All right. Well, after decades of increasing reliance
on overseas manufacturing, the U. S. May
soon see a resurgence in domestic production. Major events
like the pandemic Russia's invasion of Ukraine and Taiwan tensions
, They've thrown the global supply chain into turmoil.
Making american businesses and leaders hyper aware of increasing self
reliance. Well, the biden administration is now pushing
hard to return manufacturing to the US and joining me
now is Gandhi partner at the global management consulting from
Carney. Thanks so much for coming on the show
. How did the events of these past two years
? Certainly the pandemic, we're still in a pandemic
reveal the risks of relying on overseas manufacturing. Well
, the risks Kristin always existed, right? I
know this is our favorite topic of supply chain.
The risks always existed, but now they brought it
up to the surface and when we started running short
on everything from laptops to diapers, it became pretty
clear that we got to get closer to the point
where the customer needs the product, where it's being
made. So the risks were there. Now they
came to the surface. Okay, so what's the
importance to get to how big of a priority should
it be for the US to bring manufacturing back home
to the US. Um, so one interesting indicator
, supply chain and reassuring used to be talked about
maybe, you know, 100 150 times on investor
calls. Now we are seeing that increase to about
1000. So there's a significant increase in the attention
of board Ceo and chief operating officers, we are
having multitudes of conversation on this particular topic. But
one thing to remember, we're trying to change 40
years of history And it's gonna take a bit more
than 3-4 years to bring this back in. So
what kind of endeavor are we talking about? What's
the timelines you get to? What are gonna be
the challenge is to accomplish this goal? Uh It
is a somewhere between 18 to 36 months. For
sure. That's the first thing. The second thing
is if you just do a simple lift and shift
which is moved from um Asia back here, Uh
it actually increases the cost somewhere between 3-7% is what
we have seen across industries, whether it's consumer products
or its medical products and what that this requires the
true strategic look at how you think about what you
have. There are kind of three big areas that
we tend to talk about quite a bit with boards
and chief operating officers. The first, what does
your customer really want? Because for a long time
we made, we designed the product, send them
across and they got made and came back and we
did not think about what does the customer really care
. The second is how many of these particular kinds
of products do we have? Right, do we
have a lot of them? Do we have too
many time to rationalize your portfolio? And then the
third, which is a new element is how do
we bring in human intelligence, artificial intelligence and automation
together to create something that is truly compelling. So
those are the three areas that jump out in,
really looking at the strategic plan for bringing back products
, What's the business investments to get to that?
This is going to take? And do you find
in your conversations that you're alluding to here that businesses
are open even in this economic environment to making those
investments necessary for the long run? Yes, but
businesses by themselves will not be able to complete this
because as we know, manufacturing has a lot of
partners. So for example, something as simple as
a, you know, hand tools, hand machine
tool has somewhere between 50 to 100 suppliers. So
how do you get suppliers into the dialogue, that's
one second. We need labor In the 40 years
, we have lost a lot of labor who had
supplies and expertise. So how do you train them
up? So we need support from government. And
then the third thing is technology partners, how do
you bring them to the table? So it is
gonna take not just the company making investments, they
do have the cash they do want to because it's
a top line issue, but it's gonna take a
few more players to come together to drive this.
What does this mean for jobs in America and for
the american worker? Uh it is a tremendous opportunity
for high paying jobs Kristin. If there was a
silver lining in this whole um changed environment, it
is the ability to bring in high paying jobs back
here and training our folks to become experts and engineers
and craftsmen and scientists in the area of end to
end supply chains. Um Look, I think that
certainly the american workforce would welcome that. What is
the right way to skill a worker for some of
these jobs you can do is, have you given
that any thought? I mean I know a lot
of these major companies are considering themselves re skilling their
own workforces for the economy of the future. Absolutely
. It is a combination right on the one level
we need kind of broad talent that understands how things
are made right? We've we've lost quite a bit
of the skill but it is not difficult to train
up because the american worker works hard and it's pretty
darn intelligent. So that's the first thing. The
second thing is, companies need to scale people up
on what their particular products are, what are the
nuances and again, what do customers care about?
And then the last thing is how do we work
with others within the same ecosystem to drive the upscaling
. So all three are open and technology is a
wonderful way, right. Uh you and I could
go on youtube right now and redesign a motor and
assemble it. That information is available. All we
gotta do now is uh point people to that information
that's available and off we go. So, so
my final question to you is perhaps the most important
one, at least for our viewership here on cheddar
news and closing bell, what is this ultimately mean
for the consumer? Does it mean higher prices,
lower prices, faster delivery, ease of use?
What can the american consumer expect the first thing right
in this inflationary environment, higher price is not gonna
be acceptable. So companies are working hard to ensure
that at least it's hard. The second thing is
much more customization since you're closer to the customer now
, you have the ability to create things that we
really like. And the third thing is, you
know, really innovative companies are gonna bring customers into
designing of the products so we get what we want
and you know, you can't beat that. Alright
, You can't beat that. We all want what
we want. That's true. So you can't you
got any partner of the global management consulting from kearney
. Thank you so much