Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1547450
N O L A N 'S N OT ES 6 SMT007 MAGAZINE I NOVEMBER 2026 "It's a New Age" is such a cliché, I roll my eyes whenever I hear it. In the 1969 musical "Hair," they sang about "the Age of Aquarius," a time that would bring peace, love, harmony, and understanding. While an "age" is an indefinite unit of measure- ment, these free-spirited hippies were referring to an astrological cycle, which lasts about 2,160 years (although its exact start is open to interpre- tation). Geologically speaking, an age spans 2 to 10 million years. That is, in fact, a very long time. This all just illustrates why, when that phrase gets dropped into a conversation, my proverbial cynical eyebrow gets raised. So, should we be leaning on this familiar trope of a "new age" to describe the current state of sourcing? Surely we can't believe it will hold up to an astro- logical age of 2,000+ years. No, in this case, we use the phrase to capture the feeling of a fundamental and irreversible sea change in sourcing, specifically in how EMS companies take greater control of their sourcing efforts. We've all lived through this supply chain saga for the past eight years or so (some will argue it's been even longer), but the tools and systems we've used BY N O L A N J O H N S O N , I - C O N N ECT 0 07 When Sourcing Gets SMARTER