After a 15 hour trip to get back home last Friday from the JDA Focus conference in Las Vegas (broken plane, thunderstorms, no pilot, locusts — okay, no locusts, but I wouldn’t have been surprised), and seven Little League and travel baseball games this weekend, I’m heading back out this morning to the BluJay Solutions SOAR 2017 Conference in Chicago.
I am one of the keynote speakers, along with two-time gold medalist and FIFA World Cup winner Mia Hamm, Bill Driegert (Chief Innovation Officer at Otto), and Jon Dorenbos (two-time NFL Pro Bowler with the Philadelphia Eagles and a finalist last year on America’s Got Talent). It’s truly an honor to share the stage with these accomplished folks, especially since I don’t have any gold medals or any talent worth televising.
The title of my presentation is “Shoveling Snow with a Dustpan: Where to Find Supply Chain Innovation.” I won’t steal my thunder today — and I need all the thunder I can get considering I’m speaking after Mia Hamm and Jon Dorenbos on the agenda — but here’s the abstract of my presentation for a sneak peak:
Many companies, across all industries, are coming to three realizations: (1) their existing supply chain systems and processes, which were designed primarily from an inside-out perspective, are misaligned with today’s outside-in, customer-centric operating reality; (2) as the pace of change continues to accelerate, their strategy of being late adopters (or even fast followers) when it comes to adopting new technologies and ways of working is leaving them further and further behind the leaders; and (3) after years and years of talking about collaboration and the importance of breaking down functional silos, the time has finally come to walk that talk.
How should companies respond to these realizations? What are the main roadblocks and how do you overcome them? What attributes will define successful companies of tomorrow? Where can you find the next big opportunities for supply chain innovation? Adrian will address those questions and more in this informative and thought-provoking presentation.
If you’re attending the conference, I look forward to learning and networking with you. If you’re not attending, I’ll share my takeaways when I return. Either way, at the risk of stealing some of my thunder, I encourage you to read the posts below which get to the heart of my presentation:
- The Network Effect in Supply Chain and Logistics
- The Most Overlooked Cloud Opportunity
- Here Comes the Chief Network Effects Officer
On second thought, does cycling 102.7 miles in Death Valley count as a talent? I also received a nice medal when I finished, which I hang proudly in my office. Maybe I should have brought it with me, you know, in case someone wants to see it.
