Hire people that are smarter than you are and people that you feel can promote and take on more.So don't hire someone that can just do this job.Hire someone that you know has the capacity to grow with the organization.
If you can't find someone smarter than you are, you're not looking hard enough.They're out there.
Welcome EECOM Logistics Nation.Today we welcome Chris Sultemeier, Operating Partner at New Road Capital Partners.Chris has over 30 years of leadership in supply chain operations experience.
He served as President and CEO of Walmart Transportation and EVP of Logistics at Walmart.Chris is known for his strategic insights into transportation, warehousing, and sustainability in logistics.
His distinguished career includes receiving the Sam M. Walton Entrepreneur of the Year Award on sustainability and serving on the boards of Duke Realty and Logistics Innovation Technologies.
He is a West Point graduate and former Army Airborne Ranger.Thank you for your service, Chris.We're really excited to have you joining us, Chris.Welcome to the show.
Thank you, Dan.I want you guys to know that it's an honor to be with you today and have this time together.
Absolutely.And Chris, how much does one person achieve in their lifetime?I think you are a living example of that.It's not just the depth, it's also the width of the amount of experience that you have.I think maybe 20% of the stuff.
And I'm pretty late stage in my life to be able to do any of that.So again, thank you for your service.And it's a tall order.
I appreciate that.I know you have done a lot of things yourself, so you're being very humble.
Well, Chris, you've had a remarkable career in the logistics space spanning the past 30 years.I would love to start just by learning what initially drove you to the logistics space and what kept you here for your entire career?
Yeah, Dan, it's kind of interesting.So, as you said, I started out in the military.I hadn't graduated from West Point, then I had a military commitment.My military service was primarily as a combat engineer.
The engineering side that I did in college, mechanical engineering, all of that logic-based work and the large organizational work that I learned in the military, kind of led itself right into logistics.
A lot of people don't realize this, but the way a logistics operation is organized is very similar to the military.And so it became a fairly easy transition.Also, the gentleman that hired me into Walmart
At that time was a guy by the name of Joe Harden and a guy by the name of Lee Scott.And Joe was also a West Point grad.I came in right from being a junior military officer, right into Walmart.The structure of the organization blended very well.
There's another thing we don't talk about as much.Sometimes people think it's a little bit cheesy, but it's really not.Walmart's got three foundational values, service to the customers, strive for excellence, and treat everyone with respect.
They dovetail almost exactly with the military because it's always striving for excellence.It's always about supporting other people.It was an easy transition from the military into Walmart.
Maybe talking a little bit about Walmart, that's When you started, how big was Walmart?You were there for a while, right?I'm really curious because it's the giant and it has always been the giant, right?At least in my career is how I've looked at it.
When you joined, how big was it?Maybe the distribution footprint or technology footprint or store footprint.How big was it when you joined?
So Danai, that's a really funny question for me because when I joined Walmart in the late 80s, I thought I had missed all the growth. I really thought I got here too late.
At that time, Walmart as a company was about a $20 billion company, 20 with a B. We had in the logistics division, six distribution centers, and we had about 6,000 people that worked in logistics for Walmart.
So, 6,000 people, about 60 C's, and about $20 billion.Store count, I think, was around 1,000 stores.Right about 1,000 stores was where the company was.I was kicking myself in the late 80s thinking, I missed it.I should have started earlier.
Anyway, when I retired in 17 from Walmart, my last job was running the logistics divisions.From a scale of the company, we had about 2.4 million associates when I retired.From an annual sales standpoint, we had gone over 500 billion.
From a logistics standpoint, I had 100,000 people in the U.S. and 40,000 people outside of the U.S.We had 200 distribution centers, fulfillment centers in the U.S.and about 120 distribution centers, fulfillment centers outside of the U.S.
It was my perspective.I thought I had missed the growth during that almost 30 years of being at Walmart.I had a chance to see a little bit of growth.
I can't even fathom the growth trajectory you have to take to go from 6 to upwards of 200 DCs or FCs that operate the network.100 plus thousand people within the network and what you have to see to actually get there.
Even if I got a position today somewhere managing a 6 DC network and a $20 billion revenue, I'd be like, I'm at the peak of my career.This is pretty much it. It doesn't get better than this, right?That's phenomenal.
Yeah, it's phenomenal.Looking back on it now, when you're in it, you don't realize it.But looking back on it and on to your point, wow, the organization is pretty big.
Where did you start, Chris?What was the journey and evolution within Walmart for you?
So coming out of college, I did get my professional engineer license.And so I was a licensed engineer, civil engineer.They hired me in the logistics division to help with the design and construction of the distribution centers.
I was also tasked with overseeing the maintenance program at the distribution centers. Then probably two or three years in, moved over and took over the SAMS logistics division of the company.
Still reporting back to the overall logistics organization, but managing SAMS and the SAMS environment for the club channel.Yeah.So that's where it started.
Okay.And then it's kind of evolution, right?Like what would you tell the young folks coming into the field right now?Engineering?Focus on engineering?Logistics?
So it's kind of comical.There were two guys that are good friends of mine that were deans of the different schools at the University of Arkansas.One gentleman that's a great friend is Matt Waller.
He was the dean of the business school and the business school is where they had supply chain logistics, transportation, all those functional areas. And then this other gentleman was the dean of the engineering school.
And over in the engineering school, you had all the industrial engineering and functions like that.
And I was meeting with the two of them in my office one day, and I said, if you could ever figure out how to have someone have an industrial engineering discipline,
and a supply chain logistics knowledge base, understanding the business side of all of that, and put those two people together, I would hire every graduate you produced.
Because that, for me, was the perfect blend of disciplines, training, education, schooling.
That's so interesting what you just said is because that's what we observe in the industry, right?You have Folks that started their career in the warehousing field or transportation, clerk, supervisors, work on the floor.
A lot of folks that move up the chain of command and that you will see them have that supply chain background, continuous improvement, Six Sigma training, lean processes.You see that and then you have this IEs are this other breed, right?
When you see someone bring the two sides together, be an industrial engineer that has spent time on the floor, and has the empathy even from a technology perspective.
If you can bring those things in combination, it's rare to find, but the way you describe it, it's so simple to solve.Why is the industry not solving it?
Most engineering schools should be thinking about a supply chain program built into industrial engineering as our industry evolves and grows.
Supply chain engineering or supply chain industrial engineering as a program itself or a minor would produce such quality resources for us in the market.
I think it's absolutely critical that you get people that you can build leadership skills within.That's the academic knowledge, but then you've got to develop them into leaders.
The other thing I would tell you from my career standpoint, probably one of the most important things I did at Walmart, is I changed jobs and I was comfortable taking lateral moves throughout the organization.
So many people think their career only goes this way.It doesn't work that way.You've got to move over here, move over here, move over here. then you may have the opportunity to move up.You may not.
But getting that broad breadth of background experience enhances your value, makes you a better leader because you have different perspectives.It's just critical for people to do that.
That is super important.And I see that a lot of people have this linear path that's like charted out, like I'm going to become a supervisor, then a manager, then a director, then a VP and SVP.
And it's like, nah, you got to do a little bit of back and forth in different fields even.I've had friends that have gone from IT to finance and I'm like, why are you doing that?And guess what?
Those are the folks that are the VPs in certain organizations and retail organizations pretty high up.So yeah, that's a really good piece of advice.
And I think what you described there, Chris creates what I've coined is like a unicorn when you have that operational technology, even commercial aspect to your background, you're such a valued commodity or resource in the market.
So I think that's beautiful. Well, we're going to have a lot of fun here, Chris.So I'm going to take us somewhere a little bit different, but want to talk about the world of investments in supply chain and get your perspective.
You know, certainly the past few years have been transformative and we all know it's much different today than it was five, 10 years ago.So curious from your exposure and all the exposure that you have, what has changed and
Where are we at this halfway point in 2024?
Maybe to be a little more specific, thinking about just the processes of investment and what investors are looking for and from a criteria standpoint, due diligence, that overall process, some of those mechanical aspects of it.
What's different today than say five years ago?
Yeah, I'm going to take it a step back further, Dan, first off.Perfect.In the logistics and supply chain space, there has been traditionally a lack of investment. A lot of people that don't know this space well don't really understand why.
We almost have to take people back to thinking about how capital intensive the business is, how thin the margins are, and then for a trucking company or a 3PL to invest in technology and take a chance on technology is a risky proposition.
It costs money.Their margins are thin.They've got to buy warehouses, trucks, trailers.It's just an area that's had a lack of innovation and investment.When I first started getting into the space and understanding it more from the investor side,
What I saw, there was so much opportunity.It was just how fast can we move, how fast can we put money out there, fuel growth.
In this type of world, there may be 10 great ideas and three of them become great companies or two of them become great companies. What I saw was there may be 10 great ideas and maybe eight or nine are going to become great companies.
Because that was the level of opportunity.Over time, though, some of that opportunity has been met.Some of the investment world has pulled back.And we're in a very different market today than five, six, seven years ago.
If you're on the investor side, you have an opportunity to be a little pickier. than previous.
If you're on the other side, from a company standpoint, the opportunity to attract capital is more difficult and more challenging today than what it was two or three years ago.
Yeah.And Chris, my observation, at least in the space, is during that little boom of pandemic where people started investing and you saw the non-traditional investors in the supply chain space, you had the bigger venture capital organizations that
They are more thesis based on creating lots of unicorns with 50% of market share, a vision, without naming names.Some of the big ones dived in and invested in this belief without practical understanding.
At the end of the day, the fundamentals are a 3PL still only makes about 10, 12% margin.I don't care how much technology you layer on top of it because you still have to pick and ship that box.
just because you are seeing volumes does not mean that economics changes.I think one of the really important conversations, and Chris, we were together at BGSA, was the discussion around Convoy.
And someone said, either you have to be a technology company, or you are a company in transactions, right?If you try to do both, you can't spend for a transaction-based company, let's say a freight broker, that's
your margin in between for brokering a transaction is going to be $100, $150.Someone that doesn't have all the technology you have.So let's say you are a digital freight broker that spent $300 million building a piece of technology.
At the end of the day, in that transaction, the margin is still $150 versus someone else that's just picking up phone and through connections making this happen.So you're competing with these folks.
And now you got to dig yourself out of that $300 million hole at $150 a transaction.That is very relationship based as well as an industry.
So I think a lot of maturity came through larger institutional investors understanding this is not category creation. It's good that some of that institutional investment has pulled back, shown the reality.
This is not a space where domain expertise, you can just jump in and completely rewrite how things are done.
The likes of Walmarts and the Targets and, you know, the ones that came before and the Toyotas, lean engineering practices, forget about all of that.I'm going to Silicon Valley this thing.And it's like, you can't really Silicon Valley this thing.
I couldn't help but laugh when you said, I'm going to Silicon Valley this thing.That is so true.It's interesting, both on the investor side, but it's also on the entrepreneur side.And let me give you an example.
On the investor side, we were looking at a company that did a certain type of automation connections.A large investor came in, swooped in, and from a valuation standpoint, offered the company
double what we were talking to them, gave them a one-page term sheet, and did little to no due diligence. From our standpoint, it was like, you're not gonna compete with that.
I mean, you're just not gonna compete with that because you're not going to be that diligent with the process.Anyway, that was an example where an investor came in and swooped in and just dramatically overpaid for something, okay?
Then you take someone like Convoy.He's the CEO of Convoy, very good with his technology, but he did not have a background in supply chain. And again, it's kind of like that industrial engineering supply chain we talked about earlier.
You really want both. And a lot of people don't have both.But then you have to surround yourself with people that have the other skill set that maybe you don't have.
I see investors doing it and I see entrepreneurs doing it because they don't understand the industry or the business.But it is an industry or business that needs entrepreneurs.It needs to be changed.It needs technology.
But you've got to blend those two together.
Exactly.It's just the right amount of technology with a lot of depth and knowledge.
At least I'll personally say to anyone thinking of being an entrepreneur in the logistics space, even if you don't have the knowledge, go, before you decide to do something, go spend two months working in a warehouse.
Say to someone, I'll volunteer and work inside the warehouse for two months for free.
unloading trailers, loading trailers and picking, create the empathy because standing on the outside and just because you think, why do all of these shipments take so long?
Why don't you go and actually spend time and figure out why it takes so long, right?And then come up with the right answer.Chris, one of the examples I'll give is about the Silicon Valley thing.I saw a fulfillment platform, right?
And it's designed on like, Oh, you don't have this concept of absolutely mandating SKU for a product.And they're like, yeah, we don't need it, right?We want to make it easier for our merchants to do that.It speaks to Shopify, so much noise.
And Shopify, from a commerce perspective, gained so much momentum.But what a lot of people don't understand is Shopify represents, in the grand scheme of things, like 3% or 4% of total commerce.Of course, it represents 11% of eCommerce.
But in the grand scheme of things, it represents 3% or 4% of commerce.So designing yourself around them You are missing such a large enterprise opportunity that exists elsewhere, which is where SKU is a must, a GTIN is a must, having a UPC is a must.
This is not about being rebellious and saying, we are going to be anti Walmart or anti Amazon.And the reason why these larger organizations do what they do is because that's the right way to do it.And that's the right way to normalize.
So learn what they do and see how you can optimize.The enterprise space is so much larger, so much more interesting.
It really is not.I'll give you one more example because I've worked with this company almost six or seven years, and that's Platform Science.I know them well.I serve on their board.They spent two years building that technology in Schneider Truckee.
It took them two years to build that in an enterprise customer and to learn all the ins and outs of making it work because people that built it didn't have that kind of background.
But two years they dedicated themselves to that before they had a product that was ready to go to market.That's the type of thing that actually works.
And you could actually, exactly what you said about platform science, you could look at almost every large product, right?Tier one solutions that might be out in the market.
They usually start inside a company, split out, or they happen to be an acquisition.And if you look deep enough in the acquisition, see, it actually started inside a company and then moved off.
Or it was developed this for you at your scale, your enterprise. And part of the license but enterprise also just enterprises mature use so much faster in the supply chain space.
I don't focus on the enterprise space because the mid market and the lower market margins are smaller.It's much harder to solve.
versus the enterprise space, or at least there is not enough investment in the enterprise space right now for the new evolution of technology that can come in.
I don't know, Chris, if someone brings to you as an opportunity, like addressing this mid market versus building an enterprise grade technology stack. As an investor, which one would incite you in the supply chain space?
I would say specifically logistics as a space.
Yeah, I will always vector to the enterprise because that's where I think I can add value in working with them is the enterprise.The only downside of enterprise, it becomes a lumpy sales cycle business because it's big whales
that take a long time to bring to the table.But once you have them as a customer, they stay with you.So I will always side enterprise.
That's interesting, right?Pivoting off of investment into that entrepreneurship and leadership and what you see in them or what you want them to embody, right? There is a lot of focus on technology, right?
That's what brings investment and you are doing something different.There is hyper scalability and valuation increases and all of that.
But if there was a piece of advice that you would give to entrepreneurs that are starting out, that have great ideas and it's a one or two person team, they are early stage, they made their first million dollars.What is that?
advice that you would give them on team management, operational excellence, how do they build it so that they can scale and set themselves up for the future?
Great question.I would tell you there's two or three things.Number one, Hire people that are smarter than you are and people that you feel can promote and take on more.So don't hire someone that can just do this job.
Hire someone that you know has the capacity to grow with the organization. Always try to hire people that are smarter than you are.If you can't find someone smarter than you are, you're not looking hard enough.They're out there.
The other thing that young startup founders need to realize, they need to self-reflect on what they're personally good at and what they enjoy. Because companies go through stages of life.
Where a company is in the early stage, what I would call the seed stage, is dramatically different than a C or D stage company.Dramatically different.A company that's got 3 to 5 million of revenue versus a company that's got 40 million of revenue.
A company that employs 20 people versus a company that employs 300 people.
Most of the time, the successful leader that can lead a company at 20 people through all of the challenges of a startup is not this person that can lead a company that's three or four or 500 people and is running 30 or 40 or 50 million in revenue.
Lots of times they don't have an interest in what it takes to get to that next level. Lots of times they don't have the skills to lead an organization at that level.
The good entrepreneurs realize that and they may take on a different role in the organization or they may elect to exit the organization and start another company, which is wonderful.That's their passion and their skill.
It's more of a reflective, realize what you're good at, what you enjoy, what you love, and focus on that.
Because so often these entrepreneurs have success at that stage, that early stage, and they think in their mind, I'm going to take this thing all the way through IPO. They don't realize the company is very different at different stages of growth.
What caused you to be successful here may not lead to success here.Getting people through that maturity is usually a really hard process.
Isn't that like reflecting on some of the life choices in general as well? It comes across at least the last part.I read it in a book at one point, the zero to one, one to 100, that kind of speaks to the founder that takes you to zero to one.
And then from one to 100 is different.There is a lot of individuals that are designed to do zero to one.They are serial entrepreneurs that can take it to the next level.But a lot of this comes when people get there.
There is so much emotion that ends up riding in front.It's like, oh, I built this.And I'm like, Yes, you built it, but there is this other part, like for the good of the company, would you rather have... I have seen that story in the past as well.
It feels very natural, but when you are in the thick of it, people just don't want to let go.And so many times I even say this, right?It's like, would you rather have 50% of a 10 million valuation or 10% of a 500 million valuation?
And it's like, that's the equation.And it's not you as an individual, but you as a founder need to recognize you owe it to the people that put in their blood, sweat and tears around you to actually bring it to a level and be able to push that limit.
and be able to give the reins to someone.
Yeah, that's exactly right.And I think that the right frame of reference is what's best for the organization, for the people in the organization.If you get most leaders around that, that will then help them get past.It's not about me.
It's about the organization I built and these people that have poured their lives into this organization.
I want to get your perspective, Chris, as we mentioned in your intro, you won that sustainability award at Walmart.
And, you know, over the last couple of decades, sustainability gets a spotlight, but we also talked about the razor thin margins in the space we all call home.
I'm just curious from your perspective, sustainability also has to equate to profitability or a business case.What are you seeing?
What do you see that's working or what's exciting you about some innovation going on that is solving for sustainability, which we all should be striving to do, but also tax on some financial sense as well?
I think, Dan, the important thing you just said is to make sustainability sustainable, It has to have an ROI.It cannot be a hobby.It can't be just the flavor of the moment.It has to have an ROI.
At Walmart, one of our challenges was doubling the efficiency of the private fleet. And how you define doubling the efficiency for us was gallons burned, cases shipped.So we wanted a work measurement.We were growing.
You couldn't just say, we want to reduce the gallons burned.Because we're shipping more and more, we're going to burn more.But gallons burned, cases shipped.Our goal over 10 years was to double the efficiency of the Walmart Private Fleet.
It caused a lot of different teams to have to work together. So the merchants challenged their suppliers to shrink packaging costs, to take water out of product and create concentrated products.
Lots of things, how we routed the trucks, how we developed the backhauls for trucks, how we cubed out the trucks, how we loaded.The fact that if you pinwheel a pallet, you can get more pallets in a truck than just loading straight.
There's all of these things that went into doubling the fleet efficiency.And over a 10-year span, we did that.We doubled the efficiency.We used an NGO to measure us. We didn't self-measure.
We had an NGO come in and measure us, so there was very much transparency to the accuracy of the numbers, and people wouldn't question them like they would question us.By doubling the efficiency of the fleet, I think we saved over a billion dollars.
When it's got that kind of a payback, it's easy to get the organization to rally.I was at a board meeting in New York with a company and the investors are all green type investors and very focused on environmental sustainability.
But one of the things the partner told me, do not ever think we're not in this to make money.If we don't make money, it doesn't work. We have to make money.
And so that's the thing I want to tell some of these people that are a little bit more idealistic.We do want to do things that are the right things for the planet, but you have to make money.
Now, can you lower the bar a little bit from an ROI standpoint for green initiatives?I think you can.I think you can because it's the right thing to do.But you've got to make money at the end of the day.It can't be a hobby.
Absolutely.And I love the fact that you're like, gallons burned, cases shipped, and that's the KPI.It's like, you have to come up with your own KPI and set your own standard.Right.
But then, as you said, have it measured by someone that's not you yourself.It's like, yeah, I checked myself and I was good.Yeah, of course.It's like, I don't want to go to a doctor because I checked myself.I feel great.Right.That's a critical point.
Chris, like 2007, if I was to look at that timeframe, The environment was maybe like Al Gore comes out with the documentary as an example and people are talking about it.
If I think about all the things we used to think at that point, it's like all the oil in the world is going to be done by 2024.And it doesn't seem like that's going to be. Yeah, exactly.Peacock, right?None of that stuff's actually come true.
But what has come true is we are living through one of the hottest summer on record, right?We are seeing a cycle of change.
The really good thing, and maybe you have more experience on this, but it seems like for companies, it's becoming easier to meet those goals on their ROIs, right?Like to say, yes,
putting solar roofs are cheaper because my return on investment can be six years on that roof itself if I'm in certain part of the country, as an example, or investing in an EV fleet is now very much the same as investing in a regular fleet, right?
Are you seeing that it's much more accessible now, both Because technology has evolved so much and there is investment in the right places, of course, Walmart has the skill to be able to prove it.
But for smaller logistics organizations to be able to say, I am sustainable, I can still achieve my ROI goals.
I think there's a better chance of hitting ROI goals.As more people from a supplier standpoint engage in the space, the cost of that technology is coming down.And as the cost of that technology comes down, the payback is there.
I think it's easier to hit some of the goals.There have been a number of companies over the last three or four years that have been caught greenwashing their numbers and their numbers aren't accurate.
I think it is very important that we have transparency around measurement and that people can trust when you say, I've done something, I truly have done it.I think that's the only thing we've got to continue to be sensitive with.
Exactly.And I think greenwashing also comes with a lot of these organizations essentially like carbon offset is one of these areas.
You basically bought a piece of land where there should have been trees already with some company giving you credit for that.And it's like, Did you really look into who you are given to Carbon Offset?And does it really make sense?
And I understand not every company has the capability, resources or the wherewithal to be able to validate.But I think companies should be looking a level deeper if you are truly serious about it.
It's not just someone giving you a certificate that says, yeah, I got Carbon Offset.It's got to be something that's truly meaningful. I think everyone's got to go beyond just talking about offset.We need to go into carbon negative, right?
Like what can we do?Those should be the new goalposts to say, it's not just what I spend, what I offset.I have to talk about, okay, I can offset, but I'm actually taking more away from the environment. and then bring profitability.
I think those would be some good goals for companies to set in the future.
I think the companies that focus on efficiency, doing more with less, that mentality goes right back into creating a more sustainable environment.
Absolutely.And maybe sustainability, do it a little bit of a hard pivot, just because you operate in that environment where you get to see
the bleeding edge, leading edge technology most of the times, the way you kind of go about doing investments, you've seen some of these companies come up through the rank.Technological outlook in logistics.
I know we started this recording by talking about how little had happened, right?Like when you kind of stepped in, you said, hey, people aren't investing.It's not moving as further along.But over the years, we have seen it move.
We have seen it kind of regress because we are now talking about maturity curve. But while all of this happens in supply chain, there is a whole ton happening in the tech space, right?Like that Silicon Valley space in general.
What gets you excited now, right?As you look at things, what's your kind of crystal ball of the future on technology side of the universe?We have seen lots of hardware, EVs and robots.We have seen a lot of AI come into play.
Where do you see some of the biggest areas of impact?And it doesn't have to be one, but technologically, where do you see the impact?
That's interesting.You mentioned AI.There's nothing sexier right now than AI.I am cautious with AI because I want to see something that provides a payback. Nanan, you and I have talked about what Lajiwa is doing.
And that's really exciting because now you've got a company that's using AI to improve the picking process and therefore cause the company to be more efficient and dramatically increase picks per hour.That's got a payback.
I can put my hands around that.It's tangible.When we were at the BGSA conference and Erhan started talking about that, You saw the whole audience light up.
It was a 40% or 45% increase in productivity they were seeing in one of the fulfillment centers by using those AI tools.That gets me excited.
When I see an organization that can take AI and bend it into their business practice and have that kind of a productivity improvement, wow.As an operator, that's impressive. So it's really interesting to me.
The other one that we've been looking for is reverse logistics.We have been searching for an investment opportunity in reverse logistics.As more things move to e-commerce, you just have more reverse logistics that go with e-commerce.
You know, the work you guys are doing with G2.The thing that makes me interested about that company is that it's guys that have done it before. they understand the industry.
Now if you can take modern tools, software, AI tools, and blend that with practitioners that know the space, that gets me excited.
You brought the entire question to such a practical level that gets me so excited as well, Chris.I'm also AI jaded to a certain point.I do understand AI quite well and what the industry actually means by it.
Logiva is one of those examples of AI implementation.
From a marketing perspective, we can use AI, but it's that machine learning modeling that actually works alongside you to say, hey, here's a recommendation based on everything that I saw, and I think I can get you a 30% improvement.
You want to give me a shot?If you say no, it's not shoving it down your throat, right?It's essentially saying, I think I can do a better job.
You want to try it and if I can improve and if it's not 30% and I give you 27, I will learn and I'll respond the next time to try and get you a 30% improvement, right?AI in practical utilization is something that just runs alongside.
From a user perspective, they don't need to go somewhere else or learn a new skill.It's the function of running away.I can run it the way I've always done it.
Or there is a pattern that's been recognized by the system and it's going to say, here's a better way to do it.Do you want to give that a shot?I know this individual is better at picking than this individual that's better at cycle counting.
Let me see if I can shift these resources around because I can see that everyone's clocked in at the same time.And if I can get you a 10% increment in your UPH because I use a different individual, why the hell not?Absolutely. Phenomenal.
And on the other side, to the G2 front, right?And reverse is going through such an interesting journey right now.But here's the thing.And maybe this should be the industry secret.
Maybe you shouldn't talk about it out loud, but Shopify represents 3%, 4% of all of supply chain, maybe not even.Everyone's focused there.While the real problems exist on the other side of the universe.And there is only a few people. Data's cheaper.
Saving data is really amazing right now.The disk cost is low.Compute is lower.
Now we have the ability to churn data and bring out some really good insights and make some leaps and bounds improvement in what reverse logistics would end up meaning, right?
While all the investments have gone into returns experiences, the reality is it's the reverse logistics where the party happens to be.So Great two points.
And yeah, I'm just gonna add all of that happens is because compute is cheaper, disk is cheaper, talent is readily available, and we can do some really cool stuff in our industry going forward as long as we keep it practical.
Yeah, I think that's the key is keeping it practical and getting a payback for it.
Chris, this has been an amazing conversation.We're so thankful that you joined us today.Want to give you the opportunity, where can people go to follow you on social media?
Any plug or advice for how people could follow what's going on at New Road Capital Partners?
Dan, just LinkedIn is the best way to connect and look forward to connecting with everybody.And I want you guys to know it's been an honor to join you today.
Thank you very much.Thank you so much, Chris.Chris, any entrepreneurs looking to talk to some folks close to the space, there are a few people I would recommend.
If you have the right idea, the money's out there, but you need the right strategic partners as well.New Road's got to be one of those.If I was to build a product, the first door I would knock is New Road.Thank you, Ninan.Thank you guys.Thank you.
Hi, I'm Nenad Acharya, CEO and co-founder of FulfillmentIQ.
And I'm here with Dan Kahl, 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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