[00:00:00] Angie Jula: All retailers wanna know. It’s like, how can I predict what the demand is? How can I forecast more accurately to make sure I have the right product in the right place, at the right time, at the right price? And with the tariffs coming in, you know, there’s margin compression. So those retailers really have to leverage AI.

[00:00:17] Angie Jula: They can’t just be, you know, ah, that’s the right price, let’s move on. You know, they can’t do that anymore.

[00:00:24] Voiceover: Welcome to Supply Chain Now, the number one voice of supply chain. Join us as we share critical news, key insights, and real supply chain leadership from across the globe. One conversation at a time.

[00:00:36] Scott W. Luton: Hey, good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you may be. Scott Luton with you here on Supply Chain Now welcome to today’s show, folks. We’ve got an outstanding show coming up here today. We’re gonna be dialing it in on how innovative business leaders are leveraging AI and automation to transform their operations, especially in retail.

[00:00:56] Scott W. Luton: Delight in their customers, empowering their suppliers, all while making it easier for their team members to find more and more success each and every day with a lot less manual work. Now that paints a pretty picture, huh? No wonder that Gartner research and plenty of others all say that connected supply chains and effective automation of partner workflows are essential priorities for supply chain success in 2025 and beyond.

[00:01:21] Scott W. Luton: And today we’ll be talking with a couple of industry leaders that have their finger on the pulse of retail leadership priorities and are deeply involved in innovations out in industry. So folks, you gotta stick around for a great conversation that I promise you is gonna offer up all sorts of actionable insights by the truckload.

[00:01:39] Scott W. Luton: Alright, so lemme introduce our wonderful guest joining me here today, starting with Angie Jula, Director of Product Management of SPS Commerce. Now, Angie. Leverages her entrepreneurial background and many other superpowers to craft and deliver best in class solutions for business leaders. Her approach is well known for being focused on understanding the customer’s operational processes to make sure maximum value is unlocked and delivered.

[00:02:05] Scott W. Luton: Angie, how you doing? I’m doing great, Scott. Thanks

[00:02:08] Angie Jula: for having me.

[00:02:09] Scott W. Luton: Outstanding. Great to have you. And you’re joined by Matt Brolsma, Senior Product Marketing Manager with SPS Commerce. Now, Matt has quite the track record when it comes to analytical prowess and creative storytelling, which I tell you, global supply chains need a whole bunch more of.

[00:02:24] Scott W. Luton: Right over the last decade, he’s held a variety of roles, SPS, but above all else, Matt has remained laser focused on solving some of the most difficult challenges across the retail supply chain ecosystem. Matt, how you doing here today? I’m great, Scott. Thanks for having me. You bet. Angie and Matt, we’ve got a lot of stuff to get to, but I got y’all.

[00:02:44] Scott W. Luton: Y’all know how we do it around here. I gotta start with a fun warmup question to get to know you a little bit better. Now, Angie, I’m gonna start with your golf prowess as you played golf collegially at the University of Kentucky, the home of the Wildcats program. Is that right? Yes, that’s right. That’s right.

[00:03:01] Scott W. Luton: Alright, so I gotta ask you, and I think you also coached golf as well, but what was one of your favorite golf moments throughout that stretch of your journey?

[00:03:09] Angie Jula: Favorite golf moment? Yes. Oh gosh. You know, playing, playing in Hawaii at Ko Lu. Wow. Uh, when Michelle, we, I don’t know if you if anybody remembers her, she was an up and coming young golf star, and she actually joined our foursome, um, and played a few holes with us because she was in town.

[00:03:31] Angie Jula: That was her home course at the time. And so, you know, I was good. Uh, but I wasn’t that good. So like with her, so that was one of my highlights, um, in my collegiate career is during that time I got to play with her. So that was a lot

[00:03:46] Scott W. Luton: of Wow. Uh, not only, uh, Michelle who was compared early on to Tiger Woods in the earliest part of her career.

[00:03:52] Scott W. Luton: That’s how dominant she was. Yeah. But playing in Hawaii, I can only imagine the imagery and, uh, oh,

[00:03:58] Angie Jula: it’s gorgeous. Yeah.

[00:03:59] Scott W. Luton: Oh gosh. Yeah. Um, all right, good stuff. Now that you’ve got me craving to go lose a hundred balls on a beautiful island out in the Pacific, Matt. Here’s an interesting one. I am not sure if we have ever featured a former DJ here on Supply Chain Now.

[00:04:17] Scott W. Luton: Uh, and that’s exactly, you’re a retired dj as I think you put it. Uh, tell us about what you played and, and what part of the world you delivered. What vibes and music.

[00:04:27] Matt Brolsma: Well, um, I graduated college in 2011, so this is about the peak of the whole EDM electronic dance scene. Yes. So I did that, um, that was fun.

[00:04:39] Matt Brolsma: Some clubs and bars, and then started a company djt the whole weddings and private events. But then realized after my first kid, I couldn’t come back at 3:00 AM after bar close and wake up in time, uh, to take care of kids. So that had to, that had to end. But now here I am in supply chain, so found a i’d, you know, a different calling if you will.

[00:04:58] Matt Brolsma: So,

[00:04:59] Scott W. Luton: because almost as cool, let’s face it. Right. Almost as cool is that.

[00:05:04] Matt Brolsma: Yeah.

[00:05:04] Scott W. Luton: I

[00:05:05] Matt Brolsma: mean, almost as cop. Yeah. Yes, for sure. Not quite, not quite the energy, you know, but it, it’s a different challenge for sure, Scott.

[00:05:13] Scott W. Luton: It is. And I’ll tell you first off, um, consumers have kind of figure out the incredible role that supply chain teams and professionals play right behind every one of their daily conveniences.

[00:05:24] Scott W. Luton: And it’s also great to have talent, whether it it comes from athletic success or musical success. It’s really a cool industry for all walks of life, and that’s been really cool to see in recent years. So, Angie and Matt, now that we’ve gotten to know you a little better, I wanna get to know you a little better professionally as, as we started to get into the supply chain topics we’re talking about here today.

[00:05:44] Scott W. Luton: And Angie, I wanna start with you. Tell us if you would, briefly, about your professional journey and let’s level set on what SPS Commerce does in a nutshell.

[00:05:53] Angie Jula: Sure, sure. So I’ve been in supply chain, more software technology, but supply chain, software technology for the last 13 years. I started with a, a small company called Genius Central.

[00:06:04] Angie Jula: We created order management solutions to help retail small retailers get a big box technology and gained some efficiencies through ordering through their suppliers. And so that then parlayed into SPS acquiring our company. And then I got to join the great team at SPS. So that’s been a, that’s been a lot of fun and I’ve been on the product team ever since.

[00:06:24] Scott W. Luton: Outstanding. And SPS Commerce has been growing left and right. And in a nutshell, if you had to describe what the company does, what would that be?

[00:06:31] Angie Jula: So SPS is a supply chain technology company. We essentially power relationships and transforming and exchanging data between, um, suppliers and retailers and helping them improve their supply chain performance.

[00:06:45] Scott W. Luton: Love it, uh, and help them delight their customers more and more. Give stuff to Angie. Okay, Matt, let’s learn a little more about your professional journey. Tell us a little about yourself.

[00:06:54] Matt Brolsma: Sure. So I’ve been in, like Angie, a software supply chain for 14 years. Um, I actually started for a large part of that working with supplier brands and manufacturers, and just in the past five years, switched over and worked more on the buying organization side of it so that when you, retailers, grocers, distributors, really understanding the challenges that pain them right to service customers.

[00:07:17] Matt Brolsma: So I’ve been focusing on that for the past five years. So.

[00:07:21] Scott W. Luton: Outstanding. What a great mix of experiences here today and perspectives, which is also a great, beautiful part of global supply chain, right? A big dominant theme in our conversation here today with Angie and Matt is gonna be AI and automation and retail operations.

[00:07:38] Scott W. Luton: And I wanna demystify and, and level set effectively on the front end. And I think there’s three key items that, that I think will help us do that. Matt, what’s the first one that we wanna kinda level set with the audience around?

[00:07:50] Matt Brolsma: Yeah. Well there’s a lot of buzz in noise around AI right now. So the first thing I just hit on is what do we see from an adoption perspective?

[00:07:58] Matt Brolsma: Uh, there’s a PWC report this year that came out that said 78% of organizations globally are starting to step into or adopting ai. And more specifically in the retail space, we’re seeing that around 83% of retail. Adoption alone is, isn’t the full story, right? Uh, it’s actually got a, are we starting to see meaningful input and impact from that?

[00:08:22] Matt Brolsma: I think if you’re follow closely ai, like I do, you probably have seen MIT research that came out at 95%. Organizations aren’t getting value on impact out of ai. You can dissect that report a lot of ways, but I think the largely what we’re seeing is that a lot of these projects aren’t leaving the lab, right?

[00:08:40] Matt Brolsma: They’re in a pilot phase. There are a lot of leaders that are allowing access to these applications to lead their teams freely use. So there’s obviously an adoption and operationalization problem that we see with that.

[00:08:52] Scott W. Luton: Yep. So on this first one, this is a big one. We could do a whole podcast series around just your last response ton

[00:08:59] Matt Brolsma: time.

[00:08:59] Matt Brolsma: Yeah,

[00:09:00] Scott W. Luton: it is, but it’s really important ’cause we see the same thing. A lot of those, the best of ideas, they’re not leaving the lab and not creating the impact that some of the organizations and business leaders are looking for. Angie, comment on this first kinda level setting bucket that we, that Matt’s established here.

[00:09:15] Angie Jula: Sure. I mean, it really is incumbent on retailers when we, when we think about them adopting AI solutions, it all really starts with data and visibility in the data. And so a lot of them are not leaving the lab, like Matt said, because of the data. So it’s the ability to get it, to digitize it, to have that strong re relationship with your supplier, have them understand what that value of digitizing, exchanging, keeping up the data, updated, letting them know when, you know, letting retailers know when shipments are coming or when they expect to come, how much inventory is coming.

[00:09:52] Angie Jula: So. It all kind of goes back down to the foundation of the data, making sure it’s clean, organized, and they’re getting it from the suppliers. Once they have that, then the adoption of AI solutions may rapidly increase because once they can overly the AI solutions over top of clean, good data that’s digitized and that’s in their four walls in their system, then they can start acting upon it and get those intelligent automations that they so desperately need to increase the efficiencies inside the four walls.

[00:10:25] Scott W. Luton: Angie love that. Uh, data and communications from the blocking and tackling. When that we have that by the truckload, it’s amazing how much friction we can take out of operations and how much innovation we can really, effectively and tangibly put into operations. Matt, what’s the second, uh, item we wanna level set on?

[00:10:46] Matt Brolsma: Yeah, I think if you go into the problem that exists with a lot of this stuff, it’s. Why, why isn’t there the adoption and why is data so hard? And I think you start to step into this deeper that whether it’s automation, it’s access to data, leveraging data, there seems to be, you know, problems in the organizations and how they’re tracking and storing and keeping access to this data, which is impacting some of that work.

[00:11:12] Scott W. Luton: Yep. Answering those whys, uh, Matt are absolutely critical for so many organizations and their teams. Uh, Angie, your thoughts here, number two?

[00:11:21] Angie Jula: Yeah, just, I mean, it really sets back and goes back to where the data is, what is the retailer trying to solve for? And really trying to understand what are their processes today that they really rely on manual touches here and there.

[00:11:38] Angie Jula: And so if they take a step back and they start to look at the manual problems that they have, then they can start to figure out what are the next steps that they need to take to be able to make those problems go away, create more efficiencies for their teams internally.

[00:11:54] Scott W. Luton: Yes, Angie, I tell going to the gemba and really, and seeing how the team members spend their day and, and some of the manual, um, tedious work or seeing some of the headaches.

[00:12:05] Scott W. Luton: Man, really understanding that kind of to one of your points you mentioned there and, and that might all oftentimes that kind of tells you where to, where to start and what to prioritize. Alright, so Matt, we, we, we’ve tackled two items here as we level set. Uh, before we get into the discussion, what’s the third item we wanna level set with our audience on?

[00:12:22] Matt Brolsma: Yeah, so where are organizations focused right now? And largely that is the uncertainty that’s in this landscape right now. We got tariffs that are coming down that are always in creating this volatility in the supply chain, right? So when you start to think about all that uncertainty, there’s definitely a risk component to that, right?

[00:12:43] Matt Brolsma: And so when you start to think about these tools that we have access to data, things like visibility and performance, these are vital to be able to stay on top of and manage through that uncertainty. In addition to some of these other focuses, we’re seeing anywhere from, you know, closing the gaps in omnichannel from store and online to, um, retail media networks, right?

[00:13:02] Matt Brolsma: From retailer’s perspective, trying to differentiate and add, add additional value services to, uh, attract more consumers.

[00:13:10] Scott W. Luton: Man, I’ve been fascinated with some of the, as you mentioned, the retail media networks and how they’re, they’re, um, you know, creating content to help inform and educate buyers and consumers.

[00:13:20] Scott W. Luton: It’s a fascinating time. Angie, what would you add to this, this third level setting item on disruptions and kinda what’s going on out in industry?

[00:13:28] Angie Jula: Yeah, so, so like Matt said, you know, retailers are looking out at the economic landscape. There’s some uncertainty out there, and so they’re trying to find any way possible to kind of incrementally gain some efficiencies in their processes, be able to serve their customers better, understand, um, better what their customers are wanting when they’re wanting items.

[00:13:52] Angie Jula: And so. Uh, these retailers have a lot of change that’s in front of them, and so they need to get prepared for the, these changes that happen drastically and then they need to be able to pivot quickly. And so the more that they lean into ai, it gives them that capability through different tools in different sets of data that they can pivot more quickly and be able to service their customers better.

[00:14:17] Scott W. Luton: Yes, Angie, as you described that, you and Matt both, uh, thought of all the different ways we have uncertainty. I’ll say we’d be making Baskin Robbins very proud ’cause we got dozens and dozens of flavors of uncertainty out in this crazy market here. Um, but, uh, and we also have an, an anxious workforce and that’s why I believe a lot of what we’re gonna talking about here today is really important.

[00:14:39] Scott W. Luton: Because how can we enable our workforce to find more success more easily every day? And that’s kinda where I’m going next here. ’cause there’s a big manual problem in global business, especially in supply chain operations everywhere. So when it comes to the retail world, Angie, why do so, uh, why do many retailers still manage suppliers manually, and how does this impact their daily operations?

[00:15:03] Angie Jula: Yeah, so, um, Scott, the way I think about it is, it’s kind of like when you have that iPhone, your first iPhone, or you have that iPhone that you, that you love and you know, you know where all the buttons are, you know where all the apps are and what screen they’re on, and then it breaks and then you gotta go get a new one.

[00:15:21] Angie Jula: And it’s like you’re excited for it, but you’re unsure because you gotta learn a new, gotta relearn everything, Angie. Everything. So it’s like, it’s not great. This is the same thing. Supplier or retailers know how to manage those suppliers in spreadsheets. They love their spreadsheets. They don’t wanna change.

[00:15:39] Angie Jula: While it’s exciting to think about automating their processes. They start, like you said, uneasy workforce. They’re like, oh, I’m gonna automate myself out of a job. No, you’re not. What you’re gonna do is learn how to work faster, more efficiently and be able to focus on the things that you really need to.

[00:15:55] Angie Jula: So being able to use AI to assess contract language quicker so you don’t have to read through a 20 page supplier agreement, retail retailer, supplier agreement, being able to assess those are much quicker. So you can have those great conversations of building that relationship with your supplier, being able to do pricing assessments, performance assessments, getting automated insights.

[00:16:17] Angie Jula: It just really is going to allow team if they embrace it, if retailers are embracing this automation, they’re really learn how to work smarter and be able to focus more efficiently on. The matters at hand that they really need to solve. The more important things that they need to have those face-to-face conversations, ’cause that face-to-face with suppliers and creating that, that relationship that’s super important to be able to deliver the product that you need to your customer.

[00:16:43] Angie Jula: And that’s never gonna go away.

[00:16:45] Scott W. Luton: Yes, Angie. That’s right. Alright. Matt Angie’s painting a, uh, an exciting new world, uh, of reality, really, right? When folks lean into modern day innovative technologies, what else would you add to how we’re still continuing to manage suppliers manually and its impact?

[00:17:02] Matt Brolsma: It’s so interesting and I’m glad Angie brought that up because let’s pull on that thread a little bit more.

[00:17:06] Matt Brolsma: Ask any merchant and where do they wanna spend their time? They wanna spend their time on, Hey, what’s gonna be that next hot item that I can add to my assortment? Right? What’s happening in their market? Might consumer trends be able to forecast better, right. Spend time with my supplier, have more collaborative relationships, but instead they’re cementing that time firefighting.

[00:17:25] Matt Brolsma: Pretty much surface that all the time. It’s like, where’s my product at? When isn’t in here? Is it my promo at risk? Right? So I think you, you see that come through as like this is the culmination of all that manual effort and work. Right. That to Andrew’s point, that’s the automation will help them focus in the areas they wanna focus on.

[00:17:44] Matt Brolsma: A lot of this problem it does, it’s change management, right? So it, as Angie called out, but I would also see that you’ve got siloed systems. You still have silos across teams. And so there’s even just the, the ambition of trying to unite the teams to work under a single system. And this is why you see companies trying to software, new technology, but there’s an always some level of an adoption gap, right?

[00:18:07] Matt Brolsma: That’s always a struggle with that. So then we end up reverting to it, which I think is the continuous, probably OEC of, of having to, of having to achieve that level of automation. So

[00:18:19] Scott W. Luton: yes. Well, and Matt and Angie. Out of all of this chaos and calamity and old fashioned ways of doing things, there’s a ton of good news, and both of y’all are evangelists for this good news, a better way of doing things.

[00:18:32] Scott W. Luton: So let’s talk more about the modern day approach to, uh, finding supply chain success. How exactly are AI and automation transforming supplier management today? And what is that? Tremendous. Try to quantify that tremendous value to merchants and supply chain teams, Angie.

[00:18:49] Angie Jula: Ooh. Wow. Yeah, great question. You know, retailers are really starting to lean into utilizing tools, AI for contract management, AI for pricing management, AI solutions for demand planning and forecasting, collaborative demand planning and forecasting, where they’re sharing sales data with their, um, suppliers.

[00:19:09] Angie Jula: They’re collaborating on what items to bring in, and they’re really leaning into using AI to give them those insights and help them, like I said before, have those, you know, really thoughtful conversations of what’s gonna, what’s gonna drive, um, consumer demand, um, what’s gonna drive consumers into my store, and, you know, how am I gonna delight those customers at the end of the day to keep that loyalty going.

[00:19:34] Scott W. Luton: That’s right. And you know, also eliminating exceptions that require manual interventions. I’ve seen that Absolutely. A big theme. That’s great, man. Taking headaches and friction out of the day-to-day for the teams. Matt, what else would you add to that? I

[00:19:47] Matt Brolsma: mean, you have to pull from, I know it’s a bit redundant, but Amazon leveraging some of the AI capabilities have surfaced that they saw delivery time and cost reduction at 25% based on how they’re using a combination of AI and robotics.

[00:20:02] Matt Brolsma: Right? So those are just use cases. L be it like is isolated, right? It’s Amazon. But we’re seeing customers starting to step into, as Angie kind of talks about computer automated ordering, which has been always hard. But now AI is making that way more efficient in terms of sitting on top of planning and OMS systems to handle replenishment.

[00:20:23] Matt Brolsma: Right? So being able to have supplier data, like supplier intent to fulfill in the extent of the changes of an order to get ahead of, okay, where is this order at? Do we actually need to replenish my order to kick out? Right? But that’s a great analogy or a great example of how. In order to really drive AI capabilities, you need quality data in to do that, right?

[00:20:44] Matt Brolsma: And so that’s where we’re starting to see organizations step in is once they’ve established that foundation, what it starts to unlock.

[00:20:51] Scott W. Luton: Hmm. So Matt and Angie there’s no shortage of ways that forward looking supply chain teams are leveraging AI and of course automation. So let’s talk about retailer priorities that you’re seeing and some of the progress or, or momentum that we’re seeing out across industry.

[00:21:08] Scott W. Luton: I don’t know if there was, in pre-show that one of y’all had mentioned a survey, 93% of supply chain leaders had experienced supplier disruptions recently. I’m surprised that number’s not 99.999%. Right. But what are the key trends that retailers are now prioritizing because of this dis disruption or others?

[00:21:27] Scott W. Luton: Matt,

[00:21:28] Matt Brolsma: that 93 I would agree with you, is I think that’s underselling it a little bit. I think the state of the world we live in today, disruptions are just to be expected. So. It’s about how you manage through disruption, right? And a lot of that comes down to where we see a lot of focus is, like Angie kind of called it all earlier, is what can I do to operate more efficiently as a business, to be more, and also be more agile, resilient when those disruptions happen.

[00:21:57] Matt Brolsma: I think, Scott, you made a call out to exception management, right? Mm-hmm. How can I stay ahead of potential disruptions and react faster? Right? And what’s gonna, what are the capabilities that are gonna enable you to do that? Right? And I think tariffs are a perfect example. When those come and change, you’re shifting a lot in your business to account for that.

[00:22:15] Matt Brolsma: So, you know, these are the types of things that just come inplace today. And organizations need to figure out ways. To, to stay on top of that.

[00:22:22] Scott W. Luton: Yeah. Uh, you know, it’s amazing the, the big gains thanks to modern day technology here in the golden age of supply chain techs, what I call it, that leaders are able to lean into not only really innovative reactive measures, because that’s, that’ll always be part of supply chain management, right?

[00:22:38] Scott W. Luton: Surprises that, that comes with the territory, but more and more proactively where we’re able to predict and prescribe what we need to be doing before it even arrives. That is amazing to me. Angie, what else would you, would you, um, add to the list of things that retailers, key trends that they’re prioritizing right now?

[00:22:57] Angie Jula: I mean, they’re definitely prioritizing their IT spend on AI solutions. I mean, we’re seeing that all over. The big spend right now is on demand planning and forecasting. So you mentioned Scott, the predictability, right? That’s one of the things that, um, that all retailers wanna know is like, how can I predict what the demand is?

[00:23:16] Angie Jula: How can I forecast more accurately to make sure I have the right product in the right place at the right time, at the right price? And with the tariffs coming in, you know, there’s margin compression. So those retailers really have to leverage ai. They can’t just be, you know, ah, that’s the right price, let’s move on.

[00:23:32] Angie Jula: You know, they can’t do that anymore. They really need to be able to assess competition, what the pricing demands are, you know, with the store down the street. And so leveraging those, the spend on AI solutions to be able to solve some of those problems, to be able to, you know, gain. Operational efficiencies, margin anywhere they can.

[00:23:53] Angie Jula: So that when Matt said they don’t have to raise the prices on those consumers, when those tariffs come in, they can be more proactive about their strategy and approach to how they’re pricing and positioning products in their stores.

[00:24:04] Scott W. Luton: That is right. Uh oh. The art of the possible is just ever evolving.

[00:24:08] Scott W. Luton: Matt, I think one of the sectors that you have exper get a bit, uh, of experience in is, is the grocery sector. Right? I’ve been checking out recently how, um, robotics and, and automation approaches are now picking more groceries than ever before. They finally figured out. In some ways, you know, the thumb is uniquely human, the opposable thumb, right?

[00:24:28] Scott W. Luton: And if you ever, if you’ve had to cut your thumb and you can’t use it, you’ll realize just what separates us from the, the rest of the annual kingdom. But they’re starting to figure that out from a robotics automation standpoint. How to, you know, pick up like bags of oranges, which has been really challenging for robotics.

[00:24:44] Scott W. Luton: So. Kind of along these lines, Matt, what’s the connection that you see between automation and improving fill rates, groceries, otherwise, uh, on time in full purchase order accuracy? What’s, what’s some of the, the, the beautiful connections that you’re seeing there, Matt?

[00:25:00] Matt Brolsma: Yeah. Well, first of all, on that call out, I think you’re talking about the demos of like the Tesla optimist robot, which is just insane.

[00:25:07] Matt Brolsma: I mean, you talk about a disruptor technology, where that’s gonna go, but I know more, more specifically, I think what we’re talking about right here is, uh, as Angie kind of called out where SPS focuses quite a bit, is that data and communications between retailer suppliers and other entities. Right? And I think the important part of that is you need data to actually assess performance, right?

[00:25:29] Matt Brolsma: When you think performance, you think tif. Accelerate lead time, right? Those, those critical measures. And that requires data to actually be accurate on what are, what, how are we actually doing from an enterprise perspective down to category department to a supplier level, right? To be able to assess that.

[00:25:47] Matt Brolsma: Now, while, while why that valuable? I think if you look at just what’s happening right now, what we just talked about previously, right? In Q4 here, and the tariffs, like you really need to assess risk in your supply chain, right? Especially staring down, getting inventory and time to meet those promo windows For Q4, uh, where are my biggest areas of risk?

[00:26:07] Matt Brolsma: You’re actually able to drill into some important drill into performance of where in your supply chain are. Is there gonna be risks and do you have contingencies in place to be able to do that? Right? That all requires data and capabilities to roll up at an enterprise level. How, how are we performing as a business?

[00:26:23] Scott W. Luton: You don’t wanna say, oh, they’re doing pretty good. What does that mean? What does that mean? We wanna get specific and, and, uh, objective. And as you say, Matt, let’s lead, let’s get the data and let us let the data tell the story. Angie, what else would you add in terms of that, that connection to an automation and all the performance metrics?

[00:26:42] Angie Jula: Yeah, so I’ll, I’ll just lean into something you said, Scott. I have a sticker on my, uh, laptop right now. It says, without data, it’s just an opinion. So, I mean, you’re, you’re, you’re right. I mean. You have to have data as, as, uh, Matt said, and retailers are starting to lean heavy. We’re seeing a big trend in our business around scorecarding.

[00:27:03] Angie Jula: They wanna scorecard their suppliers and being able to overlay AI onto those scorecards, making sure that those metrics they’re performing in the right categories, that retailers can start to assess, did I actually put out the right expectations for my suppliers to have a healthy relationship? And how are those suppliers performing against that re you know, that relationship or those expectations.

[00:27:25] Angie Jula: And then, you know, utilizing AI to be able to, like Matt said, mitigate those risks, assess new supplier opportunities. So if you’ve got a supplier that’s not consistent on delivery for their otif, um, then you look at another partner who can be more consistent and provide more value to your relationship.

[00:27:43] Scott W. Luton: Yes. And suppliers are craving that objective, uh, feedback so they can get better and protect and grow their business. Um, Matt. Lots more good topics here. You know, one of my favorite topics to talk about is breaking down silos, going silo, smashing. Some organizations are really good at it. Others, well, we’re stuck in 1985.

[00:28:01] Scott W. Luton: But Matt, how are cross-functional dashboards helping to break down silos between supply chain merchandising and the operations teams?

[00:28:10] Matt Brolsma: All letes first assess that everyone has a dashboard, uh, and everyone loves their dashboard. So I think the biggest thing is whose data is right? Whether that’s internally, you’re merchandising the supply chain or you’re talking to the supplier, right?

[00:28:24] Matt Brolsma: So I think Angie called it out I feel like a little bit earlier, but there’s so much importance in the relationships, right? And I think whether that’s your relationships with your suppliers relationship cross-functionally, internally, you start to see a lot actually in retail, a little bit more consolidation within departments.

[00:28:41] Matt Brolsma: So supply chain and merchandising coming together so that they are looking at things more holistically in, in tandem, right? So you get around that. But really I, I think once you’re able to overcome some of those, like organizational or operational issues there, then you’re able to start to step into the question of, okay, what is the platform?

[00:29:00] Matt Brolsma: The way the single point of view, single pane of glass is, as you probably have heard it used right, of what’s actually happening today so that we can make decisions together as a team based on still that people have different priorities and they have different focuses on what they carry on their job.

[00:29:15] Scott W. Luton: Yes. Better decisions faster, more confidently. And in some cases, as we’ve talked a lot about here on supply chain, now we can even eliminate decisions and need to make decisions using automation and ai much more. Angie, what, what else would you add to, you know, how dashboards are helping to create that organizational alignment?

[00:29:34] Angie Jula: Sure, sure. You know, the, the good thing is it’s objective data and then teams, teams are able to start talking to one another about. Why another team should care about their performance metrics, because they all overlap. Supply chain should care about the merchandising data and information because that’s gonna impact, you know, is a supplier gonna respond to me when, you know, I ask them where their a SN is or you know, where, where the, where the shipment is.

[00:30:04] Angie Jula: And so if supply chain then also needs to understand how finance works. Finance needs to understand how merchandising works and what their KPIs are because they have to work in an integrated way. So just making sure that teams start to work together and they start to see each step in each other’s shoes and understand why, what data is important to them, and really how it affects the supplier and the flow of products because it ultimately affects the customer.

[00:30:33] Scott W. Luton: Yes, Angie, I wish I had a perfect golf analogy for what you’re describing, but I’ll use a baseball one. You know, the pitcher cares that the third of the, the third baseman can make a play on every grounder and start a double play. And he cares that, or he or she cares that the center fielder can catch all the routine pop flies and the more challenging ones.

[00:30:51] Scott W. Luton: It is a ecosystem that’s gotta come together and continuously find new ways of delighting the customer and leaving no supplier behind. ’cause we all know Matt and Angie, that any supply chain ecosystem is only as strong as its weakest link. Alright, so Matt and Angie, gosh, uh, you’ve got a couple more hours ’cause I got some more questions for you.

[00:31:12] Scott W. Luton: Lots of good stuff here. SBS commerce has been on the move. I’ve enjoyed previous conversations going back a couple years with you and your, your colleagues. I wanna dial in on what your role is in all this, especially when it comes to. Enabling and activating and optimizing rather automation, right?

[00:31:30] Scott W. Luton: Optimizing automation. So where does SPS Commerce fit into this automation journey for retailers? I’ll start with you, Angie.

[00:31:37] Angie Jula: Okay. You know, SPS starts with that foundation that we talked about, you know, at the, at the top of the podcast, which was we help enable retailers to get that data to start that automation journey.

[00:31:49] Angie Jula: We also help them message to their suppliers to make sure that their suppliers understand the value of them exchanging the data. And then there is, you know, we set up the systems, the flow of data, and then we help the retail organization understand what process changes do they need to implement internally, and what data that they’re gonna get so that they can start to manage those exceptions via automation throughout the different teams.

[00:32:15] Angie Jula: So we play from, from start to finish with retailers and help them through that, that automation journey.

[00:32:22] Scott W. Luton: I love it. All 18 holes, all four rounds. That’s great. The major championship. Uh, Angie, um, Matt, what else would you add to that?

[00:32:31] Matt Brolsma: I think there’s an important thing that’s worth doubling down on here, and I kind of think of this as aligned value.

[00:32:37] Matt Brolsma: Angie kind of send value. I think that is the missing link that we so often see when it comes to data and technology. And that’s because we sit between organizations so frequently, right? Three pls, suppliers, retailers. So I think it’s an important call out that so often in the conversation it’s like, do you know why this matters?

[00:32:56] Matt Brolsma: Right? And it’s all the way down to when we talk to a supplier in a retailer’s rollout a new requirement, do you know why this retailers roll out this requirement for the purposes of helping sell your products and get your products where they need to go more efficiently? Right. And it’s even as tactically as looking at supply chain and merchandising, right?

[00:33:13] Matt Brolsma: Uh, does merchandiser really care about throughput in their DC or where the product goes? They do, if it impacts OSA or on shelf availability, right? In terms of, as well as being in soccer outta stock. So I think it’s just the important communica. This just reinforces where you think about the important of relationships communicating while we’re doing things, and the value.

[00:33:33] Matt Brolsma: That’s such an important piece that I would just add on to what, uh, to what Angie was saying. So,

[00:33:39] Scott W. Luton: uh, y’all are quite the one two punch, Matt and Angie. Uh, we’re gonna have to take this act on the road and get to Rolling Stones open for y’all and, and continue to share. We’ll

[00:33:47] Angie Jula: be at the spear next week.

[00:33:49] Angie Jula: That’s, oh

[00:33:49] Scott W. Luton: man, that’s jealous. That’s right, Angie. That’s right, man. Um, okay, so a minute ago we were talking about. Proactive and reactive and kind of how those ratio, you know, we’re moving more and more to an ever more proactive world, which is outstanding. Right. Um, question for you, I wanna start with you, Matt.

[00:34:07] Scott W. Luton: Tools or capabilities that SPS Commerce provides that helps those retailers out there and their supply chains move, move successfully from reactive to proactive supplier management. And of course it always helps to, you know, kind of process that through an example, Matt, your thoughts?

[00:34:25] Matt Brolsma: Yeah, so I would say the bread and butter, what really what we do is close the adoption gap that happens typically with technology, right?

[00:34:34] Matt Brolsma: Yes. We have a technology platform. We’ve got tools to enable exception management. So if you’re trying to understand your order across the status of the order lifecycle or the item lifecycle of getting items set up, or even down to kind of what we talked about around performance and understanding what is enterprise wide performance, so like down to supplier item.

[00:34:54] Matt Brolsma: I think it really comes down to the driving that information flow and exchange between organizations and helping and ensure they’re using that information. So helping close that adoption gap. And I think really that’s the crux because at the end of the day, there’s a lot of technology, a lot of tools that you’re seeing that explosion with ai now, there’s so many options, but really at the end of the day, you gotta have that data to activated on.

[00:35:18] Matt Brolsma: And so that’s where we’re really focused in helping organizations.

[00:35:22] Scott W. Luton: Matt, there’s a tremendous lot, uh, amount of value there. A lot of organizations, we all see ’em and probably talk with them every day. They all have some form of that gap you’re talking about. Yeah. They get the tools, they see examples, but how can they bring it into their organization with tangible success?

[00:35:40] Scott W. Luton: Right. Um, an Angie, what else would you add to that transition from reactive to proactive supplier management and how you’re doing it?

[00:35:49] Angie Jula: So, so one of the solutions that we provide retailers and suppliers is the ability to share and collaborate on sales data, being proactive, looking at that historical sales data, those trends, you know, looking at de or feeding that data into a demand, uh, demand planning forecasting system.

[00:36:07] Angie Jula: It really allows that supplier retailer collaboration, understanding what items should, you know, should be brought into their organization, what items should be discontinued pricing optimization. So it really allows them, that solution allows them to be more proactive, collaboratively with their, between the retailer and the supplier.

[00:36:28] Scott W. Luton: Angie that that pricing optimization’s a big one. That’s a great example. Especially right now, uh, with, as we’re seeing, uh, via the trade war and all the tariffs at, you know, changing. Mm-hmm. I was at a conference earlier that that was, um, it was one of the best gatherings of returns leaders, right?

[00:36:44] Scott W. Luton: Returns management and reverse logistics leaders. And I hadn’t even thought about the tariffs on returns products coming back in and how in one of the panelists of this conversation we’re having, what, what’s the tariff rate today? And it’s, it was such a, a moment in time. ’cause a lot of organizations are struggling with successful pricing velocity.

[00:37:04] Scott W. Luton: Not only what price do we set it at, but how quickly can we change it and optimize the whole process. Alright. Speaking of change. Uh, here in the golden age of supply chain tech, where, which I really feel um, we’re, we’re in, how teams operate and how supply chains are managed is changing and changing by the hour, it’s really being transformed.

[00:37:25] Scott W. Luton: So I’ve got a two part question. Angie, I wanna stick with you here for a second. How does automation change the daily work of a supply chain manager or merchant or their teams? And of course, how does that impact overall team productivity, Angie?

[00:37:39] Angie Jula: Sure. I think, like we said before, Scott, it’s really allowing them to.

[00:37:44] Angie Jula: Step out of those daily redundant manual processes of looking at spreadsheets and numbers and um, and starting to utilize AI for insights so that they can stop doing the manual processes and start having the more important conversations with their teammates across departments. You know, how do they achieve their strategic initiatives and focus on those more than the daily operational mundane tasks that take up so much of their time.

[00:38:14] Angie Jula: You know, that’s really how I see, uh, teams transforming. It’s just working smarter, um, and not harder.

[00:38:21] Scott W. Luton: Angie is what’s old, is new again. That’s right. And really we can’t, all of us as humans kind of clinging to how we’ve all always have done things, whether they’re spreadsheets or other kind of ArcHa, archaic ways.

[00:38:32] Scott W. Luton: But the opportunities are too great. And, and the gains are too great. And the challenges we’re trying to solve are too great to, to, to clinging to 1985. I don’t wanna pickling that year, but I am. Um, Matt, what would you add? What would you add to, to how automation is changing the daily work? Right. And, and overall team productivity.

[00:38:52] Matt Brolsma: I think Angie hit it well. The only add element I would add is incorporating the supplier right into the equation. You know, back to this element we talked about firefighting, right? If you’re constantly focused in your relationships around getting that latest item set up in the work back and forth to do that accurately, right?

[00:39:11] Matt Brolsma: Getting the order cut, understanding where is the order at. And even know what Angie said too around sales data sharing, right? Empowering your suppliers with what’s selling and how it’s performing so that they can come to the table with help and recommendations on maybe new opportunities to look at.

[00:39:26] Matt Brolsma: Right. All of this stuff. I think in this day and age, it’s like you need all the help you can get, right? And so I think that’s where we can see working better together around this, that, or

[00:39:36] Scott W. Luton: so. Matt, I love it, uh, as much as the, the parent organization, uh, or the ultimate customer organization need to, uh, make better decisions or need to get good information or bad or, you know, good news or bad news faster, but we gotta equip our suppliers with those same advantages so that their performance levels can be protected, but also increased the whole ecosystem benefits.

[00:39:58] Scott W. Luton: That’s a great point. Matt and Angie, let’s talk about decision making for a minute, but not, not necessarily at the supply chain manager level, but at the executive level. So Angie, uh, in what ways are you seeing all this innovative technology we’ve been talking about? Enable more strategic decision making at the executive level in the C-Suite.

[00:40:17] Angie Jula: Sure. I, I think, you know, the great thing that we’re, we’re seeing is there are a lot of early adopters as far as the C-Suite, um, really leaning into AI solutions. They see it as essential for their organizations to achieve their strategic initiatives. So I think they’re really leaning in on letting their VPs of supply chain, VPs, of merchandise, CMOs, they are all leaning in and supporting those decisions because they wanna.

[00:40:46] Angie Jula: You know, have a gr a great customer experience. Build those, build a loyalty of that customer and become, you know, best in class retailer. And so any way that they can gain advantages and have that competitive advantage, we’re starting to see them really lean into and ask a lot of great questions about how can we innovate?

[00:41:05] Angie Jula: How can we automate, you know, how can we move faster, become more flexible and agile, like Matt said earlier, become more nimble so that we can be proactive, achieve those business goals much faster. So,

[00:41:17] Scott W. Luton: and find more single sources of truth where teams can align around what, what reality is. Uh, we’re seeing, we’re seeing some good movement there.

[00:41:25] Scott W. Luton: Matt, what would you add to how all this technology we’ve been talking about is, again, helping to enable more strategic and successful strategic decision making at the executive level?

[00:41:36] Matt Brolsma: I think definitely kind of building on, Angie said it’s important as you think culturally within your organization. To foster that data-driven culture.

[00:41:45] Matt Brolsma: Mm-hmm. Right? And part of that is, is build the relationships internally or work more collaboratively, break down silos, as we’ve talked about sooner to figure out how do we get that enterprise wide view. So we are looking at one set of, uh, right. And then at, at an executive level, you actually have a full pulse on what’s happening in the organization.

[00:42:04] Matt Brolsma: I’m gonna actually double click on what Angie said with the AI piece, with leadership out of that MIT study that said 95% Harvard Business Review decided to do a study on the 5% that got value. Okay. And the thing that they pulled out of that, if you read the report, is the, the, the commonality is leadership.

[00:42:22] Matt Brolsma: It comes down to leadership. Putting a business purpose behind an initiative around ai. Yes, AI is exploding. Yes, AI is in an investment, but it definitely needs executive level leadership to enforce, here’s what we’re trying to do as a business with this input parameters around success. What success looks like, right?

[00:42:41] Matt Brolsma: Because ultimately that’s when you’re gonna start to see results in, in with that. So just an interesting tidbit that I thought I’d throw in there that I thought actually when I read that recently was interesting. So

[00:42:50] Scott W. Luton: I appreciate you bringing that because it is so much of what we’re trying to solve an industry does all too often or maybe not often enough, come down to lead real forward-looking leadership, hands-on focused leadership.

[00:43:04] Scott W. Luton: And I think I’d add to what you shared there, not only does AI benefit from the right type of leadership, but it benefits from a very focused business case of the question that both of y’all have have brought up at various times in this conversation. Just what the heck are we trying to do here, right?

[00:43:19] Scott W. Luton: No team anywhere. Likes to be tasked with vague objectives, especially with big investments that they know lots of dollars are tied up in what’s our North star? What does success look like? What are we trying to do here? And, and frankly, for our workforce, what’s in it for me? Right? If the workforce can figure out how it’s gonna make their job easier because they already wanna do a great job, but how can we make, uh, enable that to happen easier?

[00:43:44] Scott W. Luton: Man, the buy-in you’ll get and the, uh, greater change faster you’ll get. It’ll, it’ll, it’ll blow your socks off.

[00:43:51] Matt Brolsma: I’ll just add real quick to that, Scott. I think like that’s a hundred percent. Like, so often when we talk to customers, it’s still in this, oh, leadership has empowered me with this. Go, go play around with it.

[00:44:03] Matt Brolsma: Go use it. Go test it. Here’s what, and, and, and nothing comes of that. I think the data is showing nothing is coming of that. So if you set your sights on a. Overarching business objective and here’s what we’re trying to do with it. I think that is gonna be a huge focus as we go ahead, right, to drive natural value out of it itself.

[00:44:20] Scott W. Luton: Well said Matt. That’s right. And and picking the right solution and technology too, right? As probably all of us have heard the whole hammer and nail analogy that has seemed to be like commonplace with the AI movement. You know, everything isn’t an AI problem. Both of y’all have really hammered home, no pun intended, the value of data.

[00:44:38] Scott W. Luton: Gosh, what you can do with incredible data, using the right tool at the right, right time on the right problem or the right objective. Critical what’s old is new. Again, it’s basics. Uh, okay. So Matt and Angela, we’ve talked a lot about the transformation going on really globally in all industries, but especially a lot here today on the retail supply chain ecosystem and space.

[00:44:59] Scott W. Luton: And you know, we all know what’s driving transformation, right? The usual suspects return on investment and tangible, but also intangible business outcomes. So I want to ask you, Angie, what kind of improvements, especially when it comes to, you know, performance metrics or on the intangible side, right?

[00:45:17] Scott W. Luton: Making people’s days easier. That’s important. What should business leaders be looking for there?

[00:45:23] Angie Jula: So as far as outcomes, if they are going to deploy AI solutions, they should, you know, if they deployed correctly, if their adoption is optimal, they can see up to a 15% reduction in logistics costs of 35% reduction in inventory levels.

[00:45:40] Angie Jula: Some studies have said 65% reduction in efficiencies and service efficiencies, forecasting improvements by 50%. Manual planning time drops by 13, 14%. But we have to keep in mind, like Matt said, is you can’t just deploy an AI solution and cross your fingers and hope it works. Like you really have to have adoption.

[00:46:02] Angie Jula: You really have to have, make sure that that data is in a good structure, uh, is consistent, is clean, is organized well. So there has to be some legwork and a foundation started, but you can see some great outcomes and impact from those solutions,

[00:46:17] Scott W. Luton: Angie. Yeah, it’s terrific. That’s a, that’s a laundry list of, of uh, what we call in Georgia.

[00:46:22] Scott W. Luton: Uh, that dog will hunt. All those dogs will hunt. That’s

[00:46:24] Angie Jula: right. That’s right. Uh, and

[00:46:25] Scott W. Luton: I bet that’s what you’re seeing across your, uh, customer portfolios, some of the gains they’re making. Yeah. Uh, Matt, what would you add to that in terms of the improvements that can be expected by this incredible age of supply chain tech?

[00:46:38] Matt Brolsma: I think the, what what you start to see, really importantly, when you institute better expectations with suppliers and you have a reporting structure around co things like supplier compliance that roll up into supplier performance, ultimately then impacting your order cycle time inventory, turn in days of inventory on hand.

[00:47:02] Matt Brolsma: Right. It’s actually quite incredible to see the focus and how much moving, just a few basis points of on time accelerate can actually move the needle on sales. Right. We see so frequently that, that becoming the focus for some organizations. Putting in the, the tools and the capabilities in place to move the needle there has ramifications across the business, whether that’s keeping the right levels of inventory balance right, improving speed to shelf in OSA.

[00:47:30] Matt Brolsma: So I think those are the types of things that we see a lot of focus go into that actually can move the needle quite a bit for the organization

[00:47:38] Scott W. Luton: and all of that, that both of you’re speaking to rolls up into a clear cut, undeniable competitive advantage. So, Angie, speak to that for a second. How have you seen re retailers in particular use automation and this technological transformation that’s going along really across the globe?

[00:47:56] Scott W. Luton: How has that resulted in clear cut competitive advantage? What do you see?

[00:48:02] Angie Jula: I mean, it really comes down to, I’ve seen a lot of demand planning and forecasting. I noticed I’ve said it a lot during this podcast, but the AI demand planning and forecasting really has allowed these retailers to make sure that they’re carrying the right products or they’ve got them in the right stores, right location, and they’re pricing them correctly.

[00:48:20] Angie Jula: So that alone is helping these retailers be able to build that customer loyalty. I mean, as we all went through the pandemic, what did we see? Holes on the shelves all left and right. Right. Their supply chain disruptions, they couldn’t get the product from, suppliers, couldn’t get it shipped in. So that automation, uh, the automation of making sure that they have visibility into the product, they’re managing exceptions, they’re finding new sources to source products, being able to fill those holes and making sure they have the right product.

[00:48:51] Angie Jula: Those are the competitive advantages that, uh, retailers are really starting to see with some of the AI solutions they’re implementing.

[00:48:58] Scott W. Luton: Increasing customer experience is, is, um, yeah, is what I’m hearing. A lot of you speak to there and you know, you and Matt both have talked about on shelf availability at various times, you know, that starting and stopping with that, the customer, all of us and all of us are consumers too.

[00:49:12] Scott W. Luton: We don’t care why, why it’s not on the shelf and available. We don’t care about that. We care that it’s there when we need it at the right price, the right time. And of course we get it these days in 45 minutes or less it feels like. But anyway, that aside, Matt, speak to what you’re seeing in terms of retailers gaining real competitive advantage.

[00:49:32] Matt Brolsma: Yeah, so I’ll give you a, I’ll give you an example. So we worked with the retailer with the focus of, actually that, what we talked about here, OSA, right? Being able to bring products to market faster and competitors so that you can land those, right? There is clear research. If I remember correctly, I believe it’s Aberdeen Research did some work around that.

[00:49:52] Matt Brolsma: First to market products capture 47% more long term revenue than products launched six months late. So if you think about the implications there of everything that goes into whether getting us supplier onboarded, or whether it’s getting an item set up. This is where we talk about the power of automation and even AI layering on top of it to help drive things like all the attribution needed for items set up, right?

[00:50:17] Matt Brolsma: Helping inform suppliers and educate suppliers on what they need to do once they get that order to get it out the door and on and labeled correctly, packed correctly so it can hit the DC or hit the store and move onto the shelf as quickly as possible. Hmm. So those are the types of things that we sat down and started to map out with them.

[00:50:35] Matt Brolsma: What are all those touches look like today? And really consult on ways we can make improvements to get that speed to market goal that they had laid out.

[00:50:45] Scott W. Luton: Well said, Matt. You know, as you’re, as you are sharing your response, you know, happy customers or happier customers, happier suppliers, happier team members, all of that, I know I’m not following our quantified data driven perspective, but all of that rolls up to a very tangible, competitive advantage.

[00:51:03] Scott W. Luton: And that’s how retailers to both of your points. Are using, using these forward-looking, innovative technology platforms and approaches. Okay, so now we’re gonna get some advice from both of y’all as we start to wrap here today on a very full conversation. So first question, for supply chain leaders that are tuned in, whether they’re listening to us, watching us, you name it, Matt, where should they start if they want to automate more of their operations?

[00:51:32] Matt Brolsma: I think my first recommendation, and I feel like Angie and I are pretty aligned here and we where we talk with retailers, but distributors and groceries, but it’s really just, I think we kept this theme focused on relationships, right? Building those relationships, whether that’s internally or with suppliers, in that there’s building that relation on the premise of trust in the value of the data.

[00:51:58] Matt Brolsma: Data is one thing. You gotta have context. Context matters. And it’s important to know what is this data gonna do? ’cause if I just tell you data, you don’t really care. It’s not meaningful. So there’s gotta be a story around that, right? That’s where I would say is like the starting point. And then you’ve got, you know, when you think about starting to actually tactically step into some things as a business, it’s really looking at auditing your current state of your data.

[00:52:23] Matt Brolsma: Where is it housed? Is this, how is the multiple systems? Who has access to manipulate that? Right? Starting to step into that, as you think about carving out that foundation of, for us to get full advantage of AI and for us to get full advantage of automation, we need to actually start to do that audit.

[00:52:39] Matt Brolsma: How are we doing today in those areas? And then I just will and make the plug, ’cause I think we talked about it to, but to reiterate it, uh, don’t just be that person that just says, here’s an AI chat bot. Go nuts. Put some ringer in. Yeah. Even if it’s a simple use case, right? Like, we’re gonna use this for cost analysis, right?

[00:53:01] Matt Brolsma: This is what we’re gonna do, here’s what we hope to get. Put some rigor and some, um, you know, guardrails up for what you’re trying to do with it to make it real.

[00:53:10] Scott W. Luton: Yes. And some homework, starting with where your teams are finding lots of pain. That’s a great starting point, right? Figure out where those time sucks are.

[00:53:17] Scott W. Luton: Right. Angie, what advice, uh, adding to Matt’s advice, practical advice here, what advice would you offer in terms of where folks can start their automation journey?

[00:53:27] Angie Jula: Sure. So realistically we see our retailers, they have some form of automation throughout their. My recommendation to them is start to look at the disparate processes.

[00:53:37] Angie Jula: Where do you have automation, but where do you still do a manual process? And then start to align on how do we create complete automation? Or 99 get to 99% automation. Because as long as you have those disparate processes, you have a suck on your operating expenses. And so, and then you have to have a couple of employees managing different processes in different ways.

[00:54:01] Angie Jula: So doing that analysis on the manual processes, um, doing an assessment on how much time you’re spending on these manual processes will really tell you, okay, I can go to SPS or I can go to another company and say, I wanna automate this process. I, it takes my team this much time to do this process. How much time are you gonna save me?

[00:54:23] Angie Jula: So, Scott, I, you know, you hit on it earlier. ROI. To be able to understand what your return on investment is so that you can lean into that. And then, um, really drive home the value to your team of you can automate this process. You’re gonna save this much time and you can focus on other more important tasks and career development.

[00:54:46] Angie Jula: So you can say, like you said earlier, there’s an uneasy workforce. And so as long as you’re providing new opportunities for your teams, AI can do that as well because you’re increasing, you’re allowing your team to focus on other things, increasing their skill sets and providing more value back to the organization.

[00:55:02] Scott W. Luton: Well said Angie. And what a call to action both of y’all have issued here today. I got one more. TI got the toughest question I’m gonna ask both of y’all here today. Billion dollar question, ’cause we’ve covered a lot of great ground in a very actionable manner too. But if you had one takeaway, if our audience, ’cause we all have those, that seven second goldfish attention span, right?

[00:55:22] Scott W. Luton: We all do. If. They forget everything else, but one key point here today, what would you challenge our audience to really take away from this discussion? And Matt, you get the toughest question first.

[00:55:34] Matt Brolsma: Whew. Ooh,

[00:55:35] Scott W. Luton: gimme a sec.

[00:55:38] Matt Brolsma: Ai isn’t the magic. Your data is

[00:55:41] Scott W. Luton: Mm mm I like it. I like it. It is so true. It is so true.

[00:55:48] Scott W. Luton: Instead of everyone hunting for the, the perfect thing to do with ai, as both of you all have suggested, let’s start with our data first. There’s so much gold in those heels as they say, Angie, that’s gonna tough to top, but what would be one your key takeaway you challenge your audience with through today?

[00:56:05] Angie Jula: I think my takeaway is that AI is not a nice to have anymore. It’s a strategic imperative to get that competitive advantage.

[00:56:13] Scott W. Luton: It is, and imperative is the right phrase because every day that that companies and business leaders and supply chain leaders don’t take action. They’re losing. Some degree of their competitive advantage because as all the research out there points, those early movers, man, they’re making big gains.

[00:56:29] Scott W. Luton: And both of y’all have have quantified what those gains can look like here today, okay? And if you don’t get help from SPS Commerce in terms of eliminating manual work and increasing visibility, and really leaning into the 2025 way of optimizing retail supply chain success or business success, get help somewhere as they say.

[00:56:50] Scott W. Luton: Let’s make sure folks know how to get in touch with both of y’all. So Matt Brolsma the retired dj, but the supply chain guru really have enjoyed your perspective here today. How can folks track you down and continue the conversation?

[00:57:04] Matt Brolsma: Well, I’m all out of my, uh, DJ business cards, um, from a long time ago. So we’re gonna have to go with the LinkedIn profile, so you can check me out on LinkedIn.

[00:57:14] Scott W. Luton: We’ll do that. Folks. Go connect with Matt, follow Matt, you name it, and have a, have a chat with Matt. I tell you’ll learn a lot from talking with him. And Angie, I really enjoyed our time here today. Angie, same question when you’re not, I’ll tell you your golf story from the beautiful Hawaiian islands, uh, that that is a, uh, bucket list item for sure.

[00:57:33] Scott W. Luton: But if folks wanna pick your brain about all things, supply chain, retail, supply chains, and, and leaning into one of the opportunities you and Matt have shared here today, how can I track you down?

[00:57:43] Angie Jula: Sure. If you haven’t booked the retired dj, you can find me on LinkedIn. So

[00:57:49] Scott W. Luton: good stuff. Uh, I really appreciate both of y’all’s time here today.

[00:57:52] Scott W. Luton: What a great conversation, what to have back.

[00:57:54] Matt Brolsma: Hey, sky, can I actually ask a question? Sure. Because I’m sure people watching this. They’ve been staring at your bookshelf for, you know, an hour or and a half now. Yeah. So what, tell me a little bit, like what’s your favorite book on that bookshelf you go to constantly

[00:58:09] Scott W. Luton: Oh, that, okay.

[00:58:10] Scott W. Luton: That’s the toughest question, uh, of the, of the conversation probably. But you know what? My favorite one, well, one of my favorite ones is right here. I’m just gonna grab it.

[00:58:23] Scott W. Luton: And it is the Fearless Frontline, and it’s written by a buddy of mine, a, a former employer of mine, Ray Atia. And I love the frontline, the front, the beautiful frontline that it’s often overlooked and invisible. They’re the experts of, of any process, of any factory, any warehouse. They’re the, the heroes of global supply chain.

[00:58:44] Scott W. Luton: So I love that, number one. But number two, I love the system that this book describes. It’s all about run, improve, grow, and how we can ensure that. That we don’t stay stuck in the run because when we’re, when, and, and all of us know that, and probably all of us can relate to that, when we stay stuck in the run, we can’t get to improvement and growth opportunities.

[00:59:03] Scott W. Luton: And there’s gotta be some mix of that ratio at all levels, including at the front line. And that really goes to the, to why it’s, you know, this is the missed opportunity. If we don’t engage our frontline workforce in improvement and growth opportunities, we’re missing out. We’re missing out and we’re doing business like it’s 1985.

[00:59:20] Scott W. Luton: So that is my answer to a very tough question, Matt. Lots of good, great books there.

[00:59:25] Matt Brolsma: Um, that, uh, I might add that might ask to you my next book.

[00:59:28] Scott W. Luton: Oh, you got to, you got, and, and I think he’s working on a follow up, so check it out, Matt. I appreciate the question. Okay, Angie Jula, director of product management with SPS Commerce.

[00:59:39] Scott W. Luton: Angie, thanks so much for being here today.

[00:59:41] Angie Jula: Thanks, Scott. I appreciate the invite.

[00:59:44] Scott W. Luton: Well, had a great time learning from both you and Matt Brolsma senior product marketing manager, also with SPS Commerce. Matt, thanks so much for being here, Scott. It’s so a pleasure. Had a lot of fun today, so thank you. I did too.

[00:59:56] Scott W. Luton: I feel like I got a certification or in this masterclass on what the, what the cool kids are doing in retail supply chains, and again, how we’re leaning into the, the modern, innovative way. Uh, like it’s 2025. It’s amazing what, uh, the cool things you and the SBS commerce team are doing. So big thanks to Angie and Matt, our audience members out there.

[01:00:15] Scott W. Luton: Hopefully you’ve enjoyed this conversation as much as I have lots of actionable perspective here, but you’ve got homework. You gotta take something you heard here today from Angie and Matt and you gotta put it into practice. Y’all know it’s all about deeds, not words. That’s how we’ll continue transforming the global business world and realize more and more of the art of the possible.

[01:00:34] Scott W. Luton: It’s getting bigger and bigger and better and better. So with all that said, this is Scott Luton challenging all of our listeners. Hey, do good give. Be the change that’s needed. We’ll see you next time. Right back here on Supply Chain Now. Thanks everybody.

[01:00:47] Voiceover: Join the Supply Chain Now community. For more supply chain perspectives, news and innovation, check out SupplyChainNow.com.

[01:00:53] Voiceover: Subscribe to Supply Chain Now on YouTube and follow and listen to Supply Chain Now wherever you get your podcasts, casts.