Category: Creative Solutions
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Express Gratitude Instead of Apologizing
In this season of gratitude here in the U.S., I’m reminded of one of the best pieces of professional advice I ever received: Don’t say “I’m sorry,” say, “Thank you.” The anecdotal wisdom is that women apologize more than men, but research shows it’s a little more complicated than that. Instead, women generally have a… Read more
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Supply Chain Disruption: Predicting Supplier Bad Days
The hot topic in supply chain for the last few years has been supply chain disruption. Supply Chain Brain’s annual supplier partnership publication is themed around disruption, everyone working anywhere in supply chain in 2021 remembers what working through disruption looks like, and continuing global conflicts impact everything from grain to nickel. Executive leadership teams… Read more
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Dirty Negotiation Tactics and How to Counter Them
Anyone who has been in multiple negotiations has dealt with dirty, hardball tactics. Maybe you’ve even used them yourself in an attempt to gain the upper hand. While related to negotiations focused on changing the rules, hardball tactics are in a little different category. Most importantly, hardball tactics are all about short-term gain with no… Read more
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Are Supply Chain Rebates Evil?
I first encountered supply chain rebates a few years into my supply chain career, and confess they baffled me. How could a savings mechanism where a supplier cut their customer a check retroactively ever be sustainable? Yet one of my suppliers was using them consistently, and successfully arguing for their value with my supervisor and… Read more
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C-Suite Smackdown Continued: Who Else Could Lead Your Supply Chain?
Continuing our conversation from last week, let’s talk about some of the less common spots a supply chain team can fit into an org chart. Last week we looked at having the supply chain leader report to the CEO, CFO, COO, CRO, and CAO. This week, let’s look at the Chief Lean/Optimization/Continuous Improvement Officer (CLO),… Read more
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Guide to Dubai for the Female Professional
Before I went to Dubai on a business trip last week, I went hunting for a “woman professional’s guide to Dubai” and turned up short. So after networking with a friend of a friend who had been to Dubai before the pandemic and gathering my own data, I decided to write the quick guide I… Read more
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Stuck in Supplier Diversity Limbo? Get Real Results
Many supply chain teams have supplier diversity initiatives, targets, and goals. These are typically not even new programs, as many of them have been on the agenda for ten, thirty, or even fifty years. They have survived multiple supply chain leaders, multiple CEOs, and multiple CFOs the way few things do other than cost savings… Read more
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Navigating Supply Chain Worries: Turn Concerns into Action
The award for “most eye-catching headline of the week” in my news feed goes to sponsored content from GS1. The headline was “Stop doom-scrolling your supply chain” and (as sponsored content) is advocating for increasing visibility tools. The article cites three main areas of supply chain concern remaining: geopolitical factors, climate change/natural disasters, and logistics… Read more
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Robots vs. Relationships: Will AI Wipe Out Supply Chain Jobs?
A Visual Capitalist article on the impact of artificial intelligence on various job categories wandered across my news feed a couple weeks ago, and I’ve been pondering it ever since. Following the data trail, this data was a visualization of a white paper by the World Economic Forum (WEF) from September 2023, focused primarily on… Read more
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Elevating Negotiation Mastery: Strategies for Success Beyond the Basics
In our ongoing exploration of negotiation dynamics, it’s high time we delve into fundamental aspects: the basic parameters and rules that underpin successful negotiations. Gone are the days of fixating on the physical placement at a negotiation table—our current era emphasizes virtual interactions, with participants toggling mute buttons and cameras on and off. Nonetheless, several… Read more