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Transcription of Employer video case study- Rebecca Jenkins- Director- Core Management Logistics (CML)

Interviewer- Michael Goatman-

Michael- Rebecca a very warm welcome to Coventry University and thank you very much for taking part in this initiative which is a collaboration between the Chartered Management Institute and Coventry University for the benefit for our postgraduate students. Could you just start by telling us a little bit about yourself, what you do, what is your experience in business? Perhaps a bit about what role you take and where this fits into the business generally?

Rebecca- Certainly. Thank you Mike. I'm looking forward to this. I have over 30 years' experience in business and my first experience was, I started life as a truck driver and, well I didn't really start life as a truck driver, but when I was 21 I decided to take my truck driving lesson and that, and I passed that within a couple of weeks and that got me into the world of logistics. Before that I was doing hotel management and once I got my truck licence I thought I've paid for this so and I quite like being in a truck. It's quite good fun. I'm going to have a go at doing this and I delivered frozen chickens all around the country before the days of distribution centres and I did that for a number of years, for a number of months. I did that for about nine months and then I decided to work my way through logistics so I took a role in traffic management. After that I got into sales and following that I just moved my way into a more senior management position and eventually I became MD of a logistics company and that company was about 5 million turn over when I joined it, when I was MD and I took it to about a 15 million turn over and sold it, a number of years ago now, to Wincanton PLC who are one of the largest UK providers of logistics. And when I say logistics, I'm talking about warehousing and transport services. And if I bring you right up to date, what I do now is I help companies grow their businesses, learning from the things that I got right and also the things I got wrong because I did get a number of things wrong and so I help companies to grow and my current role is I work with CML logistics as their freight director and I'm responsible for developing international side of the business. So were are freight forwarding business and we import and export product all around the world and we provide that as one aspect of the supply chain service that CML offer its customers.

Michael- That's amazing. Thank you so much. I mean, that started off with trucks and frozen chickens and ended up with a massive great multi-million pound business. Could you just fill us in a bit on what logistic companies actually do because, I mean, obviously we identify it's about transport, but the word logistics is a particular word?

Rebecca- Yeah it does mean different things to different people, but my definition of it is, it's about moving goods around the world in terms of providing a supply chain service. So for example one of our customers at CML is a company called Lulu Guinness who make good quality leather handbags and other leather products and we bring those products in from the point of manufacture which happens to be, sort of, Spain and Italy. We bring those into the UK. We're responsible for that part of the supply chain. When they come into the UK we warehouse the products and then when they go out through internet orders, so somebodies is actually ordering them, we do the pick and the pack and the dispatch and get it out to, into the end user. So that whole supply chain process from point of origin through to final delivery and all the different components of that, so the transport, the warehousing, the pick, pack and dispatch, that's what I determine to be logistics. So it could be any part of that or it could be that whole complete supply chain process.

Michael- Fantastic. Thanks very much. One of the areas that our students are particularly interested in is leadership. Could you talk a little bit about how you understand leadership? Both perhaps on a team level and a more corporate level.

Rebecca- Yeah. From a team perspective, for me leadership is about a number of different capabilities. So from leading a team, and I think anyone can be a leader in all different walks of life, doesn't necessarily have to, it doesn't just apply to business. But from a business perspective, it's about being able to, a number of things such as; strategic thinking, being able to do problem solving, being able to lead a team, to be a great communicator, to be able to have emotional, to show you have emotional intelligence, to serve your team because I think that's quite an important aspect of leadership, to be collaborative, and you know, just a number of those key things show that you are a good leader of people, you can make decisions, you are accountable, but you bring others with you on the journey.

Michael- Right. Two words which our students are into in this particular module is transformational leadership and transactional leadership. So there's obviously a place for both. Could you comment on where they're used in different circumstances?

Rebecca- For me, transformational leadership is around managing change. Where you're moving from one type of situation or business through to being something that's is more, that's different in some way, shape or form. And for me, transformational leadership is where you're able to deal with that change and you can understand the aspects around culture and development and bringing a team with you and you've got very strong communicative skills and you can encourage your team to come through with you on that process. Whereas, for me, transactional is a little bit more dictatorial and its where you're giving instructions out for things to be done and having less of a collaborative approach and having less engagement with your, with your team. So that's, that would be how I interpret transactional.

Michael- Yeah and in terms of the way that you've led, do both of those have a place? Or do you identify with one more than the other?

Rebecca- I'm much more of a favour of transformational. Really bringing your team with you. I learnt some really early lessons around that and one of my favourite situations that I love to, love to share was when I had the contract to do all the distribution for Body Shop and it's going back into the 1980's when Body Shop where growing at a very fast pace and I was determined to get that Body Shop contract. It should come to my business. We, I love the Body Shop and they were a really big target for me. And so I spent a lot of time going to, to see what their logistics strategy was. How were they going to fill, fulfil all of those retail deliveries around the country at the rate that they were growing? Anyway to cut quite a long story short, we were very successful in winning that business and we worked for them out of their little Hampton head office, which isn't the best place in the world to have a distribution centre, but there you go, that's where it was.

Michael- Right at the bottom of the country.

Rebecca- Right. In West Sussex. Yeah.

Michael- Yeah.

Rebecca- So we won that and we did what I thought was a pretty amazing job for them for 12 months. We met all their delivery requirements. They were very focused on key performance indicators. Making sure that we were at the shop within a certain timeframe and after running that for 12 months, we were summons to a meeting and we were, I thought this is great. We're going to get a pat on the back here. We've done an amazing job for Body Shop. We had vehicles up in their livery. Everything was going well and at that meeting I was told you're boring, as a transport company. You are just delivering the good and you are boring. You're not doing anything else. And I thought what do they mean? What do they want? That's what we're meant to be doing. And the message behind that was you need to do something more to fulfil your partnership and your approach, on this contract with Body Shop. And I thought I had no idea what we're going to do. I don't know how we're going to overcome this challenge. I don't know, I can't afford to lose this contract. It was a significant piece of work to the business and I learnt that the only way for me to overcome this challenge, it was a great lesson for me, was to involve my team. To them to really help collaboratively solve this problem, and which we did. We came up with an amazing solution. We put the first natural gas vehicle on the road for Body Shop which played very much into their values and it was that lesson of learning that you have to be collaborative and you've got to bring your team with you and when your team are engaged with you they'll support you and they'll be on board with it. And that changed my approach to management.

Michael- That's fantastic. That's a brilliant story. Thanks very much. In your company, who has the authority? Can you tell us a bit about the accountably chain?

Rebecca- Yeah. Within CML there's a board of directors. The board of directors have ultimate responsibility for the business and how it performs. They're the directors and the shareholders. Shareholders have the ultimate responsibility as a board of directors and directors have the responsibility for the growth and development and the strategy of the business. And reporting into the board are an executive board and their responsibility is for carrying out the remit and the broader strategic aims and objectives of the board.

Michael- Right. Presumably, from the previous story, you're very much in favour of employee empowerment and belonging.

Rebecca- Yep.

Michael- So does that give a level of decision making to the employees?

Rebecca- It does. Yes. It's an essential part of working, I feel. It gets the best out of people and people enjoy being, a lot of people, not everybody, enjoys being given that level of responsibility and I think it's their opportunity to shine and show that they can achieve great things and come up with new ideas and implement them. Within CML everybody is encouraged within that culture to come up with new ideas, to be prepared to chat to their boss about them if they see something that's not right and to have a level of responsibility around that. So it's expected of them and they are involved in that decision making process.

Michael- Thank you very much. Another area that is important to our students is entrepreneurship. Is it possible for you to talk a little bit about how you see entrepreneurship? How you see it fitting into business?

Rebecca- I think that it is an amazing time to be an entrepreneur. I think there are so many opportunities for entrepreneurs right now, with digitalisation. And I think on top of that there are some many things you can have access to as an entrepreneur which you couldn't have 10, 15 years ago. So there's a good economy out there. You can get things done very inexpensively. You can be anywhere in the world, running your business because we've got video conferencing and we can talk via the internet anywhere, more or less anywhere we are. Sometimes it's a bit difficult on the M6.

Michael- Right.

Rebecca- But generally anywhere, so I think it's a great time to be an entrepreneur. I really do. It's much more exciting than perhaps it was 10 years ago, 15 years ago, even though I was excited by it then and I think it's far more respected now.

Michael- But would you say that risk is always part of entrepreneurship?

Rebecca- It goes with the territory. It is what it is. If you're going to be an entrepreneur you have to take risk. You have to, I mean, do things like put your house on the line for your business and the shareholders, some of the shareholders at CML have actually done that and I've done that in my career. It goes with the territory.

Michael- And I kind of get the inference that you actually quite like that aspect. You find it quite exciting.

Rebecca- Well it's exciting and daunting.

Michael- Yeah.

Rebecca- It's both. But I think, you know, when you focus on what the opportunity and the upside is, and I think that's where it's good to be more optimistic. Have an optimistic outlook because I think if you were a pessimist and your attitude was very negative, and you put your house on the line, I think you'd be talking yourself into a very difficult situation.

Michael- Sure. Yeah.

Rebecca- Yeah.

Michael- That's great thanks. It's known that change is a regular part of company life. How have you found that people respond to change? Are there some ways of introducing it to people better than other ways?

Rebecca- Well I think people respond very differently to change, depending on their approach in life, and their experiences, and their attitude to life, and I think you've got, as a leader, to be very conscious of that when you are, when you're implanting something that's, that's going to impact them and be, have some change in it, and I think that's were emotional intelligence is very important. That you can be aware that people will take change in very different ways.

Michael- Right. Can you just expand a little on emotional intelligence?

Rebecca- So emotional intelligence, to me, is about understanding and see things for a different perspective, from another individual's perspective.

Michael- Right.

Rebecca- And understanding and thinking about their feeling and how it's going to impact them, how they might see the situation because different people will see things in a different way. And I think when you've given the time to that, your approach to telling them about change will be different for different people and I think that's really important and it helps you as a manager or as a leader to get the message across in a positive way because you've considered how people are going to react and feel about it. And the other key thing for me is when you're delivering transformational change is that you get their involvement. You're not just presenting the change as a fait au complet. You're saying how do you feeling about it? How can we do it better? Is there a different way? Just because I'm the leader doesn't mean to say I have all the answers. I would really encourage my team to come up with ideas because if they come up with ideas and they feel part of it, they will embrace that change much more readily than me imposing it on them. You know, if you think about yourself Mike, if someone tells you, you can or you can't do something, I don't know how you might react? But I would certainly go really?

Michael- I don't react very positively.

Rebecca- Yeah I know. We don't like that do we? We like to be given a choice and feel like we're involved in it and that makes us feel involved, fulfilled, committed to it and we've got some buy-in to it. So I think that's really, really important when you've got change to deliver.

Michael- Thank you very much. Another area is communication. Could you describe the communication systems in decision making processes within your company?

Rebecca- So within CML we, when we have made some decisions at a board level we're very clear about which of those messages, and how those messages are cascaded throughout the business. So that everybody is clear about what is being discussed. We can't share everything, but where we can, we really make sure that there's a cascade brief going out and that managers have a responsibility to brief their teams. It's an obligation. You have to do it.

Michael- So the method is, is going down through the management chain, for them to do the communication.

Rebecca- Yes. Yes, and then we do other things such as, we have family fun days where we celebrate success. We do newsletters about wins that we've achieved and things that are happening in the business. Just this morning one of the managers was talking about maybe we should do some video and do some different introductions on different people in the business and what their role is. That sort of thing. So we're, we're always looking at increasing our communication because, I think, you can never do enough of it.

Michael- Right thank you very much. Next question is about the future. Do you have a view about the future of the industry and to put it in the speak that the students are looking at, this is perhaps regarding perhaps the external and internal influences, the opportunities and the threats?

Rebecca- Well within the logistics there is, there's going to be a revolution in terms of digitalisation. We are going to see trucks without drivers at some stage in the future, probably within the next 5 years. That's going to have an impact. At the moment we have a severe shortage of drivers so that might solve that problem. The driving, truck driving population is aging and for the number of years I've been involved in the logistic industry, which is quite a long time, we haven't cracked the ability for it being seen as an attractive industry for people to work in.

Michael- So you're seeing autonomous vehicles as actually something that can be considered strategically for the future?

Rebecca- Yeah. And they are, they're operating now in, kind of, trail mode.

Michael- Right.

Rebecca- Within convoys of trucks. That's a different, when you're trucking down a motorway, that's a different kind of truck and driving style to doing deliveries into a high street, so quite how it will work with that, I don't know the answer to it. And then we've got to consider the impact of the environment that's going to have an impact on supply chain. Will we continue to import as much as we do from the Far East? Or will there be an impact in terms of the environment and will that be restricted in any way? And...

Michael- You're, you're talking about maybe tariffs and things?

Rebecca- Yeah I'm talking about tariffs and I'm talking about that whole environmental cost of shipping goods in.

Michael- OK.

Rebecca- From the Far East. I mean, we do that readily now. It is very, they're cheaply produced over there, but sometimes when you actually think of the plastic items being made in China and that whole supply chain process to bring that into the UK.

Michael- Yes,

Rebecca- It's really quite...

Michael- Yeah so it you look at the footprint of it, the carbon footprint of it.

Rebecca- Yeah.

Michael- If it were much closer it would be less.

Rebecca- Yes. So I wonder it that will come into, into play more. At CML we really try to minimise our carbon footprint, but when you're looking at a broader, more holistic supply chain within the world. At some point there has to be some impact on it.

Michael- There is this thing called Brexit. Now I hesitate to bring this up because there are other things to talk about.

Rebecca- Yeah.

Michael- But in your particular business one feels that it might have an impact?

Rebecca- It does have an impact and lot of our customers and clients are very, very concerned right now about where do they have their warehousing. Does it need to be outside the UK? Are they setting up satellites? Its, it's a bit of a minefield. We are running some Brexit workshops for our clients to help advise them about it, but you've got, it's just not clear and it's...

Michael- So if, so if they decide that the best warehousing position is in Europe, as opposed to here, is that going to make a huge difference to you?

Rebecca- It will have an impact because the clients that we work with might decide to shift some of their warehousing from the UK where we've got of 500,000 square feet of warehousing.

Michael- Ok

Rebecca- in the UK, where we're storing their products. They might say we need to move some of this out. But there will always be a demand for warehousing in the UK just because we need to get product, we need to store it and then when it's ordered, deliver it. So there will always be a demand for it, but a lot of our suppliers are questioning whether they need to have something on the continent as well as something in the UK.

Michael- Yeah. So, I mean, there's this talk about Brexit could mean a lot more trade with other countries, more European countries. I mean, do you see that as potential opportunity? Positive?

Rebecca- That is a positive. But...

Michael- It's all a bit unknown. That's the problem isn't it?

Rebecca- It's all a bit unknown and I don't feel, I don't feel I can comment on it really.

Michael- No.

Rebecca- Because it seems to be shifting every week.

Michael- Yes. It's interesting actually because on the news people are saying, you know, businesses totally saying look give us something to go on.

Rebecca- Yeah.

Michael- And your company, I can see absolutely how that would be effective.

Rebecca- Yeah and we have warehousing that's bonded for customs. So people can bring their stock in, hold it under bond and then only pay tax when its being, on the delivery side of it. And so that has implications as well. I mean it's just a bit of a minefield.

Michael- Yes. It is isn't it?

Rebecca- And we cannot give clarity but...

Michael- Right. Anyway enough of Brexit.

Rebecca- Yes, yes. Let's move on.

Michael- But it is there. It is there.

Rebecca- Let's move on Mike. Let's move on.

Michael- One of the questions, in fact the last question is that the University is very interested in the international dimension. Could you comment on the cultural differences that need to be appreciated in working across the world?

Rebecca- Well I'd like to go micro for a minute because within our warehouses we employ people from a whole range of different countries and that creates some barriers in some ways because we speak English. All the, all the tasks are in English. All the signage in the warehouses is in English. And so we invest in training in English for our teams so we have a mixed, a mixed culture of teams in our warehouse. So that's something we've had to embrace to ensure that we can get the quality and the regularity and consistency of labour in our warehousing. On a, on a micro level that's something we've had to really consider.

Michael- Right.

Rebecca- And then on a more macro level, well we are, we are an international supply chain provider and we work, we bring in a lot of product from China and the Far East, Vietnam, Bangladesh and that's just something we do as our general everyday business. That's just baked into what we do. But when we are thinking about providing warehousing for clients outside of our operation in Leicestershire, Magna Park, we'll look at collaborative opportunities. So for example I can think immediately of one of our clients who wants to expand into America. Wants to find warehousing out there so we've said we'll source that. We'll find a partner that we can work with and we can, we can get that partner up to speed with your products and our processes etc., but we can do that as a collaborative approach.

Michael- Right.

Rebecca- And that's how will, we would approach any expansion on the, on a more global basis.

Michael- Right Rebecca thank you very much for that very interesting and impressive account of your company. Finally could you give us a question for our students to consider in writing their reports?

Rebecca- Ok, so I think a question or perhaps a challenge I think I would like them to think about is, leadership is so important and you've got students here that will aspire to be amazing leaders and I'd like them to think about what traits they have as individuals that they could really develop to be the world class leaders of the future.

Michael- That's a great question. Thank you very much indeed.

Rebecca- Thank you.