Mike Glodziak is president and CEO of Legacy Supply Chain Services, a third-party logistics service provider (3PL) with more than 35 distribution, fulfillment, and transportation operating locations in the United States and Canada. Glodziak, who has over 30 years of leadership experience in North American supply chain management and design, joined Legacy in 2013 after serving as president of Vitran Supply Chain Operations. Prior to that, he served as a principal with Tompkins Associates, where he managed large supply chain re-engineering projects in Mexico, the United States, and Canada. Glodziak has a degree in industrial engineering technology from Mohawk College in Hamilton, Ontario.
Q: How would you describe the current state of the supply chain industry?
A: As a result of evolved consumer behavior, we are seeing an imbalance of supply chain capacity relative to demand. And that applies not only to the usual types of capacity we think of, such as warehouse real estate and transportation capacity on trucks or ocean vessels, but also to capacity of the labor force and capacity of our information systems. We are in the midst of a real shift in how brands leverage their supply chains to deliver products to their end consumer.
Q: What are the advantages of using a 3PL rather than in-house services?
A: 3PLs have seen it all. Our experience in diverse supply chain environments allows us to better solve the challenge of aligning people, processes, and systems to drive service-level improvements and reduction in cost. Today, you are seeing growth-focused 3PLs investing in more omnichannel supply chain capacity, which can be a strategic advantage for businesses facing challenges with growth and scalability.
Q: Legacy is a full-service supply chain service provider, with assets in distribution, transportation, and supply chain management. What are the advantages to working with a company that offers so many integrated services?
A: Having a horizontal and vertical presence in our customers’ business gives us more opportunity to add real value. A successful 3PL relationship always starts with a partnership that is equal parts strategic and tactical. Having responsibility upstream and downstream in multiple nodes of the supply chain enables a service provider to have more control over execution and will uncover more opportunities to solve larger-scale challenges that might not otherwise be visible.
Q: How has the growth of omnichannel changed distribution?
A: The growth of omnichannel supply chain has placed an additional premium on a business’s ability to optimize how its inventory serves all sales channels. Traditional supply chain goals, such as reducing a product’s landed cost, are no longer a solid indicator of success. Businesses must design distribution and fulfillment networks that place goods closer to retail and online consumers to meet demands for faster service. Further, networks must be flexible and provide redundancy to overcome demand volatility and disruptions to global supply.
Q: How are you able to attract and retain workers in today’s tight labor market?
A: We have always been able to retain our people at higher levels than others in this industry based on our focused approach to culture and leadership development. People want career opportunities; however, you also must give them the tools and support to succeed. While high retention does help attract new talent, we’ve had to innovate to overcome current challenges in the labor market. Investing in your ability to recruit both active and passive job seekers and communicating your company’s employee value proposition across all interactions is critical to growing your talent base.
Q: What is the most significant change you have seen during your time in the industry?
A: Aside from [supply chains] now being a topic on the 5 o’clock news … The technology innovations in this industry are allowing businesses and service providers to be more deeply connected. Omnichannel technology innovations include OMS technology telling us the cost and service benefit of shipping a widget from a DC versus a store shelf, or RFID and WMS technologies allowing us to pinpoint a product’s location by serial number in a warehouse, or integrated freight track-and-trace applications communicating with end consumers in real time via text. Looking forward, eventually we will realize the possibilities of blockchain to create true goods accountability across all trading partners and nodes of the supply chain.
