After the official opening of the BVL Supply Chain CX 2025 on October 22, by the BVL chairman Kai Althoff, two keynote speakers focused on the current challenges of the logistics industry. Sven Smit, Senior Partner at McKinsey and Chairman of the McKinsey Global Institute, referred in his talk to the links between the availability of resources and geopolitical power relations.
“We are currently living in a world of great imbalance and strong dependencies – especially when it comes to resources and raw materials,” said Smit. This could also have implications for armed conflicts, as the consultant illustrated with
an example.
“Whoever owns the raw materials for semiconductors controls the use of artificial intelligence and, with it, global cybersecurity. And ultimately, this can also tilt the scales in geopolitical confrontations.”
Nevertheless, the expert sees plenty of potential for positive developments worldwide.
Ultimately, from the expert's perspective, this could lead to worldwide prosperity.
“We at McKinsey are convinced that by 2100 all countries on Earth will be able to live at the Swiss level of prosperity, have access to sustainable technologies, and possess a functioning infrastructure. For that, we only need to grow a bit faster than in the
past 20 years.”
Ultimately, one of the essential future technologies named by Smit was the focus of the second keynote of the opening sequence. Arthur Valdez, Global C-Level Operations Leader, formerly of Amazon, Target and Starbucks, spoke about how logistics decision-makers can get their supply chain ready for the use of artificial intelligence. Broadly, the supply chain expert distinguishes between three phases. First, companies should define an overarching goal for themselves to achieve. Next, those responsible should address the problems within the company. Valdez recommends, above all, a customer-centric view that focuses on the pain points of their own
clientele. Additionally, according to Valdez, decision-makers should place specialist expertise ahead of regulation.
“Technical problems must be solved by suitably skilled personnel who are also close to the customer—not by lawyers.”
Finally, instead of the familiar brainstorming, Valdez uses a technique he calls “Trystorming.”
“Discussing challenges does not advance you; trying things out does. After phases one and two, one should therefore initiate as many small experiments in one’s own supply chain as possible to find out exactly what helps one solve problems. Making mistakes is a positive thing, as long as one learns quickly from them,” said Valdez.
