Episode Details

The North American inbound supply chain was well-run and extremely cheap before the pandemic brought disruption to the logistics and transportation space. Since the pandemic, the shipping industry had to adapt and is still adapting to this uncertainty. Prices are going up, congestion is at an all-time high, and we won't recover from these challenges overnight. Join Joe Lynch as he talks to John Murnane about the disruption in container logistics. John is a senior partner at McKinsey & Company. At McKinsey, he is the leader of the logistics sector. So he covers everything from air & ocean carriers to warehousing & fulfillment. Listen and learn more about the shipping industry, shipper & carrier relationships, sustainability, end-to-end shipping, and much more. Find out about the disruption in container logistics and how it can be solved.

The section below is transcribed. Transcription has limitations so there may be grammar and typo issues.

Thank you so much for joining us. Our topic is disruption and container logistics with my friend, John Murnane. How is it going, John.

I am doing great. Thanks for having me. How are you?

Excellent. I am glad we are talking about this topic. Please introduce yourself, your company, and where you are?

I am a Senior Partner at McKinsey. I am based in Atlanta. I lead McKinsey's Logistics Sector globally with a colleague named Martin Joerss, who is based in Hamburg.

Tell us what you guys do over in that McKinsey's Logistics Practice.

We call it a sector, but we serve the logistics industry. For us, that is all the different, interesting, fascinating parts of logistics throughout the global supply chain, ocean and air carriers, forwarders, folks doing container leasing, and Marine services. We do a lot of work in ground handling and transport, terminal operators, and rail trucks, both asset-based and brokerage.

We also do a lot of work in the warehouse and fulfillment. I serve companies that operate fulfillment, real estate, and industrial developer. We also do Last Mile post and parcel returns, plus all the folks that are in and around that space doing data, transparency, tech, robotics, and all the fascinating, fun companies that are trying to knit it all together.

Do you work more with shippers or the actual logistics providers?

We work with both. In the group I lead, the logistics sector, we serve companies that make a living in moving stuff around. I have got a number of colleagues in a practice that is adjacent to ours that are in manufacturing and supply chain. Those consultants and partners serve the big retailers and manufacturers who pay to have the goods moved.

I do not know what you guys did at McKinsey but it was not so long ago that there was no logistics practice. It was logistics and supply chain or supply chain and logistics or manufacturing supply chain and logistics. It was always the tail end of something else. We have arrived because we have a McKinsey partner who is responsible for watching over us.

We have got 100 McKinsey partners that I do not know if we are responsible for it.

[caption id="attachment_7990" align="aligncenter" width="600"] Container Logistics Disruption: The pandemic hit the shipping industry in many ways. People started buying a lot more, which meant more containers being moved while the staff was low. There was just a lot of congestion.[/caption]

The business needs some babysitters. Tell us a little bit about you. Where did you grow up? Where did you go to sc