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Strategy Roundtable: Part One

Managing change, challenges, and retaining top talent in today’s industry
Supply Chain Solutions

What types of tactics and strategies are you using to improve your supply chains?
Brady: Lean is really big for us and we’re adopting it throughout the organization. Stripping out the wasteful nonvalue-adding activities from what you do is really important. The key is to specifically define what you’re trying to improve and find ways to do it in a value-adding way.

It’s something that’s really helpful in this environment of information overload—having too much data that doesn’t really help people is just as bad as not having the data. Narrow it down to about three to five simple points you’re trying to get out of the data.

Gallant: I agree that people are getting a lot of information today but their
schedules are still no less complicated. It’s easy to create data, but it generates extra work to consume the data and figure out what’s important. The more you can drill down with relevant dashboards and reports, the more efficient you’ll become at analyzing and getting to the heart of process improvement.

Grant: We’re developing mobile apps to help with transportation and to continuously improve the work everyone’s doing—it’s the only way to try and stay ahead of things. Also, whatever strategy you’re working toward, you must have complete support starting at the top of the organization. The strategy has to be conveyed and constantly worked on to make it happen—you need champions in each area of the supply chain to push the agenda forward.

Talent Needs
Supply chain leaders and functional champions don’t grow on trees. Building the right team with the capability to create excellence requires time and effort. Hence, produce companies must invest in the re-cruitment, development, and retention of high potential talent.

What are the top challenges of finding talented produce professionals?
Gallant: We’re a 7-day per week, 20-hour operation. I find that younger people want a 9-to-5 job Monday through Friday, but that’s just not available in our industry. There are too many things going on and too many moving parts, which means responding to email from suppliers and customers at any time of the day about things that aren’t just going quite the way they were planned.

Grant: We face the same issue, finding people who have a real passion for the produce business and are willing to go those extra steps and do more than the 9-to-5 job. The growing work-to-live rather than live-to-work mentality is a challenge for our industry.

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