Tennessee on Supply Chain Management

S3E12: Shaping Performance, Culture, and Supply Chain Planning with Former P&G Executive Andrew Byer

• Season 3 • Episode 12

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For the final episode of Season 3, co-hosts Ted Stank and Tom Goldsby spoke with supply chain consultant and former Procter & Gamble senior director Andrew Byer to explore how people, culture, and technology intersect to shape resilient supply chains. 

Byer shares lessons from his long career at Procter & Gamble, where he supported global operations for health, hygiene, and cleaning products. He discusses how licensing, supply chain planning, and culture building are critical levers for performance, and why growing talent from within remains essential. The conversation also touches on how machine learning and automation are shaping new approaches to work. 

Plus, Ted and Tom cover the latest headlines: the Supreme Court’s upcoming case on the legality of Trump’s tariffs, the end of the “de minimis” loophole for online orders, changes to EV tax credits, and new data on consumer prices and jobless claims. 

The episode was recorded virtually on September 11, 2025. 

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Intro & Outro:

Welcome to the Tennessee on Supply Chain Management podcast. Listen in as co-hosts Ted Stank and Tom Goldsby set sail into the world of end-to-end supply chain management, diving deep into today's most relevant business topics. They'll share insights and pressing industry issues and tackle the challenges keeping supply chain professionals up at night. If you're enjoying the ride, download and subscribe to Tennessee on Supply Chain Management on your favorite podcast platform now.

Ted Stank:

Hey everybody, it's Ted Stank here with Tennessee on Supply Chain Management. We've got some milestones to talk to you about. Today. We're told this is our 51st episode. We started back in October 2021, and this is actually the end of our third season, 2021. And this is actually the end of our third season. I'm not sure how we were counting seasons, but the first season, I think, went on forever before somebody told us to shut up and stop. This is the end of our third season. 12th episode of our third season. We're going to do an extra episode at CSCMP live next month in Washington DC and then we'll kick off season four live at our Fall Forum November 4th through 6th. As always, I'm here with my good friend, tom Goldsby and a great guest, andrew Byers.

Tom Goldsby:

Tom, hey, it's great to be, I guess, wrapping up Season 3. Really excited that, I think we got renewed, we got re-upped for Season 4, so that's really exciting too, and really excited about our guest today, andrew Byyer, 39-year veteran of Procter Gamble, who's gone independent since retiring. What was that a little more than a year ago, andrew, just about a year and a half ago? Yeah, fantastic. Well, we're really pleased that you've decided to spend some of that retirement time with us here on Rocky Top and plugging into some different things that we do here on Rocky Top and plugging into some different things that we do. But we certainly want to hear about some of the interesting things you did back at P&G and as well as what you're up to now.

Andrew Byer:

Absolutely. You know, I look back. I had a phenomenal career, hired off campus by P&G. I had the chance to work across the supply chain. You know, customer facing jobs, supplier facing jobs, working with manufacturing, being the supply chain leader for a business. I had the opportunity transportation, warehousing, but also to live and work in multiple regions of the world and to see supply chains in a different way. And what I'm doing now is really I want to keep learning and growing and I want to find ways to give back because you know, over 39 years you accumulate a lot of knowledge.

Tom Goldsby:

Yeah for sure, and again with such a great company, procter Gamble again, year in, year out, recognized as among the best of the best. And your final gig at P&G, I think, is a particularly interesting one, and so we're going to save that for maybe a little bit later when we have some one-on-one time with you. But, ted, why don't we kind of catch up on some news and notes and what's going on in the world of supply chain? Very much front of mind is the Trump tariffs are heading to the Supreme Court, so there was a successful appeal of the executive order approach to tariffs and a lot of people are watching, waiting to see where that one goes.

Ted Stank:

Yeah, of course they're not going to rule on that until November, so they have time to do their research. But the immediate effect of that is yet more uncertainty, because I think we had just about started to wrap our heads around tariffs and how we were going to deal with it, and now those plans, potentially, are up in the air. So I'm sure like to get Andrew's take on this too. I'm sure most companies are saying, hey, hold the line, because if the Supreme Court rules against those tariffs and all bets are off, then we need to take a totally different approach than we were thinking about if tariffs had gone into effect.

Andrew Byer:

You know, ted, I would just tell you, I think companies are looking for their supply chain people to do what they're good at doing, which is converting that uncertainty to scenarios. What are the valid options? Can you create a digital twin to play out if it goes this way, if it goes that way, because it's just uncertainty, but what you're going to do and how you make decisions will be what supply chain people can help with.

Tom Goldsby:

Yeah, I'd agree with that. There's a lot of speculation that the executive order approach to tariffs is sustained. My sense is that Trump is going to continue to double down on them, keep what tariffs are in place and then, frankly, when the mood strikes him to change or increase or, dare I say, remove a tariff, that'll probably happen. However, it is becoming clear that tariffs are not gone, even if the Supreme Court were to strike them down. It's just that they'd have to be approached maybe in a more judicious, justified manner. So it might take a little bit more time to make the arguments for installing tariffs and, again, it may be that some of them don't quite stick too.

Ted Stank:

I mean, I got to believe that by the end of the day, when everything comes out in the wash, we're still going to move to some kind of tariff regime where there's like an average of 15 percent across the board on different things. So I have some kind of mixed feelings about that. I mean, I do believe that there's been a bit of a slanted table in trade for some decades, so it'll be interesting to see how this all works out.

Tom Goldsby:

Well, something that's not all too unrelated from tariffs is the de minimis loophole that got removed. Even the Biden administration was talking about yanking that loophole and it didn't happen during the course of his term. But Trump did act upon it. I think it was threatened and I think it got implemented such that those business to consumer retailers, particularly those in China, the Shein's, the Taimus of the world, but also, you know, US-based companies like Amazon, eBay, Etsy, that routinely ship individual parcels into the country From. My sense is that that business has virtually dried up by virtue of that loophole being closed.

Tom Goldsby:

Anything valued under $800 used to be able to freely come into the US with very little custom scrutiny, and you know the argumentation there was that it wasn't just fashion goods coming in, it was also drugs, narcotics and other paraphernalia and such. So I think DC Velocity reported that inbound US postal shipments have dropped by 80 percent and the likes of DHL have stopped accepting US bound B2C shipments. So a lot of interesting stuff taking place in that space. C shipments so a lot of interesting stuff taking place in that space.

Ted Stank:

Yeah, you know, a number of different nations' postal services have suspended operations into the US because they don't know how to deal with the customs charges on these products. So again another interesting thing to shake out. I mean this is a parcel business but certainly in the consumer realm big business.

Tom Goldsby:

Yeah, I've been kind of taking an informal survey of my students who really you know, this is a parcel business but certainly in the consumer realm, big business. Yeah, I've been kind of taking an informal survey of my students who really you know very much of the target market. You know the TikTok audience that very much is influenced by influencers as well as perhaps influencing peers, and the idea of that $10 T-shirt now costing you know $210 by the time you add a $200 flat fee, which again some things still need to get sorted out, but it does seem like that market could dry up.

Tom Goldsby:

On other regulatory fronts, a lot of folks are watching the electric vehicle incentives. The federal clean vehicle tax credit is going to run its course at the end of this month, up to $7,500 on qualified vehicles going away, and the previous administration made a lot of big bets. Inflation Reduction Act brought those incentives into being and a whole host of the big OEM automakers making big bets and building those EV plants and the battery plants as well, some of those bets being placed right here in Tennessee, particularly over in West Tennessee, with Ford's big play in Memphis. Hey, I know you bought a car recently but you decided to go hybrid, not fully EV. Yeah, and.

Ted Stank:

I didn't go fully EV. I traveled too many miles on the highway to go fully EV. I'd be interested one day in doing it, but again, so much uncertainty. Related to this, tom, is the ice raid on the Hyundai plant in Georgia last week. That's going to be an EV plant and an associated LG battery plant alongside it. There's so much uncertainty between trade policy, support of green technology, immigration policy. Man, we need those digital twins, andrew. There's so many levers, so many variables at play right now that it's just really hard to predict how any of this works out.

Andrew Byer:

It's almost like the systems and the supply chain, decision making can't keep up with the legislation, which is almost the opposite of the way it's always been Right.

Ted Stank:

We're always pushing right to get this stuff passed, and now it just happens on weekly, certainly sometimes a daily basis, and you know the administration feels like they have a two year window to really implement a lot of their policies before the midterm elections, and so I think there is a big rush on to get as much change as possible in the first two years. Certainly in those first hundred days we're a whirlwind.

Tom Goldsby:

Yeah, they're going by fast, for sure, and so so many of these overtures, as you point out, affecting the supply chain. It's why sometimes I have to remind myself this is a supply chain podcast, right? Because we're talking about global matters and big economics and geopolitics.

Ted Stank:

Ultimately, Speaking of that, tom, you know the numbers are starting to come out. These are like lagging indicators of what's going on, but inflation numbers came out today showed that inflation was heating up I think 2.9% or something like that. And then the latest jobs report from last week was that only 22,000 jobs were created in August and the Bureau of Labor Statistics downgraded the year ending in March with a reduction of I think it was 911,000 jobs. So some really interesting lagging economic data. Lagging economic data. The thing that really surprised me was that 911,000 jobs year end March, because that extended into the previous administration as well.

Tom Goldsby:

Yeah, so things weren't maybe as hot as they were portrayed to be at that time. But hey, I'm excited to bring Andrew into the full conversation and get a deeper sense of his background and hear about those 39 years at P&G and what he's been up to in the year and a half since. But I teased that his final gig at P&G was an interesting one. He retired as Senior Director Supply Chain Capability and Know-How Licensing and we're going to want to find out what exactly that meant. But we're also keen to point out that Andrew's not only a guest on today's podcast, but he's a frequent listener.

Andrew Byer:

Is that right? Absolutely. I'm never doing yard work without a podcast on, and you guys? So I associate this with grime and sweat.

Ted Stank:

That's good. That's good for a supply chain podcast. That's very fitting Gritty. That might be our tagline. Actually Tennessee on supply chain management podcast, grind and sweat.

Tom Goldsby:

I like it. We need that. Well, hey again, andrew, I promise we'll get to that final gig. I think our listeners will be really interested in what you're up to. But just kind of looking back at 39 years with the company, again one of the foremost, most capable supply chain companies on the planet, cpg industry, which is full of change and challenge, what are just some of the big lessons maybe that you take away? And when you have a opportunity like this one to share bits of wisdom, what do you kind of look back upon and say, wow, that was pretty cool.

Andrew Byer:

Yeah, especially since you have the opportunity to interact with a lot of students who are trying to wrap their minds around what the supply chain industry and a profession could look like. As I look back, the thing that sticks out is we are in the business of supply and it's like a catchphrase, because everything you do in the supply chain is in support of what your business or your customer needs. It's not about running a supply chain well in isolation. It's how well the supply chain supports the business. You win or lose as a business, right. So people are going and thinking, oh, I'll be an engineer, I'll be in manufacturing, I'll run a warehouse. Those things are done to support your business, right. The other thing I would probably say that I always took away work is a process and, you know, include tools like technology, but your results come from your people and you always have to think about how do I get my people to be able to perform at their peak?

Ted Stank:

You know, andrew, I'm glad you brought up the fact that really supply chains are there to support the business. I've heard Tom say it in class, I've said it myself many times in class, that story about the Procter Gamble, two moments of aha right the aha moment that something is on the shelf and then the aha moment when you get the product home and consume it. And the second aha never happens if the first aha isn't done really well. And I think that really ties in incredibly well to our perspective at Tennessee on supply chain management right, it's all about what you do for the customer.

Andrew Byer:

And you know we need to keep evolving, and we actually added a third moment of aha or moment of truth, which is when they search for you online.

Tom Goldsby:

Precedes Exactly yeah.

Andrew Byer:

When we first came up with ahas, there wasn't so much Right.

Ted Stank:

I mean, I've experienced that as a consumer. You know you see something that's flashy and you want to find it, and you try to get to the website and it's impossible to access a product.

Andrew Byer:

Or if you're not in stock, you don't show.

Tom Goldsby:

Yeah, Well that's really cool and you know you had your entire career at Procter Gamble from, an interesting start that you actually shared with Ted and me. Before we hit the record button we got to call it out. You did your collegiate schooling in the state of Tennessee, but it wasn't here on Rocky Top.

Andrew Byer:

That's right. I actually went to Vanderbilt on a full ride for sports writing, so I was not headed in the supply chain direction when I went to college. You know, internships are a wonderful thing. They can tell you what you might like and when I interned as a sports writer I found it. When you take what your fun and your passion is and you make it your job, sometimes it doesn't work out. It's interesting. Yeah, you're going to a ballpark and it's a job. It's not fun. How did you decide on supply chain? There was a little serendipity there. Ted P&G at the time was the recruiting profile, was leaders. Today it's all you know, engineers and industrial data scientists and things like that. But at the time they looked at leadership profiles. So I entered the supply chain with a English lit degree fitting sports writing, with a hard hitting ancient Greek and Roman history minor. But if you look at the history of P&G, several of our CEOs have this type of academic background. And what were some?

Tom Goldsby:

of those gigs that you took on, what was your starting role?

Andrew Byer:

So I entered into the supply chain in order management and transportation warehousing. You know, transportation purchasing for the Northeast. I had an interesting responsibility the distribution of P&G products to the US military. And what was interesting about that is it wasn't large volume Think about the commissaries and the bases it was across all P&G categories. And one thing that's interesting, you know you could say, oh, you work 39 years at P&G. It's just one company. Every different supply chain has its own uniquenesses, right, you know, our duty business has lots of SKUs. Paper businesses have to run at high tight capacity because of the cost of equipment, things like that. Every business is different, has unique variabilities, and I got to see it early in my career because I was managing our distribution to military bases.

Ted Stank:

You know, what really intrigues me, andrew, is your comment about how you entered P&G because of recruiting for leadership and leaders and I know one of your big themes has been people. We talk a lot about technology today, how AI is going to take over the world and we're not going to have people working in supply chains anymore because AI is going to take their jobs. Really interested to get your take on the importance of people in the supply chain and the role of the interaction between people and technology.

Andrew Byer:

Yeah, I'm a big subscriber and I'll paraphrase Jensen Huang, the NVIDIA CEO. But AI is not likely to take people's jobs. It's the people who use AI well who are going to take the jobs. Right, If the best example, Ted, that I could encapsulate my learning on AI. First of all, AI is not a monolith. There are many different types of AI. Right, it's not a synonym for chat, GPT, but we had a problem.

Andrew Byer:

We saw machine learning as an opportunity. No-transcript, whatever Machine learning can do that in minutes and do it with high accuracy. And we liked the crystal box nature where it would say most of these items have the same parameter settings, but there's one item that has one different out of all these. It's the anomaly Is it right or is it wrong? And the planner would just say yes, no, and the machine learning model would learn. It could then actually populate things. But it took a problem we couldn't solve. It took work people hated to do and knew they weren't doing well, and it fixed it. So it's funny work people hated to do and knew they weren't doing well, and it fixed it. So it's funny the technology was the same and the work was very similar, but on one hand, forcing it to the organization. On the other hand, it being pulled in by the organization made all the difference.

Ted Stank:

Yeah, I've had stories of friends of mine out in the industry who have tried to gamify it with their teams to say, you know what are the things you hate doing most? And we see how we can make ML help us and be more productive. And initially it's like, oh, you're trying to take our jobs away, but then all of a sudden, somebody comes up with an idea that automates something that they hated doing and took forever and didn't do well, and then people start getting on board. Man, I'm totally with you that. I think AI is going to be something that's a ground up effort instead of a top down effort, that, as people get more experience with using different applications of it, that's where we're going to see real innovation.

Tom Goldsby:

Yeah, I think so. And, by the way, ted, I applaud You're becoming something of a super user of AI within our shop and you're really helping to bring the likes of myself along.

Ted Stank:

Yeah, I decided a couple of years ago that I am an old dog and I needed to learn some new tricks, and so I decided two summers ago to really dive into it and just figure out how it could just help me in my everyday life. Forget about, you know, I can read about all kinds of supply chain applications, but just how it could work for me in my life to help me get through a lot of the drudgery. You know, one of the things people I don't think really understand is that when you're a professor, even when you rise high like Tom and I are in our organization we don't have a lot of administrative support. We do everything ourselves. If we're going to change our lesson plans, it's us doing the PowerPoints and creating the, you know, the imagery and everything, and that's non-value-added work. Right, the idea behind the lesson is important, but putting it together is not. But we don't have anybody to do that for us, and tools like this are so useful when I tell people the use case.

Andrew Byer:

The tools change frequently. The use cases keep developing.

Ted Stank:

It's keep watching the space. Yeah, I mean, I've been doing this for 35 years, andrew, and a lot of the conceptual things that we talk about in the supply chain haven't changed in 35 years. It's the tools that change all the time. If you were on with us seven years ago, we'd be talking about blockchain right now.

Tom Goldsby:

What would we be saying, though?

Ted Stank:

But anyway it's going to do everything. World hunger I predict a global pandemic coming up. That blockchain is going to solve.

Tom Goldsby:

Well, hey, speaking of things like pandemic and the need to evolve and adapt, yeah, I'd just be really curious, andrew, the lessons that you learned. I don't know what role you were fulfilling, say, exactly five, five and a half years ago, or even which business unit you were supporting at that time, but I'd just be curious about what were some of the big lessons that P&G took away from the COVID experience that perhaps are shedding some light and proving helpful in navigating the tumult and VUCA world that we live in today.

Andrew Byer:

Gosh, there are so many vivid lessons. You know we talked earlier how it seems like the supply chain can't go fast enough to keep up with legislative decisions happening. I was really impressed, almost shocked, by the speed that the supply chain could respond. In COVID, p&g doesn't typically make things that shield your eyes and hand sanitizers we were making masks, hand sanitizers, face shields like how quickly we could get our equipment and our employees because of how important it was.

Andrew Byer:

The second thing we learned we had some great examples where, just because of laws in different countries, we had a plant in one state in a country and most of the management lived in a different state. Most of the technicians lived in the same state as the plant and the plant was able to run basically with no management and run at decent rates. People were not allowed to cross state lines in that country. Employees volunteered to stay at the plants because, remember, p&g makes health, hygiene and cleaning products. If you think about what was stressed during the pandemic, health, hygiene and cleaning pretty much tick all the boxes. Plus, you know, the US manufacturer on some really clear overarching goals. Everyone gets it from top to bottom how important it is. You can move really fast.

Ted Stank:

Yeah, you know we're getting some distance between us and COVID now, but I think one day soon, people are going to look back at COVID. It's probably going to get slowed down because of the political conversation around COVID and everything, but I think it is one of supply chain's great moments in history. Now we have partners Shaw Industries that shifted from making standard flooring to making stuff for flexible manufacturing facilities or healthcare facilities. Phillips Medical Products were helping hospitals put together tent cities with the ability to do monitoring and stuff out in the parking lot. It was really an amazing time. We have Jim Capone from Pfizer that's talked about the journey from when the CEO called them all in and said they were going to make 100 million COVID vaccines I can't remember how many in like six months when nothing had ever been attempted like that before. What an just an incredible story.

Tom Goldsby:

Yeah, no, it's amazing, and I think you're right that we need to kind of reflect and think about how we can leverage those capabilities. And that's, I think, a perfect segue to that last post you held at Procter Gamble. Andrew, that I've been teasing repetitively. Let's get into that. As senior director, supply chain, capability and know-how, licensing and, again, p&g is regarded as among the best of the best at supply chain, and correct me if I'm wrong, but your gig was to help other companies try to emulate the P&G way Not competitors, mind you, but going outside the CPG industry and those head-to-head competitors. And I'm curious where you took that know-how, knowledge and how that all worked.

Andrew Byer:

There were some CPG companies, like in food and beverage, that weren't competing with P&G. But if you're looking to improve your organization's results, what we used to say is we can help accelerate and de-risk your transformation. We run a supply chain. We've already done it. We're licensing our know-how. This is not like technology and stuff, but it's how do you get your employees to be clear on what the work is, trained, skilled and qualified to be able to do the work and then execute it. Like that, stuff can take you forever. If you've got a blueprint that works, you can go so much faster and you can avoid things that don't work because, okay, we tried this and it didn't work, so this, we have a proven standard. So it was a lot of fun as somebody who's fascinated with supply chains. What I also liked is I got to look under the hood in lots of different industries outside of CPG.

Tom Goldsby:

Yeah, and then I'm just curious how far and wide could you take the principle in practice?

Andrew Byer:

Oh my gosh. Oil and gas, dairy farm and life sciences, heavy industries, even service companies. I remember talking to a telephone company. These are companies who need to get a better result out of their organization and are looking at is it just simply faster to go with something proven versus try and develop it in-house?

Ted Stank:

I love that, andrew, because sometimes we'll get challenged that these concepts that we teach in class, especially the executive classes, like, well, that doesn't apply in my company or my industry because, fill in the blank, and that is true, probably at the ground level, but at a certain level these concepts are universal. Frankly, they come down to people.

Andrew Byer:

Earlier, I told you work as a process. Results come from people. This almost felt to me like a formula. First, we would define the standard work. I mean at a granular, actionable level, clear. It's documented, you know the inputs and the outputs, who does what in what sequence. And, most importantly, the standard is proven to deliver the results you need. When you follow it right, then it's valid. Then, okay, what are the skills people need to do this work? What is the training to provide those skills? What's the qualification to make sure they actually picked up the skills? And then the final thing is is the work process congruent with any tools?

Andrew Byer:

But once you have that, you go to your organization and you, like you know what to do, you know how to do it. Here is what you're accountable for. Go, surprise us with the results, Because when you empower them, when you give them the capabilities, the tools they need, they will always surprise you with the results they can deliver. And you know, hold your operations, your frontline people, accountable for results. Make them equipment owners, make them system owners. That's really what we were licensing. How do you do that in an organization so it's sustainable In your experience?

Ted Stank:

across all these different industries. What is the single thing that you found was the biggest? I'll call it a weakness, maybe call it a challenge that companies struggled with that stopped them from being a P&G.

Andrew Byer:

I think culture probably is the first thing that comes to mind. P&g is grow from within, so we have a pretty typical and very defined culture. I think having management clear, your job is to get results through the frontline people, not to do the work yourself. You know you were just talking about, hey, high level professors, but we still do our own stuff. I mean, the frontline people make the product. The frontline people plan the shipments and plan the materials and the production. How do you get those people accountable? And management job is helping them deliver the results, removing the hard obstacles, making sure they have the training needed, not inspecting, not overmanaging. Getting that culture right is probably the biggest difference I saw.

Ted Stank:

Yeah, as the old saying right, culture eats strategy. I'm not an organizational behavioralist but I would be really interested to know of how many people that start at P&G end at P&G in their career, and I think that speaks to culture. I mean, there's a lot of Andrew Byers out there that I've talked to that have spent their entire career at P&G. I mean, we know and love Mike Burnett. Mike Burnett is a P&G guy Exactly.

Andrew Byer:

I don't have an answer for you on what the statistic is. I can just tell you when I retired with 39 years, it was not hard to find people with greater tenure. Yeah, I can remember a technician retiring with north of 50 years.

Ted Stank:

And that, to me, that just speaks volumes about culture.

Tom Goldsby:

Yeah, yeah, and I think also what I hear from P&G those lifers is that you know they're supported. So many different opportunities to grow and challenge themselves and move from business unit to business unit, role to role and I think that really helps to contribute. Again goes back to the culture. But you know one area that, andrew, I know you're very passionate about and you've actually been very helpful with us here at UT as we have doubled down in the area of supply chain planning and you have plugged in, been so generous with what we're doing in Supply Chain Planning Academy and kind of revising some of our curriculum up and down the board.

Tom Goldsby:

What is it about planning? It seems like we haven't used that word at all in the course of our discussions so far and for students that can remember, I'd like to go back to that infamous Allen Iverson interview, right the locker room interview, where he was talking about practice. We ain't talking about the game, we're talking about practice. Well, with planning, we're not talking about source, make, deliver, we're talking about planning. And so what is it that's kind of special in your mind about planning? And how do the best companies like the P&G of the world really create advantage through advanced planning techniques?

Andrew Byer:

Sure you know what's unique or important about planning. Remember, before I talked about being in the business of supply. With planning, you are translating what your business needs out of the supply chain into how will we get it done and deliver what's expected of us right, the right time, the right costs, the right quality, right cash flow. So it's creating the art of the possible. Out of this is the requirement. How do you make it work? And then there are times maybe you can't make it work. How do you surface the gap? Surface it early and then work with your business team to deal with achieving your business results. Another way and there's a lot of you know you're getting data and synthesizing it, identifying closing gaps and then ultimately making sure you know your leadership's plan whether you call it S&OP or whatever is being delivered, or you're coming back to them and helping adjust the plan.

Ted Stank:

Certainly one of the things we found through our Advanced Supply Chain Collaborative is I don't know if we recognized it back in 2019 when we created the collaborative, which is our applied research arm the major theme is that if we can do planning better, we can do everything all the operations in supply chain better, and yet planning was kind of an area of the supply chain that had not received at most companies, the focus that you should receive. I think that's changing that's changing.

Tom Goldsby:

Another area in which you've been very passionate in this early days of your retirement working with startups, and looking at your LinkedIn profile, I didn't realize, actually, that you were working with so many young organizations. What's the draw for you to work with these young enterprises and what are you bringing to the table for them?

Andrew Byer:

So you know, when I retired, being a very good P&G, I set my goals. One was to keep learning and growing. The other was to give back and working with startups. I find it's a combination of both. It's kind of like why I've enjoyed like talking at the Tennessee Supply Chain Planning Academy. I love being connected to bright minds, talking about new ideas or the potential to change the landscape, and you know, I've also found the lessons from a corporate behemoth right.

Andrew Byer:

P&g is a really large company. They're still applicable to small startups where I can count the number of employees with one hand. You know I was talking with one company and they were like people are buying our product but they're struggling to get results, and it turns out adoption, the congruency of you know of what is the job to be done and how is it defined. And then what I just took you through a few minutes ago, the adoption with a startup and their customers is not really the difference with large, established companies. It's never about the tech, it's about the organization's ability to adopt and use it to deliver value. The same thing I would do at a large company I can do with a startup. It's just they move so fast and it's a lot of fun.

Tom Goldsby:

Well, that's so cool. It also seems to be a nice follow-up to the gig that you closed out your P&G career, kind of taking that capability and know-how and taking it out into other enterprises, and I imagine they are benefiting immensely from the experience. Well, we're getting kind of the hook here from our producer, so it's probably about time for us to wrap up. But, ted, I know we've got some other tidbits that we want to throw out before folks sign off from the podcast today. Right?

Ted Stank:

Yeah, I mean I almost cut you off with Andrew's last answer, tom, so that we could say, hey, if you're really interested in Andrew's answer, tune in to the first episode of season four. But we don't want to make Andrew have to come back to us again, so we didn't do that. But our next podcast will be a live podcast from CSCMP Edge in National Harbor, dc, in early October, and then the first episode of season four will take place live again at our UTK Supply Chain Forum November 4th through 6th. I think the actual date of the podcast will be November 5th. As always, people have ideas, thoughts, comments. Ted, you're an idiot. You should leave the show and let Tom run it. Send us an email at gsciutkedu.

Tom Goldsby:

My mom's not still sending that message, is she? I told her to stop. Well, I didn't want to let you know. And one other thing I want to plug While we're promoting things again. So much going on here at Rocky Top, I'm really pleased that we just released a couple of white papers in recent days, one being the returns management white paper that I co-authored with Hussein Abdul, our absolute rock star in consumer returns, and so that white paper is now out on the website and, again, those are freely available. Just give us your email address and you can access not just that white paper but a whole host of others in the library but a lot of really cool readings out there. But I want to make the world aware of that one.

Ted Stank:

Andrew, thanks again for joining us. Always great to talk to you.

Andrew Byer:

I couldn't pass up the opportunity to talk with two supply chain luminaries. Thank you so much, and so for everybody out there that's grinding and sweating.

Ted Stank:

We're going to sign off.

Tom Goldsby:

It's quite the picture in my head, but hey, everyone, have a great start to fall.

Intro & Outro:

We look forward to connecting with you in season four. Stay tuned. Thanks for tuning in to Tennessee on Supply Chain Management. If you enjoyed the episode, subscribe today on your favorite listening platform to get all of our episodes as soon as they drop, and don't forget to take a moment to leave us a rating. Have any questions, thoughts or feedback? We'd love to hear from our listeners. Email us at gsci at utkedu. Join us next time as we continue pulling back the curtain on the world of supply chain, educating and entertaining you along the way. Until then, listeners.

People on this episode

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Ted Stank

Co-host
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Tom Goldsby

Co-host