On rare occasion a business journalist gets the opportunity not just to report ‘history’ but participate in its shaping.

I believe such a moment is forthcoming on March 10 and 11 in Chicago.

World Trade magazine, in partnership with the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals, will be holding a conference on a subject destined to emerge as the next step leap in the evolution of enterprise management—Optimizing Working Capital by Integrating Trade Finance and the Supply Chain: The New Operational Paradigm.

In my travels through the transportation, distribution, manufacturing and retail sectors I hear a consistent complaint: corporate finance and the supply chain don’t talk to each other.

There’s no real mystery why not. The treasurer’s office typically views the supply chain almost exclusively as a cost center (to be reigned in); the supply chain folks correspondingly are measured by narrow metrics, which often are inconsistent with contributions they can make to the holistic performance of the enterprise (not their fault, they do what they’re told!).

‘Working capital’ is where the rubber hits the road.

In the best of times, squeezing more out of working capital to fully optimize its return might not be quite as compelling as it is today. But these times, to say the least, aren’t the best!

But how to integrate the supply chain with finance? How to begin to conflate two separate ‘silos’ to provide superior management, visibility and measurement? How to implement IT platforms capable of the job? How to persuade board room decision makers and line managers to leap into new territory?

Those are the questions we plan to address in Chicago.

Our starting point will be trade finance but—to underscore the importance of this subject—we’ll be expanding trade finance to include most supply chain financing.

To our knowledge this space—a high level conference addressing the integration of corporate finance and the supply chain—is unfilled. Which makes our mission—to bring together leaders from both areas to begin the conversation—all the more compelling.

The roster of participants is, indeed, impressive. Keynote luncheon speaker will John Ahern, Global Head of Trade Services at Citibank, along with top tier supply chain officers from Nike and J Crew. Other leaders participating in the participatory panels (we’re holding attendance down to 60 to facilitate audience interaction) include Philippe Lambotte (Senior VP at Kraft Foods for Customer Service and Logistics), Tony Brown (First Capital’s Managing Director/International Division), Chris Vukas (UPS Capital’s Managing Director, Global Supply Chain Finance), Mark Self (Motorola VP, Industry Solutions) as well as heads of the three leading trade finance platform providers (TradeStone, TradeCard and GT Nexus).

As I said, we’ve designed this conference to NOT repeat NOT be a series of Powerpoints (boring!) but rather animated, workshop-like conversation focused around real-life questions and answers (attendees will have the opportunity to submit advance questions pertinent to their specific situation for general discussion).

‘Necessity’, as they say, ‘is the mother of invention.’ And—as a service to our audience—we’re convening ‘invention’ experts who can demonstrate—demonstrate—ways to begin to get more bang out of your operating buck. Often at marginal cost (or even immediate savings). To say nothing of the longer-term implications of streamlining your enterprise.

For details and to register, see the web: http://cscmpworldtrade.com/

So come on down!



Neil Shister, Editorial Director

shistern@worldtrademag.com