Episode 9: The SaaSpocalypse Is Here — Why AI Breaks the Old Procurement Playbook (w/ Dr. Elouise Epstein, Kearney)

Episode 10: Your SIOP Is Only as Good as Your Supplier Data (w/ Lisa Anderson, LMA Consulting Group)

Your SIOP process looks airtight on paper. The S&OP meetings are running. The demand signals are flowing. And your ERP is telling you exactly what you planned to order six weeks ago. What it's not telling you is whether your supplier confirmed it, when they actually plan to ship it, or whether that lead time you're planning against was last validated before inflation hit. In this episode of Leveraged Supply Chains, Andrew Stroup sits down with Lisa Anderson, President of LMA Consulting Group and one of the most recognized voices in mid-market manufacturing operations. Lisa has spent 30+ years helping manufacturers build SIOP processes that actually hold up under pressure. She wrote the book on it. Literally. The conversation starts where most planning conversations don't: at the supplier. Because a SIOP that's fed by stale acknowledgments, manually updated promise dates, and lead times nobody has checked in months isn't a plan. It's a best guess dressed up in a spreadsheet. What they get into: * Why solid SIOP processes still break down at the supplier execution layer, and what the failure modes actually look like * The difference between what your ERP thinks is happening and what your suppliers committed to this morning * Where AI is genuinely useful in mid-market procurement right now, and where it's still noise * Reshoring and supplier diversification: practical, not theoretical * What Lisa tells $50M–$300M manufacturers to do in the next 90 days * What separates manufacturers who get supply chain right from those who stay stuck Lisa also runs the Harvey Mudd Executive Roundtables for manufacturing CEOs and was appointed to the California District Export Council by the U.S. Secretary of Commerce. She knows what happens in planning rooms and on plant floors. This isn't abstract. If your team runs SIOP meetings and still gets surprised by supplier performance, this one is worth your time.  Subscribe to Leveraged Supply Chains for more real-world conversations on AI, supplier performance, and operational excellence in manufacturing and distribution.

Episode 9: The SaaSpocalypse Is Here — Why AI Breaks the Old Procurement Playbook (w/ Dr. Elouise Epstein, Kearney)

Your inbox is full of AI pitches, but your team is still living in email, spreadsheets, and an ERP that hasn't changed how work gets done. So what happens when the old SaaS playbook actually breaks? In this episode of Leveraged Supply Chains, Andrew Stroup sits down with Dr. Elouise Epstein, Partner at Kearney, author, and one of the sharpest critics of procurement technology. Elouise built the spider maps that became a public service for anyone navigating the procurement tech landscape. She's now retired them, and the reason why is the thesis of this episode. Elouise walks through her non-traditional path from the San Francisco Opera to a dot-com procurement startup to nearly 26 years at Kearney, why she felt compelled to call out the "conjoined triangle" of vendors, systems integrators, and analysts propping up a broken model, and what an AI-native procurement organization actually looks like when you stop thinking in suites and start thinking in outcomes. They get into: * Why the spider maps are retired and what that says about the end of legacy SaaS categories * The vendor-SI-analyst feedback loop that produced inflated ROI cases and widespread implementation failure * What Procurement 4.0 means in practice: outcome-based, not process-coded, built around AI platforms instead of monolith architectures * AI employees vs. agents vs. copilots, and why mid-market teams should think about renting AI labor instead of buying more transactional systems * Her advice to every leader: stop buying tech, do one-year renewals, learn AI yourself, and get on the bus or get out of the way * Why governance in the AI era is a way of operating, not a policy document nobody reads * The people and culture gap that's wider than the technology gap, and why failure is the metric that matters most * Her message to younger professionals: believe in yourself, because nobody else is going to hype you up If you're a mid-market supply chain or procurement leader caught between doing nothing and signing the next seven-figure suite contract, this conversation gives you a framework for what comes next. 🔔 Subscribe to Leveraged Supply Chains for more real-world conversations on AI, supplier performance, and operational excellence.

Episode 8: Procurement Systems That Stick: Master Data, Adoption, and the Messy Middle (w/ Steve Andrews)

Most procurement teams don’t lose time in big, strategic decisions — they lose it in the messy middle: PO acknowledgements, promise dates, pricing mismatches, follow-ups, and exceptions that turn the inbox into the real system of record. In this episode of Leveraged Supply Chains, Andrew Stroup sits down with Steve Andrews, a supply chain and procurement leader with deep experience across strategic sourcing, ERP-adjacent system implementations, and PE-backed operational scaling. Steve breaks down why procurement systems fail after launch — and what makes them stick six to twelve months later. We dig into the two failure modes he sees constantly: strategy that never translates into buyer day-to-day behavior, and master data governance that gets ignored until trust collapses. He shares a pragmatic buying framework (including how to avoid “snake oil” AI claims), why sandbox trials beat polished demos, and why small, meaningful wins outperform big-bang rollouts. Note: Steve is speaking in his personal capacity based on his professional experience, not on behalf of any employer.

Episode 7: Freight Tech Without the Hype: A Mid-Market Buying Playbook (with Eric Johnson, JOC)

If you’re a mid-market manufacturer or distributor, your inbox is full of “AI for logistics” and freight-tech pitches — but your team is still living in email threads, spreadsheets, PDFs, and clunky portals. This episode is about closing that gap between the slide deck and what actually works on the ground. Andrew Stroup sits down with Eric Johnson, Senior Technology Editor at the Journal of Commerce (JOC) and host of LogTech Live and the LogTech Letter. Eric spends his days talking to shippers, forwarders, 3PLs, carriers, and software vendors, giving him a rare “meta-operator” view into what really creates value — and what’s just noise. Together, they break down a no-hype buying playbook for mid-market operators who need results, not buzzwords: * A simple map of the freight-tech stack that actually matters for a $100–500M industrial manufacturer or distributor — execution, visibility, compliance, and analytics/AI. * How the definition of “10x value” has shifted from 2015 to 2025, and what really tips teams over the line to invest: cost, service failures, customer pressure, and regulatory shocks. * Where AI is genuinely moving the needle (exception management, ETA prediction, document and invoice automation) vs. where the “AI” label is mostly cosmetic. * Why so many 2025 processes still look like 2005 — and how vertical SaaS plus deep domain expertise can finally change that. * The evolving role of 3PLs as an innovation arm, and how to pressure-test whether a partner is truly innovative or just good at marketing. If you’re a VP Supply Chain, COO, or Ops leader evaluating your next freight-tech or “AI” investment, this conversation gives you practical models, a 3–4 step roadmap, and one concrete move you can make in the next seven days — so you can leverage data, not buzzwords.

Episode 6: AI X-Ray Vision for Your Supplier Network (w/ Rob Handfield, NC State + SCRC)

Most teams still manage risk one supplier at a time. They only see tier-1, they fight fires in email, and they call it “resilience” when they update a slide once a year. In this episode, we zoom out to the network level and ask: how can AI actually give us X-ray vision across the whole supplier base? Andrew Stroup sits down with Professor Rob Handfield, Bank of America University Distinguished Professor of Supply Chain Management and Executive Director of the Supply Chain Resource Cooperative (SCRC) at NC State, to break down how AI, data, and “disciplined imagination” can be used to stress-test supplier networks and design more collaborative, less fragile ecosystems. They get into: * Why Rob prefers “supply chain immunity” over vague “resilience” and what an immune supplier network actually looks like in practice * How to use AI with human judgment to map multi-tier supplier networks, not just vendors in your ERP * A practical framework for stress testing your network using “disciplined imagination,” from tsunami scenarios to tariff shocks and regional disruptions * Concrete levers to respond: inventory plays, dual-sourcing, regionalization, and tariff re-engineering plus where companies are overly optimistic about “leaving China” * How to combine vulnerability assessment with opportunity finding so you know where to co-invest, co-develop, or deepen collaboration with key suppliers * Rob’s 90-day plan for a $100–300M manufacturer or distributor to build a clean supplier fact base, plug in AI, run scenarios, and walk into the CFO’s office with a clear business case If you’re a supply chain, procurement, or operations leader who’s still thinking in terms of individual suppliers, this episode will help you start thinking and acting in networks.