Episode Summary
“I think there’s a broad recognition that solving some of the digitization issues in the supply chain today cannot be lifted by a single player.”
– Gert Sylvest, Co-Founder of Tradeshift and General Manager of Tradeshift Frontiers
Tradeshift is known as a digital supply chain platform and network that connects two million companies today. It may come as a surprise, then, to hear that Gert Sylvest, Tradeshift’s Co-Founder and General Manager of Tradeshift Frontiers, gave a presentation at eft’s Logistics CIO Forum titled “It Is Not About Technology”.
As he points out, the factors driving supply chain digitization require that incentives have to be present, and they have to apply equally to large and small companies in the supply network.
In this interview, Gert speaks with Supply Chain Now Radio hosts Scott Luton and Greg White about:
- The disruptive projects being advanced through Tradeshift Frontiers, such as making it possible for the last mile participants of commodity supply chains to connect with large brands looking for their product, and invoices that ‘settle themselves’ via blockchain.
- The fact that 90% of what happens in the supply chain is still not digital, meaning the ramp to a fully digital supply chain is much longer and flatter than most companies expect.
- Even the largest companies or brands in an industry can not drive digitization on their own. They will have to collaborate with other players in their supply chain.
- His thoughts about entrepreneurship and building and scaling a new company through talent.
Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] It’s time for 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 technology’s 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, love on Supply Chain Now Radio. Once again, welcome back to the show. On today’s show, we aren’t broadcasting from Atlanta, Georgia, but rather we’re broadcasting live from Austin, Texas, home of e.t.’s Logistics CIO Forum, which is now a Reuters event. We’ve been interviewing the leading and most innovative thought leaders across the Indian Supply chain space. We’ll continue that with this episode. Well, welcome in my fearless co-host here today. Greg White Serial Supply chain tech entrepreneur, chronic disruptor and trusted advisor. Greg, how you doing? Doing great. Thank you. Good to have you back. And I think we’ve got a great interview teed up once again.
[00:01:08] Yeah, two good days. And I know this will continue solid. Raimy, begin again. We got to get all everything out of girds mind and send him home complete, completely mindless so he can sleep on the plane. Yes, that’s the plan. Good plan.
[00:01:22] So let’s welcome in our featured guests for this segment, Gurt Sylvester Co-founder, Trade Shift and general manager of Trade Shift for Frontiers. Hey, doing great. I’m doing good. Thanks. Thanks for having me. Yeah. Our pleasure. We hear you’re enjoying Austin. I am. I am. Just went on a on a ride with the lime scooter and explored the river a little bit. Did you swing by a food truck and grab something? Oh, no. Oh, no. But I came I came out into a small area that looked the full of food trucks. And they they didn’t seem to be open yet. They’re closed for the season. Well, thanks for carving out some time. We’ll look forward to learning more about you and trade shift. I understand you presented here earlier and that that was well received. You know, we like to start these segments by, you know, kind of finding out about our guest outside of the organization we’re gonna talk about today. So tell us where you’re from, where you grew up, and maybe some of the things you did prior to joining trade shift.
[00:02:21] Yeah, yeah, sure. So I’m basic opening our spawn a little bit north of Copenhagen, Denmark. I spent seven years of my childhood in Germany where my family relocated where abouts. So, um, it’s a little city called to see. I’m hung for it. Yeah. In Germany. Yeah. Um, well, you had the European Space Agency, so my and my dad used to work for these guys. Um, and then we went back to Copenhagen in early eighties and again. So and then I spent my childhood here and opening up Santa.
[00:03:00] So, you know, prior to co-founding trade shifts, what would you do at industry?
[00:03:06] Yeah. So when I finished my studies so I have a background in information, science and music. I joined Accenture and Accenture. I worked seven, eight years actually mostly on government projects. That’s where I met my two co-founders as well. So they work work for Danish government. And it was a lot about, you know, open access to data for four citizens. So opening up all the data silos, self-government. And then it was about electronic invoicing. We kind of moved danishes state from from paper-based invoice to to one hundred percent electronic invoicing and learn a few things on during. That’s.
[00:03:46] So what it seems like you’re working on some projects that were an indicator of things to come. We’re all demanding consumers demanding transparent data these days. Right. And visibility. Where did you meet your two co-founders? Yeah.
[00:04:00] Well, so working for a Danish public sector. Um, and they. Yeah. Doing all the ideas together. Yeah. We were so Accenture was basically one some of the tenders. So I headed up the the technical teams are implemented the staff and unbolt protocols and other stuff. That’s fun. Fun for geeks. And yeah. And that’s also why I think I learned the first few things about the industry. And that led us really to create the company. I was really scratching our heads at why everybody were exchanging documents and closed proprietary networks and why people were paying for, you know, digital stamps for sending Elektronik documents that that seemed pretty crazy back in pay for digital digital stamps. Yes. So when you looked at the invoicing industry, then you had these networks and it was typically, you know, going to large fires that would then ask all the suppliers to send.
[00:04:59] Electronically and supply us with by literally subscriptions of electronic invoices. Okay. Like 50 a year for certain price. Okay. And if they would only send two invoices to buy. They would still pay for the rest. So yeah. So it’s really a transaction business. Yeah. And we were like, you know, five sharing services. No console software. Right. Why don’t anyone has to pay anything to send anything over the Internet? Right.
[00:05:24] Yeah. So you so you have sort of usurped that model.
[00:05:29] Yeah. So. So somehow we sold that idea to Danish governments instead of going with some of the players in the industry. Yeah. We built our own network and there was inspired by peer-to-peer networks like file sharing services or Skype or what have you. And instead we we said, what if we have an open standard for exchanging electronic documents between government and companies? And we just share those open standards and we implemented with open source software. We give the software out to two people. And that really works. So. So we had sixty thousand companies joining in 10 months, too, into that network. Wow. And just businesses starting plugging it into their accounting packages or excel sheets or websites or what have you.
[00:06:10] That’s really interesting. How do you monetize it then? Yeah, well. So this was before trade. Yeah. And so we did it for the government. It will be done in other Nordic countries. You saved the government money by not having to pay for these invoices.
[00:06:23] Exactly. So maybe if I was not in the business, you know, I had done the same thing by the government. You could say, you know. So why would you digitize something, save the government some money just to move those money to people who, you know, made money on digital stamps? Yeah.
[00:06:37] Yeah. So therefore, we could talk and dove in the trade shift. You mentioned music earlier. Are you still actively a musician, a musician?
[00:06:46] That’s, you know, a implies you do it regularly. But but I do. I play the piano. I do electronic music whenever I have some time. I have a daughter. She’s six years. So between, you know, having a scale-up and and the family does not leave a lot.
[00:07:03] Not a lot of time for the game. You need a band in the company that. Yeah, that we actually do have that. Yeah.
[00:07:10] We made a small music room. Yeah. Actually in one of the passageways. So it’s all equipped with, you know, headphones and stuff. So you can sit up to five people at a time, play electronic drums and stuff. Great. In the breaks without disturbing anyone. Yeah, that’s that’s quite popular.
[00:07:24] You could make that part of the hiring process and then you’d have an excuse to do it. Yeah. Yeah. Musical skills and technical skills often go together. Yeah. Right. So you could make that part of the test. Yeah. The you would have a you know fantastic. Can you actually. Kinnear. Yes. Terrible thing. Terrible bass player. Yeah. Exactly.
[00:07:46] So let’s let’s talk about trade shift now. So tell us more about what the organization does. Yeah.
[00:07:52] So, um, we are a digital supply chain platform and network. So we connect two million companies in the network today to move a million companies. Yep.
[00:08:04] So we go to, you know, a Fortune 5000 segment. And then we on board their suppliers typically for starting with electronic invoicing accounts, people automation so we can do automatic payment of invoices based on matching purchase orders and goods received. But really we facilitate exchange of, you know, any any kind of collaborative transactional documents. So from electronic catalogs to quote, purchase orders, requisitions and then, uh, for the enterprise customers we sell. Um. Yeah. Cause PayPal automation software. Mm hmm. Um, procurement software. Uh uh. Digital marketplaces for their suppliers. Mm hmm. And and then we provide financial services on top of that. So, um, supply chain financing that is counting how similar products.
[00:08:59] Wow. And I’m sorry. How long have you been doing this?
[00:09:03] Yeah, we started 2010. Okay. So that’s when we decided, you know, we did some interesting learnings and. Yeah. Public sector, we saw we found a model that kind of changed the dynamics a little bit. Yeah. You saw how we could drive a little bit faster digitization. Yeah. Um, because we thought we’re not gonna make money on these transactions. You know, we want to give people who, uh, great software that actually allows them to participate in the digital supply chain no matter if they are, you know, mom and pop shop or. Right. Or a big Fortune 500. So they all get the same software essentially. Yeah, but supply chain for the people. Yeah. Supply chain for the people. That’s why I like that.
[00:09:40] Democratization quote the great Daryl. Lu. Yeah. Right. That’s right. The de Lu. You might be listening. I d Lu. That’s right. So co-founder trades. Yeah. Let’s talk about trade shift frontiers. What aspect of the business is that where you serve as GM?
[00:09:54] Sure. So, uh, two years ago we started Frontier. So you could say it’s that digital innovation. And what we do is looking at technology trends that we think in the next three to five years they will have a significant impact on digitization of supply chains and on on electronic trade. Just ahead on that. And then we work as an incubator as well. So and so we work a lot with with partners. So both commercial technology partners and see if we can take some of that technology potential and turn it into actual value proposition. And some of the stuff we’re working on right now, that’s, for example, with an NGO partner, we are seeing if could we actually go to last mile and commodities supply chains onboard and farmers that work in cocoa and palm oil so that we can connect these directly with these big brands and impact investors, because right now these people don’t have identity and big brands have no idea what they are investing in. Right. And when they are trying to move these guys from, let’s say, to organic produce, for example. Yeah. Yeah. And other stuff is financial services. So some of the stuff we looked into is invoices that settle themselves on the blockchain that you can also tokenized turn into invoice tokens. And in order to sell off to to finance financiers. So let’s say to make it easier for small companies to get paid on day one instead of day 60.
[00:11:24] I like that. I really like that. Yeah. We’ll sign up lots of companies like that after. Yeah.
[00:11:30] And if it eliminates a lot, I would imagine that eliminates a lot of leakage in the in that process. Right. Where company thinks they’ve paid it. They haven’t. Or they’ve mis paid it or under or even overpaid it.
[00:11:42] Yeah I know it is absolutely true. So the idea is as soon as you have, you know, a purchase order, you can match against the invoice. You can turn it into this kind of digital asset. Well, when it’s matched and and approved. And today we do that. That’s what we do all the day. But we never took the step and said then could we treat it as a digital asset that can be valuable to to all the companies involved that they can sell off if they wish to do so, too. So how did they do that? Yeah, well, it’s it’s very simple, really. So the first concept we build around that, you know, today, they they do send electronic invoices. If I’m a seller, it’s literally just going in. People pick out the invoices that you want to sell off, share them with a marketplace of financiers. And then and then you get a bit by back on this thing you send back during, if you will. Is it facilitating that? Exactly. It works like factoring, except instead of selling off your whole books for except sign yourself up for six to twelve month, you can literally do it. Do it on a particular site.
[00:12:45] Which ones you want. Yeah. And then if you issue if you don’t want to collect on your $50 invoices you want to collect on your $50 million invoice maybe.
[00:12:54] Yeah that might be. But the point is you shouldn’t really care about it. You should care about what you know. What was my cashflow need right now? And then see what’s the most competitive price I can I can get for that instead of signing off to some, you know, a long term program and.
[00:13:10] Right. Exorbitant rates and that sort of thing. Factoring is very tricky business. Right.
[00:13:14] Exactly. Super tricky. And the key here is it’s expensive because nobody has insight into what is actually happening in the trade. Right. You know, as a biologist. Have you sold the invoice of four times before? Is it accepted by the buyer? Does by intend to pay? All right. And today, we have insight into all those those signals.
[00:13:33] Wow. So that reduces a tremendous amount of risk. Exactly. Should reduce the cost down, even factoring. Wow. That’s fantastic. Mm hmm.
[00:13:41] So now where do you where do you spend your time? You clearly are involved in a lot of things. Where do you spend your time? And a second. That’s one A. One B is what you enjoy most about your role.
[00:13:51] Yeah. Sure. So I mean the frontiers is is my. Well I can’t say 100 percent focus but 90 percent focus as a co-founder. I’m also in both of course in the management group. And and overall, where are we heading. What what’s the strategy. We are setting but fantasies is my main focus. And the way we work is is basically, you know, we are an ad platform. So everything we build ourselves, we build as if we were search parties to the platform. And that’s very nice for a unit like Fence’s because that means we can do these, you know, concept cars and we can put them live on the platform, but still operate as if we were tiny. You start up company. So, you know, a small team, we just grew to 13 people. And that means we can work really, really fast with these kind of things. We can be very agile in working with partners and actually trying to get stuff life outstanding go. And that’s also what I enjoy. You know, I like the small the small format.
[00:14:50] And, you know, being in the startup mode and definitely it’s kind of a skunkworks project, really. I mean, you’re out there trying to find the next big thing or the next.
[00:14:59] Most impactful thing, yeah, that without frontiers does, I think it’s fair to say, because obviously when you’re delivering to a large enterprise clients, it’s it’s like 80 percent of, you know, your resources as a company is tied up to serving these customer. Right. You have road maps, you need to mature your products and so on. So I think it makes sense to have and we have frontiers is not the only unit, but have a few units that actually takes the liberty to just look ahead. Yeah. And say, you know, that we invest in this infrastructure. What else can be used for?
[00:15:33] Well, and clearly you’ve got a good understanding of what these kind of products this kind of solution can be used for. So it’s a shame to kind of cage that vision into everyday development. Right. I mean, I think it’s a great use of your skills to be able to continue to visually envision what what’s coming in the future.
[00:15:51] Yeah, that’s that’s what I hope we can do. All right. So what brings you here beyond your speaking presentation earlier? What brings you here to the forum?
[00:16:01] Yeah. So I think that a few reasons for it. So, first of all, if I look at the customers we have, we have most of the major tene else on the platform today. So ask customers and that means all of their suppliers. But to some extent we we are treating them as as customers from any other industry. And that’s one of the things we have been thinking about. That is how to actually leverage the synergy, sir. Um, so so we have a big focus on seeing the things we have done for financial supply chain, which is, you know, all the reconciliation, procurement, you know, payment and financing. How could we actually connect better into the physical supply chain? And so that’s one of our agendas.
[00:16:46] Codenamed Pulse, and that is feel about how we can also include all the the the events about what’s happening on the physical supply chain once you’ve, you know, made that order and it’s been agreed. Things start moving so bright. Can we also make that available to to people on the platform?
[00:17:03] So you’re Sheer in your codenames with us? I feel like we’re honorary members of the trade ship Time. Right? Pulse. I love that. Can we can we have a secret handshake or something and keep a secret not to get into the offices?
[00:17:17] So again, you founded the company that you and your two partners in 2010. Yeah, right. Right. That’s. I’ve grown to a team of 13 now. Right. So the frontier team. So the company. The company is twelve hundred people now. Holy cow. So. Yeah, okay. That makes that the two main customers makes a lot more sense now. Yeah. Too many companies you representing. Let’s talk about what did you present on earlier. The form.
[00:17:44] Yeah. So um, the TARP was called. It’s not about technology. Um. And it was really about, you know, what is it that drives digitization of supply chain? And, you know, the reason we started the company was really because we saw, you know, most of what is being exchanged in Supply chain. It’s paper based, especially if you look towards, you know, medium sized companies, smaller companies. And if it’s not paper, it’s still an e-mail RPF and people are retyping everything. And while we learn when we you know, before Trichet, then the Danish government was that if you actually lower some of the barriers, you know, drop the whole idea about making money and moving electronic documents, you could get a much wider participation.
[00:18:25] And what was interesting, I think that happened in that process, what we saw that came this ecosystem that started plugging this infrastructure in so that there, you know, small business accounting packages, excel sheets and whatnot. So it actually meant that even very small companies could stop participating in these kind of electronic activities. And that was really the idea. And that was also the subject of the talk. It’s like if you don’t give people strong incentives to digitize their will, just ask you, what the heck is this guy, you know, knocking on my door, right. Why would I? Because I need to change my processes. Maybe my systems that aren’t up to par. Maybe the data can deliver is not quite what it sounds like comfortable.
[00:19:06] I mean, there is there is an element of discomfort whenever a change comes through. Right. And as bad as my process might be today, I’m comfortable in an experiment.
[00:19:16] And then I think in the industry, we’ve been very much in the mindset of, let’s say, the Lach bias in large companies here. And, you know, defining themselves as the center of the universe and trying to apply the stakes of supplies. You know, you have to deliver these electronic documents, whereas clearly most of the, you know, efficiency advantages have been with the large buyers. And as a senator, you’re also seeing that, you know, after the first buy, it’s the next buyer knocking on the door. And they will have slipped slightly different requirements. They will have a different portal. So. So the talk was really about, you know, it’s more about the economy on the economic model around it. So how do you give people in, say. Just so that they will want to join that digitization, because we are in a state where it’s 90 percent of what’s happening in the Supply chain. It’s just not digital. And we started in in early 70s. So it’s not gonna happen in our lifetime that we are going to realize, you know, digital supply chain if we keep going at this pace. And, you know, that has means, you know, all the transparence who we are looking for in the food supply chains. It’s not going to happen because it’s not scalable today. Yep. And access to finance, access to market, all these things that are really hard for small business. Right. You know, we talked about factoring. Right. Why is that so, so hard is because companies are opaque. Yeah. You need to look at paper to estimate the risk. And that’s why it’s so expensive. That’s why finances so inaccessible. But if you can drive digitization between, you know, what are you buying? What are you ordering, what are you delivering, what the quality of your services? That becomes a whole different game.
[00:20:56] Absolutely. Wow. So that’s a good insight into what transparency really means and what it really delivers. You know, transparency is one of those buzzwords like blockchain. I pick them, right? Yeah. Yeah. But that’s a good insight into what transparency means. Right. It’s the impact off of transport. Yeah. Right. Right. I mean it gives companies opportunities that they that they would not otherwise have access to because of their current opaqueness. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That’s a good point.
[00:21:22] Absolutely. So let’s go broader now. Let’s go. You’ve got to you’ve got a fascinating model. We could we could be hours of podcasting that dove in deeper. But looking at the industry, the end to end supply chain industry. What what are some of the trends or developments or innovations, what have you that are on your radar more than others right now?
[00:21:42] Mm hmm. Yeah, that’s that’s a good question. I think there are a few things. So. So, um, for one, we have been looking into the transport logistics industry. And I think one of the things that characterises that industry is that I think there’s a broad recognition that that’s solving some of the digitization issues today in the Supply chain cannot be lifted by a single player. I think that’s an old realization. So ever since in try and probably time before people have gone together and and look whether they could solve some of these challenges together by creating some shared infrastructure, I think trade lends is another good example of that. And there is some work also happening on onset on standardization. I forgot the name. I think it’s called it D.C.s. She’s something like this digital anyway.
[00:22:34] Yeah, I know what you’re talking about. Detailed DLT. D.
[00:22:39] I don’t know if it’s gonna D. We got the D. I only got the pretty right. I’m pretty sure about that. Yeah.
[00:22:44] Anyway so. So that’s one of the areas we’re looking into and say see you know, um, it seems that there could be a play for for a little bit more of an industry neutral platform to come by and see if that could help connect some of the parties. Because it seems if you just look inside of the industry, it seems some problems that are very hard to solve. Right. Cause there’s always gonna be this one or two major players that don’t want to participate in a shack governance setup and that that has been a bands for for a long time. Mm hmm. So that’s one of the things we’re looking into. Um, I think the other one is, um, when we speak to large brands, um, it’s a little bit along the same lines that they seem to realize that, for example, the transparency if we look at the food supply chains, that also this is not something that can be solved by a single company. So the whole idea about starting to share information between each other inside the industries that can be in terms of certifications off of salaries and or sharing information with with impact investors also between brands. I think that’s a growing kind of openness to to considering these kinds of things. Mm hmm. Yeah.
[00:23:58] So let me ask you this. So twelve hundred folks as an organization.
[00:24:02] Twelve hundred 113. Yes. Right. Juvera and 13. I was really maybe. That’s right. Yeah. Fairly your math here in less than 10 years.
[00:24:11] Impressive growth. And I believe that’s took a peek at Yale’s job or I believe your hiring. Right. As most growing technology firms are. What. Any insights you can share? Anything. Any experience I bring that that amount of people on over the last 10 years. What have you all learned as a management team, as as entrepreneurs in doing that?
[00:24:34] Mm hmm. Um, yeah, a lot. I think every time you hire, you know, you increase your size by, I don’t know, 20 percent or something like this. You basically have to reconsider most of the structures in the company, like how the teams organize, you know, how do you set a direction for people? How do you keep people aligned? What’s the kind of objectives? How do set objectives for people? Beginning, you know, you attend people, you can be in a room. Everybody understands where the business is going. Um, and, you know, what’s the direction that you try going? But as we grow bigger, I think, you know, even products start turning into separate revenue lines and they begin almost reassembling companies within the company. So I think that’s that that whole transition of just saying how can we stay efficient, nimble, agile while actually growing to the size and not ending up in a situation where it’s just twenty five cats or twelve hundred cats. All right. Each going to different directions.
[00:25:40] Different directions, genders. Yeah. You will weigh in on that. Greg White period. I mean, periodically a company hits the ceiling. Right. I mean, you have to change how you manage the company at 100 hundred at pick a number one hundred to fifty five hundred thousand, whatever it is. And and you have to revamp as you’re talking about at those sort of thresholds. But the interesting thing is that threshold is not the same for every company and it’s not the same for every management structures. But you have to be constantly reevaluating that so that you maintain. All right, you’re herding cats. Yeah. All right. You know, constantly. And when you’re growing a company, hiring is the most important thing that you do. Mm hmm. Right. Yeah. You make or break the culture of your company by how you hire and how you retain now.
[00:26:26] Right. I think that’s a good point. And I think we’re in a way we are fortunate that we start in 2010 and 11. We moved headquarters to to San Francisco and we made a decision at that time to say that they are kind of twin offices. So they have, you know, a fully functioning it’s not like a development was in Copenhagen and commercial was in San Francisco, but we actually had every function in both offices. So we had to start talking about then how do we, you know, become one company, keeping one company and not split out in two call culture. So we started very early on speaking about, you know, what are actually our values? You know, what is it that we value in people? And I think what you’re seeing, it’s about hiring. That’s really true. It’s like DNA. If if if you have a piece of DNA and it degrades by 5 percent and you keep, you know, reproducing, reproducing, hiring in new people, then very suddenly, you know, you’ve lost 50 percent of your DNA in a German telephone game.
[00:27:24] You’ve got to keep right. You’ve got to keep the original message communicated by the original people throughout the entire Endi. And you’ve got to reinforce it constantly. Nobody hears what you say. I a wise business guide. Tell me once. Nobody hears what you say until you’ve said it seven times. Yeah. So you it feels redundant. Yeah. To you. I mean you’ve probably had to do this in your company. Oh I have. Absolutely. But nobody hears it until the seventh time you say. It’s not unlike marketing. Right. The nine impressions that we all learned about in marketing class or whatever. Right.
[00:27:56] So my wife says she’s got tell me some 20 times. So maybe I’m the outlier there. I don’t know. It’s different when it’s your wife. Yeah. So good. Is it?
[00:28:06] Uh, you’re hiring globally. I mean, from China to Brazil to San Francisco to New York to throughout Europe. Holy cow. You must have an army of folks looking for the talent you’ll need that continue to serve the industry and your customers and grow.
[00:28:21] Yeah. So it’s actually a quite small team. But but we got some really senior experienced people also from, you know, some of the best tech companies in the world. That has helped us shaped that program. Mm hmm. Um. So I think we’ve we’ve managed that quite well. I think a few of the hops like, uh, Copenhagen, it has turned out that it’s actually relatively easy. Liz, let’s say compared to San Francisco to to attract talent, to, you know, to the lifestyle there and there and so we can attract people from all over the world. And then we also decided for international cultures like which is a little bit unusual in Copenhagen. You know, Danish is still mostly what you speak at at at company, sir. But that meant we could get, you know, international talent pretty quickly, that where the competition wasn’t as hard in Copenhagen. So there are a few things. And then also we were just opportunistic. We didn’t say, you know, all development has to be in San Francisco or in Bucharest or in China. But we basically saw where can we now grow the fastest? And that has a little bit determined the distribution of wealth for our people. Mm hmm.
[00:29:37] So outstanding. Lots of opportunities. Okay. So how can our listeners tune in and find out more about trade shift or, uh, check you out? You might have some upcoming events or social media, what have you.
[00:29:49] I can focus on more. Yeah. So they can go into trade if dot com. They can check out the block, um, for my team. So the frontiers. They can go to Froome to stop trade if dot com and we have a lot of material blocks and whenever something happens, you know, we’ll we’ll write stories about it there. Yeah. Yeah. Right. So. So that’s a good way of doing it. They can reach out to me, connect on LinkedIn, you know. Always happy to connect with people. And I’ll share a lot of stuff though.
[00:30:20] Outstanding. Why are you arguing with you about city are going to a bunch different directions. I don’t want to say that after what the Sheer. That’s right. But you aren’t. You’re touching a lot of the Indian supply chain industry. And I love how you’re like the work you’re doing is opening up doors for a lot of companies or entrepreneurs or leaders or teams that otherwise would not be open. Mm hmm. So you’re on quite a noble mission.
[00:30:47] Mm hmm. Yeah, I think I think that’s what what makes us wake up and be happy and energized every day. That’s that’s the idea that we can change something about, you know, the fundamental rules of how do companies play together. And I think that really is that opportunity. See, we’ve we’ve seen it in our private lives. And B, to see that when that digitization started to happen, it has changed everything. You know, it has changed the fabric of society. And then seeing in the B2B space, that hasn’t even really started yet. If he was just like a tremendous opportunity. Yep. And it’s gonna change so many things. We we can’t even imagine it in the next five to ten industry that you’re in really needs it.
[00:31:29] So, yeah. Congratulations and thank you for making that happen. Absolutely.
[00:31:35] Absolutely. Thanks for your time. Really appreciate it. Stick around. We wrap up here. We’ve been talking with Gert Sylvestre, co-founder, trade shift and general manager of trade Shift Frontiers. And as he mentioned, you can’t learn more about the overall enterprise at trade shift dot com. And you can learn more about frontiers at frontiers dot trade ship dot com. Is that right? That’s right. Okay. Perfect. Greg, another outstanding interview as we’re we’re getting close to wrapping up part time here, 9 for 10 so far.
[00:32:07] Greene. So the number that we’ve done, whatever the number is, we are X 4 X 2.
[00:32:12] Our listeners stay tuned as we continue our coverage of the EFC Logistics CIO forum, which is now what, Greg, a Reuters event right here in Austin, Texas. And also be sure to check out our other upcoming events and replays of our interviews, other resources at Supply Chain Now Radio dot com, including some recent blog articles with Vector Global Logistics Young and Roadrunner Roadrunner Freight Rate Roadrunner Greg White. Yeah, and where can they find us?
[00:32:39] They can find us wherever they find their podcast. Spotify. Apple podcasts. Google podcasts. SoundCloud cast.
[00:32:48] Pick one yet. Stitcher and YouTube. When you’re and your. I was getting there. Yeah. I was getting there. Yeah. And I’m glad that you did it. That’s right. Good. I’ve trained you well. That’s right. Young Jedi. But no.
[00:33:00] The great interview. Thanks so much for your time. Gerst, to our listeners on behalf of the entire team, Scott Luton here wishing you a wonderful week ahead and we will see you next time on. So much in our radio. Thanks for indeed.
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Watch Scott and Greg as they interview Gert Sylvest for SCNR Episode 227.
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Gert Sylvest is Co-Founder of Tradeshift, a company that drives supply chain innovation for the digitally connected economy. As the leader in supply chain payments and marketplaces, Tradeshift helps buyers and suppliers digitize all their trade transactions, collaborate on every process, and connect with any supply chain app. More than 1.5 million companies across 190 countries trust Tradeshift to process over half a trillion USD in transaction value, making it the largest global business network for buying and selling. Tradeshift is headquartered in San Francisco with offices in Copenhagen, New York, London, Paris, Suzhou, Sydney, Oslo, Frankfurt, Shanghai, Bucharest, Kuala Lumpur, Stockholm, Tokyo and Munich. Gert also serves as GM for Tradeshift Frontiers, which is Tradeshift’s R&D and incubation arm covering emerging technologies such as blockchain, AI/ML and IIoT, and commercial agendas including physical supply chain and the future of financial services. Learn more about Tradeshift here: https://tradeshift.com/
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