Welcome, e-com Logistics Nation.Thank you for joining today's episode.We're on a mission to share e-commerce logistics insights, trends, successes, and challenges from the leaders and innovators in our space.
Mike Tyson had a quote at a point in time about you got to plan until you get punched in the face, right?At peak seasons, the punch in the face for everybody every year.
Welcome, EcomLogistics Nation.We are joining you live from DePosco office here this morning in Atlanta.And with us today, we have Bill Gibson, CEO of DePosco.Bill, welcome.Thank you so much for joining us.
Thanks, Harshita.A real pleasure to be here.Nice to be here with y'all.
Well, I'm looking forward to this conversation.It's been a long time coming.Yeah.This is the second podcast guest on Ecom Logistics from DePosco.We had a previous guest and now waiting to have this conversation.So I'm really looking forward to it.
Bill, as a way of introduction, if you can maybe tell our audience about your background, your journey.I know you've had quite the career so far.You've seen so many different things in logistics as well as venture.
Tell us about what led you to where you are at DePosco and how you've managed to create DePosco and turn it into such a strong brand?
I got it started about 13 years ago.And prior to that, I had been in growth equity, private equity, venture capital.
And prior to that, I spent the early part of my career in supply chain logistics with a company called Manugistics, which I think the secret's out, right?It was dad's company.
So following in pretty big footsteps, I joke that I'm a second generation enterprise software guy.I don't know how many of us there are. Yeah, so I spent a number of years in the 90s at ManUgistics and saw that business scale up.
And I saw the challenges that manufacturers, retailers, wholesalers, transportation oriented businesses face in the day.And I had a lot of enjoyment out of working with those brands, mostly larger brands, Fortune 2000, S&P 500 type brands.
I kind of got captured with the importance of supply chain, as it's referred to.I don't know if it was called it back in 1993.It was logistics and manufacturing, and we were still not quite there on supply chain yet.But you saw it every single day.
You go to the store, you go down the street, anything you do was impacted.And that really drew me in a little bit.In fact, you go out and socialize in your 20s. Everybody asks one another, what do you do?
And I had a hard time early on describing what I did, but eventually I ended up with something like, you ever been to the grocery store?You ever gone shopping?All that stuff that you see.Well, I make sure that that's there, right?
That captured my attention.I saw that build my logistics.I saw the good.I did go to B school and got an MBA, went into venture capital growth equity.I got started there in the early 2000s when what is now called cloud was getting hot.
Vintage 99, 2000 companies was really when it got started.And we had re-hosting and we had other things before that, but it was on-demand software as a service.
I was looking at the brands and the companies that were being built on cloud, and it was funny.You saw a Salesforce very early on, four-year-old company, looking at the CRM category.You saw NetSuite.
an accounting finance ERP type play, and maybe a five-year-old company.And I said, OK, I want to make my mark here in growth equity.I know this supply chain space pretty well.And I'm going to go find the startup in that space.And I couldn't find it.
And a year goes by and two years goes by. And I'm getting increasingly frustrated, like I know this should exist, right?The world is going to direct the consumer.We all call it now Omnichannel, right?You're trying to serve multiple channels.
And I said, I know this company needs to exist.So one day, I went to a Philadelphia Eagles game with dad.And like good fathers and sons, we went out after the game and maybe had a nice meal and a beverage or two and solve the world's problems.
And he kind of gave me the fatherly nudge. And I said, OK, maybe.And that's a little bit of the background and that's a little bit of how it got started.And so I threw the hat in the ring and got the process started about 13 years ago.
And it's been focused on those that bring goods to market.And it was, well, if they're going to be the everything store, there needs to be a source for everything.And then it was, well, What is the ideal platform?
Is there an ideal supply chain oriented platform for retailers, for consumer brands, for 3PLs?And that was the inception of the POSCO.
And this is really interesting because my career trajectory, a little behind that, but You know, I'll say Menyugistics, starting my career back in 2000-ish.Like, it was a big name.Yeah.We're talking about a very big name.And things happen.You see it.
Acquisition changes.You see on the flip side, e-commerce just starting to evolve from 2005 to 2010.Just like, we have large retailers.Everyone's watching Amazon, but the large retailers are going and looking at this and going, Okay, cute.
That cute little thing called e-commerce, right?People aren't going to give their credit cards online and just do this, right?And again, it's evolving.
And now you start seeing that 2010s, you see the magento, the rise of some of these companies on e-commerce platforms.Shopify's kind of traction was caught around 2015, 2014 timeframe. And you started just before that.
So from a timing standpoint, there are two parts to this.One is the foresight for cloud, because being in this space and working with pretty much every solution that's out there, cloud adoption is still a mystery for most people in this environment.
When a lot of companies say they are cloud, they actually mean they are just taking their old software, putting it in the cloud, and running the servers on the cloud, versus being cloud native.And so being able to have that foresight,
right place, right time.The second one is API-based ecosystem of being able to connect and build connectors and integrations.It's the second part.What I'm curious about is, when you started back then, was the primary ideal customer a brand or a 3PL?
Did you always start with 3PL as something in the frame of reference, or was the initial hypothesis around 3PLs?
Yeah, there's a lot in that statement and question.If you do go back in time, and you mentioned cloud, where it is, and e-commerce, where it is.In one perspective is e-commerce is 20 years old because it was happening in the early 2000s.
But it wasn't taken seriously and it was not very broadly distributed.It was very concentrated and exploratory. So yes, it was happening, and there were brands like Amazon building up.
When I was in business school, the big debate was Amazon or Enron, which one was gonna have a lot of success?And so many people thought Enron was gonna transform the world, and everybody thought Amazon can't make a buck, so it's gonna be toast.
And it was weird coming out of supply chain going, I think Amazon's got, I don't know, an energy.And seeing how that all played out, right?I think Amazon won in that scenario, at least they stayed out of jail.
But it was still very nascent, and it really didn't pick up in any meaningful way until the 2010s.And arguably, a couple years into that, right, you mentioned 13, 14, 15. Relative to cloud and the adoption of cloud and supply chain, we were early.
The opportunity I saw at the beginning was more brand oriented.I saw brands that were not being served.They were setting up their presence on Amazon from a marketplace standpoint.And there weren't e-commerce platforms, but there were shopping carts.
And you could go to a local dev shop for $30,000, $50,000 and set up an online store.It wasn't until maybe two or three years in that we saw brands that were struggling with the operational side.
They understood how to procure, they understood how to design, they understood how to market.They were getting very savvy around SEO and means of attracting customers, but they didn't know how to manage inventory or pick or pack or procure.
And all of a sudden we saw increasingly the opportunity in the 3PL category.
That's really interesting because just the way you kind of put it, my history, that 2015 timeframe just came out of like doing a very large facility for a very large retailer, designing tier one, highly automated.
Come out and we were told as a 3PL, and this is me being part of FedEx supply chain, going, hey, we need to build this e-commerce centric something that is easy to onboard with all of this new cloud-based solutions
And now you see what you are doing is democratizing, particularly in the space where you have tech-enabled 3PL solutions.
How do you give the mom-and-pop 3PLs or the legacy 3PLs that want to play in this space the opportunity to kind of step in and say, hey, I have a package.I can take care of it all.
I can put my branding in front of it, but everything behind is a packet software that's focused in.One of the challenges that we see specifically on the 3PL side, and I'll say it very out loud,
is the traditional organizations in this space are very used to the professional services side of the equation, which means it creates an odd situation of saying, I want SaaS revenue, but I'm very used to this professional services dollars that are coming through.
And when it comes to 3PLs, 3PLs want to go fast.They want to keep it cheap because that's what their clients are expecting off of them.
So having a solution that just works and it requires very little resources just makes a lot of sense in the 3PL space.So I see how all of this has evolved.
Well, I feel your pain.In 2015, everything is still very disorganized, right?And you had to construct that solution and tying systems together that on different code bases, different databases.And how do you run in real time?
You can't run in real time.And that's the nature of business today.Once upon a time, you could run batch overnight and you were okay.Enterprise space, big retail, big manufacturing, that was fine. Today, you have to run real time.
How do you do that across?
If you put together a suite or a solution set or a stack where you've got six, seven, eight applications all on different code, all on different databases, and they've got to be integrated, it's impossible to run in real time.
You talked about democratizing.And as I formed the POSCO and got us going, there was a, I don't know if I thought of it as a democratization of, but it was, we're going to serve everybody.
And you brought up two good examples of like Salesforce and NetSuite in a position where there is competitors starting to pop up around them.Because technology has also evolved over the years and re-platformization is extremely hard, right?
creating this developer ecosystem of like, hey, I'm not going to make an assumption that I know exactly how every single business runs.So here's my core platform.Here's all the access that's available to it.
Now, have the developer partner community come in and actually develop around it to address the needs of the clients. I'm guessing that's how you ended up developing as well.Would that be accurate?
It does.And it ties even back into your last observation around services, right?So the way I look at services, they're there to help our customers achieve the outcomes they aspire to achieve.Very simple.
And if you do something very small for a customer, they may not need that help.
They may be able to self-serve, be self-sufficient, because the challenge that you're trying to address is a small localized challenge, and you have small localized software.But you know operations.It's comprehensive.
It touches different departments.It's got a scale that is very hard to accommodate with very small software. We put services in place to enable customers to achieve the outcomes.And then let's frame that up and have that as our North Star.
It's not just configuration of the software and training and facilitation of go live.The dirty rotten secret of the software industry is nobody wants to implement software.They don't want to implement software.They don't want to configure software.
They don't want to test the software. They don't want to fiddle with parameters after the fact.So we're also grappling with that.They want the outcomes.But that's also where the future is, right?I know it's not just about the software.
It's never just about the software.It's how do we change?What do we need to change?So that's kind of the fun of it.
And SMBs, right, what we have observed in this space is when you get to the higher levels, the enterprise, there is a CYA aspect to professional services.It's almost like buying insurance, right?It's, I want to get you, the software provider,
you're going to do this, but A, operations, we got this place back here, right?
There's engineering equation, process equation, and technology equation, and everything has to kind of merge together to execute successfully, because an unsuccessful couple months can actually ruin your entire year in supply chain.Absolutely.
And that's what they want, is buy the insurance to say, I'm going to bring you in. We are cyclical as a business.We know that people go live in summer in prep for peak.They get frustrated in peak.
They start looking for a new solution at the beginning of the year, and they sign someone by spring, and they want to go live by end of summer, early fall for peak success.If two months of that implementation
get kind of drawn out, you're going to have a terrible peak on the other side.And that's where I think the professional services part kind of comes in.
It's just like, I've seen a deal go away because there was not enough dollars put in for professional services in it.
The mission of an enterprise project is very different from the mission of a middle market type project.Most of the enterprises are at scale.It's about protecting market share, protecting status quo.
But when you're talking about a $25, $50 million brand, they want to double.You're talking about $100, $250 million brand, they want to double.So it's an entirely different motion.
And I thought a lot about, you'll see industries represented at both ends of the spectrum of scale of company.You'll see electronics at the enterprise, electronics at a small scale, apparel at enterprise, apparel at a small scale.
But the ability to have success is not industry based.So I thought a lot about what enables a $50 million brand to double, $150, $250 million brand to double.And historically, it's relied on great decision making that enables that scale.
And that comes down to people.And you will never replace great human beings doing great work. However, we all need help.So software should play a role in great decision making.And we all need help, right, to make those great decisions as leaders.
Another concept that is important here is most software companies aspire to help their customer, a brand, within the bubble of that business.
Yet, as consultants, and maybe this is part of the CYA and the enterprise, they know they only see their bubble.And they know there's a big world outside of that bubble.
Well, if we see what's outside of that bubble, you see outside of any given customer's bubble.And what do you want to do?You want to bring that knowledge in.Well, you can bring that knowledge in with consulting.
You can also bring that knowledge in with software.
I think one of the things that you can shed some light on is just around the three core ICPs that you serve at DePosco and having seen the evolution of the space and kind of leading it as well from SAS perspective.
I'd love to hear how you've seen brands, retailers, and 3PLs, not just how they serve their customers and what the expectations are, but what they have kind of come back and asked you for and how has that changed over the last decade?
What used to be more neatly defined as retail and more neatly defined as CPG or consumer brands, it's getting fuzzier and there's more hybridization going on and hybridization at the enterprise layer, hybridization in the middle market.
Maybe in one channel you present more like a brand and another channel you present more like a retailer.
So the big thing that's changed in my mind is the hybridization, the need to serve and accommodate for almost every customer, some retail-oriented requirements and some brand-oriented, sourcing and procurement-oriented requirements.
When you deal with 3PL, their businesses are so akin to ours, right?If you're running a brand or a retail business, you are serving yourself, right?You are very focused on that.
When you're in the 3PL space, oh my gosh, you've got 30 of them or 50 of them or 100 or 300.But boy, oh boy, that brings some challenges with it.Hybridization is the core there.On the 3PL side, it's all the above.And there's just nuance.
The space is still feeling its way out.Brands, they want to have a unique appearance and presentation to their customers. So there's no longer a mass market.You have almost infinite niche markets.
And these brands that are coming to market online, who are looking for these 3PLs to assist them, the requirements are just all over the map. So you need adaptability, you need configurability.
We had a customer advisory board of some of the executives of our leading customers in for a brainstorming session and a conference the last few days.And this came up, right?
One of the advantages of cloud over traditional platforms, client server platforms, is the software is fresh and you can renew that software on a regular basis.So you're not stuck with the configuration for years and then have a massive upgrade.
You can continuously adapt. And then you can bring really great software in to accommodate that market.I think that's really critical.
But the 3PL space is the expansion of requirements, the diversity of requirements that's really the most... I guess you get to learn a lot from the 3PL space yourselves, right?
Like, you can't assume you know everything. If you keep your ears open and you hear the changes, because they get to see the motions very early stage, right?Like specifically, hey, we know that we went through COVID.Everyone was doing good.
Post COVID now there is price pressures, but there is also customer acquisition pressures.So I'm a PR play e-commerce.I'm going to now pivot into B2B. You sold your piece of software to that 3PL purely on an e-commerce design.That's right.
Next thing you know, B2B is the biggest.And I can tell you this without a shred of a doubt based on the conversations we have in the market right now.
For e-commerce players, B2B is now the biggest piece and kind of a barrier to how do I automate that piece.The same way I did e-commerce because See, a blueprint got created in this space for how you do e-commerce.
You know, it's a per order line charge, and then there is a per unit charge on picking, and here's my flat rate for receiving.Here's my charge for gift cards.I'm capturing all of that data.Life is good.
Here's the top 10 connections that I need into integration, which is where most of my merchants are going to come from in a 3PL environment.Now, all of a sudden, these 3PLs are going to wait. What's EDI?What's the difference between a 940 and a 850?
How do I do billing for this?Like, can I do it transactionally? But my unloading charges, and if I'm building a Target pallet versus a Walmart pallet, can I capture that data?So all of these conversations are starting to shift in that direction.
And having a piece of software that can allow you to be able to accommodate for that is super critical.And not have to spend a fortune trying to accommodate for that pivot in your business.
Because the engineering and process optimization needs to be done in your facility to manage that.But there is a part of education as well, back to the merchant.
Because these merchants that are saying, okay, I went to Bentonville and sold Walmart this widget that I was just selling online.Now it's going to be in a Walmart store.Okay, cool.Walmart gave me a 150 page vendor onboarding document.
What do I do now? And it is the 3PL, it is even if the brands are running it themselves, and it is the software that has to come in play to actually make it happen, and a consultative side to what you need to do to re-engineer your warehouse.
And you are shipping cases that you didn't do before.Your units of measures are changing. such an interesting time right now.Where do you see things coming five years from now?There is quite a lot happening in our space.
So the question with all of this evolution, B2B is the hottest thing right now.People talk about AI and Gen AI and all that stuff. What's next?
You've got me fired up now.This is good stuff, right?You know, speaking to your last point, the fun is the co-creation.The fun is the figuring it out.
You don't get the opportunity in every industry, every career to have creativity and the opportunity for creativity.And creativity is innovation.Creativity is invention. So we have the benefit of these challenges.
I know all of us, all my friends, all the folks that were involved in supply chain in the 90s, we had a lot of pride in what we did, right?As an industry, working with our customers to innovate and put in place what made sense then.
And looking back, again, you feel good about what it is, but the world's evolved.And so here we are, and we're co-creating again, as you talked about, the sort of the B2B side, the wholesale side of growth.It's a huge growth engine right now.
So it's fun watching these brands that started as digital direct-to-consumers going, oh my gosh, right?And it's ironic because you've got the big brands that are built for retail distribution, and then they're going, oh my gosh.
So that is omni-channel, and we're all just figuring it out, and we're all just playing a role in the definition of the space.If I do think about where it's going, I balance it with what's not going to change.
About two months ago, I played a few clips of interviews with Toby Lukey from Shopify and Jeff Bezos and two different angles.
In the Bezos interview clip, the gist of what he said was those of us on the technology side were obsessed with what's changing in the world and predicting where it's going and trying to create a solution or a service
based on that prognostication, based on our prediction of where it's going.And sometimes you're right and sometimes you're wrong.But if you're right, maybe you build a good business, if you're wrong.
He said, he really caused me to think, he said at Amazon, I thought a lot about what's not gonna change.Consumers will always want value and good price.They will always want service.They will always want selection.
So we focused on those things at Amazon.And I went, my gosh, I'm an idiot. I've been thinking so much about where the ball is moving, where the puck is going, skate to where the puck is going.
I haven't thought enough about what's not going to change what is true and will always be true.I realized what I mentioned earlier.Nobody wants to implement software.Nobody wants to play with parameters.Nobody wants to run scenarios.
They want the benefit.So what is the future? The future is how do we, as practitioners in your realm and our realm, make it easier, faster, less expensive?How do we get to the outcomes?
And there's all this talk of AI and machine learning these days, and it's the buzzword, and everybody likes to go to a cocktail party and sound smart about it. We learned from the .com, right?
The more I hear AI, the more I hear .com, and I have flashbacks to 1999 and the .com bubble, right?The way .com or the internet played out, it was those that invented the business models that took advantage of that technology, the Amazons.
So I believe it's not about the AI toolkit companies. The businesses don't know what problem to solve.It's about those that take AI and machine learning and apply it to a field.
It could be healthcare, it could be finance, it could be commerce and what we do.So what does best practice mean and where does it come from?
guy that lived through the 90s, best practice was used by the big six, the big four to persuade you, talk about CYA, to persuade you that you really needed to change your business to use the software.
Because the software was rigid and you couldn't run your business.So, yeah, it's best practice.No, it's not.The software is limited.You have to change your business to use the software.It's not best practice.Where's the source of the information?
We think will yield even better outcomes. We're not going to come in and dogmatically say this is the only way to go or this is how you need to change your business.Let's say the supply chain planning aspect of the planning aspect.
So I think that's where the future is.
Yeah, I love the point that you actually made.I believe in it as well to the point where dot com bubble. from the ashes of it rose, Amazon, right?
As long as you stick to the fundamentals and not go for just the valuation, because the dot-com bubble happened because the investors believed in it too much, people expected too much, companies were getting funded before they were even, or companies had valuations before they were even registered, as an example.
And I think AI is kind of starting to go through that cycle.But the reality is, it's real, right?The AI is real.What's happening is real.It's now adopting, but adopting in a way that it works alongside you.
It doesn't need to be in your face all the time, right?And so just simple task and simple automation capabilities inside the way, if you can make someone's life easier, You're right.
Like you spoke about heuristics, like we talk about supply heuristics coming in, but there is all of these functions inside the warehouse, your planning, your execution.What should be the ideal allocation logic that I should be running for today?
Why don't you go through that and make some recommendations?You don't have to even do it.Just tell me, let me have a conversation with a piece, an entity that's actually embedded into my solution to take me where I need to go.
I think that from my vantage point, it's very nascent. ever present, but it's not in your face.It's not like clippy.
Well, think about business.You don't do business and then pause and then do strategy and then go back and do business.Strategy has got to be woven in to everything you do.
You're not going to do tech and then do AI and then do... No, the AI has to be woven in.It's got to be almost invisible due to what's happening there.I think we see eye to eye on a lot of things.It is about recommendations, right?
Traditional software, old school software doesn't give you any recommendations. I joke with my team, it's like kiss and wave.Not good luck if you make all the right decisions and you implement the right way.
And by the way, we're going to send you an invoice at the end of the month, every month, and please pay and good luck.
Call us if you need us.Here's my knowledge based PDF for you, you can search through it.
AI should be, we aspire to be side by side with our customers and making recommendations.Maybe not directly ourselves, to a degree through our consultancy, but the software should be making recommendations. I mean, you talked about the future.
It is about software and platforms that see a bigger picture, not just, you know, live within the bubble, but they see the bigger picture and they recognize where you are relative to the bigger picture.
And based on that, they're bringing recommendations in and they're bringing optimizations in and leading you down the right path.
Maybe if you can tell our audience a little bit about what your thoughts are on the upcoming peak season, how they can prepare, any tips, suggestions, playbooks that you can share with them.
Well, peak season's always interesting.We always think we're prepared and then we're not.And then we learn what we learn.Everybody thinks they're prepared.They go about peak season.They learn where the gaps in the thinking and operations are.
And then they go back to the drawing board in January and February and March after they recover from whatever trauma they've experienced.So it's ironic.
We've collaborated on a few research pieces recently, and what we've seen is there's a lot of confidence in, oh yeah, we're prepared. But that doesn't line up with what we've seen over 13 years.
The reality is most businesses are not prepared, even the big brands.I mean, we all know the big parcel companies.They've got all the king's horses and all the king's men to look at data.And yet the networks are never quite balanced.
The trucks, the trailers, the assets may not be positioned the right way.Everybody's scrambling to get the equipment where they need to pick up the parcels to get into the system to make whatever the holiday event peak season moment is.
The key there is I think around adaptability.Are you able to adapt?Are you preparing?So I think we're going to continue to see a lot of dynamic factors come into peak season.It's scaling up, right?
There is going to be consistent growth, but I think we're going to keep seeing surprises.That's the crux of it is you always think you're prepared until you're not.
Mike Tyson had a quote at a point in time about you got to plan until you get punched in the face, right? It's the same.At peak season, it's the punch in the face for everybody every year.
I'll give one anecdotal kind of example right now that I'm going through.I ordered a set of headphones from Samsung.Yeah.The order was placed on August 2nd.Yeah.They said it will be available August 21st.
Then they sent me an email saying, your order's on time.It's going to be on August 28th.Wait, you told me August 21st at first. OK, I give it some time.Then the next thing, oh, your order's on time.It's now September 6th delivery.
And it's like, how does a company like Samsung?So I actually texted with them, right?I'm like, hey, what's happening in customer service?Why?They're like, oh, it's one of the hottest item.We are having difficulty getting it out the door.
No, that's planning.You made a commitment. You stick to that commitment.You knew how much supply was coming in.You know how much your operational capacity and throughput happens to be.
You know your ability to be able to push out the volume that you need to.You have the managed delivery date that you need to adhere to.We are in 2024.These are not challenges you should be having.This seems like absolute failure of planning, right?
Sitting here as a person in logistics, I got to say that's bad.Now, Let's not make that happen.I would say from a peak standpoint, everyone should be sitting down and thinking about business continuity plans.How much volume?How much capacity?
What do I do as fallback?You might talk about 80% of things that will never happen.Yeah.But you might cover 20% that will happen.And now you have a plan to address it.Absolutely.
Not enough companies and people go through appropriate peak season planning.Absolutely.And that's where you end up seeing the failures.
Well, I mean, and that's Samsung.That's, again, an enterprise with all the king's horses and all the king's men.And you would assume, how do you not know?
Then put yourself in the shoes of the prototypical $50 million aspirational online brand, $100 million $250 million aspirational online brand.
How many of them have a finance planning, an FP&A type of function to look out in that respect or anybody forecasting the business to prepare?Not many.So they don't have the FP&A function.They don't have the business analysts looking out.
That's a weak spot.So many businesses in that middle market still drive the car looking in the rear view mirror.What did we just do last month?What did we just do last quarter?What happened last year at this time?So peak,
You talk about peak, what are they gonna do?They're gonna look at last year's peak.We don't wanna let that happen again, right?And they prepare based on what was, not on what is going.They're not looking at which items are ramping and selling more.
They're not looking at which items are six months out and cutting back on the source.How do you not plan?How do you not look ahead? rather than look behind, and that is an Achilles heel.I guess it's we're humans, we wanna feel good.
So it feels good that we look back and we're not gonna repeat the same mistakes.But the way you avoid the same mistakes is starting to look forward, right?And drive the car looking forward and informed about what is and considering the scenarios.
If this happens, if the product takes off, if we run into short supply, if, what do we do?Like Samsung, how do they take your order? If they know they're out of stock, right?
How do you not have real time, your fulfillment system tied into your front end commerce system?And if you can't supply the order, why are you booking the business?Because all you're gonna do is infuriate a customer and drive them away from you.
And if you spent money to acquire that customer, and then you disappoint that customer, you think you're playing a game to maximize your revenue?That's a short term game.
You're gaming the customer, you're playing a short term game, they may stick with you.You talk about AI and data science, we've looked across the entire history of DePosco and the hundreds of millions of orders that we've processed.
And we've seen a bell curve on likely to cancel, there's a bell curve. It's seven days, and you can see one day of a delay in shipping and fulfillment, two days, three days, four days.There's a gradual increase in likelihood to cancel.
You get to seven days and it tips to 51%.And then again, we can do customer specific analysis as well as industry.This is just the bell curve across everybody.And then of course, you start getting into 10 days, 12 days, 13 days.
So you can game the system, but you're losing that customer.
And you're saying, OK, well, I'll capture the revenue now and I'll find another customer next year.
For Samsung as well.I mean, you being a fanboy of the whole Android ecosystem, you know, he gets to me about how Apple is reliable.And, you know, once they promise you actually. see it come through.
But even beyond that, just from customer, getting communication like this from a brand that, you know, rely on and believe in, where they're almost treating you as if, you know, as a customer, you're planning for when you expect something to be delivered.
Like we plan for, I don't need it right now, but I do need it by the end of the month because maybe I'm going to be talking to Bill and I want to have my fancy, you know, headset when I do.
But if you can't have it and you get a communication saying, it's on time, you'll get it, you know, the week after.
I swear, the email says it's on time with the change date.
And I'm like, how do you screw that one up?But Harshita, think about these big brands are used to traditional retail.So if the good wasn't on the shelf, hey, you're going to come back tomorrow.You're going to come back in two days.
There is still a legacy disposition there.Yeah, yeah, we got you that good eventually.You just had to go back to the store three times.That's where the brands coming up have a massive advantage.They understand that the online buyer
And we're all online buyers now, and increasingly, the demographically, we're more online buyers.That buyer is much more judgmental, emotional.It's not about I wanna go back to the store.And these big brands struggle with that.
Like, yeah, it's on time.We eventually got it to the store.I mean, we eventually got it to your doorstep. No, you can't have that same disposition.You've got to live with an urgency, which is we know.And today, brand loyalty is declining.
So if you are brand loyal, that's a treasure.That's a priceless treasure.Because today it's, right, brands are rerouting.So if you are a preferred brand, Apple, Samsung, Android, whatever it is, And you break that promise, that's disillusioning.
And we all know it.We all know back in the day we had less choice from a brand standpoint.Today we have infinite choice from a brand standpoint.So we know I'm being extra loyal to you because, and then you fail me, disillusion me.
I wholeheartedly agree.And this could be an episode by itself, right, at this point.But I just have to say, I think the problem happens to be in us as people in the logistics space.
The challenge is something you said was the digital experience and logistics.Why did this happen?
It's because the selling side, the digital has such a seat at the table and logistics is something you just kick it down to and be like, take care of this.This is the commitment I've made to actually make it happen.
I think that is where the companies that have figured out that these two pieces need to be joined at the hip, that thing you said, how do you not know about your inventory possession?
It's like, why did digital make a commitment without understanding?And if on the other side, if the delay is actually happening, why wasn't digital aware of it beforehand that there was a delay?
But the next time I'm going to go, you know what, let me go try some other headphones rather than using the Samsung one.
The point about supply chain and logistics leadership having a seat at the table or in the boardroom, I think it's critical because we've seen some really amazing changes happen in our space and be driven because of that decision.
And you're right, a lot of retail and big brands have not caught up to that yet.
The brand is a promise. Do all your marketing analysis, all your branding studies, a brand equals promise.Predictable, reliable, quality, service, whatever it is.Could be a hamburger, could be a set of headphones.I'm also sort of an Apple.
I got converted a while ago, right?So I'm an Apple OT.But a brand is a promise. Right.The promise has to be aligned across everything that you do.Agreed.Right.To your point.And that is like the manufacturing, the merchandising, the e-com, the retail.
The promise has to be aligned.There can't be one facet of the brand over here and a different facet of the brand over there.Look at software companies.
You'll have software companies where sales runs around and makes whatever promise to earn a customer, thinking that all customers are good customers.
And then that's handed off to a professional services team to fulfill on that promise, and a product team to fulfill on that promise.And you've got a mess in those types of businesses.
So we know that if our promise isn't aligned, their promise can't be aligned, right?
Bill, I'll double click on what you just mentioned here, and if you can tell our audience about who would be the right people to reach out to DePosco, and how can they learn more about DePosco, what you guys offer, and how they can keep up with you on socials as well.
I think fundamentally, if you're a growth-oriented executive, CEO, CFO, head of supply chain, chief operating officer, chances are we can line up with you and try to figure out how to enable that growth.
Because chances are you're not demand-constrained, or you're operationally constrained.
So Bill, maybe if you can tell our audience about how they can reach out to DePosco and also keep up with you on socials.
Yeah, sure, sure.Well, there's great partners that you can talk to like Fulfillment IQ, right?
So if you need help, I would really encourage you to talk to you guys in some ways to get your thinking aligned and your operations aligned and your needs aligned.And another option is DePosco.com.You can find us on LinkedIn.
You can find us on a variety of socials such as Instagram.We would love to hear from you, however you find us.
Amazing.Thank you so much for your time again.I really appreciate your time and thank you so much for all the insights you shared.
Thank you guys for being great hosts today and asking great questions and engaging great dialogue.So thank you.
Thank you.Hi, I'm Nenad Acharya, CEO and co-founder of FulfillmentIQ.
And I'm here with Dan Call, CRO and partner at FulfillmentIQ.We're the team behind the Ecom Logistics Podcast.Our mission is to provide you with genuine insights from our work alongside logistics leaders to help you improve your supply chain.
In the Ecom Logistics podcast, we share the knowledge and the insights we've gained from working alongside amazing brands, retailers, 3PLs, and VCs, so you can make the most out of your supply chain journey.
If you like what you're hearing, we truly appreciate your support with a five-star rating on your favorite podcasting channel.Your feedback not only keeps us going, but also helps others find the podcast.
If you think Fulfillment IQ can assist you or if you have an idea related to logistics, just reach out to us on LinkedIn.We're always up for a chat and ready to explore new possibilities together.
Stay tuned to the Ecom Logistics podcast on your favorite podcast platform for fresh and practical insights into e-commerce and logistics.Until next time, let's keep making a difference.
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