(0:03) Welcome to the Supply Chain Planning Podcast, in which we talk with supply chain professionals (0:08) about their experience in planning. My name is Ben, co-founder of Horizon, and Wim is our co-host. (0:14) Hello, Wim.

Hello, I'm Wim Farrazin. I'm the Managing Director at Lanard. For today's episode, (0:21) we have George Milic on the podcast, who has been in supply planning roles for more than 20 years (0:26) at companies like IKEA, Apple, Soedis, and currently at Unilever.

First of all, (0:33) welcome, George, to the podcast. Hi, Ben. Hi, Wim.

Thank you for inviting me. Happy to be here. (0:39) So, as a kickoff, you studied economics before working at Dollar General Corporation, which was (0:46) a discount chain.

How did you find the transition into a supply chain role after those studies? (0:51) Did that transition go well? It was actually a good transition that I'm happy with. I need to (0:56) be very honest. While I did go to school to study economics at the university, I did not initially (1:03) envision working in supply chain postgraduate study.

I was initially expecting to find a job, (1:11) potential job opportunity in the finance, banking, or investment industry, but I did happen to come (1:17) across an attractive supply chain role. And then you enjoyed it quite a bit since you stayed for (1:23) two decades in the industry, right? Yes. Yes, of course.

(1:27) Looking at the roles and the different process areas that you worked on, (1:31) that first role at Dollar General was global sourcing coordinator. Is that a more commercial (1:37) role because of the word sourcing, or is it really operational, more material availability (1:43) kind of aspect? Yeah, I would say the job title was a little bit misleading. This was predominantly (1:47) an operational role.

It was entry level. And basically the key functions of the role were (1:53) to do demand forecasting for the portfolio, but also to manage the supply planning aspect in a (2:00) sense that I was responsible to maintain appropriate inventory replenishment for the (2:05) company's warehousing sites across the US. And I was also responsible to do allocation to ensure (2:13) that when POs were arriving from overseas, that they were properly distributed and allocated across (2:19) the company's DC site network.

Ben quickly named a couple of companies you worked at. (2:25) Perhaps for the audience, can you very briefly talk us through how your career evolved? So the (2:30) different companies and roles you worked at? I did start my career at Dollar General, which is (2:37) FMCPG company, fast moving consumer package company. And then in my next role, I transitioned (2:43) to work for IKEA in their North America regional office.

My first role at IKEA, it was, I would say, (2:52) also kind of leaned heavily on kind of more in the supply planning aspect. The key responsibility was (2:58) to monitor the warehouse in stock that's supporting the store to make sure that we're having appropriate (3:05) orders coming from the supplier and appropriate volumes to support the business. I would say (3:11) customer service availability was the most important KPI driving the work.

I didn't really do directly (3:18) demand forecasting in that role that was done at global corporate location in Sweden. I actually (3:26) had a next step with IKEA. I actually went and worked abroad in their regional support office (3:33) located in near Basel, Switzerland.

This was the first time in my career that I basically (3:40) pivoted to working more on a process support capacity role versus doing the day-to-day (3:47) operational work. I had the responsibility to train the planning team. There was a team of, (3:54) I think, approximately 50 to 60 planners at the time in the business.

And I had the responsibility (4:00) to train them how to utilize JDA fulfillments and distribution solution systems to go about their (4:08) jobs. How did that change from a purely operational role into this more central capability role? How (4:15) did that go for you? Did it give you new insights or a different way of looking at things? Yeah, (4:20) it was a really exciting opportunity because I gained a lot of just additional training and (4:25) knowledge on how the solutions are working, how to go about facilitating change requests, (4:31) working with IT to develop enhancements, to improve process ways of working in the planning (4:38) space, and also utilizing that capability to train planners how to utilize that system was (4:45) very interesting as part of my development. The things that I always found challenging in these (4:50) central capability roles is how do you stay in touch with what is really happening day-to-day (4:56) on the floor or behind the desk? How did you tackle that to avoid that you become this (5:01) central ivory tower person who comes up with ideas and processes that look nice on paper but don't (5:08) really work in practice? When I started that role, that was an initial adjustment that I kind of (5:13) struggled with.

Essentially, the way I handled that problem is I recruited and led what was (5:19) called focus groups. Essentially, these groups comprised of the planners. There would be one (5:25) focus group that was committed to improving a process and ways of working with MPI, new product (5:32) launch in the EU market, what would comprise of at least three or four planners who are working (5:38) operationally in the business.

Okay, that's smart. I did eventually return to the United States. (5:44) Basically, I went home, moved back to my home country and I took a role to implement (5:52) an SNOP process in a very young startup company, essentially a very new business.

(5:58) At the time I joined the company, the headcount was probably only 50 people (6:02) and the industry was selling beauty and skincare products in the US. Were there (6:08) any existing processes then or did you have to set up everything from scratch there? (6:13) There was no SNOP process in place. This was a startup.

You had to go about the work in a very (6:19) scrappy level. There was limited even solutions or IT solutions in the business. I would say (6:26) from a supply chain perspective, the work was heavily reliant on Excel spreadsheets.

(6:32) Yeah, because your previous experience was a lot with JDA, working with it yourself, (6:36) getting other people trained in it also. But then that experience, (6:40) were you able to pull from that for that new role? (6:43) In achieving a successful SNOP process, data management and data exchange is very, (6:48) very crucial. That was, of course, a very challenging adjustment to pursue, to try and (6:54) have the right supporting documentation, the right information available and refreshed in a timely (7:01) matter.

And to be able to do that off of an Excel spreadsheet-driven process was, of course, (7:07) challenging. It did drive some hiccups. (7:11) Okay.

And where did you move after number seven? (7:15) So I moved to California, to the Silicon Valley area, and I managed to land a contract consulting (7:21) role at Apple. I joined their iPhone planning team, which was part of their AppleCare division. (7:28) And in that role, I was assigned one of the Apple iPhone models.

Since I was newer to the team, (7:36) I was given a couple older models to work with. And I was essentially having the responsibility (7:43) to be a global lead supply planner for one of their iPhone models. (7:48) Was that role a global role or focused on the North American market? (7:53) I was global lead responsible for the model that I planned.

It was my responsibility to (7:59) review all the work that was pulled and all the planning needs that was pulled together by the (8:04) regional planners in the other markets. And I was ultimately accountable for what decisions were (8:10) made as far as how much new orders or POs would be placed for products in the business. (8:16) Yeah.

I think IKEA and Apple both joined companies, but in completely different (8:22) sectors. But you spot the supply planning in both. Can you (8:26) see clear differences between both in processes or systems or organization? (8:31) The dynamics working in tech, at least in my experience from Apple, was different in a sense.

(8:37) Planning for consumer electronics was essentially a weekly process. It's very fast-paced, (8:44) very high-speed. Air freight is used for everything.

You place a PO, you're receiving (8:50) that within four to six weeks later via air freight. So it's a very fast-moving business. (8:55) Another change for me versus IKEA was the portfolio value of the products being planned.

(9:02) Did you notice any difference as to how supply chain was viewed internally? (9:06) I think the difference in dynamics is more concentrated in priority of the products. (9:12) If we talk in terms of like ABC segmentation, when you're planning iPhones, for example, (9:18) you of course have very key service level and KPI targets for the higher value items. So you're (9:25) planning a whole unit module, so a completely built iPhone, but you're also planning individual (9:32) components such as the screens, the motherboards.

The priority from a day-to-day work level (9:38) perspective was really on those higher value. Either you're planning a whole unit module phone (9:44) or those higher level components. While in IKEA, it was more flat.

Like the KPI targets, (9:51) the service level, everything was generally important. Whether it was you were planning (9:55) a bookcase, everything was kind of treated more equally as a priority. (10:01) Does it make it easier or more difficult if you have a similar approach for all the parts or you (10:07) have this very specific priority versus non-priority parts? What felt easier? (10:12) Basically, when you're meeting with the management team to review your plans, (10:18) there would just be laser focus on those higher priority SKUs, like a whole unit phone, (10:25) or whether it be the screens.

The screens were very expensive. The motherboards are very expensive. (10:32) You're basically given the unilateral discretion to act independently in planning those.

(10:39) After your time at Apple, you moved to Zoetis, a completely different line of business. (10:45) Can you explain that a bit? (10:47) Sure. Zoetis happens to be a pharmaceutical company that is technically a spinoff of Pfizer.

(10:53) They used to be part of Pfizer in their past. What was also interesting for me in this opportunity, (11:00) it was actually the first time I took a role outside of supply chain. Technically, (11:05) when I joined Zoetis, I worked directly in their marketing team.

(11:09) What was the role? What was it about? (11:12) The key focus area was to improve the financial forecasting process that the marketing team needed (11:20) to execute for the business, for their respective brand portfolios, and also ensure that there was, (11:27) from an S&OP perspective, to ensure that there was appropriate financial forecast input being provided (11:34) to the demand planning team in supply chain, because it was an opportunity to work with (11:40) developing and improving their financial forecasting process. (11:45) That was the crucial deliverable from the marketing side. (11:49) By financial forecasting, you mean the volumes translated to full values, (11:54) and to have that for budgeting also or for marketing to set campaigns? What's done with it? (11:59) With the support of the team I had there, we improved financial forecasting process to (12:04) incorporate customer insights to ensure that we had appropriate net revenue projections versus (12:11) the company's budget.

Those plans would be compared and used as inputs to the volume (12:19) forecast that the demand planning team was delivering from a supply chain perspective. (12:25) Those were separate. The demand generated forecast was translated into a financial number.

(12:31) You made your own financial number, and those two then got reconciled, more or less. (12:35) Yeah, it's two separate inputs. Then there was the opportunity to compare and say, okay, (12:41) assuming no change in price, for example, is year-over-year growth in that revenue (12:47) reasonably or directionally aligned to what the year-over-year growth in volume is for the (12:52) business? That's just one example that you could compare.

(12:55) Do you think it makes sense to combine those two, or did you find the split valuable? (13:02) Because you're doing somewhat similar things from the ground up, right? The end result is different, (13:07) value versus volumes. But the driver behind it is, yeah, what are customers buying? What (13:12) are the patterns? So it seems like double work being done to some extent. (13:16) In some companies, it's typically one input.

You can have your demand forecast in volume, (13:22) but you can also have that translated into a net revenue dollar value. So it's one input (13:28) that is presented in both volume and net revenue. But in some businesses, they do maintain and keep (13:36) separate inputs.

So each team is owning, the marketing team is owning the financial projection (13:42) aspect. Demand planning is owning the volume projection aspect. And then you have processes (13:47) in place to kind of run comparisons and make sure that there's reasonable directional alignment, (13:53) and you address any gaps, significant gaps or variances.

(13:56) Indeed, in many companies, there is indeed a split. And then, like you mentioned, sometimes (14:01) with marketing or sometimes just finance with the budget, then there's sales and marketing with (14:05) their targets and everything. And then the supply chain, just wondering if there is (14:10) more possibility to integrate? Yeah, that's a good question.

So what I can say from an S&OP (14:16) process perspective, in my opinion, you don't need two separate inputs. You can technically utilize (14:22) the demand forecast that the supply chain team is producing. And you can ensure that all S&OP (14:29) cross-functional collaboration is concentrating on what that demand forecast is.

And then that (14:35) demand forecast would be communicated to your S&OP team on a cross-functional basis in both (14:41) volume and net revenue. So everybody's kind of collaborating on one input that feeds into what (14:47) should ultimately be the consensus for the business. That's definitely the way it's done (14:51) in some companies.

That is a potential solution to delivering that goal. (14:56) And from a systems perspective, did you also all use different systems to create your plans? (15:02) Working in Zoetis, the financial forecasting process, some work was done in spreadsheets, (15:07) but they did have an IT solution. It was called Anaplan, which is pretty common in the industry.

(15:14) I even use Anaplan today in S&OP. Did the demand planning team also use Anaplan? Because (15:19) I've often seen indeed Anaplan being used in financial planning, also in supply chain planning, (15:25) but predominantly financial planning, if I'm not mistaken. No, the demand planning team utilized (15:31) SAP to manage the volume aspects, but essentially the numbers would be compiled and exported for (15:39) comparison purposes during presentations and so forth.

And after Zoetis, you moved on to Unilever, (15:47) where you're currently at. What are you doing there? (15:51) Yeah, I currently work in Unilever as an associate demand planning manager. I work (15:56) under the nutrition portfolio in the US retail business.

(16:01) This time, you don't have the supply element as part of your role. It's really just focused on (16:06) the demand planning and then putting everything together in the S&OP. Or does that S&OP contain (16:12) a lot of supply parts as well? I'm not working day-to-day operational (16:15) in the supply planning activities.

No. What is important in my current role is to, of course, (16:21) be cognizant of what is going on in the supply planning space. For example, if there are service (16:28) issues or stockouts, or if there's potential capacity constraints that could affect the (16:36) company's sales performance, those inputs and information would sometimes need to be accounted (16:41) for or recognized in going about the day-to-day work and ensuring that you're having an appropriate (16:48) demand forecast and that you're able to have an understanding of numbers and a narrative to (16:54) explain the forecast performance.

You've worked with quite a bit of systems, (16:59) right? Kinexis, Anaplan, JDA. What kind of things do you see that these systems are lacking or that (17:06) you think, oh, this could be improved still in the industry in general? (17:10) That's an interesting question. There seems to be sometimes a lot of emphasis in the supply chain (17:15) industry, for example, especially in the recruiting world, that they're sometimes looking (17:19) for candidates to have knowledge in certain systems like SAP or Kinexis or agility or whatever.

(17:26) Honestly, I do have experience of using many different systems now in my career. (17:31) Honestly, I would argue, in my opinion, that on a very general level, all the systems are (17:37) kind of fundamentally very similar. They're all good solutions to have versus having nothing at (17:43) all to support day-to-day planning.

Because you worked in the different sectors, (17:50) how do you make a selection? If you're a company envisioning implementing one of those systems, (17:55) if they're all so similar anyway in basic setup, what then helps you make a selection decision? (18:02) Except for the price element, of course. Is there nothing functional that will (18:05) help you move forward in a certain direction? I kind of feel that every company that I worked (18:12) with just kind of naturally happened to just adopt systems for different reasons. (18:17) I can't go into details on why they picked the systems they did.

(18:21) And to what extent do you feel like these systems have made a lot of progress (18:25) versus then 15 years ago? Do you feel like things are more automated these days? I mean, (18:30) there are a lot of terms being thrown around within the supply chain industry in general, (18:35) I think, about autonomous planning. Have you seen these things in practice? (18:40) I've definitely seen improvements in IT solutions over the years. It's well known in the industry (18:47) that there's more active engagement in using ML, machine learning, and AI technologies.

(18:53) If I go just for more specific examples to drive baseline forecasting as part of your demand (19:00) planning processes, I would say these technologies are very helpful in the job to kind of help (19:07) support automating and processing information in a more efficient, effective manner. (19:14) Have you seen a lot of changes in the supply planning side as well, with the use of models (19:19) or specific solvers? Or there you see less change and less progress of machine learning? (19:24) It's my understanding, and I have the impression that there's development in both spaces, (19:29) both in the demand and supply planning space. There's advanced models and there's AI (19:34) being developed.

I think both spaces of the planning area are benefiting from (19:41) these innovations in the IT solution space. Anything specific that you've seen better now, (19:47) that if you would be doing supply planning now, you think, oh, this is a lot easier than (19:52) how I had to do it 10 or 15 years ago? There was a certain amount of planning (19:56) activities that could be done in the systems, of course. I also felt that there was a lot of data (20:02) that sometimes needed to be exported and just managed in Excel to carry out the day-to-day (20:09) planning activities.

And what I can say on a general level is I feel like that is less of a (20:16) need today. I have the impression, at least from my experience with supply planners in Unilever, (20:22) for example, that they're able to do more of their work now in the systems and not having to (20:29) be reliant or pressured to export as much information and do work outside of the (20:34) system in Excel, for example. Finally, moving away from Excel.

Okay, (20:39) sounds good. You mentioned earlier in your role at Ikea, I think it was, that you were also (20:46) responsible for training the younger planners and the other people in the planning team. (20:50) These are not easy systems that you're using.

Any approach that you can share with the audience (20:56) that works particularly well for you to get these people up and running in these systems? (21:00) It's very important to develop close relationships with the planners who are, of course, (21:05) carrying out day-to-day operational work in the IT solutions. You have to stay close to your team. (21:12) You have to stay close to them, see what their questions are, learn what their feedback is, (21:18) learn what works well for them in the systems, where do they have problems, (21:23) where there are potential opportunities to pursue change requests, to develop changes to the system.

(21:31) And what I also did to support training of the planners was I would facilitate trainings. I would (21:38) create training content and materials and run training sessions periodically, at least a couple (21:44) times per year, to just kind of review how are this all the system functionality, how are things (21:49) working, how they can optimally go about their jobs to utilize the systems efficiently and (21:55) effectively. Basically develop close relationships with them and then also you set up specific (22:00) trainings for them.

What was the actual structure? Because you have the software provider, then there (22:07) is you who gets updated on the general training of the system and then you create these kinds of (22:13) manuals and training sessions for your planner specifically. So you're kind of this intermediate (22:18) person who knows everything about the system. I would imagine they also sometimes give trainings, (22:23) right, the system provider, but that happens to you and not to the planners directly.

(22:27) Yeah, in general the IT solution provider is providing information to what would be considered (22:34) the persons working in the business, like me for example, that on the business side with the (22:40) solutions. I had the capacity or a role of being a so-called solution expert for utilizing (22:47) JDA in the team. I was essentially, as you alluded to, that intermediary.

Did you then create (22:53) internal manuals or something? Basically internal training content, mostly PowerPoint presentation (23:01) based materials that would incorporate some screenshots of the systems with descriptions of (23:08) what every module or screen or functionality is for and so forth. (23:13) PowerPoints with screenshots, etc. is one way of bringing it, but in the meantime you have (23:17) other ways that sometimes are tried out with these web-based trainings.

The click trainings (23:22) where people need to click on a screen and then move to the next step and it's (23:26) really almost on a toddler level explaining what you need to do. Did you have experience with (23:31) those kind of trainings and then you see a difference in how people pick up how to use (23:36) the system or it was mainly the PowerPoint training? Great question. There was heavy (23:41) emphasis on utilizing those materials particularly for onboarding a new person joining the team.

(23:48) You may have to train or teach on the system from ground up. I still found it value-added (23:53) important to provide in-person more customized trainings. Moving to even more people-related (24:01) topic and culture.

I think you're the first U.S.-based guest in our podcast. You have a (24:07) unique perspective, at least for us, about cultural differences in between Europe where (24:12) you worked as well with IKEA and the U.S. How did that feel for you working in those (24:17) different environments? Was there something that really stood out? I would say in the U.S., (24:22) you're working in a supply chain job in American culture. There's probably a little bit more (24:28) heavier emphasis on results, on KPIs.

What was a little bit more unique for me for working in (24:36) Europe is while KPIs and results were still important in Europe as well, there was more (24:42) interest in people getting to know each other a little bit more on a personal level. So the (24:48) relational part was also important? Yeah, there was a little more time and resources allocated (24:54) to the relational aspect. I can cite a specific example to this.

For example, (24:59) when I started working for IKEA in North America's regional supply office, once a year, (25:06) the company would literally fly all the planners to Sweden to meet the global teams. We would spend (25:14) a few days in Sweden on an annual basis to interact and go over what are global priorities (25:21) for the business? What is the latest tactical and strategic goals in supply chain and whatnot? (25:28) There would be some time allocated to just get to know people that you're working with in offices (25:34) who are located in different countries. That was new for me.

I do believe that does happen (25:40) in U.S. companies as well, but I don't have the experience of feeling that that was as common. (25:45) In Sweden, they have this word hygge or hygge. I don't know how to pronounce it exactly, (25:51) but it's this coziness kind of description.

So I can imagine that they want to bring people (25:56) together also. Also, did you notice any differences in process or any non-supply (26:03) chain specific differences between U.S. and Europe? Or did you find there that knowledge (26:08) and systems were pretty similar? I think the knowledge, the work is very similar. The (26:13) capabilities, of course, very similar.

I don't think that one side had any kind of (26:18) advantage over the other. I think from a cultural perspective. (26:24) Our favorite ending question is, are there any recommendations that you would give to other (26:29) people in the supply planning or general planning world? The best advice that I can give and is (26:35) particularly for any younger professionals or people that are new to supply chain or still (26:41) relatively young in their supply chain career is, I strongly advocate pursuing trainings, (26:47) whether they be via an external provider or whether they're provided internally within (26:54) the company.

I can say, for example, I did attend an SNOP training once with an institution called (27:00) Oliver White. I found the training very beneficial. Do you have any other people that you follow, (27:06) try to read their articles or posts somewhere? I'm a very active person on LinkedIn.

Nicholas (27:12) Vandepute is one person who I enjoy his content that he puts on LinkedIn. I strongly recommend (27:18) to join supply chain focus groups on LinkedIn and discover the persons that you're most interested (27:25) to follow and connect with. If people have any questions for you, can they also reach out to you (27:31) via LinkedIn? No problem at all.

There are people that occasionally do reach out to me (27:36) and I do try to make an effort to actively respond and engage with other supply chain (27:42) professionals out there. Okay, that's great to hear. Then we'll share your profile with (27:47) the listeners out there.

Thanks a lot, George, for sharing all of your experience and to the (27:51) listeners out there. Until next time. Bye-bye.

Thanks, George. Thank you. Bye-bye.