Secret Life of Inventory

Career Advice in Supply Chain & Demand Forecasting Best Practices (ft. MVC Logistics)

• inFlow Inventory • Season 1 • Episode 7

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Discover valuable career advice for aspiring supply chain professionals and explore best practices for demand forecasting! From industry expert and founder of MVC Logistics Academy, Professor Maria Rodriguez, who was also named one of the top Women in Supply Chain by Supply & Demand Chain Executive Magazine! She explains the importance of demand forecasting in inventory management and recommends tools and techniques to predict future demand accurately.

Don't miss this opportunity to elevate your supply chain career and master demand forecasting!

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0:00 - Teaser
0:11 - Intro
7:01 - 10 things to consider before working in supply chain management / logistics
17:09 - What is demand forecasting?
25:40 - Demand forecasting best practices
37:52 - Is AI being implemented into automation?
39:20 - Key takeaways to improve your supply chain career
43:26 - Outro

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And then based on that, you're going to make a better informed decision. And I love that because it's not just, okay. Don't tell me what to do. But in some ways, do tell me. Tell me what to do. Please tell me what to do. Take that off my plate. Hello everybody I'm Jared. Hi, I'm Melinda, and welcome back to The Secret Life of Inventory, a show where we talk about all things inventory. In today's episode, we have a very special guest joining us all the way from new Jersey, Maria Rodriguez. Hello. She is the founder of NVC logistics and was recently named one of the top women in Supply Chain by Supply and Demand Chain Executive Magazine. Maria is also a college instructor, a supply chain executive with over 15 years of experience. She's a YouTuber extraordinaire with 17,000 subscribers, and she's here today to talk about, you know, a lot about some tips and tricks for anyone who's working in the supply chain industry, some recommended tools for them to further their career. Um, and actually today we're going to be talking a lot about demand forecasting and planning specifically. Let's give her a warm welcome. I love this and. Feel very welcome. Well hi Maria. How are you doing today? Good, good. Doing great. Thank you for having me. Loving to be here. So I know that we kind of gave you a, you know, the abridged introduction, but maybe for the the audience, you want to maybe kind of go into your, your origin story, if you will, and let everyone know how you got started in supply chain and logistics. Sure. Um, I started very young, I think, when I was about 14 or 15. It's, um, sort of like unofficial introduction into supply chain. Um, I worked at this Korean beauty supply shop, and I think even since then, I have, like, an obsession with Korean beauty, skin care. Maybe a little unhealthy, if you might add, but I think it is because I was so young and I got introduced into this retail space, and I loved it, right? I did a lot of stocking the shelves, that inventory, that ordering, the customer service, you name it, I did it. That's when I was in high school. It was 14 or 15. Stardom. Young, huh? Yeah, right. And that was the unofficial, I like to call it the unofficial start. The official start. When I was 18, I got a freight brokerage company that I was able to get a job in there knowing zero about logistics, zero. But supply chain. I had no idea what supply chain and logistics was. I didn't even know that when I was 14, I was working on something related to it. When I was 18. That's when I realized, okay, oh, I see this as an industry. Let me let me look into it. What does this about? What does it look like? And I got really started like excited to to go into it as a career. So from there yes, I said, okay, it's just a job I got. This job is great, I love it, but what's more, and I decided to get some degrees, working some stuff, and eventually it led me to the opportunity to become an instructor to teach. And I think that's where I truly found my passion. I liked simple writing, working in simple content, but I think I found my passion in teaching college and teaching classes and teaching courses, doing training, doing coaching. That's what I really think. It drove me to say, wow, this is something I see myself doing lifelong. And that's how I started. And then the MVC Logistics Academy sort of came through from that inspiration. Okay, I see what we do with teaching college courses. I see that side of education. What can I do that can be a little grain of salt into this whole equation and build something that anybody from any kind of background or skill level can really build and grow and have access to. Right? That's what I try to do with the with the Academy. And, you know, hopefully it's it's doing something that's amazing and people are benefiting from me somehow. How long have you when did you found the your academy? It was right during Covid. Oh, actually, perfect. Time for it. Yeah. The pandemic? Yeah. I think a lot of people started new endeavors around that time. Right. It was sort of like an inspiration of saying, okay, I'm stuck at home, I'm working from home now. I have a little bit more time. My time was very structured. pre-COVID, I was I did my my graduate degree while I was working full time. I had this whole like schedule that was very not flexible. But then with Covid, everything changed. So I was like, all right, I have a little bit more time. What can I invest my creativity into? Right? And I said, let me see what's out there. And I started googling stuff about supply chain logistics, supply chain degrees, programs. And there was something that seemed to me very, I don't want to say unattainable, but it was something that wasn't like everybody couldn't identify with them. And I decided and I said, okay, what can I bring that that can combine that sort of gap? That's it out there with the content that we have already in supply chain logistics in this area that can be more accessible to what people like to consume. Now, people love to be on, you know, and TikTok blew up during the pandemic, right? TikTok and the sort of like shorter kind of content. It blew up. So I said, let me see, what is it that I can do to kind of fit what I know? What I don't want to say? I'm an expert, but what I know a lot about, and I have learned a lot about in this experience, and how can I bring in and put it towards the audience that can actually see and say, okay, I understand now, especially with Covid, Covid. People started to see so much happening with. You know, you don't have toilet paper on the shelves. You know. We always talk about toilet paper on this podcast. It does. I think it's impacting because everybody knows about it. Yeah. It's the perfect example, you know. Right. And you know, hand sanitizer, Lysol, whatever, whatever you call it. Right. Yeah. It was sort of this impact and shock of people, the consumer seeing what's happening around me that I can't get the products that I normally get. Kind of take it for granted, right? Take it for. Granted. And I think it became sort of this like, okay, I'm curious about it. And the news picked up on it, right. The news picks up on the stuff that's going to get them eyes in viewers. So I said, oh, I see it. There's sort of like this little, you know, bleep of of of an intro into what supply chain is from this side. What can I do to add to it. Yeah. And learning online is like one of the best ways right now to super accessible. Like you said. I think people were willing to learn online before I took online classes when they started. I don't want to age myself and call myself old, but when they were just rolling out all in classes, that was one of the first ones to say, yeah, give me the online class. I liked the setting, but everybody was sort of, I don't want to say everybody, but a lot of people reluctant to take online courses. Covid happened. You need to work from home. You can't be in school. You need to go and take your classes online. And it pushed a lot of the the society and generation and people to push into an online setting. And I think that helped as well. So I saw that as well. And I sort of had the the idea of, okay, it's now I can do. So it's a good time. Yeah. Right. Well, we love your content. I mean, you, you, you make it very accessible, which I love and it's very digestible. A lot of the times you see some of the stuff and it goes way over people's head, but you, you explain it in a way that is very, like I said, accessible. Yeah. Yeah. yeah, very like friendly, warm personality to listen to. Thanks. Thanks. I think there's a feedback that I get a lot from the students too. It's like we enjoy learning from you because we get a conversation out of you. Yeah, we don't get an instructor. There's just teaches something that's. It could be so dry. I love this industry, but it could be so dry sometimes. To learn about these concepts because they are complicated, is so complex. There's so many things, so many levels and layers to supply chain. But I try to make it in a way that it's a little bit more fun so that you find the fun in this sort of industry and feel. So. For those who are interested in pursuing a career in supply chain management, what would you say are the top ten things that people should consider before stepping into the industry? Only ten. Can I. Get it if you want. But do we have time? Um, yeah, we'll focus in ten. I think the ones that I like to run through, or the advice I usually like to to give, is that the first one is that you need to understand the scope, right? Um, there's so many different areas and processes and departments and individuals and companies and organizations that operate with this within this whole big supply chain umbrella that you need to understand how large this this seems to be and how supply chain touches almost every aspect of a business, and understanding that it's going to be your first thing into recognizing the impact that supply chains have on businesses and commerce globally, right? Not just you directly, but globally. So I think understanding the scope that's really big, right? The next thing I can say is that because of how big it is in scope, we do have to focus on being data driven. And we are an industry that is very heavily reliant on data and processing the data, analyzing the data and being able to figure out what to do with this data. So if you don't like to do a lot of the analytical thinking or critical thinking. From the data, it's not that. You're not gonna like it. You're gonna you're gonna be able to work with it. We have tools special, you know, a lot of software and stuff that that helps us build through that. But you still need to understand the concepts of it. So know that it's data driven. Data is going to be really heavily within supply chain. And you need to learn how to work these tools to to your advantage within that. Right. Mhm. I think the next thing we can definitely say is within supply chain, you need to have people skills. You're going to deal with a lot of people right back to the scope. There's so many things in supply chain and dealing and knowing how to deal with people and having communication skills that are really effective. That's really going to guide you and give you a good direction within this industry in particular, this field in particular. Um, from there, we'd say also when we're talking about people skills, you also lead sort of into maybe management skills as well, right? It's not just being able to manage and lead people, but you can have projects that you have to work on, right? You're going to be able to manage the resources that you have within your supply chains, whether it's your supply chain in your business, or whether it is the people that are functioning around your your business. So know how to manage people know how to lead, and if you don't, that's fine. Everybody start somewhere, but know how to get to a point that is going to make you a good leader, a good manager, and that's eventually going to make you help and grow your career into something that's going to fulfill you. Right. So I think management skills, people skills, they go hand in hand. Yeah, I. Definitely think the. Best managers are the ones with people skills. I would actually care. About others feelings. Exactly. Empathy is a thing. It's a. Right. Yeah. I think we lack a lot of empathy sometimes. Yeah, you're totally right. Within that. I think it also goes into knowing how to network. That's another tip right? Knowing how to network. And I get it is hard for people. I'm an introvert. It's not like my favorite thing. To do, right? Yeah. It's not my favorite thing to to be out there and put myself out there and to network. Right. And now post-Covid, everything's online and people find it a little bit harder to do the sort of networking that we used to do back in the. Day hibernated for two. Years. We're so out of practice with this whole interacting with other humans thing. What is that. Face to. Face? You're kidding me. Yeah. Yeah. So it's. Yeah, it is very difficult for people that don't feel comfortable with networking to network. And I tell that to the students all the time. I'm like, please network. You're going to meet a lot of people, whether it's in your program, other students, your colleagues, people, faculty, whoever it is that you meet, have the opportunity and meet these people. Hear their stories, share your story. And with doing that, you're not just, you know, getting friendly with people you're going to work with eventually at all these levels of the supply chain. But they might be an opportunity there for you to grow your career eventually. Hey, I know this person, and this person gave me an introduction and there's this opening. You know how. A lot of it. Who? You know, I feel like I don't have to explain. This interview is happening because of networking, right? So there you go. We wouldn't all be here with without networking. Exactly, exactly, exactly. Right, right. We saw an opportunity to do something that we share within the company field, and we took it with them. Right. It could be a little scary for people. I get it, I know, I understand it, but I tried to tell as soon as I got it right, everybody, hey, I don't I don't I don't want to seem like I'm beating at that horse. But yes. that work field sort of that that need and that advantage that eventually is going to bring you to your career because you will see it. Believe me, you will. It's going to be worth the investment to do that. So definitely. Yeah. Within that, um, something else, another thing you should know about a Korean supply chain, I think that, uh, pressure and how to handle pressure. I think that not a lot of people like to deal with pressure, or they like a job that they don't feel so rushed to do things that might not be the case in supply chain or an environment or supply chain, right? I guess you can't really be chill when things are, you know, that hinging on the success of your business exactly right. And how you're so connected to everything else. And like one thing flows to the next and everything is so interconnected. So you are bound to have a level of pressure that you're going to need to be able to handle that. Right. You need to handle that internally. You figure out how to do that on your own. That's how your your are individually. Figure out how you handle pressure, but also learn how to handle pressure using tools, using ways to handle the pressure that logistics and supply chain and inventory management and procurement and warehousing and transportation and all these different things that, you know, within supply chain that are going to give you. Ideally, everybody wants everything to go smoothly, but there's bound to to something to go wrong, right? So know how to handle the pressure and be able to. Problem solved. Can I ask what is procurement? I'm still a new. Sourcing sort of sourcing. Procurement comes with purchasing buying, sourcing. If you're a manufacturer or you're trying to build something, produce something, then you're going to need to make a product happen. And by that, you have to source and procure and buy material resources or. The. For the process of sourcing. Yes. Process of sourcing. Right. Buying what you need to make something you're going to sell. Okay. Thank you. There you go. That's easy to say. You know, a rainbow. Yeah, I love that. Um, but yeah, it's it's it's sort of knowing how to handle the pressure because there's going to be a lot of pressure put on you. Right. And again, back to the management skills and people skills. Not everybody has it. It's not common sense. Not everybody has common sense. But you know, it's it's management skills are going to be difficult for people to lead somebody. Right. And if they don't have the tools and how to tell you how to handle pressure, that's going to be a nightmare to deal with. So know how to do that internally. You're going to face pressure. How are you going to handle that pressure so that you don't drive yourself crazy? Because now we work. We want what work in life balance. Mental health is such a big thing. I'm very I'm an advocate of that. Right. And be in an environment that yeah, it's tough. Right. But then, you know, the pressure's going to give you a good diamond. Yeah. Right. You put pressure into something's gonna give you a good result. So figure out how to deal with it and handle it well. So moving along to the next one I think when we deal with supply chain we deal supply chain in terms and stuff. But we also have to think about the future. And thinking about that is how we are structuring our supply chains now to be environmentally conscious, socially responsible, so important, and integrating things into it that makes our supply chains more aware of our environments, right. The environment as a whole. We see with climate change reliever or not, we see the effects of what climate is happening and how it affects us. And if we can have a little part into not making the problem bigger. And if we can have the mentality of building our supply chains in a way that it doesn't damage, hurt or create a bigger burden on our environment, that we should definitely do that. And us as professionals in the career that you're going to go into, sort of figure that that is something that you, as an individual need to have in mind so that you can propose and put things into motion with your organization. Right? Yeah. Be socially responsible and conscious. Right. It's not just about procurement and sourcing the products you're going to make and build into a product. Where are they coming from? Are they being sourced from somewhere that's, you know, responsible? That you don't have child labor involved, that you're not breaking so many laws and things that are going to affect, you know, your whole globe, your whole world, right. So I think that's that's a big thing that I always like to tell students. And about your career. Think, think about that and what the future means. Yeah. I mean, it's so important. I think that, like you're saying, everything kind of hinges on supply chain. So having it get that sustainability right there built in at the base level and everyone else can kind of follow suit. It'll trickle down. Yeah. It's really smart. Yeah. No, I totally agree. Um, something else to take it into that direction. Also that, um, within a green supply chain, you're going to have a lot of opportunities within supply chain. So understand that there's many different things that you can do and be able to identify how to take advantage of that, not advantage. I don't like the word the answers, but take the opportunity as it comes to you so that you're able to build on that. Right. So lots of opportunities. Take advantage of that. That leads me to the next thing. Build your knowledge base. If you see these opportunities happening, it's not just knowing well, yeah, it's an opportunity. I don't feel like I'm great at it. I don't know how to handle it. Am I going to be good? Yeah. It's okay to have some doubts, but know that if you're able to build your skill set and build your knowledge base, that's going to make you stronger candidate for whatever is going to face you in your career. And then eventually the last thing I'm going to say, because I don't want to sound like I'm going too long, but the next thing I want to say is always think of yourself as a lifelong learning. The continuous learning, continuous. Learning student. Always a. Student in whatever aspect of your life. Always be a student, but especially within supply chain because of so many different elements that come into play in supply chain in your organizations. Think of yourself as a lifelong learner. Build yourself as a way to. Yes, you're in this position. Great. But what can I do? What can I learn to build myself up to the next one? Or what can I do to learn more about what happens in our company and our supply chain internally? Externally? What are some of the things right that are out there? And think of yourself always as having this mindset of building your career forward with being a lifelong learner, lifelong student. I imagine that things are constantly evolving and changing and whatnot, so keeping up with that is probably really, really important. So I never stopped learning. Totally agree. So next you want to tackle one of the most important topics. And it always feels like such a mystery to me. Maybe because I'm not a numbers person, but we want to dive into what is demand forecasting. And I know Jared knows a lot about it, but. I'm sure not as much as you. Not trying to steal the spotlight or anything. Can I say before? Lifelong learning? Yeah. But for those who are still learning like me. Like, could you explain the concept of a demand forecasting? Uh, yeah. So basically, um, in the forecast, we're, we're looking to do is predict future consumer or customer demand. That's the big objective, right? If you could take one thing away from this in demand forecasting is that you need to be able to predict future customer demand. And we do this by using several tools. Right. And several ways and methods. And I don't want to get too technical, but just to give you like an idea, right. We use quantitative and qualitative data. The quantitative data is going to be the solid numbers that you were talking about. I'm focusing in on like it. So that sort of thing is a historical data. The sales data the numbers side of things. Right. Nice and well, we all love numbers if we do. And then you also have the qualitative side of things, right. What are some of the market trends? What are people work consumer trends that we're seeing? What are some of the experts in the field that you're functioning in or you're trying to sell your product in? So in a business in itself, our purpose of a business is to make money. And how do we make money? We sell things, right or we provide a service, right? I always tell people, don't just think of supply chains as products. You can also have supply chains within service industries. So we want to sell as a business. We want to sell something. And in order to do that, we need to have enough demand and we need to have enough supply. Back to economics one on one and back to business one on one. Supply and demand. The supply is going to be you providing that product, you providing that good. But you need to understand who's going to look for that demand, who's going to look for that product. That's where we try to do in demand forecast seeing demand planning. We try to foresee in our nice little crystal ball that sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes we break it in is shatters, but other times we try to forecast or foresee the future or what the consumer demand is going to look like. What does that consumer want to buy from us? Do they even want to buy from us ? And there's so many different parts and elements that we need to understand in order to predict that as close as we can to the actual demand and without too many errors in that demand, and then that plan, why demand forecasting is so important? Because from that demand plan that we decide from the sales, from the numbers, from what the market's telling us, that's going to flow into our supply plan. The supply pen is what are we going to produce? What is going to be manufactured ? What are our operations going to do once we tell them, hey, there's this demand for X, Y, and Z products. We need to build this many units, and we need to put that into a supply plan that's going to flow to the different people within our supply chain. So we start to see, right how the man forecasting them. And planning is so important, because it's going to build a foundation into what the rest of our operations and manufacturing procurements, I'm sorry, in production. Yeah. Eventually procurement and production is going to need to achieve as well. Right. A good example that I like to give students is the example of, of a vehicle or being in a vehicle. And I always tell the students I drilled this into their brains, right. The consumer is the driver of the supply chain. That's one of the things that you learned. First thing in Introduction to Supply Chain and Supply Chain Management principles. The consumer is the driver of the supply chain. And that goes back to demand forecasting as well. You have to think of yourself as a professional in supply chain and all of us working in supply chain management are inside this one vehicle. And unfortunately, or fortunately for us, there's this entity that's driving this vehicle. You have no control over this entity. You have no control over what they do. And they are the consumer. This consumer is behind the wheel, chugging along, blasting the music, driving. That vehicle. Before. You make it sound so scary. Because it is. Yeah, but it is. Inside this vehicle that you as a professional, all of us as professionals, all of us, our companies are chugging along stuff into it like a clown car and this vehicle and that the consumer is the driver. And they're going to decide, okay, where are we going to stop? Where are we going to eat? Where are we going to rest? Where are we going to shop? Where are we going to do? And we have no control over that vehicle and where the vehicle goes. The only thing we could do as supply to professionals in demand forecasting is predict what that consumer is going to go. And we do that based on okay. In this particular route. Where do they go before in the past, where did they stop in the past? Where do they want to eat? What did they want to do. And we look at that and we check. Their behaviors. Track their behaviors. Exactly. We track the behaviors because we want to see or predict what What are they going to do next? Where is the vehicle heading? Right. And we do that because we want to make sure that our supply team is being reactive to the consumer. The consumer has the buying power. And without that buying power you can have the best product in the world. But if that product is not being sold or bought by a consumer, then you don't have a business, right? Unfortunately, you don't have a business. I like to sell everything to everybody, but you can't. You need to think about your consumer. Right. And that's the scenario that I give the students that I think they enjoy. Because like you said, you see how chaotic it could be. Yeah. And out of control. You can feel if you're not the one behind the wheel making the decisions. You do make decisions, but you make them based on what this consumer is going to do. And you have maybe very limited control to what they do. What they decide to do is going to be determined by a number of factors internal factors, external factors, internal factors, whether they live, how much they make, what is it, the graphics of this particular consumer and the market that they exist or live in, and then external factors that could be everything from the economy, the government, the weather, Covid. That was something that affected consumer behavior is always tell that now, you know, consumer behavior is completely different post-Covid. There's a consumer pre-COVID and a consumer post-Covid, right, that that changed the behaviors of the consumer tremendously. And we have to understand that and see that, hey, how do we identify that and how does that affect their consumer? These internal factors and these external factors are going to affect how that driver drives. Right. So I love to use that as an example. That's a really good example. You can really visualize it. Yeah. Right. It gives you that vision of oh my God, I'm not I'm not. At the wheel. No backseat driving there. Yeah I mean, you. Always run promotions and do things that the consumer might. Okay. So I guess there's some backseat driving. Yeah, there's some marketing to going on there. A little marketing that you can do and push the consumer, but you can't always decipher them. Right. You're not going to pull their wallet out and say, yeah, you're going to buy from me. You can do that. We'd all have successful businesses if that was an argument. I'm not trying to give anybody ideas. Don't rob people. So when I do, corporate training is a little bit of a different level, right? There's people that have already worked in the industry. They know about theirself. They have a particular structure in their in their setup in their company. So I tell them, you have to think of yourself as a as a detective. And we're sort of walking, think of yourself as walking into maybe like a store, right. And the store is going to sell all these products, and you have to think of these products as looking at things that are missing. Why did this product go missing ? Why did this product run off the shelf? What should be there in that in that space? And you put your detective hat on and you look for for clues and you look at finding things and you you look at certain things, right? Historical data, sales data. And you look at what, what are some of the consumer trends happening? What is what is happening out there in the market? Because as a detective, you need to figure out, okay, what am I going to bring back and put on those shelves? The man forecasting helps you do that. That helps you figure out your detective a job by being able to tell and figure out why did the consumer commit the crime? What is the crime? Buying. Why did they decide to buy these items and why did they move off the shelves? Right. That is your purpose to do that, right? And in this, um, the man forecasting true crime drama. We intrigue. I love. Intrigue, mystery, passion. Um, you need to figure out as a detective, figure out what happened. Like who did it, who done it, what happened with what weapon, what? All of this. You need to figure this out because all this information is it's gold. It's what's going to help you make the next cycle, your next period of time that your demand for guessing for be more accurate if you look at these clues correctly. Okay. So using that example, actually you're saying we're all detectives working supply chain. So so I mean, when a detective arrives to a crime scene, a lot of times they'll, you know, they'll tape off the crime scene, will draw the chalk around the body and all that stuff. Right? Yeah. All these best practices. So are there any, like, kind of best practices that you would like the equivalent as like a supply chain and logistics? Yeah. So um, I like to there's so many best practices. Right. If you ask somebody everybody's going to give you a different opinion. Right. But I like to focus on three. So the three the three that I like to focus is, is being data driven collaboration and information sharing and bringing in and integrating new technologies. So it's I think it's a combination of these that are going to give you some of the best practices for getting the best results out of your demand forecasting and the strategies that you implement once you put that into motion. Right. Mhm. So what does the data driven approach look like. So when we talk about a data driven approach in supply chain management or always sort of thinking about or essentially we want we have so much data. Right. We talked about this data. It's heavy on data when we talk about supply chain management. But you need to be able to gather all this data. Figure out a way to process it and then analyze it. So eventually you can get a decision out of this data. So the best practice is to gather the data and have some sort of means or ways and have systems and, and things in place that are going to help you process this data because you sit down and do everything manually and believe me, I know people that do. I know people. That do, and I know people that like, still like to do the good old fashioned way. But now we've become so heavy on the data sets and the value sets that we consume and that we eventually use within supply chain management and demand forecasting as a best practice, that you need to be able to process that data accurately so that you yeah, you have good data come in, but you analyze your processes. So you make good decisions and you have good decisions come out of it. So that's what I mean like with that. Right. And we do that by gathering historical data, the sales numbers, the information as closely as to the time that is happening as possible. And another part of that is also getting not just the data and the numbers, but also gathering insights and market trends. Right. What is the market doing or what is happening within the market then that we can take a look and take some clues, right. Back to the detective thing. Get some clues from from the market and gather that information. Right. We could do that. We used to do that. If you ever got in the mail back in the day, you get the mail and the surveys in the mail. You would have to mail it back, right? That's not what we do. We survey consumers in different ways. And now even more so we look at what consumers are doing on social media. Right. It's not just posting that selfie of that great cup of coffee, but it's also how us as a business can see. Not to sound creepy, how we can see what the consumers are doing and what some of the trends that are happening in this particular area that revolves around the supply chains and what are the mand can benefit from those from those trends. Right. And the companies that do it best are the ones that identify those trends early on. So they can be on that curve that's going to lead them to to be able to put that to market earlier than everybody else. Right. The first one to the ball gets gets the, you know, takes the game. It's sort of that situation. Right. And we do that that way now in this as well. When we talk about information and and data, we need to be able to use advanced analytics. And we need to be using good forecasting models to be able to not just have this data, but be able to do something with the data. Right. And within this data driven approach is always about the use of systems and how we can use statistical algorithms and technology like machine learning, AI to be able to enhance the accuracy of our forecasts and how we can bring that in and combine the two our knowledge, our information, our data, and then these tools, these tech tools that we can introduce into it now to make our jobs easier. I always say, why do it the hard way? Don't do it the hard way. Bring something that's a little bit more. That's going to give you a tool that's much better for you, so that you can take advantage of that as well, and implement that in a way that gives you a better result. So you mentioned that the next category is collaboration and information sharing. Can you kind of go a little more into detail about that? Yeah. So we want to work together as a team within supply chain trade. right? Um, we always used to think of secrecy as the first thing of of keeping everything within our organizations very close to our chest. Right. But I think now and I think from here on out, we always want to focus on collaboration and collaboration and information sharing, because we want to make sure that we're not duplicating the work more than we have to. Right? So in that we do this, this sort of practice is called unifying demand insights. We bring everybody in that we can we bring in sales. We bring in production, we bring in the forecasters in the procurement, and we bring everybody that's going to have some sort of input within our demand plans, and we're going to ask them to work together so we can unify the effort into creating a demand plan that's going to make the most sense if we integrate all these different data sets, if we integrate all these different experts and people within our organization, and then we can ask them together, what is the best thing that we can do with this one demand plan? Because you're only going to have one demand plan, one forecast for whatever time frame, but one of them for your organization. And if we can all come together and work together as a team, then that's going to really build on a much better demand plan. And that's always a best practice. Yeah, I love that. Yeah. I mean, work makes the dream work. Yeah. Exactly. Right I love that, right? I mean, siloing information is never great. It's something I think it's a very old school mentality that like, knowledge is power. So people are so precious about keeping that close to their chest. But I think in the modern day, people are starting to realize that it's better to have that good information flow, you know? Yeah, definitely. Definitely. I think that we're in the age of information. We're in the age of AI. Right? We are we're we're getting so much information even from artificial intelligence now, not just people. And I think, yeah, it's all about unifying that, making sure that all of us are working together to to do one, one single task that we don't have to repeat itself over and over again. So when it comes to integrating new technologies, what would be your main tips for this? So I think when we're talking about integrating technologies and supply chain management, I think it's really important to use tools, and technology is going to help your operations boost your operations. One of them that is really crucial is real time data analytics. So you have all this information, all this data and there's this, this joke or this, this thing that we we say within demand forecasting, you're planning for the future based on the whims of yesterday, right? Based on what the population and the people did yesterday. We're doing that today without that real data. Real time data. So why do that? Now we have the tools to look at the information and the wind and and what people want to do today in real time. We see something move out the shelf. We can see that in our systems right away. We can see as that product is moving out of the shelves right away and sharing that information back with everybody else that is involved in that supply chain, that it's it's so crucial. And so it makes such a big difference. Right. So the technology would be to incorporate that real time analytics. And we do that through the use of machine learning and AI systems. I think Inflo has a great ability to do that. Right. Yeah. Thank you. We thank you for bringing that up. We do. In fact, I want. To talk all about myself. Yeah. No inflow is great for that. We have we have real time data tracking. So you know exactly what's going on in your system when it's happening, which is amazing. We have a great reporting feature. So we have like we're obviously very data driven as well. We even have like a reorder point system where like our our software will help you figure out what the best reorder points are. So you're not ordering too much or too little of anything. Yeah. Like we're all about the data for sure. And that's part that's part of the next thing. Right. Another best practice is to bring in real. It's not just a real time data but big data analytics. Right. It's putting all this information in and having something that is able to process it and give you a help. You make a better decision, right, and better informed decision. And having systems in place like that, it's what's going to really the technology is going to drive us all forward. And you don't have to be afraid of it. You just have to know how to work those tools to incorporate them and become a best practice within your demand forecasting, demand planning, supply chain management as a whole. Right. Mhm. Um, another technology that I think a lot of people either have heard or they're starting to hear a lot more is predictive analytics. So within this big data, within this real time data, we also want to be able to not just use the system to process the data and give us a analytic report. Now there's ways to do that and have a predictive analysis. Tell the system, let the system tell you what they think is going to happen. And then based you take that and then based on that, you're going to make a better informed decision. Right. And I love that because it's not just okay, don't tell me what to do, but in some ways do tell me. Tell me what to do. Please tell me what to do. Take that off my plate. And if you can't, please do it right. I all of these things. Don't be afraid of it. And I and I tell that to the students more recently, now that I'm starting. I'm not an expert on this. I can't claim to be an expert on AI and all this stuff, but I do have some sort of information and I like to inform myself. Lifelong learner here. Mhm. How to to to do use some of these tools. Right. And how they're going to come in and leverage some of the other things that we have within supply chain and demand planning and how that's going to be implemented. So always always learn about those stuff and don't be afraid of it. Right. It's a technology that's some people say, and I hear this all the time. It's going to take away jobs and it's going to it's going to replace a lot of the things that we do. To some extent, unfortunately, that is the case. But then to some other extent, you have to be aware of it and be ahead of the ball and say, you know, how am I going to use this as a tool? We're always going to need to have that human factor of things. Right? Exactly. All of us are still going to have to come in and tell the, the intelligence what to do with the AI, what to. Do. Until. Skynet. Yeah, exactly. Until Skynet. To put it out. There. Yeah. But but. Yeah, that. They're listening. Um. So. Yeah. So don't be afraid of it. Right. You're going to be able to use this as a tool. Think of it as a tool that's going to make you a better professional, that's going to make you a better, you know, supply chain professionals, a whole a better than man planner. But at the man forecaster, it's going to make you better by using these tools. So don't don't be afraid to do that right. And another best practice within the man forecasting is cloud computing. Right. And this is sort of we're going back. This is not a technology that's new that but this is something that I, I always like to put in here because I always like to have the message out there that the least level you can do is have something that's cloud based, have your systems run in a system that is at least cloud based. Why? Because that leads to better integration of your efforts, right? We talked about sharing information and unifying efforts. Right. When you at least have a cloud based system, then you're able to do this in a cloud. Everybody has access to put data in everybody's access to that data. Everybody has has a way to work from that one particular cloud. And that's at least as a base. Right. And when we talk to a lot of small businesses in corporate training that we do, and we talk to them and we try to get them out of this bubble of how they are used to doing things and push them a little to see that there are better ways to do things that are not going to be so scary. Get your feet wet into cloud computing. And then from there, maybe we talk about machine learning, and maybe then we're talking about other other technology, but at the very least, do some cloud computing and cloud based computing for your supply chain. You're the man forecast everything that deals with this collaboration approach. Yeah, I mean, inflow actually started off as an on premise software as a solution. Right. right? So there wasn't cloud based at all. And of course, we saw the benefits of going to the cloud gives you real time data. You can multiple locations can share information a lot easier. So yeah, we definitely moved into that field. And it became so popular so quick that we just completely stopped with our on premise entirely. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. So you can see the benefits of it, right? I think everybody should that works in supply chain and ready to secure to do it. Don't be scared to scared. Do it. I do have a little question about going back to AI because it's such a hot topic. Um, did you do you find in supply chain and logistics, it's used mostly just for like, you know, digesting data and making sense of that data. Or are we seeing any more in like, you know, I see on like LinkedIn, like robots carrying boxes or like pallet moving pallets and whatnot. Is is AI being implemented into like automation at all or is it just really for digesting the information? Like I said, I'm not an expert of it, so I'm still learning from it, from what I can see and I'm familiar with, I do see the data analytics side of things, right. How it helps us process data. That's the first impact, the first interaction that I've had when it comes to warehousing and the structures of operations within warehousing and transportation, I knew I know that the systems are starting to incorporate, WMS are starting to work with AI and machine learning to figure out what are the best accommodations and capacities for warehouses, right? How can we base structure this this structure that we have? How can we do the to the best capacity and how could we bring in robotics, you know, AI and all these different tools to make our operations a lot better? Right. That's because that is a much bigger investment for companies and for for people to do and to learn about. I think that is not something that we see so frequently, and I think on the larger companies have done that right. Walmart, Amazon, they have the. Budget for it. Because you do need to have the budget. Is that money, money, money? Yeah. You do need to have that investment to be able to incorporate those those those systems, that technology. When it comes to data, it's not such a big investment, right? You're able to have system and software that are much more accessible, takes less of a learning curve. And there were able to adapt much easier. So why not that be the introduction into some of the tools that you do within AI, right. And eventually, if that helps build a stronger AI based supply chain as a whole, why not ? We welcome that. So to wrap things up, what would you say are some of the key takeaways for those looking to improve their career and take their knowledge to the next level? Um, I don't I don't want to sound repetitive, but it goes back to always be open to learning, right? Be a lifelong student, be a lifelong learner, because that's always going to build your skill set right. And it's going to help you build a better career that makes the most sense to you, right? Figure out what it is that you want to do personally, what you want to do professionally, and try to figure out a career path that makes the most sense to you. I like to take the students. This little tidbit is look at what ultimately what position you want to do right? What is the ultimate goal in your career? What ultimately do you envision yourself doing as far as a position right? What is your dream position like and then sort of work your way backwards from that? Figure out what is the career path from that. Don't just figure out, yeah, I'm going to go to school. Yeah, I'm going to get a degree. Yeah okay. Hopefully it helps. But no try to build a way that it goes a blueprint backwards. Right. What is ultimately the building, the construction you want to do and what is that career in that ultimate goal in your career? A position maybe open your own business, logistics or whatever might be right? What is ultimately what you want to do that makes the most sense for you as a professional and your personal life, everything as a whole, and then build yourself backwards from that. What I try to do that with the MVC Logistics Academy is sort of bring that connection to students, right? If you're sort of lost as what to do, that's what I like to do. I like to tell you the tools that you can use to build your career from that. Right. And the way that I've done that is by building some courses. And I build, for example, this course that we rolling out is called the Advance Demand Forecasting Masterclass. The master class is such a popular word now, but is the Advanced Demand Forecasting masterclass. And in this masterclass, if you really want to know about demand forecasting, this is where we tell you the nitty gritty of of demand forecasting, right? So you're going to learn like a deep dive into what the man forecasting is. So that course is great for people interested in that. Another course that we have is sort of like the introduction for people that are just starting, just kind of get their feet wet and want to find out. Exactly. Okay, I've heard this, but what is it we have? I built this course that I that it took me a while to build this course. Because always your first baby is like the one that you put the most work into. And the intro to supply chain management, that was my first baby. That is the one that I put so much time and love into because I was like, all right, this is what I'm going to pour my soul into this cause. And as the introduction to simulation management and it's sort of if you're starting. It's a great way to get your, your intro into the field or if you're somebody that's already in there, how to refresh some of the things on the concepts that you've learned or know, but how to really, really know exactly what we're talking about. Right. And then also within that and from that inception of the baby of, of the of the course, I sort of build in the coaching and the mentoring program into, into that as well, because it's not just learning the material, but how do I put this into motion in my own career? Is this something that I'm going to be able to really actually make it happen for myself? Right. I just want to pay for something. I want to be able to get something out of it. And I try to help students with that as well. And then also, you know, we have some great free resources on the site. We call this the Career and Life Assessment, which is basically sort of this sort of questionnaire. They have to be really honest with yourself, and you have to go through it and sit down and take your time and you sort of see what are some of the things that you're going to have to do personally and professionally, and what's going to make the most sense for you to build a career that's going to really fulfill you, but also that makes the most sense for you and your family, right? Because we all have commitments. We all got bills to pay. We can't just drop and say, we're going to go and build my career supply chain. No, you have to do it consciously in a way that makes the most sense to you, right? Make the commitment. Yes, of course, be 100% in the class in that course, in that mentoring, but also know how it's going to affect the rest of your life. So the assessment is great tool that I always recommend students to get, because it's a sort of way of saying, okay, let me be honest with myself. What do I have to do with the picture? Yeah, exactly. And what do I need to to, to do to make this happen? Yeah. I mean, I think it's great that you have. Sounds like you have a lot of things for all different skill levels and you know, so everyone kind of, you know, either if you're just getting started or if you want to learn more and advance, you know, you got something you can turn to, which is great. Thanks. Thanks, thanks. All right, everybody, that is a wrap on this episode. Thank you so much to Maria for coming and talking with us today. It's been awesome. A lot of great insights. Yeah. Of course if you guys have any questions, make sure to leave a comment below. And for those who want to dive deeper into inventory management, where can they go to find you? Yeah. So we have our website. That's the NVC logistics Economy.com. That's where we have all the courses and posted that are open for enrollment. So you can check those out. We also have the YouTube channel which is an MVC logistics academy. We post a lot of great content there that you can consume as however you like. And we also have our social media handles and NVC Logistics Academy. You can also get in touch with me, send a message, reach out whatever you want to do or you do socially. We can you can do that at NVC Logistics Academy. Awesome. So thanks so much for joining us everyone. We will see you in the next episode. And again thanks to Marina for joining us. Thank you guys okay. Bye everybody. Bye.