u/Dr-Muddassir-Ahmed

AI is here, but where do you start & apply it in the supply chain?

Supply Chain leaders & managers are under pressure from C-level to deploy AI in their daily work, but where do you start?

Here are 5 use cases where you can start seeing the benefits of AI immediately:

ASK: Grounded Q&A from the knowledge base. Answers supply chain questions the way a 20-year practitioner would, not the way ChatGPT hallucinates.

DIAGNOSTICS: 22 live maturity assessments across logistics, procurement, inventory, 3PL, warehouse operations and more. Structured scoring, gap analysis, prioritised roadmap. In minutes.

AGENTIC WORKFLOWS: Multi-step autonomous workflows: Freight Spend Diagnostic, Inventory Health Check, Spend Analytics, Sourcing RFPs end-to-end, Contract Red Flag Review. Complex sequenced operations with minimal manual input.

DRAFT: 24 DOCX templates live today. SOPs, category strategies, negotiation playbooks, and KPI scorecards are generated and downloadable instantly.

ANALYSE: Upload Excel or CSV data. Freight cost variance by lane and carrier, inventory optimisation, and supplier spend categorisation. Root cause analysis without an analyst. No schema mapping required! Data secured in Google Cloud, fully encrypted.

So what is the difference vs a generic LLM chatbot?

It's a RAG-powered, domain-specific AI supply chain consultant, trained exclusively on SCMDOJO's four-year knowledge corpus: 82 expert courses, 700 practitioner videos, 450+ research articles/blogs, 41 toolkits across 25 SCM domains.

Not fine-tuned on the internet.

Trained on verified practitioner knowledge

Let me know what you think. Your take would be worth hearing.

Can a forklift driver become the CEO of a $250 billion company?

Most people would say no.

Ron Vachris just proved them wrong.

In the 1980s, Ron started at Costco as an hourly forklift driver. Not an intern. Not a graduate trainee. A forklift driver moving pallets on a warehouse floor.

Four decades later, he is the President and CEO of Costco Wholesale, the third largest retailer in the world, with $250 billion in annual net sales and operations across 14 countries.

But here is what makes this story genuinely remarkable.

He did not skip the ladder. He climbed every single rung.

Assistant warehouse manager. Warehouse manager. Regional vice president. Executive vice president. Chief Operating Officer. CEO.

Forty years. Every level. Every function. Every challenge.

When Ron became CEO, he did not need a briefing on how Costco works. He had lived it, on the warehouse floor, in the regions, and in the boardroom. That is not a career path. That is a masterclass in operational leadership.

Now here is the part that the LinkedIn "CEO success story" posts always miss.

Ron's story is inspiring, but it did not happen by accident.

It happened because Costco built something most companies talk about but very few actually do. A genuine culture of internal promotion, loyalty, and people development.

Costco promotes from within as a deliberate strategic choice, not a HR talking point. They invest in their people at every level, from the warehouse floor to the executive team. They reward longevity. They develop capability over decades, not quarters.

And because of that, when Ron sits in the CEO chair, he carries 40 years of institutional knowledge, operational credibility, and cultural alignment that no external hire, however brilliant, could ever replicate.

That is not just good for Ron. That is good for Costco's customers, its 300,000 plus employees, and its shareholders.

The uncomfortable question for every leader reading this is simple.

Does your company actually have that culture? Not in the values statement. Not in the town hall speech. In practice. In the promotion decisions. In the training budgets. In the conversations managers have with people on their teams who have potential but need time to grow.

Because if the answer is no, you are not just losing future CEOs. You are losing the institutional knowledge, operational depth, and cultural continuity that makes companies genuinely resilient over decades.

Wall Street obsesses over quarterly results. The companies that last generations obsess over developing their people.

Ron Vachris started on a forklift. He ended up running one of the most respected retail operations in the world.

That is not luck. That is what happens when a company decides that its people are its most valuable competitive advantage, and actually means it.

Everyone is talking about AI replacing supply chain jobs.

Nobody is talking about the supply chain jobs that AI cannot replace.

Here is what AI genuinely cannot do:

👉 It cannot walk a factory floor and know something is wrong before the data shows it. It cannot build the supplier relationship that gets you priority allocation in a shortage.

👉 It cannot make the judgment call when two systems say opposite things. It cannot take accountability when a $50 million delivery goes wrong. It cannot read the room in a negotiation.

👉 AI will replace tasks.

👉 It will not replace the supply chain professional who understands which tasks to hand to AI and which to keep.

⚠️ The question is not "will AI take my job?"

The question is "am I building the skills that AI cannot replicate?"

Save this post. Share it with your team.

Can a Warehouse Manager become a Chief Supply Chain Officer?

I have been asked this question more times than any other in my career.

Here is the honest answer:

Yes. But only if you stop thinking like a warehouse manager.

The CSCO thinks in systems, not locations.

The CSCO speaks the language of finance, not just operations.

The CSCO manages risk at a network level, not a building level.

The CSCO builds relationships with the CEO, not just the logistics team.

The skills that got you to Warehouse Manager will not get you to CSCO. But the experience you have is irreplaceable.

Most people wait to be promoted before they start behaving like the next level.

The ones who actually get promoted start behaving like the next level first.

What role are you in right now?

Tell me in the comments and I will tell you what your next step looks like.

Most logistics and supply chain leaders I speak to are fighting the same losing battle.

They renegotiate carrier rates. Costs climb anyway. They renegotiate again. Same result.

The problem isn't the rates. It's the inputs that shape them — load optimisation, network design, mode selection, consolidation. Fix those, and the rates take care of themselves.

This week, everything we've published connects to that one idea.

Unpopular opinion:

Most Supply Chain Directors are overpaid for what they actually do.

And most Supply Chain Managers are massively underpaid for what they actually know.

Here is why.

The Director spends 80% of their time in meetings, presentations, and politics.

The Manager spends 80% of their time actually running the supply chain, solving problems, making calls, managing suppliers, keeping production alive.

The person closest to the real work is paid the least for it.

This is not a complaint. It is a structural problem in how companies value supply chain talent.

The solution is not to wait for a promotion.

The solution is to make your commercial impact visible. Quantify what you save, prevent, and deliver. Present it like a finance person would.

Supply chain people are terrible at selling their own value.

Start today.

Agree or disagree? Tell me below.

⚠️ SCENARIO: Your largest supplier just went bankrupt. You have 72 hours.

What's your move?

I've seen companies handle this brilliantly. And I've seen supply chain leaders implode under this pressure.

The difference? A framework.

Here's what separates winners from panic-mode operations:

-> HOUR 1–6: ASSESS & COMMUNICATE → Activate your crisis team → Map all at-risk SKUs and customer impact → Alert leadership. No surprises later.

-> HOUR 6–24: ACTIVATE CONTINGENCY → Secondary supplier validation (pre-qualified, ideally) → Emergency procurement at premium pricing (expect 20–40% cost spike) → Customer communication: transparent, not panic-inducing

-> HOUR 24–72: EXECUTE & STABILISE → Expedited logistics (air freight if necessary) → Renegotiate payment terms for cash flow protection → Begin long-term sourcing strategy

Most companies fail at Hour 1 because they don't have a framework.

Your supply chain resilience is built in peaceful times and tested in chaotic ones.

Do you have a crisis playbook for supplier collapse? What's missing from yours?

Ditch the "Good Cop, Bad Cop" Routine in Your Negotiations

Whenever non-procurement managers are invited to a negotiation, they often ask, "Do you want me to be the good cop or the bad cop?"

In professional procurement, this dynamic is a myth.

Every person at the table must have a distinct, strategic purpose. The course Negotiation Principles course at SCMDOJO, by Richard Todd, outlines the 3 essential roles required to build a powerhouse negotiation team:

The Maker (Lead Negotiator): This is you. You control the room, drive the agenda, and do the majority of the talking.

The Supporter (The Observer): This team member is brought in for a specific functional purpose (like Quality or Logistics). Their primary job is to observe the room, listen actively, and keep the Maker from going down a rabbit hole.

The Pusher (The Escalation): A senior-level executive who steps in to leverage their authority and push the negotiation in the right direction when things stall.

The Risk of the Team Dynamic:

Bringing a team gives you more eyes and ears to read the room. However, it also introduces a massive challenge: managing everyone's emotions and body language.

One unintentional eye-roll from a teammate can give away your entire strategy! Prepare your team to practice active listening, avoid interrupting the supplier, and disclose information strategically.

Ready to build a world-class procurement team and unveil your real potential?

Are You Negotiating Without a Safety Net? Master BATNA and ZOPA

If you walk into a negotiation without a clear "Plan B," you are already at a disadvantage. In Lesson 5 of our Negotiation Principles course at SCMDOJO, Richard Todd introduces the essential terminology every procurement professional must master to protect their margins.

To unveil your real potential at the negotiation table, you must understand these two concepts:

BATNA (Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement): This is your ultimate Plan B and your walk-away point. Even if you are dealing with a monopoly supplier, you always have a BATNA (e.g., redesigning the part or pivoting internal strategies). If your BATNA starts looking better than the deal on the table, it is time to walk away.

ZOPA (Zone of Possible Agreement): This is the overlap between your target price and the seller's bottom line. Beware of "Small Pie Bias"—do not underestimate the size of this zone! Always push the boundary and ask for 10-15% more than you think is possible.

Pro-Tip: Watch their Body Language! Look out for "comfort gestures"—like adjusting a tie, stroking an arm, or playing with hair. People do this unconsciously when they feel awkward or are fabricating information. If you spot a comfort gesture, it is your signal to dig deeper!

Ready to elevate your procurement strategy? Head over to SCMDOJO for expert courses, tools, and insights