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Harnessing Data Power: A Game-Changer for Supply Chain and Marketing Careers

Jane Majkiewicz — Tue, 14 Jan 2025 18:06:50 +0000

Harnessing Data Power: A Game-Changer for Supply Chain and Marketing Careers Jane Majkiewicz Tue, 01/14/2025 - 11:06

Jane Majkiewicz

Leeds is at the forefront of data analytics with two new innovative master鈥檚 programs鈥攕upply chain analytics and marketing analytics.

Data is everywhere. The challenge isn鈥檛 collecting it but turning it into actionable insights and informed business decisions. That鈥檚 the vision behind Leeds鈥� new master鈥檚 programs in supply chain analytics and marketing analytics, beginning in 2025.

鈥淏eing able to launch marketing analytics and supply chain analytics degrees is exciting and supportive of the growth of the school and the opportunities we provide as students consider the changes occurring in business careers,鈥� said Kristi Ryujin, associate dean for graduate programs at Leeds. During her 11-year tenure, she has witnessed seismic changes in these two major areas of global business.

Transforming supply chain operations

Supply chains became a household topic during the pandemic, as shortages, price surges and logistical bottlenecks exposed vulnerabilities in global systems. Today, organizations must grapple with growing amounts of data to answer critical questions: Where should products be stored? How should production be timed? How can pricing and overhead be optimized? How will changing tariffs and regulations affect operations and revenue?

鈥淭hese are the kinds of questions we鈥檙e hearing,鈥� Ryujin noted. 鈥淒iscussions with industry partners show how far supply chain operations have come from the days of literally walking the lines in the warehouse. Now, we鈥檙e looking at things like performance over time, and it鈥檚 all data driven.鈥�

Leeds鈥� new Supply Chain Analytics master鈥檚 program builds on 10 years of expertise in core supply chain topics including procurement, logistics, inventory management and programming skills in Python. The new program replaces and updates the existing supply chain management degree, incorporating new technologies including AI and machine learning, and advanced technical skills.

The ability to predict demand, address inefficiencies and reduce risks can translate into significant cost savings and operational improvements for organizations. For example, supply chain analytics can help a food manufacturer forecast ingredient needs to avoid spoilage, streamline delivery schedules and align with sustainability goals in packaging and production.

鈥淟eeds is seen as a leader in sustainability,鈥� Ryujin said. 鈥淗aving a sustainable supply chain is part of the opportunity we have in guiding students.鈥�

鈥淭here will be consistent demand for people with this skillset.鈥濃€擪risti Ryujin, Associate Dean for Graduate Programs

Expanding career opportunities

As supply chains grow more complex, so does the demand for skilled professionals. The new master鈥檚 program is tailored to both full-time students and working professionals, offering flexible formats to accommodate busy schedules.

鈥淥ne of the things we pride ourselves in is that we develop talent,鈥� Ryujin said. 鈥淚f someone was an undergraduate psychology major, for example, and really likes numbers and data, we will prepare that student for success in the program.鈥�

High-demand roles in supply chain analytics include:

鈫� Demand Planner
鈫� Logistics Analyst
鈫� Operations Analyst
鈫� Procurement Agent
鈫� Quality Control Analyst

鈥淲e learned so much during COVID. And now we must think about the complexities and volatility of supply chain markets based on government changes, leadership changes, climate change and more,鈥� Ryujin said. 鈥淥ur ability to address these challenges is what makes our supply chain analytics degree so interesting and exciting,鈥� she said. 鈥淭here will be consistent demand for people with this skillset.鈥�

The growing role of marketing analytics

Leeds鈥� new Marketing Analytics master鈥檚 program builds on Leeds鈥� foundation of excellence in marketing research and teaching. The program is designed to prepare students for roles that require translating data into actionable insights, understanding customer behavior and optimizing marketing effectiveness.

The new program will expand upon Leeds鈥� breadth of marketing courses with the added technical skills to address evolving and emerging roles. These roles are becoming vital in helping companies understand their audiences, drive revenue growth and solidify their reputation as purpose-driven, sustainable organizations.

High-demand roles in marketing analytics include:

鈫� Marketing Analytics Manager
鈫� Marketing Analytics Senior Lead
鈫� Senior Manager, Marketing Insights and Analytics
鈫� Senior Manager, Digital Marketing
鈫� Senior Digital Engagement Administrator

Flexible learning options and the Leeds difference

Both new master鈥檚 programs offer full-time, in-person formats as well as an 鈥淥nline Plus鈥� option, which combines high-quality, customized videos, synchronous remote sessions and in-person faculty office hours. This flexibility makes it possible for working professionals to reskill, upskill or pivot their careers.

鈥淔or recent graduates or career changers, these programs offer a pathway to advanced opportunities,鈥� Ryujin explained. Many of Leeds鈥� undergraduate students take advantage of accelerated pathways, earning both undergraduate and master鈥檚 degrees through 3+1 or 4+1 programs. 鈥淭he important thing for students is to come in with curiosity, interest and a willingness to learn.鈥�

By solving critical business challenges and identifying opportunities to improve business processes and mitigate risks, these programs shape students into strategic thinkers in their industries. Leeds鈥� graduates not only leave prepared to adapt to ever-evolving business demands, but they鈥檙e also equipped with a competitive edge in anticipating future challenges and driving innovation鈥攕kills that set them apart as leaders.

At a Glance

	Master鈥檚 in Supply Chain Analytics	Master鈥檚 in Marketing Analytics
Program Options	Full-time: 10 months in person Online Plus: 2 years, paced for working professionals Starts in July 2025	Full-time: 10 months in person Online Plus: 2 years, paced for working professionals Starts in July 2025
Curriculum	Data-driven operational strategy and tactics with big data analytics.	Data-driven marketing strategies including specialized market intelligence, digital advertising and customer analytics courses.
Selected Courses	Fundamentals of Data Analytics Structured Data Modeling & Analysis Supply Chain & Operations Analytics Procurement & Contracting Modern Artificial Intelligence Experiential Projects	Survey of Business Analytics Machine Learning Advanced Data Analytics Market Intelligence Customer Analytics Digital Advertising Modern Artificial Intelligence Experiential Projects
Career Success	Graduates find roles in leading companies including鈥疉rrow Electronics, Boeing, Danone, Lockheed Martin, Walmart and more.	Graduates find roles in top companies like AB InBev, Alteryx, KPMG, Merckle, OptTek Systems, P2 Energy Solutions and Panasonic North America.

Leeds is at the forefront of data analytics with two new innovative master鈥檚 programs鈥攕upply chain analytics and marketing analytics.

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鈥榃rite a Story for My Son鈥�: To Better Understand ChatGPT, A.I. Expert Puts it To Work

Anonymous — Wed, 25 Jan 2023 16:30:28 +0000

鈥榃rite a Story for My Son鈥�: To Better Understand ChatGPT, A.I. Expert Puts it To Work Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 01/25/2023 - 09:30

Story 鈥榳ritten鈥� by Leeds professor a hit on social media, but the tech has him 鈥榦scillating between extreme excitement and abject terror.鈥欌€嬧€�

Kai Larsen in the Rustandy Building at 精品SM在线影片. An expert in machine learning and natural language processing, Larsen calls ChatGPT 鈥榓s powerful a technology as I鈥榲e seen in a long time.鈥� Below, a screenshot of the children's story created through ChatGPT and DALL-E.

If you鈥檝e ever taken a Zoom call with Kai Larsen from his home, you鈥檝e probably met鈥攐r at least heard鈥擠ewey.

Dewey is Larsen鈥檚 pet cockatoo, and since disrupting video calls is Dewey鈥檚 expertise, Larsen thought maybe his pet could showcase some truly disruptive technology. So he tasked ChatGPT with writing a children鈥檚 story for his son, Alex, starring Dewey.

Dr. Seuss it is not, but while 鈥淭he Cat in the Hat鈥� is supposed to have taken 18 months to write, ChatGPT generated Dewey鈥檚 story in seconds. Larsen continued to feed it prompts to help the software perfect the story; all told, he spent about 10 minutes working on it, using a similar platform, DALL-E, to generate appropriate images.

At 15, Alex is a little old for a bedtime story, 鈥渂ut he was very excited about it,鈥� Larsen said. When his child was born, Larsen ordered a 鈥渃ustom鈥� book celebrating the start of a new life, 鈥渂ut all they did was print the name into the same book, right? But I noticed that it really resonated with my child at that time鈥攜ou know, seeing yourself in a story. It isn鈥檛 high art by any means, but it can be more personal and more targeted.鈥�

ChatGPT is a chatbot that OpenAI launched in the fall. It鈥檚 not the first of its kind, but ChatGPT has generated incredible buzz for its natural-sounding dialog鈥攇enerated in response to user prompts鈥攖hat has been used in everything from writing letters to The New York Times, to composing Shakespearean-style poems about Nebraska, to teaching novices how to code, to helping students write term papers.

鈥淚t鈥檚 hard to think of a place it will not create impact. I think that鈥檚 the much easier, if incomplete, way of looking at it.鈥�

Professor Kai Larsen

For Larsen鈥攁n expert in machine learning and natural language processing, and faculty director of Leeds鈥� master鈥檚 program in business analytics鈥擟hatGPT, and the possibilities it presents for business, have him 鈥渙scillating between extreme excitement and abject terror.鈥�

鈥淲e have never found a technology that didn鈥檛 create opportunities as well as risks,鈥� Larsen said. 鈥淏ut this is as powerful a technology as I鈥檝e seen in a long time, and we need to be very thoughtful about how we implement it.鈥�

Take something as straightforward as email. Larsen said he may engage in as many as 50 conversations a day, 鈥渁nd it feels like all day, I鈥檓 making decisions in Zoom, email, and LinkedIn and Slack messages, instead of directly furthering my research or teaching,鈥� he said. 鈥淔or industry, we鈥檙e going to see even more communications that will be harder to distinguish from something a genuine person would create. And as that takes up more of our bandwidth, we will need A.I. tools to manage our lives. It will function as a feedback loop.鈥�

And unlike the custom book he bought for his child all those years ago, created and printed at significant cost, A.I. can quickly generate and customize a video message for thousands of viewers. A business could send a personalized thank-you video for purchasing a product, then recommend other services you might like based on your purchase history, at a speed previously unimaginable.

Reinforcing the digital divide?

However, as A.I. is entrusted with more responsibilities, being fluent in working with these tools will become not just crucial to how we work, but how we learn鈥攊n higher education and even K-12 schools.

For students who can afford services like ChatGPT鈥攆ree for now, but not forever鈥攁n understanding of how these tools work, and how they can help them manage a digital deluge in the age of A.I., will have a major advantage over those who cannot. Call it another crack in the digital divide.

鈥淭hese tools are going to teach students better than they could learn from humans alone,鈥� Larsen said. 鈥淪tudents going to be smarter and more efficient because they have access to these tools. But if we don鈥檛 have equal access to these technologies, we might just further cement inequality in our society.鈥�

And the growing investment by companies in this space, along with how quickly it can learn and adapt, means it is evolving and improving all the time.

鈥淵ou have to remember, at its core, ChatGPT does not know a single sentence. It鈥檚 generating this content from scratch based on an understanding of language, rather than an understanding of the underlying facts,鈥� Larsen said.

So, if you ask ChatGPT to come up with a list of ways to help manage a troubled employee, the suggestions you get will not necessarily be based in science or ranked by statistical importance鈥攐r be true to the story of the subject matter.

In 鈥淒ewey the Unhappy Cockatoo,鈥� Larsen noted the protagonist, after being rescued, is happy and sociable in the story, but as an actual rescue bird, 鈥淒ewey never really made friends. He was sort of a loner. But I accepted that the story was good enough for the purpose.鈥�

Will it be good enough if the usage is for high stakes? Or will the tools, and our ability to use them more effectively, improve to the point where these discrepancies disappear?

Yes, Larsen said: 鈥淟ook to the areas where people and language models work together towards faster and better outputs.鈥�

On the question of where it will affect our lives, he suggested a different approach. 鈥淚t鈥檚 hard to think of a place it will not create impact,鈥� he said. 鈥淚 think that鈥檚 the much easier, if incomplete, way of looking at it.鈥�

Why Leeds Faculty and Research M.S. Business Analytics

What happens when an expert on natural language processing asks a chatbot to write a children's book in the style of Dr. Seuss?

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Investment Management Career Opportunities With a Master鈥檚 in Finance

Anonymous — Tue, 13 Dec 2022 07:00:00 +0000

Investment Management Career Opportunities With a Master鈥檚 in Finance Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 12/13/2022 - 00:00

How a Leeds Master鈥檚 in Finance prepares you for a career in finance.

Want to discover which investment management jobs you could land with a Master鈥檚 in Finance? Here we share resources to help steer your career in finance鈥攁nd help you discover which educational path might work for you. Plus, see how to refine the job search process so it matches your career and educational goals.

1. Investment Management and Other Career Opportunities in Finance.

When it comes to a finance career, investment management jobs grab all the attention. We can thank Hollywood for adding so much flavor to the ordinary lives of stockbrokers and portfolio managers. But the allure doesn鈥檛 stop there, especially when investment management leaders rise to the top and claim prestigious corner office job titles like Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer. [Source: OpsDog]

No doubt, investment management jobs are popular, but that鈥檚 just the tip of the iceberg. At Leeds School of Business, we offer two tracks in our Master鈥檚 in Finance program鈥攊nvestment management and corporate finance and consulting. We encourage you to explore our curriculum page to compare both tracks.

Taking the corporate finance track offers an extensive variety of jobs that you may not have even considered. Take the non-profit sector and its reliance on financial planning and portfolio management鈥攖o roles in real estate finance, insurance, and venture capital, to lucrative careers in FinTech or international investment management & advisory.

Bottom line. The finance profession offers plenty of rewarding career options across many industry segments and with opportunities located throughout the world. [Source: CFI]

2. Sample job titles with a Master鈥檚 in Finance

To save time during a job search, it helps to know which job titles recruiters post when looking for candidates with a Master鈥檚 in Finance. These include jobs at banks, corporations and institutions. Here鈥檚 a shortlist of job titles that match the career path of graduates with advanced finance degrees like a Master鈥檚 in Finance.

Investment Banker
Equity Research Associate
Private Wealth Management
Credit Analyst
Financial Analyst
Senior Loan Officer
Financial Planner
Equity Research Associate
Analyst/Manager 鈥� Corporate FP&A

[Source: CFI and CU Career Fact Sheet]

3. Resources to prepare you for a career in finance

When comparing different graduate programs, you might wonder how well Leeds prepares its students for the real world. From the beginning, we immerse students into cutting edge technologies and systems used by today鈥檚 finance professionals.

The University of Colorado鈥檚 Burridge Center for Finance is one of our Finance Department鈥檚 greatest assets. That鈥檚 because it connects students to our partners who are industry leaders in finance.

Beacon鈥檚 Integrated Development Environment
Bloomberg Lab

Students use these connections to build relationships while gaining valuable hands-on experience. Partnerships like this set our curriculum apart from other university finance master鈥檚 programs in the United States.

It鈥檚 critical that graduate students learn valuable problem-solving skills they can bring into their next job. That鈥檚 why Leeds lets students put their hands on powerful technology platforms like Beacon鈥檚 Integrated Development Environment--a web-based resource for developers to build, test and deploy applications and analytics. Technology like this prepares people called to FinTech and analytics roles.[EO3]

Leeds also provides students with access to Bloomberg Professional Services which includes the Bloomberg Lab. Here students learn about the inner workings of Bloomberg with access to Bloomberg Terminal. This is your gateway into a curriculum that teaches you how financial markets operate in real time. These innovative trading tools are used by today鈥檚 finance professionals鈥攁nd students at Leeds. Plus, you will gain access to proprietary data and breaking financial news that guides successful decision making on the job.

Leeds offers Bloomberg Market Concepts (BMC), a course that prepares students to use over 70 features in the Bloomberg Terminal. Upon completion, students receive Bloomberg Certification credentials, a valuable asset for ambitious finance professionals. Why? Because it shows your demonstrated knowledge.

Take a look at our BMC offering to gain more insight on the many ways Leeds prepares you for an enduring yet rewarding profession in finance.

4. Job search timeline

HR Departments start recruiting job candidates as early as August. For this reason, it鈥檚 a good idea to schedule an appointment with your Graduate Career Management advisor around the time orientation ends. Use this time to discuss job search strategies and build an individualized timeline to land your dream job.

Want to learn more about the Leeds School of Business MS in Finance and discover how we set graduates up for career success?

Learn More

Alumni Success

Arthur Padilla (MSFin鈥�21)

Debt Management Analyst, Chatham Financial

"I鈥檓 inspired by the ever-changing nature of business."

Arthur received his MS in finance because he likes to create forecasting models that predict business success. He also uses data modeling software to identify areas for improvement. Arthur believes that companies with diverse teams perform much better. 鈥淚 hope we will all be moved to fight for racial equity in our personal, professional and political lives,鈥� he said.

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Professor Gregg Macaluso Cited in Recent Inbound Logisitcs Article on Supply Chain Management

Anonymous — Tue, 30 Dec 2014 07:00:00 +0000

Professor Gregg Macaluso Cited in Recent Inbound Logisitcs Article on Supply Chain Management Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 12/30/2014 - 00:00

Tue, 12/30/2014 - 08:40

Building an Effective Supply Chain Team

Published in Inbound Logistics, December 2014

Read the full article at http://www.inboundlogistics.com/cms/article/building-an-effective-supply...

5 More Sharing Services Share on twitter Share on facebook Share on email Share on hootsuite

By Tamara Chapman

Tags: 3PL, Supply Chain Management

A successful team needs the right mix of talent, skills, and personalities.

More to the Story:

Leadership: The Essential Ingredient for Team Success

Whether it's assembled to lead a single division or the entire organization, or whether it's brought together for a short-term assignment or a long-term project, an effective supply chain team needs the right mix of talent, skills, and personalities. It also needs a clear mission, the freedom to pursue it, and the structure to succeed.

That's the ideal anyway. But all too often, it's hard to achieve. Just ask Gregg Richard Macaluso, an instructor specializing insupply chain strategy and innovation at the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado in Boulder. When he surveys the state of team performance within the supply chain sector, he sees plenty of room for improvement.

"We're challenged for a number of reasons," he says. "And we can do better."

As a longtime logistics consultant, Macaluso lays that "do-better" challenge right at the feet of company leadership. Too often, he says, senior officers put together teams, task them with a vague challenge, and retreat to the executive suite. Then, if the team reports back with unorganized findings, or solutions to the wrong problems, the executives wonder what went wrong.

A glance in the mirror might offer a succinct answer. "The amount of effective coaching that takes place among the ranks is鈥攏ot for lack of interest, but for lack of knowing how to communicate鈥攕till nascent," Macaluso says.

In other words, the company's leadership fails to make its expectations clear, and to provide useful context, forcing team members to consult tea leaves for insight. Without the full picture, one team member might see the task at hand as an engineering assignment, while another views it as a mathematical problem. And both of them might be missing the point. It's up to senior leadership to make sure everyone is on the same page.

At the very least, a team needs clear objectives and an understanding of how to "present solutions and analyses that correspond to the challenges and context as senior executives see them," Macaluso says.

That's easier said than done, he acknowledges. Even with all the communications technology at an executive's disposal, it's difficult to connect鈥攅specially across the supply chain, where key players are scattered geographically and busy with myriad day-to-day challenges.

"We're less able to communicate across the supply chain than ever before," Macaluso notes. "The number of times team members actually meet in the same place where they can communicate effectively is limited."

Still, team success depends on a certain amount of "helpful coaching on an individual level," he says. Without it, the team is likely to flounder.

Put me in, Coach!

Coaching is certainly key to team effectiveness at Menlo Logistics, a San Francisco-based third-party logistics (3PL) provider with operations on five continents. Menlo's senior leadership believes that decision-making and problem-solving should occur "as close to customers as possible," says Carl Fowler, Menlo's vice president of field sales and solutions.

To achieve that goal, Menlo assembles teams from the ranks of employees and managers who deal with day-to-day problems, and know customers' challenges intimately. Senior management, meanwhile, aims to empower that team to "unlock the value in the supply chain," Fowler says.

"Management becomes the nurse in the operating theater who allows the surgical team to do its best," he adds.

Any company that hopes to use teams to solve problems and foster innovation needs to hire, support, recognize, and value the right people, according to Alex Stark, director of marketing at Scranton, Penn.-based 3PL Kane is Able.

But doing so within in the logistics sector, where complex technology and intricate systems dominate the landscape, requires a mindset shift鈥攆rom a preoccupation with skill sets to an emphasis on what Stark calls "people logistics."

"People are the raw ingredient to any supply chain initiative, and people who care will find a way to do a good job, " he writes on the Kane is Able blog.

With that in mind, family-owned Kane is Able asks its hiring managers to put more emphasis on personality and character traits than on proficiencies in systems and programs.

"We hire for attitude, and we train for skill," he says. Attitude is next to impossible to teach and involves finding people who wantto do the job, versus those who simply can do it. Just as important, hiring for attitude means staffing the company with people who will sync well with teams.

At Menlo, teams are encouraged to challenge the status quo, so when hiring, Fowler takes a close look at applicants who have departed from the script. First-generation college graduates often fit that description nicely. After all, they've challenged the status quo just by pursuing a degree鈥攁nd that means they're probably good problem-solvers, team players, and even management material.

"Deciding to do something different is the most risky decision an executive can make," Fowler says. That's a concept first-generation college graduates understand. By the same token, people who grew up on farms often understand resiliency, as well as the idea of pitching in.

"A strong roll-up-your-sleeves work ethic is important," Fowler says. "It's not just about being the smartest."

Todd Berger, president and CEO of Chicago-based third-party logistics provider Transportation Solutions Enterprises (TSE), places high value on what he calls "stick-to-it-iveness," but also an appreciation for group, rather than personal, achievement and success.

For companies that want to make maximum use of teams, "there is no room for ego or self-serving behavior," he says.

Not even in the executive suite. In fact, Berger expects TSE's seven-member senior team, as well as unit-level managers, to join as well as lead. Under that philosophy, a senior executive might be expected to serve on a team led by a subordinate.

Leggo my Ego

"We all exist on local teams," he says. "You put your ego in your back pocket, and get to work."

If their egos are in check, team members are less likely to bring preconceived ideas to the table and more likely to view an assignment as a challenge rather than a problem. "Eighty percent of project teams believe a problem is someone's fault, and they have to punish the guilty," Macaluso says.

When that's the case, the team not only fails in its task, it runs the risk of making a situation worse. To avoid that calamity, hiring managers might want to look for people who ask questions rather than answer them, and who rely minimally on the first-person pronoun.

"I first look for those who are insatiably curious, speak in few declarative sentences, and are willing to look at a problem in its natural state," Macaluso says.

Hiring team-minded employees is only part of the challenge for companies wanting to harness the power of collaborative problem-solving. Putting them together with the right teammates and matching them to the right challenge is also essential.

Kane is Able assembles its teams with the personality traits and work styles of potential members in mind, Stark says. To do that, the firm needs a good understanding of how its employees think, approach challenges, and interact with one another.

These insights come not just from getting to know employees personally, but also via testing. The Myers-Briggs personality tests, for example, show how individuals prefer to process information and make decisions. Assessment tests also reveal a lot about individual preferences regarding work structures鈥攚hether someone prefers to make decisions and stick to them, for instance, or whether they'd rather remain open to new information and evolving circumstances.

Kane is Able also uses the DISC behavior assessment test to ensure it doesn't overload teams with people who are, say, domineering or too compliant. "We want to understand a person's propensity to behave a certain way," Stark says. "It's important as you build your team."

Take Me to Your Leader

It's especially important when designating a leader. "Many people just want to charge ahead鈥攊f they're the leader of the group, it's my way or the highway," Stark says. While that kind of leadership might be effective for some teams, it could be disastrous for others. Knowing how the team's leader behaves and thinks can avert dysfunction.

The information derived from personality and behavior tests helps Kane is Able train workers for effective team participation. When people recognize their own traits and preferences, as well as those of others on the team, they can learn to accommodate and adjust鈥攁 prerequisite for an enjoyable and productive team experience.

TSE's Berger likens the team-assembly process to populating a bus. From a human resources perspective, employees have to be enlisted in teams they want to join and where they can be effective. "You've got to find the right seat on the right bus for them," he says.

It's also essential that every bus have a driver, as well as a clear destination. With that in mind, TSE structures its teams with a clear leadership chain, even though the team might be composed of peers.

"We don't want spaghetti from an accountability standpoint," Berger says. It's important that one or two people are expected to drive the process, keep the bus on course, and report findings and results.

Berger also wants TSE's teams to reflect perspectives from across the firm's operations鈥攁 requirement that often introduces valuable surprises into the team's findings and proposals.

For example, TSE established a Voice of the Customer team to keep senior leadership apprised of customers' experiences, frustrations, challenges, and business concerns. Naturally, the team includes sales and operations people who routinely interact with customers. But it also includes employees from functions far removed from the face-to-face customer experience. Suddenly, a customer's challenge no longer falls into the "not my problem" abyss. It becomes real for the entire company, and the entire company can focus on solutions.

"How the voice of the customer is synthesized varies across the team," Berger says. "But it's always powerful."

Like TSE, Menlo wants its teams to reflect differing perspectives and to serve as a test lab for new ideas. This is essential for innovation. To pull it off, the team needs members with a diverse set of hard and soft skills.

For example, it's important that teams include players who possess what Fowler calls "situational awareness." Because Menlo uses teams to identify and address customer challenges, someone on the team needs to understand the customer's context, enterprise goals, and performance metrics. Someone also needs to be able to communicate with the customer effectively.

Other essential skills include project management and information presentation. And, most teams need someone who can design the solution, whether that involves improved systems or new technology.

The Big Picture

No team can succeed without at least one big-picture thinker who understands the entire supply chain in all its complexity. "Someone needs to see the integrated whole, and have more than the quarterly objectives in mind," Macaluso says. "Someone has to see how and why the team's project fits into the long-term view."

Every team also needs "someone who is capable of knowing where the data is and gaining access to it," Macaluso says. "Just as important, someone on the team should know how to structure data and prepare it for analysis."

In addition, every team鈥攂ut especially those interacting with customer representatives or outside firms along the supply chain鈥攏eeds "a person who works the relationships, somebody who can run d茅tente and engage in shuttle diplomacy," Macaluso says. "That skill is hard to find."

For supply chain professionals, such skills can be a stretch, particularly for employees accustomed to the rarified air of a specialization. "You are asking an engineer to be an effective and gregarious change agent," Fowler says, pointing out just how big the leap might be. "You are asking people to think about work in a different way."

Although that shift in thought might not come easy, Fowler believes it's critical for an organization's survival. Successful companies, he notes, are distinguished by "the ability to harness the power of the team."

Leadership: The Essential Ingredient for Team Success

No team鈥攏o matter how talented, driven, and dedicated its members鈥攚ill achieve its potential without skilled leadership.

A good team leader is someone who listens, respects the contributions of others, and understands the mission at hand.

Just as important, a good leader is someone who, when the ideas are flowing freely, "can recognize the right idea and galvanize support for implementation," says Carl Fowler, vice president of field sales and solutions at San Francisco-based third-party logistics provider Menlo Logistics.

Any leader of a project team must also know how to structure meetings and interactions with a sense of urgency.

"The amount of time team members will spend together is precious and fleeting," notes Gregg Richard Macaluso, a supply chain strategy and innovation instructor at the University of Colorado's Leeds School of Business in Boulder. "So it's critical that the team leader create momentum, get rhythm, and come to a conclusion.

"The leader has to have an astute sense of the clock," he says. "If the rest of the team senses that time is being wasted, they stop collaborating fully, or worse, they become passive aggressive."

Contrary to conventional wisdom, team leaders who can achieve all this aren't so much born as made鈥攖hrough careful mentoring, training and coaching.

When executives charter a team and assign it a leader, they need to be accessible for coaching. It's important that some member of the executive leadership is available to help a team leader troubleshoot problems that arise, and provide big-picture context.

What's more, senior leadership needs to provide clear objectives and help the team leader evaluate the team's effectiveness.

That can be done with standard metrics and a balanced scorecard, or through a series of questions: Has the team improved operations? If so, how? Have its efforts increased customer satisfaction?

Measuring team effectiveness isn't always easy. "The metric doesn't just pop off the page," notes Todd Berger, president and CEO of Chicago-based Transportation Solutions Enterprises. In fact, team success typically needs to be assessed at intervals.

"We take a 30, 60, 90 approach," Berger says, meaning that after each of the first, second, and third months, the team leader and the chartering executive review the team's progress and direction.

And when the team wraps up its work, it's important that senior leadership recognize the effort. It doesn't matter whether the acknowledgement is "big or small, just as long as it's recognized," Berger adds.

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