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00:00Lisa, we've all become, I guess, quasi experts in global supply chains. Give us a sense kind of where we are today. Well, we have improved in terms of our ability to supply product to customers. However, we still are in a scenario where supply chains are on the move, continual disruptions continue to continue to persist. It just keeps moving up. A was it moving to talk to us about the ramifications, for example, of Covid in China and whether that longer term unplugged ventured to Tim Cook confuses the supply chains. Oh, it definitely is going to impact supply chains because China is a manufacturing powerhouse. And with the zero Covid policies they've been shutting manufacturing down, it's certainly affected the iPhones as an example. But, you know, the bubble continues to move, you know. The supply chain is a system of systems. And so as it gets to the next point in the supply chain, you know, it was at the ports and that went to rail. And now we have now it's at the warehouses were completely full throughout the U.S. and are still looking for more space. Yet we don't necessarily have the products we need. To your point about the zero Covid policies and you know some of our products like the iPhone. Hey, Lisa, you know, when I was in business school, we did learn about a thing called just in time inventory. And presumably that's more profitable for manufacturers. And then the whole supply chain has been called into question because now I'm hearing a new term, which is just in case inventory. Tell us how that may evolve. Well, you're absolutely right. Just in time, everyone took quite literally for many years and just had inventory arriving as they needed it. However, the true concept of Justin Time does account for the lead times on your products and the risks associated with it. So if you took it with the true definition, Justin, time makes a whole lot of sense. However, people have definitely gone the Justin case and now they have more inventory than they need. And of course, of the wrong products because consumers change their minds and products change. So we're going to have to do something different in the future. It's interesting that some of that inventory buildup is in some ways a relief from the inflation pressures that many of the consumers felt. But more long term, the supply chain changes the bringing closer to home. Is that inherently inflationary? You people you're consulting with, the companies you're helping, having to pay more to be able to get the comfort they need. They absolutely are. Inflation is has not stopped. It doesn't look like it's going to stop anytime soon as there's a lot going on in the supply chain and they're still having problems finding critical materials. And there's there's plenty of shortages throughout. So it looks like we're heading for a period of inflationary yet recessionary times at the same time simultaneously. At least I remember in the beginning of the pandemic when, you know, economies around the world were shutting down and we we really got the first taste of the supply chain issues. A lot of folks are saying we need to on shore more of this stuff, like whether it's making a semiconductor chip or any other product. Could you give us a sense of is there a follow up on that whole thought within kind of the C suite? Absolutely. The vast majority of companies are looking at restoring near shoring friendly sharing. In essence, supply chains are on the move. And if they're not looking at that, they are looking at new partners. They have figured out they can not be resilient with the current state of affairs. And so they are reshaping the supply chains in the future. Even the logistics arena is reshaping the West Coast. Ports struggle to support the volumes. And so folks have been moving to the East Coast ports and they're not necessarily moving back. What about technology in all of this? How much of that is going to be a fix from an already perspective? From an investment perspective? Actually, technology is quite radical for many reasons. We need to automate. We don't have the people that we need to support, the products that we need to have on the shelves. Just take the baby aspirin as an example. So we need to be producing closer to our consumers that also can relate to, you know, utilizing technology so that we can make that more feasible and we can do it at a at a profit as well. So there's there's many. We can talk about technology for hours. Let's talk about labor. Lisa, you know, when we talked to, you know, railroad companies, certainly the trucking companies, you know, dock workers, people in the warehouse warehouses, a whole supply chain. They all talk about a lack of labor supply and maybe trained labor supply for some of them. Man, I don't I'm not sure what the solution to that problem is. I mean, the truckers have been having that since forever. Totally right. And in there are not a lot of truckers that are looking to get into the, you know, into that industry. So we are at the same is true for manufacturers, for my clients in the last few years. They have been limited in their growth by the number of people who have been able to hire. Now, the more proactive ones have been looking at outsourcing products to, you know, in the region, they've been doing all sorts of innovative programs in order to increase their outputs. But it's been a complete struggle. And they've, you know, it's basically limited their growth. So we're going to have to be thinking about people differently than we did in the past. And we're gonna need to utilize technology and automate automation was thought to be perhaps a bit of a fix. Not the total panacea, but a bit of a fix down by the ports of L.A., for example. But everyone was blaming someone else within the food chain, whether it be the DOT work is blaming some of the truckers, the truckers, then blaming some of the trains like where are we seeing from a federal level, some more clear thinking and actually fixing these problems rather than pointing fingers. That's that's a great question. I would say that there is still, unfortunately, quite a bit of confusion about the supply chain. And so, you know, I think that the good news is that we have realized that supply chain is critical. It used to be like, what do those people in supply chain even do? Now, everybody knows that supply chain has some relevance, even if they don't know what it's all about. So I think we've gained insight, but we still have a long way to go.

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LMA President Says Supply Chain Confusion Remains

Lisa Anderson, LMA Consulting President and Founder, feels there is still a great deal of confusion global supply chains. Anderson joined "Bloomberg Markets" with Caroline Hyde and Paul Sweeney on Friday morning. (Source: Bloomberg)

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