Savvy marketing professional and educator Dr. Linda Silver Coley is committed to helping students develop the leadership and analytical skills they'll need as future supply chain decision makers.
Dr. Linda Silver Coley sees a tight inter- dependence between supply chain management and her main field of study. The assistant professor of marketing at Miami University (Ohio) works hard to ensure that marketing students and practitioners recognize the importance of supply chain thought and business processes in market-oriented decision making.
But that's not her sole focus. As a passionate educator, Coley is dedicated to empowering her students to discover their innate leadership abilities. And as a former marketing executive, she is committed to helping them become the worldclass business leaders of tomorrow.
Madeleine Miller-Holodnicki, CSCMP's Manager of Communications and Senior Editor of Supply Chain Quarterly, recently spoke with Coley about her philosophy of excellence in both the academic and business realms.
Name: Dr. Linda Silver Coley Title: Assistant Professor Organization: Marketing Department, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio U.S.A.
BS in chemistry, Bennett College, Greensboro, North Carolina
MS in pharmaceutical chemistry, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan
MBA in marketing, Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio
PhD in marketing, with an emphasis on supply chain management, University of Cincinnati, Ohio
Industry experience (Fortune 500 companies):
Procter & Gamble—technical brand management and product development; consultant to P&G's Home Care global supply chain
Bristol-Myers/Drackett—established brands and new product brand management
Marketing and supply chain management (SCM) seem like an odd couple. What's the link between these two seemingly dis- parate functions?
Marketing students in universities everywhere learn about the "marketing mix," or the "four Ps": product, price, promotion, and place. Supply chain management affects all four of these marketing elements.
Take "price," for example. If a product is to maintain a competitive retail price, then an efficient supply chain needs to be in place to produce the product through strong supply chain relationships between customers and suppliers. When a company decides to promote a product to the consumer, the volume of the product sold and the rate of movement of that product off the shelves triggers decisions that have to be made all the way down the supply chain, even at the raw materials stage.
This is not new thinking. There has always been a link between supply chain management and marketing, but the marketing end of the process was once simply "logistics." If we in academia do not link marketing to the supply chain management function, then we're not properly preparing our students for today's business world. The way marketing is taught at the university level must change to embrace cross-functional SCM.
How important is a supply chain-integra- tive education to entering and succeed- ing in business?
I encourage as many of my marketing students as possible to minor in supply chain management. On the flip side, I also encourage my SCM students to take an advanced marketing course. Here at Miami University, we're making the move to integrate marketing and SCM as well as reframing our courses to be more experiential. In the broader sense, I believe that supply chain management should be a required core course in every business school.
Is there any value to a senior-level supply chain practitioner to going back to school and getting an advanced degree?
At that level, an advanced supply chain degree is not as important as real-world business training and the kinds of education and training offered by the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals. The main reason for an individual to pursue an advanced degree is if he or she wants to teach or conduct research in supply chain management at the college or university level.
I earned my PhD for this reason alone—to teach courses and do research that integrate marketing and supply chain management. I wanted to make an impact on the fields of marketing and SCM. I was determined not to miss out on the supply chain management phenomenon.
What are your marketing students convers- ing about in the classroom?
My students are engaged in dialogue about the impact and value of intangibles and how you can't measure them. They're having conversations about supply chain management, the effect of customer and supplier relationships on innovation, co-ownership of processes between suppliers and customers, and international issues.
I teach using case studies and an interactive "student as leader and teacher as coach" format, where each day, a student is randomly chosen to be the leader. At the beginning of the semester, students are typically very competitive and want to "win." By the time my class concludes, their focus in the learning environment has changed from "self" to helping "others" succeed. They've learned how to collaborate and support one another through coaching and teamwork. I structure my classrooms to become business learning environments where students have an opportunity to collaborate in pursuit of common goals similar to a real company's, such as designing a product.
You're passionate about the subject of lead- ership. Why? What does "leadership" mean to you?
I'm passionate about leadership because I'm helping to train the next generation of leaders. My personal leadership style could be described as a combination of "servant" leadership—setting my own ego aside to humbly serve others—and "transformational" leadership—making positive change happen by modeling appropriate behavior and allowing students to have a voice in the learning process.
However, I don't want my students to mimic my leadership style. I try to help them find their own styles. But I teach that leadership is not just about traits like honesty, integrity, respect, and abilities; it is also a dynamic process between the leader and the follower. Sometimes I am the leader in my classrooms, but most of the time, my students go to the front of the class to develop their own unique leadership styles.
What is your definition of exceptional leadership?
I do not believe we can define exceptional leadership because it truly depends on the situation and the desired outcome. There are many examples of exceptional leadership throughout history. There have been effective leaders who have had evil desired outcomes. And there have been effective leaders with kind and benevolent desired outcomes. This is why I am intrigued by leadership…it's multidimensional.
Walk us through your teaching career.
I have been teaching for over 18 years but have only been on the tenure track for two years. I've taught successfully at several large and small institutions as well as at public and private universities and colleges, including the University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign (UIUC); the University of Cincinnati; Xavier University and the College of Mount St. Joseph, both in Cincinnati, Ohio; and Thomas More College in northern Kentucky.
At Miami University's Farmer School of Business, I teach marketing strategy to marketing, supply chain management, finance, and accounting majors. However, I have also taught marketing courses in several undergraduate curriculums in the colleges and universities I just mentioned—courses focusing on the principles of marketing, consumer behavior, market research, sales management, business-to-business marketing, product information and supply management, and marketing strategy.
As a visiting assistant professor at UIUC, I taught new product marketing, new product development, marketing management, and an experiential distribution/supply chain management practicum.
My teaching background and business experience have allowed me to teach marketing and marketingrelated courses to students across disciplines, such as engineering, and across business school departments, such as supply chain management and operations management. While most of my teaching experience has been at the undergraduate level, I've also taught marketing to MBAs at UIUC and to Asian executives in the UIUC master's program.
Tell us about your teaching style and philosophy.
My teaching style is highly interactive, but let me give you some insight into my thinking, which will help explain my teaching style and philosophy.
My motto is "To whom much is given, much is expected," and I approach teaching with this thought in mind. I have been given a lot of ability and a tremendous opportunity to make a positive difference in the lives of my students, and I am humbled by the responsibilities of serving them. I know that highimpact teaching is critical to move students "from good to great."
When I teach, I try to model respect, fairness, and an unpretentious ego while presenting and encouraging leadership agility, boldness, risk taking, and creativity that will cultivate powerful, transformational thinking and ideas that are "outside of the box."
My focus on the needs of the students leads me to teach them everything I can, integrating my knowledge, wisdom, research, and business experiences into my studies. I share my lifelong love of learning and the learning process with all my students with enthusiasm, laughter, and an open mind. As a result, I listen to them and look for opportunities to better understand their worldviews while sharing mine.
I am comfortable with who I am and the knowledge I've acquired, so I empower my students to question me, the authors I present, and each other in a safe environment. I ask students for their opinions and teach them how to disagree with me and their peers as well as with the authors of established business classics while maintaining civility and respect for others and for the learning process.
I encourage my students to take risks and give them opportunities to correct mistakes when lessons are clearly learned. I am able to respect and value their differences and see beyond the obvious to nurture the potential that is sometimes buried. We dialogue in an interactive classroom; we critique each other's ideas and ask probing questions, always seeking new possibilities that are beyond the obvious, because, what if there were no box to think outside of?
Given that one of my goals is to establish a safe, productive, high-impact learning environment, I coach, I mentor, I listen. I fill in the learning gaps while broadening the concept base using any appropriate tool at my disposal. I give my students a voice in the process by allowing them to negotiate the governing rules and consequences to create a sense of mutual responsibility for the learning process and deference for the learning environment.
Yet my position as "teacher" is never compromised. A central component of my teaching is to encourage students to seek resources beyond the classroom and take responsibility for enhancing the learning process. I set high standards and then gently demand the best from myself, from each student, from teams, and from the learning environment. Opportunities for each individual to experience leadership, creativity, relevance, meaning, and success are factored into my approach to teaching. Each individual is encouraged and given the space to reach his own personal next level.
What have your students taught you?
I've learned so many valuable lessons from them, like the importance of consistency, how to be flexible, and how to see the world through their eyes. Each student is unique and interesting, and they all have diverse lives, views, expectations, dreams, and fears.
Compared to when you were in college, what are the students of today like?
The students are the same today as they were when I was in school. They're young people looking for an education to help them bridge the gap or stop the time clock between now and the next phase of their lives. It's the rules of engagement that are different— the world is different, technology is different. The entire educational environment has changed, so expectations have been dramatically altered.
How have expectations changed?
Students today need more hands-on evidence, more experiential learning. Global aspects of learning are also more important. Learning in a silo, versus crossfunctional learning, is a disadvantage to today's young person. A liberal education is becoming more and more important. Technical savvy needs to be complemented with creativity, and intellectual competency needs to be balanced with emotional competence.
What supply chain management business issues are most important to you?
The SCM issues most important to me are those at the strategy level of the firm or the macro level of the supply network. This includes issues that involve multiple relationships between customers and suppliers and sustaining competitive advantage through the process of market-oriented supply chain management, issues of relational and executional leadership competency. I am primarily interested in consumer-driven supply networks.
What are the most significant changes you
have seen in the supply chain management
profession over the past five years?
I'd have to say that the biggest change has been a move from focusing solely on efficiency to looking at business drivers and performance measures.
What's your perspective on globalization?
Students need to understand the markets and consumer needs in various regions of the world and how to satisfactorily serve those markets with global and niche products and services. Here at Miami, we teach students to gain an appreciation of different cultures. Right now, we're focusing on the Asian market. I also use real global case studies in my classes, like Procter & Gamble's Pringles potato chip launch in Italy or the brand-image effect of BMW building an assembly plant in South Carolina.
Globalization is an extremely important issue for marketing and supply chain management students. The world really is "flat" and getting smaller by the day. Today's leaders are now doing business with one giant, global supply network.
What have you learned in your pursuit of knowledge that could potentially change the way we do business?
I've discovered that market-oriented supply chain management, paired with relational and executional leadership competency among suppliers and customers, could possibly aid the continuous process toward sustaining a competitive advantage for the supply network. The outcome of this orientation can lead to remarkable innovations in products, services, or processes across the global marketplace.
How does cscmp energize your professional life?
As a marketing professor who integrates supply chain management, CSCMP provides me with a forum for ideas and for dialogue with like-minded colleagues. I am thrilled to be a member of CSCMP's Education Strategy Committee and to work with these outstanding professionals from all over the world. Being on this important committee gives me the opportunity to help shape the organization's educational agenda and interject a marketing perspective into the process.
What's the best advice anybody ever gave you?
Don't just do the right thing. Do the right thing for the right reason.
What advice would you impart to recently graduated students who are about to enter the supply chain management field?
I would tell them several things. First, "making a living" is important, but it is not as important as "making a life." Don't just go with the highest offer or feel compelled to stick around if you find yourself in a situation that does not suit who you want to be.
Second, I would advise them to check their egos at the door. Being technically competent is important, but possessing emotional competence is more important. Putting the needs of your colleagues and customers ahead of your own will make you a supply chain success.
New Jersey is home to the most congested freight bottleneck in the country for the seventh straight year, according to research from the American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI), released today.
ATRI’s annual list of the Top 100 Truck Bottlenecks aims to highlight the nation’s most congested highways and help local, state, and federal governments target funding to areas most in need of relief. The data show ways to reduce chokepoints, lower emissions, and drive economic growth, according to the researchers.
The 2025 Top Truck Bottleneck List measures the level of truck-involved congestion at more than 325 locations on the national highway system. The analysis is based on an extensive database of freight truck GPS data and uses several customized software applications and analysis methods, along with terabytes of data from trucking operations, to produce a congestion impact ranking for each location. The bottleneck locations detailed in the latest ATRI list represent the top 100 congested locations, although ATRI continuously monitors more than 325 freight-critical locations, the group said.
For the seventh straight year, the intersection of I-95 and State Route 4 near the George Washington Bridge in Fort Lee, New Jersey, is the top freight bottleneck in the country. The remaining top 10 bottlenecks include: Chicago, I-294 at I-290/I-88; Houston, I-45 at I-69/US 59; Atlanta, I-285 at I-85 (North); Nashville: I-24/I-40 at I-440 (East); Atlanta: I-75 at I-285 (North); Los Angeles, SR 60 at SR 57; Cincinnati, I-71 at I-75; Houston, I-10 at I-45; and Atlanta, I-20 at I-285 (West).
ATRI’s analysis, which utilized data from 2024, found that traffic conditions continue to deteriorate from recent years, partly due to work zones resulting from increased infrastructure investment. Average rush hour truck speeds were 34.2 miles per hour (MPH), down 3% from the previous year. Among the top 10 locations, average rush hour truck speeds were 29.7 MPH.
In addition to squandering time and money, these delays also waste fuel—with trucks burning an estimated 6.4 billion gallons of diesel fuel and producing more than 65 million metric tons of additional carbon emissions while stuck in traffic jams, according to ATRI.
On a positive note, ATRI said its analysis helps quantify the value of infrastructure investment, pointing to improvements at Chicago’s Jane Byrne Interchange as an example. Once the number one truck bottleneck in the country for three years in a row, the recently constructed interchange saw rush hour truck speeds improve by nearly 25% after construction was completed, according to the report.
“Delays inflicted on truckers by congestion are the equivalent of 436,000 drivers sitting idle for an entire year,” ATRI President and COO Rebecca Brewster said in a statement announcing the findings. “These metrics are getting worse, but the good news is that states do not need to accept the status quo. Illinois was once home to the top bottleneck in the country, but following a sustained effort to expand capacity, the Jane Byrne Interchange in Chicago no longer ranks in the top 10. This data gives policymakers a road map to reduce chokepoints, lower emissions, and drive economic growth.”
It’s getting a little easier to find warehouse space in the U.S., as the frantic construction pace of recent years declined to pre-pandemic levels in the fourth quarter of 2024, in line with rising vacancies, according to a report from real estate firm Colliers.
Those trends played out as the gap between new building supply and tenants’ demand narrowed during 2024, the firm said in its “U.S. Industrial Market Outlook Report / Q4 2024.” By the numbers, developers delivered 400 million square feet for the year, 34% below the record 607 million square feet completed in 2023. And net absorption, a key measure of demand, declined by 27%, to 168 million square feet.
Consequently, the U.S. industrial vacancy rate rose by 126 basis points, to 6.8%, as construction activity normalized at year-end to pre-pandemic levels of below 300 million square feet. With supply and demand nearing equilibrium in 2025, the vacancy rate is expected to peak at around 7% before starting to fall again.
Thanks to those market conditions, renters of warehouse space should begin to see some relief from the steep rent hikes they’re seen in recent years. According to Colliers, rent growth decelerated in 2024 after nine consecutive quarters of year-over-year increases surpassing 10%. Average warehouse and distribution rents rose by 5% to $10.12/SF triple net, and rents in some markets actually declined following a period of unprecedented growth when increases often exceeded 25% year-over-year. As the market adjusts, rents are projected to stabilize in 2025, rising between 2% and 5%, in line with historical averages.
In 2024, there were 125 new occupancies of 500,000 square feet or more, led by third-party logistics (3PL) providers, followed by manufacturing companies. Demand peaked in the fourth quarter at 53 million square feet, while the first quarter had the lowest activity at 28 million square feet — the lowest quarterly tally since 2012.
In its economic outlook for the future, Colliers said the U.S. economy remains strong by most measures; with low unemployment, consumer spending surpassing expectations, positive GDP growth, and signs of improvement in manufacturing. However businesses still face challenges including persistent inflation, the lowest hiring rate since 2010, and uncertainties surrounding tariffs, migration, and policies introduced by the new Trump Administration.
As U.S. businesses count down the days until the expiration of the Trump Administration’s monthlong pause of tariffs on Canada and Mexico, a report from Uber Freight says the tariffs will likely be avoided through an extended agreement, since the potential for damaging consequences would be so severe for all parties.
If the tariffs occurred, they could push U.S. inflation higher, adding $1,000 to $1,200 to the average person's cost of living. And relief from interest rates would likely not come to the rescue, since inflation is already above the Fed's target, delaying further rate cuts.
A potential impact of the tariffs in the long run might be to boost domestic freight by giving local manufacturers an edge. However, the magnitude and sudden implementation of these tariffs means we likely won't see such benefits for a while, and the immediate damage will be more significant in the meantime, Uber Freight said in its “2025 Q1 Market update & outlook.”
That market volatility comes even as tough times continue in the freight market. In the U.S. full truckload sector, the cost per loaded mile currently exceeds spot rates significantly, which will likely push rate increases.
However, in the first quarter of 2025, spot rates are now falling, as they usually do in February following the winter peak. According to Uber Freight, this situation arose after truck operating costs rose 2 cents/mile in 2023 despite a 9-cent diesel price decline, thanks to increases in insurance (+13%), truck and trailer costs (+9%), and driver wages (+8%). Costs then fell 2 cents/mile in 2024, resulting in stable costs over the past two years.
Fortunately, Uber Freight predicts that the freight cycle could soon begin to turn, as signs of a recovery are emerging despite weak current demand. A measure of manufacturing growth called the ISM PMI edged up to 50.9 in December, surpassing the expansion threshold for the first time in 26 months.
Accordingly, new orders and production increased while employment stabilized. That means the U.S. manufacturing economy appears to be expanding after a prolonged period of contraction, signaling a positive outlook for freight demand, Uber Freight said.
The surge comes as the U.S. imposed a new 10% tariff on Chinese goods as of February 4, while pausing a more aggressive 25% tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada until March, Descartes said in its “February Global Shipping Report.”
So far, ports are handling the surge well, with overall port transit time delays not significantly lengthening at the top 10 U.S. ports, despite elevated volumes for a seventh consecutive month. But the future may look more cloudy; businesses with global supply chains are coping with heightened uncertainty as they eye the new U.S. tariffs on China, continuing trade policy tensions, and ongoing geopolitical instability in the Middle East, Descartes said.
“The impact of new and potential tariffs, coupled with a late Chinese Lunar New Year (January 29 – February 12), may have contributed to higher U.S. container imports in January,” Jackson Wood, Director, Industry Strategy at Descartes, said in a release. “These trade policy developments add significant uncertainty to global supply chains, increasing concerns about rising import costs and supply chain disruptions. As trade tensions escalate, businesses and consumers alike may face the risk of higher prices and prolonged market volatility.”
New York-based Cofactr will now integrate Factor.io’s capabilities into its unified platform, a supply chain and logistics management tool that streamlines production, processes, and policies for critical hardware manufacturers. The combined platform will give users complete visibility into the status of every part in their Bill of Materials (BOM), across the end-to-end direct material management process, the firm said.
Those capabilities are particularly crucial for Cofactr’s core customer base, which include manufacturers in high-compliance, highly regulated sectors such as defense, aerospace, robotics, and medtech.
“Whether an organization is supplying U.S. government agencies with critical hardware or working to meet ambitious product goals in an emerging space, they’re all looking for new ways to optimize old processes that stand between them and their need to iterate at breakneck speeds,” Matthew Haber, CEO and Co-founder of Cofactr, said in a release. “Through this acquisition, we’re giving them another way to do that with acute visibility into their full bill of materials across the many suppliers they work with, directly through our platform.”
“Poor data quality in the supply chain has always been a root cause of delays that create unnecessary costs and interfere with an organization’s speed to market. For manufacturers, especially those in regulated industries, manually cross-checking hundreds of supplier communications against ERP information while navigating other complex processes and policies is a recipe for disaster,” Shultz said. “With Cofactr, we’re now working with the best in the industry to scale our ability to eliminate time-consuming tasks and increase process efficiencies so manufacturers can instead focus on building their products.”