Working in logistics at Nabisco quite early in his career, Rick Blasgen got out of the office and stepped into the customer's shoes.

Blasgen was part of a team that was deploying a new distribution requirements planning system to better align the supply chain with customers' needs. His mission was to convince the manager of a Nabisco plant that production schedules needed to be flexible if the new system was to improve forecasting. To do that, he knew he had to explain things from the viewpoint of Nabisco's customers—in this case, the retailers of the Milk-Bone dog biscuits that the plant produced.

It was not an easy sell, and it did not happen quickly. The plant manager's primary objective was to achieve the lowest cost per pound produced. Blasgen had made the right move at the outset by traveling to meet at the manager's offices, but he was well aware that he still had to overcome natural biases against visits from “helpful” headquarters staff. His approach was to first identify common goals and then to fill out a picture of how the retailers were operating, how they had operated previously, and how they would be operating in future.

Over time, Blasgen's input got results. The pattern of the Milk-Bone plant's output began to look like the pattern of demand from the customers. “We began to employ important metrics from the viewpoint of the customer—metrics such as on-time delivery,” he recalls. “We were the voice of the customer, both internally and externally.”

These days, Rick Blasgen is the voice of the supply chain profession. As the president and chief executive officer of the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP), headquartered in Lombard, Ill., his job is to represent the organization's 9,000-plus members in 63 countries, to identify their needs, and to meet those needs. He also must manage the rapid growth of a professional association that now has chapters as far afield as Singapore and São Paulo, Brazil. The leadership skills he brought to that Nabisco situation are in play every day. “It's really about people, process, and technology,” he says. “First and foremost, it's making sure you connect with the people you're working with. Then it's about understanding the right business process. And then it's harnessing the technology and the infrastructure to support it.”

A 1983 business administration graduate of Governor's State University, Blasgen began his career at the Nabisco regional customer service center in Chicago. At Nabisco, he held various logistics positions of increasing responsibility in inventory management, customer service, order processing, and logistics management. His connection to sales was unusually close: In fact, logistics and sales comprised one integrated function at Nabisco. “That structure really made guys like me grow up understanding that the main beneficiary of a supply chain initiative is the customer,” Blasgen recalls.

He became the company's supply chain vice president in June 1998, and four years later, he was appointed vice president of supply chain for Kraft Foods. He joined ConAgra Foods in August 2003 as senior vice president of integrated logistics. From early on in his career, Blasgen had been interested in and involved with the supply chain profession beyond his own organization. Along the way, he was fortunate to have mentors who encouraged him to become part of his profession's industry associations.

And he acted on that encouragement. Blasgen has been a member of the executive committee at the Council of Logistics Management (since renamed CSCMP), and is a past president of the Warehousing Education and Research Council (WERC). He was also chair of the Grocery Manufacturers Association Logistics Committee and is a member of Northwestern University's Transportation Center Business Advisory Committee. He explains it this way: “I think it was the idea that getting people in one room with different ideas and different perspectives will always make the entire initiative better.”

Yet Blasgen worries that supply chain managers—in fact, managers in general—may be in danger of losing core communication skills at exactly the time when they need to collaborate more fully and effectively across departmental boundaries and outside of their own companies. The migration to outsourcing—particularly offshore outsourcing—intensifies the communications challenges, placing new emphasis on the need for relationship building. “I think people understand that they do need to share their ideas with others. But it falls down in the execution. All too often, communication is by e-mail. There is no substitute for face-to-face discussion,” he argues. “It takes time, but it is time well spent.”

That is a primary reason for why Blasgen is pressing to offer members more opportunities for networking. CSCMP's Web site declares it succinctly: “We're the association that helps supply chain managers connect and collaborate… and become more effective professionals.” CSCMP's popular annual conference is being replicated elsewhere; in 2005, its two-day event in Amsterdam was a success, as was the February 2006 gathering in Dubai. CSCMP has just held another two-day conference, this time in Shanghai. The group is also strengthening its links to the procurement profession, adding two dedicated purchasing tracks to its annual U.S. conference.

At the same time, CSCMP is expanding the number of regional roundtables it offers: There are now 85 such roundtables, with 18 of them outside of the United States. Another two are signing on soon in New Zealand and in Taiwan. To ensure that the roundtables are as effective as they can be for members, CSCMP has recently restructured its roundtable advisory committee to provide more guidance on everything from program planning to the use of CSCMP's many educational resources. An important element of the roundtable's function is to provide constant frontline feedback about member needs and key trends in the profession.

Blasgen is also proud of the many other ways in which CSCMP touches its members: via its regular research reports, such as the annual logistics study; through a network of online roundtables; and with an array of publications, including Global Perspectives, a new magazine designed to help supply chain managers better understand the complexities of doing business in various world regions. And he is pushing CSCMP to link up with other organizations—for example, the European Logistics Association and Australia's logistics trade group—to drive mutually beneficial research and education. “No one organization can do it all,” Blasgen explains.

But it is tomorrow's supply chain leaders who hold a special place in Blasgen's working week. As a CSCMP board member three years ago, he pushed successfully for two new membership categories: one for full-time students and another labeled ESCPro, or Emerging Supply Chain Professionals. ESCPro provides student members who have recently received their degrees and entered the workforce with an opportunity to continue their CSCMP participation at a reduced membership fee.

In a recent article he wrote for a logistics publication, Blasgen advised younger readers to gain a wide variety of skills: “Spend time in customer service and inventory management. Get some experience in transportation management, logistics finance, warehousing management, production scheduling, and procurement. Focus on the experiential toolset. This will give you the breadth and technical background as well as the managerial confidence you'll need to become a highly successful leader.”

He did not forget to refer to a favorite topic of his: the need for interpersonal skills. “These skills are becoming increasingly important,” he wrote. “Much of what is accomplished in businesses today is done within task forces and cross-functional teams. The ability to create and sustain collaborative relationships inside your company, as well as with key external supply chain participants, is crucial to your career as a leader and the value you bring to your company.”

The CSCMP leader practices what he preaches. He spends plenty of plane time en route to roundtables and conferences worldwide in his bid to help the supply chain profession gain influence. “If we're to be successful,” he says, “we need to be out visiting with our members, understanding their problems and concerns, and getting the word out so that work can be done addressing these issues.” You can be certain that Blasgen is advocating that the supply chain professionals he visits get out of their offices, too.