Welcome to Smart Supply Chain, a podcast for supply chain professionals who think and work smarter.
I’m your host, Shireen Garrison, along with my sister and Supply chain, Sarah Garrison.
Hi, Sarah. Hi, Shireen, Welcome to today’s show.
I am thrilled to be joined today by Doctor Nada Sanders.
Nada is a professor of supply chain management at Northeastern University, and she’s also an internationally recognized thought leader and expert in global supply chains, business forecasting, and human and technology integration. So we’re excited to talk to her about some of these topics today.
Nada, thank you so much for joining us. We really are welcoming you to our podcast.
Thank you. I’m so happy to be here and thank you for having me on.
I appreciate you getting on.
I know you’ve been doing a lot of traveling around and you’re busy with work and travel and conferences and all sorts of stuff.
So we really appreciate you making the time for us today and thank you.
I would love to hear about, you know, in today’s global landscape, supply chain resilience is just very, very critical and important and adaptability is critical. Can you kind of describe to us what you’re seeing in the global environment right now and what supply chains are dealing with that maybe is different than in the past? Sure, sure.
Well, again, thank you for having me on.
And as you had mentioned, I have been traveling a great deal and a lot of it is actually talking, talking to industry leaders, to scholars and really trying to understand what is happening.
And it is moving very, very quickly. When I say it, I’m talking about the forces that are shaping and impacting supply chains. And so if I had to say it, I would say that global supply chains and enterprises, right, are being squeezed right now between two major forces. On the one hand, we have this global uncertainty and on the other hand, we have AI technology. And if you look at any business size, industry sector, if you look at the global uncertainty and what is happening, geopolitical instability, the economic turbulence, I mean, it’s dizzying and very difficult to keep up on a daily basis.
And then you throw in climate related issues and then policy and trade, we can almost guarantee that uncertainty is the new normal, right? And then you throw in, you know, the, the, the workforce changes and, and all of that, that’s sort of the, the, the whole global bucket. And then on the other side, you have what is happening with AI that is also moving so quickly, the accelerating development.
We see the movement from copilots and assistive capability to agentic and autonomous.
And then you throw in what we see in supply chains, the physical AI that you see in warehousing, manufacturing.
And then also we’re seeing a lot of now the movement towards AI in the decision loops. This is where from every aspect from design and digital twins all the way to to actual monitoring, correction, implementation and you throw that in together. And if you’re a business running an enterprise and a supply chain, you are really trying to survive and figure out what to do here. So I think that is what we are dealing with. It’s not like it was before and I could talk a great deal about that, how it evolved, but suffice it to say that I think it is a very challenging time. What specific risks are supply chains looking at right now? So really what we’re looking at that is very different. And honestly this really started with COVID.
You know, I have been doing this research as you had mentioned for many years and I was doing it in 2018-2019, December 2019 actually had a book come out called The Humachine that looked at the enterprise of the future.
And I remember talking to companies in December 2019. We were, we were talking about AI then, but only a small percentage of companies were even beginning to implement that.
And then we had COVID in 2020-2021, 2022, that autumn, I remember thinking, OK, we’re coming out of this, right?
With this is we’re going to be back to normal.
And then November 2022, we know what happened, right, gen AI and open AI, you know, came, ChatGPT came out on the scene.
And then 2023 and I’ll Fast forward to, you know, really just, you know, three years later, the capabilities and where we are has changed everything. So the risks, not only are they different, I’m going to come to that in a second, but it’s also the way they are interacting. And I’ve actually been talking about this over the last few years.
We have this collision of risks.
So on the one hand, we have these multiple risks that economic turbulence, I mentioned the geopolitics, I mean, just think about supply chains and what is happening in the Middle East and with the with the war and, and just talk about the one thing which is, you know, the Strait of Hormuz and what’s happening with oil and that fueling AI and energy and data centers.
That is just one item. So you have this whole host of risks, but I think what is also different is their collision and their magnification of one another.
So what you we used to have pre-COVID, we didn’t have this AI and all the capabilities, but we didn’t have these risks that are now colliding one with each other and magnifying.
So we used to have like a single risk that companies had to deal with, address, respond and then go back to normal that is over. You have a collision of these risks, A cascading effect of supply chain disruptions with AI and technology and this elevation of these cascading failures. So what used to be really pre 2020 were local shocks. These now carry global consequences and they are they’re elevated, they are colliding.
So I think leaders and companies need to be able to look at multiple risks shocks and understand that they have to look at all of them. And that changes by the way, the tools that we use. I’m sort of jumping ahead here and, you know, I’ll elaborate, but things like scenario planning that used to be something that has been around for a long time is something that companies have to engage in in a continuous way because these risks are cascading, elevating, moving, evolving. And companies have to really not home, not just home in on one risk and say, well, that’s our risk, We have to manage it, but a whole host of them.
And then the key is to be agile as a system and be able to respond to it. So it’s, it’s actually really much more complicated in terms of watching what’s going on and, and being able to respond to it. Yeah, there’s, there’s so many things going on right now for sure.
I mean, supply chains always have had to look at what’s happening and you always have lots of risks that you have to evaluate. But it does seem like they’re compiling upon each other at this point in time. And I think you know what, what do you think is going to change in the future?
Do you think it’s going to continue to be this complicated? What’s the outlook that you’re seeing based on the people that you’ve been talking to?
One thing that has been consistent in terms of what I’ve been able to find. And, and then what I also do is try to corroborate that right, to look at these signals from other sources because you know, the World Economic Forum, you know, just put out their, their outlook. And then of course we have, you know, Gartner and McKenzie and, and, and the various consulting firms.
And I think there is general agreement that the global outlook is, I don’t know if I want to use the word pessimistic, but it’s definitely unsettling. The, the, the uncertainty is virtually certain.
So if I look at, for example, the World Economic Forum had recently just, you know, put out their, their, their annual global outlook and it’s really sobering.
They, you know, interview thousands of companies and leaders and they, it’s a short term, 2 years is what they call short term, but there’s also a long term which is 10 years.
And it’s really sobering the number of companies that or the percentage if you will that are predicting a calm outlook is less than 1%, everything less than 1%, everything else is a various scale of unsettling, turbulent, stormy. In fact, the stormy outlook from the short term 2% to or two years rather to long term double S, So 82% of companies have an unsettled or worse and you know worse outlook in the two years and beyond and that is a really sobering outlook.
What that tells companies is I believe that there is a general consensus among global leaders that the outlook not just in the next two years, but in the 10 years is very unsettling. What would I do?
What do, what do we think? We, we’ll kind of jump into this, but I think restructuring and planning their supply chains, their enterprises for the fact that uncertainty is the new norm and the new normal and preparing for that.
And that understanding that not only do we see it, we see all the signals and all the risks that I’ve already mentioned, but that these are also, and in my interviews find that over and over.
But this is also corroborating by all the other surveys that are being done that are just coming out.
And I think there’s consensus along those lines that that is what the future is going to be look like.
So what do we do? We have to be aware and prepare for it.
We can’t assume that we’re, you know, this is just transient. It’s not.
I wish it was, but it’s not. So you mentioned scenario planning. You have any other strategies that you’d suggest for companies to address some of these risks and uncertainties?
Absolutely. So I think we’ve learned a lot of lessons about supply chains that, you know, we all knew those that are supply chain experts.
That’s, you know, it’s our livelihood and future. And I think a lot of companies did not really, I, I dare say didn’t put supply chains in the forefront prior to COVID as they should have.
And I can tell you my own observation is that a lot of companies then during COVID put supply chains in the forefront and then kind of went back to business as usual.
I want to say 2020, 2223 and they’re redoing it.
They’re going back to putting supply chains in the forefront.
What did we learn?
What do we know?
Well, global supply chains prior to COVID and then kind of continued, you know, that kind of oscillation that I just mentioned, very complex.
We all know that these are large networks.
They’re not linear.
Then they really, you know, I think most people when they think of a supply chain, they think of, you know what I call buy, make, move and sell, but they will think of this linear network.
Well, that’s not the case and we all know that, right of these complex networks.
Well, even today, you know, a lot of companies are not able to see upstream beyond Tier 1.
You know, 53% in a recent survey of companies could, you know, couldn’t see beyond tier one.
And, and so many of these risks that we were just talking about, well, they’re not in Tier 1, they’re not in Tier 2.
They might be in Tier 4, tier 5 like, you know, the issues of chips and and and various other kinds of hazards.
We also know that obviously supply chain span a whole host of, you know, countries and regions and you know, these are global networks.
They also involve, you know, not just the product, my gosh, it’s the talent, the people, the money, the So what does that mean?
That means things like currency exchanges, trade issues.
So companies have to think in terms of a system.
If there’s anything that I want companies and people that are listening to understand is that a supply chain has to be looked at as in as a as a system.
And what that means is given that we know that we have this complexity, we have to simplify it.
That means we have to shorten the supply chains.
We have to simplify it, but we also cannot rely on a single source of supply given the volume volatility going on.
We know that that a problem anywhere along a very complex supply chain creates these ripple effects.
And if you have a hazard as you do upstream, like fertilizer that we see now is a kind of an issue with the Suez, with the, with the, not the Suez Canal, the Strait of Hormuz and, and the, and the issues going on in the Middle East.
What we know is something like that.
It’s not very sexy, right?
Fertilizer, we don’t, it’s not a really cool thing, but that that ripples down and has these tremendous impacts.
So I think restructuring the supply chain, looking at it as a system and restructuring it for agility is absolutely essential.
And I can elaborate on that further.
But I think the key message here is, and on the one hand, simplify and shorten, but on the other hand, having access to multiple sources of a supply and that means a system that itself is agile, but not any one particular node in the network.
I think it’s a really important thing to look at and bearing in mind by the way, and and you guys know this right, when you look at global supply chains in virtually any industry sector, take auto, aerospace, medical, you know, enterprises, competitors source have you know, similar sources of of supply suppliers will supply to competitors.
So these are complex networks, but I think diversifying sources of supply, having bundles but not too many is really, really important.
When I say not too many, the idea of course is to have it have them be agile and simplify.
Yeah, that end-to-end systemic view of the supply chain is really, really important.
Do you have other practical tips for companies for looking at doing that better, more effectively?
And, and you know, you can, you can see it’s really, really critical.
I mean, I can talk about this for a long time.
So the system, and we’re going to come back to that in a second, you know, being viewing it as a system.
And you know, one of the stories that I, I do love is the fact that, you know, we can look at the global supply chain as a system, which it is for any company, for any industry.
But you can then take that down, right?
You can look at it as a, the workflow and a supply chain within your own department and your own organization.
I remember some years ago when Starbucks redid the workflow at the barista station, it ended up saving them, you know, many millions of dollars on an annual basis of actual workflow of inventory at the station itself in terms of when the order is placed, you know, how you moved and how you organized the, the, the filling of the coffee and the inventory and all of it.
So you can look at that as a small supply chain and then you take that in any production process or workflow process on whether you’re in hospital setting, in the order processing system there, any kind of small department or large department or medium size.
So I would really, you know, encourage every company to look at not just the large supply chain that we’re used to thinking about, right, external global suppliers, but looking at a smaller supply chain within their own department and mapping it out.
One of the things that is really important now that is really sort of the latest thinking is to do workflow analysis.
You know, it’s the old process flow analysis that we’ve done forever, but it’s really important to map it out and to look at where do you use automation?
Where do you use human judgment?
Where do you integrate the two?
Where are you going to get the most value?
And that will be, again, not just on a broad scale, on a global scale, on a shipping scale that we’re used to thinking about, but also movement within your own department.
And the other thing, if I may interject here is to think about when you, a company and their departments, suppliers, think about the risks that I’ve mentioned and complexity and workflow is to also think about scaling and capacity.
And again, capacity is not something that is cool and sexy.
It doesn’t appear to be that way, but it is, Oh my gosh, guys, one of the most critical things in supply chain.
So capacity is how much can a company produce, right?
I I am stunned and have been stunned as to how scaling capacity we know is really difficult.
How many companies and how many people don’t realize how important it is?
And during COVID, that was something that we saw, right?
We saw the ability to rapidly increase capacity scaling to be such a challenge.
And I was surprised as to how many companies were surprised, sorry.
So we couldn’t scale production of Oh my gosh, hand sanitizer.
I know you you remember right is we couldn’t get right, right and lots of things.
Exactly.
And you guys know when you look at something like hand sanitizer, the bill of materials is so short when you got four different items that go into it.
But think about now a regular product, the average product, it’s so much more complex than hand sanitizer.
So when companies you’d ask me for advice is, you know, simplify the supply chain, whether it’s an internal or external, but also really consider agility and the ability to scale rapidly up and down.
Because as we have all the risks that we had just talked about, the ability to scale quickly and then to, to, to reduce and go up and down becomes a very critical element of that agility because we know the entire supply chain has to scale.
And the fact that that was really lost during COVID was astounding to me.
And and that goes back to looking at that, at this entire supply chain as a system.
And then if I may jump into another aspect.
And that is where each element needs to be able to talk to one another.
You know, procurement has to understand, you know, what operations is doing.
Operations has to know is there a shortage of something or is there a delay in something that is being shipped.
All of these pieces have to talk to one another.
And that’s where technology comes in.
And I’ll just throw in a third item for companies to think about and then I’ll let you ask me further.
But you know, if when businesses ask me, I would say a company that is right now overwhelmed with all the AI and capability, I would say lesser capability is more important than the ability for the pieces to talk to one another, to have transparency.
That’s excellent and very practical advice.
And now a quick break.
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Now, Shireen, let’s get back to our discussion with Doctor Nada Sanders, professor of Supply Chain Management at Northeastern University.
Thanks, Sarah.
Nada, you’ve done a lot of research in your in your professional career on the human and technology integration and what’s happening with AI.
And you know, you’ve talked to a lot of different companies and figured out what people are thinking about all of this.
So what do you think is really happening with AI and what, what are companies using it for?
Well, kind of going back to the first part of the question is that everything has changed.
So now in 2026, you know, in my research and what we’re seeing, 97% of companies are deploying AI at least in one function.
We’re seeing industry wide shifts towards AI across the board.
And but I also see companies under tremendous pressure to say that they are doing something in AI.
Their boards are putting pressure on, you know, leaders because they want to be able to say that they are on the cutting edge.
And it is really important.
But when we take that with the financial aspects of it, because on the one hand there is the pressure, but equally there’s a pressure to have an ROI to show what the financial impact or the, you know, what the what the benefit is of the AII would say that what is really important right now is to understand that we all need to use AI in some way.
But I think focusing exclusively on AI is not the answer.
I think that the answer is understanding where to automate and how to do it in a way that meets what the capabilities and those needs of a company are.
And they’re going to vary.
And then to also understand that it’s the human AI collaboration.
And that is something that keeps coming up over and over again.
AI is a must, no question about that.
But really, humans and AI have a complementary strength.
I know companies that are forgetting that fact and other companies that are hanging on to their senior leaders that have what we call domain knowledge or domain expertise that is essential.
If companies are not doing that, they’re really missing out.
Number one, hang on to the talent that knows the business, that understand the context of the business because what’s going to happen is that while everybody has access to AI in some way or another, what is going to be the differentiating factor?
It’s going to be how are you’re using it and when do you interject judgment of humans?
The other mistake that I am seeing is that companies not being aware of that are either not bringing in the young people to hiring new talent.
But definitely what I’m seeing is not creating a pathway for younger generations that are being hired to develop not just the interaction with AI, but the understanding of the business in order for them to be able to then replace eventually the senior talents that understand what the business is about.
Every business is unique, and that domain expertise is critical in order to work with AI.
To get the best out of AI, you have to know how to work with it and what to ask it.
And if you don’t know that the nuances, you’re not getting the most out of it.
The two have complementary strains and that is without question something that I think is being missed.
So yes, we need the technology, but I would say using it at a lower level and making sure as companies are implementing it that they’re equally equipping the talent.
And that process of integration of bringing the two together is absolutely essential with an overall plan.
That is the part that I think is very much being missed.
And I would say the three pieces that have to grow together are the technology that is being implemented in, you know, in, in to automate tasks that need to be automated.
And this is where that analysis of the process.
And what do we, you know, automate, you know, like in procurement, you know, the, the, the ordering, the, you know, automating of the basic ordering, especially, you know, the sea inventory items, the long tail, all of it.
But then equally putting effort in terms of the people and training them not just to work with the AI, but to develop the expertise that gives them the extra edge.
And that lastly, the process of integration of the two is absolutely essential.
I mean, I think, you know, there is no, there’s kind of a big divide between adding AI just for the sake of AI and then calling it a silver bullet that it’s just going to solve everything.
You have to be able to put good data into the AI in order for it to be active.
What 100%, yeah.
I mean, I think that’s what do you think the barriers are for companies to implement some of these things and kind of see about those 22 extremes?
Yeah, I, I think, I think there are so many barriers.
One of the barriers is the access to clean data.
And I have argued the point that having lesser data and but clean data is far more important than having lots of data.
You know, 10 years ago, we used to talk about the fact that, oh, we need more data now we have so much data.
But on one of the interviews that I did, and you know, you had mentioned this, I’m constantly, you know, interviewing executives.
And one of the CEOs had had said to me in 2024, he said, remember that when COVID hit, you know, we had AI not to the level that we do now, but we still had it.
But he said, remember that all math based models failed.
Why?
Well, it’s not an indictment of the science.
It isn’t an indictment of the fact that we cannot replace agility with the science, science and the math and the algorithms.
Algorithms do not replace agility because they need context and the latest information.
That is a a great example of how, you know, flat footed everybody, you know, found themselves because we didn’t have the latest data.
So clean data, smaller amounts of clean data is, is far more valuable than lots of data.
That means that companies need to make sure that the data is clean, that they scrub it, that, that, you know, and that is a very significant barrier.
The other barrier is the is the people.
And I already mentioned that, but I’m really surprised as to the alignment of leadership in terms of understanding the, the importance of people and to have a pathway of new talent coming in to get them to understand the context and the business.
Listen, you know, I, I use AI all the time, but I’m, I watch myself engaging with it and I know how to dig really deep because I know myself stuff.
But I could ask AI to tell me how to do a tonsillectomy, you know, and it’ll tell me, right?
You know, I trust me.
I, I, you know, obviously none of us could perform that.
So that is, you know, it’s an extreme example, but if you don’t know what to ask and how to implement it in the 3D World that we live in and use that to the next level, that is a major barrier.
And leaders are so much under pressure that they’re forgetting the value that they bring to the table.
The other thing that I, I, I want to make sure that I, that I mention what we are seeing in the latest research is this sort of comfort with using AI, particularly LLLS with whether it’s ChatGPT or Claude or you know, you name it, these models are very good at convincing you, you know that they’re right.
And what we are seeing now more and more is business leaders using it automatically and not questioning it.
We call this cognitive surrender.
We’re based basically they’re just signing off on things.
And I’ve heard this actually, but the last few weeks a great deal where they’re just signing off without questioning what the algorithm has come up with.
And the process of going through using it as a tool, but understanding that it is a tool that is designed to sound authoritative but can make mistakes.
That is a huge barrier and I think something that everybody needs to to be aware that we cannot surrender our knowledge completely to the algorithms.
You know, I think it’s clear that one of the trends we’re seeing in the supply chain space specifically probably a lot of other industries as well, but is this need to really retain and maintain and upskill these seasoned professionals.
We’re really going to have the ability to kind of see the patterns and and influence those things, but also attract new talent that’s, you know, maybe more comfortable with the technology.
So what advice do you have for companies who are kind of looking to develop programs to help support these outcomes?
Well, the first thing I would say is to begin with a vision and an understanding of the capabilities that that are needed to, to really understand who you are as a company.
Have it be really clear what do you need, because not everybody needs everything.
And you know, what makes you unique?
What is the competitive advantage because that this is what you’re going to have to focus on.
Then the process flow analysis that I had already talked about, really map the workflows out and understand where do you need to automate?
Where do you integrate human judgment?
Where do you do oversight?
Understand your current state and then what are you going towards?
And then invest in people and have a program, leverage the insiders for that, you know, domain knowledge and expertise.
It is really important to have people have a culture of belonging and not being afraid of the technology.
And I am seeing cases where, you know, the humans will sabotage the AI because we know when it comes to the implementation because, and I heard this just the other day, where am I training my replacement?
Am I going to be out of a job?
So, you know, really make sure that the talent that you have is part of the team and that everyone is, is working towards something and continue and invest in training.
Again, I talked to somebody yesterday who said to me, I in my company and his company is I’m being trained every day on these new tools and how I interact with them.
So I am not, I’m afraid of losing my job.
So I think the integration of the technology with the people through the right process in order to meet the overall objectives of the company that has a vision and the capabilities and the value added is absolutely essential right now.
I think you know, your advice for addressing some of these risks that we’re facing, of thinking about the supply chain end to end as a system, looking at the little pieces as well as the broader pieces is great advice.
In closing, is there anything else you’d like to share, resources or direction for the supply chain professionals facing these risks?
Thank you.
Thank you for offering that.
And of course, there’s so much to unpack here.
Feel free to reach out to me if you know, I’m happy to elaborate further at, you know, nada sanders.com or LinkedIn.
I will respond to everyone.
But remember that AI is essential, yes, but it requires human and AI integration.
And so it means investing in your talent because AI alone is insufficient.
And I think companies that really understand that will have a competitive advantage in the long run versus those that feel that they have to rely on AI exclusively.
I love this.
You’ve provided us so much valuable information today.
I think that my take away is companies need to have a plan and individuals need to have curiosity and continue to upskill themselves and dig into things and ask questions.
So I love your advice.
Today, we have time for one more critical question.
It’s very important.
We want to know what has been your favorite vacation that you’ve ever taken or a dream destination that you’re looking forward to going to me.
You’re you have to have a personal vacation at some point.
Nada.
Oh my gosh, that’s so I have to tell you.
Thank you for asking.
That’s really wow.
You know, honestly, I have two things that come to mind.
So I’ve actually always wanted to go to Florence and study the art in Florence.
And what, what is inspiring me more and more and more over time is the human creativity.
And I want to really, you know, tap more into that and find ways to expand and, and, and teach human creativity more and more and more.
And remember, this is coming from an engineering geek in a past life.
So I am very quantitative, but I am seeing that growing our human creativity is something that that is more and more essential.
And so Florence, art and the history of humanity and tapping into that is honestly something that I want to further grow spiritually, intellectually, and in every way possible.
That’s a beautiful message, Doctor Nada Sanders, thank you so much for joining us today.
We really appreciate it.
And to everybody else, thanks for tuning into Smart Supply Chain.
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