Stop, Collaborate and Listen

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“Where can we slot him in?”

 

I’ve heard this question many times over the past few months, in the many meetings, emails and chats exchanged leading up to the 2017 SCMAP Supply Chain Conference, which we finally wrapped up just over a week ago.

 

It was an interesting question. We had our eyes not just on speakers who played a role in the supply chain industry – the usual mix of people working in logistics, shipping and warehousing, and perhaps those in government whose policies played a role in their work. We had in our minds people known for managing talent, known for moving technology, known for their keen sense of the business environment. Perhaps we were consciously stepping up a level, or perhaps we had wild dreams in our heads.

 

“Where can we slot him in?”

 

Now all that is over, I can say— without being biased—that this year’s conference is our best ever. It’s not so much about the new format we’ve tried out (although undeniably the energy was different—and fantastic—once we opened the floor to questions and we got our speakers feeding off each other’s expertise) but about the speakers we’ve attracted, and more importantly, how they have painted a fuller picture of the supply chain industry that not even we expected to see.

 

Our keynote session laid the foundations, with a reality check from Peter Wallace of the Wallace Business Forum followed by (hopefully achievable) dreams and plans from DTI undersecretary Ruth Castelo and DPWH undersecretary Ma. Catalina Cabral, showing that while we are in a good (and interesting) position these days, we can still move forward.

 

This view was solidified with our panel on connectivity, which isn’t just all about our government policies (although they do enable a lot) nor our seaports and airports (although they play a huge role) but also on the small things that make quality of life better for Filipinos. Speaking of quality of life, the panel on talent development was a hit, not just because of our speakers—PMAP president Mon Segismundo and renowned business coach Jim Lafferty —but because it presented an oft-unseen face of supply chain: the importance of the people working within it.

 

The following day’s session on customer satisfaction was where Royal Cargo’s Michael Raeuber and Rustan Supercenters’ Irwin Lee discussed roadblocks and challenges to serving customers as well as opportunities for improvement. That dovetailed nicely with our panel featuring top supply chain managers: the insights from Nestlé’s Luca Fichera, Johnson & Johnson’s Trixie Cambel and Mead Johnson’s Tonet Rivera showed the full spectrum of how we in supply chain can level up in the face of shifting trends and new movements.

 

Finally, our panel on technology showcased not just the possibility that new advances offer us, but how they enable us to ultimately do our work better. There’s always a fear, not entirely unfounded, that technology will disrupt the way we work—but the panel showed that, if done right, we can “tame” technology to make it work for all of us. (It does help that delegates were cooing at the presentation by Google country head Ken Lingan, like kids finding out what our new toys can do.)

 

Ultimately, the conference’s main message is this: we all have to collaborate. It’s not just in the way manufacturers and retailers work on new product releases, or in how logistics people contribute to government policies. It’s in breaking down the silos and taking the time to understand what everybody has to offer. Supply chain is such a big, wild thing that we sometimes fail to take the time to see every aspect of it and how they all work together. We do know that the chain breaks when one of the links fail—but that’s where it ends. We hope that with the conference we showed the many possibilities for supply chain if we all work together, better, deeper. We can truly level up and go world class.

 

To end, I would like to thank everybody who made the 2017 SCMAP Supply Chain Conference possible: our speakers, sponsors, partners, friends and delegates (all 350 of them—our most ever) as well as the SCMAP boards from the national organization and the regional chapters for their support. Personally, it was fun watching all this unfold from our offices to the tech booth inside the conference venue, and I look forward to next year.

 

Henrik Batallones is the marketing and communications executive of SCMAP. A former board director, he is also editor-in-chief of the organization’s official publication, Supply Chain Philippines. More information about SCMAP is available at scmap.org.