LEADERSHIP
people to course-correct on their own. We’re also consensus- driven; we try to make decisions through our senior leadership team. The tough decisions tend to be made by the group. I can’t think of a time when I had to be the tie-breaker. IL: What’s the hardest part of your job? Omni is my family, but I also have another family. I’ve been married for 24 years, and I have three grown kids. Those two families are the most important things in my life, and maintaining a balance between them is hard. We Found a Machine… In 2020, during the first wave of COVID, Omni Logistics, like many other service providers, flew planeloads of personal protective equipment into the United States for its customers. “But there was a time when it was difficult to source masks and gloves,” recalls JJ Schickel. Then Omni’s leadership team in Hong Kong made an unusual suggestion. They found a machine to make masks, and they found all the materials that are necessary inside a mask. They asked for approval to start making masks and then shipping them. Omni bought the machine. “It wasn’t cheap,” Schickel says. “We bought all the materials. Our team started cranking out masks so we could get them to our customers and employees. They did an amazing job, and our customers and employees were thrilled. “I’m proud that our unique culture empowers our team members to come up with innovative solutions that help improve peoples’ lives,” he adds.
But what really keeps our customers awake is the need for predictability for the C-suite. The CFOs and management teams of many of our large customers have public stakeholders who rely on them for predictability. We spend a lot more time than we used to communicating with the C-suite and trying to create dynamic supply chains that allow them to toggle between certainty, service demands, and price. IL: Does that mean, for example, using different ports as needed, or switching modes? Yes. As a non-asset-based provider using technology, we stitch together thousands of vendors to create various solutions for our customers, aggregating their purchasing power to create outcomes they couldn’t achieve on their own. For example, when there’s a logjam on the ocean, we ask what other modes we can use to create a solution. If you ask that question on the same day you need to move a load, that’s going to be expensive. Staying ahead of a fluid market and creating a dynamic capability has been a huge factor in the marketplace in the past couple of years. IL: What’s new and interesting at Omni Logistics? In our senior leadership meetings, we constantly think about innovation. Our main focus is on initiatives that reduce our unit costs and provide a great outcome for our customers. One of those is the use of robotic dispatch to give customers more autonomy over their freight decisions. Here’s a very simple example based on domestic shipments. The customer indicates how much they’re willing to pay to ship a load, and the software puts the load out to bid to pre- qualified carriers within a certain geographic area. At the end of a set period, the software assigns the load at the specified price—or even at a lower price, depending on the bids. If the system can’t find a solution at the desired price, it kicks the shipment out to a human. That employee then goes into problem-solving mode, which is much more fulfilling than working in execution mode all day. This is an effective solution with a great outcome for the customer. IL: How do you give criticism or correction when it’s needed? I don’t usually have to do that. Our culture is entrepreneurial, and our job is to provide tools that allow
IL: What have you read or listened to lately that you’d recommend?
Although it’s not new, Hit Refresh by Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, is a great leadership book, and he does an excellent job of emphasizing the importance of empathy in the workplace. Also, David Rubenstein, founder of The Carlyle Group, has incredible guests on his podcast. IL: Outside of work, how do you like to spend your time? I hit the treadmill regularly, and I spend a lot of time outside. I play guitar and enjoy music. I’m an empty nester, which is a total bummer because I loved the chaos of having a full agenda on the weekends. But I do a lot of boating and hiking and I try to spend as much time as possible with family and friends. n
February 2023 • Inbound Logistics 11
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