Supply Chain
Technology Podcast

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Supply chain tech, workforce mindset, job roles, technology shift, recruitment strategies, AstraZeneca, digital analytics, data science, lifelong learning, technical skills, business skills, collaboration, agility, cognitive overload, actionable insights.

SPEAKERS

Scott Mears, Kirsten Marlin, Lucy Alexander

Scott Mears  00:00

Put your thumbs up or thumb down.

Lucy Alexander  00:02

Gladiators, anything does it? This is that kind of thumbs up, thumbs down.

Scott Mears  00:07

Supply chain heroes need more real time visibility.

Lucy Alexander  00:12

Thumbs Up.

Scott Mears  00:12

All supply chain heroes support the Boston Red Sox.

Lucy Alexander  00:17

Very, very controversial.

Scott Mears  00:26

Welcome to the Supply Chain Tech Podcast with Roambee. Scott Mears here, Global Field Marketing Manager at Roambee and one of the hosts of the Supply Chain Tech Podcast. We thank you for joining us today. In this episode, we speak with Lucy Alexander and Kirsten Marlin. Lucy is the Capabilities Lead, Global Supply Chain and Strategy, and Kirsten is the Global Supply Chain Digital and Data Lead at AstraZeneca, We discuss how technology is shifting the workforce mindset, and why is it making us redesign job roles. We debate if the already 450 million employed supply chain industry is able to keep up with the tech shift. And we learn how AstraZeneca is enabling their employees to evolve, and how as a company, they are re-strategizing recruitment to find the right people. Thank you Lucy, thank you Kirsten, thank you for coming on today.

Lucy Alexander  01:29

You’re welcome. Great to be here. Thanks for having us.

Scott Mears  01:32

Yeah, it’s wonderful. It was so obviously me and Lucy, we both met at Logipharma in Boston, USA, last year, our first time being there, one of the leading Farm Supply Chain events North America. And I always remember your talk, it really stuck out to me. It was it really piqued my interest, because you were talking about something that wasn’t being talked as much on the panel and throughout the the event and and that mindset shift happening in recruitment, and the mind shift that needs to happen within the workforce with the amount of technology going on. So I’m so glad that we’re able to now extend that conversation from a lunchtime conversation to a full episode, and not just that week, Kirsten to join us as well. So I’m very excited to have two minds really digging into this. So thank you so much.

Lucy Alexander  02:22

Yeah, great.

Scott Mears  02:23

I love to start with a bit of an icebreak. It’s always interesting to learn a bit about our guests. So I’ll start with you Lucy. What was your dream job? This is we’re going to be talking about recruitment a lot. What was your dream job as a child and and don’t be scared to say the true photos face. It’s okay. What was that dream job?

Lucy Alexander  02:44

Yeah, well, it’s funny. I even today, I sometimes still think, oh, maybe I should go become a veterinarian. So that was what I really wanted to be when I was young. I loved animals, and I’ve just consumed everything I could. I read all the James Harriet books about being a vet, all creatures great and small. And even today, if I’m dial flipping and I come across one of those reality TV shows about vets offices, I just I’m done for the next like 12 hours, I will just sit there and watch every episode. So the great thing about being in life sciences is I still get a bit of the science, which I enjoy. And then my husband and I, we actually rehabilitate rescue dogs, so I get my animal fix that way these days.

Scott Mears  03:26

Wow. Well, that’s amazing that that dream job is still become part of your life. Yeah, that’s very rare that people can say that. That’s wonderful to hear and then Kirsten, what was your was your dream job as a child?

Kirsten Marlin  03:41

Ironically, I wanted to do anything that wasn’t office space. I was gonna be in the RV I was going to be a dress maker. I think at one point I wanted to be a jockey, horse rider. I don’t ride horses. But then as I sort of matured, I think I’ve obviously softened the found my creative spark within the office environment.

Scott Mears  04:06

Well, that’s Yeah, it’s interesting, two very different dream jobs. Yeah, it’s interesting where life takes us, but it is wonderful to see where you guys are now, and it’s exciting to be able to speak with you today in the role as you are in today, we’re going to be really diving into recruitment and and really the impacts that are happening in supply chain to understand what is driving the shift of mindset and driving the different strategies of recruitment. So I really want to start off with what is driving the change. So I think we can all agree here is that there’s many things that are driving the shift of demand, of of the approach to recruitment, and from technology to global disruptions, to the environment sustainability, but I really want to know is, is it focusing on technology today is I would love to know first yourself Lucy is how. How do you feel technology is shifting the workforce mindset of today?

Lucy Alexander  05:05

Yeah, so I think we probably all see and hear digital almost every day now. So it’s hard to hard to escape. And you know, if you think about just how the world has changed, right? I know we talk about smartphones as an example, right? So we have smartphones 10 years ago, 12 year 15 years ago, how long it’s been? And now, you know, you’re using your smartphone every second of the day. So I think we’re just seeing the sort of the natural evolution of that into into, in our case, supply chain management. And you know, I always say to people, my my vision for the future is when digital becomes just the way we do work. It’s the default for how we do everything that we do. And it’s strange when you’re doing something manually, I think we’re not there yet, right? I think still, digital is a little bit of the exception if you looked at a total proportion of our time. So yeah, so then we’re starting to look more at, how do we define roles around that new future? And it’s exciting. I’m very excited to see we are starting to see some of that mindset shift, I would say, within within AstraZeneca and within the global supply chain organization.

Scott Mears  06:19

Wonderful and passing on to you Kirsten, any additional comments on that?

Kirsten Marlin  06:23

Yeah, I think also is the balance of skills that we start to look for within roles is changing as well, whereas in the past, it might have been, you know, we need someone who’s 90% supply chain expertise. Maybe they can do a bit of office, you know, Microsoft Office work, but actually now we’re starting to see that sort of shift. As technology becomes available, we need more people who are able to learn how to use that technology, or come to the come into the office with those skills, more digitally enabled skills, and all the sort of skills that sit around that like being able to tell a story with data or understanding how to interact with the algorithms, you know, within decision support systems. So I think it’s it’s having that sort of effect as well. Also, there’s an element of, you know, with supply chain skills at the moment, you know, in certain areas that supply chain skills are not easily to come by, it forces the technology as well. So it becomes a bit of a sort of virtuous circle.

Scott Mears  07:34

And following that is, it’s a really interesting answer is, do you see that we’re having to redesign roles now, not just sort of looking for that different person, but having to even redesign that role that we’re even recruiting from. I’ll stay with you, Kirsten on that.

Kirsten Marlin  07:48

Yeah, I think we are, whether we’re, I think, I don’t think we’re at the end state of that yet either, you know, I can see a future, you know, 10, whatever, years down the line, where actually it’s more important to have people who understand the systems and how to use decision support systems effectively, while the systems themselves are actually driving and managing the supply chain. So I think that is definitely sort of the vision of where I think this would ultimately go to which makes the domain specific knowledge. It sort of puts less emphasis on that. And I think that will continue as as the whole of industries and digital footprint increases,

Scott Mears  08:35

And with that footprint, Lucy, do you get any other comments on how those roles have been redesigned, and what we’re expecting in the future to watch.

Lucy Alexander  08:44

Yeah, yeah. And Kirsten are the perfect person to ask that. So she leads our digital analytics function within within global supply chain. Yeah, I think we’re seeing more digital more, sorry, data focused roles. So we now actually have specific data scientist roles, which, you know, I’ve been in supply chain longer than I’d like to admit, and that’s a new development, certainly that I’ve seen in the past few years. Along with that, you know, it’s Kirsten said, I think the supply chain professional the future will do more of the managing systems, rather than managing Supply today, right? Planners do a lot of thinking about the supply dynamics and a lot of sort of mental mental calculations, right, and using ERP systems like SAP. But in the future, I and we see this already with some of the companies we benchmark with that are further beyond us. What they really do is they really manage the systems, and as Kirsten so then the systems have the algorithms. So I think that’ll be a very different way of working. I think about it like the shop floor in an automotive facility where, you know, back in the old days, right, it was a conveyor belt, and you had, you know, all these people, if you look at old, old movies, right? You had all these people stationed along conveyor belt, all doing manual things. The conveyor belt was moving the parts, but the people were doing. It manually. And, you know, putting putting car doors onto the sides of bodies of cars, if you visit one now, you see there are three people, maybe an entire car facility, and they’re all staring at computer screens, right? They aren’t touching the actual car at all. And that’s kind of my what I see as a future global supply chain.

Kirsten Marlin  10:19

Yeah, it also just further build on that piece around the data science piece as well. And you know that we didn’t have that before. We’ve now it’s a critical part of supply chain, but also previously, where data analyst was sort of maybe a mini function within more supply chains that’s moving more now into sort of BAU sort of everyone has that data analyst skill. And in the back of that coming through is more the specialist skills in data science that are starting to grow as well. So it sort of shifted the focus of data analysts as well.

Scott Mears  10:52

It’s interesting your comment, both of your comments on that, because it we have a big employee workforce in supply chain. I mean, I was researching online, and it’s estimated over 450 million employed in supply chain today, a huge workforce out there. And do you believe that we can evolve this employee base to keep up that tech shift happening, because a good portion of these people have, have never worked with this technology, have never worked with this advancement. There’s change that’s happening. Do you feel we’re going to be able to evolve our employee teams as we go on? And I’ll stay with you there. Kirsten.

Kirsten Marlin  11:36

Yeah, that’s a great question, and it’s one that I think everybody sort of is wrestling with, particularly when you look at, you know, when you need technical and digital skills, there are huge tech companies. So if you’ve got those skills, you may naturally gravitate towards some of those companies rather than bring them into industry. So there is that sort of thing that we need to be mindful of as we do that. But I definitely think it’s more than feasible to sort of up school people, because we have to remember that a lot most people now are quite comfortable using digital in their everyday life. You think the number of apps people are using, how they interface with, even their smart televisions, their smartphones, I think it’s more about how do we leverage that knowledge and make sure people understand that actually, it’s not something they need to be frightened of, scared of. They can build those skills, same skills and but just apply them in the workplace as well.

Scott Mears  12:33

I like that. That’s it’s a nice way of look. I’ve never had someone look at it in that like presented like that, that they’re already using the apps already, using the games, the smart TVs, they’re already living with it. That’s that’s a really interesting way of looking at it. And Lucy, what’s your feeling on on that helping that shift? Is it possible?

Lucy Alexander  12:53

Yeah, I’m convinced it is. I frequently use the example that when I started in planning many years ago, there were people who obviously had already been in planning for many years at the time I joined people who had been planners for 40 years at the time I started. And they used to talk about how they used to do planning, supply planning, using slide rules and graph paper. I barely know what a good supply rule is, right? So they would tell me these stories, and I’m like, I can’t even imagine how you would do that, because when I joined right, we were already using ERP systems, and right. So, you know, I think about just the progress in that time frame. I see no reason why. You know, we won’t, as we move from the slide rule the European systems, I see no reason we won’t move from ERP systems to the next generation. So yeah, and I was very into your statistic about the four 50 million people, because again, if we think back to the days when people were doing the slide rules and graph paper, there were probably fewer than 450 million people question at that time. So I just think it just opens up more and more and more opportunities for everyone.

Kirsten Marlin  14:04

I think that’s a really good point. I love that analogy of the slide drill because also reminds me of things that someone said to me about when Excel was invented. It didn’t suddenly mean that all the accountants disappeared, or that they suddenly thought, well, I’ve not got the skills for that. They adapted, and it becomes an integrated part of the roles to date.

Scott Mears  14:26

And it’s great to hear this, that positive outlook, because I know people can be on different sides of it, being worried about the technology coming in and and maybe even ceasing their role. But you make great examples here of how people evolve, and they evolve and they understand what, and they evolve in their role. And I’d love to know. AstraZeneca, how are you enabling your employees to evolve? And I’ll stick with you. Lucy,

Lucy Alexander  14:57

Yeah, yeah. So umm, we have a big focus on our capabilities upskilling. So in fact, as part of our operations strategy, five year strategy, capabilities uplift. Building capabilities, what we call building a culture of lifelong learning, is one of our initiatives under that across operations and so then, similarly, within within global supply chain, we’re doing that as well. And one of the things I think is really interesting about this, and Kirsten kind of touched on it, is, you know, we have a tendency to think technical skills, right when we talk about systems, digital automation, right? But one of the things that we’re focused on, as well as all the other sort of business skills that have to go along with that. And again, so touched on this a few minutes ago. You know, things like communications, right? So you’re dealing with more and more complex analytical models. You have to be able to, one, understand all the inputs and understand that the business problems that people are trying to solve, but then also be able to communicate back out, explain to people kind of what this digital system is doing, and how it’s coming up with, with the decisions and the recommendations. So as I say, we’re actually very focused in both spaces. And I’m actually, I’m interested in Kirsten thoughts on this. I’m actually a little bit more concerned about sort of the business skills and the interpersonal skills than I am necessarily about the technical skills as we do this.

Kirsten Marlin  16:19

And I think that’s a really good point. And we’ve been recruiting, I’ve been recruiting recently, and we were debating, which is harder to upskill someone on? Is it the softer piece, or is it because two similar candidates with slightly different skill sets, and one is very technical, one was very stakeholder focused. And actually, in a digital environment, you know that stakeholder focus actually sort of pips some sometimes the technical because it’s actually quite easy to send people on courses to teach them technical skills. It’s much harder to coach and support people through growing into some of those softer skills.

Scott Mears  16:57

That’s a really interesting point you make there. So you would say that that piece that everyone’s got their attention or the technical could become the challenge. Actually, that’s much easier to manage and educate. And though you’re aware as those softer skills is really what you’re looking for. Have you found that a lot in your recruitment?

Kirsten Marlin  17:16

Then yeah, I think you need to turn the role, obviously, but we want to say you can take anybody and bring them into 100% digital role. But I think you need to have the learning agility. You need to have some of those softer skills. And if you can bring the digital skills as well, then it’s a shoe in so to speak. I think also the leadership levels as well. I think there’s a level of helping them understand how to engage and how to coach their teams as well as they go through the change journey for digital transformation too, which we’re putting quite a lot of focus on through our transformation programs.

Lucy Alexander  17:59

Yeah, I’ll draw a parallel to we’ve had a big focus on lean in global supply chain, which is sort of part of this equation for us as well. And I think to Kirsten point about leadership, that was one thing that we found with trying to create a lean culture and lean ways of working and lean, just lean thinking and mindset. Back to your point, Scott, about mindset and it really there’s a huge influence from, obviously, from leaders in how they set expectations and how where they put their focus, and how they communicate and the questions that they ask their team. So, so, yeah, I think we’re going to see a lot of that from leaders too. And again, if I go back to my end state vision, where you know, everything should be digital, and it’s considered weird if you’re doing something manually, then I think leaders play a play a big role in that, because they need to sort of set the expectation that if there’s a better digital way to do something, then it should. They’ll have to set that expectation that we’re no longer going to do this manually, and we all know change is hard, but I think leaders play a key role in that, and leadership skills, coaching, influencing all of that.

Scott Mears  19:14

Interesting. Very much answers my next question is, what do you feel we need to do for those roles that do cease to exist and evolve it. So AstraZeneca do some really interesting things through educating and having the courses there and allowing the employees to evolve in their roles internally. So it’s really interesting to see that AstraZeneca is already doing this to allow employees to evolve this change in this tech shift that we see and on the recruitment side, how? How is AstraZeneca re strategizing your recruitment to find people who can meet that demand of today and evolve with tech shift. You’re saying Kirsten about the soft skills and what? A focus for you now. How are you re strategizing that recruitment now to find those people with the tech shift happening?

Kirsten Marlin  20:10

Yeah, and so there’s a couple of things I think there for me around looking at where we’re recruiting from, you know, targeting some of the grassroots talent that comes through from, you know, your MITs, and even some of the sort of at high school level, you know, how do we build careers within the company, as well as buy them in, you know? And taking some of those views, and also looking at, you know, leaders to reconsider how they view talent, sort of back to a bit of our earlier discussion. But also looking at, you know, what’s their softer skills, their mindset, versus maybe years of experience and previous organizations and so on. So there’s always a tailored approach depending on the particular role. But I think at the macro level, some of those are the areas that we’ve been sort of pivoting and working around.

Scott Mears  20:57

And Lucy, would you have anything additional to that, to sort of the re-strategizing of finding those people out there?

Lucy Alexander  21:07

Yeah, a couple of additional thoughts, I guess. And Kristen kind of touched on some of this, but one of the big conversations we’re having is about recruiting people, hiring people for their capabilities, rather than, as she said, their experiences and their skill sets necessarily so that’s, that’s a fairly significant shift, because, you know, you think about your traditional job description, it’s, oh, you’ve got to have 10, to 15 years of experience, and you’ve got to have experience doing this, and always this, demonstrated experience of, you know, demonstrated success doing this and and, you know, we Think about things like learning, agility, openness to change all of that, some of the soft skills we mentioned, too. So yeah, I think we are taking a different approach to that. It’ll be interesting to see as we go through this. You know, what results that has but, but I think we’ve all probably had experiences in our careers when you work with somebody who is technically just amazingly knowledgeable, but can be hard to work with. And you know, so things like collaboration, right? Are going to be really, really, really important as we move forward, possibly more important than they have been in the past. I mean, I just think about what we do today, and you know, so much of it is just virtual, like like this, like this, recording this podcast, right? And it’s a different it’s a different way of working different people skills. So, you know, as we think about recruiting, I think we are going to be looking more for, how can people adapt to those kinds of situations, rather than, you know, how many, how many technical certifications they have, right?

Kirsten Marlin  22:43

Yeah, and I would build on that as well, because the way we work today will probably continue to evolve. So even if we recruited someone for a particular technical skill set, or, you know, something with the way we work today, that’ll probably be obsolete, you know, tomorrow kind of thing. I think that they say the half life of skills today is about five years, and in the digital space, it’s even less. There’s a concern that, you know, people going through computer science degrees at university level now, by the time they graduate, the skills that they learn in the first year will be obsolete. So getting people who’ve got that learning agility back to Lucy’s point, I think is so key, because, you know, it’s continuing to evolve.

Scott Mears  23:28

That’s, yeah, that’s quite an interesting fact that you just put that how they can finish their degree and and it’d be obsolete perspective, doesn’t it? It’s scary, but also quite amazing to just the speed in which we’re evolving and the amazing I mean, one thing I’ve seen a lot going to these events is just the amount of incredible ideas out there and businesses that are allowing us to overcome these problems we’ve always dealt with in such unique ways. And it is wonderful to see, but it’s also quite challenging to keep up with. And of course, challenging for the customer on the other side to be like, which one is for me, because there’s 100 here saying they’re all doing seems like a similar thing. So it can be quite challenging. So I can definitely see that, and it’s good that you’re thinking that head again. Go look, you’re great now, but you need that evolving quality to because this technology is going to evolve over the next few years. And what are those other qualities? Kirsten, you would say you’re looking for in person today, agility. But what else are you looking for today? If you took sort of pinpoint a few out.

Kirsten Marlin  24:38

I think, definitely curiosity, you know, in terms of wanting to go and explore and find additional skills. And there are, as they were, building things like data science, you know, some of those are more the harder core technical skills. But that in itself isn’t enough, you know, it’s got to be that, and some of the business pieces, too, yeah.

Scott Mears  25:00

And for you, Lucy, what are those key skills you’re looking for today?

Lucy Alexander  25:06

Yeah, I agree with, agree with Kirsten, as I said, I think also interpersonal skills. They say collaboration. You know, we, we have very few roles like I can think of any role today that doesn’t require you to work across, in our case, global teams as an example. We talk a lot about partnering these days, because partly, you know, AstraZeneca, we have a very large sort of ecosystem and network, right? We work with people internally, but we also work with people in companies externally. So that’s another very important, important skill set for for certainly, the future of our business, and I think, really, the future of all businesses you sort of mentioned, you know, if you think about the vendors that you see at a conference, right, they’re all fairly specialized, which, in a way, is fantastic, because, to your point, you should be able to find the one who does that one thing that you need. But then you think about, okay, but then I’m going to need to have five or six, right? And how you connect all them and help everybody work together, how you think about the information flows, the analytics, all of that to support all of that is, I think, different evolving from from the way we’ve done it before.

Scott Mears  26:21

Absolutely, and I, I feel your pain on that with there are so many specially specialized solutions and it can I was actually having this conversation very recently about cognitive overload. I keep hearing this word around events and in conversations of we see the value. We see it, but we have another six systems that we’ve just took on in the last few years that we’re still trying to understand, and we’re still educating, and we’re still trying to figure out if they integrate with one another. How do you feel? We I know this is going a little bit off recruitment, but I think it’s interesting to speak about is, how do you feel solutions, break through that noise, with, with, with that cognitive overload constantly happening, how do you feel they they could break through that, that overload, and sort of get recognized as, okay, no, this is the one we need.

Lucy Alexander  27:20

I think it’s is a big problem. I really do. We talk a lot about change fatigue, right? So to your point, you end up with so juggling, so many different things. I know, I just you know, as saving this conversation my husband last night about the number of apps on your phone, right, that you deal with. And I’m, I’m, I’m still old school, right? So I’m sure there are other people out there who are much better at who are constantly downloading the latest app. And I’m kind of like, whoa, I have to face myself. So, yeah, so I think I think it is going to be a challenge, but I also think again, people are evolving. The world is evolving. So I think probably people are just naturally learning to develop, to manage that and to develop that way, maybe in contrast to some of the ways we thought about it before.

Kirsten Marlin  28:08

Yeah, that’s true. I’d also add to that, I think it’s a bit of a team sport as well. You know, like everybody, I get, you know, several papers from several companies a day telling me their white paper. But I’m not sort of looking at an isolation I’m talking to our IT architects to the data scientists, to the business partners, to people on the shop floor to understand how does this actually fill a problem? If it does, you know, what is the gap in our existing architecture and so on. So I don’t think any of these things you can do in isolation, but you need to bring in a cohort around you to to understand the value that some of them can bring.

Lucy Alexander  28:54

Yeah. And actually, as you’re saying that I was thinking to being really specific about what you’re what the actual problem is that you’re trying to solve. Or I think one thing is that I see is sometimes we’re still a little vague, right? Oh, you know, well, we need access to this data, okay, but why? What are you going to do with it, right? Go back to really understanding that, what is the business problem we’re trying to solve? I know we have something we’re looking at right now, and, you know, people cues suggesting, like system after system after system. And so it’s like, okay, but does it do the specific thing that we needed to do? And you know, sometimes it’s, well, no, but, you know, we installed the system 10 years ago, and you know, the original intention was it would do this thing you want it to do. And I’m like, okay, but it’s been 10 years. It hasn’t really been maintained. And so I’m sure that was a great vision at the time, but you know, not that I want to just throw the baby out with the bath with the bath water, but, you know, I think being really precise about what it is that the problem you’re trying to solve and and also, not just your the problem you’re facing today, but how, how, also how you see that evolving over time?

Kirsten Marlin  29:55

Yeah, definitely. I think it’s too easy for people to look at the new tech and get very excited about it. And that’s why we serve in terms of, when we think of digital transformation across AstraZeneca, we’re thinking sort of people, then process, then data and then technology. And it’s very deliberately done in that way.

Lucy Alexander  30:15

Yeah, that’s a great point. We spend a lot of time talking about process, because if you don’t, as Kirsten says all the time, if you don’t have a really clear, well defined process, then putting in a digital system isn’t going to help you. So we are also using our back to my the lean, lean example. We are also using tapping into those lean resources to to work with teams and make sure that we’ve got really, really clear, robust processes, and all the people who contribute, who are part of that process, are part of those discussions. So that when we’re automating things, we know that we’re actually automating something that’s going to be useful to people. And then the other piece of that is the data flows. So I think that’s the other thing that we’ve we’ve run into is, you know, all of these systems are just massive consumers of data and and more and more data right now that things are in the cloud, right? You don’t really have kind of discrete data sets anymore. You weren’t limited by that. Well, that means we have to look at data in a completely different way. So we’re having lots of conversations about, okay, we’ve got to tie together the data, the process and the digital solution is into one, because we’ve got to solve all that at the same time. And then, as Kirsten said, and then there’s the people, aspects of it, of it as well.

Scott Mears  31:33

It’s, it’s a lot, and it’s, it’s interesting that it seems you just pull it back to being very simple. What is the problem that we’re trying to deal with here? I appreciate you have 10 other features, but we need this problem fixed. Does it do that problem? I like that. Just bringing it down to simple. And for solutions out there, wondering how to cut through is, is just being very clear on what your your overcoming for that person in front of you, that customer, but I think that’s even though so simple. I think it’s good to read to hear that, because you can get lost in talking about those 120 extra features, which are wonderful, but does it do this one thing that I need to sort out today that’s really causing a problem, and now that’s really good to hear your guys insights on that, and it’s interesting to see, right is, it’s what I’ve really noticed, is the shift between what you’re saying there is not just generating more data, but generating intelligent data. And what I mean by that is, number one, data we can rely on, but number two, data that actually informs us to do things, because I think we can get very lost in we already have so much to digest, and we don’t have the time to digest this and understand it, so having platforms that can digest that and give us answers to what the next step is, all go as far as even robotic process automation, to even do things like this would be wonderful. I think that can take a lot of the strain out of being sort of intimidated by the more and more data that’s coming into our supply chain.

Kirsten Marlin  33:13

Yeah, you’re spot on. It’s got to be actionable. The insights are only good if you can drive something from them.

Lucy Alexander  33:21

Exactly. And I think you’re starting to touch on things like artificial intelligence, right, which I’m frankly looking forward to, for all the reasons you just said, I’m I love data. I always tell my teams don’t give me access to more data, because the amount of time I spend at work is is directly proportional to the amount of data I have access to, right? I’m actually looking forward to having a system that will take all that and and crunch it all for me and come up with things that you know i i from an analytics perspective, that you know would take a human months to come up with. It’s really fascinating. I always say, you know, Google knows more about me than I do. I’m sure they can tell me what I’m gonna have for lunch three months now, right? I don’t even know I’m gonna have for lunch today.

Scott Mears  34:09

It’s scary. It is scary, but no, you’re very true. I guess it’s like an example, if we were to look at a spreadsheet with a million rows and it had figures in every row, do you wanna count it all up yourself, or just put a formula and then it’ll just tell you the answer. I mean, the time first find that formula and to count in a million rows is, is quite, quite different. So it can be so I want to sort of bring it back to recruitment quickly on the last question is, what are those? I know we’ve mentioned qualities. What is, what are those core values you believe will always be desirable no matter what, even with the continuous involvement and I’ll, I’ll go with you, Kirsten first.

Kirsten Marlin  34:50

Yeah, so, um, we’ve got some very core values within our company, I think, and most of them will continue to be valid going forward. But if I had to pull out from them. I mean, putting patients first is always going to be key for us within pharma, and it’s always going to drive our need to evolve what we do more, quicker, better kind of thing. Think if I had to then drill in from there around, sort of the personal skills I would bet on, things like curiosity continuing to be important and to help us sort of push some of the boundaries. And also, you know, we’re entrepreneurial, so, you know, being able to take smart risks is going to be really important. So with digital innovation, there’s going to be, there’s got to be a lot of sort of failure as you do sort of experiment with things, as you try things out, so that you can push forward, and that comfort level with smart risk has got to be to be viewed, I think, in the future as well.

Scott Mears  35:51

And Lucy, would you echo the same or add any additional ones there?

Lucy Alexander  35:54

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think one that I always call out is, is integrity, right? I mean, so they go, it goes without saying, but you know, if you don’t have trust, then you know, you really, you really don’t have a path forward. So I think really having, you know, very strong sense of ethics, being transparent, right? Being upfront, honest, all of that. Again, it sounds like, you know? Oh, yeah, of course, but it can become the barrier to relate to doing anything.

Scott Mears  36:28

Absolutely. No, it’s wonderful to hear that, and it’s good to remember those key qualities that are always going to be desirable irregardless of this tech shift. And I feel like throughout this episode we’ve for anyone who’s still fearful of that tech shift, it’s going to break that down to that isn’t the fearful part. It’s Do you have those core values? That is, you’re willing to be your agile, you’re willing to evolve, you’re trustworthy, to evolve with this shift. And then just becomes exciting. Because if anyone like me, I like change. I like evolve, and it becomes a very interesting environment for us all.

Lucy Alexander  37:07

Yeah, I think, I think you make a great point, which is getting comfortable with it. You know, I do think that comes back to curiosity, you know, certainly, you know, a few years ago, people talked to me about machine learning or artificial intelligence. And I honestly didn’t really know what they were talking about, right? I was like, Oh, is that that Avatar movie thing? Was that something like and and just getting out there and learning more about it? I say to people all the time, they’re like, Oh, well, how do I learn about this? I’m like, go, put, go, put search words into Google, right? It’s a great learning tool. I had an example the other day where somebody in the office kept talking about something, and so finally I just went online. And back to the point about, about, about vendors and companies working in this space. I found a company, it just popped up, right? And they’re like, Oh, well, you know, we make a solution that does this, and we do demos. So sign up here for demo. And so I did, and there was a 20 minute demo that was done live right? You could ask questions, and that was how I learned. So I think, I think just as Kristen said, Being curious, the more I find, the more I learn about something, the more I know about it, the less scary it becomes, and I can start processing through kind of, what does this mean for me and and how can I, how can I manage it? And then I get excited, because there’s so much opportunity out there. I mean, again, back to smartphone example, right? People now are almost literally addicted to their smartphones, right? And I kind of, you know, that’s my again, my hope for the future is we were all like. This is so great. I never want to let it go.

Scott Mears  38:41

No, I love the word curious. That’s such a great word I’m going to use that in interviews. Is curious, like looking for that curiosity. I want to finish the episode off with a bit of a fun game, a thumbs up or thumbs down, and it’s simply just putting your thumbs up or thumb down to the questions, but if you could also say thumbs up or thumbs down, just for the audio listeners who aren’t seeing this right now, just so they know what you’ve said as well. Okay, so it’s gonna be six questions, and it’s gonna be interesting, because you may disagree, so that becomes more interesting and we can discuss it.

Lucy Alexander  39:21

So just gladiators or anything,is it? This is that kind of thumbs up, thumbs down.

Scott Mears  39:28

We’re all good. We’re all good. We good fun. We’re gonna have fun. So number one, supply chain heroes need more real time visibility.

Lucy Alexander  39:41

Thumbs up.

Kirsten Marlin  39:42

Thumbs up.

Scott Mears  39:43

Thumbs up. All supply chain heroes support the Boston Red Sox.

Lucy Alexander  39:55

Very, very controversial. So..

Scott Mears  39:59

Well, one of you didn’t dare to answer.

Lucy Alexander  40:07

Yeah, you have to ask about, about British football teams?

Scott Mears  40:11

Yeah, okay, well, we’ll carry on, and we’ll miss that question. For anyone looking to become a supply chain hero, they need to continue continually educate themselves.

Lucy Alexander  40:27

Definitely. Thumbs up.

Scott Mears  40:29

Awesome. I think I’m going to change that to be curious. I think now after that word. All the world’s shortages are caused by supply chains.

Kirsten Marlin  40:40

Thumbs down. We help sort it out.

Lucy Alexander  40:44

Yeah we can. We can help mitigate shortages, but we’re not. We’re not so all powerful that we can, that we cause all of them.

Scott Mears  40:55

Supply chain heroes need to become better at predicting disruption and risk.

Lucy Alexander  41:01

Yeah, I would say thumbs up to that.

Kirsten Marlin  41:03

I say sort of thumbs up. I would argue like we need to use the technology to help us with that, rather than us ourselves become good at it.

Scott Mears  41:13

No, really, really good your answers. And finally, supply chain heroes need to become more agile.

Kirsten Marlin  41:20

Yeah, thumbs up. I think,

Lucy Alexander  41:23

Yeah, probably thumbs up. I mean, I just think about what I have seen supply chain heroes doing over the past two to three years, and it is just absolutely phenomenal. And I do, I do feel like, you know, I think supply chain and the people who work in supply chain and manage supply chains have gotten a lot more visibility in the past two to three years, but I just think about what our teams do every day. To your point about material shortages, you know, labor shortages, shortages of containers, shortages of shipping capacity, geopolitical conflicts, trade barriers going up all over the place. You know, it’s just, I’m amazed. So yes, but I also want to recognize the agility and the flexibility, resilience, all those great words that supply chain professionals have been demonstrating, particularly in the past two or three years.

Kirsten Marlin  42:16

Well said.

Scott Mears  42:17

I couldn’t agree more, and I think what a one friend to the podcast episode is absolutely true, especially the past year has been so disruptive, it has been incredible to see the abilities and the work that people have done in supply chain, and I’m excited to see what there is to come up as well. So thank you so much Lucy, Kirsten for joining on the episode today. I really appreciate you guys joining on today.

Kirsten Marlin  42:41

Well, thank you for having me.

Lucy Alexander  42:43

Yeah, and a pleasure. Appreciate it.

Scott Mears  42:45

Thank you very much. Hi, my name is Scott Mears, and I’m one of the hosts of the Supply Chain Tech Podcast with Roambee. On this podcast we talk to supply chain heroes from around the world about everything, ranging from the disruptions related to supply chains, their personal experiences with tracking technologies, strategies to build resilience, and much, much more. We already have some recommended videos for you to the side of me, and if any of this sounds interesting to you, do subscribe to our Youtube channel and hit the bell icon so you don’t miss another Roambee video. I’ll see you next time.