Season 8 Episode 3 - What It Takes To Run a Top Supply Chain Program

Speaker A: Foreign.

Speaker B: Welcome to the Supply Chain Central podcast, the official podcast of the Rutgers Supply Chain Association.

Speaker C: Ruska.

Speaker B: I'm your host Farren Martin, joined today by fellow content committee members Tree Lam and VP Nate Perez, who will be running today's show. In today's episode we are speaking with Dr. Tony Bell, current professor at Rutgers and co director of of the supply chain program here at rbs and Hassan Peeve, current assistant director of the supply chain program and assistant professor here at Rutgers. Tune in to hear hear their insights of the supply chain industry and their unique perspective working in academia.

Speaker C: Well, my name is Tre, uh, current Diaza and current Bally's video operations.

Speaker D: I am Nate Perez, ex J and J current Sanofi co op.

Speaker C: And welcome uh, to our podcast. Nez.

Speaker E: Thank you, thank you for having, thank

Speaker C: you for being here even though uh, winter break and your busy schedules.

Speaker B: So we appreciate it.

Speaker A: All right. This is part of the busy scheme. How was your guys break, Ben? Good, man.

Speaker E: Yeah, it went by fast though. Yeah, usually.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker E: Yeah, we're by fast getting prepared for classes so it's good. We're expecting uh, a good turnout this year, so.

Speaker C: Yeah, because I know you switched from Newark to now New Brunswick mostly, right?

Speaker E: Yep. I'm back home. I actually started out in New Brunswick in 2020 just before the pandemic and then I shifted over to Newark in 2021, mid-2020.

Speaker C: Was there a major. Yeah, that's usually the opposite. Was there a major reason on why you switched over to New Brunswick?

Speaker E: Sorry to new. You know, I think the biggest thing was that they wanted more focus and support over there. They had some shifting in, uh, the professors, folks who are retiring or shifting around and they needed more support and I was up to it. You know, I grew up in that area so it was cool getting up back up there to teach and whatnot. So

Speaker B: um, do you guys want to go over a little bit about what you guys do for the supply chain program at rbs?

Speaker A: Like what you're should take it away. Tony first big right. So what do I do for the program aside from teaching, uh, and mentoring, uh, students on a regular basis? I'm also co director of the program. So what does that mean? It's a lot of administrative work that I do in addition to the teaching and mentoring and some of the work that I do there is around approving independent studies, um, uh, helping just even revise the curriculum if we need to make any changes to the curriculum or update to make it even better. Those are some of the things that we Discuss and do, uh, and just making sure really that everybody's supported from a, uh, department standpoint with what we do every day.

Speaker E: Yeah, I always layer on the same aspects.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker E: So from a mentoring teaching, I focus on students development. When I'm um, in New Brunswick or Newark. My role has always been externally based, where I'm looking at the high schools, the community colleges, the programs that bring in like a conduit of uh, future supply chain professionals. Uh, and then I leave all the administration stuff to these guys.

Speaker A: But what's interesting though is we're, we're doing more of that now. Right. Because of what Newark was doing. Doing. So we're doing a lot more of those types of activities working with the high school. So we've reached out to a number of the high schools and I know tree you were involved in some of that as well and doing some info sessions there. But um, yeah, we're bringing a lot of that stuff down the university because it's necessary. I agree.

Speaker E: So I think that energy so in our goal is usually twofold. So you have this external execution of bringing in talent, getting them to understand what supply chain is. And then you have this internal building the competencies, giving folks experiential learning and stuff. And once you marry those up, then you get success. Right, so that's what we've been focused on.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker E: Uh, yep.

Speaker C: So is that, is that what's happening on Wednesday where like the external is now starting to come back? So for, uh, our viewers, um, we have a supply chain case competition on Wednesday for high school students coming in. It's our first time in what, three years? In like three, four years.

Speaker A: Yeah. We used to do it in the, in the springtime.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: And then I think it even moved over into the summer at one point. But now, yeah, we're bringing that back. That's going to happen on Wednesday.

Speaker E: I think the pandemic like disrupted the modest that way. And then we didn't naturally go back to all of it.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker E: Right after it was over. But that was a big, uh, alignment not only with the high schools, but with Rutgers University because some of the high schools actually got credits for being a part of the program. And then a lot of the teachers and the administrations from those high schools actually picked up our program as baseline to what they were doing in supply chain.

Speaker D: Yeah.

Speaker A: And one of the things we found too is that a lot of the uh, the high schools were um, moving away from even doing the competition with us. We would reach out to them and they would say no, you know, we're not interested, but we found out because we were doing it remotely because of COVID uh, because of the pandemic. So now that we're bringing them back on campus, they want to be on campus. Right. A lot of those student high school students, they want to get that campus feel. And so now that we're bringing it back on campus, start to get more participation.

Speaker C: One of the biggest, I think, strong points for this high school, like supply chain program is that not a lot of people know this, but it's a two or three year program. So you do it within freshman or sophomore year. And it's an automatic acceptance to the Rutgers supply chain program, which is extremely hard to get into now. Um, so, you know, this was one of our, like, biggest points of when reaching out to externally when I did the, uh, external with um, Carteret High School, uh, talking about supply chain, is that it's extremely hard to get into now. But if you do this two or three year high school program, it's an automatic acceptance to Rocker.

Speaker E: Now, uh, what high schools are actually participating in a program is that.

Speaker A: Yeah, there's a list. So Professor McClure, who's the other co director of the program, he has kind of that, I think, list of the high schools that we typically will connect with.

Speaker E: And we're probably growing that list as we are.

Speaker A: We're definitely growing that list.

Speaker C: But definitely reaching out to them is a bit of a pain.

Speaker A: You've done that?

Speaker C: I've done a lot like, um, coordinating with Professor Bell. And it's just like you would think that helping students get into one of the hardest business programs now in the east coast would help your students, but they just ignore it.

Speaker E: Yeah. So, yeah,

Speaker D: send knowing emails is constantly

Speaker A: a call, you know, like call the calls on emails. The customer side of supply chain,

Speaker E: staying

Speaker A: away from that as often as I know I was on the customer side most of the time, man, that was a stay away from that side.

Speaker B: Um, well, to start, um, Professor Bill and pb, you guys have both been, had like wide experience in the industry, but then now also teaching. How is the change going from like being in the industry and then now teaching supply chain?

Speaker A: That's a good one.

Speaker E: So I, I think there are some similarities. Right. Always have goals and deliverables where we were in industry. Right. Measuring metrics and outcomes. I think in academia, my customer changed. My customer is my student.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker E: So all about their development, all about looking at the trajectory going out and where the industry is requiring them to be. Are they being prepared for it. So, versus industry. I felt like the. There was always this continuum on a challenge. Right. Versus developing an individual and then deploying them in industry. My only critic, for the most part, I, uh, tell my, you know, my colleagues all the time are my students. Right. That's my critic. Now when I walk into that class, I'm trying to engage them to the point where they understand the possibilities and what they can do. And a lot of times when they first come into school, they don't know there's a broad breadth of what they actually can do in their careers. Right. That's my job. In industry, we're handling a solution, and in academia, we're providing a solution. That's how I looked at it.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's a great way to put it. And in fact, um, you know, thinking about, you know, putting the customer first or putting the student first was a. A shift for me. And to a degree. Right. And even, even when I was working in industry, it was always about putting the customer first and understanding what you did. I mean, how that had an impact on. On the customer. But here, you know, in academia, uh, I found a, uh, more of a shift in. In just my mindset. Because when I came into academia, I was also focused on, all right, well, why do we do this this way? The processes, right. Of how to make sure that we're meeting the needs of our students versus just really focusing on our students.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: So. And I had to get away from that because I said that's not your job. Your job isn't to look at all these processes and try to fix them anymore. Right. Your job is really focus on what do you need to deliver to, you know, that, that level of customer service you need to deliver to your students. To your point. So it was a shift in mindset, for sure. Yeah.

Speaker B: Well, to that point, um, what about, like, the program, Would you. I. I was talking to Tree, and he was saying that he. He mentioned that you guys talk about sometimes, like things that you'd want to change in the curriculum, things you want to change in the program. Like what, what are some of those things that you guys would think about? Like, changing?

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, one of the.

Speaker D: The.

Speaker A: The best. I'll step back a little bit. So we, um, we did a survey recently of all RBS students because we really wanted to find out, um, what would kind of draw them. Them to certain majors and especially supply chain in particular. Right. And so one of the things we got back is that students are focused on, hey, once this is over, am I going to be able to get a job, right? So where are those opportunities to be able to get internships, co ops, to be able to meet, you know, folks from, or executives or even middle management from different companies to try to make those connections and create that level of networking. And so for us, one of the things I know that we're focused on is or those opportunities, one thing we're doing is bringing back the uh, the career fair, the career expo, specifically for supply chain. It's been gone now for a couple of years and so we're bringing that back. So that's one thing that we're doing. So we're focusing on programs that really lead our students to those opportunities. That's one of the things for sure. And I think the other part is experiential learning. So however, we can bring um, those real world, um, concepts into the classroom and on the tree. And you and I talked about this a lot, right? Because instead of us standing up there and lecturing for you know, three hours, you know, how can we make sure that we um, incorporate those activities that will really help a student understand supply chain even better. So you know, if it's a negotiation exercise, you know, for procurement, you know, or if it's, you know, doing something like, you know, the beer game or the root beer game in this instance, or um, for teaching students about, you know, supply chain disruption, uh, those are the types of things that I think we want to incorporate more.

Speaker D: That is also something I actually really love about Rutgers, like just across the board from professors is especially in supply chain, the idea of real world examples and like putting it into a, like an exam essentially. Like sure, at first it may be hard, but once you actually understand it, you might end up uh, seeing that question in your job down the future. Like for risk management with Agresta on the first exam, one of the questions that I got wrong I ended up seeing a month later in my co op in vendor management, like almost like word for word, my manager asked the exact same question and I was just

Speaker A: like, wow, that's the difference in. All right, yeah, uh, full stop.

Speaker C: Like one of the big things that I was talking to you and even like Nate and like other students is like how practical would it be to make the class half lecture, half exam and half actual practical application of the job that we're doing. Like what we're saying with you and negotiations and like we could easily find some type of procurement deal from your X drops like Estee Lauder or um, J and J. Like we can definitely find Some procurement negotiations that are past their NDA, whatever, whatever contract things. And we could use those numbers and be like, hey, these are the numbers. You're the other supplier. Your grade is now based on how, how well you can negotiate this. Or like I think a big thing that me and Nate did was um, the soda pop game in demand planning. How can we like the, the most basic example of demand planning. How can we use that into demand planning? And that was also like, oh, shoot, wait, this is something like I actually might be able to do. I know it's a lot of numbers, but the processes of doing it is actually enjoyable. So maybe we can get into it. So I think majority of like what we, um, the curriculum should be changing to is like something more practical so the students can see like this is what I'm going to do in my job. Like um, that one of the big things is me and Nate took Ann Baggy, um, for project management and most

Speaker D: helpful class I think at ah, Rutgers

Speaker A: really Because I had.

Speaker D: So I did my co op was kind of fun because it showed me legal procurement as well. And I had the ability of going through contracts. And basically my manager told me go to work, mark off anything that they did incorrectly. So I look at a whole list of contracts and I'm just marking off all of the project management stuff because like, well, this is just not PMO certified. And then it, it came full circle because when legal looked at it, they marked the same stuff I did. Um, so that really showed me that you need a one like a standardized way of doing stuff. And then also it helped me present as well because we, at the end of that class you have to present essentially your idea. And that was probably the most helpful part of that class because it showed you how to present. And she made it so that you. It's more like presenting to senior leadership rather than your classmates because not only are they grading you, your classmates, but the way like the stuff she was looking for I ended up seeing when I had to present to the VP of J or Medtech, uh, at J and J for when I finished my internship, it was very similar. Like when I talked to my manager through it, I was, I started to realize, wait, it's like the same stuff. The same stuff that she wanted is the same stuff that my VP would want to hear, which I thought was like the most perfect thing. And that's why like when all my friends ask me for project management, I recommend her because that class will teach you the most.

Speaker A: Yeah, more hands on, more practical stuff.

Speaker C: Gantt charts. Like some. I think there was this one time that I had to do Gantt charts for another class and I'm like, oh shoot, I know what a Gantt chart is because I had to do it for project management. So I think that like very practical class of hers is like what I think I feel like a Rutgers class should be.

Speaker A: And remember that some classes will lean themselves. Right. Uh, a lot more towards those practical type of activities. So just, you know, just from a student perspective, understand that because there's, it's tough sometimes, like for manufacturing. Yeah. It's not, it's, it's not easy. Right. To make glass into the class, to bring them into manufacturing. Yeah. So you bring.

Speaker E: HM.

Speaker A: Them to manufacturer.

Speaker E: So no, I, I think what professor, uh, Bell said was correct relative to experiential learning and the simplicity around conveying and translating supply chain, uh, in a very simplistic way. Because if you can relate to it, everything that I do from getting out of the bed to getting to school has supply chain interactions into it. So in our class we start bringing the experiential stuff in and then trying to tie to what you do in your daily life. So once you start seeing the simplicity around that, then you're like, wow, um, I'm in the supply chain already. I'm consuming the supply chain every day. And I think for students that's a light bulb coming on when we start to translate. And I tell folks, initially, intro to Supply chain is probably going to be your hardest class because it's the translation of what it is. It's like learning a new language. Right. All the other classes we start to get in depth into a function of supply chain or aspect of supply chain. Right. Which is really cool. I think once you get to that point where you start feeling like I can do it. No matter what your background is, your skill sets are, your perspective is, what your experiences are and you feel like I can be successful in supply chain. That's when we know we've done our jobs.

Speaker C: That's one of the most interesting questions when um, Professor Phoebe and Professor Bell did the high school presentation is I'll give you 100 bucks if you can name me one process or one item or one thing that you consume that doesn't have a supply chain. I think that was one of the most interesting questions that you bring up for 100 bucks.

Speaker E: Nobody got that 100, but he still had a guy. I'm like, I'm just like, I'll sell you 100 right now. All my classes and start the semester. No one, everyone comes up with some weird, you know, suggestions. Hey, having, uh, children or arguing or air or something like that. And he like, if it's a product or if it's a service that we're consuming, every one of them have a supply chain, everyone. So it is cool to see light bulbs gone the last bite.

Speaker B: Um, well, to take a step back, I was curious a little bit about how supply chain, um, has evolved as a curriculum. Like I had Professor Rogers and I was speaking to him, uh, like a month ago, and he was telling me I think supply chain became like the second largest major at RBS or something like that. And I was like, wow. Because when I told my dad, I was like, I'm gonna change the supply chain. He was like, what is that? I was like, yeah, it's a color. And he was like, ah, oh. So is it like logistics? And I was like, well, like logistics is part of supply chain. That's not just ig. And he was telling me, you know, that's not even like when he was in school. I mean he went to school in like the 80s, he said, like, that wasn't even like a. It was in the thought about major. Uh, and even Professor Rogers said, I think supply chain was like, it wasn't even in rbs. It was in like the management school or like some. Or like in a science school.

Speaker A: Operations under marketing. Here, Rutgers was under marketing.

Speaker E: Yeah. Supply chain used to be a, uh, tan and bang here until they started growing. I think our program. Was it 2010?

Speaker A: Yeah, 2010, yeah.

Speaker E: Oh my goodness. Took off.

Speaker B: So I guess I was curious a little bit about how that transition has been for like the major itself. How you guys seen it grow, how you guys have seen it change in like rbs.

Speaker E: Yeah. I think the biggest benefit we've had is our corporate partners and then bringing in industry professors. Mhm. Right. So I love our academic professors. They're very theoretic. Study, research. But then you have a group of professors in our corporate partners that sit on the board and they tell us about what they need in industry. So as industry is changing, you have these partners saying, you need to teach your students this, you need them in bi, you need them in Python, you need them doing SAP, you need them doing Excel. And staying ahead of what that means is usually having a network that uh, is operating in those industries. Right. So I think that's been just significant for us. I know you've been a part of board discussions and all our professors with different companies, we have large Companies that sit on our board and say, hey, your students need to be able to do this. That really, I think that's one of the main, one of the multiple drivers behind how our supply chain continues to change. Our curriculum, cybersecurity, AI is going to be embedded in everything, like for the next every. All our curriculums have like an AI embedded part or element to it coming up now. So those things are significant. And then I also tell the students, think about supply chain. We drive innovation. It's how do we do something better, how do we deliver services better? How do I go from Blockbusters videotapes to Netflix downloads? How did that happen? Right. We're driving innovation. Love finance. Right. The number line hasn't changed in a thousand years. Right. So the same numbers we had forever supply drones. How do I get stuff to you faster? Right. So when I think about how supply chain is changing, it's our professors that we bring from industry, it's our students that we deploy because they come back and say, here's jobs. And then it's our network partners, our corporate partners that sit on the board and say, hey, you, if you want to be ahead of the curve, competitive, if you want to be number one in business, in supply chain operations, here's the things you need to do. And we're like our Dean Lele, she's focused on always being top ranked in all those categories.

Speaker A: So.

Speaker E: Yeah.

Speaker A: And then Gartner too. So Gartner is a large international research firm and in the past, and unfortunately they recently stopped it, but they used to, uh, Highlight the top 25 supply chain curriculums across all the colleges and universities, um, throughout the country. We've always been top 10, you know, for always climbing.

Speaker E: We're always looking to swap back for, yeah. You know, the, the Penn State sort

Speaker A: of world and progress. But we've always been, yeah, we, we,

Speaker E: we're always like, we're going to obtain.

Speaker A: Yeah. But they provide us too a lot of insight. Right. So just like our corporate partners, they'll say, hey, you know, you're missing part, ah, of your curriculum in terms of make. Right. So the make function, manufacturing. So that's why we ended up, um, bringing on that manufacturing course because we knew that that was one of our program.

Speaker D: Yeah.

Speaker C: Like me and you were talking about it. Whereas, like, it's so difficult to incorporate that make class until there's enrollment. But you can't get that enrollment until

Speaker D: you made it core.

Speaker A: It's chicken in the egg, man. It's chicken and the egg. And unfortunately our, the Procedures that we have in place at Rutgers level, um, doesn't allow us to do that until we can really see success of enrollment in that course over a course of maybe like three or four semesters. So once that happens, then we can actually make it a core course difference.

Speaker E: Yeah, uh, the demand.

Speaker A: Yeah, demand. That's right. We got to get the demand up.

Speaker E: You have to be able to, you know, actually what we call a demand plan. If you can orchestrate demand, meaning have it move when you want it.

Speaker A: Exactly.

Speaker E: Then you're ahead of the game. And now we're trying to figure out what's the demand.

Speaker A: Right, Right. So you can own it. Right. So how do we. Yeah, so how do we take, you know, things like promotions. Right. Or lower pricing.

Speaker E: Right.

Speaker A: In that world, uh, be able to translate that over, uh, academia.

Speaker E: And that's where everything translates. Right. So I think industry, corporate world. Tony and I grew up in bigger our careers, much of our careers together. Where we cross is J and J Esteem. All the companies are the same. Where it starts to be like, what's the outcome you're looking for and what's the triggers? Yep. Same perspective and approach here in academic here.

Speaker D: Yeah.

Speaker E: What's the triggers? And that's our goal we always looking for. Here's the triggers to get the outcome.

Speaker C: What are your steps now? Trying to boost the enrollment in the make manufacturing special topics class.

Speaker A: Oh, in that. Oh, that class, not six. Okay. Uh, man. Enrollment overall, we got a laundry list of things we're doing there, but, um, for the make class name, we're promotion. You know, so every time we promote that course, we need to probably promote it more in Newark. I mean, we've been promoting it in New Brunswick, and so we end up getting to those numbers that we need. But I think just. And also highlighting the importance of that function. Um, what I found, at least in the companies that I work for, especially J and J, they say it, um. Ah. At Coca Cola they said it. You really have to go through manufacturing in order to move up in the organization. So if you don't get that experience or gain that experience, you're not going to move up. And I think that's still the. The case to, To. To a degree. So. Um, but what are.

Speaker C: I know a lot of our. I'm speaking to a lot of like, the manufacturing side as well. What do you think about, like, the people that just stay in warehousing, management and just can't move up or just don't want to get an MBA to move up? Like, what is that structure, like, if you don't want to move up.

Speaker E: So I think there's. Okay. There's instances in my career that I've had colleagues that stayed in line, what we called functional experts. Uh-huh, Right. Or you're going to have operational development. Right. And that's where we go into the plan, source, make, deliver and say, hey, I'm going to try to get development across all those. While I'm increasing my, my, uh, level of professionalism or your. What we would call your titles are going up, but it's usually a choice. Here's what I tell all my students. Right. So if you get to the point where you feel that I'm not developing with any company, and this is what I enjoyed about jj specifically because it allowed you to rotate and move to other companies to get development that you were seeking. But if you get to a point where you feel like there's no mutual development going on, you're just working and you're not feeling like you're developing, then you have to remember supply chain is an industry thing. All industry things. You don't have to stay there. You m. Leave on a good note. I've worked for jj. I spent a lot of my years in J and J. Seven years at, ah, Estee Lauder. Uh, I worked for food companies, paper companies, toiletry companies. Right. Started up my own business. So in your mind you gotta be like, supply chain is development. Right. That one company is great development, but that's not the end all, be all. And Tony will tell you, when you move from one company to the next company, you get a different culture, you get a different approach to solving solutions or providing solutions. Right. And you get a bigger bump in

Speaker A: your check too when you jump from company to company.

Speaker E: Way bigger. When you leave company to company, you get a way bigger bump than staying within company. Right. Which is always cool. Right. Uh, to be like, if I decide to stay in distribution operations, I have a path. And we used to map those paths.

Speaker D: Mhm.

Speaker E: As career development, we used to say, if you stayed this lane, here's the path you took.

Speaker A: So now I would say don't necessarily expect that going forward because I think the expectation from a lot of companies is that you're going to see a lot more churn in terms of people leaving companies and going to another. That's happening a lot more now than it did. I think when we were, when we were there, we would stay, yeah, maybe for like five to seven years, but then we move on. We're now a lot, uh, Staying two, three years, I'm moving to another company. So you may not necessarily see that same bump that we did.

Speaker D: One analogy I did like love when I was at my internship was from another VP at J& J who was, while she was at Merck. She explained that she had like the straight line where she could go, you know, my senior manager, director. Senior director, VP of them. Yeah, keep going up. But once she got the chance to see that, yeah, you're not going to be vp, but you'll be, you'll go back down to senior manager, but you have a better chance to get up, uh, to where you want to go. So you're technically going to go vert. You're not going vertical, you're going to go horizontal, which is okay. Sometimes you don't need to just go straight up the ladder. You can, you know, venture out and try to see what works. Because at the end of the day, you know where you want to be and if what you're currently doing isn't going to get you there, then you can. That's when you really want to venture out and find out. So then one thing I really loved as well was when she talked about finding your own value and finding your own worth, which I think was really important because real, like real life scenarios like, oh, hey, you know, because obviously it's happening a lot. Companies are firing a lot of people now specifically, not only in, like, not only in supply chain, but a lot of other parts of the business. They're firing more and more people. So this is like the perfect opportunity. Well, maybe I do throw out that job application to another major company because then I can see, well, I'm at the same level, but they're going to pay me more. And I have now I have, uh, a good three years again, three, four years of job security before, you know, that next round of layoffs comes. So then it allows me to now see why I can then maybe move up and then have more job security for the future. Or you just keep going. Which I think is what we're really seeing with that two, three year mark of people staying in companies. Because, uh, a lot of these companies are firing people. So there's no job security. So they're not going to want to stay. Which is why I think that going diagonal is probably what's best for most people now. Because unless you're just so good at that one role, which is also like, kind of like a double edged sword because you really need to be diverse in what you can do. Yep, going straight up the ladder won't really work for everyone now. It will work for some people, but I think a vast majority of people it would be good to go diagonal or horizontal like same role, but then you can see what another role does. Or hey, you're gonna get a buff, like a bump in salary. But whole new environment, whole new job, more job security. And I think that's really where hopefully companies can start to realize that. And instead of firing people, maybe you repurpose or try to make a new program or maybe move people to a whole new area, something that they don't know. Like, sure, yeah, it will cost money to learn, but it's going to be a lot cheaper than paying a new person who you also still have to teach at the current role.

Speaker A: There was a lot in there. I, um, I did something similar so with Coca Cola, I was a first level VP in their customer solutions group. So working directly with our big customers like Target and Walmart and customers, uh, like that. And then I actually moved down to a high level director role from a VP to a director role mainly because I wanted to get procurement experience and I didn't really have procurement experience. I said, oh, this is a great way for me to get procurement experience. And I stepped down and it was perfectly fine. Yeah, did I lose a little bit of salary? A little bit? Not much. Um, but it was a perfect opportunity for me to kind of round out my supply chain experience. Um, I will say today, you know, it's tough and I get, you know, the job market is as crazy as it is and a lot of companies are consistently laying off. And I love the idea of companies trying to kind of, you know, repurpose or uh, maybe move their resources around a little bit better to make things more efficient. But I tell you, it's tough, you know, especially today. You have just so many geopolitical things, right, that are happening that have a, uh, tremendous amount of impact on these hiring decisions, right? You have uh, just economic concerns and issues happening, right? So if you think about what's happening in the environment, it's tough. You know, it's tough for companies to not make those decisions, unfortunately.

Speaker E: I totally agree. So I take both your points, right? And this is the message I give to my students because there's a concern about jobs and then the development. So I've heard this just settled with me for the last several years. I heard someone say people chase money M and titles M, titles M chase value M. So if you can create value, you money chases, you understand what that means? Most of the time when we're trying to get out of here, we're running up titles so we can make money. Money chases value. But if I learn to create value now, money chases me. That's what Tony just said. Tony said I was looking for development. So when I speak to my students and they're talking about, here's these big companies, small, uh, companies I'm trying to get in here. No, the real solution is chasing development. Every chance you get to chase and get developed, that's what you're getting paid for. And that's why I pitched supply chain and I truly believe in it. The fact that it's the broadest developmental major here at Rutgers in any other school. I don't have to get another degree to go into another part of the business. If I got a supply chain to degree, if I got a finance degree and I want to go into supply chain, that's a hard seller. Marketing degree, same thing, right? If I want to. It's so many different avenues. So even when folks are starting to, uh, ratchet back and reduce jobs and roles, supply chain usually has 2 times to 5 times job availabilities, meaning different types of jobs you can do versus the other majors. Uh, so even probability wise, I have better pivots. I can go from procurement, I can go to process excellence, I can go to manufacturing, logistics, I can go to project management, procurement. None of all the majors say, hey, I got like a hundred different jobs I can do, right. If things go bad or go south, right. In the industry that I'm in, they'll integrate people.

Speaker A: Then take AI, right? So I remember you gave me a slide that I showed you, right, that talks about the impact that AI is going to have on all these different industries. And where is supply chain the lowest, right. The lowest impact. And so you have finance pretty much almost at the top. It was up there as well.

Speaker E: That's reality. And that's back to your point is reality. And uh, let's think about it from the micro level, right? What's the goal of a business to make money

Speaker D: cost this low profits.

Speaker E: And remember, we're 65 to 70% labor people. We're 65 to 70% of the cost. So who's going to go first when they start talking about increase in profitability?

Speaker A: That's right.

Speaker E: That's just, it's not personal, right? You just need to know where you're at and you need to know how to pivot. And for me, supply chain has been this a great pivot. It's like you can m move from here. I'm tired of that. Things are not going great over here.

Speaker D: Right. One of the things I actually love about supply chain because in my co op I was able to see accounting, finance, legal, procurement, obviously supply chain as well, because it was in supply chain digital like J and J and seeing all parts of the business. I worked with finance, worked with finance. That was a good opportunity for me. Good. To understand how they operate.

Speaker E: Working

Speaker D: on accounting with um. So I worked with vendors and we created like an accounting dashboard essentially through Power Bi and took a little bit of Python coding as well to actually get it to work. But that was a fun learning curve for me and I was able to finally add it to my resume because I spent five days of like eight, eight, like full eight hours of five days just, just messing around with it to see what can I change, what will work. And being able to like fully understand the supply chain connects with all of them. And I'm a supply chain of the business analytics, information technology, double major. So for me, I am able to see now accounting, finance, business tech. I can see everything. Data analytics, uh, it just allows me multiple chances. And I kind of can see that even with some of the Rutgers University Supply Chain association alumni, some of them don't work in supply chain, they work in finance, they work in accounting, but they were just straight supply chain majors. Some of them even had business analytics as like a concentration. I know one of them works in finance for Goldman Sachs. I don't know if she still is there, but I know she was there for about four years and she has zero finance experience. And it's just because supply chain and business analytics together is such a good opportunity. And one thing I actually loved for one of our previous episodes last year for the podcast, our alumni called it Salt and Pepper. That that was probably the best clip that we've ever had on this podcast.

Speaker E: So that's, that's good. I. I just think that when you think about a major that, like you said, gives you insight to how every function on the business is connected and how it's actuating to perform that outcome at a cost. There's no other major that allows you to see that and use it to start up your own business.

Speaker A: Yep, yep.

Speaker E: So if you're starting up your own business now, you know exactly what you need to put in place or the questions and the functional support you need to execute that business.

Speaker A: Yeah, I remember the days in these big companies where you would have, you know, an IT person that would help people. You would Have a dedicated finance person. You would have a dedicated HR person. You don't have that anymore. Like it's all shared service.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Right. So it's first come, first serve. So now you have to have. To your point, you have to have that financial acumen. You have to understand how finances work. Right. Within the supply chain. You know, if you're breaking down maybe the cost of a product. Right. How much is it the cost to serve?

Speaker E: And when you're negotiating those same contracts.

Speaker A: Exactly.

Speaker E: You're now trying to hold the cost to meet your model for your profitability.

Speaker A: Exactly.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker E: So is it with their hire hr your head, you learn all about hr. When do a buyer. How many do I have our budget or BVAs. All that budget variance analysis, all that stuff we're looking through, like all is about cost.

Speaker A: I know in our careers we've had to learn all.

Speaker E: Yeah, yeah. Every one of them.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker E: And you had to go ready to ask questions. You weren't always required to know the answer.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker E: But you needed to know the relevant questions to ask in order to get the answer. Yeah. To protect that outcome.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker E: Uh, yeah. Yep.

Speaker C: Basically to round it up. It's the easiest major to get out

Speaker D: of, you know, like. But it's. But the hardest major to get into

Speaker C: if we don't have any experience. That's basically the conversation Nexus has.

Speaker E: It is, it is, it is, uh, developmental in every nature. Right there. And the last thing I would say. Right. I tell folks in my class who wants to sit and do the same thing for the next five to 10 years. There's some folks who are wired like

Speaker D: that

Speaker E: two to three years best for me, after I feel I reached my saturation in learning, I want to do something else. I want someone else who has that energy for where I'm leading to come in and take it to that next level. Let me rotate somewhere else. That's why we had. Yeah. Rotational programs.

Speaker A: Yep.

Speaker E: Right. Ah, that's it.

Speaker A: And even if our. Within our day to day. Every day was different.

Speaker E: Exactly. Oh yeah.

Speaker A: Every day was different.

Speaker E: Mhm.

Speaker D: Yep.

Speaker E: Even when you change names on the company. Yes. When I went from JJ to Estee Lauders to another company, every day was different. Even though the name was on, the company was different as well.

Speaker B: So I'm a little curious about what you guys, what led you guys to pursue academia and teaching after all this industry experience? Like, was there like a catalyst necessarily? Was there like a point that like

Speaker C: led you guys to come here?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker E: Oh, uh. I'm gonna be honest. I'll be honest. So I think at a point in my career, I was like, it never felt like it started. Even though I love Supply Chain, I think it's the great, uh, pivot. When you want to develop yourself and do other things, even start up your own business, it provides you with that development. I think at a point in my career, I was like, it didn't feel like it was changing. It means like we were fighting fires or developing something every day. So if you do a new product launch, once you finish with that, it feels like something new starts like a new year. No, Supply Chain, you usually get recognized when things go bad. When things are running good, nobody knows who you are, you're getting paid good, but no one knows who you are. So at a point, I just wanted to change. Uh, and I fell in love with teaching. I fell in love with. I love Supply Chain, so I love teaching about it. Uh, I love talent, so I love developing it. And Supply Chain taught me is okay to pivot. Right. So in your life, like, I started up a business two and a half years ago. I started to get into academia. I do finance, uh, uh, coaching and stuff like that. It teaches you. You're able to do so much. Right. And this was just at a certain age, I was like, hey, I'm not trying to wait till I'm like, you know, a certain age where I can't walk no more to get my time back. You know what I mean? I want my time back. Ah. A lot of it in Supply Chain taught me. It helped me financially get to that space where I could leave as well.

Speaker A: So very similar, um, situation for me. Very, very similar. And for me, I'll be honest and transparent. I. I got burned out. I just got burned out. You know, I had planned it. I. Yeah, I. Man, I plan to start teaching a lot later in life. Well, I don't say a lot later in life. I'll say maybe about five years from now is what I plan to start. But then, you know, I said, listen, uh, let's. Let's see if I can start this area. So I called up my financial advisor. I said, hey, can you run some numbers? Is this possible for me to be do? Because I knew I would take a serious pay cut to do that. But it was still important for me to be able to pass on all the knowledge and learnings that I had on to our students. And that was the most important thing for me. I always wanted to do that. That was always my plan. It's just, um, I started a lot earlier than I planned to and at the same time, same as usan. We have parallel, a lot of parallels here. You know, also started a business at the exact same time that I left, uh, industry.

Speaker E: Yeah.

Speaker C: I think one of the biggest questions right now is are any of you guys hiring interns for said businesses you guys created?

Speaker A: Interesting.

Speaker D: You said,

Speaker A: well, I may be getting to a point where I may need same here.

Speaker E: Right. So the goal is in God's world. So the goal is for my business. I just came from a pet expo yesterday at the Raritan center at Edison where I was there for the last three days and I have a pet company. Uh, the goal is to get to a point where I can hire my first interns. I've been hiring more of consultants where it comes from the website developers who's in place that manages everything, the fulfillment centers, the contracts, the material providers. So all of those are like contractual help. Uh, but I'm praying in the next year I'm able to bring on my next full, my first full time intern. So that's the goal.

Speaker A: Yeah, I actually bought us, I have a travel agency, the travel agency franchise that I purchased um, back in 2019 and been doing well. I mean of course pandemic hit us and that was a problem. But once, once that was over, ended um, up really doing well. So I'm doing well with the agency. In fact, uh, I just got back from a cruise, uh, because uh, it was me and another business partner. We uh, wanted to check out this new ship that was going out of uh, Galveston, Texas. And so that was a lot of fun to be able to go down there and check out the ship and check out the services and be able to speak about it to future clients. But um, I've been able to hire two independent contractors who now work for my agency. And so that was uh, a big deal. But still I may need some other, some other assistance as we, as we go along.

Speaker C: Vacation in disguise.

Speaker A: Yes, there you go. Exactly. Great write off.

Speaker B: So looking at like this perspective of Rutgers, like the supply chain program itself, I know for one I get, I always look at those emails that you send. Uh, Dr. Bell of all like the internship opportunities and you know, it's always at the top of my inbox. But what are some of the initiatives of like that you guys do to keep the program at the top, like you guys were saying, the top rounds program.

Speaker E: So we do the supply chain festival, uh, where we bring in industry partners is probably like last year we had 200 to 250 participants from school, students, administration. And then also we bring in maybe 10 to 15 corporate partners, meaning folks who came through Rutgers University or is in some way a partner with Rutgers Business School. And we do a two hour to three hour session. They are on a panel and then when the panel breaks out, they have lunch and dinner for everyone. They get around the table, everybody's broken up into these tables, they do round tables. And then at like the 30 minute mark, everybody switch, uh, and they meet, they get to network and meet and get clear perspectives. Because one thing I think students don't realize, everyone that they're looking up to at industry and think that, wow, that person is really successful, came through the same channel they came through going through the same questions they're going through. So when you sit down and realize that person who's a VP and CEO, uh, they pull up their pants just like I do. It's just humbling to be like, oh, I can connect with this person, I can do that stuff. So we do the supply chain, uh, fest as a way of giving a practical look at that journey into supply chain from other professionals that either recently graduated, currently in graduate school or in industry. All of them come back out.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think it goes back to, you know, a lot of what we talked about.

Speaker D: Right.

Speaker A: So meeting the needs of our customers and who are our customers? It's you. And so how do we make sure that we're truly meeting those needs? And it's through, you know, opportunities like that. It's through things like bringing the supply chain Career Expo back to, to Rutgers Business School. Um, it's things like, you know, working, making sure that our clubs are as effective and as efficient as they can possibly be and bringing those supply chain programs to our students. Um, it's, you know, things like a study, new study abroad program that's right now in the process of getting approved. Um, it's run by Professor Ann Bakjee, by the way, so she's running a study abroad program in Ireland. It's more focused on healthcare. Um, but it's really going to be open to any student that might be interested in going abroad to Ireland.

Speaker E: And we have our Road to Supply chain leadership activity three years ago.

Speaker A: Exactly.

Speaker E: So I think we're building in some of the core aspects to keep our students engaged and also give them advantage from a development standpoint. Because a lot of times these companies are saying, what do you know? And they're expecting us that have given you the core fundamentals to go into their companies.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker E: And that's really what the Goal has been uh, to continue to provide those things.

Speaker A: And I think it's also important to make sure that we maintain the balance between our academic um, professors and our practice professors and making sure that there's even a better balance of that so that we have um, more of our industry professionals that are teaching um, a lot of our classes and supporting our students.

Speaker E: Yeah, again I think that we're ahead of the curve for the most part and we're always looking for feedback from our students, industry partners, professors. What should we be doing now to make uh, sure? Rutgers is always an elite business school in an elite option. A value position. Right. Rutgers is a value position to our students. We want jobs. I ask my students every this, this coming week, I asked them raise their hand. Who wants to be broke? Nobody. Nobody raised their hand. Nobody raised their hand. Right?

Speaker D: Right.

Speaker E: So the goal is to make sure they have jobs. We have the saying which says, uh, supply chain. Our job isn't done until you get a job. Not about just getting the grades, actually us walking you to the point where you felt like, yo, it's a strategic relationship here, not just a tactical.

Speaker A: And even one of the things that I know Tria brought up about more partnerships with small and medium sized businesses because that's also pretty important.

Speaker D: Right.

Speaker A: We, we deal a lot with these large companies that are in the area but we really need to I think focus more on more um, small and medium sized business partnerships because I personally

Speaker C: for me I'm working for like a smaller, smaller size startup right now in Diaza. I think they value more about commitment. And did you do your research on the company? Like do you fit our value proposition? And I feel like a lot of these bigger companies are just resume hunting. Uh, obviously it's really hard for them to just go through thousands and thousands of applicants for sure. But for me I looked when I, when we were hiring for Diaza, I looked through every single resume. I looked through what um, jobs they did, what jobs they didn't do and if I could help them as well. So I feel like with these smaller medium sized businesses where they're just not filtering through ats, through these job uh, job applications, they're actually looking through hundreds of applicants like I did and it sucked. But I sent like 70 like personal rejection emails from myself like me doing it. So like um, it's just like their, their mindset is more like can you contribute to our company? Can we also contribute to your development? But in the end are you going to be that great person that we can hire Full time at the end of your school?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: Like these bigger companies, they can filter through co ops, internships full time, like easy to just. All right, let's post one. Okay. 101,000 applicants by 24 hours, like Nate said for his co op.

Speaker D: Oh. So yeah, for my internship over the summer at J and J, it was open for 72 hours and they had within the first 10 minutes over 500 applications. They ended up having over 10,000 applications. And this is where the automated like system actually failed them. The director and then the hiring manager, both of them had to look through all 10,000 resumes because they didn't want graduate students, obviously because it was meant for undergrad. But the system did not realize that because it just showed graduation date. And some graduates are graduating 26 and 27. That's not what they wanted. So when they get back they're like, oh, you know, master's degree, doctorate degree. And they're looking at that and they're like, well, wait, we don't want that. We wanted undergraduate. So they had to manually look through all 10,000 applications. And it was when we found that out the end of the internship, we were all like, you actually, like, we were shocked that they actually looked at it. They went, yeah, we spent around 10 days. And then three of them were like all nighters just going through all of your resumes.

Speaker E: Wow.

Speaker D: And then they picked out 20, gave them the higher view, then picked out 10. Eight of them or seven of us got the job, one of us was a returner. So they already got the job prior.

Speaker C: So there's like this big gap of like 10,000 applicants within 72 hours and maybe 200 applicants that me, myself could look through. I could look at 200 resumes, 200 linkedins within probably a full day's worth of work rather than, you know, that. So I feel like that's the big gap of like us trying to partner with smaller companies and medium sized companies in which they want to retain the talent. They don't want you to leave like with, Obviously they might, but J and J, Sanofi, these bigger pharma companies, or even just like bigger retailers like Macy's, Bloom, they can rotate talent that constantly.

Speaker E: And that's why I always highlight development as, ah, being the driver.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker E: So our students, a lot of them are going to see the glitz and glam of um, a, J and Js. Right. So that's why you're getting that much volume of applications. Right. So I'm always telling my student, focus on development Development can be at a small starter just as much as it has as Jane J. If you're focusing on development, your perspective changes, right? You're like, okay, I'm gonna go and get added value to my own knowledge base that I can leverage in the future. And I can do that at a small company or a big company. Especially at J and J, depending on your level when you came in, it can be very focused roles. Right. So it is a small focus role. You may get even more Runway at a large, a smaller company to get involved in more.

Speaker D: Right.

Speaker E: Out of smaller.

Speaker C: Yep. For sure. Like, uh, for me, like I've been in projects like events, like planning, uh, events. That's an exact level, like an exact little thing. And then they're like, hey, all, uh, right. My manager, I love my manager. He's like, he's always pushing me, going through. And he's like, trey, we're doing this event. You're going to want. Do you want to join the meeting? Want to help us? I was like, sure. And then I helped lead the event for that. I think you guys saw it on my LinkedIn and it was like that. And now it's like, oh, next event. Hey, our sales guys, uh, doing this event. Can you help them with logistics? So now I'm like, all right, keep going. Even through marketing, where it's like, hey, I see that you're doing this ad campaign. Do you need help finding people? Do you need help running anything? Do you need help me getting anything? All right. And then blend into that. Now I'm going through hiring process. Hey, accounting needs help, Customer service needs help. Sales is up. Okay. I have a bunch of students that are also looking for part time to full time. Let me be a talent acquisition. That's like recruiting. So like, it's like I get to jump into these, all these roles, not even in supply chain. I'm touching procurement, event logistics, logistics, just like all these. And now I'm branching out into these other ones that it's like invaluable experience. Like what Nate was going was like he started at one place, but then he's going, blah, blah, blah. It's a lot harder, I feel like for the bigger companies than it is for the smaller companies when you're just

Speaker D: like, uh, yeah, I would say I got lucky because the role at J and J that I was in felt more like a startup because it was only real. Like it was really only around for three years. And prior to that it was probably around like another eight years. But like, it was like A really low key team essentially. And over the years it kind of grew to the point where it is today, which is, it's now on the J and J home page. Like you can go to supply chain and you will see it there, which is uh, like that was a huge turn for them, I want to say. It was like they said it was like four or five years ago and being able to be a part of that and now see them deploy Costa Rica and then Cork leads and Blackpool, uh, over the past seven months was like a really big moment for me because it felt like I was a part of a startup. Even though the name was Johnson and Johnson. And that was like the biggest full circle moment because stuff that he did I would have the uh, like the pleasure of doing. But I know from other co ops like J and J, they didn't get the chance to do that. Which I think was the cool learning part because we were on such a unique team that dealt with the whole supply chain in terms of digitalizing it that I was able to see all parts of the supply chain. And then when I went to a co op for this under the same uh, like group but on a different team now I was able to use what I learned and actually apply it to finance, accounting technology and then also just basic contracting stuff that I learned from when I. This is why I actually love your procurement class because that negotiations class was my first meeting. They were uh, talking about negotiating and it was impressive because there was so many little deets. Like you get a purchase order, you don't. It is so like basic in terms of how it looks, but there's so many details that go into it that when you first look at it you're like, oh, you know, okay, yeah, it's cool. And once you actually understand what went into the purchase order, it's like uh, it was like my brain like connected. Like when you plug in an outlet, like it was like that everything connected the dots. It was like perfect. It was like a full circle moment for me. And that's what I really like about kind of being in more of the startup style of a major company. Which is also like kind of why my goal at least for the angle. For me I want to work at Apple because I know that's where innovation lies. Either Apple or Samsung, because that is where they're constantly changing. Obviously you can look at like the iPhone. You go from titanium to aluminum. That's what I kind of want to be a part of, seeing how that supply chain works, how you're Going to change from, you know, one product that's completely made of titanium to a whole new product that may be cheaper. But now you also have to come like incorporate the fact that, well now you want it to be better heat resistant so it doesn't overheat. And that's where I really like how innovation is like leading. That's where Supply chain really does good.

Speaker C: This is his interview for Apple. Right now.

Speaker A: Those at Apple, Nate Perez, if you're available.

Speaker D: Um,

Speaker B: um, wish we should talk forever

Speaker E: guys, but you got more questions as

Speaker B: our, you know, as our uh, conversation comes to a close. You know, our podcast has a lot of listeners of, you know, younger people in supply chain, you know, freshmen, sophomores, um, and Ruska. Um, is there anything that you guys would want to say to them? Any sort of, you know, advice or any sort of um, information to give to them?

Speaker A: Is it networking? Networking? Networking? Yes, it's important. Having the um, the knowledge and the skills around supply chain management is foundational. But you really need to learn how to connect with people. Right? Take every opportunity, especially in this job market, to figure out how you connect it every, anywhere. Like if you see, you know, something that might even be going on within marketing, you know, if you think that go, you know, there's some type of job fair or something, go for it. But think about every single connection that you can make. So whether it's an internship, co op or full time or part time opportunity, you know, that's the way that you're really going to be able to differentiate yourself from somebody else because so all these resumes, right, that these organizations are getting, um, and so how are you going to make yourself different? Well, if you know somebody and connected with somebody, you know, within that, that team, that's, that's also very helpful to

Speaker C: uh, add on to Professor Bell's points. My first ever internship happened at a nail salon. Um, yeah, exactly. Um, I was in the summer, uh, at Rhode island, sitting in my aunt's nail salon doing part time receptionist work. And this business owner comes in, albeit from an adult. Like uh, he sold his company, was selling adult toys. But he comes in. Yeah, I know. He, he comes in and he's like, hey, supply chain.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: He was like, hey, I think I really like your, um, you know, your aunt was telling me about you. Like I have, I might have a really good internship, um, within the marketing department. I'm like, sign me up. I'll be. If they took like three, four weeks to like respond to me because the HR manager was out. But you know, they internships and opportunities can literally be anywhere. Um, it doesn't have to be confined to an expo or an event. It could literally be in a line at shoprite. Hey, I overheard your conversation about, I don't know, manufacturing at this location. I have a simple idea that might be able to fix it. Oh, and it works. He's going to call you right back up. What other ideas do you have for these problems? I have people right now value skills over and what value you can create for them. And even in my second internship, I got it from Nick Leung, who was our other vp who played pickleball with their VP at, uh, Bally's. So all these, all these internships, all these connections, they do matter. It's just you cannot confine yourself into only finding them in certain locations. And especially like at these expos, career fairs, where they're already talking to hundreds of students and hundreds of other people, they're gonna filter you out. If you're not like, like adding some type of value, you're going to have to find these values and connections with, within other locations of, uh, business.

Speaker A: Great point.

Speaker E: Yeah. I'm usually telling students, um, know what you don't like and everything else is development.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker E: Some folks are trying to look for the perfect job as soon as they get out of school. And the reality is your life dynamics change, so what you consider a perfect job will change with those life dynamics. Look for development, not the name on the door. It goes like this. It says, be less concerned about where you land from a career perspective. Be more concerned about what you learn when you land.

Speaker B: All right, thank you guys so much. That was a good conversation.

Speaker C: All right.

Speaker A: All right, guys.

Speaker E: Yeah, appreciate it. Podcast signals out.