Christopher Logan is currently a Managing Director at Accenture and Leads the Freight and Logistics Practice across Growth Markets: Asia Pacific, Middle East, Africa, and Latin America.
He is collaborating with clients and with fellow Accenture consultants to drive innovation and digitalization in Freight and Logistics businesses as the industry undergoes a once-in-a-generation transformation.
Across his 25 years-plus career, he has worked across global logistics and transport businesses, strategy consulting, global trade, emerging markets, and exploration and mining companies.
He is an active participant in the World Economic Forum (WEF) activities, was selected as WEF Young Global Leader in 2009.
Listen to the full discussion here:
Connect with the Guest:
Christopher Logan: LinkedIn
Some of the highlights from the podcast:
- How China’s supply chain system got back up in early March
- 3 advices for CEOs of logistics companies after COVID-19
- Rise of e-commerce and last mile in times of crisis
- How to balance bottom line and care for employees
- “Characters are not built during a crisis, but characters are revealed in times of crisis.”
Show Notes:
- [01:08] In connection with the crisis we are experiencing today, what’s your view on where we are today, how we got here and also what’s next?
- [02:04] The logistics companies in China and those international firms working in China had to work heroically to restart an entire country’s logistics supply chain system, and ultimately they got the system back up to 70% to 90% capacity in early March.
- [05:34] What would be the priorities that you would advise your clients from logistics, from freight forwarding and so on to focus on during this time?
- [06:29] Create a response center, ensure the safety of your front line workers, and provide a set of capabilities and norms to allow employees to be productive working from home.
- [08:26] Maybe you can share some case studies of your clients that have worked together and creative ideas that come up with that.
- [12:01] Can you share some examples of what 3PL companies did to accelerate the process of adopting their models to e-commerce?
- [15:19] Do you also see this crisis impacting the digitization of the logistics industry?
- [16:00] Startups who accelerates the process of digitalizing their own business models will likely end up being the winners several years from now.
- [19:27] Are there any good examples of tech being used in the supply chain in this crisis that you can mention?
- [21:09] Change management is exceptionally hard when you’re dealing with logistics companies who’ve been around for literally hundreds of years and the crisis unlocks half of it.
- [22:43] Do you have any advice to executives more on skills and communication? How do you maintain the ship and how do you inspire and lead the people in these times?
- [23:06] Characters are not built during a crisis, but characters are revealed in times of crisis.
- [26:11] In doing a bit of research and preparing for the interview, we stumbled across one suggestion that you have in terms of simple and clear communication. I think you were saying about the rule of 10 times 10 times 10 and maybe you can share a little bit about that.
- [26:30] A great example of best practices in communication is to repeat messages in many different ways from different sources in whatever form so that people will understand, retain and internalize what you’re trying to get across.
- [28:25] If you’re the CEO of a global logistics company and with all that, we have discussed, what would be the three things that you would focus on in terms of making sure that in 12 months the company would still be in a good position?
- [31:40] Accelerate your current plans, implement new digital ideas and platforms, and rethink your last mile.
- [35:04] If you’re a logistics company that has exposure to China, I would say double down on China because that’s going to be your area of growth for the next little while.
Quote from the Episode:
About the Host:
The host, Radu Palamariu is the co-author of “From Source to Sold – Stories of Leadership in Supply Chain”. He has been named one of the top 3 Global Supply Chain Influencers on LinkedIn and was featured in Forbes, Bloomberg, WEF, Bangkok Post, and MIT Supply Chain Talent magazine. Radu invites executives to share stories and perspectives around technology, logistics, e-commerce, supply chain, and manufacturing, and their views on how the future will look.
Alcott Global connects and upgrades the supply chain ecosystem by finding the right talent through executive search, developing talent through learning solutions, and meeting supply chain technology needs through a comprehensive crunch base marketplace.
The supply chain executive search has been our focus since the very beginning, offering recruitment services for top-tier supply chain roles at every level of the end-to-end supply chain: plan, source / procure, make, and deliver. Our consultants have years of experience in placing top talent, in North America, LATAM, Europe, the Middle East & Africa, and APAC, and besides speed, one of our biggest strengths is our network within the supply chain industry, and we capitalize on it to find the best solutions.
Through the years, we have grown as an organization and our offerings with it. One of our initiatives, the learning solutions- training and supply chain academy, is focused on transforming leadership- self-leadership, executive presence, influence capital, and business acumen. Through Supplify, we aim to match corporations with the top technology companies to solve their supply chain and logistics challenges with a focus on innovation and digital transformation.
We are in constant touch with the leaders in supply chain, inviting them to inspire the supply chain professionals in thought-provoking podcast episodes and events, and showcasing what is possible at the yearly Leaders in Supply Chain Awards.
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