SMU Community Chat with Tom Derry of The Institute for Supply Chain Management

Guests: Tom Derry


Institute for Supply Management® CEO Tom Derry will join SMU for our next Community Chat on Wednesday, Dec. 14, at 11 a.m. ET (10 a.m. CT).

ISM is the first and largest supply management association in the world. That means Tom Derry is in a great position to talk about both current supply chain issues and ones that could present challenges in the future.

We’ll talk about some of the issues we’ve been grappling with in recent months — chip shortages, low water on the Mississippi River, and why labor issues at rails and ports have been so persistent.

We’ll also discuss how geopolitical tensions have reshaped shipping lanes and supply chains over the last year. Could we see more near-shoring (or “friend shoring”) in the years ahead? And could carbon policy become a new means of regulating global trade?

In addition, we’ll consider what demand might look like in 2023. We’ve seen an uptick in optimism going into the first quarter and at least a temporary break from the steel price declines we saw throughout most of 2022. Is that optimism merited by the fundamentals? Or are we making too much of the typical rebound in activity that occurs in Q1?

We’ll take your questions, too.

As always, we’ll keep it to about 45 minutes. You can (virtually) drop in, learn something — and then get on with your day.

PS – If you’d like to see past Community Chat webinars, you can find those here.

By Michael Cowden, Michael@SteelMarketUpdate.com