Welcome to the supply chain dialogue, season three, episode six. I'm Daniel Helmig. This is the last episode. Before the summer quarter break this year, we will return in October.  So I'm thrilled that we go out  with a bang.  Today, I'm joined by a special guest. 

Someone who's been a friend and colleague for many years and now holds the esteemed position of chief procurement officer at American Airlines. The one and only Dan Bartel.  He's the former chief procurement officer or CPO S they are called of global companies, such as the French Schneider Electric, the Swiss-based ABB and the US-based Thomas and Betts. He's happily married has three brilliant kids. 

He lived with his family in the US, Switzerland, Hong Kong, and Eastern Europe. Now, he divides his time between Dallas, Texas, and Barcelona, Spain. We've known each other for years, and it's been amazing to watch Dan's career soar. 

And now he's leading procurement at one of the most. Iconic brands, American Airlines. So when we decided to do this talk, we thought about something that we consistently had in common, our respective careers. Getting back to basics. Re-establishing baseline when it comes to procurement. Frankly. The state of procurement in many organizations is, well, let's just say it's not inspiring. So we're talking about how to change stagnant KPIs, and rising costs. Disenfranchised in total customer departments. And a team that fields undervalued.  So many of the people we know have taken over responsibility in procurement organizations around the world.  Dan and I thought we would take a step back from the season's focus. And remember the core principles of good procurement as Henry Ford famously said. Coming together is the beginning, keeping together is progress. Working together is a success.  We'll explore practical strategies for building stronger relationships with internal customers, and optimizing processes. And most importantly, people, people, people.  I hope you will find Dan's insights. As interesting as I did, we had a fascinating conversation, despite the fact that technology fair does a bit. And we needed to record the whole thing with an iPhone.  So with that. 

Dan, it's great to have you on the show. 

It's great to be here, Daniel. Thank you.  

It's fantastic that we have the time to see each other again.

Long time no see.  Before we get into the depth of our back to basics sessions, just what's the one idea you think most people get wrong from your perspective? Yeah, you  

Most CPOs tend to overlook the plain and simple fact that the most impacting element of our function is the people running it, right?

There are lots of sexy tools and technologies,  these days that probably we'll talk about in today's session, right?  There are,  also many of us working hard to streamline our processes to make it easier to do business with both internally and externally. All these things can add a lot of value.

But at the end of the day, if you don't have great people, you're not going to make very good progress. And your competitors can copy all the things around tools and technology, sometimes relatively easily, but they can't copy your people. So, if you want to use procurement as a strategic advantage for your company, get the best possible people that you can find, and don't settle.

And, you know, everyone is focused on people and learning and development and talent management but I just think that,  if you pick one thing that you just can't afford to get wrong, it's that, it's people.  

Couldn't agree more. Absolutely. And how many times I've learned in the past that if you  do not get the right people at the job or you feel, that they will do at some point in time after two years.

It kicks you in the behind and it doesn't work. So fully with you. 

Okay, let's start this session back to basics. We will start by talking about strategy and goals, then move on to structure and the roles of an organization, all of which are more or less linked to people.Then we will discuss processes and technology because they're also part of this. We will touch on supplier management and risk management and continuous improvement, and then we will call it a day. So, let's start with strategy and goals. You mentioned people are the most important thing, but people also need to work in a setting, in an environment, in a procurement organization.

So how do you think a procurement organization should align with a company's organization and the business strategy?  

And,  I think you need to start by just understanding, the strategy, the plan and the objectives of the business that you're supporting,? And then simply,  orient everything you do around that, right?

It's how you organize yourself, um, what targets you set,  what your priorities are. At the end of the day, procurement is, enabling the business to be successful. It's one of the key enablers in most industries, right? So,  just understanding where the business is going  and how it's planning to get there is a really important first step, just a couple of examples from my experience,and. And Schneider Electric, which was recently named by Time Magazine as the most sustainable company in the world.  Obviously, sustainability is a huge priority, so we had very high expectations in procurement, delivering world class sustainability results with our suppliers, all facets of ESG, 

so we really leaned into that hard,  driving carbon reduction, ensuring decent work. At our suppliers and had many initiatives around that far more intense than is typical, even in that industry.  But we didn't do it just because we thought it was a good idea. We did it because that's what the business wanted, 

and then if I think about in my current role as the C.P.O. of American Airlines, Most airlines,  really are focused on two main things, and it's not different for us. One is reliability.  Make sure the planes are taking off and completing as many flights as possible on time, safely and cost.

 It's a low-margin industry. So it's super important to manage that cost very, very carefully and drive efficiency,  so In this case, it's reliability and cost.   And maybe people miss that because there's a formula.

There's a standard formula for building a procurement function in just about any business. But if you don't stop and think about what the business is trying to achieve, you're going to miss some important points. 

Okay. Well said. When you have the strategy set as such and aligned with the business strategy, I said, what is the best way to effectively communicate and align the procurement goals and priorities with stakeholders across different departments within a company?

Normally, they are not always friendly directly from the start. So, how do you think this works best? What is your experience? 

Yeah, we take, similar approaches at, the enterprise level with each of the businesses inside or the stakeholder groups that you're supporting,  so  invest time and energy in understanding what each department is trying to accomplish and do everything you can to help enable that,

 it sounds really simple,  but when you get into those details,  you can find some pretty diverse things. Then, of course,  build your KPIs,  based on what that business is trying to achieve.  It's okay to have some things on your own, right?  Most of us want to,  drive, procure to pay efficiencies, for example, and our stakeholders might not be thinking about that as a big priority, but we shouldn't be shy to ask for help  where we need it, but we should start with, where they need help, 

helping our stakeholders succeed first. And maybe the last thought about that question, Daniel, which is a good one is, What I'm talking about is one of bottom-up activity, so get with the business, understand what they're trying to do, really work with them, show them a lot of support.

It's important to also have top-down endorsement from the group. I think that's why you need both those dynamics going, kind of creating a push full with your stakeholders. I think we BB, in our experience, together there. I see you nodding your head, where we spent a lot of time sitting with stakeholders, trying to understand what they needed.

Also, we sold them on the idea of some of the changes that we were driving and how we supported them. At the same time, we had some support from the top down to make sure that the change was going through at a rapid pace. I think both of those aspects are critical for success in any kind of procurement transformation.

Yes, yeah, absolutely.  You talked about ABB, and there we went through together to some extent until you left us and went to Schneider,  but,   Hey, we went from a hybrid organizational structure to a decentralized structure, which at the end, if you look today is relatively successful.

If you look at the share price, which more than doubled, they are probably not the optimal organization for procurement, depending on a company's overall structure. And clearly, this is of interest for me because, since I've done that once, that's also where I work with my clients here today.

So, from your perspective, what do you think is the optimal organizational structure for a procurement team to deliver the most, considering company size, industry, and complexity?  

That's like an impossible question to answer, but I'll give it a go. But I thought I'd do it with you because when someone can answer impossible questions, it's Dan. 

No, I guess the easy answer is there is no answer, right?  I don't think they're when it comes to organization design. I don't believe that there is any perfect answer. There are always trade-offs,  when you go for a more central approach,  you have consistency in how you approach things across all the businesses and across all the supplier relationships, there's advantages.

There are facing suppliers that you have, you create some disadvantages, perhaps internally, and how you work with your stakeholders. The more decentralized approach tends to be in a better position to engage with stakeholders internally, makes it harder to work together externally with suppliers,

so you always say you have that kind of trade offs in any kind of organization design. I tend to, in my experience, organise first around the business and second around suppliers,  but trying to get the right balance of both, I can give a good example,   in procurement, 

we buy different categories, we cluster suppliers into categories, we create organizations around categories, and usually nobody else in the business cares about categories,  except procurement. So we gotta be careful not to overdo that dimension,  and become something that our business partners and stakeholders can't really understand.

 I'll give you an example of how we recently set up the category teams in American Airlines. We didn't name the category teams after the categories that they're buying. We named them after the stakeholders that they're supporting. For example, there are some obvious things, like we have a category team for technical operations.

 That's all of the spare parts, overall services, engines, all the things it takes to keep aeroplanes flying. It's A good alignment between the categories  and our stakeholders, technical operations as a department in the company,  but if you look at some of the other categories, we have another one that is called crew, 

what is that? That's hotels. So all of the crew rest hotels,  displaced passenger hotels,  the uniforms for the crew,  the training for our crew, for our flight attendants and our pilots. We put that all into one category organization. We call it crew. That's the stakeholders that they're supporting.

Now, when I recruit that role externally, I can't call it that because no one understands what that is, but everybody internally—all 130 000 employees of our company—knows what the crew means. It means our flight attendants and our pilots. That's somewhat subtle but a super effective way of positioning yourself in the organization so that you can be understood and it's clear what the mission is at the organization.

Interestingly, you pointed out because I think that is as well a lesson learned that I had over time 

 . So I think this is absolutely true.  You're right on the money.

They're fully with you. When you look at the people that you would like to have who interface with the internal customer on the one hand and also work with suppliers, understand markets, and do the analysis, what skills and experiences should be prioritized when recruiting for different procurement roles?

Yeah, the first thing I think about nowadays,  maybe it's a bit of a,  phrase, but business acumen,  is really important,  I want category leaders to be good business people, right? And to, I think we used to say at ABB to run your category like you're the CEO of the category,  really,  people that, can feel the accountability of the end-to-end process, and really take responsibility for the overall business results rather than just to their specific set of KPIs.

 And people who can understand the business, either they know it or they can learn it, right? I also think about all the usual procurement-type skills like negotiation, data analytics, financial analysis, all the things you need in your toolkit to be a good buyer. Maybe it's quite obvious, but I think it's important to state that it's something that we assess pretty closely when hiring people.

 And then just I would say, You know, when I think about my team, I want people with a variety of experience,  so a balance between real, true procurement experts in the industry, experts in the categories that they're buying,  it just depends on the role. We talked about hotels.

 You don't have to be a rocket scientist to buy hotels. If you are a rocket scientist, you can also buy hotels because it's not that part of the category to learn,   but there's another area in my spend where it's,  much more complex,  construction services. So when you think about building a terminal at the airport,  different airports operate in different ways, but usually, it's an airline that's,  managing that construction, 

so you can have a multi-billion dollar construction project.  The category leader for something like that needs to have some expert knowledge in,  construction services, right? So there, there's one area where you need to have a certain type of experience in order to be able to do the job. But overall, I look for a balance, I would say, of experience profiles.

I would certainly think that. , you talk about diversity, whether ethnic background or gender, you want to have a mix in your team. I think diversity of experience is important as well to bring all different perspectives to the table.  And then the last thing I would say about that is,  I don't know if you call this experience or qualifications or skills, but  it's more personality type, 

I want to have a balance of hunters and farmers. The hunters are people who go out aggressively, negotiate and are really tough and don't take no for an answer, both with suppliers and with their stakeholders. And then there are the farmers, who are more focused on building relationships for the long term and maybe taking a slower pace but going deeper and having their own way of being effective.

I think, again, different situations, different categories,  different types of businesses. Need those different types of personalities, and that's an important aspect that I think it's easy to overlook when you're just looking at Okay, what kind of experience what kind of skills?  What kind of achievements did this person make you need to get inside their head as well and understand how they tick and how they're wired  And make sure that you have again the right type of personality for the job  that you're trying to take forward 

These are good points  

 It's difficult to figure that out in an interview. And how do you, for example, run interviews? Do you do one interview and that's it? Or do you have several people interviewing the candidates?

I think is a whole other podcast because there are so many ways you can approach that. My philosophy is to have just enough people to make enough of a judgment about these things. But not so many that there are too many cooks in the kitchen,   that, to, to slow you down.

But yeah, you need to try to assess it in an interview. I think also, reference checks often can become a box-checking exercise for companies, but if you ask the right kind of questions in those reference checks, you can get some insights into how people are. 

Okay, now we have talked a lot about people because, as you rightly said, it's the most important thing and how we structure them to work together and put them in an organisation. Let's move to the topic of process and technology.  We have. specific procurement processes that we need to run 

How do you effectively integrate procurement processes with other business and operational functions so that they do not feel they are a burden but actually add value? 

You need to find the right point of engagement. When I think about the airline, for example, we buy many, many, many different things to support those planes' flying.

We have a very varied group of stakeholders. If we just take one approach to buying everything, we would be extremely suboptimal in the view of our stakeholders. We might be super efficient, but the airline's not going to run well. On the other hand, if we just customize everything we do with each individual stakeholder, we'll have a monster that we won't be able to manage.

 Finding the right middle ground there is important, I think. When I think about, again, using the airline as an example, technical operations run like a normal supply chain. They have inventory management, part numbers that they're buying, and certain rigorous quality processes to be followed.

That looks very different than onboard catering, , which, again, cares about all the same things wants to have the right inventory in the right place at the right time. But it's an entirely different animal. So as a result,  our procurement processes have to be different. They have to be different for those two things.

By the end of the day, I do need to boil it down to the overall performance of my procurement organization. That brings us back to our earlier questions about organization design and thinking about how the organization or the business is trying to achieve.

I mentioned an airline's reliability and costs. I can say that for every one of my stakeholder groups, those are their two priorities. They have a lot of other things. They define those things in different ways, but they want to achieve a high level of reliability at a competitive cost.

 How you get there in each category is  a little different.  And is the complexity that we need to manage.  

Okay, good. I'm fully with you on that. Now, in the context, we talked a little bit about processes, keeping it light in this regard. Now, let's also talk briefly about technology, and it might be too early already.

For American Airlines, say nothing in terms of how this can be managed, but from your experience, how can technology, including procurement software and data analytics tools, which have become increasingly important, be effectively leveraged to optimize our procurement processes? What do you think? 

Yeah. I've got a particular formula for that. That seems to work well.  The first thing is master data, you gotta get that right. You could have the prettiest, sexiest technology.  You could have an incredible AI, but if you're feeding it garbage, you're gonna get garbage on the other end.

And that's something that you and I, have always struggled with at ABB. , I struggled with it at Schneider. I struggled with it at American Airlines. I think everybody has the same challenge.   And it's never perfect, but, having reasonably good master data is the most important starting point.

And then I think, just having a good, end-to-end platform for. The basic procurement processes,  from source to settle,  one backbone, that, that where you can link in then,  other technologies,  that's important, for a lot of companies, it's their ERP, like SAP,  it could be a procurement suite, like  Coupa,  but some kind of a backbone that, that you can build everything around,  is essential.

 And then, there are so many, great new technologies constantly hitting the market in the procurement space. It's a super fast-moving space,  with a steady stream of new players.  You need to be able to take those new incredible technologies and plug them in where you need them, so whether it's some kind of high-tech sourcing optimization Or an ai tool,  or  a super robust spend analytic technology whatever the case may be,  to take that best in the breed and plug it into your platform And you know when it's run its course unplug it and throw it away right and  look for the next great thing But that's how I see,  technology architecture.

Now, it's interesting because you and I experienced a Frankenstein situation at ABB, where you have all these ERP installations everywhere and try to piece things together with a lot of legacy technology running in the background. Fortunately, in America, we have SAP and Coupa.

We have some of these basic things, but I don't have a big legacy of technologies in the background. So it's quite interesting that we're aiming to go for this kind of coop as the backbone and then bring in those cool, sexy, point solutions, best-in-breed solutions when and where they're needed to take the most advantage of those technologies around the market as fast as possible. 

 Okay. So, we are moving on to supplier management risk mitigation. Now, you mentioned that reliability, cost management and cost efficiency are the most important things that right now your internal customers will look for from you to provide. How do you shape that into supplier relationships and performance management to ensure consistent reliance, reliability, and cost efficiency? 

Yeah, it's a really good question, and  I would come back to our discussion about processes; before we engage a supplier in an RFP, we want to first understand and clarify with our business partners what they want,  what is the result that they're aiming for with this process? Whether it's a clear statement of work or a clear SLA,  service level agreement, 

terms that are,  very clearly defined up front,  what we want the supplier to do for us. It sounds obvious, but it's surprising to me how often people skip that step or brush by it too quickly. And by the way, you can engage suppliers and help you define that. There's nothing wrong with that through something like a request for information. 

But before you really go for a formal RFP, define as clearly as you can what you want the suppliers to do. Then, bake that into the RFP, bake those things later into the contract. It sets a clear expectation from the very beginning of the relationship of what you're expecting them to deliver and also what your role is as the buyer in that.

 We also like to include in many cases, penalties for poor performance and it also rewards network bonus for exceeding expectations,   people, and companies tend to act based on financial performance first and foremost. So if you can,  bake those KP eyes  Into hard dollars.

It has a very big impact on enabling the supplier's performance. Overall, you need to have a good supplier relationship management process, so the category manager needs to be really clear about where the relationships are in the organization from the C-level down to the ground level.

Who engages with whom at which level? And then, of course, a good cadence, an appropriate cadence of meetings, at those different levels, to drive the performance forward, ideally, with those strategic suppliers. We want to have a contact, if not with the CEO, at least at his minus, his or her minus one level, and then you define it all the way down to the ground level of who's involved in managing that relationship.

And you make sure that there's a set, a good cadence of those people having interactions where they can deal with the problems,  and just overall advance the relationship forward.  

Okay. Well, fully with you. No, that's true. And then you have selected the wonderful supplier and.

We're all happy to go hand in hand into the sunrise, and then reality hits us. which could be COVID, a volcano erupting that can be struck somewhere. When you look at supplier management and risk mitigation, what are the critical risks that are associated with supply chains, whether now in your current employer or just in general, in terms of what you have experienced and what strategies Did you utilise to mitigate these risks? 

Yeah. When it comes to risk, if it can go wrong, it will. All of us have some pretty big scars over the last few years. You mentioned COVID-19, the semiconductor crisis of the previous few years, which was the worst that the industry has ever seen. There's been some really crazy weather events.

There are wars going on. All of these things impact supply chains. What type of risks do they pose? All types of risks. I think, , what's key is understanding the likelihood and the impact and doing that assessment thoroughly through your supply chain. And, let's say most  Big organisations with professional procurement departments have some level of risk monitoring on their suppliers, but also most of them are doing it only on the first tier, 

so, what we learned in Schneider over the previous five or so years that I was there was that when there was a disruption, most of the time, a majority of the time,  the severe ones were not with the tier-one supplier. It was somewhere further upstream,  so many hard lessons were learned there.

 And what we did was we just took our risk management processes and we applied them on further upstream on the more riskier nodes of the supply chain. I think that's a very smart reaction. It's not easy, requires  first and foremost, an understanding of that multi tier supply chain, which is something that most companies don't systematically understand, 

so the mapping itself can be a very big exercise on. Then you have to engage right with suppliers that  are in markets that you're not familiar with.  So there's an organisational level of learning that has to happen  before you can successfully manage those tears further upstream.

But that's, I think, a super important, , aspect. And then if I take it forward to my experience in the airline, there's a number of categories where they're really,  you can't have two suppliers running at the same time in case something goes wrong with one of them  because it's too uneconomical, 

 I mentioned catering services before. That's a good example.  At most airports,  there's one catering service that has, the lion's share of the volume and therefore,  the most competitive cost.  And the most reliable service. But if something does go wrong with that one, then you really have no alternative.

So the focus in those kind of situations is on business continuity, so what are we going to do to make sure nothing goes wrong? What are all the preventative steps that can be taken?  And then in the event that something does go wrong, what is our backup plan,  maybe it's double provisioning where you fly.

Two sets of meals inbound to that station,  so you have one for  the departing flight.   To cap it off, if it can go wrong, it will go wrong, it's just a matter of time. And I think at always thinking about and planning for,  those eventualities is a super important,  success factor in managing the risk. 

Now let's move to the last section. So we have the structure set up. We have the processes and the technology set up.

We have our strategy aligned and we even know how to basically manage suppliers and do risk mitigation.  So, from your perspective, what can be a robust performance monitoring and reporting system that is light,  but strong enough to actually get the job done from your perspective? 

yeah, it's a very good point to balance between light so you don't have all this heavy reporting and too many people spending too much time,  just reporting instead of actually improving things,   but not too light where it doesn't give you any useful insights. And I think  that's a  difficult balance for some companies to strike. 

I can give an example from my current experience on this one. We are,  reporting cost reduction, obviously,  at a detailed level.  And,  cost reduction is actually part of our short term incentive,  so it's part of the bonus payout for the company, which, For a procurement leader, it's a, it's fantastically powerful to have that because then you have everybody in the organization wants you to be successful because it affects their own wallet, 

it's a,  it's not the answer to getting support of your stakeholders, but it's one of them. And it's a good one that works. But the flip side of it is because it's in the short term incentive. Our numbers are getting audited to an extremely detailed level. At the very beginning, we were really struggling, and we still struggle to some degree, but far less  with how do we, create all the documentation around these cost reduction reportings,   in a way that satisfies the auditors, but doesn't require an army of people.

So yeah. I think  like anything else,  defining what you want, and then  stripping that down to what do you really need. In order for this reporting to be adequate for audit purposes, and then,  having a process that is as standardized across all those categories as possible, as streamlined as possible,  as simple as possible and then bring the team some support,   I can't have every category leader,  spending too much time on this and I'd rather have them in front of suppliers or in front of stakeholders creating value. At the same time, I can't afford to have them reporting numbers that,  that, that aren't real. So we bring them also some external support,  to help them in that 

reporting.

But it's  a fine line that you've got to find, yourself between kind of this, Good enough reporting and, reporting that's, so light that you don't get, the insights that you need. 

Yeah, this is always something that for every company you have to figure out , but what American Airlines has, they already established seems to be fantastic because it gives you a leg up in terms of working together, which brings us to the last functional question, actually, which is working together.

What do you think should be done from a procurement perspective to foster collaboration and communication between  Procurement team as such and other organizational stakeholders. What needs to happen besides having that part of the incentive plan? 

No, it's a lot more than that.  That helps, but it's not everything.

 I talked before about,  categories versus stakeholder groups,  I think that's an important enabler of that. If we show the organization that we're organized around, then,  they become much more willing,  to work together with us. So that's  one thing that helps.

, and then also, procurement, we need to be represented in the staff meetings and in the staffs, really, of our stakeholders. This, we talk a lot about the CPO having a seat at the table, as they say,  and that's important, but that has to permeate down through the whole organization.

My category leader for  ops, for example,  he is attending  the,  the staff meetings of the SVP of technical operations. He's considered part of that person's staff. He spends more time with him than he does with me, and that's the way we want it to be.  So having the seat at the table throughout all levels of the organization.

Super important aspect, I think, and then it gets  boring and dry, but I would say also having common objectives and setting common goals together, agreeing up front what we're going to achieve together, avoid working against each other,  and rather make sure that  we're collaborating and all working towards  the same objectives. 

Sounds good. It's interesting, when you mentioned Cedar Around the Table,  since I have left the corporate life, I had the opportunity to look at my old notes, and interestingly enough, I started in procurement in 84 and I found a note that I made at that point in time that one of my managers said that we should have a seat at the table.

So I think we would probably can go back 50 years and we would see the same thing.  My answer to this today and  for most of my later career was you have to earn your seat at the table. 

You have to be interesting and good enough to earn this seat on the table. You have to be good at it and you have to solve something that they like.  But I know that this is something which you always were able to do.  You always had the seat on the table and I'm pretty sure you get it.

You  

showed me how to do it.  

Yeah, we both. Look, thank you so much, Dan. This was great. , very insightful.  As well, seeing how your thinking has evolved since the last time we said, and the experiences from Schneider. are quite interesting as well for me being a former professional in this area.

Now, before I let you go, tell me your favorite quote, Dan.  

My favorite quote. Okay.  There's one I'd love to share,  with your audience. That was,  one that I repeat often actually. And I usually give  the person who said it first,  credit, but sometimes I forget, it was you.

talking about how,  economies of scale in procurement are important, but more important are economies of skill. I use that all the time.  I believe it.  It's absolutely a hundred percent true. Economies of scale versus economies of skill.  One of my favorite quotes. But I won't leave you with just that,  because another one I want to mention, and it's a Dwight D.

Eisenhower quote.  He said that plans are useless, but planning is essential.  So you need to go to battle with a plan. You also need to expect that,  within the first few minutes of battle, that plan is going to be useless and you have to re plan.   You talked about risk management earlier.

It applies there.  We're running an airline where every day,   we go into the day with a plan,  things happen, whether it's weather or congestion or technical issues  that,  disrupt the airline.

And what I love is that our teams are amazing at replanning, at finding new solutions,  making sure  that we complete those flights. So yeah,  plans are useless, but planning is essential. Dwight D. Eisenhower.  

Absolutely. Dan, thank you so much for the interview.   📍 It was a pleasure to have you.

Thanks a lot, Daniel. It was great. The pleasure was mine. 

  So you see, if managed well, procurement can be a profit engine, a sustainability champion, and a resource for brilliant commercial and emotionally savvy managers for the whole company. All it takes is a great chief procurement officer, a motivated team, and the will of the management board, or at least the CEO, to support the change coming. 

I hope you enjoy this episode of the supply chain dialogues. Despite the audio issues we had 

,  if you did, please subscribe on apple, Spotify. Or YouTube or any other major podcast platform. 

And if you are a subscriber, tell a friend colleague or any decision-maker in your company. We believe in word of mouth instead of making marketing. Tricks and superfluous emails. If you would like to contact Dan ping him via LinkedIn. If you'd like to reread the transcript, check out our website, helmigadvisory.com. And go to the podcast section with the link transcripts. You will find as well, a bunch of other topics to burrows.  

With that. Stay safe, be bold and see you after the summer break in October. 

During this time, we will work heavily on bringing you actionable and or interesting content that you can use in your daily professional lives.  These are the supply chain dialogues produced and copyrighted by helmig advisory AG in 2024.