Creating and implementing a sound supply chain strategy is a complex challenge; the need to create a sound global supply chain strategy only magnifies that challenge. Georgia Tech designed its "Global Supply Chain Strategy" executive education course for supply chain professionals who are preparing themselves and their companies for broader and more challenging responsibilities in global supply chain management. Participants will learn how to manage and understand key global supply chain processes as well as the risk factors that affect them.
They will also develop a deeper understanding of how to manage relationships with global supply chain partners, including logistics service providers. CSCMP is a co-sponsor of this event and members receive a discount.
Program: Global Supply Chain Strategy Sponsors: Georgia Institute of Technology Supply Chain & Logistics Institute and CSCMP Location: Atlanta, Georgia, USA Dates: June 8-10, 2010 Info:www.scl.gatech.edu
The theory behind your practice
Many supply chain and logistics managers have learned about their field of expertise from doing their jobs day in and day out, not from sitting in a classroom. Knowing the theory and principles of the logistics discipline, however, can sometimes help you take your supply chain and logistics performance to the next level. Michigan State's "Supply Chain Logistics Management" course is geared for experienced executives who have not had the benefit of formal logistics training. Attendees will learn to identify and understand the logistics and supply chain trade-offs associated with global operations. CSCMP is a co-sponsor of this program.
Program: Supply Chain Logistics Management Sponsors: Michigan State University and CSCMP Location: East Lansing, Michigan, USA Dates: May 9-14, 2010 Info: www.bus.msu.edu/execed/programs/openEnrollment.cfm
Real-life supply chain stories
You can hear about real-life supply chain practices at the three-day certificate program offered by Rutgers Business School's Center for Supply Chain Management and co-sponsored by CSCMP. Many of the presenters are senior corporate supply chain executives with extensive practical experience.
They and other lecturers will cover the major aspects of supply chain management, including strategy, sourcing and procurement, logistics, operations, and organizational alignment. Participants will learn the principles of supply chain management strategy and how to link supply chain management to their overall business strategy. They also will study how to track supply chain performance and best manage both internal and external relationships.
Program: Strategies for Designing and Leading Your End-to-End Supply Chain Sponsors: Rutgers Business School and CSCMP Location: Piscataway, New Jersey, USA Dates: June 16-18, 2010 Info:https://scmcenter.rutgers.edu/cp
CSCMP, ICOR offer online courses
CSCMP has partnered with The International Consortium for Organizational Resilience (ICOR) to create one of the world's first e-learning courses on supply chain risk management. "Supply Chain Risk Mitigation" is an introductory course that focuses on ways to create risk mitigation strategies that add resiliency without increasing operating costs. The course runs over a two-week timeframe. Participants can review the course instructional material when it is convenient for them and then participate in an online discussion.
This is just one of several online classes that CSCMP has organized. CSCMP has also designed a course on RFID essentials and has partnered with Syracuse University's Whitman School of Management to create one on Six Sigma methodology. More information about the risk management class and other online education opportunities can be found at cscmp.org.
"Applying Lean Principles Across the Supply Chain" introduces a systemic approach for applying lean thinking to supply chain challenges. This executive education course from Penn State University (co-sponsored by CSCMP) offers practical, hands-on insights from industry leaders such as Kraft Foods and Dell. Participants will learn lean principles and tools that can help them achieve greater supply chain speed and efficiency. They will also discover how to extend these practices beyond their enterprises to suppliers and customers.
Program: Applying Lean Principles Across the Supply Chain Sponsors: Pennsylvania State University and CSCMP Location: University Park, Pennsylvania, USA Dates: June 7-11, 2010 and November 29-December 3, 2010 Info:www.smeal.psu.edu/psep/lsc.html
A better way to outsource
Instructors at the University of Tennessee promise that their "Vested Outsourcing" course will fundamentally change your approach to procuring outsourced services such as third-party logistics, supply chain management, information technology support, and facilities management.
Today, most companies approach their outsourcing relationship from a transactional perspective; they purchase activities or transactions from their suppliers. But the concept taught in this course—"performance-based outsourcing"— looks at how to create an outsourcing agreement that focuses on results instead of on activities. Attendees will leave the class, which is co-sponsored by CSCMP, well-grounded in a five-step process and best practices for implementing a performance-based outsourcing agreement.
Program: Vested Outsourcing Sponsors: University of Tennessee Center for Executive Education and CSCMP Location: Knoxville, Tennessee, USA Dates: June 8-10, 2010 and October 26-28, 2010 Info:https://thecenter.utk.edu
Learn best practices from the best
Participants at CSCMP's new Process Standards Workshop will leave the course armed with more than 300 supply chain best practices culled from leading companies such as Coca-Cola, Cummins, International Paper, and Welch's. Better yet, they will know how to benchmark their current performance against these industry leaders. Participants will learn how to evaluate the risks and rewards of potential supply chain initiatives and how to identify improvements that will increase financial performance.
Instructors will cover how to assess a process, decide which parts need to be improved, develop a roadmap for improvement, create an implementation plan, and build a business case for the initiative. As part of the registration fee, attendees receive the newly published second edition of CSCMP's Supply Chain Management Process Standards book.
Program: Process Standards Workshop Sponsor: CSCMP Location: Lombard (Chicago), Illinois, USA Dates: May 13-14, 2010 and November 11-12, 2010 Info:https://cscmp.org
Bridge the gap between action and strategy
When CSCMP created its Strategic Supply Chain Management Workshop, the organization wanted to help supply chain managers bridge the gap between managing the functional elements of their supply chains and creating and implementing an optimal supply chain strategy. The course's lectures, presentations, and exercises focus on what makes a successful strategy: understanding each supply chain partner's needs, strengths, and weaknesses as well as how these competencies can best be aligned.
This course is designed for general managers and supply chain directors, particularly those who have multiple functional responsibilities.
Participants will work in groups to examine case
studies and exercises, exploring the breadth of the supply chain and its relevance to overall business. They will hear specific, real-world examples from recognized experts in the field. The sessions are interactive, and instructors are prepared to answer questions about specific industries and/or geographic regions.
Program: Strategic Supply Chain Management Sponsor: CSCMP Location: Lombard (Chicago), Illinois, USA Dates: April 12-13, 2010 Info:https://cscmp.org/events/strategic-scm
Creating a coherent supply chain picture
Having a coherent vision of what effective supply chain management entails can help your company achieve its strategic goals. The Ohio State University, working in partnership with Cranfield University, has created an executive education course on supply chain management that provides a framework that can help guide your efforts. This framework, created by The Global Supply Chain Forum, consists of eight essential supply chain processes: customer relationship management, supplier relationship management, customer service management, demand management, order management, manufacturing flow management, product development and commercialization, and returns management. This course is co-sponsored by CSCMP.
Program: Supply Chain Management: Processes, Partnerships, Performance Sponsors: The Ohio State University, Cranfield University, and CSCMP Locations and Dates: Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, USA: April 19-23, 2010
Cranfield, England, U.K.: May 10-14, 2010 Info:www.fisher.osu.edu/centers/scm/executive-education
Companies in every sector are converting assets from fossil fuel to electric power in their push to reach net-zero energy targets and to reduce costs along the way, but to truly accelerate those efforts, they also need to improve electric energy efficiency, according to a study from technology consulting firm ABI Research.
In fact, boosting that efficiency could contribute fully 25% of the emissions reductions needed to reach net zero. And the pursuit of that goal will drive aggregated global investments in energy efficiency technologies to grow from $106 Billion in 2024 to $153 Billion in 2030, ABI said today in a report titled “The Role of Energy Efficiency in Reaching Net Zero Targets for Enterprises and Industries.”
ABI’s report divided the range of energy-efficiency-enhancing technologies and equipment into three industrial categories:
Commercial Buildings – Network Lighting Control (NLC) and occupancy sensing for automated lighting and heating; Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based energy management; heat-pumps and energy-efficient HVAC equipment; insulation technologies
Manufacturing Plants – Energy digital twins, factory automation, manufacturing process design and optimization software (PLM, MES, simulation); Electric Arc Furnaces (EAFs); energy efficient electric motors (compressors, fans, pumps)
“Both the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP) continue to insist on the importance of energy efficiency,” Dominique Bonte, VP of End Markets and Verticals at ABI Research, said in a release. “At COP 29 in Dubai, it was agreed to commit to collectively double the global average annual rate of energy efficiency improvements from around 2% to over 4% every year until 2030, following recommendations from the IEA. This complements the EU’s Energy Efficiency First (EE1) Framework and the U.S. 2022 Inflation Reduction Act in which US$86 billion was earmarked for energy efficiency actions.”
Economic activity in the logistics industry expanded in November, continuing a steady growth pattern that began earlier this year and signaling a return to seasonality after several years of fluctuating conditions, according to the latest Logistics Managers’ Index report (LMI), released today.
The November LMI registered 58.4, down slightly from October’s reading of 58.9, which was the highest level in two years. The LMI is a monthly gauge of business conditions across warehousing and logistics markets; a reading above 50 indicates growth and a reading below 50 indicates contraction.
“The overall index has been very consistent in the past three months, with readings of 58.6, 58.9, and 58.4,” LMI analyst Zac Rogers, associate professor of supply chain management at Colorado State University, wrote in the November LMI report. “This plateau is slightly higher than a similar plateau of consistency earlier in the year when May to August saw four readings between 55.3 and 56.4. Seasonally speaking, it is consistent that this later year run of readings would be the highest all year.”
Separately, Rogers said the end-of-year growth reflects the return to a healthy holiday peak, which started when inventory levels expanded in late summer and early fall as retailers began stocking up to meet consumer demand. Pandemic-driven shifts in consumer buying behavior, inflation, and economic uncertainty contributed to volatile peak season conditions over the past four years, with the LMI swinging from record-high growth in late 2020 and 2021 to slower growth in 2022 and contraction in 2023.
“The LMI contracted at this time a year ago, so basically [there was] no peak season,” Rogers said, citing inflation as a drag on demand. “To have a normal November … [really] for the first time in five years, justifies what we’ve seen all these companies doing—building up inventory in a sustainable, seasonal way.
“Based on what we’re seeing, a lot of supply chains called it right and were ready for healthy holiday season, so far.”
The LMI has remained in the mid to high 50s range since January—with the exception of April, when the index dipped to 52.9—signaling strong and consistent demand for warehousing and transportation services.
The LMI is a monthly survey of logistics managers from across the country. It tracks industry growth overall and across eight areas: inventory levels and costs; warehousing capacity, utilization, and prices; and transportation capacity, utilization, and prices. The report is released monthly by researchers from Arizona State University, Colorado State University, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rutgers University, and the University of Nevada, Reno, in conjunction with the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP).
"After several years of mitigating inflation, disruption, supply shocks, conflicts, and uncertainty, we are currently in a relative period of calm," John Paitek, vice president, GEP, said in a release. "But it is very much the calm before the coming storm. This report provides procurement and supply chain leaders with a prescriptive guide to weathering the gale force headwinds of protectionism, tariffs, trade wars, regulatory pressures, uncertainty, and the AI revolution that we will face in 2025."
A report from the company released today offers predictions and strategies for the upcoming year, organized into six major predictions in GEP’s “Outlook 2025: Procurement & Supply Chain.”
Advanced AI agents will play a key role in demand forecasting, risk monitoring, and supply chain optimization, shifting procurement's mandate from tactical to strategic. Companies should invest in the technology now to to streamline processes and enhance decision-making.
Expanded value metrics will drive decisions, as success will be measured by resilience, sustainability, and compliance… not just cost efficiency. Companies should communicate value beyond cost savings to stakeholders, and develop new KPIs.
Increasing regulatory demands will necessitate heightened supply chain transparency and accountability. So companies should strengthen supplier audits, adopt ESG tracking tools, and integrate compliance into strategic procurement decisions.
Widening tariffs and trade restrictions will force companies to reassess total cost of ownership (TCO) metrics to include geopolitical and environmental risks, as nearshoring and friendshoring attempt to balance resilience with cost.
Rising energy costs and regulatory demands will accelerate the shift to sustainable operations, pushing companies to invest in renewable energy and redesign supply chains to align with ESG commitments.
New tariffs could drive prices higher, just as inflation has come under control and interest rates are returning to near-zero levels. That means companies must continue to secure cost savings as their primary responsibility.
Specifically, 48% of respondents identified rising tariffs and trade barriers as their top concern, followed by supply chain disruptions at 45% and geopolitical instability at 41%. Moreover, tariffs and trade barriers ranked as the priority issue regardless of company size, as respondents at companies with less than 250 employees, 251-500, 501-1,000, 1,001-50,000 and 50,000+ employees all cited it as the most significant issue they are currently facing.
“Evolving tariffs and trade policies are one of a number of complex issues requiring organizations to build more resilience into their supply chains through compliance, technology and strategic planning,” Jackson Wood, Director, Industry Strategy at Descartes, said in a release. “With the potential for the incoming U.S. administration to impose new and additional tariffs on a wide variety of goods and countries of origin, U.S. importers may need to significantly re-engineer their sourcing strategies to mitigate potentially higher costs.”
Freight transportation providers and maritime port operators are bracing for rough business impacts if the incoming Trump Administration follows through on its pledge to impose a 25% tariff on Mexico and Canada and an additional 10% tariff on China, analysts say.
Industry contacts say they fear that such heavy fees could prompt importers to “pull forward” a massive surge of goods before the new administration is seated on January 20, and then quickly cut back again once the hefty new fees are instituted, according to a report from TD Cowen.
As a measure of the potential economic impact of that uncertain scenario, transport company stocks were mostly trading down yesterday following Donald Trump’s social media post on Monday night announcing the proposed new policy, TD Cowen said in a note to investors.
But an alternative impact of the tariff jump could be that it doesn’t happen at all, but is merely a threat intended to force other nations to the table to strike new deals on trade, immigration, or drug smuggling. “Trump is perfectly comfortable being a policy paradox and pushing competing policies (and people); this ‘chaos premium’ only increases his leverage in negotiations,” the firm said.
However, if that truly is the new administration’s strategy, it could backfire by sparking a tit-for-tat trade war that includes retaliatory tariffs by other countries on U.S. exports, other analysts said. “The additional tariffs on China that the incoming US administration plans to impose will add to restrictions on China-made products, driving up their prices and fueling an already-under-way surge in efforts to beat the tariffs by importing products before the inauguration,” Andrei Quinn-Barabanov, Senior Director – Supplier Risk Management solutions at Moody’s, said in a statement. “The Mexico and Canada tariffs may be an invitation to negotiations with the U.S. on immigration and other issues. If implemented, they would also be challenging to maintain, because the two nations can threaten the U.S. with significant retaliation and because of a likely pressure from the American business community that would be greatly affected by the costs and supply chain obstacles resulting from the tariffs.”
New tariffs could also damage sensitive supply chains by triggering unintended consequences, according to a report by Matt Lekstutis, Director at Efficio, a global procurement and supply chain procurement consultancy. “While ultimate tariff policy will likely be implemented to achieve specific US re-industrialization and other political objectives, the responses of various nations, companies and trading partners is not easily predicted and companies that even have little or no exposure to Mexico, China or Canada could be impacted. New tariffs may disrupt supply chains dependent on just in time deliveries as they adjust to new trade flows. This could affect all industries dependent on distribution and logistics providers and result in supply shortages,” Lekstutis said.