chance to talk to a lot of industry people. They were kind enough to converse with me in English and to be very open, and they shared with me again this notion of being a little closer to the fire, certainly, as it would result.

Tom Goldsby: 12:07

You know, conflict in Europe, russian invasion and the dependencies interdependencies they have right there within the continent, but then also, you know, closer to the issues in the Middle East and some greater dependencies they have, and so I came to appreciate a little bit that, while we've been a little bit, woe is me here stateside, they're still trying to figure out how to navigate Brexit. You know that's been seven years now and they still don't quite know how to deal with their suddenly disconnected partner in the UK. So while we're a bit again in chaos I keep using that term. You know, they're really a little bit closer to it over there and, yes, they have considerable concerns about our upcoming election here in the US and what that might mean for US-European trade relations, not to mention defense PACs and all that stuff.

Ted Stank: 13:00

Yeah, you know, one of the things we didn't bring up in our earlier economic update was all this talk about tariffs. Regardless of who wins in November, it's very likely that tariffs are going to go up, certainly with trade with China, but probably also likely with our European partners.

Tom Goldsby: 13:15

That's right. And meanwhile didn't you just observe I'm looking in some of your notes here imports are way up from Asia and China, right, and do you think maybe that's getting a little bit ahead of any prospective tariffs that could come?

Ted Stank: 13:29

And I think again, love to get Martha's take on this, but I think it's largely because of the strength of the dollar right now.

Tom Goldsby: 13:36

Yeah yeah, that's true too. I found myself having a really nice multi-course meal and getting the check and being pleasantly surprised. I can't recall the last time that happened stateside or beyond.

Ted Stank: 13:47

I can't recall the last time that happened stateside or beyond Pivoting a little bit. One of the things that we've noticed I certainly have noticed over my many years in supply chain, as I look out over the crowd at both our supply chain forum but also, in most particular, at our leadership group, our executive advisory board has been the increasing gender diversity among our senior leaders of our partner organizations. Just looking through the news again, volvo Cars just released that they promoted Francesca Gamboni as their chief supply chain officer and we're seeing that increasingly in our partner groups as we bring Martha Buffington in. Martha is chief procurement officer for SC Johnson, one of our really really good partners, long-term partners that we do a lot of different things with, and one of the things I'd love to get Martha's take on is not only her perspectives on leadership in general, but also her perspectives on leadership as a woman rising through the ranks and now holding a very senior leadership position. Martha, welcome to our podcast. Great to have you.

Martha Buffington: 14:50

Hey Ted, Hi Tom, Thanks for having me.

Tom Goldsby: 14:52

It's great to have you, martha. We've known each other a long time, since we were just kids, in this field. You had a long career at Coca-Cola before becoming chief procurement officer there at SC Johnson. I think there was a stop elsewhere in between, but again, really great to have you and we do look to you as a rising star in supply chain. And so if we could take up that question that's Ted posed to you just a moment ago in terms of kind of how you see you know from the perspective of your career and here we are, 2024 and what it means to be a senior leader in supply chain and a woman as a senior leader, I'd love to hear what you have to say.

Martha Buffington: 15:35

Thanks, yes, early on I learned from you and your other colleagues at the supply chain forums is a great way to learn as you get your career started in supply chain. I love supply chain. I tell everybody it's a fabulous career. It's so diverse, there's so many different aspects to it and now these days, after COVID, right, supply chain just has a stronger and stronger seat at the table, as does procurement. And I've seen that happen as well Because, as you said, I started my career for over 20 years at Coca-Cola, worked all across the supply chain, worked as chief procurement officer of a large division.

Martha Buffington: 16:14

Then I went to Europe and I worked at a company called DSM, where I was also the CPO, and it's a global health and nutrition company. So I got the chance to live and work in Europe throughout COVID in fact, and now I'm back at SC Johnson being Chief Procurement Officer here. So I've really seen how supply chain has changed across the years, how procurement has changed in this new post-COVID era. It's very different, much broader remit for all of us and stronger seat at the table, and we're really right in the middle of everything companies are dealing with both top line and bottom line. Exciting time to be in this field and thanks for having me today.

Ted Stank: 16:59

Great to have you with us, martha. So you've seen a few different companies with probably very different company cultures. Certainly Coca-Cola, a large, a giant publicly traded company. Then you've been with a European company and now you're with a company with private ownership, which makes that kind of different, even though it's extremely large as well. It's got to be one of the largest privately held companies in the US. How do you navigate these different cultures, given the different perspectives on corporate culture across these different countries companies you've been part of?

Martha Buffington: 17:33

Well, you're right, ted, they were all very different and I think that's something it's really important for everyone to learn in their career. How do you navigate these cultural changes when you switch companies, because it can be kind of deceiving. You know, I went from a big household name corporation and I knew how everything worked at Coca-Cola after 20 years there. I knew so many people, I knew how things worked, I knew the culture. And when I went to DSM in Europe I was a bit deceived because in the Netherlands they speak English and procurement's procurement. I knew what I wanted to accomplish in the procurement organization and I just didn't probably take as much time as I should have to sort of rebuild all those relationships, rebuild up trust with all my stakeholders before trying to drive a procurement transformation.

Martha Buffington: 18:29

So when I came back to the States, to SC Johnson, I tried not to make that mistake again. You know, cultural differences are real and they're important and, like you said, being at a privately held company, our point of view is a lot longer term than public companies and that means sometimes decisions get made differently than they would have in my past roles. So really learn from my experience, learn from my mistakes, you know. Take the time to understand your corporate culture, whether it's you know, international culture, like being in the Netherlands, or it's a different industry, or it's private versus public. But take the time to learn that culture and really get your feet under you before you really try to drive a transformation, so that that transformation really fits the needs and the culture of the company.

Ted Stank: 19:25

Have you purposely tried to find mentors to help you do that? You know, just say, hey, I can do this or I can do that. What's normal around here?

Martha Buffington: 19:33

Absolutely so. Actually, when I came to SC Johnson, some of the real senior executives really took me under their wing and helped me onboard. Here I mean, in fact, a funny story. My first week I started in the middle of January, there was a snowstorm and I couldn't get to the office and I was supposed to meet the senior vice president of R&D that day. Well, she went out of her way to meet me at a restaurant near my house so that I didn't have to drive all the way into the office, and then we spent a couple hours in a snowstorm really getting to know each other, and from then on she's been a great mentor. So things like that, when people go out of their way, it really means a lot and that helps you.

Tom Goldsby: 20:18

Wow, that's awesome. And, as you point out, it was January of 2022 when you started with SCJ. Again, you were making the return from your assignment in Europe and starting a new company in a new location, and I'm just curious about kind of understanding that culture. And I'm just curious about kind of understanding that culture. It sounds as though there were some significant individuals there that were very helpful at kind of accelerating that, despite, you know, we're talking snowstorms in the upper Midwest, which are quite real Ted and I can attest to that but also, you know, coming into this new organization in the throes of pandemic in January 2022, and were you reporting to the office at that time, or was there some hybrid approach or how was that being managed?

Martha Buffington: 21:01

So SC Johnson believes that we're better together and we have a approach where we're in the office together four days a week and you can float your one day of teleworking a week and actually I love it. I mean to actually be here in the office. I can walk out and talk to anybody and everyone in my organization, I can go to the building next door for meetings and we're all really there in person together. It's great. Of course, we're a global company, so I have lots of calls early, you know early and late, and we have virtual folks on calls all the time. We work in a hybrid way, just like everybody else, but in general, the people who work in my building are here four days a week and it's really a refreshing change after being stuck at home in the Netherlands for 18 months.

Ted Stank: 21:52

By the way, for our listeners who are not familiar, sc Johnson is headquartered in Wisconsin, so snowstorms in January are probably something that's probably part of the culture that you have to get used to, right, martha?

Martha Buffington: 22:04

Yeah, everybody comes to the office even if it's snowing. I'm used to being in Atlanta, where if there's snow, you do not drive.

Tom Goldsby: 22:12

Well, martha, as you point out, you've come up through supply chain. I had a lot of different roles at Coca-Cola perhaps the world's biggest brand and again, that's where I got to know you and it's been great to witness your achievements and progress, not only with that organization but the others with which you work. And what would you consider some of the key qualities to your success? What is it that you have kind of pushed yourself to do and maybe look to others to kind of help you to achieve that success?

Martha Buffington: 22:46

I think effective leadership is effective leadership, right, no matter if you're a man or you're a woodman or you're a woodman. But as I was coming up through the ranks, really, I was always watching mentors, watching women, watching men learning what they did, learning those leadership skills. I was always studying leadership. I was always paying attention to good leadership characteristics and you know, as I've gotten up to more senior executive ranks, it's been interesting to see the differences. They're much more subtle now in terms of the difference between men and women and leadership styles and stuff.

Martha Buffington: 23:26

But I had a really funny experience when I was in the Netherlands talking to the CEO. He's now retired, but you know we were talking about my career and leadership and I asked him what does good leadership look like and who should I role model there at the company? And he rattled off all the women in leadership and never mentioned the men, which was kind of interesting. And when we got talking about it he was trying to tell me that for a woman in leadership, you need to be balanced, you need to be assertive yet nurturing right, you need to be confident but not overly aggressive. You need to be capable but also you know nice. So I got thinking about that and I felt like this is really a double standard, and I even ran across the Harvard Business Review article at the time.

Martha Buffington: 24:21

It was called the double bind, and women are expected to have all these balanced characteristics and you know, people don't ask if well, was the man nice? Was he too assertive or too aggressive, and is he mentoring and is he developing people and things you know? Yet women are expected to do that and at first it really bothered me, but the more I realized you know what these are the characteristics of really great leaders, no matter if they're men or women. And so I just continue to try to hone and drive and improve my leadership skills across the spectrum and to be balanced and be authentic, because you get tripped up if you try to be somebody else and someone you're not. I think that's the biggest takeaway as I've evolved in my career that it's not a man and male-female thing, it's are you a great leader or not? And how are you honing those capabilities and are you being authentic?

Ted Stank: 25:20

Yeah, I know, in 2024, certainly what you described as that CEO saying to you is what I would want my leadership to be. I would hope that the days of the Theory X screaming at people to get work done and threatening to fire them other than maybe if you're in a private company, I'll say I doubt Elon Musk is going to listen to our podcast. So maybe somebody like Elon Musk, but I would hope that that kind of a leader is not promoted to senior leadership levels. Although you read in the headlines all the time people that are in positions, particularly in certain industries that makes you scratch your head and say people that are in positions, particularly in certain industries.

Tom Goldsby: 25:57

That makes you scratch your head and say, how did they get here? But I love that notion of authenticity and I think integrity that goes right there, hand in hand, and I think that's great advice for all of us is to be our authentic selves. And you know, so often I've found myself wondering what should I do in a situation, and that's as opposed to what do others expect me to do in that situation? Right, and I usually find out. If I can answer that first question, I'll be okay. Right, it's my authentic self coming forward. And how do you work with others in your organization? Then, again, as you've become a more senior leader in the organization, you now have that opportunity to mentor others and to bring people into your organization, and it's probably a very sizable procurement organization that you have there at SCJ. Can you talk a little bit about how you work with others now that you find yourself in that senior leadership role and how you empower others?

Martha Buffington: 26:54

Sure, tom, it's definitely something that's important as a leader is to empower others and help them develop. And when I think back to sort of the hardest transitions in my career, it was that transition from either individual contributor to manager or from manager to leader. And those transition points. When you're in them, sometimes you don't know you're in them and you don't realize why am I having the hardest time making the jump Right At this point in my career. I've been successful all along. Why can I not make that jump to the next level and become a people manager? Or why can't I make that jump to more of the C-suite, executive-ish kind of roles?

Martha Buffington: 27:36

So realize first of all, those are big transition points and I try to help coach and mentor my team through those transition points. And once you realize you're in that transition point and once you realize that the skills you use to get you here are not the skills that will be useful getting you there. You use to get you here are not the skills that will be useful getting you there, then you're open to some self-reflection and some development and growth and coaching. And so that's when I give people articles, I suggest books, I tell them some of my experiences and I help coach them through these transition points. So I think that as long as you realize that you're going through them and you're open to growing because I do see people get stuck I see that they're so good at what they do in their current role they cannot be open to changing and behaving in new ways for the next level of leadership.

Ted Stank: 28:36

You know, martha, this strikes me as SCJ has been one of the great partner companies that over the years has sent a number of your rising leaders to our executive MBA program in global supply chain, and the specific aim of that program is to help people make that transition from functional leadership to higher level business leadership.

Ted Stank: 28:57

And at the end of this one year process we always ask them on the last day what is one of the biggest things you've learned? And almost universally students will say first of all it's financial skills and getting really adept at being comfortable with financials. But the other thing they say is they have been drinking from the fire hose so much over the year trying to keep their job going and keep up with this rigorous MBA program that they had to learn to delegate and empower their teams more. And lo and behold, when they go away for nine days, they're currently our current year group is currently in Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam for the next nine days is currently in Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam for the next nine days, and business goes on right and you expect them to be able to continue to meet when the ball comes in the air and it's their teams doing it, and they all express positive surprise that their teams were able to handle things well. Any comments on that?

Martha Buffington: 29:53

That's a great example, and you're right, because when you're an individual contributor, you are trying to be driven yourself with your own accomplishments, and that mindset is hard to break because now you've got to delegate to people and have success through other people, and you're doing this for the success of the business, not for your own personal career growth. So that's a really important mindset shift to make, and it's you're there for the company, you're there to drive results for the company, and when you're in a management role, you have to have broader impact across the business. And so you've got to empower your team. You've got to have people the right people on your team who know what the vision is, the objective, they know their roles and they're self-motivated to get out and accomplish what they need to accomplish.

Martha Buffington: 30:55

Delegating just feels very tactical or transactional. So I suggest that people should really think about empowerment more than delegating. I mean it's your role, then, to remove barriers for them, to help develop them, give them exposure, give them coaching and then let them succeed. And you know, eventually that's going to give you way more personal satisfaction than you achieving greatness on a project you were running yourself in the past, once you become a leader of people and you're giving back to helping people's careers advance, then it's much more fulfilling, even.

Ted Stank: 31:36

I love that delineation between empowerment and delegation. That's great. I'm going to use that going forward.

Tom Goldsby: 31:42

Hey, I think it'd be a mistake if we didn't give Martha a chance to opine a little bit herself on the field and Ted and I had that opening stanza there. And, martha, I think you're listening in on some of the things that we're seeing. I'm curious about things that you're paying attention to as the role of a chief procurement officer for a major consumer goods company. What are some of the things you're really paying attention to and maybe a little bit sensitive to what's going on in the future?

Martha Buffington: 32:11

Well, you mentioned a lot of them. One is really the broad theme of risk, whether it's transportation risk and rail strikes or port strikes or Red Sea crisis. Transportation is one kind of risk. Tariffs are another kind of risk. Regulatory risks are another, especially in Europe, putting in a lot of Green New Deal things that are regulating chemicals and a lot of sustainability requirements are coming into play.

Martha Buffington: 32:40

You know chemicals and a lot of sustainability requirements are coming into play, so risk is very important to me. It's something I look at a lot Also, just the regular economic. You know supply, demand drivers going on. You know we're a home cleaning products company generally, and so we're buying a lot of chemicals and packaging and all of those industries have their own unique dynamics and so really truly understanding them and getting underneath the real drivers, the cost drivers, is very important, and forming those strong supplier relationships so that we have supply continuity is also important.

Martha Buffington: 33:18

That's the blocking and tackling of procurement. And then, on top of that is how do you build capability of your talent and how do you get these new digital tools to make people more efficient and effective? Because you're always going to need people to do procurement, of course, but I want them spending their time on the intellectual and the strategic, the collaborative, the curious things that they should be doing to drive our business forward, not the blocking and tackling of procurement, not the making sure they file the contract on the right data, the right insights, the right should cost models, the right market intelligence to make really good decisions for the company. So digital talent, development, risk and market dynamics, I'd say, are the big themes that I'm looking at.

Tom Goldsby: 34:14

That's a good rundown and that just occurs to me. Those are the things that we need to be bringing to our curriculum in full force, right? I think we're doing a good job across many of those, but it's always great to hear from the likes of Martha to underscore all that.

Ted Stank: 34:27

Absolutely, absolutely. Martha, we want to be very respectful of your time. We know you got a lot going on here. It is Monday morning in particular, so you're coming into all the new things that have piled up over the weekend, I'm sure. Thanks so much for being with us. We really enjoy our time. Hopefully see you at the next advisory board meeting in Knoxville in August. And with that let's wrap up this episode. Tom, you got any parting comments?

Tom Goldsby: 34:52

Again good to be back together, and we've got a great summer of podcast recording in store. We're keen to get other senior leaders like Martha, as well as other excellent voices from our field, and so just want to tease that we've got a great summer ahead. We're already starting to book for fall, so we've got a good, robust roster of guests coming up, some perhaps that you've heard of and others that you haven't. So it's going to be really fun to unveil those sessions for you, and we're just getting ready to have graduation here at Rocky Top, so we're going to be sending a whole new batch of UT alums out in the world, and I always implore them to use that knowledge for good, not evil, and so we're hopeful that they're going to do just that. But an exciting time here at Rocky Top.

Martha Buffington: 35:37

Great to talk to you, Paul. Thanks for having me today.

Tom Goldsby: 35:44

Thank you, Martha. With that, we'll go ahead and put a wrap on this episode and just remind folks that you can reach us here at the University of Tennessee Global Supply Chain Institute at gsciutkedu. Until next time.

Introduction: 35:53

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 at utkedu. 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.