ASCI2018 Save the Date

Here at ASCI, it has been a pipeline dream of mine to run our own conference for the many members of ours in the community.  I am fortunate enough to announce, that this has become a reality and our very own conference ‘ASCI2018‘ is underway to be brought to you on 23 & 24 May 2018.

We have been working and will continue to be working hard in the lead up to ASCI2018. I am aware of the rapidly changing environment of the supply chain industry and the ASCI team have implemented this into the theme and program of the conference. ASCI2018, will allow for supply chain managers to receive some clarity around the latest industry developments admit a rapidly changing supply chain landscape due to e-Commerce disruptions.  This is why we have named the conference ASCI2018: e-Commerece: Driving Supply Chains into the Future.

The world is experiencing major disruptions. CEOs see more threats today versus three years ago, up 78% according to a recent study.* As e-Commerce turns the spotlight onto the supply chain, Operations, Logistics and Supply practitioners have a huge responsibility to offset these threats, leverage new technologies and build faster, better global supply chains. More than ever, these practitioners need to be at the top of their game, working together across functions within the organisation, and building the capability to respond to e-Commerce. Equally important is that this theme is addressed in relation to the technical best practice knowledge on which ASCI has laid its foundations.

Attending ASCI2018 will be a unique opportunity to engage your organisation’s entire supply chain, logistics and procurement teams in a professional learning experience. At ASCI, we’re passionate about helping members re-position themselves for sustainability in light of major disruptions. These major disruptions are coming thick and fast. We need to protect and educate our members so they can respond to such change.

Finally, I have to mention that we have selected our strategic endorsement partner, Akolade to help run our conference. We are very impressed with the quality and relevance of Akolade’s leading-edge, well researched events which we have been participating as the Endorsement Partner. Akolade has demonstrated the expertise and professional approach we require to run ASCI2018 and we look forward to collaborating yet again on our very own conference.

I am so proud of this achievement and milestone the ASCI team have accomplished. Looking back at all the hard work the team have done to make this conference happen shows how dedicated they are to bring the best of the best to our member base. I look forward to seeing you all at our conference.

 

*PwC CEO Insights, 2017: http://www.pwc.com/gx/en/ceo-agenda/ceosurvey/2017/au/key-findings.html

 

Pieter Nagel
CEO
Australasian Supply Chain Institute (ASCI)

Why good leaders make you feel safe

What makes a great leader? Management theorist Simon Sinek suggests, it’s someone who makes their employees feel secure, who draws staffers into a circle of trust.

But creating trust and safety — especially in an uneven economy — means taking on big responsibility. We’ve discussed this all important topic for ASCI members in a recent blog The Seven Tests of True Mastery. As supply change practitioners, we are accurately aware that our industries are certainly not immune to change, making our teams feel vulnerable and stressed. How do we support them?

ASCI members took the opportunity this week to attend the ASCI Networking evening which was live streamed on our closed Facebook page, ASCI Members, to hear what they needed to know about redundancy, redeployment and career transition and how they could make their teams feel safe and secure amidst a domain of disruption and change.

Expecting to hear the doom and gloom of unemployment, members were pleasantly surprised to hear that the top organisations in Australia are offering the very best outplacement services for employees experiencing redundancy or redeployment.

Four Fast facts

1. Most employees will experience seven workplace changes
2. Most employees will experience an estimated three redundancies
3. Four out of five medium to large organisations globally utilise outplacement
4. It is estimated 44% of jobs in Australia will be at risk due to developing technology.

According to Brendan O’Keeffe, Nova Partners, career transition is inevitable for all of us and supply chain managers will benefit from learning as much as they can about outplacement services and best practice during a restructure.

Brendan shared the Automotive industry as a best practice case in point, clearly one which is close to ASCI Members’ hearts. In particular, Toyota was presented as an example of a company which has excelled in communicating with employees about the restructure changes in the organisation from the very top of the organisation chart – giving employees full transparency to opportunities on offer, managers who they’d report to and locations in which to relocate.

Career transition consultation was made available to those choosing to move on – some to the most unlikely careers such as professional golfing and entrepreneurial ventures.

Information sharing and advice on roles and responsibilities was sought after employees by management, making employees feel like their tenure made a significant impact to the organisation.

The two year outplacement transition has made all employees at Toyota feel valued and motivated by the changes to the organisation, regardless of the outcomes for the individuals. This is a brand dream for most organisations.

However, Brendan O’Keeffe says many SME companies say outplacement services are a luxury they cannot afford, leaving employees without the support they require during restructures. In leui of this service, supply chain managers are forced to upskill and learn best practice ways to look after their teams during transition.

For more information about outplacement services and career transition, please contact ASCI Corporate Member, Brendan O’Keeffe at Nova Partners: bokeeffe@novapartners.com.au.

 

 

 

5 Benefits to learning via Virtual Classrooms

The future of education is content delivered via virtual classrooms, especially in Australia where the tyranny of distance and increased traffic congestion hinder the opportunities to learn in residential classrooms.  These virtual classrooms are held online where participates can communicate, view presentations and interact with facilitators and peers.  To sum it all up, virtual classrooms are very similar to traditional classrooms, where the teaching is still the same but it is delivered in a convenient format.

So, how can individuals benefit from these virtual classrooms?

1. It is flexible, you can stay at your work desk and log on for a few hours.  You can participate in the lesson via a laptop, PC or tablet/iPad.  With just a few hours duration needed at a time for a virtual class, students do not have to take out a whole day for learning.  This benefits employers as well, as they avoid roster shuffling and extra staffing.
2. Chat boxes and polls will be available during the class to allow students to interact as they would in a residential classroom.  Polls allow for facilitators to gauge the knowledge and understanding of the class.
3. Similar to a traditional classroom, the facilitator is in control of the style of content delivery.  They are able to mute and un-mute students.  The facilitators can chose when question time is or when students can be interactive.  This gives the feel of the familiarity of a traditional classroom where the facilitator runs how the content is delivered.   As well as, gives the opportunity for students to share their stories.
4. It allows participants to learn and be able to immediately applying what they learn to their job, while it is fresh on their mind.
5. No cancellations – there are no limitations to numbers.

We hope these 5 benefits of virtual classrooms have given you a better understanding of the concept.

apicsAU has designed a series of Summer Virtual Classrooms which have been developed from the Best of the Best short course offerings from 2016.   View our summer virtual classes at: http://us12.campaign-archive2.com/?u=9b12daa3124e6a910a9170caa&id=e277b0c905

Special offer! – Register for three or more short courses and receive 20% off.

Do not forgot our early bird discount offer.  Register before 21 December 2016 to receive $50 off short courses and $100 off certifications. – http://us12.campaign-archive2.com/?u=9b12daa3124e6a910a9170caa&id=f5e4f82cdf

Is your business disruption ready?

A technological storm is brewing, one that has many different names. The Fourth Industrial Revolution. The Cyber Physical Supply Chain. Industry 4.0. The Age of Disruption. The Digital Age.

Whatever name you prefer, the concept behind them all is the same; we are facing a wave of change driven by innovations in robotics, autonomous vehicles, additive manufacturing, smart machines, e-commerce, big data, artificial intelligence, machine learning and cognitive computing. Machines are becoming smarter. Jobs are becoming automated. Management is becoming outdated.

It is poised to affect the entire end-to-end supply chain. It’s impacting every area from digging stuff out of the ground, through to the factory, the warehouse and now the transportation of goods. Your children are unlikely to do the same job you did. In fact, the entire concept of a job for life, even just a career, is something that may soon be a relic of the past.

It’s a winner take all model. For those winners, the spoils will be enormous, concentrating great power into the hands of a small group of technology driven organisations. Unlike the First Industrial Revolution, which benefited people both as participants in the production and consumption of goods, this time round the greatest beneficiaries will be those with capital; the shareholders. The benefits to ordinary people will be limited to that of a consumer.

To demonstrate how big this shift is, according to a 2014 estimate, the three leading companies of Silicon Valley had a combined market capitalisation of $1.09 trillion and employed 137,000. Just twenty-five years earlier, in 1990, the three largest companies in Detroit had a market capitalisation of $36 billion – but they also collectively employed about 1.2 million workers. The trickle down model seems to have stopped trickling.

So while the World Wide Web provides many things for free, such as knowledge, many workers are seeing their traditional skills become redundant by new computer technologies and the new employment opportunities have mainly been created for highly skilled workers. The scary point is, we are only at the very start of this economic and social transformation. By 2025 autonomous vehicles –cars, lorries, drones – will be commonplace, replacing the multitude of driving jobs currently carried out by people. In the US alone there are 8.7 million trucking-related jobs, and approximately 1 million car drivers (180,000 taxi drivers, 160,000 Uber drivers, 500,000 school bus drivers, and 160,000 transit bus drivers). Very few of these will have a job moving forwards.

The transformation will affect more than blue collar workers; the nature of occupations and whole industries is changing. Technology is enabling not just the automation of repetitive tasks but also cognitive tasks involving subtle and non-routine judgment. All the signs indicate that we are entering a period of disruptive change of a scale not seen since we decided to put down our pitchforks, stop living an agricultural existence and head for the cities to become part of an industrial society.

Companies like Amazon, who have a clear vision as to how these technologies can aid their mission to dominate the world of retail, are mercilessly pushing their virtuous cycle of innovation, changing the way we buy goods, and our expectations around when and how they are delivered. They envision an end-to-end value chain dominated by platforms that they are in control of, a model where the consumer only has to say out loud what they want, and behind the scenes a fully automated global supply kicks into gear to provide your goods within hours.

The days of mass production are now over. The future supply chain will be personal, automated and local. The question is – are you ready?

To find out the answer to this, and to learn more about the nature of this new wave of creative destruction, be sure to attend my full day workshop on Disruption in the Supply Chain.

During the day we will explore the nature of the changes currently underway, how they will affect your business, what companies like Amazon are doing with these technologies to ensure they orchestrate the whole international supply chain, and how companies need to change their mindsets and organisational structures in order to adapt to this new world.

Learn how to not just survive, but thrive during this time of disruption.

About our Guest Blogger

Sean Culey

Member of the European Leadership Team of the APICS Supply Chain Council SCOR-P, FCILT, is a recognised strategic advisor, business transformation expert, keynote speaker and author focusing on helping companies develop compelling value propositions and strategies that get executed. Previously CEO of SEVEN, Sean has 25 years of global experience across numerous verticals, and is also CMO for an international software company. Sean will be delivering a series of workshops on the impact of disruptive innovations on business across the Asia Pacific region in November 2016, and his first book; Transition Point: Revolution, Evolution or Endgame? is due in 2017.

http://www.supplychaindisruption.com

The 7 Tests of True Mastery

It appears we have never had so many experts roaming the planet than in our modern age. As I trawl through the LinkedIn profiles of my contacts, everyone it seems is a ‘specialist’, ‘sought-after authority’ or ‘expert’ at something – some even manage to specialize in pretty much everything!

Naturally, this is part of the necessary game of personal branding – one which I myself feel compelled to play to an ever-increasing extent (my own LinkedIn bio copy is evidence enough of this).

And yet I was recently reflecting on the notion of mastery. Not mastery in the more modern marketing form but in the traditional ‘master and apprentice’ sense. What are the tell-tale sign that someone has been around the block enough times and derived enough experience and skill to truly be a master at something.

Some would say that mastery is merely a function of time. For instance, Malcolm Gladwell is often credited for coining the 10,000 hour test which suggests that you have to do something for 10,000 hours before you are truly an expert. While this certainly has the ring of common sense about it, I can’t help but wonder if simply using time to determine mastery is a bit limited. After all, I know lots of people who are highly experienced but are neither experts or masters.

Reflecting on the many individuals in my sphere who, in my view, have truly achieved a level of mastery in their given field, there are 7 the characteristics that are common to them all:

1. They are rarely surprised – there is a positive sense that the truly experienced “have seen it all before” and therefore can remain calm, clear-headed and confident when the exceptional occurs

2. Their skills are not circumstantial – in other words masters are adept and comfortable in a wide variety of situations and contexts because their skill and expertise is second nature

3. They move beyond rhetoric and long-windedness – Paradoxically, I often find that it is people who use the most complex language who know least about a topic of body of knowledge. Those with superficial or merely academic understanding tend to find intellectual security in rhetoric and jargon. In contrast, those who truly understand a topic tend to use language that is refreshingly simple and concise. As Albert Einstein said, If you can’t explain it to an 6-year old, you don’t understand it yourself.

4. They have added to knowledge – rather than simply consuming or re-hashing existing knowledge and insight, true experts get to a point where they create and contribute new knowledge

5. They are constructively contrarian – Anyone can throw stones and attack another’s views but true experts can offer a contrary view without any need to be either aggressive or defensive. The goal becomes to improve the quality of thought rather than to score points

6. They are humble and open – True mastery engenders a wonderful humility, openness and a hunger to constantly grow and learn. In contrast, those with limited skill, knowledge or expertise often have the most rigid views and firm opinions. There appears to be something about the road to true mastery that wears away hard edges and dissolves arrogance.

7. They actively seek to apprentice others – Finally, I see time and time again that a key mark of mastery is the innate drive to invest in and mentor the next generation. There seems to come a point where the goal for those with mastery is not to simply build their own success but share what they have learned with those coming behind them – just as someone had likely done with them at some stage. This desire to leave a leave a legacy and pass on a heritage of skill and knowledge is perhaps one of the most powerful dynamics to witness – when an expert becomes an elder.

I don’t know if you find the above list as challenging as I do. As I draw closer to my mid-30s, I am increasingly aware of the tendency for age and experience to ossify my views, dim my optimism and even breed selfishness.

Bearing this in mind, I for one am committed to pursuing mastery in the true sense of that word. I don’t want to merely be experienced, I want to become an expert: secure in my convictions but ever-curious, open and looking to share and serve.

How about you?

Michael McQueen is our guest blogger.
Speaker | Author | President at Professional Speakers Australia – PSA | Leadership Coach | Social Researcher