For the July 2025 episode, co-hosts Ted Stank and Tom Goldsby spoke with Amalia Londono, EVP of end-to-end supply chain North America for Colgate-Palmolive, about trends in consumer packaged goods, delivering value to customers, using AI and technology in demand planning, and the importance of personal resiliency for up-and-coming supply chain professionals.
Londono, a member of the GSCI Advisory Board, leads the North American supply chain for one of the most recognized manufacturers and distributors of household and commercial cleaning, dental, personal-care, and pet food products, operating in more than 200 countries worldwide. She has spent more than 20 years with Colgate-Palmolive, working in roles across planning, continuous improvement, specialty packaging, and procurement.
Listen in for valuable insights on leadership, agility, technology, and talent development. Plus, Ted and Tom dig into the latest news about tariffs, Prime Day sales, and more. You don’t want to miss it!
The episode was recorded virtually on July 9, 2025.
Related links:
- Trump’s tariffs: What’s in effect and what could be in store?
- Five things to know about record copper prices
- Darrell Edwards on how supply chain leaders can plan for the unplannable
- UT transportation expert Alex Scott on pathways to decarbonizing the rail industry
- Register for the fall Supply Chain Forum, November 4–6 in Knoxville
- Download the white paper “Future-Ready Procurement” or read our blog series
- Join the Advanced Supply Chain Collaborative to explore advanced concepts in SCM with top industry experts and scholars
- Take one of our virtual SCM courses in Leadership (Aug. 18–Nov. 23), Finance (Sept. 15-Nov. 16), and Procurement (Sept. 15–Nov. 16).
- Become a Supply Chain Forum partner
- Subscribe to GSCI’s monthly newsletter
- Read the
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Intro & Outro (00:00):
Welcome to the Tennessee on Supply Chain
Management podcast.
Listen in as co-hosts Ted Stankand Tom Goldsby set sail into
the world of end-to-end supplychain management, diving deep
into today's most relevantbusiness topics.
They'll share insights inpressing industry issues and
tackle the challenges keepingsupply chain professionals up at
night.
If you're enjoying the ride,download and subscribe to
(00:22):
Tennessee on Supply ChainManagement on your favorite
podcast platform now.
Ted Stank (00:28):
Welcome everyone to the Tennessee on Supply Chain
Management podcast, season three, episode 10.
We have an exciting day for youagain today.
My name's Ted Stank, professorof supply chain management at
University of Tennessee.
I'm here with my great friend,tom Goldsby and our guest Amalia
Lendono.
Tom, what's going on?
Tom Goldsby (00:49):
Hey, ted, you know we are on the far side of the
4th of July holiday and weenjoyed a great firework show
here in downtown Knoxville.
That was great.
But I'll have to admit I alwaysstart getting a little bit
anxious.
July 4th is kind of thatmidpoint of summer and we're
just six weeks away fromwelcoming the next cohort of
(01:10):
volunteers to Rocky Top.
So it's time to get thosecourse preps together.
I know you and I areco-teaching a class this fall.
I'm very excited about that.
But hey, it's getting to becrunch time here already.
Ted Stank (01:21):
Is excitement what I'm feeling.
I said to somebody yesterdaythat for the first time in about
22 years I'm freaking outbecause I'm doing a new course
prep and I'm not really sureabout the course material.
I mean every other time likeyou could plop me in a course
and I could teach it in my sleep, but this one is this one
stretching me, and so I'm havinga little anxiety.
Tom Goldsby (01:42):
Hey, it's good to be stretched, Ted.
I mean, that's what life's allabout.
Ted Stank (01:46):
65, stretching is hard, you know, Tom.
Tom Goldsby (01:49):
You're not so limber anymore.
Well, I'll tell you, though,that's the class you and I are
co-teaching.
I think together we are goingto survive and thrive somehow.
Ted Stank (01:58):
Hey, our guest today is Amalia Londono, a good friend
of our program.
Amalia is EVP of End-to-EndSupply Chain North America for
Colgate-Palmolive.
She's a member of our GFCIadvisory board, big supporter of
a lot of our programs.
Really happy to have Amaliahere with us.
Amalia, welcome.
Amalia Londono (02:17):
Thank you.
Thank you, ted, I'm excited tobe here with you today.
Ted Stank (02:21):
Great, great to have you, tom.
What are you hearing?
Ear to the ground.
What kind of things are goingon out there in the world that's
going to impact us in supplychain?
Tom Goldsby (02:28):
Well, we're recording on July 9, which
correct me if I'm wrong that's aday we've had circled for a
long, long time.
Oh, about 90 days now, right?
Ted Stank (02:38):
Since our spring supply chain forum actually.
Tom Goldsby (02:42):
That's right.
So let's go back.
April 2 was Liberation Day,Rose Garden Ceremony, the
billboard, you know, with allthose tariffs, across more than
200 countries, I think.
And then we got one week downthe road and it's like wait,
wait, wait, I'll tell you what.
Ted Stank (02:58):
we'll give you 90 days to bring forward your best
offer, whatever that might be,and in fact, it was the
afternoon that we were doingbreakouts at the forum and I had
to go in and tell some of ourpresenters who were talking
about tariffs that, hey, anannouncement just came out that
they did a moratorium and it waskicked down the road to July
(03:19):
9th.
Tom Goldsby (03:20):
So here we are 90 days later and seemingly it's
getting kicked down the roadagain to the balance of the
month.
Right August 1 is being thrownout there and hey, now you've
got three weeks to bring forwardyour best offer.
I guess the proposition.
We have two deals that aresupposedly wrapped up, but
really those are frameworks.
Ted Stank (03:40):
The day in Vietnam.
Right, which are frameworks?
Tom Goldsby (03:42):
right, right, right , and so that's just a broad
understanding really.
And, as we always say, thedevil's in the details, and
those are really lacking.
But I think where we all kindof land, it's like what's the
number, what's the tariff number?
And then, of course, what isour counterpart offering in the
way of tariffs for our exportsheading over in their direction?
Ted Stank (04:03):
I think we'll see some frameworks with significant
trade partners in the nextcouple of weeks, whether those
hold up, you know.
I mean we've got a somewhatframework agreement with China.
I think the EU and Japan maycome up with some kind of a
framework in the next few weeks.
Tom Goldsby (04:22):
Well, I'll tell you , that's the big one in my mind,
right?
I mean, if you talk about thecollection of nations that make
up the EU, when we stop talkingabout individual countries,
right?
And of course, UK is off ontheir own, which I was just in
London a few weeks ago and it'sjust so goofy, all the things
that you have to do.
I was in Italy and everythingwas cool.
(04:43):
And then it's like, oh, nowI've got to complete this visa
requirement over here to go tothe UK and I'm thinking, gee, I
can't fathom what it's like tobe in the UK doing business with
the balance of Europe now.
Ted Stank (04:55):
Yeah, it's why I'm trying to find my Italian
grandparents birth certificate,so I can apply for Italian
citizenship and just enter theSchengen zone and not have to
worry about it.
Tom Goldsby (05:06):
Now that would be.
Ted Stank (05:06):
that'd be really nice to take care of that
bureaucracy One other tariffthing I want to bring up, and
then we have Amalia here who'sdealing with this constantly, so
I'd love to get her take on it.
The only other thing I'd liketo bring up that's come up very
recently is conversations aroundcopper.
Trump administration justannounced a 50 percent tariff on
copper.
United States gets over half ofour copper from the import
(05:29):
trade, and so there's a lot ofconcern about price increases.
In fact, what I saw in the openmarket was a 13% increase in
the price of copper this morning.
So, amalia again, this is yourlife and there's no need for us
to hold you out of thisconversation.
Love to have your take on someof these things and how you're
(05:50):
dealing with it atColgate-Palmolive.
Amalia Londono (05:52):
Absolutely.
It has definitely been a veryexciting year with respect to
tariffs, but what I would say iseach company needs to focus on
what they can control.
At least, that's what we'redoing here.
I think you don't solve thissituation from one day to the
other.
For us at Colgate, this hasbeen more of a long-term thing
that we've been doing, which iscreating flexibility in our
(06:12):
supply chain.
We are fortunate enough to havea global supply chain, so it's
been all about how do we createflexibility, resiliency of the
products that we make in severallocations.
We have actually been investingin the US quite a lot of money
in the last years, so that ishelping us.
And then all the tools that wehave available today right, all
the modeling tools, the digitaltools that have really helped us
(06:35):
as well be able to quicklyunderstand the scenarios that
are happening and the optionsthat we have.
Ted Stank (06:41):
Yeah, so you built out some pretty strong cost
models.
Amalia Londono (06:44):
Yes, we have some very good models on how to
model this and be able toquickly, because we get a lot of
questions, even internally,right from our senior leadership
team.
So how is this going to impact?
So now we are able to react tothat and respond very fast and
make decisions.
But again, I think what ishelping us right now is the
flexibility that we've beenbuilding into our supply chain
(07:05):
over several years.
Right, you can't solve it.
If you were not doing anythinguntil today and this started to
happen, you're not going to bein a good place.
Ted Stank (07:14):
Yeah, I mean, I remember in 2020 having several
conversations with one of yourprevious colleagues, Josue Munoz
, during COVID.
You know the early days ofCOVID and that really got us
ramped up in terms of reallythinking about this resiliency
and where are we getting productfrom and cost models, et cetera
.
Tom Goldsby (07:32):
Absolutely, Well, amalia, I'm drawn to your title.
I don't know how many people inindustry have your title of
end-to-end supply chain, evp,and that sounds like it's right
out of our textbook, right, ted?
I mean, we teach, we preachend-to-end.
What does that mean, though?
At Colgate-Palmolive, andparticularly given the vagaries
(07:54):
that COVID presented, and nowgeopolitics and all that, just
how critical is it to haveend-to-end perspective and
management of as much as youpossibly can in a collaborative
manner?
Amalia Londono (08:07):
Absolutely Listen.
For us, end-to-end supply chainbasically means we are
responsible for the whole supplychain, right From materials all
the way to delivery to thecustomer and the whole planning
thing that goes on top of theend-to-end.
So I am responsible for makingsure I have the materials, the
manufacturing, the logistics,the transportation, the
(08:27):
distribution, the delivery tothe customers, the customer
engagement piece as well, andthen all the planning that goes
on top.
So that is end-to-end for us.
We actually transitioned to anend-to-end supply chain
organization I think this wasback in around 2018 or 2017-ish
and we used to manage supplychain by global categories and
(08:51):
we moved to this structure sothat we would be more agile,
enable to collaborate furtherwith our commercial teams.
So I am the one point personthat faces all supply chain for
our division.
So I sit together with ourdivision president and my other
colleagues from the otherfunctions from marketing, from
sales, from legal, from humanresources and so I am the face
(09:15):
of the supply chain to theleadership team in the North
America division, and I am alsoobviously a representative of
the global supply chain team forColgate, representing North
America.
So I think that obviously arepresentative of the global
supply chain team for Colgate,representing North America.
So I think that gives a lot ofagility in responding to any
type of supply chain concern,issue, opportunity and so forth.
So this has been working verywell for us.
Ted Stank (09:37):
I'm going to brag on you for a moment.
Amalia, you said that you wentto this structure in 2017, 2018.
Beth, you said that you went tothis structure in 2017, 2018.
Starting in 2019,Colgate-Palmolive has been
annually ranked really highly inthe Gartner Global Supply Chain
rankings.
I think it's got to beattributed at least partly to
this kind of end-to-end vision.
I'm biased.
(09:58):
I think that that is clearlythe way to run a supply chain.
Amalia Londono (10:11):
But I think that the rankings bear that out from
what you all have been doing.
No, absolutely.
And the other thing that thisorganizational structure gives
us is it involves me as a supplychain professional right Very
much into the business.
So supply chain peoplesometimes tend to speak in very
supply chain terms, be veryembedded in supply chain,
without really understanding thebusiness context as much.
I think this structure reallyembeds us into the business and
allows us to really link supplychain and how it's really going
(10:34):
to bring value right and becomea growth engine for the company.
Ted Stank (10:38):
Yeah, and I think it's a great tribute to the
business leadership to recognizethe importance of the supply
chain and creating value.
And that's one of the biggestchallenges we have in supply
chain is the business leadershipto recognize the importance of
the supply chain and creatingvalue.
And that's one of the biggestchallenges we have in supply
chain is the business leadershipteam has to step forward first
and say yes, supply chain is areally critical part of
competitive advantage and value,not just a cost bucket.
Amalia Londono (10:58):
Absolutely.
Tom Goldsby (10:59):
Hey, let's take a look at one end of that
end-to-end perspective, andmaybe the most critical end is
customer facing and looking outto the consumer.
And what are you seeing?
What are some of the big trendsin consumer packaged goods, cpg
industry and how's Colgate?
Kind of evolving or maybemoving the evolution through
(11:22):
supply chain execution movingthe evolution through supply
chain execution.
Amalia Londono (11:29):
I mean, what we're seeing with a consumer is,
first of all, that the consumeris looking for value, right and
value doesn't mean low price.
They're really looking forvalue and making sure that
whatever it is that we aredelivering is really delivering
for the consumer.
So we're very much focusedright now on something we call
product superiority consumer.
So we're very much focusedright now on something we call
product superiority.
How do we make sure that, yes,once the product is available,
how that product is reallydelivering for that consumer?
(11:51):
So that's one thing.
The other thing is that we needto be available right, and for
us supply chain people, that isour number one thing.
Right, we need to make surethat our product is available
everywhere, right For thisomni-consumer.
So it could be at the store, itcould be online, it could be
wherever this consumer isshopping.
How do we make sure that we areavailable everywhere and that,
(12:13):
once we are available, we aredelivering for that consumer?
So that is definitely one ofthe things that we are seeing
and that we are focused on andthat is going to be critically
important as we move evenforward into our strategy for
2030.
Ted Stank (12:27):
We're in the middle of Amazon Prime Day, speaking of
making product availableomnichannel.
Interestingly, e-commerce salesover the course of the last
several months have been downbecause of tariff uncertainty
etc.
And actually the first day ofAmazon Prime was a bit low,
although it's different thisyear because it's a four-day At
(12:48):
least over the entire four days.
It will probably come out as agame.
How has your team had toprepare for the Prime Day demand
bump?
Amalia Londono (12:59):
Every year, we prepare for the Amazon Prime
demand bump.
It's probably one of thetrickiest demand planning
problems that we have isplanning for Amazon Prime Day,
but we've been getting better atit every year as we get to know
.
You know what are the productsthat really take off during this
time and that are more prone.
Right for this type of channeland we make so much of our sales
(13:22):
from Amazon during this time ofthe year is critically
important for us.
Sure, pay a lot of attentionand hopefully, with all the
tools that we're puttingtogether right through our
planning transformation, we'regoing to become even better at
it, and Amazon is also workingon this as well.
Right, they're trying to comeup with better algorithms to
help us figure out what it isthat they're going to need.
(13:43):
So this is a joint effort.
Ted Stank (13:58):
We've talked about.
One is the you know, the reallyresilient, flexible cost models
to be able to respond to thesealmost daily, at least weekly
changes in tariffs and variousglobal things going on.
Now we talk about the planning.
Whenever, I think about theneed for resiliency and planning
.
This cloud of AI andconversation that's going on out
(14:19):
there seems to come togetherwith it.
What's your perspective on that?
Amalia Londono (14:23):
First of all, I'm very excited about what
technology and AI will bring toplanning and to supply chains in
general, and I think it is oneof probably the most common uses
that industry is using AI foris in the planning space.
I think we are still are in theinfancy right of the uses of
(14:43):
this.
One of the first things that weare trying to use it for here at
Colgate is in the demandplanning side right, how do we
bring additional insights fromthe in-store data right, from
the in-store data to really beable to help our demand plans?
And I think ultimately is howdo we get to almost like a
(15:04):
touchless demand plan right,that would be like the utopia of
our planning business.
And then how to even add someexternal factors into our demand
plan as well.
So I think that's going to beone of the major pieces of how
we use AI, and the other pieceis going to be around how we
plan capacity as well right,that will be another great use.
(15:25):
We are doing some pilots aroundthere as well.
How do we unlock capacity insome of our manufacturing sites
and things that are really hardto plan, that involve many
different stages of the planning, and so with this AI, we will
be able to really optimize that.
So I'm extremely excited as towhat this is going to bring for
us.
Tom Goldsby (15:45):
Yeah, it's really exciting.
It sounds like you're makingbetter use of what data maybe
has historically been available,maybe not so digestible or easy
to generate the insights.
But then you also mentionedthese externalities that could
be unstructured data, right,that we've had a really hard
time digesting, and do you seeAI perhaps helping you to take
(16:07):
some of that unstructured inputand make sense of it and usable
in some form?
Some?
Amalia Londono (16:11):
of that unstructured input and make
sense of it and usable in someform.
Absolutely, we do see that aswell and especially, you know,
one of the probably biggestchallenges that we have in
supply chain right is cleaningup data right and making sure
our data is good.
We also see AI as a potentialsolve right For how to make sure
that our data that isunstructured, maybe not so clean
, is actually usable.
Ted Stank (16:32):
So absolutely, the other big thing that swirls
around the AI conversation allthe great things it can do for
us, not only in the supply chainbut in medical advances, all
kinds of things.
But then the dot cloud is whatit might do to workforce and
hiring, et cetera.
In like the next five years, asyou bring AI more and more into
(16:53):
your planning environment andother areas of the supply chain,
do you see that impacting yourtalent needs and in terms of
skill sets and the number ofpeople you're going to need to
be able to deal with it?
Amalia Londono (17:06):
Absolutely.
I mean definitely skill sets,and I think it's about how do we
as a company right, we providethe right tools and space and
opportunity for people to beupskilled in this area and, of
course, bringing people thathave these skills as well, right
, but at least here at Colgate,we are trying to do major
upskilling of our wholeworkforce and AI.
(17:26):
So, and then we hope, right aswe get all the solutions
implemented, we do foresee thejobs changing somewhat, or a lot
, hopefully.
So I'm not sure if you knowless people, but doing different
things with the people that wehave, right, it's going to free
up so much time to do valueadded work.
(17:47):
So, no, it's very exciting, Imean we see these applications
across the whole end to endsupply chain.
Right, when you talk aboutmanufacturing, there's so many
different things that we'redoing, for example, on quality,
you know how we control quality,how we do digital twins on our
factory processes and so forth.
Right.
When you talk aboutdistribution Right, we have a
(18:08):
great partnership right now withUber Freight.
Right, we're using the AIanalytics.
They have an amazing platformthat we collaborated with them
for, which is just giving ustremendous opportunity to unlock
efficiencies by using these AIinsights platform that they have
.
That tell us, listen, you'repaying more for this lane than
(18:30):
what you have on your RFP.
Right, In this particular lane,your trucks usually come less
full than what they're supposedto be.
Right, Like it justautomatically tells you where
your opportunities are, right.
Yeah.
Then when you go to warehousing, you know all the opportunities
that we have in warehousing aswell, with the AGVs and so forth
, and the automation that canhappen in the warehouses.
(18:52):
In the planning space, right,what we just talked about demand
planning and so forth.
So it is just across theend-to-end, all the applications
that we are having now and thatare only going to continue to
explode.
And even in the day-to-day job.
You know, when we look at allthe help that we get now from
the Gen AI tools to be able todo our work faster right To
(19:13):
summarize insights, to makepresentations, to make analysis,
right To summarize analysisfrom big spreadsheets so I'm so
excited about what is happening.
We are living at an amazingtime right now for the supply
chain.
Ted Stank (19:26):
Sure are, and I'll tell you, this will probably be
a major focus of our GlobalSupply Chain Institute Advisory
Board for a few years to come,as we try to understand how do
we change curriculum for variousdifferent educational programs
so that, when they come out togo to work for you, they have
those skills that they need.
Tom Goldsby (19:46):
Yeah, amalia really just kind of blew my mind right
.
If you think about the way thatwe have traditionally managed
business, it's based upon thequestions we ask.
But what Amalia has justalluded to is that sometimes,
well, management in the futureis going to be about the
questions that we don't ask, thethings that are in our blind
(20:06):
zone or just we're not aware,and we're going to be informed
of things that we'vetraditionally only learned about
after the fact.
And so we're not aware andwe're going to be informed of
things that we've traditionallyonly learned about after the
fact.
Amalia Londono (20:15):
Yeah.
Tom Goldsby (20:15):
And so we're going to be able to be more proactive
and get ahead of some of thesethings.
That's so exciting.
Amalia Londono (20:21):
More proactive, how we're going to get a lot
more predictive stuff.
And again, I'll give youanother example of things that
maybe people don't think aboutso much, but, for example, in
safety.
Safety is so important insupply chains, right, if you're
running a warehouse, if you'rerunning a manufacturing plant,
we're always caring aboutpeople's safety, right?
That's like our number onepriority that we care about.
(20:42):
Ai is going to help us withthis as well.
Right, because there are nowcameras where you can track what
people are doing and that canalert you if they're doing
something unsafe.
You can track what people aredoing and that can alert you if
they're doing something unsafe.
And it's not to be recordingwhat people are doing.
It allows you to alert you whenpeople are doing something
unsafe, so you can prevent itbefore it actually happens.
(21:02):
So there are so many uses.
Ted Stank (21:04):
And I mean I think we tend to make it seem like it's
this magic thing.
I'm certainly not atechnological expert, but for
our uses of it in the supplychain, at least initially, it's
just given us the ability tochurn through massive amounts of
data that are available to usand find the magic gold that's
in that data and use it tobetter manage things.
(21:25):
I have two sons who are data indata science and I have to say
that because they always kind oflook at me and go, oh, you
think that AI is, you know, isthis magic thing that's going to
do things?
But to have the ability to getthrough all that data and find
the trends and the magic ispowerful.
Amalia Londono (21:42):
Yes.
Now, one thing that isimportant or at least we've seen
is, With so many solutionscoming, you can get lost right
into like trying out so manydifferent things, and at least
one of our learnings has beenthat what matters at the end to
really make an impact is if youcan scale.
So I think that's one of thebiggest challenges is how to
(22:05):
really focus and separate allthis hype from what really can
deliver results, and separateall this hype from what really
can deliver results, while stilltrying to making sure that you
are knowing what's happening,what are the new things?
You know, piloting severalsolutions, but really focusing
on what really can deliverresults, yeah, and add value to
the business.
And that only comes when youcan scale these solutions.
(22:25):
You know you hear about thesegreat projects that they're
doing, but when you dig deeperit's only on a very small piece
of the business.
So the trick is when you canreally get this and scale it
around most of the operations.
Tom Goldsby (22:38):
Yeah, it begs the question as to whether you use
AI to generate your prioritiesright.
Where should we go first?
I think it does also suggestthat companies need to kind of
manage their destiny a bit here.
And I'm just curious atColgate-Palmolive are you
leading the charge?
You mentioned the exampleearlier with Uber Freight and
(22:59):
analytics and capabilities thatthey're bringing forward.
Kind of, what's your strategyin terms of identifying those
collaboration opportunities andwhere you can maybe leverage
richness beyond the in-housecapabilities that you have at CP
?
Amalia Londono (23:15):
We do proactively think about.
You know where are the areasright where we want to make a
difference with technology, andfor this we work collaboratively
as a global supply chain rightwith our global team and our
global analytics team, and sothe way we do it is we
prioritize.
You know what are really thebig, important use cases that we
want to drive that have anability to scale, and then we're
(23:38):
working on those and then atthe same time so that's from the
top down and then from thebottom up as we are upskilling
you know our whole organizationon digital and AI tools they're
coming up with their use cases,right, and so when these use
cases really start deliveringvalue, then we have a process of
reviewing them and seeing ifthose can be scaled as well.
(24:01):
So we have, like, a top-downapproach and a bottom-down as
well, because this needs to beorganic as well.
But in order for us to be ableto focus our resources, we have
identified what are some of thebigger use cases that we want to
drive, and that's how we aredoing it in our company.
Ted Stank (24:18):
And one of the things that I always do before our
guests join us is do a littlebackground searching on them,
and I saw on your LinkedIn pageabout a recent leadership
retreat that your leadershipgroup had at the Horse Institute
and you made some reallyinteresting comments and it was
about how leadership teams canwork better and understand
shared leadership.
(24:38):
I would love to hear yourperspective on that because it
just seemed so unique to me.
Why the Horse Institute?
Why looking at working withhorses?
Amalia Londono (24:48):
Well, first of all, I'm very passionate about
horses as a person.
I grew up horseback riding.
That was my sport until I wentto college, so I have a thing
for horses.
So that's first and foremost.
And second of all, we've beenworking for the past couple of
years here.
When we look at our surveyresults right, our engagement
(25:08):
survey results one of the biggeropportunities that comes up is
well-being and energy managementright, and so we've been
working on several leadershipsessions on how do we do that
better as leaders, so that wecan give a good example to our
teams as well.
So I thought it was reallyinteresting with this Horse
(25:28):
Institute that they talk aboutthe concept of shared leadership
and, as a leader a leader,right if you have a good team,
how do you make sure that youknow you shared accountability
within that leadership?
And the leader is not the onlyone that is always pushing right
, because it is very energydraining to do that.
So, in order to be sustainable,right, we need to make sure we
(25:50):
have that shared leadership andshared accountability, and
that's how horses lead.
So that's what we learned.
So, in horses, right, you havethe mare that goes up front, you
have the stallion that goes inthe back and then you have
sentinels that go on the sidesright and everyone has a very
specific role and it only workswhen everybody's doing kind of
(26:11):
their job.
So we thought it was superinteresting to see that parallel
and to do some of the exerciseswith the Horse Institute where
we saw that really in practice.
It was a very good experience.
Ted Stank (26:22):
That's very interesting.
I did not realize that.
I mean, in my mind, you know,there was the stallion and the
mayor and they kind of ledeverything right.
Amalia Londono (26:31):
Yeah, no, there are actually sentinels as well.
That keeps the herd on track.
Tom Goldsby (26:46):
Yeah, so I think we've covered a lot of ground
here with you today, amalia, butI'm thinking, as Ted and I
started the show today, talkingabout getting ready for the next
cohort of students coming injust six weeks away from now.
I'm just thinking about whatshould he and I be thinking
about that we need to bebringing into the classroom to
prepare these students for thatfuture?
Amalia Londono (27:08):
Listen.
I mean, I think what is astudent for the future?
You know how do they prepare.
I mean, I think one thing thatwill never go away is the
ability to really have goodcritical thinking.
I think, as we see all thesetechnology coming through AI et
cetera, it's really important tohave critical thinking.
So that's one thing.
(27:29):
Another thing that I see for anew student or a supply chain
professional of today ispersonal resiliency.
For us in supply chain, we live, you know, at least half of our
time we manage crises right.
The other half, hopefully, weare thinking about how to create
capabilities to allow us tomanage.
The crisis is even better inthe future.
(27:51):
And so I think that concept ofpersonal resiliency is also a
very important thing.
I think analytical how to thinksystems-wide systems thinking
and analytics I think is alsoanother critical piece.
And I would say the last one ismore of a soft skill, but it is
(28:12):
really empathy.
I do think leaders need to beempathetic and need to
understand people, and there's alot of changes that are coming
that I think if we don't haveempathetic leaders to help you
know broader teams, understandwhat are the changes that are
happening and how to help peoplethrough those changes, I think
(28:34):
that's also another very, verycritical piece.
Tom Goldsby (28:38):
That's beautiful, Elkwin.
I got all those four pointsdown, Ted, and we need to check
later to see how our syllabusand course structure is checking
against those.
I'm also thinking about the newMS in global supply chain
management that we're launchingat UT this fall and making sure
that those themes are integratedthroughout the entire
curriculum and making sure wedeliver those supply chain
(28:59):
professionals that you all needout there.
Ted Stank (29:01):
Yeah, those are great .
Four great points.
I noted them as well.
Well, we're going to reach theend of our time, amalia.
We want to make sure that youhave time to get to your next
meeting.
End of our time, amalia.
We want to make sure that youhave time to get to your next
meeting and we thank you so, somuch for joining us.
Hope to see you at our upcomingGlobal Supply Chain Institute
meeting in August or at theforum in November, but, as
always, appreciate yourpartnership and your friendship
(29:24):
and support.
Amalia Londono (29:25):
No, thank you.
Thank you so much for theinvitation and I hope to see you
soon in the supply chain forum.
Tom Goldsby (29:31):
Well, amalia, thank you so much for the invitation
and I hope to see you soon inthe supply chain forum.
Well, amalia, thank you so muchagain, not only for what you
brought to the program today,but what you and the team at CP
does throughout the year tosupport our efforts and, dare I
say, to buy some of our product.
We love your product.
The Optic White is my go-to.
It is the best whitening productout there, so a lot of great
(29:52):
product that you are taking tomarket, some of it produced
right here in Tennessee, whichwe're very proud about as well.
But hey, ted, in terms of ourown assembly operation, we've
got another great show coming up.
In about a month, I think we'regoing to be bringing Doug Gray,
who's vice president ofintegrated supply chain for
train technologies another greatpartner of ours here at Rocky
Top.
So a lot of good stuff.
(30:13):
And, hey, we welcome comments,questions, ideas.
Direct them to us at GSCI, atUTK, dot, edu.
Ted Stank (30:21):
And Ted, I see you've got a hand up, so I do I want
to give a shout out to BrianKniever, our producer.
Tom Goldsby (30:27):
Yes.
Ted Stank (30:28):
We found out recently that these are two companies
that I had to write down becauseI couldn't remember their names
.
But Feedspot, who tracks thesekinds of things, ranked us as
the number 10 overall supplychain management podcast and the
number one university-basedsupply chain management podcast.
And then Buzzsprout, anothercompany that tracks these kind
(30:50):
of things, said we achieved25,000 downloads of our podcast.
So, Tom, I think it's becauseof you and I, but really it's
because of guests like Amalia.
Tom Goldsby (30:58):
Yeah, no, it certainly is.
That's what keeps folks comingback, and you know I tease that.
I think my parents areresponsible for about 80% of
those downloads, but that meansthere's still 20% out there.
That's still 5,000 downloadscoming from outside my family.
That's really impressive.
Ted Stank (31:14):
So thank you, all of our listeners, for continuing to
listen and download, andhopefully we'll continue to
bring you good content.
If you have ideas, please letus know at gsciutkedu.
With that, tom, let's sign off.
Tom Goldsby (31:27):
Have a great balance of summer.
Let's get back to it.
Intro & Outro (31:30):
Thanks for tuning in to Tennessee on Supply Chain
Management.
If you enjoyed the episode,subscribe today on your favorite
listening platform to get allof our episodes as soon as they
drop, and don't forget to take amoment to leave us a rating.
Have any questions, thoughts orfeedback?
We'd love to hear from ourlisteners.
Email us at gsci at utkedu.
Join us next time as wecontinue pulling back the
(31:53):
curtain on the world of supplychain, educating and
entertaining you along the way.
Until then, listeners.
Welcome to the Tennessee on Supply Chain
Management podcast.
Listen in as co-hosts Ted Stankand Tom Goldsby set sail into
the world of end-to-end supplychain management, diving deep
into today's most relevantbusiness topics.
They'll share insights inpressing industry issues and
tackle the challenges keepingsupply chain professionals up at
night.
If you're enjoying the ride,download and subscribe to
(00:22):
Tennessee on Supply ChainManagement on your favorite
podcast platform now.
Ted Stank (00:28):
Welcome everyone to the Tennessee on Supply Chain
Management podcast, season three, episode 10.
We have an exciting day for youagain today.
My name's Ted Stank, professorof supply chain management at
University of Tennessee.
I'm here with my great friend,tom Goldsby and our guest Amalia
Lendono.
Tom, what's going on?
Tom Goldsby (00:49):
Hey, ted, you know we are on the far side of the
4th of July holiday and weenjoyed a great firework show
here in downtown Knoxville.
That was great.
But I'll have to admit I alwaysstart getting a little bit
anxious.
July 4th is kind of thatmidpoint of summer and we're
just six weeks away fromwelcoming the next cohort of
(01:10):
volunteers to Rocky Top.
So it's time to get thosecourse preps together.
I know you and I areco-teaching a class this fall.
I'm very excited about that.
But hey, it's getting to becrunch time here already.
Ted Stank (01:21):
Is excitement what I'm feeling.
I said to somebody yesterdaythat for the first time in about
22 years I'm freaking outbecause I'm doing a new course
prep and I'm not really sureabout the course material.
I mean every other time likeyou could plop me in a course
and I could teach it in my sleep, but this one is this one
stretching me, and so I'm havinga little anxiety.
Tom Goldsby (01:42):
Hey, it's good to be stretched, Ted.
I mean, that's what life's allabout.
Ted Stank (01:46):
65, stretching is hard, you know, Tom.
Tom Goldsby (01:49):
You're not so limber anymore.
Well, I'll tell you, though,that's the class you and I are
co-teaching.
I think together we are goingto survive and thrive somehow.
Ted Stank (01:58):
Hey, our guest today is Amalia Londono, a good friend
of our program.
Amalia is EVP of End-to-EndSupply Chain North America for
Colgate-Palmolive.
She's a member of our GFCIadvisory board, big supporter of
a lot of our programs.
Really happy to have Amaliahere with us.
Amalia, welcome.
Amalia Londono (02:17):
Thank you.
Thank you, ted, I'm excited tobe here with you today.
Ted Stank (02:21):
Great, great to have you, tom.
What are you hearing?
Ear to the ground.
What kind of things are goingon out there in the world that's
going to impact us in supplychain?
Tom Goldsby (02:28):
Well, we're recording on July 9, which
correct me if I'm wrong that's aday we've had circled for a
long, long time.
Oh, about 90 days now, right?
Ted Stank (02:38):
Since our spring supply chain forum actually.
Tom Goldsby (02:42):
That's right.
So let's go back.
April 2 was Liberation Day,Rose Garden Ceremony, the
billboard, you know, with allthose tariffs, across more than
200 countries, I think.
And then we got one week downthe road and it's like wait,
wait, wait, I'll tell you what.
Ted Stank (02:58):
we'll give you 90 days to bring forward your best
offer, whatever that might be,and in fact, it was the
afternoon that we were doingbreakouts at the forum and I had
to go in and tell some of ourpresenters who were talking
about tariffs that, hey, anannouncement just came out that
they did a moratorium and it waskicked down the road to July
(03:19):
9th.
Tom Goldsby (03:20):
So here we are 90 days later and seemingly it's
getting kicked down the roadagain to the balance of the
month.
Right August 1 is being thrownout there and hey, now you've
got three weeks to bring forwardyour best offer.
I guess the proposition.
We have two deals that aresupposedly wrapped up, but
really those are frameworks.
Ted Stank (03:40):
The day in Vietnam.
Right, which are frameworks?
Tom Goldsby (03:42):
right, right, right , and so that's just a broad
understanding really.
And, as we always say, thedevil's in the details, and
those are really lacking.
But I think where we all kindof land, it's like what's the
number, what's the tariff number?
And then, of course, what isour counterpart offering in the
way of tariffs for our exportsheading over in their direction?
Ted Stank (04:03):
I think we'll see some frameworks with significant
trade partners in the nextcouple of weeks, whether those
hold up, you know.
I mean we've got a somewhatframework agreement with China.
I think the EU and Japan maycome up with some kind of a
framework in the next few weeks.
Tom Goldsby (04:22):
Well, I'll tell you , that's the big one in my mind,
right?
I mean, if you talk about thecollection of nations that make
up the EU, when we stop talkingabout individual countries,
right?
And of course, UK is off ontheir own, which I was just in
London a few weeks ago and it'sjust so goofy, all the things
that you have to do.
I was in Italy and everythingwas cool.
(04:43):
And then it's like, oh, nowI've got to complete this visa
requirement over here to go tothe UK and I'm thinking, gee, I
can't fathom what it's like tobe in the UK doing business with
the balance of Europe now.
Ted Stank (04:55):
Yeah, it's why I'm trying to find my Italian
grandparents birth certificate,so I can apply for Italian
citizenship and just enter theSchengen zone and not have to
worry about it.
Tom Goldsby (05:06):
Now that would be.
Ted Stank (05:06):
that'd be really nice to take care of that
bureaucracy One other tariffthing I want to bring up, and
then we have Amalia here who'sdealing with this constantly, so
I'd love to get her take on it.
The only other thing I'd liketo bring up that's come up very
recently is conversations aroundcopper.
Trump administration justannounced a 50 percent tariff on
copper.
United States gets over half ofour copper from the import
(05:29):
trade, and so there's a lot ofconcern about price increases.
In fact, what I saw in the openmarket was a 13% increase in
the price of copper this morning.
So, amalia again, this is yourlife and there's no need for us
to hold you out of thisconversation.
Love to have your take on someof these things and how you're
(05:50):
dealing with it atColgate-Palmolive.
Amalia Londono (05:52):
Absolutely.
It has definitely been a veryexciting year with respect to
tariffs, but what I would say iseach company needs to focus on
what they can control.
At least, that's what we'redoing here.
I think you don't solve thissituation from one day to the
other.
For us at Colgate, this hasbeen more of a long-term thing
that we've been doing, which iscreating flexibility in our
(06:12):
supply chain.
We are fortunate enough to havea global supply chain, so it's
been all about how do we createflexibility, resiliency of the
products that we make in severallocations.
We have actually been investingin the US quite a lot of money
in the last years, so that ishelping us.
And then all the tools that wehave available today right, all
the modeling tools, the digitaltools that have really helped us
(06:35):
as well be able to quicklyunderstand the scenarios that
are happening and the optionsthat we have.
Ted Stank (06:41):
Yeah, so you built out some pretty strong cost
models.
Amalia Londono (06:44):
Yes, we have some very good models on how to
model this and be able toquickly, because we get a lot of
questions, even internally,right from our senior leadership
team.
So how is this going to impact?
So now we are able to react tothat and respond very fast and
make decisions.
But again, I think what ishelping us right now is the
flexibility that we've beenbuilding into our supply chain
(07:05):
over several years.
Right, you can't solve it.
If you were not doing anythinguntil today and this started to
happen, you're not going to bein a good place.
Ted Stank (07:14):
Yeah, I mean, I remember in 2020 having several
conversations with one of yourprevious colleagues, Josue Munoz
, during COVID.
You know the early days ofCOVID and that really got us
ramped up in terms of reallythinking about this resiliency
and where are we getting productfrom and cost models, et cetera
.
Tom Goldsby (07:32):
Absolutely, Well, amalia, I'm drawn to your title.
I don't know how many people inindustry have your title of
end-to-end supply chain, evp,and that sounds like it's right
out of our textbook, right, ted?
I mean, we teach, we preachend-to-end.
What does that mean, though?
At Colgate-Palmolive, andparticularly given the vagaries
(07:54):
that COVID presented, and nowgeopolitics and all that, just
how critical is it to haveend-to-end perspective and
management of as much as youpossibly can in a collaborative
manner?
Amalia Londono (08:07):
Absolutely Listen.
For us, end-to-end supply chainbasically means we are
responsible for the whole supplychain, right From materials all
the way to delivery to thecustomer and the whole planning
thing that goes on top of theend-to-end.
So I am responsible for makingsure I have the materials, the
manufacturing, the logistics,the transportation, the
(08:27):
distribution, the delivery tothe customers, the customer
engagement piece as well, andthen all the planning that goes
on top.
So that is end-to-end for us.
We actually transitioned to anend-to-end supply chain
organization I think this wasback in around 2018 or 2017-ish
and we used to manage supplychain by global categories and
(08:51):
we moved to this structure sothat we would be more agile,
enable to collaborate furtherwith our commercial teams.
So I am the one point personthat faces all supply chain for
our division.
So I sit together with ourdivision president and my other
colleagues from the otherfunctions from marketing, from
sales, from legal, from humanresources and so I am the face
(09:15):
of the supply chain to theleadership team in the North
America division, and I am alsoobviously a representative of
the global supply chain team forColgate, representing North
America.
So I think that obviously arepresentative of the global
supply chain team for Colgate,representing North America.
So I think that gives a lot ofagility in responding to any
type of supply chain concern,issue, opportunity and so forth.
So this has been working verywell for us.
Ted Stank (09:37):
I'm going to brag on you for a moment.
Amalia, you said that you wentto this structure in 2017, 2018.
Beth, you said that you went tothis structure in 2017, 2018.
Starting in 2019,Colgate-Palmolive has been
annually ranked really highly inthe Gartner Global Supply Chain
rankings.
I think it's got to beattributed at least partly to
this kind of end-to-end vision.
I'm biased.
(09:58):
I think that that is clearlythe way to run a supply chain.
Amalia Londono (10:11):
But I think that the rankings bear that out from
what you all have been doing.
No, absolutely.
And the other thing that thisorganizational structure gives
us is it involves me as a supplychain professional right Very
much into the business.
So supply chain peoplesometimes tend to speak in very
supply chain terms, be veryembedded in supply chain,
without really understanding thebusiness context as much.
I think this structure reallyembeds us into the business and
allows us to really link supplychain and how it's really going
(10:34):
to bring value right and becomea growth engine for the company.
Ted Stank (10:38):
Yeah, and I think it's a great tribute to the
business leadership to recognizethe importance of the supply
chain and creating value.
And that's one of the biggestchallenges we have in supply
chain is the business leadershipto recognize the importance of
the supply chain and creatingvalue.
And that's one of the biggestchallenges we have in supply
chain is the business leadershipteam has to step forward first
and say yes, supply chain is areally critical part of
competitive advantage and value,not just a cost bucket.
Amalia Londono (10:58):
Absolutely.
Tom Goldsby (10:59):
Hey, let's take a look at one end of that
end-to-end perspective, andmaybe the most critical end is
customer facing and looking outto the consumer.
And what are you seeing?
What are some of the big trendsin consumer packaged goods, cpg
industry and how's Colgate?
Kind of evolving or maybemoving the evolution through
(11:22):
supply chain execution movingthe evolution through supply
chain execution.
Amalia Londono (11:29):
I mean, what we're seeing with a consumer is,
first of all, that the consumeris looking for value, right and
value doesn't mean low price.
They're really looking forvalue and making sure that
whatever it is that we aredelivering is really delivering
for the consumer.
So we're very much focusedright now on something we call
product superiority consumer.
So we're very much focusedright now on something we call
product superiority.
How do we make sure that, yes,once the product is available,
how that product is reallydelivering for that consumer?
(11:51):
So that's one thing.
The other thing is that we needto be available right, and for
us supply chain people, that isour number one thing.
Right, we need to make surethat our product is available
everywhere, right For thisomni-consumer.
So it could be at the store, itcould be online, it could be
wherever this consumer isshopping.
How do we make sure that we areavailable everywhere and that,
(12:13):
once we are available, we aredelivering for that consumer?
So that is definitely one ofthe things that we are seeing
and that we are focused on andthat is going to be critically
important as we move evenforward into our strategy for
2030.
Ted Stank (12:27):
We're in the middle of Amazon Prime Day, speaking of
making product availableomnichannel.
Interestingly, e-commerce salesover the course of the last
several months have been downbecause of tariff uncertainty
etc.
And actually the first day ofAmazon Prime was a bit low,
although it's different thisyear because it's a four-day At
(12:48):
least over the entire four days.
It will probably come out as agame.
How has your team had toprepare for the Prime Day demand
bump?
Amalia Londono (12:59):
Every year, we prepare for the Amazon Prime
demand bump.
It's probably one of thetrickiest demand planning
problems that we have isplanning for Amazon Prime Day,
but we've been getting better atit every year as we get to know
.
You know what are the productsthat really take off during this
time and that are more prone.
Right for this type of channeland we make so much of our sales
(13:22):
from Amazon during this time ofthe year is critically
important for us.
Sure, pay a lot of attentionand hopefully, with all the
tools that we're puttingtogether right through our
planning transformation, we'regoing to become even better at
it, and Amazon is also workingon this as well.
Right, they're trying to comeup with better algorithms to
help us figure out what it isthat they're going to need.
(13:43):
So this is a joint effort.
Ted Stank (13:58):
We've talked about.
One is the you know, the reallyresilient, flexible cost models
to be able to respond to thesealmost daily, at least weekly
changes in tariffs and variousglobal things going on.
Now we talk about the planning.
Whenever, I think about theneed for resiliency and planning
.
This cloud of AI andconversation that's going on out
(14:19):
there seems to come togetherwith it.
What's your perspective on that?
Amalia Londono (14:23):
First of all, I'm very excited about what
technology and AI will bring toplanning and to supply chains in
general, and I think it is oneof probably the most common uses
that industry is using AI foris in the planning space.
I think we are still are in theinfancy right of the uses of
(14:43):
this.
One of the first things that weare trying to use it for here at
Colgate is in the demandplanning side right, how do we
bring additional insights fromthe in-store data right, from
the in-store data to really beable to help our demand plans?
And I think ultimately is howdo we get to almost like a
(15:04):
touchless demand plan right,that would be like the utopia of
our planning business.
And then how to even add someexternal factors into our demand
plan as well.
So I think that's going to beone of the major pieces of how
we use AI, and the other pieceis going to be around how we
plan capacity as well right,that will be another great use.
(15:25):
We are doing some pilots aroundthere as well.
How do we unlock capacity insome of our manufacturing sites
and things that are really hardto plan, that involve many
different stages of the planning, and so with this AI, we will
be able to really optimize that.
So I'm extremely excited as towhat this is going to bring for
us.
Tom Goldsby (15:45):
Yeah, it's really exciting.
It sounds like you're makingbetter use of what data maybe
has historically been available,maybe not so digestible or easy
to generate the insights.
But then you also mentionedthese externalities that could
be unstructured data, right,that we've had a really hard
time digesting, and do you seeAI perhaps helping you to take
(16:07):
some of that unstructured inputand make sense of it and usable
in some form?
Some?
Amalia Londono (16:11):
of that unstructured input and make
sense of it and usable in someform.
Absolutely, we do see that aswell and especially, you know,
one of the probably biggestchallenges that we have in
supply chain right is cleaningup data right and making sure
our data is good.
We also see AI as a potentialsolve right For how to make sure
that our data that isunstructured, maybe not so clean
, is actually usable.
Ted Stank (16:32):
So absolutely, the other big thing that swirls
around the AI conversation allthe great things it can do for
us, not only in the supply chainbut in medical advances, all
kinds of things.
But then the dot cloud is whatit might do to workforce and
hiring, et cetera.
In like the next five years, asyou bring AI more and more into
(16:53):
your planning environment andother areas of the supply chain,
do you see that impacting yourtalent needs and in terms of
skill sets and the number ofpeople you're going to need to
be able to deal with it?
Amalia Londono (17:06):
Absolutely.
I mean definitely skill sets,and I think it's about how do we
as a company right, we providethe right tools and space and
opportunity for people to beupskilled in this area and, of
course, bringing people thathave these skills as well, right
, but at least here at Colgate,we are trying to do major
upskilling of our wholeworkforce and AI.
(17:26):
So, and then we hope, right aswe get all the solutions
implemented, we do foresee thejobs changing somewhat, or a lot
, hopefully.
So I'm not sure if you knowless people, but doing different
things with the people that wehave, right, it's going to free
up so much time to do valueadded work.
(17:47):
So, no, it's very exciting, Imean we see these applications
across the whole end to endsupply chain.
Right, when you talk aboutmanufacturing, there's so many
different things that we'redoing, for example, on quality,
you know how we control quality,how we do digital twins on our
factory processes and so forth.
Right.
When you talk aboutdistribution Right, we have a
(18:08):
great partnership right now withUber Freight.
Right, we're using the AIanalytics.
They have an amazing platformthat we collaborated with them
for, which is just giving ustremendous opportunity to unlock
efficiencies by using these AIinsights platform that they have
.
That tell us, listen, you'repaying more for this lane than
(18:30):
what you have on your RFP.
Right, In this particular lane,your trucks usually come less
full than what they're supposedto be.
Right, Like it justautomatically tells you where
your opportunities are, right.
Yeah.
Then when you go to warehousing, you know all the opportunities
that we have in warehousing aswell, with the AGVs and so forth
, and the automation that canhappen in the warehouses.
(18:52):
In the planning space, right,what we just talked about demand
planning and so forth.
So it is just across theend-to-end, all the applications
that we are having now and thatare only going to continue to
explode.
And even in the day-to-day job.
You know, when we look at allthe help that we get now from
the Gen AI tools to be able todo our work faster right To
(19:13):
summarize insights, to makepresentations, to make analysis,
right To summarize analysisfrom big spreadsheets so I'm so
excited about what is happening.
We are living at an amazingtime right now for the supply
chain.
Ted Stank (19:26):
Sure are, and I'll tell you, this will probably be
a major focus of our GlobalSupply Chain Institute Advisory
Board for a few years to come,as we try to understand how do
we change curriculum for variousdifferent educational programs
so that, when they come out togo to work for you, they have
those skills that they need.
Tom Goldsby (19:46):
Yeah, amalia really just kind of blew my mind right
.
If you think about the way thatwe have traditionally managed
business, it's based upon thequestions we ask.
But what Amalia has justalluded to is that sometimes,
well, management in the futureis going to be about the
questions that we don't ask, thethings that are in our blind
(20:06):
zone or just we're not aware,and we're going to be informed
of things that we'vetraditionally only learned about
after the fact.
And so we're not aware andwe're going to be informed of
things that we've traditionallyonly learned about after the
fact.
Amalia Londono (20:15):
Yeah.
Tom Goldsby (20:15):
And so we're going to be able to be more proactive
and get ahead of some of thesethings.
That's so exciting.
Amalia Londono (20:21):
More proactive, how we're going to get a lot
more predictive stuff.
And again, I'll give youanother example of things that
maybe people don't think aboutso much, but, for example, in
safety.
Safety is so important insupply chains, right, if you're
running a warehouse, if you'rerunning a manufacturing plant,
we're always caring aboutpeople's safety, right?
That's like our number onepriority that we care about.
(20:42):
Ai is going to help us withthis as well.
Right, because there are nowcameras where you can track what
people are doing and that canalert you if they're doing
something unsafe.
You can track what people aredoing and that can alert you if
they're doing something unsafe.
And it's not to be recordingwhat people are doing.
It allows you to alert you whenpeople are doing something
unsafe, so you can prevent itbefore it actually happens.
(21:02):
So there are so many uses.
Ted Stank (21:04):
And I mean I think we tend to make it seem like it's
this magic thing.
I'm certainly not atechnological expert, but for
our uses of it in the supplychain, at least initially, it's
just given us the ability tochurn through massive amounts of
data that are available to usand find the magic gold that's
in that data and use it tobetter manage things.
(21:25):
I have two sons who are data indata science and I have to say
that because they always kind oflook at me and go, oh, you
think that AI is, you know, isthis magic thing that's going to
do things?
But to have the ability to getthrough all that data and find
the trends and the magic ispowerful.
Amalia Londono (21:42):
Yes.
Now, one thing that isimportant or at least we've seen
is, With so many solutionscoming, you can get lost right
into like trying out so manydifferent things, and at least
one of our learnings has beenthat what matters at the end to
really make an impact is if youcan scale.
So I think that's one of thebiggest challenges is how to
(22:05):
really focus and separate allthis hype from what really can
deliver results, and separateall this hype from what really
can deliver results, while stilltrying to making sure that you
are knowing what's happening,what are the new things?
You know, piloting severalsolutions, but really focusing
on what really can deliverresults, yeah, and add value to
the business.
And that only comes when youcan scale these solutions.
(22:25):
You know you hear about thesegreat projects that they're
doing, but when you dig deeperit's only on a very small piece
of the business.
So the trick is when you canreally get this and scale it
around most of the operations.
Tom Goldsby (22:38):
Yeah, it begs the question as to whether you use
AI to generate your prioritiesright.
Where should we go first?
I think it does also suggestthat companies need to kind of
manage their destiny a bit here.
And I'm just curious atColgate-Palmolive are you
leading the charge?
You mentioned the exampleearlier with Uber Freight and
(22:59):
analytics and capabilities thatthey're bringing forward.
Kind of, what's your strategyin terms of identifying those
collaboration opportunities andwhere you can maybe leverage
richness beyond the in-housecapabilities that you have at CP
?
Amalia Londono (23:15):
We do proactively think about.
You know where are the areasright where we want to make a
difference with technology, andfor this we work collaboratively
as a global supply chain rightwith our global team and our
global analytics team, and sothe way we do it is we
prioritize.
You know what are really thebig, important use cases that we
want to drive that have anability to scale, and then we're
(23:38):
working on those and then atthe same time so that's from the
top down and then from thebottom up as we are upskilling
you know our whole organizationon digital and AI tools they're
coming up with their use cases,right, and so when these use
cases really start deliveringvalue, then we have a process of
reviewing them and seeing ifthose can be scaled as well.
(24:01):
So we have, like, a top-downapproach and a bottom-down as
well, because this needs to beorganic as well.
But in order for us to be ableto focus our resources, we have
identified what are some of thebigger use cases that we want to
drive, and that's how we aredoing it in our company.
Ted Stank (24:18):
And one of the things that I always do before our
guests join us is do a littlebackground searching on them,
and I saw on your LinkedIn pageabout a recent leadership
retreat that your leadershipgroup had at the Horse Institute
and you made some reallyinteresting comments and it was
about how leadership teams canwork better and understand
shared leadership.
(24:38):
I would love to hear yourperspective on that because it
just seemed so unique to me.
Why the Horse Institute?
Why looking at working withhorses?
Amalia Londono (24:48):
Well, first of all, I'm very passionate about
horses as a person.
I grew up horseback riding.
That was my sport until I wentto college, so I have a thing
for horses.
So that's first and foremost.
And second of all, we've beenworking for the past couple of
years here.
When we look at our surveyresults right, our engagement
(25:08):
survey results one of the biggeropportunities that comes up is
well-being and energy managementright, and so we've been
working on several leadershipsessions on how do we do that
better as leaders, so that wecan give a good example to our
teams as well.
So I thought it was reallyinteresting with this Horse
(25:28):
Institute that they talk aboutthe concept of shared leadership
and, as a leader a leader,right if you have a good team,
how do you make sure that youknow you shared accountability
within that leadership?
And the leader is not the onlyone that is always pushing right
, because it is very energydraining to do that.
So, in order to be sustainable,right, we need to make sure we
(25:50):
have that shared leadership andshared accountability, and
that's how horses lead.
So that's what we learned.
So, in horses, right, you havethe mare that goes up front, you
have the stallion that goes inthe back and then you have
sentinels that go on the sidesright and everyone has a very
specific role and it only workswhen everybody's doing kind of
(26:11):
their job.
So we thought it was superinteresting to see that parallel
and to do some of the exerciseswith the Horse Institute where
we saw that really in practice.
It was a very good experience.
Ted Stank (26:22):
That's very interesting.
I did not realize that.
I mean, in my mind, you know,there was the stallion and the
mayor and they kind of ledeverything right.
Amalia Londono (26:31):
Yeah, no, there are actually sentinels as well.
That keeps the herd on track.
Tom Goldsby (26:46):
Yeah, so I think we've covered a lot of ground
here with you today, amalia, butI'm thinking, as Ted and I
started the show today, talkingabout getting ready for the next
cohort of students coming injust six weeks away from now.
I'm just thinking about whatshould he and I be thinking
about that we need to bebringing into the classroom to
prepare these students for thatfuture?
Amalia Londono (27:08):
Listen.
I mean, I think what is astudent for the future?
You know how do they prepare.
I mean, I think one thing thatwill never go away is the
ability to really have goodcritical thinking.
I think, as we see all thesetechnology coming through AI et
cetera, it's really important tohave critical thinking.
So that's one thing.
(27:29):
Another thing that I see for anew student or a supply chain
professional of today ispersonal resiliency.
For us in supply chain, we live, you know, at least half of our
time we manage crises right.
The other half, hopefully, weare thinking about how to create
capabilities to allow us tomanage.
The crisis is even better inthe future.
(27:51):
And so I think that concept ofpersonal resiliency is also a
very important thing.
I think analytical how to thinksystems-wide systems thinking
and analytics I think is alsoanother critical piece.
And I would say the last one ismore of a soft skill, but it is
(28:12):
really empathy.
I do think leaders need to beempathetic and need to
understand people, and there's alot of changes that are coming
that I think if we don't haveempathetic leaders to help you
know broader teams, understandwhat are the changes that are
happening and how to help peoplethrough those changes, I think
(28:34):
that's also another very, verycritical piece.
Tom Goldsby (28:38):
That's beautiful, Elkwin.
I got all those four pointsdown, Ted, and we need to check
later to see how our syllabusand course structure is checking
against those.
I'm also thinking about the newMS in global supply chain
management that we're launchingat UT this fall and making sure
that those themes are integratedthroughout the entire
curriculum and making sure wedeliver those supply chain
(28:59):
professionals that you all needout there.
Ted Stank (29:01):
Yeah, those are great .
Four great points.
I noted them as well.
Well, we're going to reach theend of our time, amalia.
We want to make sure that youhave time to get to your next
meeting.
End of our time, amalia.
We want to make sure that youhave time to get to your next
meeting and we thank you so, somuch for joining us.
Hope to see you at our upcomingGlobal Supply Chain Institute
meeting in August or at theforum in November, but, as
always, appreciate yourpartnership and your friendship
(29:24):
and support.
Amalia Londono (29:25):
No, thank you.
Thank you so much for theinvitation and I hope to see you
soon in the supply chain forum.
Tom Goldsby (29:31):
Well, amalia, thank you so much for the invitation
and I hope to see you soon inthe supply chain forum.
Well, amalia, thank you so muchagain, not only for what you
brought to the program today,but what you and the team at CP
does throughout the year tosupport our efforts and, dare I
say, to buy some of our product.
We love your product.
The Optic White is my go-to.
It is the best whitening productout there, so a lot of great
(29:52):
product that you are taking tomarket, some of it produced
right here in Tennessee, whichwe're very proud about as well.
But hey, ted, in terms of ourown assembly operation, we've
got another great show coming up.
In about a month, I think we'regoing to be bringing Doug Gray,
who's vice president ofintegrated supply chain for
train technologies another greatpartner of ours here at Rocky
Top.
So a lot of good stuff.
(30:13):
And, hey, we welcome comments,questions, ideas.
Direct them to us at GSCI, atUTK, dot, edu.
Ted Stank (30:21):
And Ted, I see you've got a hand up, so I do I want
to give a shout out to BrianKniever, our producer.
Tom Goldsby (30:27):
Yes.
Ted Stank (30:28):
We found out recently that these are two companies
that I had to write down becauseI couldn't remember their names
.
But Feedspot, who tracks thesekinds of things, ranked us as
the number 10 overall supplychain management podcast and the
number one university-basedsupply chain management podcast.
And then Buzzsprout, anothercompany that tracks these kind
(30:50):
of things, said we achieved25,000 downloads of our podcast.
So, Tom, I think it's becauseof you and I, but really it's
because of guests like Amalia.
Tom Goldsby (30:58):
Yeah, no, it certainly is.
That's what keeps folks comingback, and you know I tease that.
I think my parents areresponsible for about 80% of
those downloads, but that meansthere's still 20% out there.
That's still 5,000 downloadscoming from outside my family.
That's really impressive.
Ted Stank (31:14):
So thank you, all of our listeners, for continuing to
listen and download, andhopefully we'll continue to
bring you good content.
If you have ideas, please letus know at gsciutkedu.
With that, tom, let's sign off.
Tom Goldsby (31:27):
Have a great balance of summer.
Let's get back to it.
Intro & Outro (31:30):
Thanks for tuning in to Tennessee on Supply Chain
Management.
If you enjoyed the episode,subscribe today on your favorite
listening platform to get allof our episodes as soon as they
drop, and don't forget to take amoment to leave us a rating.
Have any questions, thoughts orfeedback?
We'd love to hear from ourlisteners.
Email us at gsci at utkedu.
Join us next time as wecontinue pulling back the
(31:53):
curtain on the world of supplychain, educating and
entertaining you along the way.
Until then, listeners.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce
Football’s funniest family duo — Jason Kelce of the Philadelphia Eagles and Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs — team up to provide next-level access to life in the league as it unfolds. The two brothers and Super Bowl champions drop weekly insights about the weekly slate of games and share their INSIDE perspectives on trending NFL news and sports headlines. They also endlessly rag on each other as brothers do, chat the latest in pop culture and welcome some very popular and well-known friends to chat with them. Check out new episodes every Wednesday. Follow New Heights on the Wondery App, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free, and get exclusive content on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And join our new membership for a unique fan experience by going to the New Heights YouTube channel now!
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.