Ellery's Essays

Dedicate, Not Commit

Commitment is placing the highest priority to another. When people marry, they commit; they promise to put their partners above everything else.

Enterprises try to enrol employees to do the same. Managers expect subordinates to place first-priority to their jobs.

I don’t commit to employers; I dedicate. Dedication is compliance to mutually agreed contracts. Focus is meeting terms & conditions and getting results.

When corporate executives demand commitment from would-be sales reps, the answer should be No. Employment is not a marriage. The most anyone should do is dedicate, which is: work hard, add value, and receive compensation.

It does not go as far as selling one’s soul.

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The Supply Chain Surrounds Every Product

The enterprise sells, its customers order, and the enterprise delivers. This constitutes the basic process of demand fulfilment. As the enterprise creates demand through marketing & sales, it fulfils it.

The enterprise and the customer agree on the terms and conditions of the latter’s order. Delivery of the order should arrive at the right place, at the right quantity, at the right quality, on schedule, and without any error whatsoever. Customers in turn pay the enterprise for what they received, as per the agreed terms & conditions.

Customers don’t really care how the enterprise delivers the orders. What matters is that the customers obtain the products they sought or asked for.

A product is made up of two parts:

Its Core
Its Surround

The Core is the product’s tangible characteristics made up by its characteristics (e.g., shape, weight, size) and features (e.g., functionality, technology).

The Surround is how the product is supported or presented, e.g., quality, service, availability, delivery and cost (price).

Entrepreneurs tend to focus a great deal on the Core of their products especially when they are starting their businesses. Executives would put more emphasis on the Surround as their businesses grow and compete for more market share.

There are many people who became famous for their product Cores. These include Johannes Gutenberg (movable type printing press), James Watt (steam engine), Thomas Edison (electric incandescent light bulb), Carl Benz (automobile), and Steve Jobs (Apple devices).

But how many famous people are there who created great product Surrounds?

One person who does come to mind is Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon. At the onset of the Internet in the 1990’s, Mr. Bezos started a virtual bookstore which he developed into an e-commerce behemoth.

Amazon emphasised availability (its slogan: Everything from A to Z). It optimised the Surrounds of products it advertised and sold online. It offered customers a very user-friendly means to seek and order all types of products as it offered vendors a reliable platform to market and sell their wares.

Amazon also set the trend for online publications or e-books via its Kindle e-reader devices and applications. The company also forayed into streaming of online entertainment from movies to television series. Amazon also has become a leader in information technology, offering web services such as cloud computing, database storage, and content delivery.

No commercial product, whether it be physical or virtual, is out of reach from Amazon. And it’s all made possible from Amazon’s focus on providing outstanding Surrounds for the products it sells.

Because of Amazon’s success, others have emulated its Surround strategies, with its rivals offering their own e-commerce portals or upping their customer services.

Enterprises build and develop their products’ Cores from the talents and resources within their organisations. Organisations, however, must negotiate and collaborate with partners to build and develop their products’ Surrounds. Amazon marketed the Cores of products, but its success relied on contracts with sellers and transporters for the products’ availability and delivery to customers, which together comprised the essence of the product Surrounds Amazon was selling.

Amazon and its admirers boast how productive its supply chain is, but it wouldn’t be where it’s at today without its partners. Amazon’s success via its advantageous support of products’ Surrounds hinged on its partnership with the products’ owners and the service providers who delivered to customers.

This leads to what supply chains really are and that is they are not only an enterprise’s purchasing, manufacturing, & logistics activities; they are not only information-driven networks or systems; they are not only an integrated department within organisations. They are also relationships founded on partnerships that work together in supporting the final finished products.

True, Amazon has grown large enough to own a fleet of trucks, airplanes, & ships, distribution centres, and automated equipment & data centres. It, however, still relies on partnerships for its global market reach. As much it may dictate pricing & terms, Amazon still needs relationships to sustain its economic prowess.

Every product has its Core and Surround. Enterprises invent and build their products’ Cores but develop their products’ Surrounds via their supply chains and the relationships that are inherent in them.

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Arguing for Engineering

Engineers have been the go-to people to solve problems or implement pre-decided solutions. Engineers build edifices architects design, install equipment which executives prefer, and fix things that were creating problems no one else could solve.

Engineers deal with the complicated technical stuff like designing rockets and constructing skyscrapers, repairing nuclear reactors, setting up oil drilling rigs in the middle of the ocean, or refitting a ten-kilometre bridge. When there are problems managers can’t handle, they call engineers.

Well, not all the time, unfortunately.

Managers, sometimes (if not a lot of times), try to fix problems on their own, which often are the ones they think they don’t need engineers or they feel they can solve on their own (many managers are engineers by college degree).

It can be a simple thing like a household electrical circuit breaker. A house’s circuit breaker trips, and the owner tries to reset the breaker. But the breaker trips again, prompting the owner to call an electrician. The electrician changes the breaker with one that’s of higher amperage capacity or one that has a higher limit for electrical current. The breaker no longer trips. But a few years later as the owner installs more appliances, the breaker not only trips but the wiring short-circuits and causes a fire which burns the house down. The fire department cites faulty electrical wiring as the official reason. The owner in response blames the electrical engineer who certified the house’s electrical schematic plan when it was constructed many years ago, long before the incompetent electrician changed the breaker.

Managers engage engineers when they think they need them. Just like we’d go to doctors or lawyers when we either need urgent medical or legal assistance respectively.

If we don’t think we need them, we don’t call them.

That leaves a lot of problems unsolved or not altogether fully solved. Many solutions are temporary and don’t last long. When engineers aren’t involved in tackling problems they’re positioned to solve, many so-called solutions turn out to be not the best ones.

And this isn’t limited to simple issues like a faulty house electrical circuit breaker.

The SARS-CoV-2 or CoVid-19 pandemic which began late 2019 and continued to rage through 2022 is a prime example of neglecting engineering as an approach to solving a crisis.

Many people saw the pandemic as a medical problem, to be addressed and solved by doctors and scientists. But as doctors and nurses treated patients and scientists developed vaccines and anti-viral drugs, no one was solving the bigger problems the pandemic was bringing.

Managers combatted the CoVid-19 virus via lockdowns, border closings, and mandatory protocols like wearing masks, prohibiting gatherings, and limiting employee attendance at workplaces. The solutions were close to draconian which led to shortages, unemployment, and a resulting worldwide economic recession.

And just like the house that burned down by an overloaded circuit breaker, many businesses closed.

And just like the owner of the burned-down house, executives blamed Just-In-Time, Lean, and other previously favoured management concepts for the failures. They finger-pointed those gurus and consultants who had helped set up their businesses’ efficient low-inventory operations even though many never fully adopted the ideas in the first place. Executives did not accept that engineers could have helped solve their problems.

Engineers solving problems is the paradigm organisational leaders need to pursue and accept. Engineers, not managers, solve problems.

The world has changed in that products and services are no longer 100% tangible. Entrepreneurs are cultivating ideas as much as they are introducing products. Engineers can and are instrumental in making those ideas into realities.

But do the entrepreneurs and executives ask engineers for help?

Unfortunately, no.

Technology firms hire software developers to program state-of-the-art information technology (IT) applications.

Mass-market companies engage 3^rd party service providers to handle their logistics.

Industrial investors employ finance executives to work out the best options for wealth accumulation.

Executives & entrepreneurs don’t get that engineers are more than competent and able to build & improve systems & structures just as, if not more than, effectively as software programmers, logisticians, & finance executives.

Engineers after all don’t just invent. They also innovate.

Both invention and innovation are what turn ideas into realities. And engineers can do both.

Engineers approach ideas the same way they do with problems. Whether it is an idea or a problem, engineers define it, lay out options, evaluate each option via predetermined criteria, and recommend the best course of action. They do the job of figuring things out as well, if not better, than any other professional.

This is the rationale for engineering in a world that is especially trending toward a digitised information age. Where ideas have overtaken inventions in whatever industry, engineers would still be more than helpful in bringing them to fruition.

Engineers are needed and it would be a shame if leaders ignore them.

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There is No Such Thing as a Benevolent God

How long did the dinosaurs live on Earth? 165 to 180 million years, according to Britannica.

That’s a really long time. Humans and ancestors have been on Earth for 6 million years. Homo sapiens, for about 300,000 years. Civilisation as we know it has existed for a mere 8,000 years.

The universe began 13.8 billion years ago. And scientists speculate it has at least another 100 trillion years before the last star fizzles out. It would take trillions of years more for whatever’s left like protons, black holes, and anything left to dissipate, if at all.

We live in a very big universe which has been here for a very long time and will likely last for another very, very long time. We might just as well call it Eternity.

There is a chance that some time and somewhere in this very big universe, superbeings, if not humans, will somehow figure out how to build and live in a place which would last for as long as the universe exists.

It does make sense that there already may be a God with such a place that has lasted for a very long time and will still be around for a very long time in the future.

It may also make sense that such a God would be capable enough to create our world and the trappings we now live in.

It, thus, makes sense to have hope that such a God may have communed with human beings on Earth and offered them and their descendants a spot in that possible place that would last for almost eternity.

It also would make sense that there would be conditions for humans to qualify going to go to such a place. Belief & faith in the God, plus following the rules communicated from representatives (e.g., prophets, Messiah, angels), praying, and simply being a good person, would be examples.

If individuals qualify, they go to that place which some would call Heaven. Those who fail would not enter that Heaven and would end up in a not-so-aspiring place some would call Hell, or they just simply die and become no more.

Religions, especially the older ones, are more the wiser in asserting their authorities to who is God and what the rules are to go to Heaven. They have throughout history ingeniously devised & rationalised rules which reward those who believe and threaten those who don’t.

This essay’s discourse would be no exception to their scrutiny and criticism. I could be banished, excommunicated, or plainly labelled an outcast by outspoken clerics of these religious faiths.

What the religions do not guarantee is a good life here on Earth. They may say there are rewards waiting for their followers but if experience teaches anyone anything, everyone goes through some good and bad in their lives; some will have better; some will have worse. There is neither equal balance nor equity. Nothing is fair. It rains on the just and the unjust. The sun shines on the gentle and the wicked.

There is no such thing as a benevolent God. God won’t be kind to all people, unless you happen to be one of a few He (or She or It) selected out of some special favour.

God, however, is a provident God. God provided people a planet with abundant stuff to live their lives comfortably and with genes that give human beings talents to dominate the world. Everyone goes through life suffering and enjoying depending on how they utilise their God-given skills and available resources. But there would be people who’d be lucky or unlucky. Some would be fortunate, and some won’t.

Live with what you have and what you can get and play by the rules you’ve come to believe in, whether from the religions you learned from or from what you concluded from your own thoughts.

While doing so, be mindful that the future is an eternity and that there may be superbeings we call God who may judge us worthy to join them in a place called Heaven that would last as long and have amenities much better than what there is presently on Earth.

Otherwise, well, sorry. We could say we tried and hoped.

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Ambitions & Fears Help Make Our Dreams Come True

Ambition drives us to work for our dreams. Fear makes us hesitate. Both are important in motivating us.

Fear motivates? Yes. While ambition gives us impetus to wake up and work, fear moves us to sense risk and hesitate.

We know the sayings and how they seem to contradict each other.

“He who hesitates is lost” teaches leaders not to deliberate for too long, otherwise they will miss opportunities.

But “haste makes waste” tell us that rushing into action and ignoring the risks can lead us to disaster.

There is “nothing to fear but fear itself” gives people the idea that we shouldn’t let whatever scares us rule our lives.

However, “fear is a good thing. it means you’re paying attention.” Fear is a gift in that it helps us sense and evaluate our environment for risks and adversities.

Social media is rife with posts of those who claim success because they did not hesitate. Executives boast early changes in their careers which brought them to prestigious high-salary positions. Entrepreneurs pride themselves for quitting college and working long nights to invent products which made them millionaires.

There are those, however, who decided not to dive in, who decided that the potential for riches was not worth the trade-offs to their personal lives.

Gordon Bowker founded Starbucks with two friends in 1970. Mr. Bowker sold the business to Howard Schultz and investors in 1987. When he was asked if he regretted his decision given the multi-billion dollars’ worth of Starbucks years afterward, Mr. Bowker said he was “rich enough.”

Gordon Bowker passed away on August 21, 2025. The Wall Street Journal obituary* quoted his long-time friend David Brewster citing Mr. Bowker:

“I think that he decided early in his life that he would master business, and then later in his life that he would master the art of living.”

If this isn’t a fine example of a man who weighed his ambitions and fears, I would not know what is.

*Chris Kornelis, “Gordon Bowker, Who Came Up With the Idea for the First Starbucks, Dies at 82,” The Wall Street Journal, September 6-7, 2025. https://www.wsj.com/business/hospitality/gordon-bowker-starbucks-dead-6c2ca37c

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The Supply Chain Problem Many Don’t See

The escalator at the shopping mall was out of order for four (4) weeks. The mall managers perhaps didn’t think it was a big deal. Mall customers could still walk down the broken escalator from the ground floor to the lower level or take a nearby elevator. Never mind that any elderly person or parents with small children (or pets) would have had a hard time negotiating the steep steps.

The mall owners spent money to buy and install elevators and escalators for the convenience of mallgoers. When an escalator isn’t running, the mall owners aren’t getting their money’s worth. One may argue that one shut-down escalator won’t deter people from going to the mall but that’s beside the point.

Most elevator & escalator companies don’t provide prompt & satisfactory maintenance. It would sometimes take weeks, if not months, for these companies to repair an elevator or escalator. One major reason is that the companies avoid keeping inventories of spare parts.

To the companies, keeping stock of spare parts is a non-value adding activity; company executives see no benefit from having inventories of spare parts. Inventories tie up cash after all and faster repairs or maintenance don’t outright translate to significantly higher sales. Managers, therefore, would rather order parts only when needed, and that is such as when the elevators & escalators break down.

Clients like mall owners could keep stock but the elevator & escalator companies would insist that the clients advance cash for the spare parts. As many critical parts are imported, that would mean shouldering not only the purchase price but the shipping cost as well, not to mention disbursing the cash at the onset as importation typically requires the money (in the currency from the country of origin) up front.

Clients, therefore, find themselves stuck with the slow maintenance service. They perceive themselves being held hostage by the elevator & escalator company, as they have no other viable option other than wait a long time for the service.

Clients could replace their equipment outright but it’s costly. Getting another service company would be futile as most of them are no different in taking too long to repair equipment.

This dilemma occurs not only at shopping malls but with many high-rise buildings as well. Elevators break down; people wait very long to go up and down floors; maintenance takes too long and parts are expensive.

It’s a supply chain problem, as clients are unhappy with the delivery of services and service providing companies exert effort to avoid inventories and control costs. It’s a problem in which the first step towards a solution is for customers such as the shopping mall suffering from a long broken-down elevator to take the initiative to recognise, acknowledge, and define the problem.

Unfortunately, many don’t.

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Banks Have Supply Chains, Too

I went to the bank to cash a check. The teller said there was no cash available. She also said the automatic teller machine (ATM) also had no cash and was off-line.

The teller, however, told me to wait. She then left the bank, went next door to a rival bank, and withdrew cash from a personal account she had there. She returned and deposited the cash into her account in the bank I was at. She used the cash she now had to cash my check.

The teller’s boss, the branch manager, told me that the armoured car which delivered cash daily was late. The amount the armoured car delivered the day before also ran out due to high demand from clients.

The bank does not keep much cash and relies on armoured car deliveries the bank’s main branch dispatches daily. Cash withdrawals had outstripped cash deliveries, however, such that the bank runs out of cash periodically. Deliveries of cash from the supplier, the central bank (known as the Bangko Sentral in the Philippines) also are sometimes haphazard, leading to shortages of currency bills and coins.

Just like merchandise, there is a supply chain for money. And just like with many other supply chains, shortages occur. There are times when the bank has no money or too much cash. And sometimes, the bank has too many of one denomination (e.g., 100 peso bills) and none of others (e.g., twenty [PhP 20] peso coins).

The causes are not too far off from those of other industries. Production & transportation delays, not enough trucks, late arrival of raw materials to bill printing or coin manufacturing facilities, are some reasons.

The difference observed between banks and enterprises selling products is that the former tends to deny the need for supply chain improvements. Banks insist they are financial institutions; they haven’t fully accepted they are just as much involved in operations like procurement, manufacturing, and logistics, especially when it comes to cash.

Supply chains are everywhere, even at banks.

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‘Who You Gonna Call?’

There is no such thing as ghosts.

But there is such a thing as unexpected problems.

And when unexpected problems do arise, whom do you call to solve them?

The 1984 hit film, Ghostbusters had the hilarious premise of ghosts haunting New York City. But it also was about wacky scientists inventing devices to capture the ghosts. New York residents hailed the scientists as the go-to group to get rid of pesky ghosts, hence the theme song, ‘Who you gonna call?’

Whether ghosts exist or not is a debatable topic. But unanticipated problems are a certainty.

You often know whom to call for many problems, like the police for crime, the fire department for burning buildings, and lawyers for legal issues.

But whom do you call for problems you’ve not experienced too often or had never happened before?

The answer isn’t about finding whom to call, but about identifying and solving the problem. In Ghostbusters, people praised the scientists for figuring out how to fight supernatural beings. The clamour to call the scientists for their ghost-busting services came after they successfully solved a problem no one anticipated and didn’t know what to do about.

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All in the Mind

My dad would tell us that any difficulty was “all in the mind.”

When I and my siblings were kids and we found anything hard, he’d tell us it was “all in the mind.”

It could be whenever we’re sick, we’re stuck in homework, or we’re just not feeling like eating or drinking. He’d just say it was “all in the mind.”

That’s all he would say, and he would just walk away with a deadpan face. We’d just stare but eventually we’d hurdle whatever hardship was preoccupying us.

Once, when my dad, I, and my siblings were much older, we went on a trip abroad. While sightseeing at a tourist spot, my dad said he couldn’t walk another step and had to find a place to sit. That’s when we pounced and told him, “it’s all in the mind.”

He didn’t stop laughing.

My dad left a long time ago. But I tell myself whenever I feel reluctant to do something important, it must be all in my mind.

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The Four Types of Supply Chain Relationships

How do you want your supply chain relationships to be like?

Supply chain relationships consist of the connections between enterprises such as those between enterprises and their vendors, service providers, and customers. They also include the interactions between internal operating groups within enterprises, such as purchasing, inbound & outbound logistics, manufacturing, and planning.

There are four types of supply chain relationships:

In Lose-Win, the other party benefits; the enterprise doesn’t. The ‘partner’ gets the better deal; the enterprise does not. The enterprise’s leadership adopts a defeatist mindset while its ‘partners’ dictate the conduct of the relationships. The enterprise finds it futile to wrangle for better terms. An example is when a larger multinational retailer lays down a take-it-or-leave-it approach to competing small businesses. The ‘winning’ small business firm adheres to the multinational’s terms & conditions even if the firm finds them unfavourable.

In Lose-Lose, the enterprise and its partners resign to a relationship that they see as necessary but hold no hope for benefits. An example is a courier service who loses money from shipping packages to a client’s customers who are in faraway rural places. The courier service shoulders high transport costs it cannot pass to its client because of government-regulated restrictions. Meanwhile, the firm’s order-to-delivery performance is below par because the courier firm will not give priority to transporting the firm’s products. Both parties incur losses as they pray their business environments would change someday.

In Win-Lose, the enterprise sees benefits only coming by having things done its way and not favourably for its partners. Winning can only come when the other side loses, much like in games of sports. Concessions from partners is the goal. An example is when a large fast-food corporation demanded a winner-take-all approach to its chicken suppliers. The fast-food executives insisted chicken suppliers allocate all their supply to the fast-food’s commissaries as well as preferential pricing which would be lower than the rates sold to competitors.

The ideal of any relationship is Win-Win, where the enterprise and its partners benefit from each other’s businesses. A tangible proof of a win-win relationship is a mutually beneficial contract, such as that between a service provider and a client. Exclusive dealerships, distributorships, and 3^rd party outsourcing services are where we can find potential win-win relationships. Apple corporation’s long-time partnership with Taiwanese firm Foxconn is a close example of a win-win relationship.

Aiming for Win-Win relationships is the principle behind building supply chains. Whatever structures & systems the enterprise and its partners set up must support a Win-Win ideal.

Supply chains are not meant to have one or more losers among their relationships. A losing partner in a supply chain relationship will inevitably lead to losses in productivity and to higher risks.

The small business awarded a Lose-Win contract from a multinational retailer was reluctant to invest for further growth. It decided to seek other avenues to grow. The small business offered to distribute for other suppliers even if it violated its contract with the multinational. The multinational fired the small business but by then, it already had established more favourable agreements with other suppliers.

The transport firm & its client stuck in a Lose-Lose relationship decided to go their separate ways. The client firm discovered it could save costs by buying its own trucks to deliver products to customers in distant rural areas. The transport firm, meanwhile, refused to adapt its transportation to changing infrastructure; it eventually lost market share to upstart companies.

The fast-food corporation in the Win-Lose scenario was caught off-guard when its suppliers one day could not deliver needed quantities of chicken to its restaurant branches. Shortages ensued. The fast-food firm’s market share dropped as it suffered a public relations nightmare due to out-of-stock of its flagship chicken product. The fast-food firm was forced to shut down branches to wait for supply to catch up and was compelled to renegotiate its contracts with suppliers.

Apple’s Win-Win relationship with Foxconn is not perfect. Both had faced issues such as labour conditions and spikes in trade tariffs. Yet, both continued to collaborate in manufacturing & delivering new products of high quality to their global customers. Both had over their years of working together built a system & structure which strengthened their product supply chain. And both continue to find ways to improve.

It is in continual improvement where we justify the Win-Win relationship for enterprises in the supply chain. Relationships between individual enterprises enable the flow of merchandise. In a scenario where there’s at least one loser, productivity suffers and everyone loses.

In supply chains, relationships matter. When everyone wins, everyone benefits.

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