Acceleration Economy’s Digital CIO Summit event is taking place April 4-6. John Siefert and Bob Evans host Suvajit Basu, CIO of GOYA Foods, who will be a featured speaker at the three-day digital event. The three discuss current supply chain challenges, as well as how various factors of the supply chain are impacting GOYA Foods.
Highlights
01:37 — “Supply chain is core to our business at GOYA,” Basu explains. The company is a manufacturer and distributor of about 2,600 products in the U.S. and has the “number one Latin brand,” as GOYA distributes products out of 15 locations.
02:08 — It has become more evident post-pandemic that people understand the value of the global supply chain and how important it is. Basu shares a couple of books he recently read, specifically describing “Chip War” by Chris Miller as “un-put-downable.”
03:15 — Bob points out that “all this wild software has to have something that runs it and pushes it and navigates it, so the chips have sort of become ultra-cool again.” There are some geopolitical global dynamics with how chips are touching every single part of our lives.
04:00 — GOYA has been in the midst of a supply chain crunch for the past two years. Basu describes how technology has become a critical decision point at GOYA.
05:41 — John asks Basu to share his top takeaways from “Chip War.” Basu explains how the book connects electrical engineering history to our present day, taking the reader on a journey to understand different pieces of technological developments.
07:07 — He notes another key takeaway: supply chain and international trade. Basu believes that every technologist needs to understand these from a historical perspective. Big companies are facing difficulties fulfilling orders that they could normally easily fulfill before the pandemic, and understanding the supply chain historically can enable them to make better decisions and overcome these challenges.
08:43 — Distributors need to consider the shelf life of the items they’re providing. If the items have a short shelf life, and you wait six months to deliver, your competitor may have the product and fulfill the order for your customer.
09:17 — John raises how artificial intelligence (AI) and automation are changing the workplace. “The hardware and connectivity are the two things that you need in order to make these things work,” he notes.
09:39 — Where is the AI world heading? How are new innovations impacting GOYA? In the context of chips, Basu says that they’re “running on a lot of compute companies,” such as Nvidia, Intel, and Apple. He thinks the next leap will be very specialized AI-based chips that are high performing and augmented with a general-purpose chip.
11:57 — Basu highlights reasons why this is important for everyone. He says we have to understand history — understand where we are coming from and where we are going. He reviews the history that “Chip Wars” explores, such as how the U.S. Department of Defense was the first user of integrated circuits.
14:11 — Looking at the supply chain, Basu shares an “anecdote” that he recognized in talking with the CIO of a major electronics manufacturer, HARMAN. He asked him what it was doing differently with regard to its integrated circuits supply chain. His response was that it used to look at a six-month lead time for its budget, later recognizing that even 18 months to two years was not good enough. When talking to suppliers, the CIO said they have to give suppliers a two-year outlook to determine when they could provide a product.
15:14 — “We cannot just snap our fingers and start building — it will take another five to 10 years to get all those pieces moving but it’s happening,” Basu says.
16:33 — Bob believes the next five years will be extraordinary with new innovations and new ways of doing things kicking the door open to other competitors. Referencing how some suppliers need a two- to three-year notice to distribute a product, Bob describes that as “a situation that human nature just will not tolerate; something big is going to have to change there.”
17:19 — “The microchip industry produced more transistors last year than all the goods produced by all countries combined in all other industries in all human history,” Basu quotes from the book.
To hear more data modernization, AI/hyperautomation, cybersecurity, and growth strategies from CIO practitioners, tune into Acceleration Economy’s Digital CIO Summit, which takes place April 4-6. Register for the free event here.
