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: 0:28

Hello everyone and welcome to Tennessee on Supply Chain Management podcast. This is season two, episode 10. Coming to you from Knoxville, tennessee, it's June of 2024, and I'm here with my good friend, tom Goldsby. Got a lot of things going on in the last few weeks. Tom is our world traveler. I think, if you recall last podcast, he'd just gotten back from Italy. I just have a hard time keeping track of him. I have become the cranky old man that just wants to hang out in my attic and not go anywhere. So we're going to do that for you this time, tom.

Ted Stank: 1:02

A lot of things going on economically, all kinds of new statistics coming out, wall Street gets all worked up over it, lots of media coverage, markets go up and down and nothing changes. So here we are, I think, about two years into reporting on these economic statistics. Labor report still remains strong, we keep creating jobs, wages are going up, Inflation is mixed, depending on what you look at, and the Fed keeps saying, well, maybe we're going to lower interest rates and then they go. Well, not so fast, but the economy just keeps clicking along. What are your thoughts on that?

Tom Goldsby: 1:40

Well, you're right, ted, and it seems like, episode in, episode out, we kind of take a look at the numbers and we've called it out. Hey, I'm an economist, I get pretty geeked out and excited about this stuff. But you're right, I mean, from a supply chain standpoint, we just keep persevering, Right, whether the numbers are favorable or not so favorable. You know, it seems like to your point. You know the economy is doing pretty well and growing A lot of speculation about the Fed actions and all that. But before we set sail on this podcast, it was like, hey, why don't we change it up a little bit and we'll talk about a few key issues, maybe, maybe a little bit closer to home in the world of logistics and supply chain, and we've got some great guests we've got to bring in today too. So, without further ado, why don't we go ahead and jump on a couple of items?

Ted Stank: 2:28

Okay, so a couple things I've been tracking. First of all, this week that Baltimore port cleared its channel. The channel is fully open now. So a couple of months after that terrible, tragic accident, baltimore is getting back to being fully back online. I think that's pretty big news, particularly for East Coast logistics operations. A couple of other things I'm tracking dock workers, east Coast longshore contract talks before they've even started, serious negotiations have been called off, mainly related to the issue of automation in ports.

Ted Stank: 3:03

Boy, I have some pessimistic thoughts on this. You know, the port rankings just came out too, of productivity rankings for 2023. The highest ranked port was our friends down at Charleston, south Carolina. They were the highest ranked US port. They were ranked 53rd in the world. That was the highest US ranked productive port, and a lot of it has to do. You know, I'm a child of a union worker. My dad was a blue-collar construction union worker, and so I have some empathy with union workers. But, man, we need to overcome this issue about automation and productivity and I'm not sure where we go with it.

Ted Stank: 3:41

Certainly, if we had an East Coast and Gulf Coast port strike, by the way, the timing of it would be shortly before the November election, so there's going to be a lot of political attention on what happens there. Don't be surprised if the federal government jumps in if things look really bleak, mainly because of election season. So some interest there. Port volumes are up, by the way. They're up almost 12% year on year. So freight's coming back to the US probably will start having an impact on domestic freight demand as well. There's been a lot of supply stripped out of the domestic freight market and so as demand starts coming back and we have to start moving containers and trailers around, we might start seeing freight rates coming back up again.

Tom Goldsby: 4:24

You mentioned the port rankings and I like to bring those up in class. You know, I think what do they rate? Like 370 ports around the world and routinely LA and Long Beach, which, by the way, are our two busiest ports, combined for about 40% of US imports traditionally, and they're right there at the bottom, 369, 370. So it's great to hear Charleston coming in. Ports of South Carolina coming in at 53. That's one of our highest rankings we've seen of a US port in a long time.

Ted Stank: 4:57

But shout out to Barbara Melvin, by the way.

Tom Goldsby: 4:59

Absolutely, UT alum Barbara Melvin out there and previous podcast guests. But we do need to bring US ports into the 1990s, don't we? I mean, with regard to technology, yeah, Dare, I say maybe the 2000s. We're getting left behind there and there's just no doubt. I mean, last summer was tagged the summer of strikes and it carried on into the fall with UAW and everyone you know seeing gains right, I mean labor's seen tremendous gains. So I just think about how much attention we've directed toward those West Coast ports. We know, every five years there's going to be some disruption and anxiety, ringing of hands, gnashing of teeth it's expected. But the East Coast and Gulfport Coast have been pretty amicable, if you will, in comparison. I think a lot of folks have been kind of caught off guard and we do depend a great deal on those East Coast ports.

Ted Stank: 5:54

Yeah, you know, especially as freight has shifted somewhat from from West Coast to East Coast with the new Panama Canal locks, which are now fully open again, by the way. New Panama Canal locks, which are now fully open again, by the way, we've talked about them in previous podcasts, but they are allowing fully deep draft vessels through because they've had more rain than they expected. So, you know, we saw what about a 5% shift, I think, from West Coast to East Coast and Gulf Coast ports with the new Panama Canal locks. So, yeah, they're pretty critical to the commerce flow in the US. Time to pay attention.

Ted Stank: 6:25

And this issue of automation we've touched on this podcast about the issue of labor scarcity and how, as we move further into this century, we're going to have more labor scarcity. By the way, we'll touch on this topic later in this podcast. You know the issue of automation is something that management and labor need to get their arms around. And how do we automate to increase productivity given a scenario rolling forward of less and less labor availability? And I just think it's something that neither side of labor or management can dig their heels in and say we can't do anything about. So, tom, your most recent trip was to Sanibel Florida for Supply Chain Leaders in Action and I know you participated in a couple of presentations. I think you chaired a panel with some interesting folks. Tell me what the buzz was down there in Sanibel Florida.

Tom Goldsby: 7:17

Yeah, no certainly I've been associated with this group. Amy Thorne does such a great job with Supply Chain Leaders in Action. I've been associated with her and her organization for about 25 years now, if you can believe it. One of the longest, oldest relationships I have is with that organization. And we got together in Sanibel, which, by the way, is the first time I'd been there since Hurricane Ian struck in the fall of 22. We had just met in the summer of 22. And I did get over to the island to go check it out and, my goodness, the rebuild effort that's taking place up and down that island is immense.

Tom Goldsby: 7:51

But with regard to the conference, fantastic set of presentations and some really good immersive experiences too, which you don't always get at a conference. But right at the outset I'll share about my panel. I was fortunate to host folks from Procter Gamble, lenovo and Descartes Systems and we were talking about elevating supply chain excellence and really what we're trying to hit on are ways to create value beyond productivity, delivering on the bill of rights right product, right place, right time and all that. And we talked about trying to enhance agility and innovation and even the company's reputation through supply chain prowess. And three of those corporate partners stepped up and had great examples about ways that they're innovating their way to value creation. Some really cool things, in fact. Procter Gamble this is mind-blowing. But they're selling their supply chain IP to non-competitors and they're regarded year in, year out, recognized as a master of supply chain by Gartner, because every year they were top one, two, three and so now they're selling that capability through partnership with EY, and Lenovo is doing a lot of great things. They've started a 3PL in consumer electronics. They've also. This is fascinating, but they sell access to their facilities to suppliers who want to come in and have that touch with a critical customer. And then I was fortunate to have Chris Jones of DeKarp Systems on the venue as well and he spoke of some really cool innovations around dynamic pricing, which is kind of a hot button issue out there with a lot of companies, the fact that you know surge pricing, if you will, around logistics provisions, and what he presented that was so fascinating is how customers actually react favorably. That was so fascinating is how customers actually react favorably, the sense of control that they have with scheduling services. If they're willing to pay a premium to get that primo service, hey, it's available, it's on the table. If they want to economize, that's another option. So that was a really great panel.

Tom Goldsby: 9:58

But I mentioned the hands-on activities. One thing we got to do was some war gaming. We had a retired admiral from the Navy you'll recognize and appreciate that, ted who came in and presented a scenario that we worked through in small group and large groups. That was fascinating. He talked about war gaming in the Department of Defense and the psychology around that and how we need to be prepared to deal with potentially catastrophic situations. And then, in another really cool demonstration we had, someone from Lyric took us through a hands-on demonstration of AI for predictive purposes and it was really fun. We brought our laptops along and she took us through some data visualizations and basic machine learning to do some forecasting and build out some other models. So it was a really great two and a half days down in Santa Fe.

Ted Stank: 10:50

That's very cool, tom, I love that, and you talked about some issues of robotics and AI, so we get back to that. Yeah, that too. The automation topic right Great, I love that idea of both demand-based pricing. Again, talk about something in the news New York City was considering doing this congestion pricing to drive into Manhattan. It was very controversial, so they just called it off.

Tom Goldsby: 11:12

The governor stepped in, didn't she, and said now we can't go, that's a bridge too far right now.

Ted Stank: 11:16

One of the challenges of that was the logistic standpoint of how do companies in Manhattan get resupplied if you're going to charge a $15 upcharge?

Tom Goldsby: 11:26

You know it's funny. Back in my MBA days at the University of Kentucky, I was so fascinated in economics and transportation I did my master's thesis on congestion pricing and that was 1993. And I said it's coming. Here we are 30 years later.

Ted Stank: 11:41

The other thing that stands out to me about what you talked about was that you had a Navy Admiral there. So, to my good friend Jeff DeLulo, note that it was not an Army General. So Navy at the forefront of supply chain best practice, that's right. Hey, tom, let's bring our good friends in who are going to be our guests today. Let's introduce Dr Dan Pellethy, professor of Practice here at University of Tennessee, and Joe Buckley, who's our director of executive and non-degree education in supply chain management, here with us in our Global Supply Chain Institute. Guys, welcome. Great to have you on board.

Dan Pellathy: 12:16

Great to be here. Thanks, guys.

Ted Stank: 12:18

Hey guys, Happy to be along you know we talked about, you know, some foreshadowing with the labor issue, and one of our trending topics for a long time now has been demographic situations and the reduction of labor availability and therefore talent management and talent development becomes really important.

Ted Stank: 12:38

You guys are at the forefront of some of our big talent development efforts here at University of Tennessee Supply Chain. You've worked in developing programs for non-degree in supply chain leadership, in supply chain planning, supply chain finance Dan, you're working. I think now the next one is going to be a procurement academy. Right. Companies are starting to take very seriously not just recruitment but also retention of talent and development of talent, because it's going to be one of the big competitive areas of the next many decades. So we'd love to have you guys give us some of your thoughts on the companies you're talking to the HR folks, what they're thinking about in terms of talent development and some of the things you're working on on the UT side too, to be able to deliver on that. So I'd love to hear your thoughts on some of the things you're hearing from some of our partners.

Joe Buckley: 13:34

Sure, ted, I'll take a lead on it. It was really. I've been in this role for several years now and it was really interesting to me in talking with a lot of our form partners in particular that while they're very much interested in developing their employees, this has almost become an expectation of employees that they're being invested in and developed. So these programs have become as much a retention tool for the organizations we're working with as it has a retention tool for the organizations we're working with as it has a development tool. So I was really surprised by that. At the end of one of our recent programs that we've done for a large retailer, we surveyed the participants on how impactful these programs were in them deciding to stay and continue employment with their current employer, and it was high. 90% were strongly agree that these were the types of things they were looking for.

Dan Pellathy: 14:51

Wow that's interesting, dan manage what that talent's expectations were in terms of advancement and, like Joe was saying, being invested in, and then also the flexibility that comes with those work modality changes, work from home or kind of partially work from home. It's created a lot of challenges for organizations and I don't think anybody has really figured out kind of a silver bullet for this yet, but they are working on it. There are a lot of different approaches that companies are taking. One of the big challenges out there, I think, for companies is there's a serious mid-level manager crunch. It's a serious thing.

Dan Pellathy: 15:29

Mid-level managers are tasked with doing their job but also bringing in new talent and then also trying to manage up to senior leaders who may or may not be as quick to pivot in terms of thinking about these issues. So for mid-level managers it's a really tough job, really tough going. I think that's part of the reason why the kinds of offerings that Joe was talking about, the kind of academies that we produce here at University of Tennessee, have become such an important tool in the tool belt of these folks as they try to think through how do we develop our talent, keep our talent and make sure that those folks have the capabilities to take advantage of the advances that Tom was talking about, right. That needs to be developed so that folks can actually take advantage of the advances that Tom was talking about.

Ted Stank: 16:20

right, that needs to be developed so that folks can actually take advantage of those advances. It has always struck me that organizations struggle with getting people from line-level operations into mid-level management. You know, we make the assumption that if you're really good at doing your job, then you're also going to be really good at managing people, and we don't give them the skills or training that they need to make them good managers right.

Joe Buckley: 16:42

Ted, you hit the nail on the head. I just had a discussion earlier today with one of our corporate partners and brought me back to my age 27 when I had my first management opportunity. And I really didn't know at that time that I was ill-prepared for that opportunity because all of the hard skills that I was really good at that got me that opportunity were not the soft skills that I needed to be successful at a leader. So we've built some programming that marries hard skill development with soft skill development. That is really geared towards preparing that young leader to be successful with the right skill set.

Tom Goldsby: 17:24

Joe, can you kind of describe one of these academies? And again, we started off with the Supply Chain Management Leadership Academy and Ted and I have been co-leading those with your support over this past academic year and we hope to continue doing so into the indefinite future. But describe to our audience what we try to pack into 14 weeks of SCMLA.

Joe Buckley: 17:46

Sure. So just a quick history lesson what we're trying to accomplish here with talent development. A little over five years ago, we launched our online master's program, which has been very well received and gave us a really high quality master's in supply chain offering online first online program here at the university. So we've got a really nice degreed program for someone that wants to really invest heavily in their employees and their employees. Well, based on the success of that and the amount of work that we put into developing some high online educational opportunities, we've been setting up these individual academies and, in essence, you're getting the equivalent of a three-credit-hour master's class in a particular topic, the first of which, tom, you mentioned, was the SCM Leadership Academy.

Joe Buckley: 18:37

It's a 14-week journey end-to-end supply chain skills we talk about. What do we mean by end-to-end supply chain? What's a good end-to-end supply chain look like? What's the benefits that it brings to the organization? But we've also worked with our leadership team here at the Haslam College of Business to develop a soft skill journey that they go on. So when somebody comes out at the end of that 14 weeks, they have a very good understanding of basic end-to-end supply chain skills, as well as an understanding of their strengths and opportunities from a leadership perspective and hopefully helps them build themselves into a better leader, moving forward.

Dan Pellathy: 19:21

Yeah, I would emphasize too. Just going back to the point around, how do we transition someone from being kind of a line leader to a manager? There's a lot of strength in the kind of functional areas and in the kind of technical know-how in those functional areas and companies, but the end-to-end piece is oftentimes missing and it's difficult for folks to get trained in that on the job. And so one of the big things that these academies emphasize quite a bit is understanding that end-to-end piece, understanding where your role is within the larger picture, understanding how decisions that are made in your area affect other areas and are affected by other areas. I think that's a really critical piece moving folks from kind of being within their functional areas doing well there, to being able to then lead a larger group of potentially cross-functional individuals.

Ted Stank: 20:16

larger group of potentially cross-functional individuals. Hey, have you guys noticed that there's different expectations generationally? I'm an old boomer, right, and there were certain expectations and just ways that we looked at the world and I know that in many ways there's such differences with probably not so much with Gen X, tom, I'm going to glump you in with the old boomers now but certainly with millennials and Gen Zs. Do you see, in what you guys are offering and what you're teaching, differences in expectations for these kinds of skills, particularly soft skills, with those generations?

Joe Buckley: 20:51

You know, ted, I think a lot of the skills that we teach from a soft skill perspective work for. I can take some of us old guys that could use some of those skills as well. But you know, younger employees have definitely grown up differently than we, have maybe a little less face-to-face interaction, maybe the way they like to communicate from a technology perspective. You know, some of the skills that we focus on may be more beneficial for them because they've grown up in a different environment and may help with the development from that perspective. But as we work with participants, you can see a different level of comfort with online learning versus face-to-face. So yeah, we've had to adapt maybe a little bit on how we structure some of these programs to deliver the material.

Ted Stank: 21:40

So that's interesting, joe, and I do want to plumb into this a little bit more. I've been doing this for 30 some years and non-degree executive education when I started was you bring a class of 30, some people from a bunch of different companies, to a big campus. You know, when I started it was at Michigan State University. We did it here for a long time, and you bring them for three days or five days, you know, and they leave work and it's a deep immersion for that whole five day period and there was a lot of good that came out of it, a lot of networking and everything. But that's changed, right. I mean, from a delivery standpoint, what are you looking at now? From full versus part-time, online versus face-to-face, synchronous versus asynchronous?

Joe Buckley: 22:27

Yeah, it's a great point, Ted. There's definitely been a shift away from face-to-face multi-day programming, getting folks to get out of the office and come to Knoxville or for all of them to come to a central location and us to come to them for a four or five day programming. We're doing a lot less of that and a lot more of these online academies, which are much more flexible in delivery and, quite frankly, I think they're a better learning experience. You know, if you sit and have a 40-hour one-week lecture by day three, your sponge is pretty full. I think this allows us to deliver the content more in-depth over a longer period of time and in a more digestible format to the participant, and we're also finding that both a combination of synchronous and asynchronous material works really well.

Joe Buckley: 23:17

So you know, we have self-paced reading and video work and hands-on exercises and case studies that they can work on and then come together every couple of weeks for a couple of hours via Zoom with our subject matter experts to kind of tie it all together. It works really well and we've taken a lot of time to work with instructional design firms to build this for working professionals. So you know if you've got 15 or 30 minutes in your day. You can pick something up, get it done, learn from it and then go back to work and pick it up again a little later. So I think the retention of knowledge is better because we're not cramming it into such a small period of delivery, and so far things have been very well received.

Tom Goldsby: 24:01

What you're describing is what we call the prophecy of and around the shop.

Tom Goldsby: 24:05

You don't really have to sacrifice right.

Tom Goldsby: 24:07

You're able to offer this flexible learning opportunity with all the richness of what we used to have when we bring folks to campus which, by the way, we still do that if folks want to set that up and are so inclined. I'll just say, as an instructor in the Supply Chain Leadership Academy, it is some of the most fun as well that I have those two hours every two weeks. We get together the rich small group discussion, the large group discussion to talk about the topic du jour and, hey, the chance to collaborate with you, joe and Ted, in those sessions and you speak of the success of the Leadership Academy has led us to kind of round out the portfolio a little bit more. You mentioned the Finance Academy which we've been offering for the past year, and Dan will bring you in to talk about the Planning Academy that's going to have its maiden voyage this fall. But, joe, can you talk a little bit about that Finance Academy, the impetus for that focus on supply chain finance and what you try to accomplish with that program?

Joe Buckley: 25:06

Yeah, and first of all, tom, I'd like to be able to say that it's just.

Joe Buckley: 25:09

I'm a visionary when it comes to picking the next topic that will be popular, but that would be a lie.

Joe Buckley: 25:16

We're fortunate to have a large partnership with a lot of very strong companies and we rely a lot on their input as to what they're looking for to develop in their supply chain leaders.

Joe Buckley: 25:29

That led us to that initial Supply Chain Leadership Academy to focus on end-to-end skills and soft skills. The second academy we launched is a Supply Chain Management Finance Academy something near and dear to my heart, being the lone CPA on the supply chain faculty here. Really, this focuses on developing the financial acumen that our supply chain leaders need the ability to have a basic understanding of the financial statements, the importance of cash flow, the importance of capital allocation and management, really to understand how our day-to-day decisions in the supply chain are impacting those financial results. So we've launched that academy just about a year ago. It's been very well received. We had about 54 individuals in our most recent open enrollment. We're doing some custom work with organizations in this space, with larger groups, and that kind of led us to our third academy, which is the Supply Chain Management Planning Academy, which I'll turn it over to Dan to talk a little bit about.

Dan Pellathy: 26:36

Planning Academy, which I'll turn it over to Dan to talk a little bit about. Yeah, so again, I think part of the strength here is the kind of UT model where we really source the ideas of what we're going to do in terms of our next Planning Academy. We really source those ideas from our corporate partners. So the planning base came out very strongly as a place where there's a lot of need for talent development. So we developed the Planning Academy which will be launched in the fall, to really upskill planners and again to kind of get them that end-to-end perspective and to see themselves within a kind of larger planning process. That's going to be, I think, an exciting offering and we've had some good engagement on that already.

Dan Pellathy: 27:20

Just going back to the kind of generational differences for a second right, I think flexibility is going to be absolutely critical as we move forward. I think that the younger generation has grown up with the expectation that they have a wide range of options. They can pick and choose from things. They can do things online, synchronous, asynchronous, face-to-face. So I think that's going to be part of keeping up with that generation is maintaining that flexibility and also allowing them to move forward quickly. I think that the generation coming up has a pretty strong expectation that they are going to advance quickly. I think that the generation coming up has a pretty strong expectation that they are going to advance quickly. They have pretty strong skepticism about the pay your dues model and again these kinds of academies that allow folks to move from strength to strength. They're going to move from area to area and be able to kind of continually grow. I think that's a very appealing model for folks who are looking to really upskill quickly, advance themselves quickly in an area.

Tom Goldsby: 28:24

Hey, I'll just speak on behalf of Generation X, if I can do that. I like flexibility too, so I mean, these academies are not just for the younger folk, for sure.

Ted Stank: 28:34

Hey, also, just pay your dues, goldsby.

Tom Goldsby: 28:38

Just a point of clarification. We mentioned that the Leadership Academy is 14 weeks and, joe, how long is the Finance Academy? And Dan, the Planning Academy?

Joe Buckley: 28:47

Both the Finance and Planning Academies are eight weeks in length, so a little bit shorter, a little more condensed. We packed a lot into that leadership academy with multiple topics, both soft skill and hard skill development, so that one's a little bit longer. But they're all built off of a three credit hour course that you would take here in our master's program, so you're getting a really deep dive into these subject matter areas and correct me if I'm wrong, but successful completion of these academy courses can lead to credit toward that MS degree program.

Tom Goldsby: 29:24

Is that right?

Joe Buckley: 29:25

Yes, yes, so the well. It is a non-degree program that doesn't transfer to other universities. We do have an arrangement here with our online program. Who has looked at the curriculum and signed off that this would count as a waiver for one of those 10 courses in our master's program. So it's a great way, I think, to come in test our online model here If you're thinking about going on to that MS program a relatively low cost way to kick the tires, so to speak. Yeah.

Tom Goldsby: 29:56

And you get 10% toward earning that degree, right? If you have one of 10 courses could be knocked out right there by virtue of attending the academy, Exactly Okay, so we've got these three academies. All are going to be offered in the fall, correct?

Dan Pellathy: 30:11

Yes, Leadership finance planning and there's some more in the development. Just to kind of tempt people what's awaiting us down the road to strengthen their procurement teams, not just in terms of driving cost savings although that's always going to be on the table but really driving value to customers, and so a lot of good conversations around what some of the content in that's going to be. So look forward to maybe an announcement around that during the spring 2025 UT forum and we'll get some content out to folks at that time.

Tom Goldsby: 31:01

And just one more thing there's also the opportunity for corporate partners to develop custom versions of these. Is that right?

Dan Pellathy: 31:07

Yes, got to be an all of the above model, right, honestly, it's got to be all of the above. And as much as companies complain about the bureaucracy within their own companies, within their own organizations boy, higher ed has got its own bureaucracies and we've got to be flexible as well.

Joe Buckley: 31:26

And we even have our first custom planning academy in the works as we're finishing up the development of that program. So yeah, it's a really nice model. If somebody has a large group that they want to put through this curriculum, it's a little more cost effective doing it in a custom format but also allows us to tailor some of the content to either the company or the industry that they're in. Some of those live sessions will bring in their subject matter experts, depending on the topic, and can really relate the content from the course to what's going on at the organization and drive home some of those thoughts. So the custom models are they're a lot of fun to run, personally speaking, because you know we have those subject matter experts from the company to kind of work with and help deliver the message.

Joe Buckley: 32:22

But yeah, to Dan's point, we're pretty flexible here. We can do these in custom. We also run open enrollment leadership academy. We run spring and fall all of these in open enrollment. The Leadership Academy kicks off August 14th for its 14-week run, the Finance Academy starts September 9th and the Planning Academy open enrollment will start September 16th.

Tom Goldsby: 32:48

Excellent, and where could folks go if they want to learn more about these academies?

Joe Buckley: 32:52

Email Dan or myself. Our email address is under the faculty page or might be posted in this podcast somewhere.

Tom Goldsby: 33:00

We'll provide some links in the notes for sure, so folks can find you.

Joe Buckley: 33:04

That's good. Or we have a mailbox to our Global Supply Chain Institute, gsci. You can email that. All of those emails make their way to us, but happy to have a conversation with anyone who's interested in hearing more about talent development thoughts here at UT or any of these programs.

Ted Stank: 33:22

You know, as I listen to this conversation, one of the things that really strikes me is how the scope of skill sets that people need to be great supply chain managers has just continued to evolve. There was an earlier time that if we were talking about great skill sets for these kinds of programs, things like Leadership Academy and finance and planning would not be the first three things that you thought of for supply chain-oriented content. I think it's a real tribute to the work you all have done with our partners to try to figure out what are the skill sets that people need to become more effective managers have done with our partners to try to figure out what are the skill sets that people need to become more effective managers. So with that, guys, we really appreciate your time with us. Really great stuff going on.

Ted Stank: 34:04

This is, to me, forget an evolution in non-degree education. It's a revolution, probably yet another one of those trends that was coming prior to COVID, but COVID accelerated these kind of. I love, joe, your comment about let's be able to take learning in smaller bites. I have taught in those one week programs where you see on the afternoon of the third 10 hour day of people's eyes rolling back in their heads. That's a really good insight. Tom, you want to bring us home.

Tom Goldsby: 34:32

Yeah, I'll just encourage folks. You can find us at gsciutkedu. We love hearing from you, whether you're a friend or someone looking to become a friend. We look forward to hearing from you and I guess this puts a wrap on another episode and look forward to more good things coming, Great guests, the balance of summer. So with that we'll bid you adieu from Rocky Top.

Introduction: 34:55

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.