Manufacturing eCommerce Success – with Biswaranjan Dash

Curt Anderson  00:01

Damon, dude, happy Monday. How are you, man?

Damon Pistulka  00:05

I’m doing great Curt. How are you today?

Curt Anderson  00:07

Oh my gosh, if, dude, if I was any better, you’d have to call a corner today. Like it’s just like life. Oh, I’m just so excited. And hey, we’ve got a special co guest co host here today we’ve got Nicole Donnelly. Nicole, happy Monday. How are you?

Nicole Donnelly  00:24

Happy Monday. It’s a beautiful Monday. I’m happy to be here.

Curt Anderson  00:29

How was your weekend? A good weekend Nicole.

Nicole Donnelly  00:31

Oh, super relaxing. It was my first weekend back from vacation. So it was nice to just be home. You know, when you come back from vacation and you’re just like you’re in your own bed and you just can’t wait to be in your house and just be that was my weekend.

Curt Anderson  00:46

How was your weekend? I mean, back home man just no place like home right Damon? What movie was that? No Place Like Home. So all right. Was the rods was a rise for the kids keeping track out there. So let’s get our introductions going here. Man. We have the one. The only we have B. Dash. Biswaranjan Dash Happy Monday. I know it’s like it’s a it’s almost Tuesday for you but Happy Monday to you my friend. How are you?

B Dash 01:15

Yeah, hi, good. Thanks. Yeah, I’m good. I’m good. Long tired day. In office, I mean work from work from home

Curt Anderson  01:23

work from home and I can you start at seven in the morning, your timezone. And like here it is, like what it’s like 10 o’clock in the evening, dude, you put in a super long day, in your closing out the day hanging out with us. We are so honored, so blessed. So grateful for you to take time to hang out with us. And we’re going to like totally geek out on a few things. But you know what? So today we’re going to be talking about digitizing supply chains, and edge agility. We’re gonna talk about resiliency. We’re going to talk about all sorts of fun things today. But before I go there, Damon let’s do it. Right, Nicole? Right. We’re gonna hit we’re gonna hit V question. Should we? Okay,

Damon Pistulka  02:01

let’s get there. B dash.

Curt Anderson  02:02

I have a question for you, my friend. As a young man, you know, I’m gonna go as a young guy, little child. I know you have a little daughter. We’re gonna talk about her today. But as a little guy growing up, who was your hero? Is a little guy growing up? Who did you look up to? Who was your hero?

B Dash 02:21

Well, I’ve always looked up to my father. He’s a retired Army officer. So I mean, his passion for the for the country and share his way of giving to the society, you know, or selfless help that he has done to so many people. So I mean, he’s a great role model. even till today, so I’ve always looked up to him.

Curt Anderson  02:49

Well, alright, well, hey, God bless Dad. What’s that? Sure. Dad’s name with us, please.

B Dash 02:57

Oh, you want me to spell it? Out there? It’s near London? Of course it is.

Curt Anderson  03:04

And that starts with an end. Correct. Do I have that correct?

B Dash 03:08

Yeah. And I and then it’s an engine the same as me. So

Curt Anderson  03:13

nice. All right. Well, hey, we’ve got N dash as dad. So big shout out to dad. God bless him for serving the country proud being in the service. And being a great, wonderful role model for you. And I love that word selfless. And again, we’re gonna get into a little bit of like, how selfless you are helping your clients, these amazing companies you target chemical auto arrow, you’re just a supply chain superstar. But let’s dig in to call I’m going to kick off a question here but let’s get fast and furious and we’re going to dig in so I don’t know if you guys heard a rumor was like low supply chain disruption past few years on Did you guys catch that was Damon did you hear about that? Someone

Damon Pistulka  03:48

said something about it. You heard

Curt Anderson  03:50

the call DCE I know you’re in DC where everything’s flowing pretty strong. But was there any disruptions in your world?

Nicole Donnelly  03:56

No, my eight year old she was talking about it the other day she came home she’s like mom supply chain

04:04

toilet paper on the shelf

Nicole Donnelly  04:08

she’s like mom they ran out they ran out of Barbie dolls at the store I’m just what’s going

Curt Anderson  04:13

why Jay Paul you know so my best friend David my best friend since we were 12 years old was visiting me this weekend we’ve since Little League and he’s an ice cream junkie and his wife and he eats ice cream every night. His wife Texas I’m a pitcher he lives in Atlanta his wife Texas ism a picture of their grocery store their their ice cream shelves were empty completely empty she’s like good thing you’re not here so I believe went out and got him wonderful ice cream. And so anyway, beat ash. Let’s talk a little bit about supply chain disruptions. What’s been your in the frontlines? Tell us what’s been going on the past few years and then we’ll get caught up to what’s going on with supply chain today.

B Dash 04:52

Okay, so I mean, maybe let me start with the very, very basic right I mean, so what exactly is supply chain right I mean, so, supply chain is is a complex is the entire value chain of you know, material flow, information flow and financial flow right from your suppliers. You can it can be your entry or suppliers when it comes to your manufacturing, production, then warehousing then logistics. And then in the end, it’s also the reverse logistics side and the aftermarket service as well. So managing this entire, you know, this entire value chain is not easy. And that is what we call a supply chain. Typically, PRI p COVID. People always thought of supply chain as you know, a very transactional function, or are those guys they just booked trucks or they just they just follow up? Right. And it was, you know, it was taken taken for granted. And that has been the reality. You see, it’s always been the salespeople who get the limelight and are the finance people who get the limelight and supply chain people Yeah, I mean, they they will work hard they will they will they will do all the operations, but they will not get as much limelight as they should they should be getting. So that most of 2020 but post COVID I mean, suddenly everybody started realizing that there was some there’s these stories, I mean, when I talk to many manufacturing customers, even there are people who are who are heading who are heading maybe the maybe the the sales function and the SDR supply chain something is there, but we are not they do some transactional work. But, but we do not recognize that they are they are so important, but post COVID What suddenly happened is I mean all of us know and now, I think each country’s Prime Minister president they are they in their speeches, invariably the word supply chain will will will definitely come in because because there has been so much of disruption that both on the supply side as well as on the on the demand side right on the supply side, just post COVID There we suddenly it talks so much about autonomous supply chains, but but mostly it is it is the human beings who are actually working, working on the shop floor right? Inside the production who are actually working in the warehouses who are working in the logistics and the port port area, suddenly, when you locked it down, right? So then suddenly, the production stopped, right, or the production throughput suddenly became very less. So suddenly there your goods production has gone down. Nobody’s there at the warehouse, right? Or very few people are there at the warehouse. So nobody’s there to pick back and then ship, then where are the drivers? Right? And then when even the letter the truck reaches the port, where where are the people at the port to do the operations. So suddenly, people started the they took supply chain for granted, right? Because it was a very well oiled machine. And the analogy that I keep giving is, it’s like a human body, right? I mean, as long as it’s functioning, well, we just take it for granted, right? But it’s it’s also a very complex system. So but the only way when we are diagnosed with something or when we’re feeling unwell, then we think that hey, something is wrong. So maybe that analogy perfectly fits into supply chain supply chain planning and operation because people were doing a great job and, and I’ve been there for 230 2:20am but we will never I’m not trying to snatch credit here, but we will not get that kind of Limelight that hey, you’re supposed to do operations. So, so, supposed to turn 20 Suddenly when when the next level of disruption happened or I would say in terms of human analogy, when you’re suddenly suddenly diagnosed with with a disease then then you start looking then you start appreciating right for your gift of life. Similarly, you started appreciating supply chain people that they do put in a lot of hard work. So, so in the last three years, yeah, I mean, at least one good thing that has happened is supply chain is getting the the the recognition that it deserves, but it has been very hectic in the last few years also because our systems are not designed to handle so much of complexity both on the supply side as well as on the demand side because on demand side post COVID People went from services to product products right. So, so there was a lot of on the warehousing side suddenly all the E commerce companies wanted more warehouses right. So so manufacturing companies, the space for them, for warehouses, that went down. So, all these disruptions were could not be handled with traditional planning systems which the traditional ERP is which we have been using since the last 3040 years and it has been all very you know, manual scenarios scenario driven and, and, and to to put it in very, very shortly. It has been very hectic in the last three years and even even till today has been three and a half years to COVID. And we have still not fully fully recovered. So. So that’s the state of supply chain. As of today, we are not fully recovered, but at least it gets the recognition today. So that’s the only positive aspect. But it has been a lot of firefighting, a lot of volume kind of stuff to manage these operations. And we all know, right, and to just do I mean, just to put just to put a few more words there. I mean, the COVID COVID was not enough than the Russia Ukraine war, right. I mean, it added more more fuel to the fire, right, suddenly, you have so many, so many metals come from from Ukraine, and then the the trade wars that are going on between US and China as China being the manufacturing up for our supply chain, I mean, especially the then what is going on with China and Taiwan, Taiwan holds 90% of the world’s semiconductor manufacturing. So I mean, it’s not just one one part is then nature created COVID. And then the other part is the human created wars and which has actually disrupted the entire ecosystem. And I’m sorry, yeah, you can you can just cut me because

Curt Anderson  11:13

Yeah. So let’s go. Let’s go here super quick. So hey, how about here’s our mutual friend who made the connection. Lino, happy birthday. Hope you had amazing, wonderful weekend, Jodi’s here, and she says, hey, it was during the pandemic. Absolutely. That’s why we’re here talking about hectic and firefighting. So again, guys, if you’re just joining us, Happy Monday to you, we are here with b dot b dash, otherwise known as Vishwa. And he is with Tech Mahindra. And boy, you are a supply chain extraordinaire. Nicole, what do you think of what we were just digesting? Here? Any thoughts? Comments from your end?

Nicole Donnelly  11:50

Yeah, I mean, I’m just thinking about globalization and how that impacts supply chain. So so much, you know, especially and, and the fact that there’s just going to be continuing disruptions, like we can’t ever expect that, oh, everything’s just going to be hunky dory normal in this world. And anytime there’s any sort of disruption anywhere, because of the how, you know, globalization, this problem is only going to be continued can you know, it’s only going to continue so it’s just, to me just seems so important when you’re, I love that analogy of the human body. And then to think about it as like, man, we we don’t need to be just we need to get better not at just being like really good. Er, Doc’s on, just like fixing our supply chain in a pinch, we need to get better at prevention, like what can we do to get ahead of some of these challenges and disruptions knowing that they’re going to happen, you know, so that we can be prepared download, you know, down the line in a much better way so that these companies aren’t having to deal with all of the financial challenges, and customer experience challenges and all of that that comes when the supply chain is disrupted? So

Curt Anderson  12:55

yeah, absolutely. Hey, we got Julia Julia, happy Monday, my friends and you knew lots of love. She was on a recently so hope your head hope you had a wonderful weekend demon, your takeaway, any thoughts that you want to

Damon Pistulka  13:06

add? This is this is such a great point, because we have to get better. We didn’t realize, like for simple things in the US, we had we we had continually looked in the US is how do we reduce costs, reduce costs, reduce costs, reduce costs, right? And we did not? We didn’t and we didn’t invest in supply chain reactivity supply chain monitoring solutions, anything, right? Because we could always get it. It’s just you could always get it. Yeah, there was a lead time, blah, blah, blah, blah, but the materials were always there. And we always had, you know, factories that could do it. And now we just need to react to the fact that or realize and plan for and have tools for being able to understand we are not going to always have it, we may have to have more inventory in the US just as simple as maths right? When when, like maths, not like maths, whatever, they use a lot more, more than we and when we weren’t producing hardly any in the United States. Right? How we can we really afford to do that with anything anymore. Right? I don’t know. You know, so it’s, it’s, it’s a it’s a new world in supply chain. It’s cool that we’re talking.

B Dash 14:19

I just put one One fun fact here. I mean, you know, more than 90% of the manufacturing companies, actually today do not know who are their NFT or supplier. And this is a real fact.

Curt Anderson  14:35

Say that number again, I’ve percent

B Dash 14:38

more than 90% companies actually do not know who are there. I mean, they may know that tier one supplier, tier two, tier three, tier four for supply chains in pharma trends up to 10th 11th year but wow, it definitely goes up to 70 or 80. Or more than a dozen companies actually do not know if it has an eight year supply chain who is the eighth year supplier I actually have no idea, right? Yeah, I could have no idea.

Curt Anderson  15:04

So let’s let’s go here with AD. So we’re digging deep everybody, every person on the planet is familiar with these disruptions. You’re like, right in the front lines, like boots in the boots in the trenches word on the street, what are you hearing? How are people combating these disruptions? You guys do an amazing job of your company? Let’s, let’s go there. What do you hear in industries?

B Dash 15:25

Oh, well, as I told you, right. The traditional planning tools have actually not worked, they have the forecasting tools have been based upon past historical data, they have not really great models of risk assessment, like my supplier is going to default. Because last 40 years have, we know it has run like a well oiled machine. And the reason I’m telling you that they don’t know the eight year supply was, or, or they don’t know, is because they’re always supplying more or less, more or less on time. So, so last year’s has been people are just trying to build scenarios build various kinds of models, on top of their, their planning systems, there are some good tools in the market, which have recently come up, and they are starting to evaluate more, you know, real time scenario planning. So no longer it’s the static planning where you plan for the next month, and plus two, and then things go more or less 10% 20% deviation, and you can manage, it’s it’s not it’s not happening, things are really degrading on a daily basis. And honestly, things have been managed on Excel by again by most of the most of the manufacturing companies and and the need of the art is to develop good good planning systems, which can which can react in real time and give alternate options. So, if my supplier is defaulting then can I can I go to an alternate supplier, but this this kind of recommendations or insight should come or if the transport is getting delayed, then Can I Can I shift to a different mode of transport or similarly, if on the market dynamics on the demand side, if the demand is shifting, differentiating a production schedule? Why should my inventory strategy so I mean, there are there are many things, but the problem is that the time it gets the the data or the signal to to the planner, I mean that time is too much, it goes into days or weeks. So if a disruption has happened, that to the to the time the person the planner knows it will be days or weeks, so so that that that data visibility in supply chain is not great as on today. And one, one of the reasons for not sharing, so much of data is again, it will lose the competitive advantage. So not just the manufacturers, but the suppliers. Suppliers don’t want to share data because he would be doing business with multiple manufacturers. So if they start sharing their inventory information, also, I’m not saying it’s not happening, it happens. But it requires a lot of chain management for the suppliers to because the manufacturer would want the suppliers to share their inventory position, which they are reluctant to do. And the reason is, why should I share some data? Because he would be interacting with with multiple manufacturers? So it’s it, it is the issue is also is mathematical modeling is that the planning system that we have, but issue is also on the human side, because everybody at the end of the day is doing business, and you only want to share that information. We should not harm your business because a bigger fish will always eat the smaller fish. Right. So smaller fishes. Yeah, I mean, that’s, that’s the reality of life. Right? So if smaller fish is the start sharing all the data, so they can also be a little bit of a lose the competitive advantage. So to answer the question, again, it’s been it’s been mostly on Excel, that people have been trying to do various scenario analysis and trying to come up with what is the best, best thing that we should do to keep our supply chains running? Or the killer business running?

Curt Anderson  19:10

Did you say Excel? John? Hey, once you obsolete

Nicole Donnelly  19:17

but here’s the thing about Excel though, okay. It’s easy, right? How do you and I think you’re talking a lot about like change management, right? You’re having to get buy in from the suppliers to be able to be transparent, share the pricing and in you know, invest in something that’s going to be you know, offer a lot more efficiencies, but also, you know, people are used to the simple Excel, how do you get them to, you know, understand again on board and how, how challenging is it? Like, what’s the time what does it take to really invest something, you know, a much more advanced solution like this, that may be a little bit more complicated to learn upfront, but it’s gonna save on the back end.

B Dash 20:01

So Excel is a good tool, there’s nothing against Excel, it’s actually I mean, the features that it gives the pivot slice and dice more, if you get your base data, right, right, and and if some kind of optimization model model has run on top of that, ultimately, people want to slice and dice the data, right? And see, why do you want to invest so much of money just to get get, get few dashboards, and then you would always want to, you know, customize the dashboard, no, I want to see it by geography, I want to see it by customer, I want to see it by by this and this. So Excel, and the reason right, why Excel is still mostly used, because people are comfortable, and it is user friendly. So if some if somebody can provide that kind of tool, and and some some new age tools are trying to replicate that where their UIs are pretty much like excels. So, so the user should be able to, you know, slice, dice, the data, slice, dice, the data, put the rows, columns, pivots, everything just as simply as you do in Excel. So it is, it’s a good UI tool, but the back end to it is that is the data visibility, or data availability, which is actually actually a challenge for reasons which I just told you on change management, on comp competition, and, and on systems also, because many, many, many big ERP providers did. You don’t get real time real time visibility. So even if even if you get the data, then they will show you some good, good dashboards or good reports. But that may be that may be after after one day or after two days. So post COVID, you really want to react in hours, if not in days? Previously, it was okay. Process latency of one or two days, or one week was still okay, but not after COVID. So, yes, there are tools in the market who are trying to solve this problem. But yes, most companies are still or most smaller companies, maybe less than one 1 billion kind of companies I using Excel kind of planning solutions.

Curt Anderson  22:12

Let’s let’s go here for a second. So we’re gonna dig into specifically like your superpowers, your solution supply chain. And Nicole, I think you hit on something really important here, in the name of our program today is resiliency, agility. So you know, we could you know, Daymond, we talk frequently about ecommerce, Nicole, your superpowers are with content marketing. We’ve had folks on here for ERP, John McLean, who has an incredible program, you guys just interviewed Celeste from his team on Friday. So it’s it’s really kind of a technology challenge overall. And it’s like the human behavior. And Damon you see it all the time, like, who wants to be the person that’s going to put their career on the line or their job in line to bring in that new technology? And what if it doesn’t go well, right? Nobody wants to be the fool that type of thing. Let’s talk and maybe I’ll put it out to the patent panel. Let’s start with B dash B dash, let’s talk about, you know, maybe kind of technology overall, what strategies tips advice you have for folks? How can we be more agile and more resilient, just with like embracing that change?

B Dash 23:13

Yes, so I think the biggest mistake that I have seen during technology adoption is is not the technology, it’s again, I’ll go back to the pain management piece. Right. And that’s the reason right more 70% of the ERP is that the data shows that they did not yield the yield the results, which they were they were intended to do, it’s because you can enforce enforce a technology to enforce a process but you cannot, what we call the key behavior, KPIs key behavioral indicators, but people don’t adopt that. And the reasons are, can be multiple people, people are hesitant to change, people also think that this will take away my take away my job, or what should I do, or they don’t. So, so, they don’t want to learn learn something new or upskill themselves. So, so, as far as technology or process is concerned, and a new tool can solve the problem, but the least important that is given by the management is on the people aspect, and that is not handled, unfortunately very well. And that is why most of these technology transformation or digital transformation that happened, they the they do fail. So I would place people on the top and then technology will be an enabler to help them get the job done. And, and they and technology should be an enabler for them to do the things more quickly and it should help them elevate their position as far as the rule is concerned, so So again, it sounds very simple change management seems to be the most the least privatized area but that is the most important area if you asked me and if you I think if you ask most people I think maybe John also here, I think he knows that people adapt to a new new new tool is the is the hardest thing.

Nicole Donnelly  25:11

Here here,

Damon Pistulka  25:13

you’re like, it’s like, you know, it’s hard enough for us to go on a diet, but imagine getting 40 people in the room to all go on to die at the same time and you stay on it, right? That’s, that’s what’s really the challenge than any of these tools. It’s like, not just me, it’s everyone has to use it our suppliers us and then we you know,

B Dash 25:35

and one more thing is I mean, you may hire a consulting firm or a product company and they will do the project let’s say in six to nine months, and then they leave right. So, who who is there from the organization, the organization may may have a project management team, right or a chain management team. But slowly, slowly, I mean, it is so easily they also go back to the to the original original rules and then the entire implementation people, people are hesitant, and one part is training also, and for four reasons what we have discussed, and slowly, slowly the adoption of whatever the new project, it goes on until unless there is a real key real tracking of adoption of technology, and it has to be really done. For any change management of any digital transformation. It has to be driven completely completely from the top from the CEO or CXO level. If that doesn’t happen again, I’ve seen that that the seriousness dies down with time. And ultimately, you’re again, again, maybe two years down the line, you’re again back to not exactly square one, but maybe square two or I don’t know.

Curt Anderson  26:42

John biglietto agrees with you. Yes, it is. Nicole, what are your your thoughts? You’ve been you’re involved with multiple projects where change management overwhelming daunting feelings get hurt, like what’s, what’s your experience? What’s your feedback here?

Nicole Donnelly  26:57

Yes, I’ve seen this with new EECOM sites. I’ve seen this with implementing CRMs like HubSpot, and without fail, you hit on the head beat ash, you have to involve stakeholders in every part of the business from the early stages of when you’re designing, considering thinking about whatever the change is, they have to be bought into it. Otherwise, if you’re just slapping it on them after the fact, it’s going to be a much harder battle. So I totally love and agree with that. And we had someone on the program, Tony, who I think stropped, just a gold nugget, I’ve never forgotten. And he said that anytime you’re going through change management, you need to make sure there’s a thread of what was that’s embedded in the whole new process so that people don’t feel like they’re having to change every aspect of their process and everything, like there’s some continuity there, some tradition, something that they can kind of like we all want to hold on to what’s secure and stable, if you can have one part of that that stays secure and stable for them through the process that will make adoption better. And then I think I loved what you said BT Asha about adoption and upper management, you know, like having a loop a feedback loop on you know, reporting back on how are people adopting the news, you know, technology and making sure that that is like a concern consistently like the the upper management is holding everyone accountable to that. So that everybody knows Hey, this is like a business goal. This is part of our business strategy. You know, we need to make sure that this adoption is happening and that we’re understanding along the way what are the roadblocks what are the challenges so that we can address them?

Curt Anderson  28:32

Yeah, that’s fantastic. Let’s Let’s slide here for a minute. So B dash and our program we have these little things called mic drop moments and like dude, like you just been dropping multiple multiple mics. So with so anytime you kind of see one of us do one of these, like you’re just dropping massive value bombs. We appreciate it so much. I you know, selfishly my wife and I were talking a weekend we’re like, Damon, have you been? I don’t know how the grocery store prices are. Seattle, they gone up just a little bit like little little bit. cents here. Yeah, insane, right. Yeah. And so let’s I’m not an economist, but just boy, I’m a consumer for goodness gracious sakes and Nicole Retama, like flight inflation, hotel inflation or like everything’s gone through the roof. Then this B dash any can we get inflation under control would like give us give us some give us an ounce of hope, will you what’s what’s on the horizon? From your perspective on inflation?

B Dash 29:26

Well, you should ask that the Fed discussion, right.

Curt Anderson  29:31

I figured I think you’re smart. We’re leaving New v dash we trust you. What’s your opinion?

B Dash 29:43

Oh, I can’t answer this one. I mean, this is I don’t think anybody can answer this question. Right. I mean, that’s why

Curt Anderson  29:49

we’re not recording. Right? We’re not recording. We won’t hold you to it. But just a little, give us a little what’s going on there.

B Dash 29:58

Well, I mean, this is beyond Supply. But I think they keep paying with the repo rate, right? I think they have they have increased the repo rate. So so there will be less money in the market. And that’s how they always try to control inflation. I mean, that is how the cycle of 00 interest rate. I mean, that’s how the Fed or the RBI in India, I mean, that’s how they they just play around. And right now, everybody’s trying to control the inflation. So that’s all I know, I mean, inflation always happens, right? 1% 2% some some percentage. It keeps on happening, because the money I mean, the printing of money is in the government’s hands. Right. So. So every every dollar or every rupee will have a lower value next year. Right. So that’s how that’s how our our monetary cycles work. So inflation, will, will always happen. What’s the percentage? That is only debatable, right? for which there are great Nobel Prize winners and the I mean, the demand monetary policy holders, I think they can only take a dig at this question. I mean, for me, it would be just only a guest, like a multiple choice question.

Curt Anderson  31:09

What really hit me was I didn’t even I don’t know, I was out and about over the weekend, and I hit a lemonade stand. I was like, Oh, 278 year olds, in like, you know, when you complain, you’re you’re at the airport or a ballgame. And like what, you know, water is the, you know, hours and so like, who made standard was like $10 A glass and I’m like, but I don’t know, oh, my God, or when babysitting recently, I’m thinking Damon, I think about quitting this job and becoming a babysitter because like, man, they’re not paying the rates that Nicole you were making when you were sitting as a teenager, right?

Nicole Donnelly  31:40

Man, when I was babysitting, I was getting paid two bucks an hour or two bucks an hour, right?

Curt Anderson  31:45

Totally. I’m like, I told my daughter like, dude, I’m like you you need to do that full time. So anyway, let’s go here. I want to dig into supply chain you’re we’ve got some acronyms with your this is a masterclass So guys, if you’re just joining us, where are we? We’re top of the hour. We are with v dash he’s coming to us man. He’s a little far away. Right? Just little like just like India. We’re coming to coming to us live. He’s his his put his daughter to bed and so he decided to join us he had nothing better to do so be dashlets Nicole How about any pop quiz questions here? I BP I know you’d like your little Google beforehand what anybody want to answer that one? IBP What is this? B E? IB P

Damon Pistulka  32:27

I failed the question horrible

Nicole Donnelly  32:32

it’s integrated business planning.

Curt Anderson  32:36

Okay, beat ash please. curious minds want to know can you enlighten us? Hey, what’s up Hey, baby sitters today can get benefits Yeah, don’t I BP beat ash my friend can you please let’s it’s masterclass time enlighten us what is this that you’re talking about?

B Dash 32:56

Okay. So, I come to IBP So, supply chain is typically in can be classified into two functions. One is the planning function and what is the operation function right. So, so, planning function will plan right, it’s the brain and the plan will be shared with the operations team. And the operations team can be classified into various let’s say, procurement teams, product production teams, warehousing teams, logistics teams, aftermarket teams are there was only six teams right. So, the planning team is the brain is the brain. So typically, in supply chain planning, you would have your demand planners, supply planners, inventory planner, logistics planners, right and most manufacturing companies, they would be having an SNMP cycle SNMP again is sales and operations planning it’s it’s a common common term used in manufacturing industries. So, typically, how this the SNMP cycle would would work is maybe maybe on a monthly monthly timeline or on a flight fee, fortnightly timeline, you would have your you will first collect collect all the data right and then you will first run your demand forecasting models right then when those models are run and then you share those forecasts with the sales team and then you have a consensus review meeting right okay. This is my this is the demand that we that we face for the next month and next n plus two n plus three, then that output will will flow into your supply optimization models and supply automation would How much should I should I produce? How much by line by by by which plant. So, then then you will again have a supply review meeting and then then then there would be inventory planning and then there will be logistics planning as well this entire cycle and then at the at the end at the end of the month or at the end of fortnight you would actually have an executive meeting where you will call the leadership and you will you will really collaborate with all the functions and really, really understand that what are the what are the constraint what are the various scenarios and you take a best plan forward. So this is the SOP cycle. Since operation planning cycle IBP is a little advanced version of SNMP where we also say that the financial angles would typically in this lesson we cycle it’s all about material. And cost is all obviously input, but we typically don’t don’t generate what will be your cash flows, what will be your income statements going on going forward or how will balance look like. So, the s&p the advanced version of SNMP would be IBP, which is integrated business planning and the only bridge from SLP to IBP as per theoretical terms is the financial is a strong linkage of finance teams also participating in this SOP cycle. So, if the finance team is not participating or if they were not generating forward looking financial statements, then it remains an as an OP cycle which is which is a pretty which is a term which is I think has been there for a lot many years, if not decades, but the IBP you really want to see how your cash flows are looking looking like how your integrated shipments are looking like and that is that is what is the definition of IBP again, I can go into a lot of depth because it there is a demand planning modeling, there is a supply planning planning modeling, there is a production planning modeling, there’s an inventory planning modeling and there is a logistics planning modeling and then you also modeling can also be broken down into various you know, strategic modeling tactical modeling, operational modeling, because modeling is also I mean difficulty with technical it can be a linear programming or a non linear programming linear programming means, you can write equal equations like x plus y equal to 10. So, you can you can solve this something either but if it is x squared plus y squared equals 10, then it becomes non linear and there is no way to actually get into an absolute optimal solution of a nonlinear problem that is, that is something which is mathematically we are we are challenged. So, when it becomes nonlinear, then again I’m getting a bit into mathematics, but, what you’re starting starting solution point, it starts for a local optima. So, if the curve is like this, so, wherever the starting point in such a local optima, the global optima can be can be somewhere else. So, so, there are there are various kinds of modeling that you do, there are also limitations on computing power. So, that is why you break your modeling into a tactical modeling would be maybe let’s say at a week at a at a at a week and a family of excuse level, but we very want to do it for the entire company, a proper proper scheduling model would be absolutely at a SKU SKU level our level. So, so, these are these are some of the things where you do modeling also stage by stage and because we cannot form the equations up to so much complexity and we don’t have so, much of computing power. So, that is why you also Baker modeling into strategic tactical operation and it is it is very much very industry specific, you really have to see the problem and and solve it. So, to answer your question IBP is the entire process, right? It’s supported by demand planning, supply planning, inventory planning, logistics planning, and for each of these planning steps, you would have a lot of modeling lalalalala data flow inputs and outputs, and then you run this entire thing as a cycle over over your current month, and then you share these plans with your operations team and operations team actually does the the actual execution of your planning. So, planning team is the brain operation team is the execution of that that brain

Nicole Donnelly  38:33

so that I have a follow up question okay. So IVP is the plan that he would come up with, but then you would use the technology to kind of implement is that how the process works?

B Dash 38:43

So IBP is the process which we call it to enable it process it would be obviously a use of technology can run run the models data flows right between sequential data flows for for demand inputs, you would require historical sales data, you would require some market data sales promotion data, right. So, company data, the demand inputs demand our model demand modeling will run demand outputs will will flow into supply supply supply planning right. So, so that would be more of an optimization. So modeling also can be predictive optimization, or it can be meta heuristics. So predictive is predicting predicting some models predicting some some output, right? Optimization would be if it’s an linear programming output, then then you should have the results. Otherwise, it’s it’s the result which is okay fine, this is the desert but we are not 100% Sure, this is this is the most accurate result, there are statistical modeling for inventory planning statistical modeling means using mean standard deviation or you can use some kind of simulations to calculate what should your inventory how much inventory should be holding, for which SKU at which which warehouse, so, there are there are ways to calculate and then there is logistics modeling also, because you will you may ship your finished goods by road by rail by by ocean and you and there is always a trade off right in supply chain there is only one trade off if you have to really simplify it is cost versus service right. You either if you wanted at least cost your service will be not as good as if you if you pay a premium, then you can your service will be higher. So, it’s always this balance right cuz you always want your material on the shelf right or you want your deliveries within within within within next day, but you have to pay a premium for it. So, what is the right balance? What is the right balance between cost and service? Obviously, I’m not introducing quality and safety here but but they are we are assuming that quality KPIs are being met everywhere and the operations is being done in a safe manner. But ideally, the key is safety quality which we are we are which is we should be a given in any manufacturing industry because you cannot you cannot have any fatalities you cannot have you should not be having having any injuries. And then then the trade off is always getting caught in service all your models always try to run between cost and service. So,

Curt Anderson  41:11

let’s go here, man. All right, so Thompson pack right there multiple mic traps, and so very sophisticated. Total masterclass right there. So, you know, how about an early round of applause there for Videsh, guys. I mean, that was just very powerful. That so Damon, your longtime longtime manufacturing, you know, in Natick, right, your career takeaways thoughts? What do you want impact there from? I have one quick question.

Damon Pistulka  41:37

So the IBP that does predictive revenue generation as well, that’s it goes from all the way from end to end like that. Is that what you’re you’re saying with the IVP? Modeling?

B Dash 41:48

Yeah, that’s one of the outputs. Yeah,

Damon Pistulka  41:51

that’s, that’s, that’s pretty groundbreaking, because usually you can get to the point where it’s like, oh, yeah, we’re gonna have this to have that, you know, and with digital supply levels, but when you really get into the predictive part of it, that’s where that’s where the the C suite people start to perk their ears up, right? Because, you know, that’s what everybody’s panacea. If you look at it, just listen to a quarterly report from from any company in the world that’s on the stock exchange is publicly traded. They’re always trying to make sure that they said they were gonna make five bucks, and they made five bucks, you know, that’s their challenges. They say they’re going to do something and doing it. And with the predictive part of it, it’s, it’s huge. And it and then they

B Dash 42:34

go ahead. And yeah, there can be one more thing to be on predictive and prescriptive. So typically, four kinds of analytics, I would say, descriptive is what describes the past. Diagnostic is you diagnose why things do not happen. Well, predictive is predictive is describing predictive is predicting those descriptive KPIs. Right? And prescriptive is if I can even predict the KPIs for which I’m being measured on, can I take some action on those so that I can even get my predictor, if I’m predicting that my whatever right my my sales will be x units, and it will not be x then can I take some action to make it. So Nirvana state, but with generative AI and all coming up, so but today, today, today, there is no silver bullet to getting automated, prescriptive actions, it has to be human driven, or again, again, you design models for prescriptive for prescribing an action which will help me get to a good predictive output. So I hope I’m not confused here.

Curt Anderson  43:44

tastic so Hey, Whitney Houston is in the house. With Nicole we were just talking about Whitney Houston this morning on another call, so are your favorite song? What’s your favorite Whitney? What was that song?

Nicole Donnelly  43:55

I want to dance with somebody. I was in my dad’s I don’t remember what it was like. And we were driving across the country moving from Texas to California. And I was five years old jamming out to that song. It’s one of my first memories.

Curt Anderson  44:10

Wonderful. And so in our Whitney she she knows what you know, I will always love you, Whitney. She knows that. So let’s keep it that’s you know what we’re starting to come into time Nicole I know in this is a total mess class guys, what we encourage you welcome you to do hit that little rewind button. You know, there was a lot to unpack there. If you’re a small manufacturer, man, you’re like, boy, this is pretty sophisticated. But there’s so many nuggets that you could pull out that are applicable to you, your business. It’s great when you align yourself with an expert like B dash, John Molinos in the house here, you know, find someone if this you know you as an entrepreneur, you can’t be the expert at everything. align yourself with folks that can help you. You know, take the ball into the endzone, and you know, let you run with it. Nicole, we have another term that I want to hit then we’ve got to wind down because I have a couple little trivia questions about Videsh. I’m going to ask you a demon. See If you guys get this right, but we were talking before we went live about supply chain, control tower, supply chain control tower and you’re thinking manners like airplanes flying everywhere. You call that you did a little search. Right and he What are your thoughts when you hear that term supply chain control tower? Nicole? Well,

Nicole Donnelly  45:20

I literally thought it was a big tower, you know, and then everything just kind of comes from one level to the next now but yeah, but yeah, you’re absolutely right. It’s it’s a dashboard of data. It allows business leaders to get a bird’s eye view of everything that’s happening across the supply chain, so that they can resolve any critical issues.

Curt Anderson  45:39

That’s right. So B dash take us home on wood, please enlighten us give us another masterclass what is the supply chain control tower, please?

B Dash 45:50

So, yeah, I think we have discussed in bits and pieces in the show, but we have our ERPs right, we have planning systems, by planning systems are run on some systems. Yeah, our operating systems, right. So we have a procurement system, we have a production system, warehousing system, logistics system, aftermarket system, right. So if you put a data fabric on top of that, right, so first is to get data from all these systems, planning systems and operating systems into that data lake or data fabric, whatever you call it. And then sequentially, we just touched upon this as well build layers. On top of that the four analytical layers, we just spoke about descriptive, diagnostic, predictive, prescriptive, prescriptive, will describe planning, planning KPIs? Right, planning KPIs, whether the planning plan was actually was good or not diagnostic will diagnostic will diagnose why why the issue or issue was there, predictive will will predict those KPIs through modeling, and prescriptive is, if my predictive KPIs are going wrong, then what can I do to, to, to course correct and correct an action? Now to get this data, it’s very easy to say that the data will come to the Data Fabric. But but we also spoke about right, the data sharing doesn’t happen. So tier one supplier, tier two supplier, tier two supplier, what is the inventory position? At my tier two supplier? If he’s going to run out of inventory? If tier four doesn’t supply to tier three, what impact will it have on my production? Right, what is the status of material either a supplier and or what the status of material in transit, where is that visibility, so if you can actually get the visibility of material at suppliers and and also the visibility of materials, which is in transit, so there are companies which have integration with various freight forwarders through PLC, and the providers visibility, and ultimately, if you can get all this data into one data lake or data fabric, then you start building on top of that, and that is the actual way of really building your control tower and control tower is a is a huge thing, I mean, supply chain into tower is huge. I mean, somebody may want just a control tower or logistics piece, somebody they may just want only on the warehousing piece, somebody may just want on a production piece. So who nobody, no company will implement a control tower in a big bang approach that, hey, I want to control tower, you just get all data and build it for me in the next six months, that is just not going to happen. It is impossible, they have to take a very modular approach. Okay, let me target the procurement part. Let me bring all the data of procurement to my control tower and build what kind of dashboards what kind of KPIs what kind of actions I want to monitor. And, and bigger companies have so much data points are coming, so they don’t want to monitor, they only want to monitor exceptions. So only send me alerts where there is a risk. So otherwise, if I tell them suppliers and 990 are doing doing doing fine, or there’s no risk, there is no point of seeing that only tells me those 10 suppliers in control tower that that I’m going to face a risk and then also tell me what should I do? So so that’s the that’s the that’s the purpose of control tower it is it is again getting all the data and building it piece by piece planning data and all the all the operations data and seeing what what what is the priority for you. And really if a company has to build a real control tower, it will a large company or a 5 billion plus company it will it will take them two years or more to actually get all data and and build a control tower so nobody can do it in a big bang approach. But yeah, I mean, but in in our aircraft analogy, it is like a control tower, you should be able to see all the aircrafts right and take it you don’t take off you don’t you don’t land so that that’s how I think that the analogy is or supply chain control tower also. Yeah. So what do you

Damon Pistulka  50:00

Yeah, I think about the complexity and what you’re talking about it is it is a multi year project and larger company, even in smaller companies is a huge deal.

Curt Anderson  50:08

You know, and the thing is, I love the way you’re bringing it down Videsh because it it’s easy for me to sit here and say it but you know, Damon, we call we, you know, we work on these big ecommerce projects, you know, the key is like, bring it down to the level, bring it down, you know, can you make it? You know, God forbid, fun, you know, can you make it so it’s challenging and can you get the buy in from everybody and you hit it on the head earlier beat ash, you know, get everybody on board and just bought in. Just to kind of recap here and forgive me I’m going to probably be out of order book prescriptive, descriptive, predictive, and diagnostic man I just, oh my goodness gracious Dude, that was worth our time together in itself. Absolutely. Right here. How about this mic drop number 10. We had moments of silence right there John. Big Leno. Thank you for making this little magic conversation happened. So now let’s go here. Okay. Total masterclass. Now, Nicole Damon beat ash and I have a huge surprise for you guys. We didn’t tell you you didn’t know about this beat as you got that wonderful grand piano piano over your shoulder there. Beat us you’re going to play a little solo for us. And so let’s go ahead and get and start the song and you’re not gonna Are you gonna play or not?

B Dash 51:20

No, no, I can’t play that. That’s what’s your what’s your background?

Curt Anderson  51:23

Oh, it’s a virtual I thought it was a real thing. I thought you’re gonna go back there and knock down a song for us. kidding you.

Nicole Donnelly  51:30

Billy Joel today come on. Yeah, no, man.

Curt Anderson  51:34

The Okay, so let’s go here. Damon, Nicole. You’ve gotten to know beat ash pretty like you guys know beat ash intimately. We’re all besties he’s like nine and a half hours ahead of us right now. Yep. What do you think is beat ashes favorite color? What do you think is Vishwas favorite color Damon? I’m going with you first. Yellow Nicole.

Nicole Donnelly  52:05

I’m going with blue because he’s wearing blue.

Curt Anderson  52:07

Now if you take yellow and blue and you combine them what colors you get Nicole? Green Yeah, beat ash what’s your favorite color my friend

Damon Pistulka  52:20

there we go.

Nicole Donnelly  52:22

We make a great pair.

Curt Anderson  52:24

Are you guys together so I work alright. Vishwa aka Mr. Beat ash what’s his favorite movie? I know like that’s pretty broad range. It’s it was in the 2000s guide Pierce was the leading actor in this movie guy Pierce was a leading actor in this movie. Do you have it?

Nicole Donnelly  52:46

Like confidential

Curt Anderson  52:47

you don’t want that might that is a phenomenal answer. Great movie unfortunately. Oh yeah. By that much I know Julianne of Julia so here she’s a movie buff. She would get it. Damon any guesses? Any clue? No. Dash What is your favorite movie of all time?

B Dash 53:07

It doesn’t memento.

Curt Anderson  53:09

Oh man. Oh, yeah. That was a great movie where he had he kept tattooing himself for if you guys haven’t seen it, go out and catch momento next weekend. Beat ash last.

B Dash 53:23

It’s a very complex movie. You know, it was in one scene isn’t black and white. And once it is in color, so one scene actually moves forward and the other scene moves backward. So it’s a I saw it three times to actually understand the movie betta

Curt Anderson  53:41

supply chain right, Nicole? Here’s the last question and we’re gonna wind down we’re coming to the bottom of the hour. Favorite sports? For Mr. Videsh favorite sport is coming to us live from India. What Damon? What is B dash favorite sport?

Damon Pistulka  54:00

I am gonna go off the rails just a little bit. I’m gonna say soccer.

Curt Anderson  54:07

Soccer so global wise they say football in America we call it soccer. Nicole

Nicole Donnelly  54:16

I’m going with cricket

Curt Anderson  54:18

Guess what? His number one and number two Nicola you got number one Damon you got number 2am I right beat ash I have those Correct. I’m going by memory. I don’t have them written down in front of me. I believe Cricket was number one. Is that correct? Yeah, that’s correct. That’s and and football aka what we call soccer was number two. So now I tell you guys did really well. You guys did great on our trivia. Appreciate it. Ron. Applause for Nicole and Damon playing with our trivia. Beat ash. How can everybody connect with you? How can they find you just really take advantage of your superpowers. Where can they find you hiding?

B Dash 54:54

Oh, well, I think I’m available on LinkedIn.

Curt Anderson  54:57

You I think so too, right? Yeah. So

B Dash 54:59

That’s my email id is there. I mean, maybe if you can put it on chat or that is also fine. Especially engine dot dash at Tech minute.com. Maybe I can put it. I don’t know that the chat is visible to everyone. But I can put it here. But I think LinkedIn is the best way. You can always have a sense. send a friend request and and then we can take it forward from there.

Curt Anderson  55:23

That’s pretty good. All right, guys. Nicole, parting thoughts, words of wisdom, anything that you want to share an amazing wonderful conversation with beat ash.

Nicole Donnelly  55:32

It was amazing. I learned so many new things I learned about IBP today, which I never knew about. I learned about the supply chain control tower. And so thank you for sharing all that so cool. And yeah, it’s been great.

Curt Anderson  55:48

Even parting thoughts, words of wisdom anything that you’d like to share your big takeaway from our masterclass today?

Damon Pistulka  55:55

Work with somebody like that here. Yes, yeah.

Curt Anderson  56:00

Period Jatha myself, it was just just just a delight. Just beat ash. We enjoy your friendship, your we enjoy your sense of humor. Wonderful daddy as a 14 month old and so boy just crushing it as a dad out there. You’re going to do magic things with your wonderful, beautiful daughter. Big shout out to your dad for being your hero. And big shout out to our friend John McLean. Oh, for making this conversation a reality. Videsh We Wish You monster success. Thank you for sharing your truth, your expertise, your passion. Just had a great time today. Hang out with us for one second. Guys. You I’m Damon. I’m not I’m going to be unavailable Friday, but boy, you guys have a wonderful program this Friday. You have a powerhouse coming on. This Friday, we’re gonna be talking about wellness, and better tips and strategies for your own health and for your employees health. That’s gonna be a great conversation with our dear friend Naveen. And guys, just go out there have an amazing, incredible week. And boy, as we’d love to say just be someone’s inspiration just like beat Ash was our inspiration today. Go out and inspire someone in your life and make the world a better place. God bless you guys. Have a great day and we’ll see you soon.

B Dash 57:15

Thanks. Good. Thanks, everyone. Bye. Thank you. Bye