“The economics will always make sense if they [a manufacturer] get caught doing a bad thing and then they lose credibility. Their brand recognition is goes in the toilet. If an organization ignores that risk factor, then it’s going to bite them hard.”

– Tony Sciarrotta, Executive Director of the Reverse Logistics Association

As the goods produced for sale become more complex and expensive, and as the materials used to make those goods become more scarce and costly to dispose of, all of us have reason to stop and think about where our goods come from and where they all go once we are done with them. That thinking serves as the basis of the circular economy.

Rather than everything going from raw material to manufactured good to waste, products and component materials are being reused in ways that go far beyond traditional recycling. In some cases, clever companies and entrepreneurs are dreaming up whole new business models based on the circular economy, just by purchasing goods whose owners are done with them and repurposing them for others who can still extract value at a different price point.

In this interview, Tony Sciarrotta, Executive Director of the Reverse Logistics Association, and Jack Allen, Senior Director of Global Logistics with Cisco, tell Supply Chain Now Radio co-hosts Greg White and Scott Luton about the value proposition and importance of the circular economy:

• Why the market for refurbished or “renewed” goods won’t really take off until there are enforceable standards for ensuring privacy between owners, particularly in the case of consumer electronics
• How new products are being designed differently to make them easier to renew, recycle or dispose of in the long term
• Why a concrete business case beats out altruism every time a company wants to do ‘the right thing’

[00:00:05] It’s time for Supply Chain Now Radio Broadcasting Life Supply chain capital of the country, Atlanta, Georgia. Supply Chain Now Radio spotlights the best in all things supply chain the people, the technology, the best practices and the critical issues of the day. And now here are your hosts.

[00:00:29] Hey, good afternoon. Scott Luton here with you, Liveline Supply Chain Now Radio. Welcome back to the show.

[00:00:34] On this episode, we’re going to be continuing our reverse Logistics series on Supply Chain Now Radio, where we conduct this series in partnership with the Reverse Logistics Association. We’re gonna dove into the fascinating world of reverse Logistics returns and much more. That’s what we’ve been doing. And today we’re featuring a leader from one of the world’s most admired companies who are doing some really incredible things in the reverse Logistics and sustainability space. So stay tuned for more real quick programing note for our listeners. Like all of our series on Supply chain, our Supply Chain Now Radio, you can find our replays on a variety of channels Apple podcast, SoundCloud, Greg’s favorite YouTube. Wherever you get your podcast from. As always, we love to have you subscribe go missing thing. And real quick, thanks to our sponsors which allow us to bring these best practices and innovative ideas to you, our audience. The Effective syndicate ProPurchaser.com Supplychainrealestate.com Talentstream. Anymore. You can check out our sponsors on the show notes of this episode. And let’s say hello to my esteemed co-host here today. Greg White successful supply chain technology entrepreneur, trusted advisor. And in case you didn’t know, a professional tennis champion.

[00:01:45] Hey, don’t grab amateur amateurs. Yes. Yeah, I’m doing great. Thank you. Get some heavyweight belts. It comes with your. Yeah. Well you get in here in Atlanta, you get you get dishes. All right. You either get the salad plate or you get the dinner plate. Yeah. Look, you’re trying for the dinner plate. Well, glad to have you back.

[00:02:09] Well, yeah. Great. Fresh off travels to Texas with the EAF t Logistics CIO of it. And yeah, we’re gonna be continuing kind of continuing the technology discussion many ways with our two guests here today. As always, we love to have Tony Sciarrotta back with us, executive director with the Reverse Logistics Association. Tony. How you doing? We’re doing great here. Great to have you back. We’re really enjoy in this monthly series.

[00:02:34] We. We were ahead of you in Austin and left it clean and pretty for you.

[00:02:40] Yeah, right. Yeah. All did a great job.

[00:02:42] We really enjoyed our time there. And also our featured guests here today, Jack Allen, senior director, Global Logistics with Cisco. Jack, how you doing? Get up, dude. Get Harry out. Doing fantastic. And, you know, I should say repeat guest. Yeah, we had Jack on with us probably about a year and some change ago. And the hits keep on coming. Cisco, we had a. It was a fascinating story at the time. A lot of things we are involved with and it just seems like I’ve written a couple of new exciting chapters. So we look forward to diving into that today. But welcome back. Thank you. OK. So like we typically do with a lot of our podcast, Greg, we like to give our audience the opportunity to get to know our featured guest, right? Yeah. Now, Tony is unforgettable, however, for a handful of folks on the planet, for a handful of folks that may not be familiar with Tony’s background. We do. Tony, let’s start with you. Let’s refresh our listeners memory and kind of give him a sense of who you are to tell us about yourself in a nutshell.

[00:03:42] In in a small nutshell. Right. pickin’. I’m the guy that spent most of his career in sales and marketing and then got thrown into this returns world one day by senior management at Phillips who decided someone had to do something about returns. And so I fell into a niche that I seemed to be very passionate about and very kind of good at it. Really good sometimes by accident, sometimes by intent. And I finally discovered that this reverse Logistics association is a very important part of our ecosystem. And I’ve had the the honor to serve as the executive director and help guide it into a new, new revitalized organization around the world. And I’m proud to say we have been around the world, the Sheer, we’ve been between Las Vegas and then Amsterdam and then Singapore.

[00:04:37] We’ve we’ve traveled the world and it’s been great in-demand best practices on all things reverse Logistics are in demand globally. Right. I guess they want to look at the dark side once in a while. Well, kidding aside, you know, I think clearly we’ve seen your passion on each of these installments. We’ve collaborate in other ways. We’ve seen your expertise, but I think when you talk about building and leading the growth of an organization that requires lots of leadership expertise and bandwidth as well, and clearly from the first time we met almost two years ago now to to where the Aurélie is now asked night and day.

[00:05:16] So can kiddos on that continued growth fund, it’s really more than just an organization. I mean, it’s really an initiative and industry, if you will. I mean, it is you know, we talk about this a lot of times when, you know, when we mentioned the RLA because we do have an event coming up next year. Right. And they where again? Right. So, you know, one of the things that as a practitioner, former retail practitioner, one of the things that I think really ignites my passion around this topic is the fact that Tony and his organization not only want to receive and handle returns, but to do those things that help preempt or eliminate returns. And I think that’s one of the things that was most resounding in the first time that we talked, Tony, was, you know, the preemptive strike, if you will, to try and do those things that make it easier for the consumers to understand what they’re getting and not default to returning it.

[00:06:14] You’re referring to the war between the engineers and myself that went on for way too long. And I was glad to say I won because it was all about that customer experience. The engineers who said, no, we make good product that doesn’t break. And. Right. Right. It doesn’t break. And that just didn’t make it easy enough for people to use. Right. So there’s there’s been a real shift in the ecosystem net promoter score and all those great things have really changed the world. And so as Amazon, which, by the way, I get to put in a plug that Amazon is now a board member of reverse Logistics authorization, outstanding. And I mentioned that I’m not the smartest guy in the room these days. I am honored and very proud to have very smart people on my advisory board, including Amazon, Dell, HP, and, of course, Jack from Cisco.

[00:07:02] Well, on that note, you know, and we’re fortunate to have Jack back with this. The last conversation we had here was very well received, got a lot of feedback on that. And Jack, appreciate what you do out in industry, too. I mean, is busy. You are. We talked about this over lunch. You’re on a plane. You’ve got a family, you know, three hours of sleep each night. But then also give up some of your time to serve on these advisory boards. Like what? Great work RLA doing. We really appreciate that. So let’s dove into who Jack Allen is. So tell us more about yourself. And we’re starting maybe. Where are you from?

[00:07:36] Yeah. So I was born in Michigan, grew up in Ohio, but moving south ever since it someday I’ll probably head up by the equator. Right. Guess I like more right now. I bet in Atlanta, Georgia, for about 35 years maybe.

[00:07:51] So, you know, you get your native badge at 20. I hear these days you get to double up all Miura.

[00:07:56] Well, I got to tell you this, that I probably should Dave Davies. But I asked my brother in law, who actually is a native Georgian. What year get a win? I would be a Southerner. I’ve been to the South since I was 18. And he said, never, you will never be inside.

[00:08:13] Whereas you rode along from what part of Georgia?

[00:08:15] Remember, I believe he is from Abedi, Georgia.

[00:08:20] That’s what he is. They probably already had trouble. They don’t even consider people from Atlanta. So. All right.

[00:08:29] So let’s let’s talk about the time you include. You’ve been here almost 35 years. Kind of your professional journey leading up to your role now where you’re the leader in global Logistics. Talk more about that journey.

[00:08:44] Yeah. Do you want. Yeah. See, the time is very fun. Give us the fun. Birgit. Yeah. I was afraid. Yeah. So my first degree is actually it Bre-X biology. I. I cut up a lot of sharks when I was at school.

[00:09:01] I was on a National Science Foundation grant. I did a lot of Bre-X. Biology takes it. It’s I went to work in the Bahamas for a small nonprofit field station on an island called andresse Island. And again, I probably should say this in case that you would from behavior to immigrations is less vague.

[00:09:19] But but I got deported from the Bahamas because I did not have a war story illegally here. What a great place. Yeah, it’s all right. So said they were going to put me in prison.

[00:09:36] When our plane landed in that side and I talked about of that, which was great, but I had to find something to do. So.

[00:09:43] So I went to North Carolina to, you know, wait till a work permit came through and I ate it up doing work as a jeweler. They I started a company, a factory company that actually built rings, you know, diamonds and stuff like that for Zales. That was when I learned that. Loved manufacturing. But the business was too small. So I sold it to my business partner, moved to Atlanta. Curiously enough, Scott, I did.

[00:10:09] This is hard to believe, but Dellwood would hire a breed biologist, jeweler as a manufacturer guy.

[00:10:16] I mean, it just I don’t read it at work, you know? Clearly, no vision. Yes, exactly. Sorry.

[00:10:23] Go to Georgia Tech so that I could I could reinvent myself. I ended up working for a company called Scientific and Alanda and they beat offer and a ticket.

[00:10:33] You know, I read factories and warehouses and, you know, most of the supply chain cut jobs. I got her materials because when I was a factory guy, I used to complain about materials all the time. So my boss, you know, gave me materials for by CID’s. Now it’s how I got into Logistics. You know, I got to a point where we were kind of managing the supply chain processes for all the factories around the world. And then we got bought by Cisco.

[00:10:59] Would they I got a phone call saying, hey, I want you to interview for this Logistics job. I was kind of, you know, been there, done that. I don’t feel like I need to do that. But but they could be it, too, turned out to be a great job.

[00:11:15] The media was it was it’s probably the best job I ever had in my life. And we’ve turned it to we’ve turned that job to not just daily operations, but into a really innovation cutting edge. Let’s change the supply chain. Let’s move the industry.

[00:11:32] We’ve opened up to innovation centers. It he started it in Turkey, Istanbul, Turkey. And now we’re working on this circular circular economy thing, which is which is really exciting. I have to say. It’s probably one of the toughest business challenges I’ve ever faced in my life.

[00:11:49] It’s it it has all kinds of authority issues, forbid electoral property to to ownership, to software, to a of repair, to the CHATO strategy. So I’ve learned a lot is really it’s really been great. It’s been a great experience.

[00:12:05] Tony, David Parbery guy since I started the Logistics job brings up 10 years. So, you know, so we have a long history.

[00:12:14] So you have some stories you can’t tell us about those last 10 years. Yeah.

[00:12:18] Totus Pretty cool. You know the pictures that I have of him.

[00:12:24] Amsterdam. It’s just not. Go there. Answer to him. Nothing. Right. All right.

[00:12:30] So you mentioned circular economy. We’re gonna dove in deeper on that. So we’ll hold our thoughts there because we really want to define that. I think one of the chain challenges with that, the whole C movement is maybe a lack of understanding. Burgundy’s found that in a second before that, you and I met when you hosted an executive roundtable for the Apex a year ago. We did really well received. That was probably one of the smallest rooms you’ve ever spoken to because you give love like keynotes at Mode X and love other industry events. So here in twenty nineteen, I know you spoke at ESPN twenty nineteen and Vegas a few months back, but what else would have been some of your favorite events to speak at or be a part of here in twenty nineteen.

[00:13:14] Well you know motets always which was this year is such a great event and thrilled that Atlanta is considered, you know, Supply chain City enough for botox to be here. Those people are great. So it’s it’s always one of my best places to go, places to speak.

[00:13:32] This year I’ve been doing a lot of speaking odd, not only the digital disruption that’s happening. Gates. Supply chain. So, you know, that’s a very hot topic, but also circular economy, right? So I’ll give it two or three speeches on circular economy this year. It’s funny.

[00:13:49] I feel like we start to see trends in the industry, you know, couple of years early and suddenly two years later, everybody’s going after and. Right. So I feel like circular economy where we got started was one of those leading edge.

[00:14:03] Now you really hear a lot about it. So it’s it’s gaining a little bit of people realize there’s a lot of value there. And I’m doing a lot of speaking on that topic.

[00:14:13] Mm-hmm. All right. So let’s talk about and back in that reequip mutex great people were on the Great Lakes. We had we had a chance to be up in Charlotte a few weeks ago and sit down with some members of their leadership team, including George Prest that’s been leading the organization for quite some time. And he spent 30 years as an entrepreneur. But prior to that, and just as approachable him in spite all the company accomplishments he’s made, just as as nice and as visionaries. Folks, come here.

[00:14:45] Yeah. What thing? I. Forgive me, but he would kick my tail if I forgot. That’s bad.

[00:14:51] But one of their favorites was we actually was the next generation supply chain war for digital disruption this year. So that speech. Was thrilling. Not not only because I got to talk about my favorite thing, digital disruption, but because we were warned right now.

[00:15:07] So I wanted to work it out. Yes.

[00:15:09] Scott That’s Elana Parsons, the whole team up there that are that make that conference happen. That is an A-plus conference. And looking forward to seeing what you all might be recognized with in 2020. That’s right. OK. So let’s let’s talk about the circular economy. You know, that’s the ten thousand million pound gorilla in the room. That’s what a lot of companies are trying to figure out, how to how to address and make progress in a meaningful fashion, not just, you know, talk about it and lip service. So let’s start I want to get Tony and Jack both the way and let’s define what we talk, what we mean by circular economy first. And Tony, we’re gonna start with you.

[00:15:50] Well, the nice thing about this new term, circular economy being a buzz word, and it truly is and it’s a good buzz word, is that it it’s more encompassing than being a return sky or reverse Logistics sky. That now is the cornerstone of what happens. But circular economy is all about things like we’re not going to run out of resources. We know some point we will run out of resources. So is it better to figure out how to re-use what we’re doing and what we’ve got and design it to be reused and so on? And that way reverse Logistics now becomes pivotal in that chain of bring it back, do something else with it and don’t just throw it away. And that’s an awesome statement. It’s an awesome responsibility. I take it way too serious sometimes, but it’s actually very cool, very important. And the opportunity to think circular versus linear is is mind changing. It’s it’s peer. It’s a paradigm shift in the in the world. And we really love being a part of it and being such an integral part of it.

[00:16:51] It is it’s it’s it’s intentional from concept, concept through design all the way through use and and re-use.

[00:17:02] Right. And that that is not that’s not a perspective that we’ve had in the past. So it is it’s a big, big shift.

[00:17:12] All right. So, Jack, same question. You can’t let the fun. What does that circular economy mean to you?

[00:17:18] Yeah. So let’s start with the big idea.

[00:17:20] You know, honestly, I think that this goes back, you know, 100000 years or a prehistoric times. Think about the way the old economy when you took something out of the ground, let’s say broads, right. You smelt that down. You turn it into an arrowhead in the literature, kind of he says, hey, arrowheads getting old, it’s not pretty anymore. I’m going to throw it away.

[00:17:42] I’m going to get some more stuff out of the ground. I’m going to build another wood, you know, et cetera. Doubt it is a fact that we have bed recycling metals and stuff like that for a long time. But that the Kurds have behind circular economy is you start to think of everything as not take it out of the ground, use it, throw it away, but take it into the ground, use it, figure out a new use for it, change it into something else, use it again. They even sell it again. And that’s the base concept. Now we’re going to pull out my prop here, which the guys of the podcast can’t see that this is an iPhone 8. Right. If you’re if you’re listing, there’s an iPhone 8 to Web site. I really didn’t get the business value for circular economy until I hired this guy from the telcos, these rich Bolger. And imagine that you want to buy not the eight, but the ten thousand dollar iPhone. And you’re like, hey, I just can’t bring myself to pay a thousand dollars for gosh darn phone. I mean, it’s. So now I come to you, Greg, and I say, hey, give me your own fault. Your old phone making up these numbers. But yeah, I’ll give you 250 tutor dollars for your old vote.

[00:18:54] Now, your new phone is only $800, right. Because you got this this old faux discount. Great. I take your old phone and I’m going to sell it for tutor. Fifty bucks. Now I made 50 bucks. Now I layer on software, IT services, and now I’ve got a recurring revenue stream on that old phone that you thought was garbage. And now I make you, buddy. Suddenly you start to see how companies could make money. And when we talk about the planet like Islay found this out the other day, I should have do it. But you have to get gold out of the ground. They take like a ton of rock and they beat it. Sub cases, they pour cyanide on Ryder. Yes. Right. Which goes into the ground. They get it. They get the gold. They have a bunch of cyanide, a ton of rock. There is as much gold in 42 of these iPhones as there is a ton of rock. So if you start to think of things we throw away not as waste, but as a great feedstock for a new kind of mining industry. There you can see the whole circularity thing really starts to make a lot of sense. Right. Jailings, right? Yeah.

[00:20:00] Speaking. So it’s a Netflix. I love the series called Mars, right, and Mars. Their second season just came out. And what’s really interesting to see some is elements you’re speaking of. The core plot of season two is where you’ve got this inner national Nassib, but a global NASA consortium that hit Mars first and started colonizing it. And and science, a science driven in this at any other one season two, they continue that mission, but the for profit mining company arrives as well. And now we have only watch them might be offering spoilers, only watch first episode. You can start to see the competing forces between these two different world views. However, what I heard you say in that example is how it doesn’t have to be an us versus them, right. If you plan and collaborate and and have the right conversations in a well-intentioned manner, everyone can win while it’s minimizing waste and not getting in the way of technology or all these things that we want, just doing it in a smarter, friendlier, especially earth friendlier way. Right. Yep.

[00:21:09] Exactly. Well, and Jack picked a good example with Apple when I was in Austin a couple of weeks ago. Apple is expanding their campus there. That is their Supply chain Logistics hub of the World of the Americas in Austin. And their stated purpose in hiring more and building more buildings is to take back 100 percent of the old phones. That’s their goal. And Jack nicely pointed out that there’s a little bit of gold involved there, too, and there’s value in that. So it’s not completely altruistic. It is altruistic in the sense that they want the old phones back and that’s the part of their responsibility to the circular economy. So that’s their stated goal. We want all old iPhones back, loved that.

[00:21:49] We’re going to have someone from Apple wherever up Dubbo’s through the years with varying folks involved with apples, especially their distribution side. We’ll have to have someone whom we should have while we were in Austin. Greg, we should have rode down a road and gotten a quick interview. I had no idea that was their big hub. Speaking of returns, Jack was talk about, you know, one of the things we want to dove into next is holistically Cisco’s approach to the circular economy and returns that top of the list. So speak to that a little bit as far as in terms of how Cisco approaches returned with CRM on. Yeah, sure.

[00:22:26] And Cisco has had a long history of doing a good job with returns.

[00:22:31] It was a guy named Dave Gilbert who roughly 10 to 12 years ago started to see that, hey, a lot of this stuff was more valuable than a corporation gave it credit for.

[00:22:41] We’ve been recycling ever since that if we recycle about ninety nine and a half percent of everything that we do right Gladdy Ga contract, maybe factories. But when you think about returns, we weren’t doing a great job of getting the highest and best use of those returns. So recycling is great. But it’s kind of would step above a landfill. You really want to be able to repurpose that gear and reuse that gear. If you think about. Think about Cisco as kind of our Mercedes. Right. It’s a privilege to own Cisco. It’s an expensive privilege. If we could take those returns, refurb out, clean the data off so our customers are secure in the knowledge that they they don’t have to worry about their data going out.

[00:23:26] Right.

[00:23:27] If we clean it for malware and we put new software on it and now we could sell it at a reduced price, we’ve suddenly created a whole other market for Cisco product, people who couldn’t afford it before. Right now, we’ve expanded our market. This baby, super crazy. But I actually could see a world where technology that we take for granted. But is it accessible for a lot of the world? Because the price point now sadly becomes accessible and available to even at very low tech villages in India or China or any other country. You know, we do that. It works because we’ve seen it work with folks. Did it? Countries like Aruba. Right. We can’t do this. We can give the rest of the world the benefit of the things that we take for granted in America. So that’s kind of our approach.

[00:24:16] And so a Sauk refurbishment and if our testing out a little bit more. You know, I think it’s so important or so much that we pick on 80s from. All the stuff we throw out, the one you stuff, and it goes straight to the landfills. If there’s been anything that I mean, I think I’m aware and we’ve talked about this for a thing, I’m we’re in a referrers watch. I think some of their equipment is refurbished. That seems be one mindset shift that has been successful, especially from an automobile standpoint. Right. Because the price points are different. But does that that seemingly stuck when it comes to refurbishment Ryder or else seeing the same thing in your. Year Four Corners of the world.

[00:25:00] Well, there’s the new concept that Jack was referring to. It’s a Mercedes. And now it’s a certified pre-owned Mercedes. And that terminology is starting to slowly come over to the refurb world rather than call it refurb. You’re calling it renewed. And by the way, Amazon is leading the world on that, too. They’ve got that whole new category of goods called Amazon renewed. It’s a global business unit. They’ve invited me to participate in some of their conferences. They’re there for their team, but they are really focused on that standard of of excellence with renewed goods as well and establishing what has been common in the auto industry and in the auto industry. Is Jack’s referring to now you’re able to get a Mercedes or get a Cadillac at a significantly great value and you’re being confirmed that it’s been through significant testing. Now, is it 100 points testing Krauze, if it’s really true or not, but at least they’re putting that terminology on there, so they’re gonna have to stand behind it more so than the typical used car lot.

[00:26:03] And that’s the key. I have a standing behind it is what gives the consumer the confidence to actually do it right. My only buy CPO cars, matter of fact. So I set up certified pre-owned. Yep. Sorry. Other acronyms. New acronyms. Sorry. Yeah.

[00:26:19] You say Amazon renewed is out of sight and renewed. OK. Yeah, right. And that’s been that’s been around around for a little while. But they’re still kind of. If I heard you right. Filling out their way in terms of how the the masses might buy into it more.

[00:26:34] Is that fair? They used to have warehouse deals and things out of box Web sites on their marketplace. All right. Companies, they’ve tried to. There’s trying to steer away from that and make everyone become a renewed partner. And you signing the agreement that you will live up to certain standards. You have the quality of the product, but also to Greg’s point that you’ll take care of the customer. You’ll stand behind it completely. And now Jack and I get into the discussion maybe a little bit about the fact that you do really have to protect people on this stuff. Yeah. Yeah. We have no idea of how much data is available on these electronics gears. We’ve talked about that a little bit before that. I hoti experience and so on. But boy, protecting that and making sure nothing’s on there because somebody somewhere is going to get a phone one day or get a computer or get a server that didn’t get cleaned. Right. The world’s going to hear about it and it’ll be his biggest Equifax nightmare and so on.

[00:27:29] Yeah. So what you’re referring to is if someone bought a used phone and when the seller turned it in or sold it, they didn’t use the why-why feature. Right. Right. So.

[00:27:43] Well. Or beyond. I mean, yes. All white features, as I think our previous guest would probably attest to, is probably not sufficient to clear to clear the device. Right. So you wind up with the president of Lithuania’s cell phone virus and Ukraine. I’m glad you picked Lithuania. I’ve already got the president background, cell phone, actually. So you need anything? Let me know.

[00:28:09] But if you want you want you wind up with a device like that, you could compromise the security of an entire nation. Yeah, right. Right. And that’s the story that’s that’s going to break.

[00:28:18] Well, I’ll give you a great example, because I am acquainted with your previous guest. This ever Sukekiyo was at a conference and there was a guy, that Ukrainian German guy, he was actually talking about hroob buzz. And he said that it’s really incredibly difficult to completely wipe because the bevery modules want to continually store blocks. So they’ve got redundancy if one of those Bembry blocks gets corrupted. He said, hey, I’ve taken this old route, but it’s supposed to have been wiped and I can show you the previous owners house map based on the ruble. Wow. Well, that that is pretty scary. Do you think about something like a photo with pictures of your kids or your credit card information? All that or pictures you don’t want the general public to see? Right.

[00:29:04] Yeah, we we were talking about that. So no, no cat pictures. We’re talking about software for the lads playing the piano is what he thought.

[00:29:12] So for the non technologists in a room such as myself, what do we call what is that extra step beyond wiping? What is it about breaking the linkages between the phone and and the cloud data or what?

[00:29:26] Yeah. So there’s a technical term. There’s a state or D state. Eight hundred or eight hundred eighty. I always get those two backwards. But we we always call it purge or wipe it out and they’re different kinds of klett. You know what sub companies used to do which will try to talk them out of this is there’s still big with the bags. If they would physically destroy the hard drives, artistically destroy the boards, drill holes through the boards. Well, obviously, that makes the circular value that product completely go. Way so we would we want to stop that, but we want to make sure our clients feel completely secure, that their data is a thousand percent protected. Right. That’s hard to do.

[00:30:09] And unfortunately, there’s no standards for this that are recognized by consumers at all. A consumer buys a used product thinking it’s been clean, it’s been cleared, or they give their old product in and they believe it’s cleaned or wiped or cleared. But the standards don’t exist very well. Now, one of the standards, for example, is the the Siri are too standard that that’s a good one. It’s not perfect, but it’s a good one. But who knows what hour to this is. And unfortunately, the R2 standard and others are done for the facility where products pass through. So this computer in my hands or the phone in your hands, Scott may not have gone through an hour to site or may have. But it’s not that particular product that’s confirmed. It’s this facility that supposedly adheres to these standards. But again, this this is a very new world.

[00:31:03] We’re talking about. Yeah. I’m scared to share what model of iPhone I have with Tony and Jack here. But I’ve got the newest when the only reason I’ve got the newest one is because I went from iPhone 6 to the latest.

[00:31:15] He basically doubled. Yeah, it almost doubled our six mousex.

[00:31:18] And being in digital media business is not good to run out of space and have really old technology for bad pictures. So that’s the we look for some some refurb purchases. But just put in put myself out there. I believe in what they see that don’t don’t pay. That’s why I’m purchasing.

[00:31:36] All right. Sonya already has all of your information. She’s got either way. Mangia, previous pictures that you were afraid of. Those will be all right there, actually.

[00:31:48] Oh, look. Yes, I know you are that flexible.

[00:31:54] All right. Actually, Malcolm has already found a link. So I paid Malcolm off.

[00:32:00] Ah, so beyond. I want to dove into design for SEUS. But before I do, I want to make sure we’re not leaving any other interesting things as Sheer from a returns, a refurb and a resealing reselling standpoint. Anything else? athie else is important thing for our listeners to know.

[00:32:17] Well, one thing I would say is that this whole fear thing about the data, et cetera, there’s also opportunity. So often there is that bad thing.

[00:32:24] There’s opportunity, the opportunity for companies like Cisco or Apple or whoever is if a customer is going to buy your used product off the gray market. And they don’t know what they’re getting.

[00:32:37] If you could go to that with that certified pre-owned concept and say, hey, we know it’s Kleeb, we do. It has no malware backdoors installed. We know the profits. You talked a lot about Providence, R.I. We did the Providence from start to finish. If you’re a board member of that company, what are you going to want them to buy? You want your risk to go away. You want them to buy the certified prio, the CBl. Right. That’s a big opportunity for companies if they’ll season.

[00:33:04] And the other opportunity in a company like djax from even a manufacturing site. And the remanufacturing is it, you know, the mistakes that were made the first time. Right. And you can correct them. That’s right. You can correct them. You know, the mistakes that maybe were made in the instruction books, you can put a new, simpler guide in packaging. You have a lot of flexibility in that secondary market to make a more efficient package. You’re not as concerned with marketing and putting all kinds of color photos on the box because you’re focused on a secondary value ad market. So you’ve got the opportunity, make some things different. That didn’t happen on the first side. And that’s a tremendous that’s a flexibility that you got. Is you’re almost creating a new product marketing concept from an from a previously released product. So there’s some cool things you can do.

[00:33:49] Yeah, well, put that improvement on the original product. I mean, you know, when you when you bought it by a certified pre-owned vehicle, you get it an additional warranty. Right. Right. And and you get a three hundred and seventy point certification if it’s a BMW, that that that is verifying firing and selling point. Yeah. That verifies that they’ve been through the vehicle. I mean, you know, a for instance is and it wouldn’t be dissimilar if you were talking about a device. The vehicle can’t have ever been in any accident. Yep. And and they verify that it can’t have ever had a theft or any sort of alteration to the the permanent record, the VIN number or anything like that. You can do it. You can and will do a similar thing with a device or whatever else might get recertified. Greg White.

[00:34:39] And you’re you’re on the edge there of bringing that word up. That must be mentioned at every conference on the planet.

[00:34:45] You’re at the edge of suggesting a blockchain is needed to keep track of all those things. I just wanted to go ahead and give it to you.

[00:34:54] Well, I really believe. I mean, look, I’m a technologist. I don’t have a block painton blockchain technology or anything, but I really believe that that inalterably record right of it, that inalterably record is a very important part of being able to do that.

[00:35:12] Actually, I hadn’t thought of it until you said something, but yeah, let’s let the people know that Jack and I are talking about some of the high tech companies, but it’s not it’s going past high tech. Yeah. Right. IAPT is being put in clothing micro cause purses are including IAPT. Refrigerators are going to store your passwords on certain things. Your washing machine, which orders laundry detergent automatically from Amazon has got your password. And the biggest nightmare of all is if you’re using your car and you’re putting your password to your credit card into it for Sirius XM or any other any other digital streaming service. That’s right. Now in your car.

[00:35:52] Yep. Tires, we know. We absolutely. We talked to the folks at Tire Hub last week and and they are going to start chipping right off, essentially chipping tires to help predict help fleets predict when those tires need to be replaced, refurbished, retreaded, whatever. Hey, it’s going to be in everything a little more.

[00:36:12] Thanks. Got it. Tony Birgit it. Well, we think about a market IT market segmentation. Did the price of the brand actually circular opens up a lot more flexible brand segmentation. Here’s what I be. Let’s say that you have a very large company. You know, one of the big box stores or something like that that wants to buy Cisco or something, we can’t equal their price fully because that would degrade the price of the marketplace. But we go to them, but we say, hey, I will give you this certified pre-owned CPO.

[00:36:48] I will give it to you at the price floor you’re looking for, baby. You could even blend in with your new. I’ll give you the exact same word t etc. Now you’ve allowed to the market to hit their price point but not degrade your standard new product price. You see what? If so, you could really benefit your own branded your own. Hold your Espy’s up if you could do that effectively, Jack.

[00:37:11] Of course that is easier now with e-commerce because you don’t have to stack the boxes up in a retail store. We’re pretty color colors are very exact coordinates. Yep. Everything comes in a brand. Everything. UPS in a brown box and you’re pitching it with the exact same photos and information as the new product. So it’s a nice tradeoff to expand the marketplace that Jackson. You. It’s not just technology.

[00:37:35] I mean, there are lots of products that can be repurposed, reused, refurbished, re whatever. Re or reconstituted into something else. Yep. Yeah. Hmm.

[00:37:47] All right. Let’s switch gears over to design for C. And we’ve kind of alluded a couple of times the different components that conversation. But when I saw this phrase as one of the things that that we want to speak to immediately thought more of the new product development design for C, and that’s not a hundred percent the story. But Jack, how do you begin to to talk about design for C when it comes to Cisco’s approach to the circular economy?

[00:38:14] Yeah. So there really are two components, probably three components, actually, Scott. The. There is the new product from scratch. I’ve got to design it so that it’s more circular. It’s circular. It does it only B, things like modularity like I could take the old technology out, put the new technology and still use the chassis, et cetera, et cetera.

[00:38:36] It also Bede’s things like can I use? Can I make it way less? Right. So what are the things I’m asking the guys to do is hey, could you we have all this steel. Do we need that much steel? You guys probably do. You could make an airplane be more strong by cutting holes in it.

[00:38:53] Right. Why can’t we do that everywhere? Things like can I do a better job of getting rid of things like fall, etc, etc. So there’s that. There’s the new product piece. There is the retro fit piece of what’s what’s going out and what’s in the marketplace right now. So are there ways to to upgrade to make more intelligent or actually change the products that are embedded? Peter, the market for a while as they go out.

[00:39:19] But the third piece that I would say is the best practices. So what’s we learned? Can we make everything exactly the same? So each new product is not a one off by T?

[00:39:30] Rudd’s packaging engineering. We do a lot of stuff in packaging engineering. We’re doing a lot of best practice stuff. I’ll give you a couple of pretty good examples. I got a a battery charger, you know, for a car the other day.

[00:39:44] Great. He came with a UK power cord. A Chinese power cord. Australian power cord. Probably six power cord, too. I only need one in the US.

[00:39:54] What you know. So woodcuts said that. We’re plagued with is we? It’s a balancing act that we all want our customers to have a bad experience, but we don’t want it to get bids. It bids, it bids and stuff that they can’t use it. So we’re actually looking at baking accessories more optional that mandatory.

[00:40:13] Right. And that is at best practice. Once we succeed at that, we will want to do that everywhere.

[00:40:19] Right. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. Listen. I mean, I think that’s real, especially with e-commerce. That’s relatively easy to detect. Right. You say, okay, you’re landed and you’re ordering from the United States of America. So you could default to that. And then if somebody needs it for travel purposes, let’s say you could make that the option. Right. Right. Exactly.

[00:40:42] Now, the coolest part about being in reverse Logistics and this is truly the coolest part is we see this stuff. Yeah. The engineers designing it at the beginning. Don’t see it. They don’t think about it. So one of the most important aspects of being in reverse Logistics is having strong influencing skills like Jack. I mean, you have to be able to stand in front of a CFO if two people stand in front of the head of engineering and design and say that’s a stupid design. It’s going to fail. And you got to find a better way to say it than I just did, which Jack clearly you Jack doesn’t. That’s why Jack does it. I was. OK. And the other aspect of it that we kid about, but it’s important is. Your job is to work yourself out of the job. And figure out how to stop that flow of things, making people unhappy that they decide to send it back.

[00:41:30] So it’s it’s and it’s an intense, ongoing challenge that will never end. But we win little battles here and there, like Jack said. And the packaging side, did you could you get a second chance?

[00:41:42] Tony, all all joking aside about standing in front of the CFO. I have no doubt you could do it diplomatically, but it is there.

[00:41:50] Is there a buzz of supply chain Jenny that isn’t bad. People are dying to get listeners out here. So is there.

[00:42:01] Sorry, I’m just waiting for them to get here so they can hear I’m not as well. Is there do you see that there’s more consciousness of companies towards brand equity that allows them to look at the value of brand and the perception of the consumer rather than just look at the bottom line dollars when you say drill some extra holes or make this out of aluminum instead of steel or whatever.

[00:42:25] There’s a battle going on in the marketplace. And I know, Jack. Even in a B2B area as well aware of it, you do have a brand to protect them. If you want to protect your brand. You are going to take everything back from everyone you sell it to. And that’s what Apple’s stated purposes now and Cisco has stated that has a purpose. But you think of all the companies that are out there that are now saying, no, just give us an allowance. Yes. And and instead of, you know, taking it back, we’ll get rid of it for you. Well, that’s not a good move. All right. That’s necessarily so. The CFO, though, is the person who says, you know, that that’s a steady even number of month after month. I like that. Let’s go for the allowance instead of taking it back and protecting the brand or you’ve got the other brand protection craziness that happens. Louis, the time we’ve mentioned this before, they tie versus back and they burned them because they don’t want them in the secondary market. They’ve got trouble with counterfeiting and everything else. They think that’s the smart approach.

[00:43:21] I think they’re changing there. Those companies are beginning to change their tune. But you’re right. That happens all the time. And I’ll tell you, having been a retail merchant merchant merchandiser, I have had those discussions. It was 20 odd years ago, but I’ve had those discussions with vendors because the cost of returning goods back to the vendor for them to verify that it’s junk. And yeah, and effective is far higher than the cost of simply absorbing it and throwing it in the garbage.

[00:43:50] So in large part, retailers, as we all know, started this because we went to the vendors and said, just give us an allowance. We don’t want to send it back to you. It’s too expensive for both of us to do that. Right.

[00:44:05] So you’re going to add some comments to, I think, what Tony was sharing earlier. Yeah.

[00:44:10] One of the things I think is also important to pay attention to is, kid, we whether it’s a high tech part or a relatively low tech part, a car alternator or something like that. Keith, we start to acquire data like you guys were talking about everything being chipped so that we deal better with the parties getting sick instead of just automatically replacing it.

[00:44:34] Like, you know, my friends at Georgia Tech have calculated, if you if you actually take the delta between what it really needs to be replaced before the factory shuts down, which would be really bad.

[00:44:46] And with the PLB table says it should be replaced. There’s a lot of value in that space.

[00:44:53] So even though that’s not part of circular design, it actually it by bite is part of circular design. How do you get the telemetry at the IATA to tell you when something is getting sick? All right.

[00:45:04] So we’ve hit IATA and blockchain. That’s right. Oh, we need a little bit.

[00:45:09] I might as well throw it out there. So no technology alphabet, but that’s a good point.

[00:45:14] I mean, look, factories and in the automotive trade. One of the industries that I come from, that’s something that that has been a big part of the industry for a long, long time. I mean, the remanufacturing. Yes. Is what we call it in automotive, as is standard practice for starters, and alternators. And, of course, you know what ever else. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And the reason for that is because the economics make sense.

[00:45:41] And I wonder, you know, have you seen have you all seen a change in the marketplace that makes people conscious of how to make the economics make sense? Because, look, let’s face it. And in the end, you know, if we include brand equity as part of it, though, as you said, Tony, that’s a very difficult sell. The economics have to make sense. Yes. To motivate companies to do the right thing here.

[00:46:09] So where where are we there? Well, the economics will always make sense if they get caught doing the bad thing and then they lose credibility. Their brand recognition is goes in the toilet. It’s very hard to recover once you’ve been caught shipping things across the world that go into landfills or that go into countries where it becomes hazardous materials or where you burned out building instead of donating it, the people who are homeless and need it. And there’s so many ways. And if an organization ignores that risk factor, then it’s going to bite them hard. But if an organization looks at and says, you know, it, maybe it’s slightly more expensive to take the goods back and donate them rather than throw them away. That’s the right thing to do. Yeah. And so there’s actually companies now and again, Amazon is one of them and others. That are saying, you know what, H&M. Retailer. We should not burn that stuff again. Let’s find a way to do something right with it. And and that’s important because clothing is example and apparel, other industries. It’s not worth it to take it back cost wise, but it’s worth it to protect your brand and to do it secondary market value. You look like you’re you’re doing something good for the economy, for people, for the planet. And it’s a win win. Yeah, it’s hard to substantiate that to a CFO. And Jack and I have both been in front of CFO is where it’s hard to explain that. But eventually when something goes wrong, then you’ve got the basis to explain what we can avoid that cost. Yeah. Mm hmm.

[00:47:41] All right. So let’s keep moving beyond design for C, because I want to talk about, you know, Cisco has been recognized by a variety of organizations for the company’s approach to sustainability and CVP and Barron’s amongst them. More here more recently, Jack. What are some of the common threads that you’ve seen in this recognition from these third parties when it comes to Cisco’s approach to sustainability?

[00:48:08] Yeah. And I to be honest with you, I don’t know whether we are ahead or behind Amazon and Apple in this window. Pressure we’re ahead by. I hate to say that our CEO at Davos two years ago made a pledge to the entire world that said, hey, any cuts through us, we’re going to take 100 percent of what they would back. Not only that, but we’re going to try to develop new economic models that allow us to monetize these kinds of things and allow the economics to make sense. Number three, we’re going to create new kinds of business like the sharing economy that will allow those returned assets to be useful. And we’re going to do all this for that for the entire customer base, but also the world. Right. So so he made that pitch. We see those threads. The thread of the new technology do business follows the thread of the return product, the thread of new methods of modernization go through almost everything that we do. And it’s really pretty exciting.

[00:49:10] I am kind of a unrepaired capitalist. I do things for buddy. I you know, I think making blue heesen, I think that is is one of the nice things about circular economy. Its sustainability is I swear to you.

[00:49:25] I have yet to find a scenario where with the proper look at where the real costs are, you can’t do good by doing well. Right. It lets take some people would call it a circular concept to be will call it pure sustainability. The whole greenhouse gas thing, you know, we took a billion pounds of carbon out of the air. We beat our goal by a year. You know, we’re done in 2018 instead of 2020. We’re about 50 percent ahead right now.

[00:49:58] It’s got its, say, billions and millions of dollars.

[00:50:01] Why? Because it’s much more expensive to have tons of gear flying through the air. That is the water, you know. So, I mean, I think that at the base of those kind of those three concepts is a fundamental CFO cuts that there’s money there.

[00:50:18] You know, that’s a good thing. Great thing.

[00:50:20] Yeah, that helps. You know, that that helps to rationalize just from a strict bottom bottom line standpoint while we do what we want, while we’re after the CEO C and sustainability place, because it not only serves every shareholder right. Everyone makes everyone wins here. OK, so now I want to switch over as well as we’re starting to wrap up this interview here, talking with Jack and Cisco and Tony Schroder with the Reverse Logistics Association. Before switch gears and talk about RLJ and the up and just the RLA State of the Union. And quick update on conference next. Jack, what else? So, you know, for companies out there, regardless of size that are, you know, starting their own internal circular economy or sustainability discussions. What’s important for them to keep in mind as a plan of an effective and a practical and successful approach?

[00:51:23] Yeah. So I think you touched on a couple of key things that are tied to what we’re talking about just a bit ago, which is and I’m sure there are people who maybe badly upset by me saying this, but actually you can’t just go down the altruistic path. What what I’ve found through my history is that if it’s pure altruism, after a while, somebody says it’s not worth doing it. We’ve got other priorities. Let’s work on that.

[00:51:50] Whereas if you could say, hey, I’m developing a hard nosed business case, why this is a good thing.

[00:51:57] And oh, by the way, it’s good for the planet. It’s good for the brand. It’s good for the plays, etc. They have quadruple plays, right? So I think it’s important to recognize that. I do think it’s very important to recognize, especially a lot of these younger kids that are coming out of school, they truly believe in this. It’s so your odds at attract, get your talent business, got your odds of attracting a better talent base because you’re focusing on this or much higher if you spend time at buddy on it.

[00:52:25] I do think that you have to pay attention to the economics, the business value, but also not be bound by the past.

[00:52:34] If you think about my early days at baby factory, you know, we all thought it made sense to build a thousand widgets and send it in the stock. It did pull it back out and build it a little bored, set it back, because that was the economics of scale, right?

[00:52:48] Then the Japanese came in and they said, you know, that’s stupid, right? It’s a good thing to do. Fundamentally, I think that the the economics of circular economy and the CFO view have not quite matured enough so that we actually capture all those costs effectively. So I do think you have to have an open mind about what is the real value and how does the real value accrue to my shareholders and my employees.

[00:53:13] My corporation is would probably the biggest. Yeah. Enlightened self-interest. That’s right. Adam Smith has had a great the ethereal had.

[00:53:22] Yeah.

[00:53:23] The benevolence. Right. It’s not from the benevolence of the butcher. Somehow that we expect our dinner. Mm hmm.

[00:53:29] Right.

[00:53:32] Yep. Way. So we didn’t get your. I worked in there very well. That was artificial intelligence right there. Jerai. Flourish.

[00:53:44] You do know that it’s employed now in the return world. Yeah. As a grading process. Yeah. So that it can now measure scratches and torn materials. And so it’s being used because that’s a repetitive tasks. Yeah. Yep. So there’s that CPO thing that. Yeah. Is connected to. Yeah. If you want to throw people into acronym Hal right now.

[00:54:06] Yeah. Right. Well with A.I. Ed Abela Greg saying really got every man. Yeah that’s right. You have got it. Edited by far. Right.

[00:54:16] Also last week speaking the blockchain DHL.

[00:54:21] Hey I’m all about the bag was totally circular, right. Yes. Pratically come back to work. Learned discussion, circular on everything.

[00:54:31] Dhl and HP Hewlett Packard talked about this blockchain project. They’ve been driving since July to handle one off shipments outside of the Logistics contract with standard contract. And that’s bottom big bottom line returns. Herbertson accuracy in terms of invoicing. And then I think one of the second big two of the big benefits. Number two was getting their suppliers paid, you know, per the contract versus, you know, the one off. And they they go down the Broward ship, Robert Trone thing and add a lot of time to the collection periods. Number three was the amount of time it saved both parties, DHL and HP in the manual processing, the manual conversations it took to make it happen and get paid. So big wins, big gains thus far and the end regardless. With any of these acronyms we’re talking about here. I love the practical use cases and the practical applications, which I think helps any listener or any supply chain professional to wrap your head around the benefit beyond the buzzword. Yeah, I mean, yes. Okay. So, Tony, as we wrap up here and Jack, thank you very much. Don’t go anywhere. But thanks for your your thoughts. Insights here today are always fascinating to reconnect with you. Our Santoni, the hits keep on coming. Also with RLA, all are on the move. We are excited about the reverse Logistics conference. The RLA conference is Expo in February, but tell us what’s new. Know we’ve got some new keynotes for that event, but in general, what else is new with RLA?

[00:56:08] Well, what’s new is we’re adding a lot of retailers. And the reason is that the manufacturers and retailers are the ones who live with the returns problems. They have to deal with reverse Logistics and they’re looking for these solutions providers that can find new ways to make things move and work and refurbish and so on better. But a lot of manufacturers, as we mentioned, are putting it in laps of the retailers to figure out what to do with it. I’m not necessarily saying that’s a good or a bad idea. But it’s out there. It exists. So we’ll see more retailers in Las Vegas in February. There’s a lot of buzz already. We’ve got some global companies such as Telia Plan and ex-POWs of the World that are participating already. We have an excellent keynote speaker with John Gold. Jonathan Gold is Vise, president of the National Retail Federation. And he’ll be talking about. He’s on the Supply chain side, but he’s only talking about the economy and the tariffs and the impacts of what’s going on there. We always love having Steve. He’ll be there as day to keynote, giving a little review of c_t_s_ show Consumer Electronics Show the month before. And Steve always answers little touch about, yeah, we’re gonna see a lot of these in the next year. Coming back to people in this room. So he does his little spin. We’ve got some exciting events ahead of the show. Head of the conference, such as a Women in Reverse Logistics luncheon. We’ve got a retailer reception and we have a charity golf outing that we’re gonna put together, kind of a top golf thing with the opportunity to play golf with members of the board. So we’re gonna count on Jack’s golf game.

[00:57:49] I I’ve never played golf in my life. Really? You’re never going to play for money to play poker with you.

[00:57:59] When we have, of course, the excitement of the Expo Hall with the Supply Chain Now Radio booth that we’ll have there, lots of interviews, lots of opportunities to talk to industry thought leaders and get some views out on the podcasts and on the radio. So a lot of good things are happening. The Mirage is a fabulous venue. They’re working with us very hard to make this even better this year in their grand ballroom as opposed to the back halls. So it’s it’s really exciting. There’s a lot of excitement, enthusiasm for it getting. It’s exciting to get e-mails and phone calls from people saying, hey, you haven’t called us yet. We’re ready to do something. I love it. That’s very exciting.

[00:58:41] So, Jack, we happy to play Limit Texas Hold’em with you. The terms of very small limits. I’m a big spender, maybe Max Buck. But looking forward to getting set forward to a great event. And all of our listeners can learn more at our L A dot or define all the details, not just on the event itself, but all the events that Tony was alluding to earlier. Global organization and global content. OK, so I’ve answered your question here. I guess we’re gonna finish that. How can our listeners find out more? So, Jack, how can folks, you know, tune into what Cisco is doing and you.

[00:59:18] Yeah, actually, if you Google Cisco Circular Economy, you will come up with so much content that you will. It’ll take you a month.

[00:59:26] You might actually go to the second page of yeah, you’ll get a as you’ll get papers, you’ll get all kinds of stuff.

[00:59:33] So. So that’s probably the best way. Right. By the way, relative to the conference, I do want to say that it’s it’s really a fabulous conference is great to go to. And my aspiration for Tony is if we could get twenty five thousand hackers at a black cat conference, we should be able to get 10000 people were passionate about circular economy. Can RLA Froome.

[00:59:55] If you fitly. Well, yeah, it’s gonna happen. Yeah. Is this is too big of an issue for it not to.

[01:00:01] Yep. I’m with you. All right. So Tony, how can folks connect with you?

[01:00:06] Go to the Web site, RLA. That or and underneath the about is the advisory board with pictures and a little bit information as well as the entire management team. And we are global. We’ve got management team in Europe and in Asia and spread across North America.

[01:00:25] There’s a picture of me there so you can find me on the street.

[01:00:29] I really need to put there’s also contact information more likely in a convention hall, but standing might be there. Might be there. So RLA that or that’s our key. Perfect. Thanks so much. Jack Gallan, senior director, Global Logistics with Cisco. Tony Shroder, Executive Director with the reverse Logistics situation.

[01:00:48] Pleasure, reconnect and look forward to connecting again here real soon. Great conversation.

[01:00:54] Yeah. The insights. This is a this is a great topic. I’ve been there. I’ve felt it. I’ve been. I’m the center converted.

[01:01:03] I mean, I have been right. I was part of the problem at one point. I’m like, that’s a whole other thing. Keep at it. Yeah, that’s right.

[01:01:15] What’s the word I want to use? You’ve been there, done that with Keith each of these reverse Logistics installments. You know, no one is reading talking points. It’s really coming from the trenches. Coming from what their lead out there leading and doing. And oftentimes, you know, tip of the spear, you know, companies such as Cisco that, you know, they’re not following anybody. Yeah. Right. And that’s that’s what I enjoy the most about these. And I think this is our turn. I think this is our fourth, third or fourth month. Number four. Number four. And, you know, of course, this is going to culminate with lots and lots of interviews and podcasts out in Vegas in February 20. So hopefully folks will check up early and enjoy it and interact as much. Engage as much as we’ve enjoyed doing the same. Right. OK. So on that note, we’re going to wrap up on just a couple of quick announcements. We’ve already tackled the RLA event in February, but right before that, we’re gonna be partnering with the CSC MP Atlanta roundtable in January. Remember what the what the topic is going to be?

[01:02:19] Not at all right now.

[01:02:20] So see that one last track, which I know you’re all familiar with, that one of their leaders is gonna be coming out and sharing some of the regulations and how it how they’re impacting the transportation industry at this CSC MP Atlanta Roundtable luncheon in January. Twenty nineteen. You could hear more about that at Atlanta, CSC MP dot org.

[01:02:45] And then I think we’re getting close enough. So let’s re mention Ramarley and the dates. We’ve been kind of rolling. We’ve been kind of rolling.

[01:02:53] Hey, flip the calendar to 2014. Close enough that people need to start planning travel and Greene. That is true. And the dates to fifth, sixth and seventh. Now, four, five, six shows don’t get people to show up a day late just to stay after Super Bowl. It’s all you gotta remember Tuesday after Suzanne coverage from Super Bowl on Monday and fly out to Vegas and go to Vegas and bet on the Super Bowl. Then just show up the next day. Yes, I like that.

[01:03:17] February 4th, 5th and 6th. 20:20 out in Vegas at the Miura. Ryder. Miura. Sheer. RLA dot. And then mutex. The next month, not only rebroadcasting throughout the four days, they’re hosting the 2020 Olena Supply chain awards, which we’re pleased to be fluting. Including RLA. Yeah. Reverse Logistics award. That’s right. Which right. Which we shamelessly stole most of the criteria from the Aaliyah’s on awards. And I’m of course, I’m Kinne a little bit. But you know, these award shows, it’s always great to imitate the best. So, Tony, I think you gave us permission to do so. But new award this year. So the first year Atlanta Supply chain Awards was was this past March. GIP coming up, mutex 2020 will be the second year. We’re going a little bit bigger, a lot better. And one of the reasons is because we’re adding new awards that we got a lot of feedback around, including this reverse Logistics award, which we’re pleased to be partnering with RLA on which they’ll be they’ll be presenting it and judging the launch.

[01:04:19] And I’ve Tahnee Tony himself will present it as that in of itself is worth starting an initiative group here.

[01:04:26] Tony and his entourage. Yeah. Yes, absolutely. So the Moto X is free to attend. That’s really important because that’s a huge networking best practice learning market intel gathering. Thirty five thousand of your closest supply chain friends should be there. Vetlanta moto x showed com to register and then the Atlanta Supply chain awards is free to attend. A lot of our proceeds are going to benefit the three. Now we’re serving lunch. Yes, right. Yes, you got it. Well, we’re also just like we did last year, a lot of our proceeds are going to benefit the three nonprofits involved, SCAC, Atlanta, Apex Alanda. I think the chamber is either nonprofit or not for profit, but regardless, lots of scholarships are being driven by our efforts there. And you oriels Atlanta Supply chain Awards dot com. Okay. Do we leave anything out?

[01:05:16] Well done. L&D, I guess. Specialist upstair took a lemonade break. All right. Just in time for the show to be. Yes, I’m really sorry.

[01:05:28] Seriously, a great example of the circular economy, this building. Yeah. Formerly a plant. A factory. A factory. Right. Then then a live in workspace. Now a business space. And I am sure that what they’re doing is putting a new roof on this hundred and thirty year old building.

[01:05:45] So talk to our listeners that might have heard some of the work being done in a couple of spots in the podcast. We are living and breathing in an example of the circular economy and repurposing it. You know what? To be fair, our and rather put up with that and enjoy this. The character that’s in this architecture. Yeah. And reusing it right. Rather than raising the whole building and put up a one ugly concrete cinder block buildings. That’s going up next.

[01:06:12] We’re going to get go but get in trouble. That’s my job. That’s right.

[01:06:17] Big thanks to our guests here today on Supply Chain Now Radio. Had a great day. Jack Allen with Cisco Tony Sciarrotta with Reverse Logistics Association. To our listeners, 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 all Gnatpole podcast, SoundCloud, including Greg’s favorite YouTube. Yes. Be sure to subscribe so you don’t. Missing thing on behalf of the entire Supply Chain Now Radio team. This is Scott Luton wishing you a wonderful week ahead and we will see you next time on Supply Chain Now Radio. Thanks, everybody.