Tell us a bit about yourself and your career
I’m Spanish and in my last year at university I came to the UK as part of an exchange programme, which is when I met my husband. When I finished the degree I had to decide whether to go back to Spain and find a job there or stay in the UK. I decided to stay and ended up in logistics completely by accident, which shows how long I’ve been in the industry because that’s very much a generational thing. At university there was no possibility to study logistics or supply chain management, so I did business administration and management and it seemed like the right fit. I then went through a graduate programme at a company where I spent nearly 17 years. I was very fortunate because it allowed me to see all aspects of logistics, from sea freight and air freight to imports, exports and transportation – I think I did everything except driving! I rotated round all the departments and with the last one, contract logistics, I fell in love with being able to apply the knowledge I’d gained and offer solutions across the end-to-end supply chain. I’ve had all sorts of roles and responsibilities over the years, including commercial and operational roles. In my previous role, I managed the contract logistics side of the business and was a board director for six years. We managed to achieve great things, but I’m someone who cannot stay still – I don’t like to stagnate. When the opportunity came to work for Iron Mountain, a large company which is making investments and has a lot of funds available, and I heard about its plans in third-party logistics (3PL), I thought it was the right time.
What specifically attracted you to working for Iron Mountain?
Iron Mountain decided to enter the 3PL industry, which is unusual because the market has been shrinking, rather than the other way around. And they didn’t do it halfway – they decided to kind of invest in 13 warehouses in the UK in a period of two to three years. It was a big investment with big ambition and I joined to support those ambitious growth plans with a strategy. In my role, I spend my time thinking about a mixture of the present and the future. The present is about making sure we have all the foundations that are needed to be resourceful for our customers – the real estate, the operations, the processes, all the accreditations, as well as the technology and the systems that come with it. Thinking about the future, we’re not satisfied with just the 13 warehouses we have in the UK. The question is, where are we going to go next? Which European markets do we want to expand into? We have some presence in Europe already, but where are the customers going to take us?
What does a typical day look like for you?
There aren’t really two days that look the same because of the variety and different responsibilities in my job, which is something I really enjoy and thrive on. I get involved in meetings with clients to talk about their strategies and form partnerships with them. I also help to form partnerships with other 3PLs – a level of extreme collaboration that is quite unusual. At the same time, I could be talking to real estate teams about warehouse design or technology teams about what sort of innovations we need to help us become more efficient in the warehouse and support customers with their needs.
Do you have a particular leadership style or philosophy?
I've been in the industry for a long time. It was, and still is, quite male-dominated, but certainly 20 years ago – when I joined the industry – it was a very different place. My leadership style has also changed a lot over the years. I don’t feel the need to emulate the management or leadership styles that I witnessed when I joined the industry. My personal leadership style is very collaborative and about empowering people to make decisions and bring ideas to the table.
How does Iron Mountain enhance operational efficiencies throughout the supply chain?
We’re a bit of an unusual 3PL. We offer flexibility and agility and we don't seek out long-term commitments from customers. If they wish to have a long-term commitment we can provide that, but we want to ensure we add resilience to their supply chain. So, we work with manufacturers, retailers, e-commerce and other 3PLs to offer that flexibility. We never say no – there will always be space and operational capacity available to support them.
To what extent are technologies like robotics and automation changing the face of warehousing and logistics?
When we started the business a couple of years ago, we were in a luxurious position because there was no background or history we needed to conform to. It was a case of starting with a completely blank page and creating everything our customers needed from the ground up. When we look at inventory management part of the operation, for example, we could have gone into a more traditional set-up with stock controllers, but we were concerned about labour shortages in the market and thought we’d do things a little bit differently. We looked at various innovations to find the right solution and, ultimately, we partnered with Dexory which provides a robot that scans your entire warehouse everyday. It gives you full visibility of the inventory and also a digital platform where you can gain a lot of insights from the data that it supplies.
As a result, we have a very happy workforce because they don't need to spend their time checking things just in case they're incorrect.
They only need to intervene when there’s a problem. That’s one approach, but elsewhere we have solutions for specific sectors or clients. We have an AutoStore in one of our facilities for a particular type of client and we’re also investing to fully automate one of our four warehouses in Rugby, UK, with a pallet shuttle and mobile robotics.
How important is it for workers to be given the freedom to focus on value-adding tasks, as opposed to more monotonous work?
It’s very important because of what I’ve already mentioned in terms of labour shortages. To achieve the same visibility and same results, you need a lot more people – but they don’t exist. We’re talking about routine and monotonous tasks, which are not the types of things that people are happy to do. They prefer to be upskilled and to be involved in more exciting processes that achieve results much faster. And customers are delighted too because they can see full visibility of their stock.
How is Iron Mountain preparing for supply chain crises of the future?
It’s a matter of ‘when’ rather than ‘if’ the next supply chain crisis is going to happen. Because of our expansion and our growth, we always have the facilities available to support our customers. And because of the way we work with customers and other 3PLs, and the level of flexibility we offer, we’re always there to add strength and resilience to supply chains.
What technological innovations in the supply chain space are you most excited about?
It has to be the use of AI, which, of course, everybody is talking about. We have a committee within the company that specialises in AI. It’s open to all 27,000 employees in the company to suggest ideas and talk about how their jobs could improve, how we could better serve our clients using AI, from the most mundane task to something that could be quite groundbreaking. We have quite a few ongoing initiatives in this area at the moment, but one of them is focused on supporting colleagues in warehouses with their processes by accelerating training. If, at any point, they get stuck and don’t know how to complete a certain task or value-added service for a particular client, they are able to use AI rather than having to consult a manual or seek help from a supervisor. There’s a lot of excitement surrounding AI both internally and externally. Our colleagues at Iron Mountain see the difference it’s making to their lives; the more they see benefits in their day-to-day jobs, the more they become interested and want to pursue that continuous improvement mentality. Our customers get excited because it facilitates their visibility.
What are your goals for the next 12-18 months?
Because we just entered the 3PL space, there’s a lot of potential and opportunity to continue growing – not only in terms of volume, with more warehouses, more business and more territories, but also with more specialisms. We’re looking at supporting different verticals – food and drink, consumer, retail, e-commerce and technology – which excites me very much because it goes really well with what we do in other areas of the business like asset lifecycle management.
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