In Episode 170, Scott and Greg welcomed Sandeep Patel of Veridian to Supply Chain Now Radio.

[00:00:06] It’s time for a supply chain. Now radio broadcasting live from the Supply chain capital of the country, Atlanta, Georgia, Supply chain. Now radio spotlights the best in all things supply chain the people, the companies, the technologies, the best practices and the critical issues of the day. Now here are your hosts.

[00:00:36] Good afternoon, Scott Luton here with you. Lively Supply Chain Now Radio, welcome back to the show. On a quick programming note. Like all of our series on Supply Chain Now Radio, you can find our replays on a variety of channels Apple podcasts, SoundCloud, Spotify and wherever else you find your podcasts. As always, we’d love to have you subscribe so you don’t miss anything. Supply Chain Now Radio is also brought to you by a variety of sponsors, including the Effective syndicate Talentstream, Verusen, Supply chain real estate dot com and several other leading organizations. Be sure to check out the show notes to learn more about our valuable sponsors. Okay. Let’s welcome in my esteemed co-host here today. So Greg White Supply chain Tech thought leader and trusted advisor. Greg, how you doing? Hey, I’m doing great. It’s great to be back in Atlanta. It is. We’ve been away from home for a long time. Well, you know, last Thursday, Friday, of course, we’re in Charleston with the. Yes, AIAG SCAC, who has Supply chain and Quality Conference. And I want to say, we walked away with probably 15 different sessions, different episodes tackling all across the world of automotive supply chain.

[00:01:42] We had some really good interviews there. Perhaps it was really interesting to see what’s going on in the automotive trade and particularly in South Carolina.

[00:01:50] Yes, a lot of growth there. There sure is. Including not least of which we’re Volvo put there. First North American manufacturing site that now has in point fifteen hundred folks and growing. But we got back in town, reassembled the studio here, and we’re kicking things off with a great guest, Sandeep Patel, managing partner of Veridian Sandeep. How are you doing? Doing great, guys. Thanks for having me. You bet. We’ve been working hard to get you here.

[00:02:18] These days, he stays busy, busy, busy.

[00:02:20] And he’s making sure he’s making Supply chain transformation happen. That’s right. So, Sandeep, great to have you on the show. Great to have you on. I know you spent about ten years here in Atlanta. So in many, many ways, that earns you a native badge anyway. So you know your way around and all. I think you had a great dinner in midtown last night and it is really neat to have you on the show after a couple of conversations we’ve had prior. So for our audience, though, if you would, tell us about your background. Sandeep. Sure thing.

[00:02:49] So I was born and raised in Houston, Texas. You know, as a child, I think I showed a lot of propensity early on for getting into what I call problem solving type of a discipline. You broke your toy. I did. I did. It sets today something my parents still remind me of on a regular basis on a visit home is the amount of investments that they had to make into toys that were were essentially destroyed by me in an effort to try to figure out how they all work. So I was always pretty quiet and kind of shy and very reflective as a child. And so naturally, the inquisitiveness that I think stems from that was something that captured me from a pretty young age. And so I had a really strong suspicion I was gonna end up in an engineering discipline. So after, you know, really exploring that in high school, went to the University of Texas at Austin and spent most of my time focusing on electrical engineering and a lot of really interesting work with physics as well, just as interesting kind of hoppy specialty of mine, just for fun. Physics is your hobby at the time. It really was. And ironically, in the last few months, it’s kind of resurfaced a good bit. So it’s been very cool. Yeah, it was it was it was interesting. You just you learn about the you learn about the inner workings of the world that you don’t maybe think about on a day to day basis. And I think it really helps to kind of influence how you tackle and challenge problems on a day to day basis.

[00:04:07] Spans the mind. Yeah, I would know that. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. So you like breaking stuff? You like understanding the laws of Philip physics? What else about Sandeep Patel would our listeners be interested in knowing?

[00:04:19] I think if you talk to the people that knew me best, they they’d say I’d have some some pretty intense passions like those two that a little bit out of the norm I’d say, between work and just furthering my education. But beyond that, I that I’m I’m really interested in movies and I feel like the artistic side of things, again, really helped to balance us in our professional lives. That’s Froome. I’d say over the last decade we saw a lot of specialisation across all disciplines. And I think now we’re actually seeing a little bit of a retreat away from that, where people are realizing that our consciousnesses are all very complex tapestries. And it’s not it’s not necessarily about just being great at one, being really great at one thing that people that diversify are the ones that tend to be the most successful in life. And I try to draw a lot of a lot of parallels from that into what we do for a living.

[00:05:04] So you mentioned movies. I got to ask you, I knew you were gonna go there. All of the intellectual stuff you just said you’re going to go straight to me. That’s where I was going to, by the way. Yeah. Good, good, good to tell us it.

[00:05:14] Top three list or just one of your favorite. Go to movies at that air. Each time you watch it, you pick up something new.

[00:05:19] It’s interesting you mentioned that because I think that’s one of the things that I enjoy most about movies. I don’t know if a ton of people that are traditional movie buffs would agree with any of these choices, because I’m always really fascinated with the mechanics of how the movie was made. I’m watching a movie, I’m interested in the storyline, I’m trying to follow the plot. I’m enjoying the cinematic so that the visuals of it. But what I’m really interested in understanding is thinking about how the director and the writers were coming up with these plot devices, were coming up with a lot of the technical details that they use and specifically for movies. I really come back to Inception and so I think that’s always a really interesting one that’s done that confuses a lot of people because the plots obviously fairly complicated. And regardless of all the holes, I think it’s just such a beautifully constructed movie where he’s trying to do so many things. The creator and director, Christopher Nolan, is trying to do so many things simultaneously and weave these really interesting narratives all behind kind of the stage of the heist movie and stuff like that. That’s what I always loved you kind of point to, is the fact that it’s how do you tell people an interesting story, expand their mind a little bit, maybe make them a little smarter, making them think a little bit, but all within this like very aesthetic vessel.

[00:06:36] Well, that’s a great movie for that. I mean, it’s hard to get. More ethereal than. Right, in school, yeah. That’s cool.

[00:06:45] So moving right along from from how we kind of take a step back out of the the real world and let’s talk about what you did and what we’re going to do about Veridian second here. But prior to file founding Veridian, you worked at Manhattan Associates, which which most folks in the Supply chain world would quickly recognize, especially folks that spent some time here. What did you do it? Manhattan?

[00:07:08] Yes, I took a job with Manhattan right out of college. And so it’s one of the reasons I ended up moving to Atlanta. I at the time, like I said, had an electrical engineering degree. And after working through internships and just like other jobs, et cetera, I had a I had a sense that something about that industry was going to feel very lacking for me. And I think it was because I was looking for a job that was much more collaborative. And all the places I’d worked at that point and this is you have to remember, before the big Silicon Valley tech boom that it happened. Right. It was very siloed in the engineering world. You kind of sat at a desk, maybe you worked with a small team, but you really lived in your own bubble. And one of the things that I picked up from an early age was the ability to communicate technical concepts very easily to people. And so it really led me to a passion of wanting to get into consulting. And so I ended up working for Manhattan’s consulting arm. Many people obviously know them for producing some best of breed software in the Supply chain world, obviously. But I worked for their professional services organization. So originally I worked in a group that was specifically responsible for implementing their warehouse management application and just making sure that a lot of their very important customers were satisfied with the technology that they were implementing. So when was that? That would have been, let’s see, around 2007 to 2011. About four years. Okay.

[00:08:25] Wow. So you shoes were big years. I mean, um, yeah, absolutely.

[00:08:31] You shared some of your lessons learned there. You you referred to the silos and you also kind of referred to what you were good at and what it calls you don’t want more and more. But what were some other Lu early lessons that you learned about the world of Supply chain technology?

[00:08:48] I think the biggest thing that’s interesting for most people that don’t do this for a living or maybe are just on the operations side and don’t think about the technology side as much is learning to adjust your expectations for kind of the out of box software that we deal with on a day to day basis that helps us run our lives versus these types of business systems that really are the backbone of oftentimes multi-billion dollar organizations and specifically for companies like Manhattan. One of the things that I definitely did not appreciate until I was really living a day to day was they really do have to be everything to everybody. And I don’t think most people appreciate that kind of challenge. You know, we’re partners with Manhattan. JD A high jump and those three types of companies that say in the warehouse management space to start, they have to be able to fulfill the needs of customers that require systems that support food and beverage operations, as well as retailers as well as automotive companies, side fashion that. They have a different dynamic. Exactly. And all of these companies have a very intense and rigorous requirements and are trying to meet certain dollars and customer service levels. And at the end of the day, these software packages have to be everything to everybody. And so when I initially went in, there was always this sense of like, oh, well, why don’t you do X? Why don’t you do Y? You know, when I use Microsoft Windows, it operates like this. And you really start to realize that creating technology solutions for complex businesses and this sounds really reductive to say, but creating systems that have to support complex businesses is just vastly different than creating kind of general generic consumer driven out of the box software for just you and I as a kind of home users as well as home users.

[00:10:24] We can adapt, right? We have a we have a constituency of one. Right. And if you’re if you’re a corporation. So we talked a little bit about the fact that I when I was at a automotive retailer in Phoenix, then called Northern Automotive, we implemented Manhattan’s warehouse system. And we not only had differences. Because we were a retailer, not an individual dealing with software. But we had differences within the organization. Our Reno DC had different requirements because of the product that it put it. It had flowing through it. Then our DC in Texas. Right, and or Phoenix and all of those things have to be accommodated in one piece of software. Then you think about the differences that a fashion retailer has. Or or, as you mentioned, food with, you know, with limited shelf life and things like that. There are all sorts of differences. Right. Volume, volume, margin and product type tend to define those customizations, if you want to call them that, that are required within an entity. All right.

[00:11:33] Speaking of food, Geno’s Sandeep was named a rock star in the world of food Logistics. How about that? On the heels of spending time, the Ward Richman, who toured the world with his wife and with our second rock star in less than two weeks. That’s pretty good. Let’s try it. What’s that support that is now that I know he isn’t. He’s so into the food industry, I’m going to have to try a lure. Is that where you went?

[00:11:55] Absolutely. All right. We know he’s an expert.

[00:11:58] So now let’s talk about Veridian Sandeep. I think you’ve done a great job of kind of setting the stage for starting to answer this next question. But

[00:12:08] You’re going back to the why so important, especially these days? I think all of us when we when we meet with business leaders or our organization leaders or unit or entrepreneurs in general, you know, while they start companies, while they start noble missions, while they start products, new ideas, you name it. So what was your why for founding Veridian?

[00:12:30] I’d say the biggest reason was I had noticed that there was an opportunity to try to become more efficient. And ultimately what we were delivering. Right. I was working at an end as an independent contractor at the time. And so just kind of doing my own thing, trying to help out where I could provide expertise where I could. And it became very quickly to me that there was a lot of complacency and stagnant in the Supply chain world. And wanting to find ways to try to just push things forward was always the I’d say the core driver. Also, timing wise, you know, we started Veridian in 2011 or late 2011, and that was also around the time where everybody I felt like universally agreed that, you know, Supply chain had become this very, very distinct vertical, if you will, in any important business.

[00:13:16] And we no longer were convincing people that they needed to upgrade their supply chain systems. Everybody even bought a present. Everybody universally agreed that there was always our lie, that there was always benefit. However, could you do it efficiently enough to make sure you realize that are a lie? And so our focus as an organization at the time in its infancy was to quickly then realize that what we needed to do was no longer convince people that they needed to acknowledge the supply chain and invest in it.

[00:13:43] It was like, how do we help you invest in it quickly, efficiently, so that when you’re getting all the realization of that RLA you’re looking for, because we’d started hearing so many horror stories of people kicking initiatives off that ultimately just spiraled out of control. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:13:57] I mean, the scope creep just became unmanageable. All right. What do you. What is it? This is what is it that you do differently that you think is, you know, that that you recognize that was causing that to happen? What is it? How is have you reconciled that?

[00:14:15] It took me a while to bake this into our philosophy and I actually took this away from working with organizations that did nothing related to Supply chain. I started picking the brains of other teamone entrepreneurs who ran financial services companies, financial implementation companies, other tech services companies, just a bunch of different people that I’d kind of met throughout the way. And and really the biggest thing that they all told me was to simplify your approach to everything. And the most interesting advice I got in that was finding ways to remove emotional components from your decision making. I think what most people realize is that a lot of a lot of different organizations and companies you are oftentimes with key decisions led to one person having to make that choice. And so making sure that my partner, Jason Rosen and I founded Veridian with had a good back and forth and a series of checks and balances to make sure that we were never making impulsive decisions to either feed our egos or to convince people of things that were not necessarily in the company’s best interest. And outside of that, I think one of the real things that that has helped to inspire is a very strong dedication for the truth. I think with really complex technology systems, it’s easy to have a sense of complacency and understanding how they work and what that means. And so what we always do and one of the common things that we have in many of our think tanks and group sessions that we do together is making sure that we’re challenging each other to find those deeper answers. And so always asking each other, you know, are we at the bottom yet? Have we figured out every detail of everything that transpires or are we making implicit assumptions that we’ve not called out and making sure to avoid those emotional decisions and implicit assumptions? I think probably the two bedrocks of what’s made us really successful.

[00:15:59] That’s that’s really important. I mean, to to take the emotion out of it and then to to see the solution all the way through. It’s so natural when you. Think about trying to train somebody to do a job, right? If it’s a job you’ve been doing for any period of time, you skip over 40 percent of the steps or more because they’re ingrained into you. Right. And you have to explicitly state all of those in order to solve the problem. So that’s a really good approach.

[00:16:27] Yeah, implicit assumptions. It’s it’s been, you know, from our culture standpoint and one of the things that we’ve really focused on as an organization this year and 2019 is we we’re just making sure that everything that we are assuming that’s just baked into the way we think is articulated to somebody. And it’s a challenge. And when we’re by no means successful all the time, but it’s been a real learning experience, I think for everybody to just showcase to us that on a day to day lives with the people that we’ve known for a long time, how many assumptions that we make. And you know what? In my experience, those those are the things that derail projects and derail successful implementations of really anything.

[00:17:02] We know you’re fighting the human element when it comes to tackling implicit assumptions because the challenge is so far beyond just supply chain. But it’s who we are, right? It’s so dangerous that these assumptions we make on an hourly basis. All right. Let’s continue down this line and then tell us a little bit more around what the Veridian organization provides.

[00:17:27] So at the simplest of levels, what I tell people that don’t work in the Supply chain world is that we are supply chain problem solvers. So anything from order capture and digital commerce through the fulfillment lifecycle, warehousing, transportation, order management, oftentimes with the procurement and manufacturing side as well, we really just love solving problems with technology in the supply chain space. And so our business is really divided into three major groups. We have a kind of design and advisory practice that really just focuses on high level supply chain transformation initiatives and walking executives through what we’ve seen be really effective and in providing our guidance and solutions that we’ve implemented successfully in the past. We have a professional services arm, which is probably our biggest group, where we are the people that are boots on the ground doing the actual solution ing, you know, the real core of the problem solving at a very tactical level, helping people’s dreams become realities, if you will. And then we also have a product offering which was originally built to help our consultants be more effective. That has now become kind of third stream of our business as well, where we’ve focused a lot of time and energy into tools and utilities and now products that help to make the implementation process better. We won’t once we realized that it wasn’t a matter of convincing people that they needed to do these projects, that we just needed to show them how to do it efficiently and quickly and save a lot of money doing it. It became a really appetizing thing for many of our customers.

[00:18:51] Fantastic. You know, it’s it’s. Amazing to see how often you you create a product for your internal use that becomes valuable to to a greater whole. Right. And I think that’s something that I’ve seen happen so often that have actually turned into businesses for companies. So it’s interesting that you were able to do that.

[00:19:12] Yeah. If you think about it, it makes a ton of sense. Right. If you’re somebody who’s trying to create something, whether it’s somebody like us who’s just trying to have utilities to be better and faster, or let’s say you’re trying to develop the next new exciting app out in California or whatever it may be, you realize that if you’re building something that you yourself would use, you’re you’re honoring a certain sense of yourself as a part of that. And I think that’s really important, because I think another reason that really is that we do well is I think people know that we really believe in these products. Like, I don’t I don’t just go out and try to hock our automate platform to to people because it’s a it’s a revenue stream for us. I do it because I really believe in it. I originally built it for ourselves. And so and then that’s ultimately what made it popular, too. So I think that goes a long way in being able to really support and stand behind something you genuinely believe in. And I think people pick up on that.

[00:20:03] Yeah. Well, and one of the biggest hurdles to adopting technology is show me somebody who’s been successful using it. And when it’s you, that’s a that’s really a great story. Yeah, right. I mean, I think that speaks volumes to be able to do that. Yeah. Congratulations.

[00:20:17] Absolutely. Very rewarding. All right. So let’s shift gears here. Here with this next question. So what do you believe? Sandeep are some of the biggest gaps related to project to both project implementation and management in the business world today?

[00:20:32] Yeah, I’ve I run into a few fairly regularly. One that’s really interesting to me is the fact that our technology solutions are still fairly siloed. If you think about the supply chain space, everything’s still pretty segmented. You’ve got warehouse management systems, transportation systems, ordering systems, demand planning, procurement, et cetera, et cetera. And it continues to grow. And we’ve gotten better at communicating within these systems and sending information back and forth. And as technology continues to evolve, what it will do well. But the human element that still doesn’t really go away because these silos that we create still just naturally pose challenges structurally. All right. The example that I love to give people a lot is if you think about transportation and warehousing, that is a really, really nice meeting point of two of these different silos. And if you think about the importance to your business, it’s one of the really critical marriages in terms of being able if you just think about shipping costs in general. It’s definitely a transportation heavy world. But the warehousing, how we box things, how we package them up, how we palatine them, how we haven’t ready for the carrier that’s going to pick them up. All of those components are very tightly integrated still. And we haven’t really began to solve those problems in my mind from a technology standpoint. We’re getting a lot closer and we’re getting better, but that’s one that I see that’s in my opinion, ignored really often.

[00:21:50] And so from a project perspective, you have sometimes different product owners or different project teams that are implementing these two products. And it’s it becomes a challenge because neither really goes into it with that right kind of mindset and mentality. And so I think being able to level set with people across various businesses and business units like that to to learn to collaborate together on meeting overall company objectives. Right. If you’re looking to find ways to provide your customers, let’s say, Amazon style shipping options so that they’re getting their products as fast as possible. That’s not something that you can just say, hey, w a team, go figure it out. Hey, transportation team, go figure it out. These are faster exact takes. Like these are these are joint initiatives that companies have to think about at an enterprise level. And ultimately this leads into my second piece, which is creating the appropriate incentives for these people and teams to not only work together but embrace change. If the cultural impact of these projects is always so ignored in my mind, in the sense that we have all these people that oftentimes were thrusting change upon massive, massive amounts of change, which through, you know, millions of years of human existence, we know that we generally don’t love, or at least not initially.

[00:23:00] And so being able to create the world where we have incentives for people to want to buy into this change, want to buy into this progress, and so that they’re much more collaborators rather than resistors of it, I think is is really critical. An example I’ll give it. That is right.

[00:23:13] Right. Quit for a shared example. Is this something that I can use on my three kids at home? Greene embracing change is different.

[00:23:20] It’s something we can honestly think. Maybe that’s the example. I think you’ll notice a lot of the things I talk about though.

[00:23:27] I’m I’m trying to draw from other aspects of my life. So that way they are applicable everywhere. And I think that’s been the real key, is that it’s probably not that there is some secret sauce to supply chain as much as it is that just like with anything else, you have to keep a sound mind, you know, draw from all of your life experiences and everything, you know, and just make the best the best decision for yourself. Your and the example I was going to give was a few years ago, back when we really saw an uptick in everybody coming to us saying, hey, we really got. A move from a multichannel approach to an omni channel type of a world. And the first thing I always heard was what types of technologies, what order management system? Well, warehousing system. Do I need to get or how am I going to make this successful? And I said omni channel is more of a mindset than it is a systemic thing that you’re going to do, our structural thing you’re going to do. And until you at a corporate level, at a cultural level, can incentivize these organizations that have historically been pitted against each other to now start sharing, collaborating. You’re going to have a very difficult time because the incentives just aren’t there. I think all human behavior is driven by incentives. We’ve seen that pretty pretty vividly over the course of human history. And so I think from a project management and implementation standpoint, incentives are another thing that are just very, very often overlooked.

[00:24:39] And one of the big challenges to making these things successful, I think your ability you you were brought in emotional question, right? How do we get from multi-channel to omni channel? It’s a very fine line. Like you said, maybe even just a perspective of what the real difference there is. And you have to manage that emotion at the start of a project. Right. You have to get people thinking rationally rather than thinking in key words and phrases and and get them to understand the bigger picture here as you as you start to bring them into this kind of transition.

[00:25:14] Yeah, absolutely. If we had an example that even comes to mind where we had ultimately three vice presidents that oversaw the three channels of an organization that wanted to move the omni channel. And what I think people forget about is, is the human element of that. Yeah. These are these are three individuals that had to slaved away at their jobs to climb to certain heights. And I’m sure that they always really aspired to and wanted to. And on paper, the idea of moving to an omni channel world makes tons of sense for the business. But these are not three individuals who have to reconcile that. You know, they’ve kind of climbed to the top of their little world and and now it’s changing consistently and pretty aggressively. And so, yeah, being able to make sure that those key stakeholders are really invested in your project as it is.

[00:25:57] Another thing is, say, just overlooked quite well in a lot of the I mean, a lot of the issues that have been created in Supply chain have been because of the existing structure of companies. Look, I’ve worked I’ve worked with a lot of traditional retailers who when they decided they were going to go e-commerce in the late 90s. Right. Or whenever it was, they had a separate organization. They built an entirely separate organization because the store operations and the traditional merchandising organization didn’t want that Web thing dragging down their bonus. You talk about incentives that those incentives are part of the reason that the solution for for e-commerce is so complex now. Right. I mean, in in reality, this is going to sound Pollyannish a little bit. But in reality, I mean, not to oversimplify it. Why is a web why is an e-commerce platform not an additional outlet like a store? It’s not because we restructured the organizations of at retail so that we took the risk away from the existing organizations and placed it on a new organization which inherently created duplication of nearly every task and in the chain. We all live or we work rework. Right?

[00:27:12] We love duplication. Yes. Well, we love our bonuses, which is really the Lu.

[00:27:16] That’s really the the impetus for that.

[00:27:19] So and I think our audience heard from Chico, our mascot, a second ago. So let’s talk about some of your other experiences. And she felt very strongly about the transformation. Yeah. Sandeep.

[00:27:35] I can tell just sitting into the first 25 or so minutes for interview. Everything is connected in your mind. And it’s really fast. I didn’t pick this up on our earlier conversations, but clearly, as you describe it, what you’re you know, your lessons learned and kind of your approach to not just business but life, everything is very interwoven. It’s very interesting and very deep. By the way, I want to go back and study on some concept where you can see why Inception is his favorite movie.

[00:28:01] I mean, you really can. I mean, truthfully thinks in that way a lot. But yet I realized, by the way, that this conversation was over my head when he said physics for fun.

[00:28:12] That’s you.

[00:28:16] I know. I would wouldn’t ordinarily say this, but you are a very special mind. I mean, you know, I’m I’m a big believer that when you are exceptional, you have to recognize and acknowledge that you don’t have to brag about it, but you have to acknowledge that.

[00:28:28] And you do have a very special perspective on things. And you’re very intentional and thoughtful about topics that are and are not naturally interwoven. So that I think that probably boats you is probably been a huge contributor to your success.

[00:28:47] Yeah, I appreciate that. I do like to think that they just add the breadth of experiences does does contribute a lot. To it, every every every type of book I’ve read on the matter and every person I kind of talked to in life. That’s really successful. They talk about almost they almost never have special lights that they just they try to approach each situation with the same. I’ll call it problem solving framework. And the first time somebody told me about having a problem solving framework. It really, really stuck with me. And because it was somebody who had spent a long time in the aviation industry, then went to go work for Wall Street, then had a little stint in Supply chain, really just bounced around and followed his heart a lot. And then that was a really, I think, foundational advice that he gave me is that if you can just learn to solve problems in the sense of taking inputs, remove emotional concepts and just make the best decision possible with all the parameters you have known to you, you’re generally going to be fine in life. And so I try to use that a lot. Then that’s how it feels.

[00:29:45] All right. So let’s let’s let’s gather some of your other observations. Sandeep, you’ve worked with some of the bigger, more recognizable names, certainly in Supply chain, if not beyond, between Manhattan Associates, High Jump JD Software. So what are some of your how business is done? Observations that you’ve made that our listeners could benefit from?

[00:30:06] I think the most interesting thing in working with all those best of breed packages, theirs is just a gateway that you start to get into the insights of how different types of businesses run and just all these different industries and verticals and how it all kind of comes together. And, you know, originally I thought it was really fascinating in terms of, oh, look, these are the unique types of problems people are solving. Button the thing that again, that that I come back to that I find the most interesting in terms of how all those companies are starting to behave now is they’re really starting to take a lead, in my opinion, from Silicon Valley and just kind of more modern consumer driven tech. For decades, we saw a very standoffish Microsoft just chest puffed out where the best we don’t do any work with other organizations. We don’t build a ton of integrations with other types of products. And I’d say in the last 10 years or so, they’ve really shifted away from the real and have gone to a much more collaborative model, because I think just like with the rest of the world, we’ve realized that we were heading toward a much more individually driven consumer experience because of technology. People have the scale and reach that we’ve never had before. And so now we are no longer thinking about groups of individuals. We are thinking about an actual individual themselves. And so I think what’s been really interesting with a lot of these technology companies is how they’ve embraced a lot of those same types of philosophies.

[00:31:23] Scalability is a is a really great example of one. You know, some of these organizations are moving to SAS based transportation, warehousing, order management systems, being able to provide the smallest startup with the supply chain needs that they have at an affordable price and being able to scale that up to, you know, a fortune five type of a company, if that’s the the road, their journey leads them down. And so I think that scalability has been a really interesting kind of advent in Hallmark in our space. I don’t think we’ve ever really seen anything like it before. We’ve we’ve certainly worked with a lot of smaller customers over the last decade or so that have told us things like, oh, well, we can’t afford to purchase package X because it’s typically for, you know, much larger Industrial scale types of organizations. And I think that’s been one of the really interesting movements forward in that same vein. I think we see a lot of focus on being nimble, right. Technology is evolving continually faster and faster. So it’s not only is it evolving at a faster rate, but it’s accelerating at a faster rate now. And so being in that constant state of flux and change is really important. And I think a lot of, you know, originally speaking, even as recently as 10 years ago, did these software packages seemed a little bit bulkier, a little bit bigger, a little bit harder to to move, if you will.

[00:32:38] And I think all of the organizations, even, you know, even some of the ones in the ERP space like Oracle and SJP, everybody’s moving to trying to become more and more nimble, because now that everybody knows the value of these systems, they also are incentivized to make sure that it’s quicker. And then lastly, I think the thing that’s really cool is the openness of it, just like I was kind of talking about with Microsoft and how they’re learning to partner more and more with other products outside their ecosystem. I think all these companies are learning to do the same. You know, we see a lot of conversation around warehouse execution systems and other types of communication that say if you have a, you know, J.D. H.W. mess in Manhattan’s transportation system, learning how those two two systems can talk to one another, I think you’re seeing people embrace partnerships more, realizing that the individual consumer, even though if you kind of transpose that to a business landscape, that individual business still wants to slice and dice their technology ecosystem however they choose. And so they want to choose partners and providers that allow them that flexibility and openness of being able to say, hey, we’re going to use this module from this specific package and this other module from this other package, because that’s what meets our needs.

[00:33:44] Right. Right. And the technology exists today to enable that. Right. With APIs, I mean, it used to be that one of the ways that people kept closed. Open was they would hold their integration very close to the vest. They wouldn’t. There were companies, I recall when I was in the automotive trade. They didn’t even allow the customers to have access to the data. And, you know, I think of where those companies are now. Hopefully they’ve gone straight to hell where they deserve. You know, I think of where those companies are now and they don’t exist, right? I mean, it is rare that anyone, including Apple, who in the 80s held their data and there’s their solutions very close to the vest, even they have have integration capabilities as well. Right. So there it it’s necessary. It is personalization. So we had Cindy logo on a few weeks ago from Cap Gemini and she was talking about personalization of the of the e-commerce or the retail environment. She called it a batch of one. It’s not dissimilar in that a B2B organization might want that same kind of consideration of their technologies solutions.

[00:34:58] I mean, long gone are the days of are you an IBM shop? Are you an Oracle shop? That’s kind of the question that was asked, you know, 15, 20 years ago. Right. In the technology space. Now people have realized that there are an abundance of options and they should choose the ones that make the most sense for the organization, pick and choose. Think of it like just like a technology buffet, if you will.

[00:35:18] I mean, we have our cert title. Thank you very much. Sandeep technology buffet. A lot of that. But but you know that that’s going back to what you said way back when you got kind of a knack of of of sharing complex technology solutions or concepts in the simple way. I think that’s a great example. Everyone can picture a buffet. Everyone’s been through a buffet. And that’s kind of where we have evolved to. All right. All right. So so let’s go broader here again. Let’s talk about in the bigger picture. Indian supply chain industry. What are one or two trends or challenges or issues that are on your radar more than others right now?

[00:35:57] I’d say the thing that comes to us the most right now is customers, both existing and prospective coming to us saying, hey, we really need to implement artificial intelligence into our supply chain. There’s just so many opportunities for us to be having savings. And the question I always ask back to them is really, if you have any examples, please share those with me because I end it and I ask in a very earnest way in the sense that, you know, narrow the scope down for me. And I always get answers that are pretty empty for the most part.

[00:36:27] And I think this is a really good example. Artificial intelligence, in my opinion, is 100 percent a tool in the toolbox that that that is something that has a time and a place in how it’s evolved. Currently today. But it’s not this be all end all solution for everything like I was talking about before. I think people see technologies and oftentimes feel the need to adapt to them just because they know it’s new and they know it’s sexy. And they might think or somebody told them that it’s going to be the next big thing. And so we have lots of people coming to us because they are not only taking account themselves, but the organizations that they lead, the oftentimes a multi-billion dollar publicly traded organization that they lead. They have to make sure that they are doing the best for the people that don’t rely on them. And so they’re oftentimes led with these very complex decisions. And it’s hard to remove your emotions from it. Right. That’s one of the big reasons I always tell people is talk to somebody on the outside, don’t internalize it, because you ultimately will be at the mercy of your own decisions. And the worst part is we don’t even know when we do it. We we rationalize things in so many different ways in our own heads that that kind of external accountability really helps.

[00:37:35] And so artificial intelligence is one that I spoke at a conference about earlier this year, because it’s something we’ve invested a lot of in our own internal dollars and cents in to to really figure out what problems should we be solving because it’s such a wide breadth of a toolset. And there are so many problems available to be solved in our industry, I feel like, or at least areas for improvement. And so being able to find the right ways to do it and transportation planning has been one that I’ve personally found super interesting because there are so many potential variables and variance and being able to pull in weather projections and understanding how that impacts demand, which is another area that we play around a lot with this stuff in the demand planning space. Right. Artificial intelligence to me in Supply chain right now is at its most meaningful when it’s ultimately trying to recreate or forecast kind of buying demands or supply chain demands and then taking into things like, oh, when it’s particularly hot, you know, companies that, you know, one of our customers is a big water distributor when it’s really hot that their sales go up.

[00:38:36] And so being able to take really rudimentary information and bake it into forecasting and planning, stuff like that, I think there’s tons of really practical applications of it. But there are also many people that say, hey, here’s a problem and I want you to use artificial intelligence to solve it. And we come back a lot of times and say that that we don’t need to like that. There are there are simple just, you know, linear algebra solutions that can solve these problems. Like there are no human elements. There are no unknowns or variables that we’re trying to quantify and simulate. You know, everything. Into it. Exactly.

[00:39:08] If you’re you know, if you if you wonder whether you need artificial intelligence, I was at a conference in, I think April and Danny Longo, who has Unity Interactive. So it’s a they use a guy for gaming and he is arguably one of the top minds in A.I.. He gave some examples of some things that aren’t A.I. Siri, for example, is not A.I., right. That’s linear programming. And when you think about those problems that that don’t require A.I., you realize that sometimes and we’re in that stage with this application, it’s sometimes a solution looking for a problem. And it’s like you you get out of the emotion, you look for you look for what is the goal, what is the solution that you know what what is it we’re trying to accomplish and then develop a solution that’s appropriate for it. And maybe it’s a I and maybe it’s not. And we’re narrowing in on that. And, you know, and I think that the beauty of that is that A.I. has become so commodities already, thanks to our friends at Google and NWS and Microsoft that you can try it versus linear programming in a fairly affordable way. And you can prove that this is a problem that doesn’t require all of that learning. Yeah, right. Mm hmm. Yeah. It’s good to hear somebody speak rationally about A.I. because it’s I think that’s the case for everything.

[00:40:35] Not even just a idea. It’s always just technology in general. It’s tools in a toolbox. That’s what I always try to tell people. And the better you’re gonna get it. Problem solving, you’re just going to add more tools to that tool box.

[00:40:45] Yeah, yeah, yeah. You don’t want to. You do want to implement A.I. for a solution that you’ve ill conceived and watch it learn really, really fast how to do things wrong. Well, it’s just like a customer saying, hey, I want I want a great hole dug, but I want you to use this wrench. You wouldn’t you? I mean. Yeah. The right tools at the right time. Leading with the tools. First you leave with the problem. Exactly. Uncover what the best solution may be. I like that. Yeah. I’m trying.

[00:41:08] I’ve taken so from Sandeep. Use this wrench. Yeah. Yeah. All right.

[00:41:14] So let’s switch gears here. I really as I was checking out Yale’s website, Sandeep, I love the blogs and some of the content I put out and one caught my that and this is one evidently it’s been pretty well received across the digital stratosphere. The state of automation and warehouse management. Tell us, what were your top three key takeaways from this white paper?

[00:41:38] I think the most interesting thing and and I suspect it had something to do with some of its popularity is the kind of raw numbers it presents on people in the next two years, what they’re planning to do with their supply chain technology investments. Obviously, for a company like ours that focuses on transformation projects, that’s pretty pertinent and interesting data. And I think the thing that most people are really interested in there is just the amount of organizations that have stated that in the next two years they’re going to be investing pretty heavily in various types of automation technologies and really just understanding which ones. Right. If I if I’m a company like Veridian or really anybody in the Supply chain space, I see that companies are willing to shell out big bucks on automation. And this is an industry that people are really interested in and it’s an industry that obviously has been around for a while but is evolving pretty quickly in the last I’d say five years or so. And so people have a good track record of working with a lot of these types of companies. And they also have a good baseline of understanding kind of what type of physical automation it was, what the overall requirements are to successfully do when these physical automation projects, because so many people have experiences putting in conveyor systems and other things over the course of the last 20, 30 years or so.

[00:42:45] And so that was probably the most interesting thing is that this is an industry that it looks like it’s going to continue to see more and more investment. So it doesn’t feel like we’ve hit the top here in any stretch. It looks like people are just doubling down even further. And so obviously, somebody that it’s in that space, I was really excited to see that. And that was probably I’d say to me that the biggest the biggest thing that was interesting. But then if you if you kind of dive in a little further into what technologies people are going to be investing in, which the white paper also dives into, you start to see some really interesting things, technologies that have been around for a while. I was expecting to see that people would be phasing them out, that some of the newer technologies in the supply chain space, people would be planning on investing high dollars in that and not spending so much time around upgrades of conveyor systems and other technologies that might be a little bit more antiquated. But what we ended up finding is that not only do people want to spend high dollars in the new technologies, they are also really happy and content with their current technology set so much so that they’re going to be upgrading those. And so I’d like to think of it as really layering on your supply chain tech and automation.

[00:43:51] And that’s what I really love to see, is that it’s not necessarily an ecosystem of just kind of rebirth and death where companies are just kind of coming and going because they have an idea. It’s really good. That idea is no longer relevant in today’s time and it dies off. What we’re seeing in Supply chain. The technology is getting better, but the existing technologies are also in and of themselves improving. And I always just really enjoy that because when I first tried to explain to my parents what Supply chain was, they were really confused like everyone. Right. So any industry where I see an upward trend, I’m always pretty, pretty excited by. And then I think the last thing is right at the most my new level there is specifically I have one of the things I was really interested in seeing is that I think 50 plus 7 percent of the people surveyed there talked about how they were going to be investing in picking automation in the next two years, which is a pretty significant number there. And it coincides with the smell test. But we see a lot as customers coming to us today talking about what I would consider warehouse execution system or some type of picking option automation system. Yeah. And again, for for those who are currently either building or have those types of warehouse execution systems, again, it continues to look very promising for that industry.

[00:44:59] So I think those are the most interesting things that I found is the types of dollars people were investing in, in what magnitude is also where picking is a great example of moving towards automation because, you know, there was such an enormous level of error in that when it was fully human operated. Then we have a voice picking and visual picking and, you know, Google Glass picking even even though many of those were just experiments, some of them actually got implemented and you could see them working towards solving the problem with with some level of automation. Look and look. Automation is you know, I think it’s been sort of a four letter word for a long time. But the truth is, 10000 people are leaving the job force every single day. Right. And that’s going to continue probably up to or through 2030 as the base baby boomers leave the workforce. And there aren’t enough in the next couple generations to replace them. So. Automation is not going to take people’s jobs, it’s going to layer on enhance people’s jobs and it’s going to do the jobs much like A.I. is doing today. It’s gonna do the jobs that aren’t ideally fit for humans, right. I mean, it’s the mundane, it’s the repetitive, it’s the dangerous sometimes that that needs to be done. And we would love to protect human beings from having to do those things and make their job experience much more satisfying. So I think it’s a you know, it’s a natural progression. And, you know, historically, I’ve studied it anecdotally, but historically, you see it accrue to the benefit of humans and allowing us to use our greater gifts more effectively. Mm hmm. Well put. Well put.

[00:46:43] Ok. And to our listeners, you can check out all of the blog articles, white papers on the Veridian info Web site. All right. So we’re big fans of trade shows.

[00:46:52] We love getting out. And it will do a lot of this right there, of course, where we do it Supply Chain Now Radio. It’s creating digital content. It’s kind of tough to create digital content if you don’t sit down and talk to people. So we love getting out to trade shows and industry conferences like we did last week and talk with folks that represent come from a wide variety of walks of life that are solving a wide variety of problems that are facing the Indian supply chain industry. So what on the Veridian calendar? Any big trade shows coming up? Rest Russell year.

[00:47:23] I don’t want to say too many for the rest of the year. Our big trade show seasons typically in spring, but in the ones that we really love to go to. You know, with our obviously with our partners. Shady, a high jump Manhattan. But one of the ones who until earlier this shares our first time attending was shop talk, which I think is now in its third or fourth year. And it was really interesting trade show for us in the sense that I’ve never really seen that much invested into a purely did, not purely a supply chain. But obviously there’s a large, very large supply chain component to it. And just seeing the resources and the turn out and just the overall production of of how that trade show goes. And the thing that I love the most is they philosophically have really captured something that I love in their entire model. If you look at how they incentivize people to come to their trade show, why people would want to come, why. You know, certain customers in the sense that they are looking for supply chain needs. And so if you’re like a brick and mortar retailer or a digital commerce provider, you have certain incentives to show if you you’re a kind of technology services company that’s in the space like ours, they give us varying incentives to want to show up. And the thing that I love about it the most is that all those incentives really involve around just like the same thing you were talking about connecting people and being able to have conversations and for a show of that size. I really, really appreciated how much time and effort they put into being able to have something that’s so massive but still make it feel quaint enough that the right types of people are able to connect with each other. And I think that’s one of the things that I really love about that one.

[00:48:52] Go on, shop talk. And what about it?

[00:48:58] Keynotes. I mean, Europe. I gather you’re out speaking quite a bit, whether it’s trade shows, whether it’s in a true industry association meetings or whether it’s hosting tweet chats. What have you. It seems like you enjoy getting out there and really sharing the passion behind what you’re doing at Veridian.

[00:49:18] I do. I are to be really candid, for a long time I just didn’t know if people wanted to hear about, you know, my personal philosophy is and how they impact supply chain. And so for the longest time, I kept it pretty confined to Veridian. And honestly, even in the early years, I don’t know if I shared too much internally with the team and just kind of some of the things I personally felt as I was still really trying to find my own way as a as a business owner. And so with a lot of positive feedback internally and, you know, some some recommendations for other folks. So, yeah. And I’d say in the last couple of years, I’ve certainly gotten out there more and just tried to spread our message and kind of how we think it. It’s certainly not for everybody. But I do think that a lot of people could could could stand to benefit from some of these ideas. And so I do feel proud to push them out there.

[00:50:01] I can I can tell you that they want to hear your opinion. I mean, that’s why we have a business, is that they want to hear from you. And and and even more, they want to hear your growth along that journey as well. I think a lot of people really enjoy talking with people like Sandeep and an understanding where he is today, understanding that he’s an intelligent guy and that he’s going to get to somewhere else later. I’m talking about it like he’s not here, but they want you know, they want to know where you are now and they want to know where you’re going and they want to be on that journey with you because you just might be going the direction that they want to go. So I think it’s a it’s a really valuable vehicle. Right? I mean, we’ve made a business out of it. Agreed the same thing. Right.

[00:50:45] It’s it’s your business is predicated on ideas and connections and talking to people. And and that’s the thing that I always try to tell everybody, is that it’s it’s so complicated to be alive as a human. How? Did the interconnectivity, the amount of information we have to consume, the stimuli that we deal with on a day to day basis. It is just it is very hard time to just exist and function. And so just finding ways to simplify life and I really focus on that. I just always come back to what’s the idea and what is the thought? Let’s let’s strip everything away. If we focus on that, we have a little bit of a beacon to guide us.

[00:51:19] I think in a way, it’s a good the ass. The aspects of social media, if you will. There are certain aspects of media generally that allow you to latch onto somebody really talented like you and go, I may never meet you, Sandeep, but I really like the way you think. And we can collaborate, right? We can share ideas without ever meeting in the past, kind of stuck in your hole in your office, and you might never meet anybody outside your four walls that could that could enlighten you, right. Or you could share ideas with. So I think I think it’s a you know, it’s a double edged sword. You’re right. But I think there’s there’s a lot of upside to the complexity of the of the universe, if you will. Yeah.

[00:52:02] Yeah. I mean there’s there’s a lot to be done there.

[00:52:05] Just learning to navigate it I’d say. Yeah. And people always ask me like, you know, do you have any tips for young business owners and or people that are wanting to start something new. And the advice that I always give them is just be very comfortable with the fact that just like everybody else in the world, all you’re doing is failing at something until you stop failing. Don’t don’t let the failures get to you. Like it’s just like with every other aspect of your life, you’re not going to be very good at it to start. Great. Don’t let it discourage you.

[00:52:31] Get used to eating peanut butter and jelly or rice or whatever your favorite cheap meal ramen. Ramen noodles.

[00:52:37] So I want to touch on so much what you all just shared that last segment. But for the second tower and keep driving. So Sandeep working folks. Learn more. Reach out to you and connect with the Veridian team. Yeah, absolutely. The easiest place is our website.

[00:52:52] It’s Veridian dot info and we’ve got some social media accounts with the same name Veridian info on Twitter and Instagram, etc. So you can always just see what we’re up to there. The blogs and white papers like you said earlier, also on the website as well. And those are a really good slice and do some of the ideas and feelings and just overall thoughts. So we you know, we try to put out there on a consistent basis. And so once we’ve not now that we’ve seen that there is some really strong appetite for, again, not necessarily action, but at least for ideas, we we felt very compelled to try to do our best to, you know, take on initiatives like this and and get our message out there and share ideas with you gentlemen, as well as some put some content out there on the site as well.

[00:53:30] Yeah, well, I would encourage you to come out and share more. It’s very interesting that your role and what Veridian does is is drive, tackle, digest and show others how how to lead to change. And you know, as entrepreneurs, we all know how change can be stressful and and it creates angst and all. The thing that comes with that, even even with the rewarding side of breaking through change and somewhat comes what comes with that. But there is a sense of calm about you, Sandeep, and I imagine you’ve heard it from other folks. But I can only think that that adds to as folks are sitting across the table and are trying to figure out, OK, who are the trusted resources we’re looking at to bring it in and help us through this ever rapidly growing or speeding along rate of change. So I think that you bring a very unique that’s a unique perspective. I’ll talk more to have you back on the show here, because as we all know, that there’s a huge appetite for how do we do that? That just change in the modern day to day supply chain.

[00:54:40] Yeah, I feel very calm right now.

[00:54:43] I’m serious. Of course it could be. I’m used to change and I feel very much more calm. It could be a degree day with a cool breeze. Vetlanta. Maybe that’s what is has released some of the pressure. Maybe so, but I’ve really Sandeep.

[00:54:55] I really have enjoyed your time here. They we’ve been speaking with Sandeep Patel, managing partner with Veridian. Thanks so much for your time. And thank you guys for being here. We look forward to having you back. Thank you. You bet. And to our listeners again, you can learn more at Veridian dot info. Right. For overwrought wide variety content. Also getting the team there at Veridian. OK, so Greg, we’re going to wrap up. We’re not talking just a second ago about how we’d like to invite folks to come check us out in person. We said we sat down probably with about 20 folks through about 15 different conversations last week at a two day conference. We’ve got a couple of shows coming up in October. But coming up very next is October 9th here in Atlanta. Greg, what’s happening?

[00:55:40] That is the Georgia Manufacturing Summit. The Georgia Manufacturing Association. Right. Our friend Jason Moss. And yeah. October 9. So lots of panel sessions. I think about a thousand attendees from some of the 10000 manufacture. Tours in Georgia and the companies that do business with. Absolutely. You know, we have open borders, so you’re welcome to join. No matter who you are. Um, and, uh, we’re gonna be broadcasting live. So couple, uh, you’re running a panel session, right? Bo Gruber from the Effective syndicate is running a panel session and then we’ll be broadcasting live.

[00:56:17] And we have a couple of exciting potential guests there, some foreign trade ministers from a couple of our neighbors. So, um, yeah, it’s gonna be an interesting and interesting show.

[00:56:27] Big day. Big day. If you love the manufacturing space, as Greg mentioned, it’s come one, come all. It’s it’s one of my favorite events of the year. You can go to Georgia manufacturing alliance dot com and join or sign up. Registration is still open. And if you’re a veteran and you’re interested in a free seat, Jason Moss and Jimmy are giving up 50 free tickets for veterans. If you’re listening to this show and you’re interested in attending. You can use the code USA vets have to sign up for a free seat, OK. Then we’d just recently confirm we’re going back in Charleston on October 20 3rd at the Suzanne SC Logistics fall tech talk. Very good. Yeah. Looking forward to that. A lot of folks from DHL, Supply chain, Volvo, numerous other is going to be at this half day event really dedicated to innovation and technology within the Logistics space, right?

[00:57:19] Yeah. So. So that’s the same group that we were just sharing some time with. Right. And, uh, the beautiful thing about going to Charleston in October is the weather will have broken and it’ll be very pleasant. And this time I think I’ve already mentioned this.

[00:57:34] This time we are definitely going to magnolias for it not miss. So there’s a couple different ways. Learn about the event.

[00:57:41] You can go to SC Competes dot org or you can look up the SC Logistics 20 19 fall tech talk on Eventbrite. Yeah, again, registrations open this Wednesday, October twenty third from 12:00 noon to 5:00 p.m. And then we’re traveling to Austin, Texas with our friends at AFTRA, the CIO Logistics Forum.

[00:58:01] So yeah. So Nick and the gang at EMT putting on an event for about 300. And I think you were mentioning these kind of events, about 300 tech execs and people who want to rub elbows with them and share ideas and solutions with these folks. And that’s the 7th and 8th November. Yes.

[00:58:22] We’re gonna keep Austin and we’re only going to be tweeting each other at the conference. That’s how we’re all gonna talk Daryl a lot. I don’t know if you just that was an all or nothing. The tweets like tweets and Instagram. Oh, Zahra. Oh, my. Okay. I’m gonna have to get my camera fixed so you can learn more e t dot dot com or you can check out the event on our events tab at Supply Chain Now Radio dot com to learn more. We’re looking forward to broadcasting lab there. Two days in Austin. Then of course, the counter flips. While we’re working on a couple of events, we are confirmed to be it the reverse Logistics Association Conference and Expo out in Vegas in February 20 20. Love our friends at RLA. Talk about a hot sector of the Indian Supply chain versus Logistics and returns. Gosh, if you are if you don’t have your strategy figured out there, which you know a lot of companies don’t. RLA has done so much work just to proliferate out best practices. This has been really neat. Be apart there.

[00:59:21] And in March 20 20 Moto X, of course we back here in Atlanta, we’re broadcasting live all four days, us and 35000 of our closest friends. Right. One of the largest supply chain trade shows, North America and Moto X will also be hosting our 2020 Atlanta Supply chain Awards, which we’re excited about. It is free to attend Mode X so you can go to Mode X, show dot com and you can sign up for your free ticket and come out and network and learn a wider variety of best practices all across the supply chain spectrum.

[00:59:54] And oh, everyone is going to meet you. Please go ahead. Yeah. The Atlanta Supply chain Awards the second day, March 10, right? March 10th. Yeah. So, um. Yeah. So we enjoy seeing what’s going on in the Atlanta Supply chain ecosystem. And, you know, give out some awards to some of our top performers.

[01:00:15] I thought you were going to announce our big keynote speaker, which we were really. Yeah. We’ve gone a couple different directions here. But we’re really close to announcing a sea level of a very large. No, I wouldn’t it I would never do that. I would let you do that. You never stepped out of bounds. That’s not me. But present company included. We really enjoyed our time with Sandeep Patel, managing partner of Veridian. Thanks again for joining us, sir. Be sure to our audience. Be sure to check out other upcoming events, replays of our interviews, other resources at Supply Chain Now Radio dot com. You can find us on Apple podcasts, SoundCloud, Spotify, YouTube, all the leading sites where podcasts can be found. Be sure to subscribe. So you don’t miss anything, and so Greg does not break my arm on behalf of the entire Supply Chain Now Radio team. This is Scott Luton, which was a wonderful week ahead and we will see you next time on Supply Chain Now Radio.

[01:01:06] Thanks everybody.