The Zero100 Podcast

Toyota practically wrote the book on continuous improvement. But can the plays that won championships before still win them today? This week, Kevin Austin, Group Vice President, Supply Chain at Toyota North America, tackles one of the hardest leadership challenges: transforming a company built on discipline and proven systems without losing what made it great. In conversation with Zero100 Chief Research Officer Kevin O'Marah (yes, two Kevins), he reveals why TPS is the foundation that makes transformation possible, and what happens when AI meets craftspeople who've spent 30 years building cars.
The tension between pride, legacy, and a world that got way more complex (01:20)
How to know when digital transformation isn’t working (and you’re the bottleneck) (03:37)
Early missteps and why noble missions beat shiny tools (05:37)
Fixing friction from forecasting all the way to customer delivery (08:20)
When customers can track a $10 pizza but not a $50,000 vehicle (12:37)
How TPS creates a stable backbone for experimentation (15:17)
When AI meets craftsmanship: Amplifying 30 years of judgment with technology (17:07)
What stays Toyota, what must change, and Kevin's north star (22:24)

For every bold AI vision from a CEO, there's a COO thinking: “That's not happening on your timeline.” Zero100’s new survey reveals the scale of the disconnect: 83% of COOs see a significant gap between what’s being promised and what’s operationally feasible. But COOs aren't skeptics – they’re realists who know what execution actually takes. Chief Research Officer Kevin O’Marah and VP, Research & Advisory Services Lauren Acoba reveal how top COOs are bridging the gap: targeting specific workflows, building on existing tech stacks, and playing the long game while delivering near-term wins.
Inside the data: What 100 COOs told us about AI (01:45)
Closing the loop and creating value beyond the sale (05:32)
Why COOs want to move from execution to strategy (and why CEOs should be relieved) (09:16)
Stop! Don’t rip out your tech stack: Why layering AI is the smarter play (14:31)
The Goldilocks approach to placing successful AI bets (17:50)
The COO decade and why ops leaders are built for what’s next (21:11)

The Zero100 mailbag is open – and the questions inside reveal what's really keeping supply chain leaders up at night. With a little help from our own agentic AI sorting system, Chief Content Officer Matt Davis, Principal, Research Jenna Fink, and VP, Research Geraint John tackle what they've been hearing from the community. How do you move logistics from dashboards to execution? How do you orchestrate multiple AI agents on the same process? And how do you transform operations when the same people driving change are also keeping everything from falling apart?
How to sell a data cleanup project (and the CPG that cut 192 hours of downtime) (02:12)
Why procurement is having its AI moment (05:37)
The transformation paradox: how do you change while keeping the wheels turning? (08:20)
Orchestration: Zero100's word of the year (12:05)
The visibility-to-execution gap (and why logistics is lagging) (16:26)
Getting agents to actually work together (20:37)

After 25 years at L’Oréal, Vanessa Clemendot made the leap from beauty to biopharma – and into a workforce being redefined by AI. Now SVP, Global Supply Chain at Sanofi, Vanessa sits down with Caroline Chumakov, Principal, Research at Zero100, to unpack the shift from siloed execution to cross-functional orchestration, the rise of judgment over computation as agents handle the heavy lifting, and why data literacy is now table stakes.
Vanessa Clemendot’s career across 25 years, 10+ roles, and 3 continents (00:55)
The first 90 days at Sanofi (03:58)
Working with AI: where computation ends and judgment begins (06:12)
Who owns the tech stack? It’s not one team (09:34)
One dataset + real time decisions = planning in orchestration (11:23)
M&A and divestitures across newly split supply chains (13:55)
Day one advice: trusting your gut (19:08)

While Davos headlines focused on Trump and tariffs, Zero100’s CEO Olly Sloboda and Chief Research Officer Kevin O'Marah came back with a different perspective. Fresh from four days of meetings with CEOs, COOs and heads of supply chain, they debrief on what they heard on the ground: why leaders are surprisingly optimistic in a time of turbulence, how the AI conversation has evolved from pilots to full workflow redesigns, and why cybersecurity emerged as a top threat to business continuity – even above geopolitical uncertainty.
Welcome to Davos: The vibe on the ground (01:02)
What supply chain leaders were actually focused on (02:56)
Why leaders are surprisingly optimistic despite uncertainty (04:58)
From AI pilots to redesigning workflows for an agentic world (08:54)
Cybersecurity: The uncomfortable truth COOs see (12:22)
What now? Practical moves for operators (15:57)
Final thoughts: Why human connection still matters (18:41)