Patrick 0:00:13

Hi, everybody, and welcome to another episode of Banyan Technology’s Tire Tracks Podcast. I'm Patrick Escolas, your host, account manager and person with the best hair. But I've got some competition today as I have Mark Baxa, the CEO of the CSCMP. He's been with us before, but Mark, thanks so much for coming back.

Mark 0:00:33

Well, glad to be back. Thanks for the invitation. It goes without saying, also, thank you for your company's contributions to this organization. We rely on our members and our corporate members, especially are super valuable. We just love the collaboration. So happy to be here and to join your audience.

Patrick 0:00:53

Hey, I am always happy when we get to talk to some of our partners, as well as what you guys are doing out there with that data. I know that that's what we're here to talk. About last time, I think it was last year, we talked about the 34th annual. But this year, drum roll, we have the 35th annual. I know. Being sequential is the cool thing to do nowadays. Mark, tell us about the report. Give us a quick intro about what it is for anyone that might not have watched the episode last time, or anyone that's just finding us out of the blue.

Mark 0:01:28

Well, thanks for that. To all of those that are engaged in this conversation, I'm proud to be here to talk about this on your behalf. First and foremost, I'd be remiss if I didn't say that there are opportunities to engage with the report, both in its written form, as well as to hear the panel itself by connecting with cscmp.org. If you're a member, you should have easy pathway to get at no cost. If you're not a member, sign up and you'll get this report and many others. I mean, it's just there to help you succeed in your career and help meet the challenges on the road ahead by being better, faster and smarter at decision making. That's why we exist.

Patrick 0:02:12

Hey, that's why we're all here and why we're all trying to get the data and do it better. Do it faster, do it better.

Mark 0:02:18

Exactly. Exactly. You said it right. I mean, this is the 35th annual edition of our state of logistics. Guess what's inside? Well, there's multiple editions of this, if you will, of this particular paper over the years that talk about the prior year, mostly the prior year, and get into what may be in the current year that we're reporting the prior year's results.

Patrick 0:02:46

Okay.

Mark 0:02:47

We've shifted this report in the 35th edition to lean more towards what's on the road ahead. You still get the synopsis and the data, the as is. But what's on the road ahead? Where are we currently today and what might this mean for the balance of the year, because this is a yearly edition. In addition to that, we talked more contextually around this report at our annual Edge Conference, which is taking place this year in Nashville at the Gaylord, Opryland, September 29 through the 1st or 2nd of October. We will host the panel again to update on the state of logistics report and invoke some current things that are happening, and from really a member and also content expert perspective. How you should be thinking about logistics is a part of your overall supply chain. The last year's report invoked the great reset theme. This year, it's waiting for the tide to turn. Again, we're back to disruption, right? We came up with some pretty clever thoughts around what we’d call this one.

Patrick 0:03:50

Okay. I got to hear that. Give me these.

Mark 0:03:55

Yeah. It's like, seriously, we're back to chaos? I mean, we thought about different things, right? It's a very serious report. But in reality, there are some dynamics that we all know about. Underneath, the dynamics that are happening in the logistics business around the world is a part of supply chain. There are some things that this report clearly points to that are not only just watchouts, but more importantly, give you a frame of reference on how all this comes together and could affect the overall supply chain, not just the logistics function.

One area that really points to in this report is certainly, modes of transportation. But we get into warehousing and even the fact, the overlay of sustainability and how important that is and how industry professionals are viewing that. If you're not attuned to that, what that might mean on the road ahead. We even make some comments in here about uptake and adoption of looking after scope three on the emissions side. This report is very rich. It is not necessarily the gospel of logistics, but it definitely is a time and place of logistics that every supply chain professional should have their hands on.

Patrick 0:05:06

If you see someone reading it at the beach, you should go up and talk to them, right? No.

Mark 0:05:10

Wouldn't that'd be a cool thing, right?

Patrick 0:05:11 

Yeah. Right. No, you mentioned that, I guess, a walkaway, or a pivot from the past where you'd primarily looked at previous year to date retroactively and now focusing more on the future, what caused that? I mean, I have some assumptions that maybe there's more usefulness in thinking about how that goes out into the future, rather than just looking what decisions did we make, versus how could we have for that. Where did that change and thought process and the theme with the report come from?

Mark 0:05:45

Membership feedback.

Patrick 0:05:46

Okay.

Mark 0:05:47

Yeah. So, clearly that. As our members go, roughly 10,000 around the world, just short of that, and over 100,000 affiliates that we connect to and it comes from different directions, even members of the press, will tell us that we'd like to have a better peek into the future. How do we take what we know of today and what we've learned and how do we take current market conditions and then, if you will, shape the road ahead? What are the things that we need to be most aware of and considering? Now, it's not a crystal ball. It doesn't say, this will happen.

Patrick 0:06:21

I was going to ask, where's the wizard beard and the ball along with it to tell us how you know the future, or you buy out all the Chinese fortune crackers and you get all of those taken care of, right? You just open them until what the right move is in supply chain?

Mark 0:06:37

Well, that would be certainly fun. I think we tend to approach this as since CSCMP stands on solid ground from a bias quality education perspective. We probably won't use to be using wizards, but we might be using consultants and other knowledge experts to come with some of these answers. Essentially, it's looking at the fundamentals and predicting based on where those trends of the fundamentals were go, things like inflation, geopolitical shift, taking a look at current disturbances and real-time logistics shifts that have occurred in the recent months and then taking a look at what that might mean in terms of resolution going ahead, and how to best prepare.

This report really, really helps with that talks about the economy, inflation and the impacts of inflation as well, and lays all that into demand from the consumer perspective, both business and consumer, and how that affects inventories, warehouse utilization, mode mix and utilization of transportation, and other factors that help logisticians and supply chains as a whole, including supply chain leaders, look at current the fundamentals, the predictions against those fundamentals, and then place out how we might think about it for our own business.

Patrick 0:07:54

Now, as you're in it, and that's very important information, especially as you're trying to make plans and get ahead of it and whatever your initiatives may be, whether that's self-driven, board, or even just from a sustainability aspect, I have a question coming to mind. What are some of the nuanced effects, or even things that manipulate that data, that you wouldn't think has an effect on all of it? I don't know. We talked baseball before we got on here, and there's always those weird stats when the wind's coming out of the north, and it's a Tuesday, and there's one cloud in the sky, this guy's got a batting average of 350. But is there anything – are there pieces within the data that has a much more effect than someone would think it does, versus where there are other pieces, industrial, or in the history of logistics where you would assume this is going to have a big part in it, but doesn't really have as much of an importance in the actual data, pricing, or any of the data that you're getting in this report?

Mark 0:09:02

Well, some of the cool data that continues to be featured year after year is cost of logistics as a percentage of total cost of goods and other factors that are of interest, right? Just how much of logistics makes up the total business cost. Those are really good. What's really important, I think, to call out here is just the effects of the certain market forces that the report calls out, such as a slowing economy impacted by inflation and overall consumer sentiment. What does this mean for the carrier networks, third-party logistics providers, freight forwarders, and those who are owners of assets who actually operate within the modes, right? Air carrier, steamship lines, and trucking, to be just to name a few. Rail is also a part of that. Then, of course, warehousing capacity and storage, all of that makes up our distribution, right? And what we need to do in terms of moving and storing goods to get them into distribution channels to the end consumer.

Then the report really calls out some of the sensitivities of what's happening in certain service provider sectors, such as the 3PL business, as well as freight forwarders indicates that you might see more consolidation. When I read these kinds of things, as a logistician, and what I would encourage people to do, just in general, as supply chain practitioners and professionals, whether you be an academic, a service provider, or a ship, or a beneficial cargo owner, you need to extrapolate that and say, “Okay. So that I have this information. What is the so what factor here? I have this. Now, so what? What do I do with it, right?” I mean, that's the $64,000 question. How should it affect my strategy, so I can support the business objectives? Because you don't want to miss.

Patrick 0:11:01

It separates the good from the great there. You have the data. Now, what do you do with it?

Mark 0:11:06

Yeah. I mean, that's a very good way to put it. Well said. If I'm certainly in a strategy for my logistics operations today that has a mix of these things, and I have these suppliers involved, and I've trusted them, I've rebuilt post-COVID –

Patrick 0:11:25

Sure.

Mark 0:11:26

- is there any other impacts that I need to be thinking about that could affect my business? You got to be a little aware here, right? Maybe a lot of work is, who am I doing business with? Are they there tomorrow, is one? Number two is, what's the level of service they can afford to provide me, versus my expectations and what I've contracted for? All of these dynamics are occurring in the market that we have today, and many others, because we're in a softer economy. Everybody's waiting for that pendulum to swing back.

Patrick 0:11:57

There it is. The pendulum. Every podcast I do, the pendulum gets referred to. It's just hanging in the air right now, and we're just waiting?

Mark 0:12:07

Well, so let me take you back to Katrina. Everybody still who was in the business at the time remembers Katrina. I was at a certain university on the east coast at the time, just post-Katrina. I was going through an executive program with a certain instructor. I talked about my tail of woes about container availability post-Katrina, and we're talking about a period of one to three months afterwards in our ability to move goods out of the United States, because we were in that exporter, okay. The simple response was the coffee business had all the containers they needed. What happened to you? I felt about that big. What did we miss? We missed, right?

Patrick 0:12:52

That makes you feel really small, right? Yeah.

Mark 0:12:54

Well, you learn from these experiences, right? It was a great question. I was at university. Was theoretical, maybe, maybe not. Maybe it was more real. I said, “Okay, thank you very much. Great help.” We all face these challenges, right? We have to be prepared for the sometimes stuff happens. This report helps considering all the market forces and dynamics that reports on and the inklings on what might be on the road ahead, so that you can then take back and reflect on how does this affect me? How does it affect my network and do my questions need to change from a service provider perspective, who's actually providing me logistical and storage capacity to manage my business?

It's all about stability, throughput and capacity, and really to some degree smarts, right? Which is getting to be more and more of an issue in our logistics business, particularly as the baby boomers retire and all that organic knowledge that's been built over the last 30 to 40 years is leaving the workforce, and a fresher workforce takes over who has a higher level of perhaps, formal supply chain education than previous generations. We see this shift. But do they have the tangible knowledge and experience? If you don't, where are you going to get it? This report helps you shore up in a fast way to learn those market forces to consider and dynamics in the marketplace of how you consider your logistics strategy going forward. That's our goal.

Patrick 0:14:25

You bring up a great point there in that some of the long-term players are moving, or shifting and you're getting younger, and like you said, maybe better classically trained if we go the music metaphor there. Wouldn't that be an aspect that would drive technology and automation into place, too, because I would assume that if I'm coming out of school, or a certification to be a supply chain, or a logistician, then I'm assuming I have some of these pieces in place that when I was doing the studies of the education, they had given me access to. Am I wrong in thinking that? There's a push, or more of that across the board?

Mark 0:15:10

In this report per se, we don't deal with the technology as much as we do deal with all the actions of the transportation industry, the warehousing industry, how sustainability overlays, network optimization, and those kind of things. There's elements of technology on top of that. But this is an execution-based report. What's happening in the world of logistics and what are the market forces that impact capacity and our ability to move and sustain the logistics business.

When we think about technology, and this is something that is absolutely fascinating when it comes to supply chain and even more so in logistics. Think about what's happened over the last 20 years and maybe even more recently, over the last three to five years is even through COVID, we continued to evolve in such a way that provided better, more accurate data as to where my goods are from inception, or finished goods product out of the warehouse, or out of the manufacturing floor, all the way to consumer and looking at all of the, if you will, milestones along the way and benchmarking those and coming up with performance metrics that say, “This is what we consider a perfect delivery,” and that would be in quotes, much like the perfect order, if you will.

Then from there, we think about net promoter score and all this stuff. This is all competitive on how well we do that. When you overlay technology that helps you optimize your standardized business processes on the logistics side, you become a much more competitive entity. To a point, you can outflank your competition when you really, really do both. That is execute well, as well as overlay technology to help you execute well and if you will optimize your business.

I'm not sure exactly where you want to go, but I'll overlay this pretty quickly. That is in the logistics sector, technology can be used so many different ways than perhaps we ever imagined. One of the ways is looking at more sustainable routing and delivery sequences, which are everyday consumers putting a lot of demand in that area. There's different efforts, or interests depending on where you are around the world. More concerning in Northern Europe and Southern Europe and certainly going here in the US and other places around the world to be more sustainable. That's a great thing to do. The supply chain owns that. When you think about logistics, you think about not only doing the right things right from an ethics perspective, but environmentally, it's about logistics.

I think the technology overlay comes in many different ways. Then now, we have machine learning and certainly artificial intelligence that could help us predict better outcomes. That's something that's truly now it's here, but it's also evolutionary to see what cool things will happen in the future.

Patrick 0:18:09

Within that, I mean, because I talk about AI with everybody now, is that a piece, or a disruptive force that could happen, or come into the market via this report? Or is that something that's already taken into account from that execution level?

Mark 0:18:27

Well, certainly, what we report on and what we're talking about in this report has an assemblance of technology that helps things happen. We will look at optimization networks and those kinds of things, you have technology to enable all of that to happen. Certainly, we'll be reflecting on that more and more into the future. Artificial intelligence stands to be a significant game changer for the supply chain. There's no question. We know there are opportunities for risk, as well as reward as with anything that we do, especially digital. We're going to trust that we're going to build a level of protection, as well as certainly, an effort to do the right things right with these technologies.

I'll go on record by saying, the opportunity to take actual real-time data and overlay data that you couldn't easily get to and market considerations and turn that into a way to better predict outcomes is something that will just help us be better, smarter, and more effective as supply chains over time.

Patrick 0:19:41

In that same vein, it's more of using AI to produce models and forecasts, with it not necessarily letting the AI execute everything by itself.

Mark 0:19:56

Probably a combination of both. Probably a combination of both. You talked earlier about being the wizard of logistics, right? Or wizards in logistics.

Patrick 0:20:05

Yeah, that's right. I like that. Maybe that should be the name of the podcast, Wizards of Logistics. I like that.

Mark 0:20:10

Yeah. I'm not going to say that this is the way it's absolutely going to go, because there's just so much that's being invented right now that we don't even see, right?

Patrick 0:20:23

Agreed.

Mark 0:20:24

But I would say, this that we look for creating more competitive advantage coming from the supply chain and the way we deal with and address society's needs, because it's about the supply chain. When we think about planning and predicting consumer consumption, being better and smarter about that, and if artificial intelligence can, and I'm sure it will help us with that, we'll just become that much more sustainable, we'll become more leaner, and if you will, a bit more accurate with each and every step that we take, and you eventually do the right things even better, right?

You're reducing working capital. You're becoming more effective and efficient at the placement of inventory based on consumer demand and less second and third tertiary movements and less, hopefully, deterioration and deteriorated obsolete inventory. Of course, better logistical routing and services. I am just really looking forward to seeing what that can be. The one thing I will say is that leaders of the future must be AI infused. It's not meaning that artificial intelligence becomes the leader, or computers become the leader. What I'm saying is that the better we can understand it, apply it, and know when and where and how the results actually benefit our business. Then the ability to say no, right? Having smarts along the way, understanding this is critical for leaders as they develop in the future. We want to help those folks get there at CSCMP.

Patrick 0:21:54

You hit on a point that I think is really important that AI, just like the report itself, is a tool. Having it by itself, it doesn't necessarily mean you're going to wield it in the best possible way how you use that data. How you use the AI is really going to be the differentiator. I don't know if you do it, but I do fancy football. Every year, so every week, someone on the waiver, the AI says this person's going to be better than other. You're like, “No, that guy's –” It's one of those, you got trust your gut over the data sometimes. Not that that's a logistics example there, but it immediately popped up the amount of times I'm like, “No, I'm not going to trust the computer on this one, because there's more to it than that.”

Within that and speaking of that more to it than that, than just the data, and you talked about it with the Katrina and the containers, and how from this report, from talking to, or listening to the panel, or seeing them, how could somebody put themselves in position to be better prepared for a situation like COVID, like Katrina? Because that sounds a little crazy to me, it sounds important to be able to be in that situation. Is it the same? Is it the equivalent of having the doomsday bunker, from a supply chain logisticians point of view, just having stockpiles, or backup plans? What does that look like? How could I put myself if the if the report tells me I got to be ready for it, what does that look like?

Mark 0:23:29

Well, we've gone from, I would say, previously talking about a couple of years back, talking about contingency planning, and scenario analysis, and the what ifs. Now it's become, that's something that maybe we paid attention to in some companies, perhaps had a better model for it than others. Right now, we're talking about resiliency is front and center and ability to respond in the supply chain. In logistics and warehousing and transportation and physical distribution, there are a lot of moving parts and a lot of reliance on mechanization, technology, digital technology, and people. We know, you brought up COVID, right? A similar challenge to that.

Or, if we just think about geopolitical shift, you look at the Red Sea, you look at the impact of weather and rainfall on the Panama Canal and other factors that can severely, or seriously disrupt things for a period of time, those all have implications. Going back to just a little bit ago, when we're talking about logistics design and network design, just touching on that and taking the output of this report and saying, “Okay, if I overlaid this and know that there's some potential for consolidation in certain parts of the logistics sector that are my service providers, what happens if my chosen provider decides to realign, adjust, scale back, or fall into bankruptcy, or whatever it might be? What if my mode mix needs to change as a result of external factors? How would I respond? What are my safety valves? How do I ensure I have that, without spending an enormous amount of money to create patience, right?” Just to have them there in place. Those things only work for a while.

The other thing to consider in our business is that as that pendulum swings, we talked about that a little bit ago, Patrick. As that pendulum swings, capacity gets tighter, and then all of a sudden, we're up against contract commitments and we say, “Well, for a buck more, I'm going to go over here. I can only get you six. I can't get you eight.” Live this world, right? We've all been around. We know how this works.

As you think about the supply chain today and specifically logistics, it's very important to know what are my responses. For those that are built on, built our networks on direct carrier contracts, the safety valve traditionally has been the third-party business, third-party logistics providers.

Patrick 0:26:07

Makes sense.

Mark 0:26:08

If I have a need for surge capacity, I go to one of them to hopefully get it. Well, their business model has changed as well, because as their own financial constraints have been faced through this period of time that we're in, they have realigned with contractual commitments for volume and those kinds of things. You may not be able to get that as easily. The long-winded answer to your question is it depends, but there are many different ways to approach it. You must think about your scenarios and know what you will do in the event that your stated program has a crack in it, something happens, whether resupply, or failure, or market conditions beyond the control of anybody, right?

In the case of COVID, you have to know what your response will be and where you can go and then what that cover, or that resilience approach might be able to approach the resilience might actually deliver back to you. Every business is different. Every network is a different design and there is no one solution that fits everybody. But in essence, logisticians need to think about their various scenarios and how they would respond for their particular business, mode mix and delivery requirements.

Patrick 0:27:21

I guess, it would make a lot of sense that that resiliency point has become – has stepped up into the prominence, or the forefront, considering the last few years we've had and how it went from hypothetical to very real, very quickly, we've all seen it and dealt with it. That's not that surprising to me, but talking about what you said of really knowing specifically what you can be doing for each situation, not having a catch all of just one plan B. It's more of like, all right, plan B, all of the different plan Bs that you could be into.

Within the report this year, what's the most surprising findings that you're seeing coming out of it? For a report like this that has so much data, what does surprising look like? Are we talking, and I'll let you get to it, but does that mean because the margin is different by 5%? Is that a very small statistical anomaly, or is it a big shift in numbers from where it was and where you think it's going to be?

Mark 0:28:31

Well, I won't really say this is the surprising element that came out of the report per se, as the report directs the data and shows us where we've been and where we might be headed for the year ahead. I would say, for me, the most surprising element of this report is truly how quickly that pendulum can swing and the direct impact it has on logistics and logistics, if you will, community. For me, the most important thing, I believe, comes out of this and maybe an element of surprise is when we talk about the results on the road ahead, it's difficult to put your finger on one or two elements. It's so multifaceted that political, geopolitical disruptions have become a significant part of what we need to anticipate, but then the clarity around that is murky at best. Who's next? Where's the next disruption? Where is it going to come from? Is there really going to be a China-Taiwan challenge? What would that mean? Are we going to settle Russia and Ukraine? Are all these things part of the road ahead? Is this a constant state for us?

I would have to say, yes, it is. The major element of surprise is man-made disruption at a larger scale is something that I did not anticipate personally being a part of my career, and that we would have to adjust to. I just never believed it would be at this magnitude. The other part, I would say, in the optimistic side is the supply chain's ability to respond and how clever logisticians within the supply chain, logistics professionals really are in solving for our problems.

We've not had significant shutdowns. Yeah, COVID was a major squeeze, because a lot of people had to be held outside of the typical work environment for safety and our health. Yet, there were people in warehouses, inside of trucks and airplanes and steam ships and railroads, in locomotives every day operating that kept things moving. Maybe we didn't get –

Patrick 0:30:50

Say, the world didn’t stop. Yeah.

Mark 0:30:52

Right. It didn't stop. Manufacturing. There were people and plants around the world manufacturing and delivering our goods and preparing them for delivery. The most important thing about this is, despite all the disruption is what comes out of this report is not necessarily an element of surprise. It's the element of resilience. I'm going to go back to that in logistics. In our ability to respond, despite all of these factors, there is a version of hope that comes through this, because we will persevere. We are smart and capable individuals as humans with the ability to enhance that smarts with technology, so that we still can deliver, we can still manufacture, and we can still serve society at large, be that any product and any kind of services that are needed, the supply chain can and does have resolve.

Patrick 0:31:50

I love the optimism and, yeah, need an American flag waving behind you on that one. But it makes a lot of sense. It is interesting that you say that the manmade disruptors have become such a piece of it. But then, there's also the aspect of that such an important aspect. If we geopolitically get our act together, we can negate a lot of those forces, too. Without getting too perfect world here, but I've taken some of that optimism. I know this is looking less at last year and more towards how to prepare people to look towards the future, what does the future of logistics look like from your point of view? Not necessarily within this report, but I'm sure automation is a piece of it. I know we talked a little bit about AI. But is there any other drastic changes do you think we're going to see within the next three to five years that will really evolve supply chain as a whole?

Mark 0:32:50

Logistics is going to continue. And even more so, play a critical role in how supply chains serve society. You think about technology, let's talk about electrification of the supply changes for a moment. A little shameless plug, we're coming up with a brand-new report, which will be unveiled at this year's Edge Conference. For lack of a better title at the moment, it's electrification of the global supply chain. It's not just about transportation and vehicles per se. It's about truly electrification of the supply chain. Now from a standpoint of, oh, we absolutely have to do this. It's about, yes, we're doing this, but where are the opportunities and challenges as we go down this path? How should we be addressing electrification of the supply chain?

How should we actually think about invoking it into? A lot of that is going to have to do with the logistics sector. Quite honestly, when you think about the supply chain, warehousing, material handling, distribution, and getting into transportation for sure. Overlaying that element of improvement in the supply chain, is it more sustainable? Is it more effective on reducing emissions? All these considerations. Is it something that we become powered by lithium-ion batteries, hydrogen, and other technologies? Do they help, if you will, offset some of the higher carbon output energy sources? What's the equilibrium between both? Are we going outflanking out and do fossil fuel? Not even the long term, right? In reality, it's coming in. It's going to be a part of what we do.

Patrick 0:34:35

Right. It's coming one way or the other. That gives me a lot to think about. I'm sure that anyone listening, or watching would think about that too, because whether or not you're an advocate for or against, you have to know that those pieces are going to come into the market and be a more prominent piece within supply chain as a whole. Yeah. No, that's a whole new ballpark to start thinking about right there. I can imagine that there's going to be a lot of people looking at that in the near future of, all right, what are the pros? What are the cons? What infrastructure do I need to put in place? Where should I leave things alone? Where should I go to this electrification, as you call it? I think you do something shocking in there. Get some good jolt vibes, or puns with whatever, however you name that. I'm a pun fan. If you go something that route, I'd like to see that. That's okay if you don't, if you need to keep it more on the academic professional side.

Mark 0:35:41

Well, we'll play around with that. Thank you for the suggestion.

Patrick 0:35:46

I'd love to be in the workshop. No. Mark, thank you so much for everything that you've had to say here. I know you plugged it a little bit, and as far as Edge coming up and CSCMP. But give us one more time, tell us about Nashville, where they can find the report and make sure that everybody knows exactly where they can get this information and how they can become a member.

Mark 0:36:11

Okay, very good. Let's talk about some of the fundamentals first, and then we'll close with that.

Patrick 0:36:15

Perfect.

Mark 0:36:17

Well, first and foremost, the mission of CSCMP remains constant. That is to connect, educate and develop supply chain professionals throughout their career bar none. We want to be that source of credible, ongoing, tap the flywheel, keep you current on the most important and impactful happenings through both our research and the ways we convey knowledge that we impart to the supply chain, in addition to our core education. Upskilling the workforce is a big deal to supply chain leaders today. Big deal. Really big deal. We're seeing that in a very large scale.

You can access all that at cscmp.org. A membership is easy to reach and you can have access to all of our research reports. If you prefer to buy this report on its own, you can do that as well. But I'd really encourage you to become part of the membership community to help you as a professional, or for your organization as a corporate member. That's the plug.

Now let's talk about Nashville and the annual Edge Conference and what this means to the supply chain. There are places that both service providers and academics, as well as professionals can go to either contribute, to sharing a better practices. I prefer to say better and more timely practices than best, because best is more finite. Better is because we evolve in the supply chain. We have to continually continue to evolve.

Patrick 0:37:43

It makes sense. So, you hit best, you stop growing towards something.

Mark 0:37:46

Right. That's a different view, right? But more importantly, the sessions that we offer at the Edge Conference and the source of that information is not because people have paid to be there and to talk about their stuff. This is really about sharing the better practices coming from heuristic and both heuristic and theoretical on the academic side, but heuristic experiences of our members and those that have a great story to tell. They come from all around the world, not just the US. You made a comment that true American statement, the American flag, right? This is a global organization and we've got people coming from over 40 countries to the Edge Conference, which is key.

Patrick 0:38:29

Oh, it’s awesome.

Mark 0:38:31

Yeah. It identifies with the membership of our organization and it's growing more so in Central America and Mexico now, as well as Europe. The Edge Conference is a fantastic place, Patrick, for people to come for three days and get the most experiential, impactful learning that they can possibly get anywhere in the supply chain events ecosystem, bar none. Why? Because we stand on credible, unbiased information and more importantly, it's where service providers, academics, and if you will, beneficial cargo owners or shippers come because they want to be together. They know they have to rely on each other, call it the three-legged stool, if you will. Nobody really does it on their own.

It's a great place to create the third alternative, where you seek somebody out, you want to hear somebody, you've got an idea of how to do it, come together and together you make it a third alternative as Stephen Covey called it in his last book, The Third Alternative. That is, you create something that neither one of you thought about in your own. That's where the Edge Conference makes a real difference for supply chain. That's why you need to be there in Nashville. I hope to see you there.

Patrick 0:39:41

Hey, and that's an important collaboration, not only from like you said, the three-legged stool, if you will, but also having that international viewpoint, so you’re not seeing it –

Mark 0:39:51 

Exactly.

Patrick 0:39:52

Not in a box. I think that's very important now, just as it's ever been, especially as you look towards the future, because you never know what insights that somebody else has gleamed looking at the picture slightly differently than you are. No.

Mark 0:40:05

Yeah. We have we have 70-plus tracks, educational sessions. I should say tracks. We have 12 tracks, 70 educational sessions, really timely topics that I think every professional needs to be a part of. If you can't be in every session, you definitely want to come as a team. Our keynotes, and crazy, crazy keynotes. Morris Morrison kicks off with a real energizing topic on September 30th in the morning on Monday. Finishing that Monday with a Fawn Weaver CEO, Uncle Nearest, whiskey out of Nashville.

Patrick 0:40:39

That’ll be fun.

Mark 0:40:40

Great leadership. Roberto Isaias with Mattel on Tuesday morning and Shelley Simpson with JB Hunt on Tuesday afternoon.

Patrick 0:40:47

It’s a good mix.

Mark 0:40:49

Two outstanding high impact panels on Wednesday morning. That's in addition to everything else that's happening. You want to be there. You really have to be there to experience and gain full power from this conference.

Patrick 0:41:00

Well, Mark, thank you so much. I appreciate all the information and letting us know a little bit about what we can find out in the 35th annual of the CSCMP report, telling us about all of the reasons you should be at Edge in Nashville. What's the date again? September 29th?

Mark 0:41:19

Well, it starts on September 29th, and we go through the 2nd of October.

Patrick 0:41:23

All right. Yeah. For anybody listening, watching, please remember to like, follow, subscribe, comment good or bad. Give us some engagement there. We've also got the Banyan Connect Conference coming up this year. We're doing it in three places. Not only tropical downtown Cleveland, but we're hitting Atlanta and Las Vegas as well. Hope to see you there, Mark, at one of them. If not, we'll see you at Edge. Thanks again for being on Banyan's Tire Tracks. Appreciate you.

Mark 0:41:54

Thank you very much. Glad to be here.

Patrick 0:41:55

All right. Thank you. Bye, everybody. We'll see you next time.