#07: Tom Schmitt Board Member - Contract Logistics and Global Chief Commercial Officer for DB Schenker

Tom Schmitt Board Member - Contract Logistics and Global Chief Commercial Officer for DB Schenker, which is one of the top 3 global 3PL companies in the world with operations in 140 countries. As the Management Board Member responsible for the $3bn+ Contract Logistics business, Tom is in charge of a global team of 22,000 logisticians with continued and accelerated profitable growth. In the first year of Tom’s leadership, DB Schenker Contract Logistics grew by 17 percent topline and saw a 20 percent growth to the bottom line.

Discover more details here.

Some highlights of the podcast:

• Top strategic directions that Schenker is trying to achieve in the next years. The top goals in the company by 2020.
• Contract Logistics. Where does Tom see the emerging markets?
• How DB Schenker customers expect them to use all the information, data, that we have to their advantage. Using big data and capacity planning.
• The importance of – People, service, profit in that sequence.
• Talking about left brain and right brain. How to access both types of thinking.
• Advice for a 23-year-old finishing collage – Think of your first move and your second move as an option expanding move.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:04

Hello and welcome to the leaders in supply chain podcast. I'm your host Rapala Mario global logistics and supply chain practice head for Morgan Phillips executive Sage. And my job is to connect you with local experts, thought leaders and executives in all things supply chain. And this is episode seven and I'm very happy to have with us today. Tom Schmidt, board member contract logistics and global chief commercial officer for DB Schenker, which is one of the top three global, uh, three theater companies in the world with operations in 140 countries as the management board, uh, uh, responsible for the 3 billion, uh, dollars contract logistics business. Tom is in charge of a global team of 22,000 logisticians with continued and accelerated profitable growth in the first year of Tom's leadership. DB Schenker contract logistics grew by 17% of line and saw a 20% growth to the bottom line. Also has served as president and CEO for a lot or in Canada as well as well as had a long career in FedEx having led as a, the CEO of the supply chain division as well. Tommy is a published author, having written the leadership book, single solutions hardness, the power of fashion and simplicity to get results, which is a great resource of leadership. Principals don't welcome and it's a pleasure to have you with us today. Well, thank you for having me of our pleasure. Um, so if we are going to start first by looking into the questions regarding the industry, um, would the, we'd like to be invited to share a little bit with us, the top strategic do

Speaker 2: 1:30

directions that Shanker is trying to achieve in the next years. And the, and maybe some of the top goals in the company is trying to reach by 2020. Yeah, it's actually very simple and straightforward. So as a company, we set ourselves an aspiration. We want to be the best. And uh, so I had nine years of Latin, um, and uh, we call it, we want to be Premerus the best, the first in class, not somewhere in the middle of the field, but the very best. And we actually picked three dimensions. We use a good number. Um, how can we express to be premium[inaudible] and we said we want to grow profitably. So we are roughly speaking globally, uh, 15, 16 billion Euro company. So getting close to 20 billion, we want to over the next five years, every single year grow by 1 billion euro top line. So 15 to 16, uh, this year my expectation is that to be a big check Mark there, we actually gonna grow by more than a billion, uh, this year. And then we wanna keep that good habit of profitable growth going. So add another billion or so top line every year. So that's the first aspiration we want to grow profitably and at a fairly sizable clip above market. Uh, the second thing has to do with efficiency. Um, growth by itself is helpful, but it's not all there is. You also have to be in game shape. Um, and game shape means you have to be efficient trim and make sure that that good growth actually up also showing up at the bottom line. So we do want to be a very, very efficient, uh, player. And, um, again, if you're a soccer fan, if you want to win, win the champions league, you obviously have to be in game shape. So we want to be in game shape. And a third thing thing is actually, frankly, I'm in my mind the most, uh, compelling one, the most rewarding one that SAB, you also want to have a culture that you're proud of. Uh, DB Schenker is 145 years old, which actually by itself is kind of cool. If you think about, um, look around the globe, you watched the globe and players who are across the globe the same way we do. So 145 years old, um, double digit billion in revenue and doing quite well. So if you think, if you scan the globe, how many companies are there that are more than a century old double digits in revenue? Billions and doing quite well. I don't know. I didn't Google it. 20, 30. It's not 500. So, um, it's, uh, so what we actually did was we also, when we say we want to have a profitable growth company that's in game shape and that also has a strong culture, we can draw on 145 years of our history. And, uh, we come up with a culture of performance orientation, innovation and also one of that's deeply values space. So we actually are kind of going around the globe of our DB Schenker roll of 70,000 teammates and saying, let's distill the best of, of those values and make that culture come alive every single day. So that's in growth efficiency in cultural terms, uh, what we're setting out to do, we want to be simply the best.

Speaker 3: 4:41

Mmm, super. Well thanks for the thanks for sharing that. And then indeed them could not agree more. That culture is, uh, is a key, a strategic element to the growth of it. Sustainable growth of any company. Um, and then, uh, obviously we are the aware at the time when technology is really an rapidly, uh, transforming the industry. So if you were to, to to think a little bit on the technology, uh, improvements and trends in logistics, which do you think will have the most impact by 2022?

Speaker 2: 5:14

The, uh, there's obviously a lot of things happening and none of them are new to you or, or to me, anything from, um, three D printing to uh, kind of the Airbnb for warehouses. There's a whole bunch of trends, but at it's core, I think the thing that's gonna happen most is the way we sell, innovate people buy is changing in there. Let me take you back. So I'm 52 years old. Um, about 40 years ago as a kind of 12 year old kid in the spring, every year I met with my parents to our local markets where the highlight was we would actually go into a travel agency and be looking at catalogs for like the hotel in Italy and the bus and uh, kind of and what the coast looks like and so on. And then we would pick a few things. Then we would go shopping in the market square, go back to the travel agency. And then they would have, miraculously they would have picked a hotel and a and a itinerary and all that and we booked it. So today, whether it's DB Schenker or whether it's some of our to competition, what I'm test describing is still happening quite a bit in the business to business space. People come to us and they book a trip a day, just that a trip is not a hotel in Italy on the coast, but the trip is actually, they need it, uh, something from Asia to North America formation up to Europe and they need a ship by their need of flight and then they come to us and then we at the travel agency and be booked for them. And that the picture the same way that travel agency in the market square that I into with my parents 40 years ago, probably no longer exists. Yeah. That process I just described business to business where companies come to us and we book a trip for them. That's not going to happen five years or 10 years from now. Technology platforms, people picking their own@thesamewayyouandigoandexpedia.com or some of those platforms on the business front, we have to really think through kind of how it is bad buying and selling will happen because it's not going to happen the way I just described going forward.

Speaker 3: 7:21

Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean that and that the, um, that is clear and, and also whoever is gonna pick up on that trend and managed to be at the forefront of the trend with, with will win. Um, and, and obviously, um, uh, there's a, there's also challenges to getting there. As you said, also, division greens are very, uh, very solid as well as a length in duration, 140 years plus of, of age as a company. But when you, when you see this transformation that industry is going through, what do you see also as that some of the biggest challenges, um, that, uh, even, you know, let's, let's talk about DB. Schenker is, is faced when implementing and adapting and transforming? Yeah, I mean, let me stick with the example that we just talked about. Right? So today companies talk with us and they say like, well, we were looking to move, uh, our new products that come out this fall kind of from manufacturing somewhere in Southeast Asia to these market, uh, places in Europe and the Americas. Then we talk with them about kind of how we route it to kind of when it will get deployed and when the launch date is and all that. So things are real conversations that are happening. So if what I just talked about becomes reality where a lot of these, a booking trips and launching products and making sure you actually plan for your supply chain is happening on platforms. So electronically, that conversation I just described won't happen necessarily anymore. Real time between you and me or other people about

Speaker 2: 8:56

launching, right? And we don't go back and forth about kind of how do we make sure that the product is available and what happens if there's a delay here. What if the, uh, order volume is going to be 20% higher than expected and this new iPhone will be the biggest hit in history or whatever it is wide. These are real time kind of thought and action, um, kind of partnership exchanges that are happening between the person in person. As you flip this process over to platforms, all problem solving, supply chain leadership capabilities are us having a real conversation and do real time problem solving. We have to find a ways to still provide that type of thought and action partnership because it's not going to be facilitated by the actual platform exchange by itself. So we have to make sure that we remain that thought and action partner to these companies that we are today. Despite the fact that some of the transactions will no longer be between us in person. They will be automated. Yeah. Yeah,

Speaker 3: 10:01

correct. And M and a and division. He's godly working with some of the, the biggest, um, um, manufacturers, shippers in the world. Um, what do you see as, as some of the current challenges that your clients are, are struggling with at the moment? And how is DP shingles and currently addressing,

Speaker 2: 10:22

I mean a lot what uh, what we've been seeing and this frankly I've saw, I've seen the same things, uh, already starting when I was at FedEx. Um, and I'm certainly seeing the same things today. Um, you could say, and this is a somewhat simplistic way of putting it, I do believe though it's relevant. Um, many customers, I mean they dealt with us, they were concerned about one thing primarily and that one thing typically was cost. And in some cases obviously the whole notion of time came in. And I was thinking about this in terms of currencies. Like what currencies do you care about? Do you parents, do you care about the currency costs? Okay, got it. Do care about the currency time. Oh yes. Okay. Those two things. Sometimes you have to find a sweet spot because if it's faster, it typically becomes more expensive. So which one do you care about most? What's most important to you and your customers? Is it speed or is it low cost? Increasingly, there is now at least the third currency that's been extremely relevant. Rochester for the last year or two, but for the last decade or so, uh, companies have been very outspoken about carbon footprint. What are we doing to the ecology, to the college, to the environment, our customers cares or we have to care. And, uh, so now you suddenly two optimizing at least three currencies, time, money, and carbon footprint. So our customers and their customers obviously are hugely curious about how, what's sweet spot between those sweet things. And because it used to be so simple way, Oh, I need lowest cost, or now I need this overnight. Okay. So it's this or that. Now it's edited, meaning more of these weaker car and seize. And so for us, working with them, finding that sweet spot that's the most development one for them is a challenge and that's going to be harder, not easier going forward. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3: 12:15

Um, and there's, I mean, as you're actually said, there's always a trade off, uh, uh, wants to, yeah. Most people want to, it's almost cliche and I want the lowest cost. Yeah. But you know, you ain't gotta give something to get something. Um, and, and speaking specifically about contract logistics and warehousing, which is a, as far as, uh, as I saw the numbers is the, uh, the very nice growth for, for DB Schenker. When do you see the emerging sports, uh, which countries, which regions? How do you see?

Speaker 2: 12:45

Yeah, I mean, we have a challenge obviously in terms of our Oh, history, which is a big strength, but, uh, also positions as geographically. What I mean by that is, so we are 145 year old. Um, we are a company that started in Vienna, Austria. It's now a German company. And today's still more than two thirds of our revenue are actually in Europe. Now, if you look around the globe, to your point about, so like, where are we, where are we going to be the fastest growing economies, uh, around the globe are not in Europe. They're obviously in Asia Pacific, they're in some parts of middle East Africa. They're in some parts of South America, Latin America. So one big challenge for us is how do we actually become more balanced? Um, if I'm thinking it in a very simple way, there's so-called try it. This we dominant, uh, parts of the globe in terms of America, middle East as our Americas, Europe, Asia Pacific and named as the emerging one with middle East Africa. So we have to be somewhat more balanced by being relevant and all of these markets, especially especially those that actually grow more faster. Growth rates are four, five, 6% as economy is not one to 2%. Um, like, uh, one example I always like using is Dubai. Uh, a you think about that area, um, you are within hours of uh, four to six hours and little as two thirds of the global population. Um, and um, when you fly to Dubai today, you arrive at the airport and then as this big sign, welcome to Dubai international second most international departures while they kind of cheating a bit because every departure is an international departure, but still it's a lot. Then 30 kilometers down the street, they actually are building the largest airport in the world, not instead of the current loan. But in addition to the current one, I'll market to them, right? So that new airport, we actually building our new regional head office there for the, and we're just supersizing our warehousing and distribution presence there because this is a place where more manufacturing consumption there'll be driven out of. So it's looking kind of a geographically to what's next and it's not that hard to see. You just look at where's manufacturing consumption going to be versus where was it right while it was in Europe. Um, it no longer is as heavily in as quickly and as fast as as it is in some other parts of the world. And we just need to make sure that we are making bold statements that we are going to be where manufacturing consumption will be happening, not where it used to happen.

Speaker 3: 15:27

Yeah. Yeah. Fair point. Um, and final question on this, uh, the, the industry segment, uh, if you were an investor, which technology related startup would you invest in? NYU technology and logisticals

Speaker 2: 15:42

yeah, we talked a bit before about this whole notion of platforms, right? And how buying and selling used to happen between you and mean person. And it's becoming more of an automated search process. So, uh, I do believe it is this whole notion of uh, uh, enabling commerce through platforms and the commerce could be, um, in peak times, um, Chinese new year, um, black Friday or so where suddenly you need more distribution space, you need more temp labor to try to deal with all these transactions, some of this actually matching supply and demand of people of spaces, um, not just buyers and sellers you can enable with platforms. And, uh, so if I come up with the best platform, technology provides most easy access to, uh, people who need, whether it's again, template or whether it's distribution space, whether it's buyers and sellers. That's what I would like to invest in. Um, even technologies that, um, I mean, think of, uh, the, we talked a lot about aU before f reight over the last several years. S o, s o t here, there's a whole bunch of things t hat, that w here platforms can provide access in ways that in the past certainly it was not possible. A nd if, if we find the winning providers o f l ows, those w ill be good beds. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3: 17:13

I think inhibition, anger, it's a similar, the you ship investment that you did. Um, it's kind of connected to the, to the whole idea. Um, super. And then moving to the, moving to the people, the segment, because a, you know, we, we talk about technologies, we, we talked also about[inaudible] directions for 2020, but, uh, all this is done through people. And I also know that you're personally very, uh, keen advocate of, of that. Um, so in terms of finding the right skills to take, uh, to take the organization to the next level of what, what types of skills are you actually focused on finding, developing or importing into Shanghai? I mean, again, we talked about this. We are 145

Speaker 2: 17:50

year old company that's in the transportation logistics, supply chain space. Uh, you will always have, when it comes to making global commerce possible and making it easier, making it better. You'll always need people who are supply chain experts who are lodged at the larger stations. Um, so those types of skills will remain relevant. Uh, what you also have to have, and this sometimes maybe inside the same leaders or it may be two kind of sets of people. We also have to have a, a set of people who are more technologically enabled, more, more digitally enabled, who think more about artificial intelligence, who actually say like all the data that we as a DB Schenker know about our customers, how can we actually do something for them? Right. The whole notion of making big data work for you. Um, we have more and more of our business partners and customers telling us we, I mean we just had a meeting recently in Tokyo where one of our biggest customers told us, I expect you to use all the data that you have to actually be a more forward looking supply chain partner to us. You should be the one recommending to us how we should reconfigure our supply chains based on where all of our inputs are coming from, where our goods are going to cause these things we'll be migrating and the labor costs. And the other factor costs are also changing. You tell us kind of what the consequences are for our supply chain and this is the type of people that we need would actually know how to use all that intelligence that we have in a way that's actually advantageous for our customers. So is that day, if you want to call that, that's the logistician of the future. Yes. Then that's the type of skill we need. If you want to say actually we need to traditional supply chain expertise and we need this type of skillset that actually takes advantage of this type of intelligence. That's kind of the, the, the one two punch that we will be needing going forward. Yeah.

Speaker 3: 19:55

Yeah. Um, and yeah, that kind of answers the next question that you would just give women and it goes into that. That's part of the, the, the skills that, the, that the of the future so to speak. And, uh, and I think, uh, from what we are seeing also from the phone where we sit as there's also be a consultants, very executive search partners to organizations, digitalization and skills required for, for companies across industries actually to go digital or to go even more digital, um, to make sense of the data that they've got. Uh, analyze, do preemptive, uh, planning and forecasting. That's tremendously important. Not a, not a lot can do it properly yet. And I think we're at the beginning of that, uh, those phases, there's more and more case studies, but definitely in the future if you're not doing it, if you're not on the train, the train will hit you. So it's a,

Speaker 2: 20:41

and it's also, I mean, I, I, we just talked about how it is how our customers expect us use all the information and data that we have to their advantage. It also, frankly, I mean, if you're just putting our own hat on, um, there are so many applications for ourselves, but in me have, um, I mean, the best revenue to have is the one that you keep and don't lose customer, customer retention. Um, we have so much data about interactions with our customers, customer service experiences that are good and once that we're not good, what happens if we had a failed customer experience with the same customer twice in the same month? Um, are the, is this customer likely going to gonna take consequences by saying, actually I'm done with these people. I need to move on to someone who actually doesn't fail. Re, um, that's all data that's available to us. We have the customer service calls. They, we had them call in last week and three weeks ago. Do we use that information in a proactive way and say, okay, if these two or three things happened as a consequence, we will, this customer will be prioritized for us reaching out to them proactively and making extra certain that we take premium preemptive steps that these things won't happen. Catch to catch the issue, address it with the customer before the customer walks. And it's these types of things where just using information that's available to us in a very, very proactive managerial way and a, and getting back and making sure that we actually do something with it to keep that customer grow it versus having them walk away from us. And this is where big data also comes in. Very simple things about capacity planning. We should know based on all the information about what's happening in the marketplace, what happened happens with the met with uh, suppliers and customers, right? Do we have peaks that we actually should not be surprised by? But there are logical consequences of us just looking at math over, over a period of time, say, Oh gosh, these things that just happened, happened also nine months ago and also happened two years ago. The consequences of that typically is a peak and we should be planning for that. So it's this type of pro proactive planning that yes, it is an evolution of a supply chain expertise. In a way though it is a kind of additional skillset that we need now much more than me perhaps need or 10 years ago or perhaps we needed it, but we didn't have the means. Now we do have the means.

Speaker 3: 23:12

Yeah, I think you're spot on. I think the, the, it was needed before, but the PR now we have the technology, we have the, the ways in which we can analyze that data. I think a lot of companies, what I'm seeing is that they're struggling with getting accurate data because you have the, we have the tools to analyze it, but the data is not necessarily accurate or, or our live. So I think that's the, that's a different challenge. And then, um, the possibilities and the opportunities now to really do that, that preemptive type of planning is, is, uh, is great. I could not agree more. Um, and, and moving a little bit to the, to the leadership, obviously you're, you're one of the top, uh, you're one of the six board members.[inaudible] could tell us a little bit, how do you select your leadership team? Um, what type of attributes? I are looking for when it comes to appointing one of the uh, top leaders in your team.

Speaker 2: 24:01

Um, like I mean we just talked about how you act and react as a company differently based on um, possibilities that you have in terms of information and data. Um, on leadership. I mean this obviously some things that that remained the same. I mean I learned a lot of things that FedEx, one of the things I learned was, um, the prioritization of people service, profit, that you always, do the right thing by your own people who then in turn will go above and beyond to provide exceptional service. And then profit is almost a logical consequence. People service profit in that sequence, those types of leadership, a ctually b oots, like someone who actually is a strong people leader, someone has a strong service mentality. Those things remain. So if you ask for like what types of skills and traits and features do we look for characteristics, w e look for these people, service, profit kind of mentalities in that sequence. Priority order. That's a leadership skill set of the future. The same way it was one of the past. Now having said that, if you look around the world, there are dimensions that I think are becoming more and more important in addition to what I just described. If you think about the world that we have to be successful in today, geopolitical issues, I mean, um, how do you deal with the fact that two countries now suddenly have a conflict? Most recently Qatar became very topical. Well, we have to reroute flights, their service consequences for the retailer that a, that used to get their new goods in at a certain point in time or during the day. Nowadays delays. Um, there's several hours more of a flight path because you have a flight fly around other countries. Um, there's obviously think of climate change challenges, what's been happening the last couple of months, whether it's in Indian and Asia or whether it's in the Caribbean. And the America has a huge disruptions of lives first and foremost, but also of commerce. Uh, we had to close our offices in Puerto Rico, in Houston, in Miami. Um, and uh, the monsoons in India. People don't even talk about it anymore because there are so frequent. Right. And, but there's still obviously a human hardship. So, uh, so we need leaders who still have those same kind of evergreen skills of like people focus, service mentality. We also know need more and more P L leaders who are thriving and meet that uncertainty, whether it's sheer political, whether it's climate, other issues that are perhaps more prominent, more pronounced, more disruptive. Yeah. Yeah. And we, with the, with serious consequences, I mean, you need to be able to think on your feet and adapt to those type of context. Um, and, uh, and, uh, again, as one of the board members of, of Shankly, you are one of the key influences of the Shinnecock culture, which is, uh, we talked a little bit about the, about it at the beginning when you said it's one of your key focuses. So what would be some of the, the top elements in mindsets, more importantly, that you're trying to instill and enforce? So we talked a bit earlier Ratu about the 145 years. So kind of almost like distilling the greatest hits of our culture into one that actually takes the best of, of who we are, what we have. Uh, in terms of categories. Um, I three's a good number, right? So, uh, there's three things that we want our culture to be about. Uh, one is it's gotta be a value spaced. I mean, you just don't make up culture. It's gotta be angered in something relevant to being compelling. And so we actually did come up with six company values and we want 70,000 of us to live those values every single day. Walk the talk, take the customer further. These types of values. Um, the second thing, the culture needs to be in addition to based in value as is it's got be, uh, a culture of performance orientation. Um, we are in a very, very competitive industry. We are in a very competitive world, uh, and as a company right now to philosophy club, we are not independently wealthy. Uh, we do actually have to make a living and we have to want to be the premiums in our industry with the also profitable market leader. So, um, our culture has to be one. Yes, it's values based. That's where we get our energy from. At the same time, we just need to need to be one of performance orientation. Um, performance isn't optional. Performance is actually expected. And the third part is a policy. It's also a culture of innovation that goes back a bit to that skillset of the leadership, right? It's gotta be someone who's capable of looking around the corner and seeing kind of next before you actually, before it hits you in the face. So, uh, when we have a culture that is value space, that is performance oriented and that is one of innovation, I think then we got the Trifacta that we want. Super. Um, thank you for that. And moving to the, to the final segment of our podcast on the, on the personal side. Um, I know that, uh, that one of your leadership principles, which I actually enjoyed a lot of, I uh, I read it is that you want to leave a place better than when, uh, when you found it and it, uh, it, uh, you do say that it means not just looking at your business as a marathon over a career, but rather looking at it as 10, 15 or 100 interactions every single day, which is a great way to, to look at things that I wanted to ask you. Are there any other principles you follow in your day to day working additional work essentially for the IQ paper? If I take the Liberty of changing the question here for a second, um, the, uh, cause I actually would like to stick with that point. Um, it, it may be obvious and you may not be. So let me just make it come alive a bit more. So, um, I spent decades in, in the U S I'm actually as I was born and raised in Germany, but I am a U S citizen. And that this whole notion is boy scout notion of leaving a place better than you found it. Um, really when you talk about habits that kind of are important, that shape who I am, uh, let me double click on this one a little bit. Um, so you mentioned these interactions, so that'll take you a day to day. There's probably six meetings. Um, there's probably once you get to it is 50 emails, perhaps a hundred emails. There's a couple phone calls that you have, right? So you could look at leaving a place better than you found it by saying, well, over the course of your business career or perhaps, um, over the course of your life you did one or two really good things. My expectation and aspiration is a bit more short term and a bit more intense where all these phone calls, these meetings that you have today, like our session here right now. So when you walk away from this session, when you walk away from this phone call, when you walk away from this email exchange, did you leave the other person in the room with something that they now have that they did not have before? One good idea. One good action step, a connection, right? You get this email at 10 o'clock at night, they kind of tire. Do you want to go to bed? And then you say, um, somebody asks you, I asked her like, Hey, can you help me here? Delete is the, is the easiest one. It takes me one second. It takes me perhaps 15 seconds more to say, actually I haven't had this instance, but let me copy in Norman who ran into a a S a similar issue a couple of weeks ago and then you will probably have an exchange with that person. Why I took this whole notion of a going an extra step to leave the person that's involved from that exchange phone call meeting email exchange at bit better than they were before that interaction. That's the aspiration here. So, yeah, there may be other things that are important in terms of habits or whatever. But if I do this one, well, I've got a hundred opportunities every single day. Yeah.

Speaker 3: 32:05

Yeah, that's a great, I mean, thank you for, for explaining more and actually then it's a great, it's a great, a great input. Um, and any sort of, let's say a little bit, some, some people like jokes and people like to do sports, but any sort of on your personal side that, that, that, that you think person happy that that contributes to your success. Do you do something on a regular basis?

Speaker 2: 32:28

Um, I tried to goes back, you mentioned at the very beginning at the introduction. Um, the fact that I actually together with a friend and business partner of mine, um, wrote a book 10 years ago, um, and it's called'simple solutions' and it's about kind of how you use the left side of your brain and the right side of your brain. And, uh, and you use very simple tactics and techniques from both halves. And then odds are that you're going to bring more of yourself into what it is you're doing and you'll have better results in front. Probably also better time. Um, So when you say like, um, parts that make me successful. I'm very German. So I was born, raised here, very left brain, very analytical, very precise, like shortest line from here to there which is all good, but it's not all there is. Right? So I did make a very conscious effort once I realized that I'm kind of where much at home in this half and not very much at home at other half to also spend more time with people who are more creative, more right brain, more passionate, very different. Um, very good friend of mine is the founder of ballet Memphis. Um, she probably wouldn't, uh, well she probably wouldn't mind me saying that chief pie does not know the most linear way in the shortest way from a to B, but she knows how to access creativity, how to, how to access passion. And, uh, and so spending time with people who actually are home where you are not, uh, is something I did very consciously over the last 10 plus years. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3: 34:11

Um, and um, and you wrote a book, um, but, uh, um, I want to ask you this question, which, um, it might be the symbol, but which book do you typically give to people? Anyone you want to make the prison? Ideally my own[inaudible].

Speaker 2: 34:29

Um, but no, I seriously, um, in all fairness, actually I don't, uh, that one thing that, that uh, I don't hand out books. I don't give out books I did for awhile, but I do much more now is, um, because I have a huge passion for music. Um, I give people, I used to give them CDs. Now CDs perhaps are no longer the thing of today and more than thing of yesterday, but I do have exchanges with people more about last concert that they went to Alaska and to dive into what music they like, what that music does for them. Um, so it's, it's just a different dimension I like to connect on. Uh, it's more meaningful to me frankly. And, um, I always get good tips. I typically talk to the kids of my friends about music versus my friends. So you actually learn more, you find more interesting things that otherwise wouldn't find. But, uh, so instead of handing out the book, I typically share music tips with others and then engage on that.

Speaker 3: 35:26

Yeah. Yeah. Silver and the, and can you share any internet that, I don't know if there's any supply chain resources, websites, reports that you use to keep yourself updated with the latest in the industry?

Speaker 2: 35:38

Yeah, it's actually an interesting dad answers. Yes. I mean there are, there are, uh, in the typical kind of[inaudible] we are headquartered in Germany, so they are quite a few German sources that I get every single day. Um, there's a term kind of a transportation logistics publication that I get the electronic feed every single day. Uh, DV set is the, um, um, the, the name of that publication. Having said that, I do believe you're typically passed off if the feeds the information that we get them in. So 10% of what I'm looking at that I'm absorbing that, um, being fed is probably industry. The other 90% is not. And frankly I think it does make for somewhat more of a complete picture if you kind of try to observe what's going on in this economy, what's going on in that country, forget about the industry for a second or more broadly. Right. So is there a tension brewing somewhere? Is there suddenly economically a part of the world starting to kind of take off, which may not be my supply chain feed or my logistics news, but it does actually impact what's going on around you. So yes, I do get daily feeds of, uh, typically kind of European supply chain, um, information. I for trends I for transport is a kind of a, a venue and a place that I sometimes get inflammation from, but I think it's much more relevant to look a bit more left in a bit more. I'd have your peripheral vision beyond the industry feet. No, no, but more global picture. Yeah. Um, final question. Um, if you could give some advice to a 23 year old graduating university and wanting to achieve a great career in logistics, uh, what would it be? I actually just yesterday was, uh, with a, I was in Berlin yesterday with a colleague of mine, um, Mark Schuster and I'm 20 or so, uh, start up, um, well leaders who just founded their own little startup company at the, a technical university in Berlin. And, um, and so we had a little bit of that conversation. So what do you advise what I should put, what it or what should I be doing on? So my, uh, pep, somewhat generic, but I believe fairly, um, relevant, I hope at least a piece of advice would be if I'm 23 year old and, uh, I don't know for an absolute certainty what I want to be doing when I'm 50 or 60. And frankly, most people probably don't. I didn't know when I was 20, I was 23 years old. I still thought I would become a teacher somewhere. Um, and I didn't. So, uh, so if I don't know exactly where I'm going to be ending up in 10, 20, 30 years, which is the vast majority of people, I would ask them, think of your first move and your second move as an option. Expanding move meaning, if you have the choice between larger company versus very small company, not your own but somebody else's, very small. If you have a choice between a global consulting firm where you have like basic ed professional apprenticeship, kind of at its best, those are great o ption expanding moves because you can still then say, okay, after that I'm going into consumer goods o r I'm going into investment banking or whatever else because y ou've got a very broad kind of apprenticeship of some kind. So I would just generic you say make your first step o nto your second step, one that opens doors. That is o ption expanding versus option narrowing. If you j oined some tiny company in a very boutique specialist space, chances are three or five or 10 years from now, it doesn't set you up for more options. It sets you up for very few limited options. So just think about the first step, the second step a s something that keeps you more choices and options later on versus fewer. S o i t's about the exposure and also t he, you know, how many things y ou can do after y ou've, u h, you've done the first d id exactly. Y eah. Yes. So great. Great sharing. Tom, thank you so much for your time for i t,

Speaker 1: 39:54

for being with us today and for all the good stories in the sharings and thank you once again. Thank you straight back to you too. Thanks. Thank you for listening to our podcast. If you liked what you heard, be sure to follow us on Rapala Paula mario.com/podcast for all the show notes, links and extra tips covered in the interview. Make sure all sorts of subscribe to our emailing list to get the news in the Nick of time. If you're listening through a streaming platform like iTunes or Stitcher and you like what we do, please kindly review and give us five stars so we can keep the energy flowing. It get more people to find out about our podcast. I'm most active on LinkedIn, so do feel free to follow me to stay tuned for our latest articles as well as future guests for the podcast. And if you have any suggestions or any other idea, please feel free to write to me. I respond to all, and also please make sure not to miss our next episode where we will be having a few other C level and top leaders in supply chain joining us. Stay tuned.