Sarah Scudder is a self proclaimed supply chain nerd.
Sarah hosts the What the Duck?! direct materials podcast and a monthly Voice of Supply Chain show that features people in supply chain doing extraordinary things. She also hosts monthly Manufacturing Supply Chain Woes and Women in ERP shows and enjoys speaking about marketing and manufacturing supply chain related topics.
Presently serving as CMO at SourceDay, Sarah offers the quick fire responses to a range of supply chain focused questions. Take a look a below.
Sarah, what do you love about Supply Chain?
Innovation. Creativity. Solving new problems daily. No day is the same.
How did you get into supply chain?
I had no plans to pursue a career in supply chain. I was planning to go into fashion. I co-chaired a philanthropy event for my sorority my senior year in college and hired a local company to source all goods and services for our event. They offered me a sales job after our event. I took the job and spent the first 10+ years of my career in marketing procurement software sales. Now I work in direct materials procurement (manufacturing).
How has supply chain and the expectations placed upon it changed over time?
Supply chain peeps are expected to be agile, and problem solve when supply does not arrive on time. Being agile requires investing in your suppliers. You must collaborate with your suppliers and buyers, and suppliers need real time supply visibility. Gone are the days of US vs. THEM. Buyers and suppliers are now on the same team.
How do you feel supply chain is perceived in general? Why is this?
Supply chain is cool and sexy but we don’t always do the best job at letting our coolness be known to the world. We need to do a better job of sharing our accomplishments and wins, and showing what fun peeps we are.
The function wants the proverbial seat at the table. What does it need to do to earn that seat? What can be achieved with this seat?
It’s about building risk mitigation plans and resilience. To do that, you need supply chain visibility in real time. Buyers need to react to changes in demand or external factors as quickly as possible to make decisions.
Do you need to be a qualified supply chain practitioner to be a successful member of a supply chain team?
No. Someone does not need to have a supply chain background to have a successful career in supply chain. To do well in our industry you need to be agile, curious, data driven and understand how to build and manage relationships.
The ecosystem of service, solution, and tool providers is rapidly growing. The need to automate processes, ascertain risk, drive sustainability, and work collaboratively with both internal stakeholder and suppliers are just a few of the areas that the ecosystem can assist. What are the benefits of this growing ecosystem?
Smart supply chain leaders are focused on automation. Leveraging technology to automate manual work frees up time and resources to focus on strategy and collaborating with suppliers. Suppliers are your most important stakeholders. Focus on and prioritise these relationships.
Procurement vs Sales.
In general terms it appears that these two functions do not always seem to work hand in hand. Why? What is the solution?
Different priorities. To align, procurement and sales needs to be working towards the same goals. Both should be focused on revenue generation and customer retention. I suggest job shadowing. Have the sales team job shadow your buyers. Then have buyers shadow sales reps. It is enlightening to understand how each function works.