S3E7: Balancing Trade-Offs & Leveraging Networks to Deliver Innovation with Tractor Supply's Colin Yankee

Episode Transcript
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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
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night.
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(00:22):
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Tom Goldsby (00:28):
Hello and welcome to the Tennessee on Supply Chain
Management podcast.
I'm Professor Tom Goldsbycoming to you from Rocky Top
with my dear friend Dr Ted Stank.
Good morning Ted.
Morning Tom, great to be here.
Can you kind of report on thescene for our listeners what are
you looking out upon this year?

Ted Stank (00:44):
Yeah, I mean, like always, we record from a very
intimate environment with about,I think right now about 350 of
our closest friends here and ourguest, Colin Yankee.
Great to have you with us,Colin, Thank you.
This is the opening session ofour spring 2025 Supply Chain
Forum.
By the way, the forum startedin 1998.

Not in a big room like this, though, right.

Ted Stank (01:07):
No, I think there were probably about 20 of us in
that room back then.
So yeah, Tom, why don't youintroduce Colin?

So Colin Yankee is the Chief Supply Chain Officer
with Tractor Supply and, justdoing a little bit of background
research on you, you are a WestPoint graduate.
You had a military career as anarmy officer for a time and
then returned to the civiliansector, went to work for Target,
had several roles indistribution and logistics with

(01:33):
the Target Corporation and thenwent to Neiman Marcus, was vice
president of Neiman Marcus andthen in 2015, I believe.
So you've marked 10 years nowwith Tractor Supply and a really
fast-growing, fascinatingcompany and a great partner of
ours here at UT.
But welcome, colin, it's greatto have you with us and maybe,
to those who aren't so informed,I would hope that everyone out

(01:56):
there has at least stepped intoa Tractor Supply store.
But what could a shopper expect?
And then we'll get into yourrole as the chief supply chain
officer.

Colin Yankee (02:04):
Sure, before I do that, I just want to say it's a
great pleasure to be here andthank you to the University of
Tennessee, knoxville.
Like you said, I've been atTrackSupply for 10 years and we
have hired a ton of leaders fromthis program, our amazing
culture and this drive of oursupply chain, the innovation of
our supply chain, is a directreflection of the products that
have come out of this program,and so I'm just really

(02:27):
privileged to get to work withthem just quality people.
So keep doing what you're doing.

Fantastic.
I very much appreciate that,hey.
One other thing I missed isyou're also a Spartan grad.

You've got an MS in supply chain.

Ted over there was a faculty member.
I got my PhD up in Spartan land, so a little quiet, go green
this morning I got a hit on theWest Point thing right.
Steve.

Ted Stank (02:46):
Plemensik, are you in the room?
Where are you Raise your hand,Steve?
Any other West Point grads inhere?
All right, we outnumber them,Steve.

okay, Steve and I are day-locality grads.
Jeff DeLulo is not here sowe're safe.
So a little bit about TractorSupply for those of you who
aren't familiar with it.
We're the largest farm andranch retailer in the United
States.
We have about 2,400 storesacross the US in 49 states,
about 50,000 team members whowork at our company, $15 billion

(03:15):
in revenue.
Eighty-seven years now inbusiness close to that.
So just a very long history andlineage.
We serve the rural lifestyle,so everything that our customers
need to live life on theirterms out in rural environments.
That means for us our storesare small format so we can
locate them in these ruralcommunities.
You walk into a tractor supplystore you can expect to find

(03:38):
everything from Carharttworkwear and Ariat boots to dog
food and bird seed, to 850 poundgun safes, trailers, ranch
gates make model specific parts.

Ted Stank (03:51):
It is a cornucopia of different kind of things we
move through our supply we getdog food from there, and we've
also got these giant aluminumplanters that might want to
plant all kinds of products inso so we try to serve that
lifestyle.

That really dictates how our supply chain is
set up because of that smallformat store and we have to
manage those demand patterns.
You talked about planning alittle bit earlier.
I'd love to get into that topicbecause it's a passion point
for ours, and how we manage that.
About a billion dollars of oursales is online, so we have an
omni-channel presence shippingfrom our store, shipping from

(04:27):
our DC network, shipping fromour vendor base to our customers
, as well as a small privatefleet that we're expanding out
to expand our business there.

Fantastic.
I think the tagline is life outhere, correct, right.
And so I looked this morning.
There's no downtown Knoxvillelocation.
Your stores tend to be out inthe periphery a bit.
In fact, I think I saw thatthey used to be based upon cow
count in the county.
Have you ever heard that?
Is there?

any truth to that?
Yeah, so we have.
We got a little moresophisticated than that with our
real estate model.
Okay, we'll get into the 20smaybe, but we have just an
incredible real estate portfolioand a set of algorithms that we
take in all this different kindof information from
demographics cattle count,equine count how many oil rigs
are in a certain area, all thesedifferent kind of things.

(05:15):
For how do we locate our stores?
About 50% of our stores are inwhat I call ex-urban areas, so
not urban, not suburban, but onthe fringe, and then the
remainders are really in morerural communities.

Yeah, so I thought there were maybe five store
locations within 22 miles ofwhere we're sitting right now,
but, as I pointed out, none inthe downtown area.

Ted Stank (05:36):
It's going to be out there and for those of you who
don't know, knoxville, eastTennessee, is a pretty big beef
cattle area.

And because of the spread that you just described,
we have the opportunity tocontinue to expand our stores.
So we're adding between 80 and100 new stores every single year
for the next decade or so.
So we have about 2,400 storestoday we publicly stated we can
go out to about 3,200.

And I know you take a lot of pride.
I follow you on LinkedIn andyou're great to follow on
LinkedIn because you tell such agreat story.
You're out there at the storesroutinely.
It's not like you're living inBrentwood and just calling the
shots from the headquarterslocation.
I love to see you out in thefield.
So, in the store itself, youdescribed some of the categories
you're covering, but, like, howmany SKUs are you all managing?

(06:19):
And we'll call out a fewspecific ones here in a moment.

Yeah, when you walk into one of our stores
you'll have between 18,000 and20,000 different SKUs per store.
But 10% to 20% of our storewe're moving to a much more
localized kind of assortmentreflective of that demographic.
So that's going to increase ouroverall SKU count which means
our planners are managing about80 million different site SKU
combinations every single dayfor inventory and in stocks and

(06:45):
productivity that.
So it's an incredible amount ofthings they have to manage.
But if you walk in one thing,that is really great.
It's like a general store.
So many of our customers thinkthat tractor supply is a local
store like they're like mytractor supply and when I travel
and I'm wearing track supplylogo they'll tell me hey, the
store in roanoke, texas, christis a great manager, we'll all
get feedback about products thatthey want or whatever, and they

(07:07):
think I know everybody in thecompany which is exactly what we
want.
We want that kind ofbelly-to-belly service in our
stores.
But you're going to walk in andyou're going to see clothing
and apparel and you're going tosmell molasses from the sweet
feed that we're selling in theback.
So it has kind of a little bitof retail theater.

(07:29):
You can hear chickens that wesell live chickens in our stores
, so you'll hear the chirp ofchicks in the middle of our
stores and then you'll have ahome decor area and fertilizer,
heating, whatever else you needfor your seasonal needs.

You got on the skew of particular interest to me.
I believe we're in the throesof chick days right now.
I saw, and I have to believe,with egg prices there's been
incredible interest in chicks.
That's a very different skew tomanage than apparel or feed
right.

Yeah, we sell about 11 to 12 million chicks
per year, so a lot of chickensmove through, you can imagine.
The timing of this is veryimportant, because as they come
out of the hatcheries for spring, it's cold, and we need to
ensure that they make it to thestores alive, in good condition.
And then they get to the storesand we have to have a selfie
rate before they become fullgrown chickens walking around

(08:15):
our stores, which would be adisaster as well.
But the way we think about thechickens, it's kind of two
different things.
It's the gateway drug to thelifestyle.
Ok, so people who get intochickens, they're like fanatical
about it, and it's a wholething on social media, instagram
, all the kind of things, butpeople love their chickens, and

(08:45):
with that, though, comes notjust the chicken, but then the
coop and the feed we sell themright and their entire life
cycle of kind of maturity of.
We can follow them along thatjourney as a kind of get into
lifestyle and they and that,that chicken.

Ted Stank (08:50):
They're your equivalent of a gillette razor.

It's exactly the right equivalent, interesting
and you can be the one-stop shopfor all those needs colin, as I
look at your history, I'd loveto have your.

Ted Stank (08:59):
You think about how culture impacts your supply
chain.
You know, obviously you havedifferent suppliers.
How do you work?
You mentioned hatcheries.
You know how do you work withthem.
When I think about the howculture impacts your supply
chain, obviously you havedifferent suppliers.
You mentioned hatcheries.
How do you work with them?
When I think about thejuxtaposition of tractor supply
with some of your earlierexperiences with Target and
Neiman Marcus totally differentdemographics, different
population base that they dealwith how does that manifest

(09:21):
itself in your supply chain?

I think every supply chain leader needs to
understand what their valueproposition is.
And so, as a retail leader, ifI'm talking to some of my peers,
we're all juggling fourdifferent things.
It's in stocks, inventoryproductivity, logistics costs
and service levels.
And so for Tractor Supply, ourjob is be a dependable supplier.
We're a needs-based retailerand we believe in everyday low

(09:44):
prices.
So for me, that kind of orderstacking in generic terms this
isn't the case for every singlecategory would be I want to be
in stock, I want to keep mylogistics costs as efficient as
possible, then I want to focuson my cash cycle, on inventory
productivity, and then I'mfocused on service levels.
It's almost the exact opposite.
When I was at Neiman Marcus,Service levels are the top.

Ted Stank (10:05):
No chickens walking around.

No chickens walking around, but if you're
buying a $10,000 dress or a$4,000 pair of shoes, service
levels are super important.
That's right.
I was a private equity-backedcompany.
I'm a publicly traded companynow, so logistics cost and
inventory productivity were kindof more equal in the middle,

(10:28):
and actually in stock was theleast thing you're worried about
, because scarcity is part ofthe game, right?
Mrs Jones does not want to bethe second person at the Boca
Raton Junior League Social withthe blue Chanel shoes.
She wants to be the only one,right, and so it's a different
kind of game, and that reallyreflects in how we set up our
supply chain.
Culturally, though, I feel veryfortunate.
I had a wonderful experience inthe Army.
I'm sure a lot of veterans inthe room or people who are

(10:50):
spouses or family members, butif you're not familiar, people
have this image of the militarybeing very directive.
That was not my experience.
These were people whovolunteered to be there and that
experience then influenced howI led at Target and has
experienced how I've tried toset the culture up here at
Tractor Supply.
When I got out of the Army, Imoved back to California where I

(11:11):
grew up and I worked in adistribution center with people.
I went to high school with,except for a few decisions and
people helping me out along theway, I could very easily be
driving a forklift into DC andSouthern California and I have a
baseline standard for ourorganization from a leadership
principle standpoint.
When I walk into a distributioncenter, would I allow my wife

(11:33):
or my son, somebody I love, towork in that facility for that
leader, for that ops manager,for that general manager, under
these working conditions?
And that's the standard.
It is super, super simple tocommunicate because every
supervisor understands it,because every team member in our
supply chain is somebody's son,daughter, husband, and I think
that translates all the way howwe treat our suppliers, how do

(11:56):
we treat our carriers.
This is a long-term game withlong-term people for me, and so
I try not to be transactionalall the way from the front line,
all the way from the front line, all the way to our vendor base
.

Ted Stank (12:06):
Yeah, I mean, last night somebody was telling me I
think it was you, Daryl Edwardsthis is still a people game.
We talk all about technology.
We talk about all these greatconcepts and complications and
complexities in the world.
At the end of the day, it's apeople game, Absolutely yeah.
That's why we're so happy tohave you as a great partner,
because you do hire a lot of ourgreat students and everybody
wants to come back home, right?
Yeah?

Let's talk a little bit about strategy Again.
You've been with the company 10years there about we had a
pandemic in there as well.
Can you talk a little bit abouthow the business has changed,
how your supply chains evolved?
Maybe how you weathered thatstorm and we'll get to, maybe
how you're weathering thecurrent storms?

Sure For us, the pandemic.
Obviously people were movingout of urban areas into a lot
more rural areas, whetherpermanently or temporarily.
I think there was a little bitof the zeitgeist of
self-sufficiency anddo-it-yourself in that, as
people saw that scarcity and thevulnerabilities of the supply
chain which fit right into ourkind of do-it-yourself mindset
in our stores, and so we sawtremendous growth that we've had

(13:02):
to keep up.
From a supply chain standpoint,we are always chasing volume
and capacity right, Just tryingto keep up with the growth, and
COVID turbocharged that.
For us, what was really cool isgoing into the pandemic.
We had built purpose-built flowpaths for our supply chain.
The only reason a retail supplychain exists is to effectively

(13:24):
deploy inventory.
If I could 3D print dog foodonto the shelf in a store, I
would do that.
I'm not really super intotrucks, I'm not super into DCs,
I don't really care aboutautomation, I care about serving
the customer with the inventory.
And because we had built thesepurpose-built flow paths, we
were able to kind of shuntaround different congestion

(13:45):
points we had.
We also had a lot of variety inour assortment.
So because we're needs-based, acustomer would come in if
they're like this thing is outof stock because we have a
shortage, they could findsomething to solve the job.
So while as a supply chainoperator I'm always like reduce
SKUs, reduce SKU, count right.
I learned a valuable lessonduring COVID about the power of
substitution and that assortmentto help our customers out.

(14:06):
And then it just reallyelevated tractor supply from a
visibility standpoint because wehad a lot more customers
shopping our store who had neverlived the lifestyle and just
elevated our overall profile.

I mean, certainly, our lifestyle is adjusted and
something that remains truethroughout it all and Ted likes
to call me out for this I makereference to the American
consumer in particular as beingdiabolical, right.
I mean, we're more demanding inevery aspect of the consumption
experience and oh, by the way,we don't want to pay a hand and
fist for it.
So how do you kind of view theevolution, I guess maybe the

(14:46):
changes and expectations that wehave as consumers?
And again, we would love to seeyou go to you know, maybe 30
million SKUs, but how do youfight the force there and say
this is what we're going to taketo market and by the way,
there's a thread there I'm goingto pull after you.

Ted Stank (15:03):
Answer this one about cost.

I'll kind of tackle this with two different
vectors.
There's the assortmentcomponent and then the
convenience component.
So, on the assortment component, I think one of the powers of
being an omnichannel retailer iswe can really focus on where we
position our inventory basedupon the demands for the
customer.
So if you walked into a tractorsupply 30 years ago, you would
see a huge section of tractormaintenance parts which is high

(15:29):
margin, low turn inventory.
That was really what the nichewas built about.
But the business has changedand so as an omnichannel
retailer, we can reduce thatassortment and footprint in our
store, dedicate more productiveproducts to that space for what
the customer wants, for avariety standpoint, move those
things to different points inour supply chain and, with speed

(15:50):
, get you the things you needjust as fast using our online
capabilities.
The interesting thing aboutconvenience is when I talk to
our customers being out in thestores, they are not necessarily
interested in having thingstoday or tomorrow.
They're interested in havingcompleteness of their order
before their job or projectstarts.

(16:11):
So most of our customers arenot big farmers.
I have a 60-acre farm and Icare about having my product on
Friday before I'm working onSaturday.
That means if I order it onThursday, I want it on Friday.
That means if I order it onThursday, I want it on Friday.
That means if I order it on theSunday before, I still want it
on the Friday.
So we can design our network tobe very flexible around that

(16:33):
let's talk a little bit aboutcost.

Ted Stank (16:35):
We're in a really interesting time now and we're
not going to be able to avoid it.
It's going to be a theme forthe next two days, right,
potentially, with what'shappening with the tariff
administration.
Next two days, right,potentially, with what's
happening with the tariffadministration, we're going to
see some potential increase incost.
I'm assuming that there's asignificant number of your SKUs
that are imported.
How are you thinking aboutcosts?
How are you going to managecosts as we move forward with

(16:57):
what, potentially, is a neweconomic model?

Sure, I'll speak in generic terms here, because
we have our earnings call in twoweeks and I'd get in a lot of
trouble if I got out ahead ofmessaging on this.
So I will speak in generics.
I hope that doesn't disappointyou too much, but I feel like
TractorSpy is in a very goodposition to win and thrive in
this environment.
It's significant but notexistential for us.
About 8% of our cost of goodspurchases are a product that we

(17:23):
direct import.
Okay, about 40 to 45% of theproduct that we purchase is
consumable, usable or edible, sovery domestic production.
And we, a few years ago, wentthrough a process where we took
our major categories andindividual kind of SKUs that are
stalwarts of our assortment andbroke down the bills of

(17:44):
materials and so we could lookat how much steel, how much
copper, how much aluminum, howmuch corn, how much riboflavin,
whatever it is goes in each oneof those finished goods.
And so, as we're talking to oursupplier base and we're looking
at the new tariff regime, wecan say what kind of impact is
this going to have on cost?
I think the commonmisperception is I'm making up

(18:05):
the numbers here a 20% tariffincrease equals a 20% increase
in cost.
The truck doesn't cost more.
The fixed cost of labor doesn'tcost more.
None of those things arecosting more today.
So 20% tariff increase does notnecessarily increase cost by
20%.
That being said, I just thinkit's a lot to digest right now.
I'm going to take off mytractor supply hat right now and

(18:26):
just like all these commentshere are my own.

Put it off to the side.
Yeah, put it off to the side.

So when I think about it, it's not just tariffs,
it's trade barriers.
So there's the goods barriersfor tariffs, then there's the
service barriers, where we haveAmerican companies cannot
operate in foreign markets, andthen there's the foreign
investment barriers that theadministration is trying to
address.
At the same time, we've got thetax bill going through Congress

(18:51):
, which could extend the 2017tax cuts.
If that doesn't, it couldrevert back.
We also have the potential forno tax on Social Security, no
tax on overtime, no tax on tips.
Interest rates are changing,energy policy from a domestic
production standpoint ischanging, reduction in federal
spending happening all at thesame time.

(19:12):
It is just a lot to digest.
So, as a leader, I'm like thisisn't a crisis, this is a
disruption, and the way youhandle a crisis is very directed
.
Just start making decisionsthat can confuse a lot of people
in an organization.
If you have a disruption, thethings that you once assumed to
be true are no longer true, andif you don't understand it and

(19:35):
it's highly complex you shouldprobably pause the decision
cycle and start to reallyreflect about what's going on
and leaders who can take abreath and understand the ripple
effects or the implications ofthat and then direct their
organizations in a response mode.
I think will be much better off, and I'm going on a bit of diet
, yeah, no, no, this is great.

So this is great.

There was a thing I learned in the army, which was
slow is smooth and smooth isfast yeah, right and that saying
comes from when you're workingin urban environment and you
have a bunch of people who arereally excited, adrenaline's
upine's up, and all of them haveguns and the worst thing that
can happen is you shoot at eachother friendly fire.
But if you slow down and you'remethodical, slow becomes smooth

(20:18):
and smooth becomes fast and youmove to that chaotic, complex
environment together.
That would be when I'm talkingto my organization, my team.
That's the approach I'm tryingto take, like just chill, do the
analysis, figure it out andthen you know, adapt from there.

I'm just thinking how amazing for your
organization to have a leaderwith that perspective.
You know, I mean we've got Tedas a leader.
You know, it's the NavalAcademy, right, it's not West
Point.

It's a good second tier school.

Ted Stank (20:47):
I'm not sure how to respond to that actually.

No, but something I want to go back to is you
mentioned, as a retailer, billof materials and I'm just
wondering how many otherretailers get so concerned about
the SKUs.
Typically, you're just going tolean harder on your supplier
and say you know, get your stufftogether out there, right,
you're going to just tighten thescrews.
But meanwhile you're saying youtried to understand what went
into the products that yousourced.
Maybe map that supply chain andrealize where you had those

(21:17):
vulnerabilities.

Absolutely, and it's actually a lesson we
learned from a couple of otherretailers out there who had.
We really kind of saw that thecool thing about supply chain is
there's just a lot of sharing.
Yeah, so when I go to retailsupply chain events, I have
peers who will share bestpractices.
I have peers from otherretailers who will visit our DCs
.
Right, I visit their DCsbecause we're not trying to just

(21:40):
compete on, you know, who hasthe best sourcing or who has the
best DC or has the besttransportation.
It's all knitted together in anend-to-end supply chain which
is very unique and purpose-builtfor their particular case.
So there's a lot of sharing inthat.
And it's also to your pointearlier it's a people business
and your reputation matters, andso if you're a jerk and don't
share, people aren't going toshare with you.

(22:01):
So we learned that from a coupleof the retailers who helped us
think about the approach.
Obviously, they just saidhere's kind of what we did, and
we went after that and it gaveus just a ton of visibility that
we hadn't previously had, where, instead of just beating
somebody over the head on rateor cost, which is adversarial
and not necessarily effective,how do we understand where the

(22:22):
costs are and how do we manageour product portfolio.
It's kind of the strength ofour business.
If we just sold dog food wewouldn't be in a good position.
But we can manage our costs andour margins and everything else
across a portfolio.

Ted Stank (22:36):
So one of the things that really impressed me, colin,
when I was looking at all ofyour responsibilities, is really
how, end to end, yourresponsibilities are.
You've got engineering and, asa responsibility, you've got
relationships with merchandising.
You've got a lot of financialresponsibilities.
Can you talk a little bit abouthow you work across the what
imminently always becomes silosin organizations?

(22:57):
So you know, you mentionedabout merchandising that you'd
like to reduce SKUs.
Right, but merchants alwayswant to increase SKUs.
How do you work with yourmerchant base?
How do you work with your chieffinancial officer to make sure
that in that end-to-end mix, youreally are optimizing the total
picture to customers?

Sure, when I interview somebody for a job and
I ask them tell me about yourteam, if they start telling me
about their direct report team,I think I'm going to have to
re-educate this person.
I didn't raise them.
I'm going to have to re-educatethem because my first team is
my peer team.
Because my first team is mypeer team and my job is to be an
enterprise leader and to thinkabout the entire spectrum of

(23:34):
running the business.
While I'm held accountable forthe supply chain, I'm
incentivized on the totalcompany performance and I think
that ethos really kind of worksits way down into my direct
report team, their team on howdo we achieve the best thing for
the customer and work across.

Ted Stank (23:51):
But that says a lot that your metrics are about
enterprise success, right?
Not just supply chain.

Now, I don't want to be Pollyanna right, right.

Ted Stank (23:58):
Yeah, I'm sure you've got a lot of KPIs related to
supply chain.

And so I think that is really kind of an
important leadership componentto it Within that to
operationalize it.
We're not trying to optimize apart, we're trying to optimize
the whole.
So if there's something that isbeneficial for our stores and
it's going to cost the logisticsorganization more but it's a
net positive, then that's whatwe do.

(24:23):
If there's something that isgoing to reduce our cost of
goods on the merchandising sideand increase that initial margin
, it costs us more intransportation but it's a win.
That's what we try to do, andso those trade-offs across those
organizations become really,really important.
There's systems that supportthat.
There's financial analysis thatsupport that.

(24:43):
There's routines that supportthat.
I think the most importantthing that supports that is our
talent lattices.
We have a lot of people wholove working in DCs or love
working in inventory, and theycan build great careers there.
We have a lot of people whowill work here in inventory,
work over in planning, work overinvestor relations, go work in
strategy, go to marketing, comeback to supply chain and with

(25:08):
that, all of a sudden you have adifferent set of empathy that
you're applying with.

Ted Stank (25:12):
How far down the organization do those
enterprise-wide metrics push?
If I were to come work for youas a new grad, would I also have
as part of my KPIs somethingrelated to high-level metric?

You would Everybody's incentivized on
sales and net income.
Well, top line sales, and whatis our overall profitability?
Now there are a lot of peoplewho work in major Fortune 500
companies like ours.
Their metrics aren't asdefinable and so they may be
incentivized on sales and netincome.
The closer you are to the fire,the more accountability metrics

(25:44):
you have, so the closer you areto the customer.
So, if you're in DC, your costper unit and your safety.
If you're working supportingmerchandising your individual
areas, profitability isimportant so that you have some
clarity on that and you own it,but at a high level, top line.

Ted Stank (26:02):
That's powerful.
Right, Because now you can talkacross those different teams to
say, hey, your logistics costsare going to increase.
In a traditional organizationthat's bad and I'm going to do
everything to prevent that, eventhough it might hurt something
downstream, Whereas your teamshave the ability to say, all
right, we're going to eat thatadditional cost because it's
good for the overall picture.
It's powerful.

Metrics are important, your incentives are
important.
Kind of the Warren Buffettshowed me your incentives and
I'll show you your outcomes.
Kind of conversation.
Kind of the Warren Buffett showme your incentives and I'll
show you your outcomes kind ofconversation.
But I think even more powerfulthan that is what you recognize.
So if you slap people down fortrying to do the right thing,
that's going to send a message.
If you elevate people andrecognize them for thinking that
way, all of a sudden thatbecomes a model for somebody.

Ted Stank (26:43):
That's coming in.
Let's dive into this planningrealm a little bit here.
You know I had said at theoutset that we are starting to
see across the organizations wework with that planning.
You can be great inmanufacturing.
You can be great in logisticsand DC operations, managing your
transportation picture.
All of that has a major impacton P&L, on your balance sheet,

(27:03):
et cetera.
But what we're starting to seeis that if you can improve, make
incremental, even improvementsin planning, it cascades into so
many other good things.
Can you talk about yourplanning regime and your
processes and how you guys aredealing with that?

Yeah, I'll mention a name Dave Close.
I think he's a Bauer Soxprofessor.

Yeah, he was my dissertation advisor at Michigan
State.

I took a logistics network engineering class from
him and something he justhammered into me and he repeated
over and over was it isincredibly difficult to execute
your way out of planningproblems.
He just repeated that over andover and I believe it.
I've seen it happen.
Financial planning team theteam that is setting the

(27:51):
purchasing goals of how muchproduct we're going to buy, how
much we're going to sell in eachgiven week and for the longer
term, is part of the supplychain.
They do most of their work withtheir merchant partners, but
they're part of the supply chainbecause their forecast is the
North Star for us that we thenbreak down into what are we
doing for trucking?
What are we doing fordistribution labor, what are we

(28:12):
doing for omni-channel, thatentire thing.
And we're trying not to havepeople operate off a bunch of
different hymnals, right, and sowhat their forecast is is
what's important.
We believe in that planning.
The other kind of philosophicalprinciple that we put in place
is we believe in process overtechnology.
There's a lot of planningsoftware out there.

(28:34):
I don't know if anybody in herestill is planning software, but
my advice would be that if youtry to put good technology over
bad process.
It's still going to be a badprocess with really good
technology and it's going to bea disaster.
So, process over technology.
A lot of us operate in capitalconstrained environments and
you're not changing out yourtechnology all the time.
The process always gives youimprovement where, yeah, you may
be enamored by this, newtechnology, may be cool, but

(28:56):
that may be five years out foryou, just on your capital
investment cycle.
So those routines and thoseprocesses are important.
What are your monthly routines?
What are your weekly routines?
And that way every leader has aforum in which to present a
planning issue.
And that way every leader has aforum in which to present a
planning issue, whether it'ssales on the demand side,
capacity or supply on the supplychain side.
And then one thing I'm justincredibly excited about our

(29:19):
team, a couple of years ago,changed out our forecasting and
replenishment system and reallytook a leap forward in our
technology capabilities.
I stutter stepped on that for acouple of years because I was
like our process isn't there yet.
We still have a lot ofimprovement to do.
I'm not giving us an A plus,but what I'd say is our ability
to take in structured data sothings like seasonality, day of

(29:39):
the week profiles, vendorperformance, all that kind of
stuff has dramatically increased.
Our next kind of chapter willbe how do we take in more
structured data like how manypickup trucks were sold in every
zip code in the United Stateslast month, because that's going
to be an indicator of how manytruck boxes we'll sell next
month, how many dogs wereadopted versus how many dogs

(30:02):
were surrendered last month inevery zip code, because that's
going to dictate our demandpattern there, all kinds of
things.
And I think the next leapforward is going to be
unstructured data, which iscustomer reviews, social media
posts, calls to our call center,all those kind of things.
My ask for my team as we startto get through this is I think
we need to start to trust ourtechnology more and trust the

(30:25):
system and tune it, versus tryto touch it all the time.
I think we know better.

Ted Stank (30:31):
The flip side of that is, if you don't have the
process in place, then all of asudden the technology starts
driving your decisions andstarts telling you this is what
your forecast is, without yourplanners really understanding
what's underneath.

Yeah, it's like the GPS taking you down the dirt
road, right, yeah.

Ted Stank (30:44):
Yeah, well, the other inevitable question we touched
on tariffs, right, yeah, yeah.

Well, the other inevitable question.
We touched on tariffs, ai andperhaps in planning and
execution where are you using it?
How are you using it?
Where are you finding iteffective?

Obviously it's a fertile, high-value target area
for planning.
We are not actually applyingbig AI onto our planning at this
point.
We are using what I call moretraditional machine learning,
forecast model, competition,being able to ingest that data,
doing those kind of things forour planning.
Where we are using AI and Ithink is really quite

(31:18):
progressive in retail is more onour sales side.
So we have a lot ofopportunities on the planning.
But on the sales side, when youwalk into one of our stores,
we're using a combination ofcomputer vision and large
language models to help ourstore team members be more
effective.
So imagine you walk up to aTractorSupply store and there's
a bunch of riding lawnmowers outfront.
We have cameras there that willobserve the customer, see how

(31:41):
long they're dwelling in frontof that item and then, if it's
dwelling for a certain amount oftime, send a signal to a team
member in the store in anearpiece that they're wearing to
go engage with that customer.
One of the cool things aboutworking at TractorSpy is for a
long time we've hired ourcustomers into our stores.
They live the lifestyle so theycan give you advice.
They understood what problemsyou're dealing with.
As we've grown, that becomesmore and more challenging.

(32:03):
So we took all the master datafrom our vendor base, all their
product knowledge, put it into alarge language model that a
team member in the store can,through audio, engage with.
So if you walked in and youbought some chickens, you're a
new chicken owner and you saidwhat kind of medicine do I need
to get for this chicken becauseit has this thing going on with
it?
And a person who has neverraised chickens but they maybe

(32:25):
know a lot about welding ishelping you.
They can ask that question andit will give them a
recommendation back to engagewith the customer.
How much K31 grassy do I spreadover an acre in order to cover
it Right, like those kinds ofthings, so we can give better
customer service, wow, so anyway, it's full ground on the
planning side.
But I'm actually most moreexcited, because we're a sales

(32:46):
driven organization, about howwe help our customers.

Yeah, that.
I'm actually more excitedbecause we're a sales-driven
organization about how we helpour customers.
Yeah, that's great.
So you mentioned 2,400 storesand growing.
I'd like to maybe go upstream abit to the distribution network
.
So what's kind of your DC countand how do they serve the
stores?
And also that omni-channelstrategy you mentioned earlier.
What's being fulfilled fromstore?
What's coming from DC?

Sure.
So I mentioned earlier we havepurpose-built flow paths and
they are designed to allowinventory to behave the way it
wants to behave, to give us themost options.
So the heart and soul, kind ofcenter of gravity of our network
is our distribution centernetwork.
We have 10 DCs.
They're between 650,000 and 1.2million square feet all across
the country to service ourstores.

(33:28):
Each DC operates 24-7, variouslevels of automation services,
about 250 stores each.
Then we have 17 what we callmixing centers, but they're
really high velocity,just-in-time cross-docs and they
allow us to serve our storeswith just-in-time replenishment
for our fastest moving items.

(33:49):
The easiest analogy I'd use isum the product.
That's kind of like our bread,milk and bananas.
So you have to be in stock, youhave to be fresh.
You're not making a lot ofmargin on it but if you
disappoint the customer youdon't have it.
You're gonna go shop someplaceelse if you disappoint multiple
times.
So we have that network and wework very closely with our
producers and our partners onthat.
Or demand sensing, where theycan actually sense our demand

(34:11):
from our sales before we'rewriting POs because it's moving
that fast.
And then we have a longer leadtime import network.
So we have three import centersand one bulk center today, soon
to be three bulk centersservicing that big bulky product
or those products that areimported and seasonal.
So we don't want to afforddeploying the country because it

(34:32):
may be influenced by weather.
We'll hold it upstream and thenpostpone that allocation.
On Omnichannel, my long-termvision is to activate inventory
everywhere.
I don't want any inventory tobe hidden from the customer,
because for me, when I walk in adistribution center, I don't
see boxes, I see cash in racks,because that's all it is, and I
want to convert that cash asfast as possible.

(34:52):
So today, every DC is afulfillment center as well
services, stores and onlinecustomers from the same
inventory.
Five of them, though, have alittle bit more automation and
can build a little bit differentassortment in those as well.
And then our mixing centers.
We just turn those on to befulfillment centers as well.

Purpose-built low pathways.
That's just fantastic.

Ted Stank (35:14):
I'm thinking in my mind.
You know we talk a lot aboutmaxims around here.
Most of our white papers havemaxims in them, right?
And it comes from those of youwho know Tennessee sports
history, general Nealon, and Ihate to say he was a West.
Point graduate and he was ageneral, actually General Nealon
, most successful football coachin Tennessee.

(35:35):
History had these seven maximsfor success.
One of them was called likeOski Oski, which I still don't
really understand what that is,some 1930s, 40s vernacular, but
I'm thinking of the Colin Yankeemaxims Customers first, right,
it's all about making sure thecustomer comes in the store,
gets what they want.
Teams have to becross-functional.
You have to understand what'sgoing on up and downstream so

(35:57):
you re-educate your team membersto be cross-functional.
They have to have metrics thatfocus them on the big picture,
not just on their functionalarea Process over technology.
Then what was that last one youjust said, tom?

Purpose-built flow paths.

Ted Stank (36:12):
Okay, so there's five , Colin, you have to mark that.

We need to get two more.

Ted Stank (36:19):
So let's get into a little bit of talent management.
One of the things that I thinkwas a real differentiator for us
as our program has grown wasperceiving ourselves as your
talent management partner from arecruitment standpoint, from a
retention standpoint and adevelopment standpoint, et
cetera.
I mean, at the end of the day,a chief supply chain officer has
to do a lot of things, but oneof the biggest things is to

(36:40):
build functioning, successfulteams, right?
What is your perspective onleading teams and leadership and
talent?

From a talent management standpoint, I think
it takes one drop of oil tospoil a well and the people you
invite onto your team.
If somebody walks in my doorwayand I'm already annoyed, that
tells me something, right?
I just don't have people likethat on my team.
And it starts with thatassessment process.

(37:09):
I think everybody thinks theyare a good interviewer, right?
I don't think most people aregood at interviewing.
So how do you interview?
What kind of questions are youasking?
How are you assessing?
How are you gettingcollaboration with other
people's perspectives to makethe right choice?
How are you using data in thatprocess as well, so that you're
inviting the right people on theteam?
And then from there I mentionedearlier building career

(37:32):
lattices or ladders, dependingon what the person wants.
We spend all this time assessingpeople, hiring them and
training them, and my objectiveas chief supply chain officer is
to empower them to makedecisions.
You know, with one another kindof maximum it would be think
two levels higher andcommunicate two levels lower.
For me, what that means is I'mtrying to understand what my

(37:54):
boss wants, so my CEO.
What are the objectives for him?
What are the desired outcomes?
What does success look like?
Not just him, but our board ofdirectors.
Who's his boss?
If I can do that and understandthat really well, for my
functional area it means I cancommunicate in a way that
supports that larger objective.
If I just communicate that tomy direct report team, I lose
something.
But if I can communicate thattwo levels deep in the

(38:16):
organization, now the directorswho are responsible where a lot
of the work really happens fortheir functional areas can go
all right.
Here's how I understand theintent of what we're trying to
accomplish.
I don't need to ask forpermission, I don't need to get
authority to do it.
This information is showingthis.
This is what Colin wants toachieve.
Let's go do it and the decisionclock speed on that becomes so

(38:40):
much faster.
And my job is to hold peopleaccountable for their
performance, their behaviors andtheir decisions.
And if we can do that becausethey understand the intent, then
they can learn.
If I'm just making everydecision and then beating them
up when they're not makingdecisions, then that's.

Ted Stank (38:56):
I'm seeing your military background written all
over your leadership style,right?
I mean, one of the things thatmakes the United States military
the best military in the worldis that we don't have officers
who make all the decisions right.
We have 19-year-old infantrymenor sailors making decisions
about life and death, aboutmulti-million dollar systems,
all the time, and I can see thatin your culture and your

(39:18):
thought process.

Well, and I've learned the longer I've been in
this job, the more I think Iknow less.
And what I mean by that is whenI was actually doing the work
at that director level.
I knew all the nitty grittydetails.
I knew every jump code in thesystem and where to go look at
this and that kind of stuff.
If you asked me right now tolog into the planning, system on
my team.

I could do it.
I don't have to log it.

They don't let me do it.
I couldn't log into ourwarehouse management system and
so I'm always worried that whatpeople aren't sharing with me
and what I don't know, andholding that as a framework and
making a decision off thatversus empowering the team I
have who actually knows thatkind of stuff and being like
here's what the objective is andhopefully that pays off for the
long run.

What does that mean in terms of onboarding new
talent, at whatever rank?
It might mean, right?
I mean, if you're going toentrust them with that influence
, how do you prepare them totake on that kind of influence?

This is going to be super informal, but one of
the best ways I think to buildteams and onboard people
organization is windshield time.
So you mentioned getting out inthe stores and the DCs.
I will intentionally drive withpeople just so that we're
sitting in the car togethertalking, because it's different

(40:31):
than you're flying together andyou're breaking bed together at
whatever Hardee's or Dairy Queenwhen you're on the road and
you're out in the field spendingtime with them.
I could write the mostfantastic onboarding plan, which
we have those and we have theschedules and we have all those
kind of things and who theyvisit with and the questions
they ask and what they getexposed to.

(40:51):
But there's nothing likegetting your butt in the seat
with a bunch of other peoplecross-functionally and driving
the team who's here today fromTractor Supply.
I saw their car in the parkinglot.
They got in the car togetherand they're a different team
when they go home from thisbecause of the effectively six
hours they spent in the cartogether than they were when
they started.

Ted Stank (41:10):
Yeah, very good.
Wow, that's a great point.
Another maximum.

Windshield time.

Ted Stank (41:16):
Windshield time All windshield time.
Windshield time all right,let's go to some questions from
the audience.
We got some here that brian'scurating for us.
First one's from joe uh, how doyou decide what product sk use
are fulfilled directly from yoursuppliers and bypassing your
dc's?

so, um, if you think about what track supply
stand for, we want to fulfillthose kind of items, have them
in the store, in our dc's, readyand accessible at all times,
and if you think about it,that's like the head of the
assortment.
The next would be the body.
We can only have so many itemsin our stores because there's
only so much shelf-holdingcapacity, but there's items in

(41:50):
categories that we should own.
So, like think, dewalt powertools right, I can only hold so
many in a store.
I'm going to hold those commonones that we can fulfill for my
DCs, but in those expandedassortments in our DCs I can
hold more assortment.
The other thing is slow-movingthings that have very sporadic

(42:11):
and unpredictable demandpatterns, right.
So lawnmower blades and mowerbelts, right.
You know, those are kind ofthings that people can come in
and we can hold upstream.
Then there's things that we maywant to test or just try and
expand our assortment.
On that we will add to ourwebsite.
We have 300,000 items on ourwebsite, so obviously the
overwhelming majority of thoseare fulfilled from our vendor

(42:33):
base, and so we go through thatdecision-making cycle and things
will move up and down from head, body to tail or vice versa,
based upon their performance.

Kind of an off-the-wall question, but I've
been teaching this metric thatsome retail organizations use
GMROI, gimroy or Jimroy,depending upon whether it's a
hard or soft G Sure Gross marginreturn on inventory.
It's just a hybrid measure ofthose two inputs.
Gross margin inventory turnsSomething's high and high in
both, bring it in right, we'llgive it plenty of shelf space.

(43:04):
Low and low in both, get it outof here, right, yeah?
And then there's a whole hostof in between, right?
Is that kind of a logic anyway?

Very much so.
So, like we talked aboutmetrics earlier, one of the
members of the audience here hesends me a report every single
month that has our general wayon it right for each of those
different kind of categories.
Very much how thedecision-making cycle is so if
that's what you're teaching,it's practice and approval.

Ted Stank (43:25):
Okay, cool, cool.
Good, he is a Dave Closedisciple, that's right.
Quick one here for you.
What software are you using indemand planning?

So I'll break that into two different things.
For inventory forecasting orreplenishment, we're using a
software called Relex.
We've been very good andpleased with their capabilities
and awesome partners and thenfor our merchandise financial
planning, we're using a systemcalled TM1.
I'm seeing the evolution ofover time, though, is that we're
making more and more platformdecisions for more unified

(43:53):
planning than these pointsolutions for different kind of
planning functions, and so Ithink over the next we're
talking 10 years from now Imight just say one platform,
because we have the sameplatform for price and promotion
and assortment planning, microand macro space planning of our
assortment footprint in ourstores, plus merchandise

(44:14):
financial planning, plus theinventory planning, and I'm not
saying that one tool can do allthose things the best, but the
integrations are where theproblem happens, and so the more
and more platforms we get, Ithink the better off we'll be as
a more integrated supply chain.

Ted Stank (44:30):
Okay, how much customization did your ERP
require versus out-of-the-boxsolutions?

A lot.
So we are an SAP shop.
Right now we are getting readyto go through an SAP upgrade.
We have highly customized SAP.
Over the last 24 years I thinkMaybe longer than that we've had
this particular version, soit's going to be a significantly
emotional event.
We're about to go throughMm-hmm Prepare yourself.

Ted Stank (44:57):
We're in the midst of going through that.
We feel that pain.

Interesting question there about
sustainability goals.
We talked about a lot ofdifferent metrics and what
matters to the customer.
Where does sustainability kindof fit in and how are you all
kind of conveying what you'redoing to the market?

Sure Land stewardship and sustainability
is important to us.
It comes out in a coupledifferent ways.
One this weekend is the openingseason of turkey spring season
here in Tennessee, so onSaturday morning I'm going to be
leaning against a tree out inWest Tennessee.
But we have a lot ofpartnerships with Ducks
Unlimited, trout Unlimited.
We do a lot of communityservice in that way.
In our DC design.

(45:35):
Our DCs are designed to leadcertified standards and so our
two latest DCs are net zero, sowe produce as much energy as we
consume in those facilities andhave designed them in other
kinds of ways that aresustainable From a
transportation perspective.
For me it's the double win.
When we are more efficient inour transportation network, we
reduce carbon.

(45:55):
So while the motives may bedifferent, it's a twofer.
And the thing for me is ourteam does, I think, a very good
job assessing the upstreamnetwork.
I'm a follow the money guy andso in our supply chain the
overwhelming majority of themoney we spend is getting
product from our vendors throughthat transportation network
into our DCs, not from the DC tothe end customer or the store.

(46:19):
And so if we follow that money,if we can reduce miles in our
inbound network through sourcing, optimization, network design,
packaging, ordering, profiles,rounding of products, all those
kind of things.
We reduce miles and the rate Ipay on a mile I never drive is
zero.
And so before I ever talk aboutrate, let's get rid of miles

(46:41):
and then we reduce the carbongoals.
Because of that we have beenfor the last three years
selected as a high performer forSmartway, the ETA program.
We've been a long-termparticipant in that program and
been recognized, but therecognitions have just kind of
kept on going up, notnecessarily because I'm like go
reduce this amount of carbon,because I'm like go optimize the
network, something else wedidn't touch on.

do you all have a private fleet or do you rely on
the outsourced market?

For our truckload.
We're a heavy truckload shipper.
We rely on our carrier partnersFor our final mile.
We are building out our ownfinal mile network for big bulky
deliveries into these ruralenvironments for customers that
require that.
So for a final mile delivery,I've been out dealing with our
drivers in the past and they'renot just dropping something on

(47:26):
somebody's doorstep, they'rehaving to get through a ranch
gate, drive up a half-miledriveway.
I did a delivery with a driverwho was delivering to the guy
who trains all the BelgianMalinois for police forces.
Scary dogs, right.
And so we're like stacking dogfood in there.
Next delivery I did was to alady who lived off grid.
We had our fence fixed and wehad to drive off there.
And then the very next deliverywas to the lady who's trained a

(47:50):
couple of Belmont Stakeswinners and you're standing next
to a $5 million horse, right.
So all those kind of things.
It's not like the person justshows up in the Nissan Altima
and toss something on yourdriveway, right.

They've got some great stories to tell, yeah.

But we want red-vested team members out
there on people's properties.

Excellent, very good, very cool.
Here's a question about averageto peak seasonality.
What does that look like interms of ebbs and flows in your
business?
And again you've got a prettywide spectrum of products, so
something's going to be inseason at any point in time.

Ted Stank (48:21):
And I also noted, like you know I'm sure that
you're taking weather feeds aspart of this you know this
assortment of planning too, andI got a note on my phone this
morning that there's going to besnowstorms across the Northeast
.
Wonderful, yeah, oh, wow, right, so I don't know if you're
flying there.

No, right, so I don't know if you're flying
there.
No, no, I want spring to hit sowe can sell spring Right
Exactly.

Ted Stank (48:39):
But I'm thinking about you know snowblowers and
snow shovels and things likethat.

Yeah, so I mentioned earlier that about 45
percent of our product isconsumable, usable and edible.
That's very repeatable andhighly predictable.
So it does have seasonality andimpacts from pricing and
promotion, but in general highlypredictable.
Our seasonal product is exactlythat.
And when I say seasonal, I'mnot talking about like
Valentine's Day is a certain day, I know when that is, or back

(49:06):
to school is this day.
It's like is it going to snowin the Northeast?
It snowed in Michigan last weekand in Florida it was 75
degrees right.
So because our stores have verylimited holding capacity, we
cannot hide inventory sense.
You walk into other homeimprovement stores and they have
six levels of racking in thesebig back rooms.
If we miss, we're either out orit's spilling out the sides,

(49:26):
and so what we try to do is wetry to set the store with an
initial amount that they need tolook good and to get through
that initial season and then usethe agility of our supply chain
to replenish based upon need.
So from a peak to averageyou'll hear the term if you ever
talk to somebody at a tracksupply the hockey stick.
As soon as spring hits.
Grass is going to grow, bugsare going to come out.

(49:47):
Things are going to break andthe hockey stick of demand comes
out.
When it's cold, people will gobuy safety, salt and snow
throwers, those kind of things.

Ted Stank (49:56):
So we have a mix of both.
Thomas has a question aboutwhich TMS you use.

From an execution system or a Manhattan shop,
Manhattan WMS, Manhattan TMS.

Ted Stank (50:05):
Okay, so you mentioned about windshield time.
Right, In a sense, we all havewindshield time here with you
today.
One of the things that we haveis that we want everybody that
comes to one of our forums to beable to leave with one, at
least one actionable idea whenthey go.
They got a chance to havewindshield time here with you
today.
What is your advice that thesefolks should be able to take as

(50:26):
an actionable idea that theymight be able to go back to work
on Thursday or Friday or nextMonday and start really putting
in place their job?

So this may be only me you know probably all
better people than I am, butwhen I go home and I sit down
with my wife and I have fourkids there's three still in the
house for dinner and if I startcomplaining about something or
someone, my wife in her, all hersage wisdom is like you need to
go talk to that person.

(50:55):
What are you doing about it?
And I would say, the thingsthat bother you are
opportunities for empathy,understanding, seeking to
understand and understand theirbusiness drivers.
And so the moment you startcomplaining about, those people
are doing something.
That would be my idea.
Like, if you want to be anenterprise leader, go talk to
those people and that will dowonders for just helping out.

(51:20):
It's not always going to gowell, but if you can't handle
conflict, you're in the wrongjob.

Ted Stank (51:24):
Yeah, you've got to have the confidence to be able
to face those conflicts.

I measure my success in the supply chain by
who I disappoint the least, andwhat I mean by that is we talked
about tradeoffs a little bitearlier.
If I can set an expectation forsomebody and disappoint them
slightly less than I promised,that probably means I've done a
good job.
If I walk into a store and theysay they have enough inventory,
it means they have too much.
If I walk into a DC and they'recomplaining that they have too

(51:50):
much variety, they wantlong-level lead times, they're
probably just about right.
Everybody wants to moveeverything full truckload all
the time and be fully cubed out.
It's like all those kind ofthings.
I kind of gauge where myfriction point's at and then
steer into that conflict.
If you love conflict as acombat sport in an intellectual

(52:11):
chess game, man, you're in theright game.

Ted Stank (52:14):
I think there was your seventh match.

There it is.

Ted Stank (52:18):
No, not that one that might be eighth.
No, view every problem as anopportunity.
That's it.

Be willing to have those conversations.
Yep, yeah, fantastic.
Well, hey, thank you so muchfor having a conversation with
us today, colin.
Just tremendous to have yourperspectives and experience
brought before the group.
Here's a great way to get ourforum kicked off today.
Thanks also for participatingin the podcast.

Yeah, thank you for the opportunity and I hope
it's a wonderful rest of theconference for you all.

Certainly so.
We'll just close out Againthanks to our listeners out
there.
At any time, you can reach ushere at Rocky Top, Tennessee, on
Supply Chain Management.
Gsciutkedu, Ted, why don't youclose us out?
Yep.
Thank you all for joining usAgain.
So, Ted, why don't you close usout?
Yep?

Ted Stank (52:55):
Thank you all for joining us Again.
This is our Tennessee on SupplyChain Management podcast with
Colin Yankee, Chief Supply ChainOfficer, Tractor Supply.
Great, great time together withyou, Colin.
Thank you so much, Appreciateit.
Thanks all Go, Navy.

I knew you were going to slip that in there.
Thank you guys.
I didn't say B to R.

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.
Email us at gsci at utkedu.
Join us next time as wecontinue pulling back the

(53:40):
curtain on the world of supplychain, educating and
entertaining you along the way.
Until then, listeners.

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