Mike Regan Sounds Off (page 5)

-- Logistics Management, 11/1/2005

Page 5 of 6

What forces are keeping shippers away from this continued education?

The reality is that freight is not a sexy issue. Consequently, it has not had a high profile within the corporate entity. You don’t see corporations diving down into the bowels of the organization to try to find the next logistics and transportation superstar.

How much time should a logistics professional put into continued education?

Bud LaLonde [Emeritus Professor of Transportation and Logistics, The Ohio State University] who’s been a mentor to me, said years ago that if you’re not putting in 200 hours on continuing education you will be obsolete in three to five years. I ran into Bud at an event last year and he said, “It’s not 200 hours today, it’s 400 hour hours.” We have 168 hours in a week; and Bud is saying that if you’re not putting in six to eight weeks a year on continuing education you may be obsolete.

But in today’s climate, is that a reasonable request?

It blows me away when people look at me and tell me that they don’t have time. I nod my head, and then I tell them we all have the same amount of time. It’s not about time, it’s a matter of priorities.

I talk to people who can tell me about the latest TV episodes, they can manage to find time to plan their vacations down to the smallest details, but when you talk to them about investing in their career through industry associations you get the deer-in-the-headlights look. Unless you’re working for a rare and exceptional company, you need to invest in yourself because your company isn’t going to invest in you.

One of the biggest issues—and maybe one of least covered by industry publications—is the fact that many executives in the C-Suite remain unaware of the impact today’s environment is making on their logistics budgets. What can shippers do to make their work more visible up the ladder?

You now have people in the C-Suite who want to engage in a dialogue. I know that to be true. I’ve lost track of the number of CEOs and Presidents who have called me or stopped me at industry meetings and asked me what’s going on in the freight area. I do know that the number over the past 10 months has exceeded the calls from the past 10 years.

Now how do shippers become engaged in that dialogue? First objective is to speak a language they understand. Second objective is to express it in terms that affect their business. For example, if you have issues of delivery times slowing down production, if you have issues with sourcing in China, you have to express it in those terms so that your CEO understands. Continued...

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