
The podcast for enterprise leaders delivering timely insights for today’s global economy—and tomorrow’s competitive advantage.
The GET pulls business and management insights from today’s economic and societal developments to help global enterprise leaders move to the future with greater agility and performance. Offering timely conversation and analysis with renowned business leaders, The GET addresses the most pressing topics confronting global businesses and management.
The host of The GET is Christopher G. Caine, President of the Center for Global Enterprise (CGE). Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe to The GET and look for new episodes on the second Tuesday of every month.
Episode 17 (Special Edition): A Generative AI Primer for CEOs
Air Date: May 24
Play: 27:45
Host: Christopher G. Caine, President of the Center for Global Enterprise (CGE)
Guests Tom Friedman, Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times Columnist and Author, and Sam Palmisano, Chairman, The Center for Global Enterprise and former Chairman, IBM
Humanity is on the verge of a new technological revolution powered by generative AI tools like ChatGPT with the potential to fundamentally change the way we live and work. The excitement and expanding use of ChatGPT have ignited a race to develop and deploy even more powerful tools. Many stakeholders, such as government regulators and business leaders, are now scrambling to understand the impact the rapid emergence of new AI tools will have on consumers, businesses, society, and global economies. Regulators are considering new rules and guidelines for AI, while even some leaders in the tech community are calling for a timeout to better understand the ramifications of generative AI. Listen, as we explore the implications of these new AI tools and the challenges and opportunities they present for businesses and others in society.
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Episode 16: Biden Administration National Cybersecurity Strategy: What CEOs Need to Know – Part 1
Air Date: May 9
Play: 19:08
Host: Christopher G. Caine, President of the Center for Global Enterprise (CGE)
Guests: Sam Palmisano, Chairman of The Center for Global Enterprise, Karen Evans, Managing Director, The Cyber Readiness Institute
In March, President Biden released his administration’s National Cybersecurity Strategy. This episode of The GET discusses the elements of his plan and their significance to CEOs and business leaders. Due to the importance and extent of the subject, Episode 16 contains two parts. Part 1 addresses the topics of new regulatory approaches and cyber insurance. Part 2 deals with data stewardship and responsibility, software security and liability, and cybersecurity market forces vs. regulation.
Air Date: May 9
Play: 19:08
Host: Christopher G. Caine, President of the Center for Global Enterprise (CGE)
Guests: Sam Palmisano, Chairman of The Center for Global Enterprise, Karen Evans, Managing Director, The Cyber Readiness Institute
In March, President Biden released his administration’s National Cybersecurity Strategy. This episode of The GET discusses the elements of his plan and their significance to CEOs and business leaders. Due to the importance and extent of the subject, Episode 16 contains two parts. Part 1 addresses the topics of new regulatory approaches and cyber insurance. Part 2 deals with data stewardship and responsibility, software security and liability, and cybersecurity market forces vs. regulation.
Episode 16: Biden Administration National Cybersecurity Strategy: What CEOs Need to Know – Part 1
Air Date: May 9
Play: 19:08
Host: Christopher G. Caine, President of the Center for Global Enterprise (CGE)
Guests: Sam Palmisano, Chairman of The Center for Global Enterprise, Karen Evans, Managing Director, The Cyber Readiness Institute
In March, President Biden released his administration’s National Cybersecurity Strategy. This episode of The GET discusses the elements of his plan and their significance to CEOs and business leaders. Due to the importance and extent of the subject, Episode 16 contains two parts. Part 1 addresses the topics of new regulatory approaches and cyber insurance. Part 2 deals with data stewardship and responsibility, software security and liability, and cybersecurity market forces vs. regulation.
Episode 16: Biden Administration National Cybersecurity Strategy: What CEOs Need to Know – Part 2
Air Date: May 9
Play: 23:46
Host: Christopher G. Caine, President of the Center for Global Enterprise (CGE)
Guests: Sam Palmisano, Chairman of The Center for Global Enterprise, Karen Evans, Managing Director, The Cyber Readiness Institute
In March, President Biden released his administration’s National Cybersecurity Strategy. This episode of The GET discusses the elements of his plan and their significance to CEOs and business leaders. Due to the importance and extent of the subject, Episode 16 contains two parts. Part 1 addresses the topics of new regulatory approaches and cyber insurance. Part 2 deals with data stewardship and responsibility, software security and liability, and cybersecurity market forces vs. regulation.
Episode 15: The Myths and Realities of Doing Business in Africa: What CEOs Should Know
Air Date: April 11
Play: 27:52
Host: Christopher G. Caine, President of the Center for Global Enterprise (CGE)
Guests: Seif el Sadek, Founder and CEO, Agrocorp, and Bowale Odumade Adeoye, Vice President Investment, Africa Finance Corporation
Recently, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris visited Africa to push for U.S. business investment in the continent. While this is part of President Biden’s recently announced Africa initiative, there are myriad opportunities and challenges for any CEO—U.S. or otherwise–interested in doing business in Africa. Weighing the risks and the rewards, we ask the questions, how should CEOs approach market entry on the African continent? Can companies rely solely on distributors? Or do they need a local representative in priority markets to gather market intelligence, manage distributors, and build relationships with government?
Episode 14: Three Global Factors Requiring CEOs to Adjust Their Supply Chains Now
Air Date: March 14
Play: 26:46
Host: Christopher G. Caine, President of the Center for Global Enterprise (CGE)
Guests: Mike Bhaskaran, Chief Operating Officer for Digital Technology at DP World, a world leader in global logistics; and Marko Kovacevic, the Managing Director of the Digital Supply Chain Institute, a New York-based non profit applied research institute.
The world is at an inflection point over growing questions, and in some cases resistance, to globalization and economic interdependence. We see three factors that are having a defining impact: the rise in “deglobalization,” the rise in protectionism, and a commitment to mitigating climate change through operational adjustments. In addition, concepts of supply chain sovereignty are rising and threaten a company’s ability to retain operating flexibility and competitive advantage. Companies are well served to find alternative choices to mitigate these new operating and financial risks. One such alternative model that has arisen is called Constellations of Value, a shift from the traditional linear view of supply chains toward a three-dimensional network of trusted, secure, and expert stakeholders with advanced digital capabilities. It is being embraced by leading supply chain owners and operators and provides a choice for CEOs to consider.
Episode 13: Looking Ahead at U.S.-China Relations; Factors Shaping CEO Decisions
Air Date: February 14
Play: 28:34
Host: Christopher G. Caine, President of the Center for Global Enterprise (CGE)
Guests: John Hamre, President and CEO of the Center for Strategic and International Studies and Sam Palmisano, Chairman of The Center for Global Enterprise, and Chairman of the America’s Frontier Fund
Two factors have shaped the last few decades of global economics. In 2001, the U.S. granted China permanent most favored nation trade status, and China was formally admitted into the World Trade Organization. Since then, CEOs have operated their businesses to factor in a relatively cooperative economic and geopolitical relationship between the U.S. and China. But today things are different. We discuss how things have changed and what are the factors CEOs need to address as they execute their business over the next few decades.
Episode 12: Six Critical Issues for CEOs to Address in 2023
Air Date: January 9
Host: Christopher G. Caine, President of the Center for Global Enterprise
Guests: Michael Spence, Nobel Laureate, former Dean, Stanford School of Business; David Kappos, partner at Cravath, Swaine & Moore and former Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office; Victor Fung, Chairman of the Fung Group and the Asia Global Institute; Sam Palmisano, Chairman of the Center for Global Enterprise and the America’s Frontier Fund; Jon Iwata, Executive Fellow at Yale School of Management and Managing Director of the Data and Trust Alliance; and Alexander Fernandez, CEO of Streamline Media Group.
What opportunities and challenges will business leaders encounter in 2023? Throughout the past year, The GET has asked our guests to identify in one word or one phrase, an emerging issue they see on the horizon that business leaders need to put on their radar. We call this our Emerging Critical Issues Moment. For our first episode of the New Year, we have selected six emerging issues cited by our guests and asked them to spend a few minutes with us to dig a little deeper into the reasons why these issues are on their radar and what CEOs need to consider and plan for. If these topics–energy transition, decentralized finance, economic decoupling, algorithmic safety, identity, and the case for regional trading bloc headquarters—are not on your radar, maybe the New Year is a good time to consider if they should be?
A GET Special Release: “The Fab Five” Episodes
Air Date: December 16
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Replay Episode 5: New Trade Realities: How CEOs Can Embrace Open Trade Regionalism
A GET Special Release: “The Fab Five” Episodes
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Air Date: December 15
Replay Episode 4: Global Inflation: Three Decisions CEOs Should Make
A GET Special Release: “The Fab Five” Episodes
Air Date: December 14
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Replay Episode 3: The Innovation Race: U.S., China, and?
A GET Special Release: “The Fab Five” Episodes
Air Date: December 13
- Replay Episode 2: Supply Chain Strategies
Chris Caine: Welcome to The GET, the podcast for enterprise leaders, delivering timely insights for today's global economy, and tomorrow's competitive advantage. I'm your host, Chris Caine, president of the Center for Global Enterprise. Today, we're going to focus on the topic that most consumers never concern themselves with, and frankly, a lot of business leaders underplayed the strategic bet. Supply chains, specifically strategies for managing critical supply chains in turbulent times. First, it was the global pandemic. Now it's the crisis in Ukraine and the COVID and supply chain developments in China. Supply chains have been catching a lot of attention in the last few years. And a lot of that attention has not been positive. The good news is enterprise leaders understand the critical role of supply chains now more than ever. And the public has a new appreciation for how supply chains affect so many facets of their daily life. The big question of course, is how can we build better, more resilient supply chains that are agile and able to quickly address unforeseen, and in some cases, catastrophic events. To discuss the changing role of supply chains and how business leaders can transform their organizations, we're fortunate to have with us today, Sam Palmisano, founder, and chairman of the Center for Global Enterprise and former chairman and CEO of IBM. And Michael Spence, Nobel Laureate and former dean of the Stanford school of business. Sam and Mike, thanks for joining us today. Sam, how about if we start with you, what do organizations need to do to change their supply chains-to be more flexible and to be able to adjust quickly to these oncoming and very diverse global events?
Sam Palmisano: Well, Chris, thank you. And it's great to be with you today. I’d like to go back quickly on the current design of supply chain. So what drove the current design? It was a cost model and obviously needed a quality in your products, but it was cost driven models. When a cost driven model you're going to drive scale. A larger scale and scale economics should have a lower cost per unit. Therefore you're going to drive your competitive and it was significant. And it all companies drove that and inventory turns and cash management, all those things that are very, very important to a company, or a result that that model drove the design of the supply chains. That worked for decades quite honestly, to get costs out and quality up in the supply chains. What happened is they're not resilient and they're not flexible because you have a scale model. You have a concentration model trying to be in the factory of the world. That's what that results in, in a scale model. So therefore what's going to have to happen is that companies are now designed for resiliency and customer service, which is going to be higher costs, but if they can drive value to their customers, then therefore they could price for that cost because they've created a valued relationship. It could be service levels. I mean, there are models for this today. If you look at retail and everybody loves the fact that you order online and you get stuff the next day, whether it's Amazon or whatever it happens to be, that's great, but that's set the expectation from the consumer of the service levels that are required. So if you could design for agility, which means you have to address the last mile problem, you have to get it from the factory or the distribution center or the port to the house. And that's where the complication is. That's a design. It's not just near shoring, but it's nearshoring for the value you can generate for your customers or your clients, not just near shoring, because you're concerned about resiliency and political risk. Chris Caine: Mike, you've worked in the supply chain area and its relevance to economic development and economic policy for years. Thoughts on supply chain resilience and the ability for global leaders and company leaders to design more resilient and agile? Mike Spence: I think we're at the end of this long period in which we used huge amounts of underutilized productive capacity around the world, in the developing countries. and it was cost-driven, and that was deflationary and delivered astonishing, quality products all over the world at relatively modest prices. The relative price of these goods kept declining in a world that saw, rising prices and lots of other areas. Why do I think that's over? Because there isn't another China, because India is not going to go down that road because the African countries, I don't think can, fill in the gap as China, becomes a really a pretty high, middle income country and moves to different things. And finally, we shouldn't forget. then in the course of this very successful development in China and India and Indonesia in a number of countries, we've created tens of millions of new middle-class consumers. So the demand side of the global economy doesn't look anything like what it looked like 25 years ago. It's A) huge and B) it's located in a different place. So I think what's going to happen is first, we're going to have inflation. Second. let me make a prediction just to make this colorful. I think at 10 to 15 years, manufacturing broadly will not be labor intensive and the same will be true of much logistics. If that's true, I expect the movement to be toward the final market, because there are advantages in terms of, knowing your customer and whatnot, that Sam understands way better than I do. So I think that's one of the things that we're going to see. Chris Caine: We were talking about, the end customer, like you were alluding to that, and Sam, you were talking about the last mile. What's been enabled that we see in many companies that we work with is business model that they've never been able to use before, or never chosen to use before, direct to consumer or direct to customer. And it's almost impossible to have a complete, competitive advantage there if you haven't quite figured out the last mile. And we see that today. So are there innovations in the last mile, Sam and Mike, that you see coming, or. are there barriers that are so strong that a concentrated effort to overcome those barriers would be important for industry to apply itself to, Sam Palmisano: Well, I think go back to where it was before the cost model, right? And the reason why you did the things that you did, you're trying to optimize the cost, right? So there are four, whether that was logistics or shipping or all elements of that, to get it to wherever it had, whether that was a storage. Or your house, whatever it happened to be. So therefore, as a company, because you were managing your costs, you had partnerships in your supply chains saying you would use distributors or logistics companies or FedEx, UPS, whomever you could outsource to those guys, to do those sorts of things for you. However what's changed? Well, everybody wants to pick on Amazon, but that model has made everybody rethink this, and they've run an end-to-end integrated model. They have the end view of the consumer and the need to the goods that are coming on with, they're not the manufacturer nor case or the aggregator, but nonetheless, you do the same thing with Ali Baba. And then you add the payment system called Ali Pay. You see this end-to-end integration. So my point is that what are the elements of the integration that allowed them to have these service levels, but still maintain competitive costs? Well, in the distributed centers, it's called robotics. I mean, there aren't a lot of people running around in those distribution centers. I know people talk about this as far as unionization. But to me, it was like a semiconductor facility. You gonna utilize 15 people, the 400,000 on IBM. It's all going to be replaced by technology. You get to the efficiency of the trucks and yes, they were large and expensive in the past because you had your scale model, but now you have these prime trucks everywhere. They're going to become EVs and self-driving, back to Mike's point long-term. So there are lots of innovation you can actually get to the manufacturing element of this. So if we were designing, called 3d printing today, which can be done with 3d printing. So you don't have these big manufacturing centers that go to a distribution center that goes to the store or wherever it happens to be, you can print it on the spot and those kinds of things. So Mike's right. They're going to drive huge innovation, lots of productivity, but also disruption. So if you are a traditional company that's not used to operating in this model, it's going to be complicated. It's not an easy transition to get from where they are today. After a hundred years of doing whatever they did to where they need to be like what Mike saying the next 15 or 20. Mike, any thoughts? Mike Spence: I completely think Sam's got this. Right. And it's important. I would only add that when other code at the world and what's going on in, rejiggering the supply chains. One of the things that strikes me is this global explosion of entrepreneurial activity, around the internet. I mean, we now have an estimated 6.5 billion people on the mobile internet, which we didn't see coming, 15 years ago. And so you've got in a growing number of places around the world, China, India, Latin America, and so on. This is largely digital. Ecosystems that do the financing, that make it possible for people to innovate, in these relatively coordinated data-driven environments and so on. I guess in addition to this integrated model, which is pretty powerful, if I were in the, world of, thinking how we're going to get through to consumers, I'd be trying to think about what's my place, in these growing highly dynamic, digital ecosystems that are blossoming, like weeds, all over the world. Chris Caine: So you both have talked about the necessity and the power of technology to deliver supply chains that are more agile and more resilient, but where are the gaps in management? Sam, maybe we can talk to you on this first, which is, you know, it's one thing to have the tools. It's another thing to have the management processes and the management aptitude to utilize the tools in the most effective way. Where are the gaps in management of transforming a supply chain? And let's just call it, from my existing model to a direct to customer model, whether I'm a B2B or B2C company. Sam Palmisano: Well, I think Mike started with it. If you look at these entrepreneurial companies, are you looking at people that have become a very, very successful in this digital data-driven world that's all mobily interfaced with the phone, right? They have a completely different management system than a traditional company, like an IBM or a FedEx, or go through the whole list, General Motors or Ford pick anybody you want. Our management systems are a hundred and something years old, right. And these guys, including the big ones who have scaled, this hyperscalers, whether that's Netflix, Spotify, Amazon, et cetera, they have a completely different management. And their management's designed for speed agility, but heavily skill-based, it's not as vertical. We had silos and those sorts of things. I don't want to go design a management system on the podcast, but having said all that, if you look to the future, if you're a traditional company, you should model the innovators that Mike's alluding to. And don't discount them because they're small. Look at their management system, look at their skills development, look at their processes and controls all those sorts of elements that they have and decide what is right for you. Obviously, you can't just go to that day one, you have a hundred years of history, but you have to make that transition in some way. Chris Caine: I'd like to, start to close out our conversation about supply chains with government. We've certainly in the last two years, seen governments involved, support intervention and supply chains become very pronounced around the world. Governments are trying to deal with shortages of simple things like toilet paper, all the way to complex things like semiconductors. And they don't want to be in a position of having their citizens and, or their, population, wanting for even the most basic things that we're seeing right now in the United States, like baby formula. So what's needed from government leaders to achieve greater supply chain resilience and efficiency, and maybe what isn't, or shouldn't be needed? Sam Palmisano: First of all, if you define a supply chain end to end, right? The individual consumer to the actual component, they get to the manufacturer that is the supply chain, and it's global and there's nothing the regional government can do about that fact. It's always been this way. It's not going to change because they give a nice speech or they tweet it doesn’t matter. That's what it is. So if you're going to be able to solve yourself in a crisis, like we've had, you need it and, and view, which means you need collaboration, which means you need information flows, which means you mean data flows. It means you have to be able to deal with some of the privacy implications. All the things that they are doing to regulate their world is impacting their ability to optimize- and the pandemic or in a global disruption, like a war, all those things. So that I'm not saying that they're necessarily not well-intended because as they look at these very narrow elements of this, like information flows and information sharing and data privacy and those kinds of things, there's a need in certain areas, for sure. But at the end of the day, if you are going to optimize your economy, for the world that we're going to live in that requires interconnection and growth for you to sustain your standards of living or to grow your standards of living. You have to have this end-to-end view. Now where I come from, which I know many people have heard me say before, all governments in the world do not have the skills and capability to do these things, whether it's in cyber or information flows or data. It doesn't matter in these current technologies. None of them have the skills or the capability. To have them overseeing things where they don't have the capability or the knowledge is ineffective. And we ought to just understand that. And if we wanted to be constructive about it, we would assemble people who have the backgrounds to work with governments. It's a partnership, but they need to rely on people in the private sector, the academic community, people that have the knowledge, because the things that they design have all these unintended consequences, that when something occurs, it disrupts an element of the supply chain, impact society. And they just don't have the perspective of what's required. You look at some of the things that happened, during the pandemic and all that, it's because the people that were overseeing it had no experience or background. Zero. And you wonder why they can't solve the problem. So you put a bunch of people in the room that don't know how it works, and guess what you get, you get policy, you get stuff. They understand cause they're lawyers, none of it's going to work. Totally. In fact, in many cases it even makes it worse. Michael Spence: The global supply chains are a massive decentralized system. And probably in the past, we never had a way of really understanding all parts of it. But I think now we do, in digital data and I think, Sam's right. the governments don't know how to do this. They don't know what they're looking for. But a coalition of knowledgeable people from global businesses, could come together and agree that this system, is, because of this massive decentralization, is opaque. Right? If you asked yourself in the middle of the pandemic, what would you forecast? How would you forecast the blockages that we've seen, longer duration? Lots of people would have bits and pieces, but they're not assembled. There's no big data system that says this system is starting to get creaky. There’s going to start to be blockages or congestion in the system. I think that's a solvable problem. If it's true. By a kind of global private sector initiative, like the Center for Global Enterprise. Sam Palmisano: I think you have some research underway. Chris Caine: I think we do. So before we close, we like to use the last minute or so to give our listeners some strategic thoughts and insights about what they should be considering. We call it our emerging critical issues. So I asked you, Mike and Sam in one word or one phrase, tell us what emerging issues do you see on the horizon that business leaders need to put on their radar. Sam Palmisano: I would just say, overzealous governments and that means, unfortunately, business leaders have to do something none of us like to do, which is get engaged, in a constructive way. I mean, not a political way. Don't form a PAC and write checks and all those crazy things, don't get in the middle of the West- China relations. That's not your role. You don't understand this stuff anyway. But my point is that in a constructive way, engage or to help these guys try to solve the problem versus trying to just pass some piece of legislation that gets them two points in a poll, Chris Caine: Mike, one word or one phrase. Michael Spence: I think, what is your digital strategy, really? Chris Caine: All right. Thank you for those. We'll come back to those in future podcasts. I want to thank you both for your time. You've been listening to The GET sponsored by the Center for Global Enterprise, celebrating 10 years of convenient global enterprise leaders around the most important transformation business issues.A GET Special Release: “The Fab Five” Episodes
Air Date: December 12
- Replay Episode 1: Restructuring Economic Relationships
Episode 10: The Metaverse: New Enterprise Asset or Liability
Air Date: November 7, 2022
Play 28:34
Host: Christopher G. Caine, President of the Center for Global Enterprise (CGE)
Guests: Alexander Fernandez, CEO of Streamline Media Group; and Shawn Layden, former CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment America and now a Strategic Advisor to Tencent, and Streamline Media Group
The Metaverse has captured our imagination. The virtual world of the Metaverse is increasingly shaping the direction of the physical world and promising to deliver business opportunities using new kinds of digital assets and operating models. But it is important to acknowledge that we are only at the beginning of this nascent environment, and for many CEOs, they are wrestling with where, how, and when to start this journey—if at all. Rightly, CEOs are considering this new era of digital interaction with interest and suspicion.
Episode 9: New Trade Realities: How CEOs Can Embrace Open Trade Regionalism
Air Date: October 11, 2022
Play 26:58
Moderator: Christopher G. Caine, President of the Center for Global Enterprise
Guests: Victor Fung, Chairman of the Fung Group and the Asia Global Institute; and Sam Palmisano, Chairman of the Center for Global Enterprise and the America’s Frontier Fund
One of the greatest developments for global trade and economic growth after World War II was the creation of multilateral institutions that set the rules for international trade and economic relations among countries. Institutions like the World Trade Organization (WTO) have brought countries together to agree to a set of common practices. But as the WTO was launched to harmonize of rules for traditional commerce, technology was enabling a whole new type of commerce and only a decade later, eCommerce was a part of everyday life for billions of people. Today’s CEOs must decide how to advance their tangible and intangible investments and assets, if they are to capture global opportunities. And they have to do this as geopolitics is reasserting itself over geoeconomics as the organizing principle for trade. CEOs need to adjust to a new landscape that is very different from the rules that have been in place for over 30 years.
Special GET Release: Global Inflation: Three Decisions CEOs Should Make
Air Date: September 14, 2022
Play 23:29
CGE Moderator: Christopher G. Caine, President of the Center for Global Enterprise (CGE)
Special Host: Sam Palmisano, Chairman of the Center for Global Enterprise
CGE Guests: Michael Spence, Nobel Laureate, former Dean, Stanford School of Business, and Kevin Warsh, former member of the United States Federal Reserve Board, and a distinguished visiting fellow in economics at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution
Countries around the world are experiencing the highest rates of inflation in decades. In fact, it has been more than 40 years since current inflation rates have been this high in the United States. Current CEOs and business leaders have little direct experience to draw upon to manage through this kind of general economic environment. Apart from Warren Buffet, no current Fortune 1000 CEO has been serving long enough to have this “muscle memory.” What are the decisions CEOs should be making today, 90 days from now, and 6 months from now to manage through this inflationary situation?
Episode 7: The Innovation Race: U.S., China, and?
Air Date: September 13, 2022
Play 29:28
Host: Christopher G. Caine, President of the Center for Global Enterprise (CGE)
Guests: Sam Palmisano, Chairman of the Center for Global Enterprise, and Board Chairman of America’s Frontier Fund; and Gilman Louie, co-founder and CEO of America’s Frontier Fund
The United States has been an innovator and technology leader since the first integrated circuits were invented over 60 years ago. Through a combination of government investment, entrepreneurship, university-backed research, available seed funding and eager financial markets, the U.S. has led the world and set standards in most tech categories. But no lead is guaranteed and other nations, particularly China, are making rapid advances. In this episode, we explore where the “Innovation Race” stands today and the economic decoupling taking place between China and the U.S. that is forcing CEOs, business leaders, and other national leaders to rethink their investment and operating models.
Episode 6: The Data Enterprise: Managing for Growth and Trust
Episode 5: Restructuring Business Models in a U.S-China Decoupling Economy
Episode 4: Managing Brand Identity and Strategy When Driven by Geopolitical Events
Air Date: June 14, 2022
Play 23:40
An unprecedented number of companies have supported economic sanctions against Russia in response to its invasion of Ukraine—in several cases going beyond what the sanctions call for. In the past, companies have rarely taken public positions that could hurt profits. That has changed and the public—and employees–now expect global brands to do the right thing. Shelly Lazarus, Chairman Emeritus, Ogilvy, and Jon Iwata, Executive Fellow at Yale School of Management and former IBM Senior Vice President and Chief Brand Officer, help business leaders navigate managing brands and marketing strategies when driven by geopolitical events.
Episode 3: Business Continuity in Turbulent Times
Air Date: June 14, 2022
Play 25:24
The world is experiencing numerous disruptions–geoeconomics, geopolitical, technology, climate change, etc. While turbulence and disruption are constant pressures on business, throw into that mix the fact that the pace of business keeps accelerating and its clear why companies are viewing data as the engine that powers more and more operations, enabling flexibility and agility. Yet, many businesses struggle to identify and protect the critical information they need for operations. Joining us to discuss how CEOs can ensure business continuity in turbulent times are Samuel J. Palmisano, CGE founder and Chairman, former IBM Chairman, and Karen Evans, Managing Director, Cyber Readiness Institute.
To learn more about the non-profit Cyber Readiness Institute and for free resources and guides, go to BeCyberReady.com.
Episode 2: Supply Chain Strategies to Manage Turbulent Geopolitical and Societal Developments
Air Date: June 14, 2022
Play 17:37
First, the global pandemic. Now, it’s the crisis in Ukraine and the COVID supply chain developments in China. Supply chains have certainly been getting a lot of attention—and a lot has not been positive. The good news is enterprise leaders understand the critical role of supply chains more than ever, and the public has a new appreciation of how supply chains affect so many facets of daily life. How can we build better, more resilient supply chains that are agile and able to quickly address unforeseen, yet catastrophic events? Samuel J. Palmisano, CGE founder and Chairman, former IBM Chairman and Michael Spence, Nobel Laureate, and former Dean of the Stanford School of Business, join us to discuss strategies for managing supply chain in turbulent times.
To learn more about digital supply chains, go to the Digital Supply Chain Institute (DSCI), dscinstitute.org.
Chris Caine: Welcome to The GET, the podcast for enterprise leaders, delivering timely insights for today's global economy, and tomorrow's competitive advantage. I'm your host, Chris Caine, president of the Center for Global Enterprise. Today, we're going to focus on the topic that most consumers never concern themselves with, and frankly, a lot of business leaders underplayed the strategic bet. Supply chains, specifically strategies for managing critical supply chains in turbulent times. First, it was the global pandemic. Now it's the crisis in Ukraine and the COVID and supply chain developments in China. Supply chains have been catching a lot of attention in the last few years. And a lot of that attention has not been positive. The good news is enterprise leaders understand the critical role of supply chains now more than ever. And the public has a new appreciation for how supply chains affect so many facets of their daily life. The big question of course, is how can we build better, more resilient supply chains that are agile and able to quickly address unforeseen, and in some cases, catastrophic events. To discuss the changing role of supply chains and how business leaders can transform their organizations, we're fortunate to have with us today, Sam Palmisano, founder, and chairman of the Center for Global Enterprise and former chairman and CEO of IBM. And Michael Spence, Nobel Laureate and former dean of the Stanford school of business. Sam and Mike, thanks for joining us today. Sam, how about if we start with you, what do organizations need to do to change their supply chains-to be more flexible and to be able to adjust quickly to these oncoming and very diverse global events?
Sam Palmisano: Well, Chris, thank you. And it's great to be with you today. I’d like to go back quickly on the current design of supply chain. So what drove the current design? It was a cost model and obviously needed a quality in your products, but it was cost driven models. When a cost driven model you're going to drive scale. A larger scale and scale economics should have a lower cost per unit. Therefore you're going to drive your competitive and it was significant. And it all companies drove that and inventory turns and cash management, all those things that are very, very important to a company, or a result that that model drove the design of the supply chains. That worked for decades quite honestly, to get costs out and quality up in the supply chains. What happened is they're not resilient and they're not flexible because you have a scale model. You have a concentration model trying to be in the factory of the world. That's what that results in, in a scale model. So therefore what's going to have to happen is that companies are now designed for resiliency and customer service, which is going to be higher costs, but if they can drive value to their customers, then therefore they could price for that cost because they've created a valued relationship. It could be service levels. I mean, there are models for this today. If you look at retail and everybody loves the fact that you order online and you get stuff the next day, whether it's Amazon or whatever it happens to be, that's great, but that's set the expectation from the consumer of the service levels that are required. So if you could design for agility, which means you have to address the last mile problem, you have to get it from the factory or the distribution center or the port to the house. And that's where the complication is. That's a design. It's not just near shoring, but it's nearshoring for the value you can generate for your customers or your clients, not just near shoring, because you're concerned about resiliency and political risk. Chris Caine: Mike, you've worked in the supply chain area and its relevance to economic development and economic policy for years. Thoughts on supply chain resilience and the ability for global leaders and company leaders to design more resilient and agile? Mike Spence: I think we're at the end of this long period in which we used huge amounts of underutilized productive capacity around the world, in the developing countries. and it was cost-driven, and that was deflationary and delivered astonishing, quality products all over the world at relatively modest prices. The relative price of these goods kept declining in a world that saw, rising prices and lots of other areas. Why do I think that's over? Because there isn't another China, because India is not going to go down that road because the African countries, I don't think can, fill in the gap as China, becomes a really a pretty high, middle income country and moves to different things. And finally, we shouldn't forget. then in the course of this very successful development in China and India and Indonesia in a number of countries, we've created tens of millions of new middle-class consumers. So the demand side of the global economy doesn't look anything like what it looked like 25 years ago. It's A) huge and B) it's located in a different place. So I think what's going to happen is first, we're going to have inflation. Second. let me make a prediction just to make this colorful. I think at 10 to 15 years, manufacturing broadly will not be labor intensive and the same will be true of much logistics. If that's true, I expect the movement to be toward the final market, because there are advantages in terms of, knowing your customer and whatnot, that Sam understands way better than I do. So I think that's one of the things that we're going to see. Chris Caine: We were talking about, the end customer, like you were alluding to that, and Sam, you were talking about the last mile. What's been enabled that we see in many companies that we work with is business model that they've never been able to use before, or never chosen to use before, direct to consumer or direct to customer. And it's almost impossible to have a complete, competitive advantage there if you haven't quite figured out the last mile. And we see that today. So are there innovations in the last mile, Sam and Mike, that you see coming, or. are there barriers that are so strong that a concentrated effort to overcome those barriers would be important for industry to apply itself to, Sam Palmisano: Well, I think go back to where it was before the cost model, right? And the reason why you did the things that you did, you're trying to optimize the cost, right? So there are four, whether that was logistics or shipping or all elements of that, to get it to wherever it had, whether that was a storage. Or your house, whatever it happened to be. So therefore, as a company, because you were managing your costs, you had partnerships in your supply chains saying you would use distributors or logistics companies or FedEx, UPS, whomever you could outsource to those guys, to do those sorts of things for you. However what's changed? Well, everybody wants to pick on Amazon, but that model has made everybody rethink this, and they've run an end-to-end integrated model. They have the end view of the consumer and the need to the goods that are coming on with, they're not the manufacturer nor case or the aggregator, but nonetheless, you do the same thing with Ali Baba. And then you add the payment system called Ali Pay. You see this end-to-end integration. So my point is that what are the elements of the integration that allowed them to have these service levels, but still maintain competitive costs? Well, in the distributed centers, it's called robotics. I mean, there aren't a lot of people running around in those distribution centers. I know people talk about this as far as unionization. But to me, it was like a semiconductor facility. You gonna utilize 15 people, the 400,000 on IBM. It's all going to be replaced by technology. You get to the efficiency of the trucks and yes, they were large and expensive in the past because you had your scale model, but now you have these prime trucks everywhere. They're going to become EVs and self-driving, back to Mike's point long-term. So there are lots of innovation you can actually get to the manufacturing element of this. So if we were designing, called 3d printing today, which can be done with 3d printing. So you don't have these big manufacturing centers that go to a distribution center that goes to the store or wherever it happens to be, you can print it on the spot and those kinds of things. So Mike's right. They're going to drive huge innovation, lots of productivity, but also disruption. So if you are a traditional company that's not used to operating in this model, it's going to be complicated. It's not an easy transition to get from where they are today. After a hundred years of doing whatever they did to where they need to be like what Mike saying the next 15 or 20. Mike, any thoughts? Mike Spence: I completely think Sam's got this. Right. And it's important. I would only add that when other code at the world and what's going on in, rejiggering the supply chains. One of the things that strikes me is this global explosion of entrepreneurial activity, around the internet. I mean, we now have an estimated 6.5 billion people on the mobile internet, which we didn't see coming, 15 years ago. And so you've got in a growing number of places around the world, China, India, Latin America, and so on. This is largely digital. Ecosystems that do the financing, that make it possible for people to innovate, in these relatively coordinated data-driven environments and so on. I guess in addition to this integrated model, which is pretty powerful, if I were in the, world of, thinking how we're going to get through to consumers, I'd be trying to think about what's my place, in these growing highly dynamic, digital ecosystems that are blossoming, like weeds, all over the world. Chris Caine: So you both have talked about the necessity and the power of technology to deliver supply chains that are more agile and more resilient, but where are the gaps in management? Sam, maybe we can talk to you on this first, which is, you know, it's one thing to have the tools. It's another thing to have the management processes and the management aptitude to utilize the tools in the most effective way. Where are the gaps in management of transforming a supply chain? And let's just call it, from my existing model to a direct to customer model, whether I'm a B2B or B2C company. Sam Palmisano: Well, I think Mike started with it. If you look at these entrepreneurial companies, are you looking at people that have become a very, very successful in this digital data-driven world that's all mobily interfaced with the phone, right? They have a completely different management system than a traditional company, like an IBM or a FedEx, or go through the whole list, General Motors or Ford pick anybody you want. Our management systems are a hundred and something years old, right. And these guys, including the big ones who have scaled, this hyperscalers, whether that's Netflix, Spotify, Amazon, et cetera, they have a completely different management. And their management's designed for speed agility, but heavily skill-based, it's not as vertical. We had silos and those sorts of things. I don't want to go design a management system on the podcast, but having said all that, if you look to the future, if you're a traditional company, you should model the innovators that Mike's alluding to. And don't discount them because they're small. Look at their management system, look at their skills development, look at their processes and controls all those sorts of elements that they have and decide what is right for you. Obviously, you can't just go to that day one, you have a hundred years of history, but you have to make that transition in some way. Chris Caine: I'd like to, start to close out our conversation about supply chains with government. We've certainly in the last two years, seen governments involved, support intervention and supply chains become very pronounced around the world. Governments are trying to deal with shortages of simple things like toilet paper, all the way to complex things like semiconductors. And they don't want to be in a position of having their citizens and, or their, population, wanting for even the most basic things that we're seeing right now in the United States, like baby formula. So what's needed from government leaders to achieve greater supply chain resilience and efficiency, and maybe what isn't, or shouldn't be needed? Sam Palmisano: First of all, if you define a supply chain end to end, right? The individual consumer to the actual component, they get to the manufacturer that is the supply chain, and it's global and there's nothing the regional government can do about that fact. It's always been this way. It's not going to change because they give a nice speech or they tweet it doesn’t matter. That's what it is. So if you're going to be able to solve yourself in a crisis, like we've had, you need it and, and view, which means you need collaboration, which means you need information flows, which means you mean data flows. It means you have to be able to deal with some of the privacy implications. All the things that they are doing to regulate their world is impacting their ability to optimize- and the pandemic or in a global disruption, like a war, all those things. So that I'm not saying that they're necessarily not well-intended because as they look at these very narrow elements of this, like information flows and information sharing and data privacy and those kinds of things, there's a need in certain areas, for sure. But at the end of the day, if you are going to optimize your economy, for the world that we're going to live in that requires interconnection and growth for you to sustain your standards of living or to grow your standards of living. You have to have this end-to-end view. Now where I come from, which I know many people have heard me say before, all governments in the world do not have the skills and capability to do these things, whether it's in cyber or information flows or data. It doesn't matter in these current technologies. None of them have the skills or the capability. To have them overseeing things where they don't have the capability or the knowledge is ineffective. And we ought to just understand that. And if we wanted to be constructive about it, we would assemble people who have the backgrounds to work with governments. It's a partnership, but they need to rely on people in the private sector, the academic community, people that have the knowledge, because the things that they design have all these unintended consequences, that when something occurs, it disrupts an element of the supply chain, impact society. And they just don't have the perspective of what's required. You look at some of the things that happened, during the pandemic and all that, it's because the people that were overseeing it had no experience or background. Zero. And you wonder why they can't solve the problem. So you put a bunch of people in the room that don't know how it works, and guess what you get, you get policy, you get stuff. They understand cause they're lawyers, none of it's going to work. Totally. In fact, in many cases it even makes it worse. Michael Spence: The global supply chains are a massive decentralized system. And probably in the past, we never had a way of really understanding all parts of it. But I think now we do, in digital data and I think, Sam's right. the governments don't know how to do this. They don't know what they're looking for. But a coalition of knowledgeable people from global businesses, could come together and agree that this system, is, because of this massive decentralization, is opaque. Right? If you asked yourself in the middle of the pandemic, what would you forecast? How would you forecast the blockages that we've seen, longer duration? Lots of people would have bits and pieces, but they're not assembled. There's no big data system that says this system is starting to get creaky. There’s going to start to be blockages or congestion in the system. I think that's a solvable problem. If it's true. By a kind of global private sector initiative, like the Center for Global Enterprise. Sam Palmisano: I think you have some research underway. Chris Caine: I think we do. So before we close, we like to use the last minute or so to give our listeners some strategic thoughts and insights about what they should be considering. We call it our emerging critical issues. So I asked you, Mike and Sam in one word or one phrase, tell us what emerging issues do you see on the horizon that business leaders need to put on their radar. Sam Palmisano: I would just say, overzealous governments and that means, unfortunately, business leaders have to do something none of us like to do, which is get engaged, in a constructive way. I mean, not a political way. Don't form a PAC and write checks and all those crazy things, don't get in the middle of the West- China relations. That's not your role. You don't understand this stuff anyway. But my point is that in a constructive way, engage or to help these guys try to solve the problem versus trying to just pass some piece of legislation that gets them two points in a poll, Chris Caine: Mike, one word or one phrase. Michael Spence: I think, what is your digital strategy, really? Chris Caine: All right. Thank you for those. We'll come back to those in future podcasts. I want to thank you both for your time. You've been listening to The GET sponsored by the Center for Global Enterprise, celebrating 10 years of convenient global enterprise leaders around the most important transformation business issues.Episode 1: Restructuring Economic Relationships and Business Models Driven by the Ukraine Crisis
Air Date: June 14, 2022
Play 23:41
The Ukraine crisis is driving a restructuring of economic relationships and business models.
With unprecedented economic sanctions against Russia, global business leaders are having to adjust to new rules governing critical economic and business relationships. Is this a permanent reshaping of global economic relationships and financial systems? Samuel J. Palmisano, CGE founder and Chairman, former IBM Chairman, and Michael Spence, Nobel Laureate, and former Dean of the Stanford School of Business, share their views and offer advice for business leaders.
The GET is presented by the Center for Global Enterprise, celebrating 10 years of convening global enterprise leaders around the most important business transformation issues.
All production and marketing for The GET is provided by SANDOW Design Group.
Our theme music is by Duzzy Funlop.