Humans of Honors: Hannah Bai

“This past summer, I was selected to speak at the Institute for Supply Management’s 2024 Global Conference: a 4-day event that over 2,000 professionals attended. I presented on Reactive vs. Proactive vs. Predictive supply chain strategies, with a focus on how important it is to have a balance of all three. The most interesting thing I learned about was how companies applied each strategy in the face of different scenarios. For example, the pharmaceutical industry’s humanitarian efforts during the aftermath of Hurricane Maria (reactive), company efforts to reduce their presence in Russia as tensions continue (proactive), and increasing use cases of AI to learn about future geopolitical conflicts (predictive).

I was introduced to reactive, proactive, and predictive strategies during my first co-op at Takeda Pharmaceuticals! My coworkers were amazing mentors and taught me many frameworks and strategies, but those three stuck with me. From there, I conducted a lot of personal research through journals and publications and contacted professors and other coworkers to ask them what they knew about it. I realized there was a lot of discussion about moving away from reactive strategies to use more proactive and predictive ones. Thus, I thought it would be fun and informative to present on how to continue to pursue proactive and predictive strategies while also strengthening reactive ones.

My favorite part of the conference was listening in on presentations given by experts from so many areas! There were so many perspectives, and I wish I had more time to explore more presentations.”