Intro/Outro (00:03):
Welcome to Supply Chain. Now, the voice of global supply chain supply chain now focuses on the best in the business for our worldwide audience, the people, the technologies, the best practices, and today’s critical issues, the challenges and opportunities. Stay tuned to hear from those Making Global Business happen right here on supply chain now.
Scott Luton (00:32):
Hey, good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Scott Luton here with you on Supply Chain. Now welcome to today’s show. We have an awesome show, tee up here. Today we’re speaking with an innovative entrepreneur who is launching the digital marketplace for all things supply chain. Now that sounds really intriguing, right? We’ll stay tuned for an interesting conversation here today. So I wanna welcome in and introduce our featured guest here. Our guest career started off in the logistics and the finance space. Eventually, he landed in the data analytics space working with Fortune 500 and Global 2000 customers. Now, our guests spent a ton of time helping numerous supply chain teams create new data strategies, workflows, and deliverables that drove and continued to drive both top line and bottom line improvements. So all these experiences and a whole bunch more let our guests start new company to meet new emerging market needs, which we’re gonna learn a lot more about here today. So please join me in welcoming Dillon Ashley, CEO for r e a Technologies. Dillon, how you doing?
Dillon Atchley (01:33):
I’m doing great, Scott. Thanks so much for having me on and for the wonderful intro.
Scott Luton (01:37):
You bet. Well, hey, we have a, we’ve had a blast getting to know you and your team a little better, and appreci show conversations, you name it. And, uh, y’all really own the move, so we’re gonna dive more into that. But Dillon, before we do, uh, I wanna get to know you a little better. We’re all about doing our due diligence, doing homework on our guests. And correct me if I’m wrong here, it appears that you got your start unloading trucks at 3:00 AM in the morning. <laugh>. I want you to tell us more about that and how it impacted, you know, your view of not just global supply chain, but global business. Yeah,
Dillon Atchley (02:05):
<laugh>. Yeah, it’s so funny. Um, when I tell people where I started out, like my very first ever jobs and then where I end up, people always raise an eyebrow. They’re always interested in learning more. And what happened was, I was unloading, I was working for a large, large, large national retailer. And, you know, the way my schedule worked out at the time, this is, oh gosh, 11 years ago now, I would go in, you know, wake up at two 30 in the morning, get to work, start unloading trucks at three in the morning, you know, you haven’t had a lick of caffeine, your, your head’s spinning still, and then you’re like, Hey, there’s 3000 boxes that need to move from a truck into a bay, and then you get unpacked and stocked. So it’s, you know, it really gets the blood pumping early on.
Dillon Atchley (02:42):
And, uh, I think one of the main things that my takeaway from that experience was there are so many different ways to skin cats, right? And business and operations and everything. This particular company was definitely not even in the cat skin game. They were more in the, Hey, figure it out as you go, kind of thing. And then, you know, we’ll get like you later if, if you don’t do it right, <laugh>. But, uh, love that very, very humbling experience. And it was really good for, for one, just learning the ins and outs of just, you know, hard physical labor gives you a deep appreciation for that, which is something I think you can take with you all the way through your career. So love that as a start, and then use it as a launchpad.
Scott Luton (03:15):
Man. I love that. And I’m, and I’m, uh, I’m so glad you brought that up. We, we picked that up on the pre-show conversations about how much it really drove your appreciation for all the, the, the, the incredible workforce, right? That doesn’t just keep supply chains moving, but all of global business moving into appreciate that by really being a part of what I’ll call the giba, right? Uh, where you’re, you’re creating the value with, uh, in this case logistics. Um, that is a wonderful observation. And what a great starting point. Now, um, as we keep getting you a little better, Dillon, we’re about to jump into Proma and Ari eight and supplier sourcing a lot more, but there’s another little intriguing story that our team picked up on you, and that is about, uh, one your big accomplishments. I mean, a lot of our listeners love dogs and pets, especially dogs. So tell us about saving this rescue dog that big important initiative you’re part
Dillon Atchley (04:06):
Of. Yeah, it was a really, you know, I, I think it was a story that had the potential to really sway either direction. And I think sometimes in the university, you just need to give a little nudge in the right direction to do some good. And I think that I’m, I’m really a big believer that just small, consistent, positive actions really make ripple effects, right? And what happened was, I actually joined the social media site, Reddit a long time ago, right? And I specifically joined it because I had a pit bull that I had owned, and I had rescued on my own when he was a puppy. And I had him for 13 years. And he was, he was like my shadow, like all my friends, loved him, knew him, et cetera. He was a very, very great dog. And I saw that someone had posted about a dog that they were trying to rescue, and right after they rescued this dog from the pound, right, they get this diagnosis that this dog is, you know, three, four years old, very young, very spritely, very lively, but has hard works.
Dillon Atchley (04:54):
And, you know, as someone who makes the commitment to go out and do a good thing and help an animal or a person in need only to find out that you basically have a, a looming death sentence over the thing that you just rescued is, is utterly heartbreaking, right? Mm-hmm. And so I started talking to this person and I was like, Hey, you know, what happened with the dog? Why does it have heartworms? Like, what do they tell you? Or how do you guys help it? And she’s like, oh, we can’t afford this surgery. My fiance and I are both, you know, and at a point where we can’t afford this 4,000 surgery. And I was like, well, the best way to do this is gonna be a GoFundMe, obviously, right? Mm-hmm. No brainer. And so what we did was we, we kicked up a GoFundMe, and this is a, a really sweet girl who just had no idea what to do, right?
Dillon Atchley (05:34):
She was just kind of beside herself. And I was like, look, what you need to do is start a GoFundMe all kick off, the first initial donation. So I gave, I think I gave about 8% of the total of the first 4,000 they needed. Okay. Which gives it a healthy boost, right? Cause then people see that there’s actually money coming in and they wanna donate too, right? And so, yeah, she was able to actually get the operation done for her dog, whose name was Rory. He was able to get his heart surgery taken care of, remove all the heart worms. He had to go on these intense medications for a while. She was just like crying beside herself, and her fiance and her were posting all these pictures of him post-surgery. Mm-hmm. It was, it was really touching, right? And it’s just nice to know that you can do little things like that of just, you know, a couple dollars, I guess to some people, not a couple dollars. But at the time, to me, it was just a couple dollars. I was like, Hey, it’s great. And you can just make a big wave of positivity in the world and things like that. And, um, happy to hear that dog’s living a healthy life now. So,
Scott Luton (06:24):
Dylan, I love that. Oh, man. All right. There’s so much love there. And, and hey, Rory, if you and your, your folks are listening, you know, hey, more power to you. Uh, Dylan, I love, at the beginning of that story you talked about, hey, it, you know, you believe in a, in a bunch of small nudges in the universe is how you, you make big things happen. Our listeners need to take that to heart and write that down. You know, whether you’re saving rescues in the canine world or whether you’re, you’re tackling big change out in the industry with supply chain, some days are really tough, man, take heart in that small nudges, small continuous progress. And Dylan, I’m so glad we asked you about that. One last thing, uh, many of our listeners may know we’ve got a re rescue hound name named Ruby, who’s a chihuahua and a Corgi mix. So I’m sure, uh, Ruby’s gonna enjoy, enjoy that anecdote from you earlier. So let’s get into more supply chain stuff, right? One of our favorite topics here, so you spent some time up at Proma a few weeks ago in, in terms of when this we’re recording this interview, ProMat, from what we’ve heard, tens of thousands of folks this year. I think folks are ready to get back and, and meet folks in person, exchange ideas and networking, all that stuff. What were a couple of your key takeaways from ProMat 2023?
Dillon Atchley (07:38):
Oh, man. Yeah, I have a bunch. The show. It, it was incredible, to be honest. It was just so lively, and I don’t think I’ve walked that much in years in a single building <laugh>,
Scott Luton (07:48):
Um, oh, got all your steps in, huh?
Dillon Atchley (07:49):
I know, definitely. I got five good takeaways. I think, um, and, you know, we can talk about them more in depth as as we go on, but I think the, the first thing I noticed is that robotics are finally, finally ready for the mainstream, not the Boston robotics videos you see on YouTube, but, you know, there are a number of vendors with very scalable solutions that make it significantly easier to just dip your toe in the water in terms of like robotic warehouse automation. So for example, gather ai, right? A vendor who has autonomous warehouse drones, they can fly around, they can do inventory management, they can reconcile it with the WMS system, for example. And there’s companies like Slip Robotics, they have a robot that rides in trailers and automatically unloads freight within the dock on its own. So, yep, that would’ve made my life a lot easier 11 years ago. I’ll say that much <laugh>. But it’s amazing how much robotic proliferation is just attacking every corner of inefficiency in the warehouse and supply chain, all the jobs that are tough, that are just so repetitive, they’re, they’re making waves and it’s great to see. Great to
Scott Luton (08:49):
See. So that, that’s just your first key takeaway. Robotics and what I heard you say, robotics for the people. So what was number two?
Dillon Atchley (08:56):
This is my experience, you know, being in the analytics and data space, and also walking around prom and seeing all the innovation going on, there is so much transformation going on, and the warehouse is drastically changing both physically and digitally, right? So labor is becoming less and less human to my previous point. And you can just see it, the supply chain digital renaissance, it’s in full swing, right? The, the pendulum is just hidden hard. There’s so many technologies and tools to take advantage of that are enabling more agile supply chains. They’re reducing risk, they’re reducing things like turnover incidents, overstock items, stockouts. And you know, most importantly too, it’s creating a new fabric for sources of very reliable data that can be used to drive operational gains.
Scott Luton (09:39):
Hmm. Supply chain digital Renaissance man, Dylan, that is poetic. Love it. All right, so number three, in terms of your key takeaways from Proma.
Dillon Atchley (09:47):
Yeah, I think, you know, supply chain, logistics, warehouse, fleet, you name it. Anything warehouse, warehouse js or supply chain made, you’ve gotta get comfortable with change. Seeing what’s out there and knowing that there are static operations that are not focusing on this as initiatives, it’s just totally eroding profitability, especially in a high interest world. You don’t wanna be behind the ball on that. And, you know, I think eventually a lack of transformation in certain organizations is gonna start becoming a liability on top and bottom line growth and revenue. It jeopardizes the ability to scale, and then especially in a tight labor market, if you don’t have that and you don’t have that digital transformation mindset going with you, you’re really gonna have a lot of challenges. And I think the key thing here is just you gotta seek internal disruption and you gotta do it for the sake of agility, and you gotta do it to navigate challenging economic headwinds and operational changes that are just gonna be rolling through continuously as the decade rolls
Scott Luton (10:39):
On. Yeah. Good stuff there, Dylan. Hey, static hasn’t been cool back when the days of Rabbit ears tv and it still isn’t cool today when it comes to describing operations, right? We gotta be, uh, gotta be able to lean into change and innovation to stay relevant. Uh, all right, so that’s just the first three. Number four, your key takeaways from ProMat.
Dillon Atchley (10:57):
Yeah, I think, I think it’s time to start talking about AI for real, right? Not like the Hoy toy, like, oh, you have an AI system that’s really just a decision tree. But, you know, and this is, this is my bias coming up too, but I think data and analytics are now heavily democratized, and the landscape has just rapidly evolved thanks to one strong market demand, but also heavy amounts of VC investment. And if organizations are still living their, their lifeblood and their brain and all their nervous systems of the organization on paper and excel, you know, you might as well be burning money at this point. There, there are AI and analytics tools that are being synthesized into operational functions. And just based off what I saw Proma, there are things like realtime data availability, heat maps of where workers are computer vision, analyzing posture to help reduce injury in workman’s comps claims. I mean, it just goes on and on and on. But, you know, these things are, they’re driving efficiency gains, they’re reducing risk, they’re, they’re helping streamline capital expenditure and they’re really protecting margins. And I think that’s what a lot of people need to think about is a holistic financial operations and digital view that kinda synthesizes into one. And I think when people are, are focusing in that mentality with ai, they’re gonna come out with huge wins and huge stories of success.
Scott Luton (12:07):
Hmm. Keeping it real time. I love that, Dylan. What came to my mind? Alright, so finally number five, five key takeaways from Proma. What’s number five? They’re Dylan. Yeah,
Dillon Atchley (12:19):
I, you know, I spent a lot of time talking to execs and a lot of them told me that, they’re like, Hey, you know, we, we always think about transforming the business and, and trying to drive things forward in a way that’s gonna futureproof them, right? And one of the big things that I heard that a lot of the, the C-suite thought leaders that I talked to mention to me was, you’ve gotta transform things with participation that goes all the way down the corporate hierarchy to the ground level workers, right? So I think when you’re forming these transformation committees, you get the C-suite in there, but you get someone who actually walks the warehouse every day who’s not just the management person, but does the daily, the daily grind, right? And can say, here’s why we don’t wanna do this. Um, I think that there’s this one story, the anecdote that’s circulating on LinkedIn about toothpaste and about how, you know, someone kept noticing that there was empty boxes of toothpaste being shipped, and they installed all this stuff after a big evaluation.
Dillon Atchley (13:10):
And what happened was there was a buzzer that would alert someone to come over and, you know, fill the toothpaste tube if it was empty. And what ended up happening was some guy just put a fan on there that just blew the box off the conveyor belt if it was empty and not heavy enough to go through and pass it. So it’s like those very simple things that just, you would never understand if you’re up in the ivory tower, so to speak. That’s why it’s really important to kind of have this representation that transcends the hierarchy chain and sets it up to where you have a very diverse amount of viewpoints, but also something that’s going to enable your transformation and not just be successful from a managerial perspective, but also just from a practicality perspective, right? Where people will adopt it and actually get behind it because they were included in that process. And I think that’s one of the key things that a lot of people in a remote world, especially occasionally, you know, should healthily be reminded of, just to help them succeed in their agendas and their goals and their transformations, right? So all that stuff, I think yields good results.
Scott Luton (14:05):
I love it. And you know, you talked about the value of what I’ll call V O F L, voice of the frontline, right? Those leaders that are willing to go out and get their perspective, get their ideas, get their challenges, and also to your point, know it, they’ve been there and done it. And those are folks that are really valuable as we look to transform ministry, uh, around the world. So, good stuff there, Dylan. All right, so y’all check out those five key takeaways from Proma. I wanna switch gears again. So I want to get into the R eight story here in a second, but I wanna look back again because I, I’m, I’m, my hunch is some of your previous roles you held, you held in industry with a frontline, like we talked about on the front end, loading, unloading trucks, including as you evolved into some of the leadership roles you held. So we, before we get into the r e eight story, you know, what were a couple roles along those lines that really shaped who you are as a leader, who you are as a practitioner and your worldview?
Dillon Atchley (15:00):
Yeah, absolutely. So in the analytics space, my, my foray was at a company called Alri, right? And I was an individual contributor there, managed a lot of our big, large accounts like you alluded to earlier. Um, it just taught me a lot about, you know, how to, how to navigate these large complex organizations and all the, all the passion and the blood and sweat and tears that goes on in these projects. I, I, I left alters, I’ve just shy of three years, and I went to a company called Abel, where I was running a lot of our large, large global enterprise type accounts. You know, we, we did a project with one of the large, large logistics providers, you know, don’t need to name names, but it’s one of two people can probably guess around sequencing when their trucks come to the dock and which order they should be unloading them in, right?
Dillon Atchley (15:41):
And you, you think about this and it’s like, makes a lot of sense, but there’s so much that goes into it. And when you are thinking it holistically about like, what is it like for people on the frontline, like you’re talking about the V F L, what’s it like for the executives, the middle management layers, et cetera. There’s so much that goes into that. And I think, you know, doing that gave me a great foundation of understanding, like, hey, let’s talk about the transformation strategy and those things like that. And then, you know, going from there and helping, helping to, you know, essentially grab a young group of people and help them start thriving in that business was a, was a big piece of it. And, uh, I left, I left there after two years of a couple successful projects to basically go lead a small startup who was doing things like forecasting technologies and, you know, helping to integrate various different data sources, which is a big pain point.
Scott Luton (16:30):
Dylan, was that your first startup experience being a part of a startup?
Dillon Atchley (16:34):
No, no. I, I, well, I was at a company called Abel was my first one really. And this was my, my second foray. What I learned was when you assimilate a group of people and you get ’em in a room and you have objectives of, you know, KPIs and we’ve all been there, right? Everyone’s kind of done that. I think one of the main things is that first you gotta let people know you care about them, you know, genuinely care about them as people way beyond just the KPIs and the roles. But like, what’s their family doing? Where are they living? Why, why do they live there? What do they like about it? And I think one of the big, one of the big questions that I always ask people that have worked for me and that I worked with, when they’re talking to me about something important and they’re passionate about, I’m always like, what does that mean to you?
Dillon Atchley (17:10):
Like, why? And I always felt like that question gets people to really lean in and, and kind of peel back the, not the superficial onion layer, but more of like the, the pleasantry layer. And they, they get to the nitty gritty of it with you. And I think when you’re in those scrappy environments like that and you’re doing things that are, you know, really meaningful to a lot of organizations, but you’re also leading a team doing it, it it gets you in the mindset of, hey, you know, you, you can really go a lot further together than you can’t alone. And, and that, that’s what gave me the confidence to jump out and start, or eight, was a lot of the conversations I was having with my team, conversations I was having with a lot of these enterprises who were trying to focus on these insanely difficult processes that they were trying to rip out out of Excel or rip outta these other tools and consolidate and something that was a lot more scalable and user friendly. Um, and, and yeah, that was, that was my thing was it’s just like, you know, you take your passion and you just channel into something that, that, you know, can succeed with the people around you. And I think that’s, that’s what we’re trying to do here,
Scott Luton (18:04):
Man. I love it. Uh, you’re, you’re very passionate about not just driving change because that, that, that sounds kind of cliche. What I’m hearing a lot from you, Dylan, is how passionate you are about helping others be more successful, helping pave a easier path for others. We all know there’s no shortage of challenges in, in global supply chain, global business. And, and I love that that passion and and your experience been there, done it, of making it easier and helping others, especially the human component of global supply chains, making them more successful. So I’m assuming as we switch over more fully into the r e eight story, that’s a big part of your why is my, my hunch when I’m picking up anything else when it comes to your why for launching. And of course we wanna make sure folks understand, you know, exactly what r e eight does. So, so finish off any o any other aspect of the why and let’s move into what it does.
Dillon Atchley (18:59):
Yeah, yeah. I think, you know, the last three years, I think the world has just changed in ways that just no one could have anticipated, right? We were just living in this very pleasant up and to the right type of environment. You know, capital was cheap, everything was great. And you know, when I walked into the grocery store one day and just saw that like, the shelves were barren, I was like, what is going on here? This is crazy. And then all these other things and all, a lot of the, the prevalence, supply chain strategies of the last, you know, 30, 40, 50, 60 years were great until it wasn’t. And I think one of the big things for me was I was, it was a combination of seeing how brittle and how fragile the supply chain really is, and knowing that there needs to be a better facilitator for that transformation to happen.
Dillon Atchley (19:44):
And also seeing the real impacts of like, Hey, I can’t get baby formula all of a sudden, or, Hey, I can’t get this thing, or Oh my gosh, my car is breaking down, but I can’t afford a new car. Cause all the auto prices have just skyrocketed. Cause there’s no supply, right? It’s saying stuff like that and being like, okay, there’s, it’s not just paying to the board, it’s not just paying to the C-suite, it’s paying to everyday people. The supply chain is the life and blood of our entire economy, right? It’s the circulatory system. And for me, thinking if we could launch this in a way that is novel, that’s helpful, that’s genuinely gonna get people to reflect and be like, okay, we can, we can solve our challenges faster. And, you know, it sounds great on paper to things like the top and bottom line, but when you actually are like, Hey, this thing got fixed and now for example, you know, someone can get this new thing that they really genuinely needed, whether it be healthcare related or auto related, or even just food related. Um, knowing that we can potentially play a small part in that I think is just a huge win. That to me is just the, the bread and butter of
Scott Luton (20:42):
It all. I, oh man, uh, I’m about ready to run through this wall back, Mohamed, me, Dylan, from how you’re, you’re, you’re talking about your why and your purpose and your passion. Cause really, we, man, we’ve been through the ringer these last three years. And, and you know, at the same time though, there’s lots of silver linings that are gonna make us better and stronger as an industry and how we’re acting on those. And hopefully, hopefully, uh, maybe my my mouth, the, the good Lord’s ears, we don’t forget those lessons learned, right? Because if we do those that will be hurt the most are the people of, of global supply chain in many ways. So let’s get into, uh, man, I love your why. You’re gonna be opening for the Rolling Stones, talking about stuff like that, Dylan. Love that man. So let’s talk about, uh, aate and, and let’s just demystify a bit, what does it do at its core?
Dillon Atchley (21:31):
Yeah. You know, essentially when you really break it down to nuts and bolts, orates a B2B supply chain marketplace like you mentioned before, and our, our main emphasis is on the warehouse, right? The lifeblood, the heart and soul of the entire supply chain world. The magic happens, usually it, it happens on the road when stuff’s moving in transit or it happens in the warehouse, right? And, you know, for us, our goal is to help centralize the experience of discovering and engaging with vendors, services, technologies, et cetera, you name it, that are warehouse centric or warehouse adjacent. And I think that the thing that we think about the most with this is we don’t just wanna say, Hey, go on. And there’s this list of people, right? Like we all have seen listicles, they’re great, they’re cool, they’re fun to read. And usually that’s just kind of it, right?
Dillon Atchley (22:17):
So what we try to do is we try to get it set up to where we’re doing two things, right? One, we’re trying to set it up to where buyers or executives or anyone who just has an initiative can come on board and they can create a project in R eight. Now what they’re doing with that project is they’re saying, look, we’re trying to do X, Y, Z, and if they wanna disclose additional details that could be visible to potential vendors or not, that’s up to them, right? But the main thing we’re trying to do is say, look, let’s do this. Use what we call tax to come in and describe your project. So you might say, we need a new wms, we need to do, you know, Excel migration, get away from Excel, we need to get better at forecasting, you name it. All these little tags that we have, help people pair up with the vendors that are out of the box, probably the best fit for what they’re trying to do.
Dillon Atchley (22:59):
So rather than going, Hey, let’s go engage ’em Mackenzie, or let’s go engage in Deloitte and go pay them hundreds of thousands of dollars for a deck in six recommendations, and then a quote for implementation, right? It’s, Hey, go in here, type things in for two minutes, and all of a sudden you got a curated list of all the people you should probably be talking to in this space, right? So we try to make it as seamless, as streamlined as possible. And the value on the opposite side of the fence is you, you’re not having to just blast spam at everybody, right? I think the world would be so much more better if we weren’t all getting spammed and we can just get what we wanted when we needed it in the most simple way possible. And that’s what we’re trying to accomplish, is getting away from all that stuff and getting it set up to where it’s like, Hey, here’s what you need.
Dillon Atchley (23:37):
There you go. It only took two minutes. Right? And then, uh, on the vendor side, obviously they want more revenue, they want more customers, they want customers that are the right, right fit for them. And a lot of them I feel like, are out there trying to spam everybody cuz they’re trying to find those people that have those active initiatives that don’t know that they exist, right? And so, right, I’m, I’m hoping that, you know, fingers crossed here, one of the side effects of Ora is gonna be less spam than everyone’s inbox, at least on the supply chain side. I can’t guarantee that anyone else. But, you know, hopefully it has an effect that ripples down into our emails and makes us all a little bit more sane if we do it
Scott Luton (24:10):
Right. I love it. Uh, having been there and done it when I was in the middle stamping industry, if Alan Ford is listening to this, Alan, uh, led our supply chain and man seeing all the work he put into finding new suppliers as we were trying to win different types of business, that really opened my eyes to just how difficult it is when it comes to finding new vetted suppliers that can do the job and won’t let you down. Right? And then other angle that you mentioned, these companies, you know, whether they’re, you know, small family run or startups or, or whatever, all points in between big behemoths, they’re all looking for new business, new revenue, new, new, new smart business. So I love how, um, that marketplace angle here where really a lot of different folks win on a variety of levels. So before we’re gonna talk more about the launch and how folks can, can jump into the, the r e eight ecosystem in a minute, but I wanna touch on supplier sourcing.
Scott Luton (25:05):
As we both know, Dylan, this is one of those components of supply chain management that has had our much brighter light shown on it in recent years. And for good reason, right? For really good reason. It’s one of those things that’s gonna make us stronger as an industry. Plenty of folks struggle in this area, as I kind of alluded to earlier. I’m glad I, I’m glad I had a good pro on our team. But I’ve working in the trenches with, uh, with Alan as I mentioned. So in your expertise, Dylan, what are three or four ways that supply chain pros can optimize their supplier sourcing approach?
Dillon Atchley (25:35):
Yeah, so I think there’s, there’s a couple different ways, right? The first is you have to kind of have a really good idea of the KPIs that you’re trying to go for, right? I think when you have KPIs that specifically are well defined in this approach, it makes discovering and engaging with the right vendors a hundred times easier, right? Because, you know, you know what their value proposition is. If their value proposition aligns your kpi, it’s gonna be so much easier to have a productive conversation. And, and it goes for the vendor side too, right? Vendors really want to have those productive conversations. They don’t wanna waste people’s time, right? They don’t wanna do that. They don’t wanna go down these rabbit holes just to find out they’re not the right fit when it seemed like from a distance they maybe were. And so I think it’s like that, you know, get your KPIs unlocked of what you’re trying to do. How does it impact the top and bottom line of the business, right? And, and figure that out because those are the things that, one, are gonna make your projects more successful. But two, they’re gonna help the vendors craft a great story alongside you that’s gonna make you both winners. And I think that’s the most important thing is making win-win situations, right? Yep. Not just a one-sided touchdown, but like, you know, both, both sides are really coming out on top for having engaged with each other.
Scott Luton (26:40):
Yeah. D Dylan, you know, if, if these relationships are one-sided, right? And where suppliers are doing business maybe yikes at a loss, that is not gonna be a sustainable relationship. That to your point is, is good for all parties, right? Uh, and I think that’s one more thing we’ve learned in recent years. So these KPIs, how we get smarter about it. One of the things you shared, shared there, what’s number two?
Dillon Atchley (27:03):
Yeah, I think number two, and this is something that a lot of people kind of sleep on a little bit, but we’ve all had calls with vendors, right? And you have the call cause maybe they said something interesting or you saw an ad online and you’re like, oh, let’s talk to them. And then, you know, maybe you get busy and the initiative was kind of important, but it wasn’t critical and other things took, took priority and precedence. You know, those vendors just, they just usually got the wayside, right? And you forget all about ’em. And, uh, I think one of the big thing is too is is having a top-down view from the executive perspective of what your teams are working on, why they’re working on it, and who have you engaged with in the past, right? Basically establishing a portfolio. Because I think that if you as an executive in the supply chain logistics space have a top-down view of who your team’s engaging with, why they’re engaging with them, what initiatives are they trying to do to assist or to drive value with, with those engagements, it’s gonna give you a way better way and opportunity to, you know, not just engage with the best vendors at the right time when you have this initiative.
Dillon Atchley (28:04):
But later on down the road when something resurfaces, again, the vendors dunno, you’re doing that. They don’t know that something shifted and all of a sudden now’s the best time to talk. So it’s good to go back and say, Hey, we talked to these vendors, the, we have a portfolio in this space of three or four of them that we knew could have been good fits, but last year was just not the right time. We can circle back to the now and we can drive immense value with what they’ve offered in the market. And I think that’s something that a lot of companies don’t have, right? You got your cobas, you got your, you know, your systems, your SMS and all that. But doing it from a more of a proactive point of view and a top-down visibility point of view, I think is something that really drives a lot of value for the team, for the execs and, and being able to kind of have this push button we’re like, Hey, we, we know exactly the right vendor for this when the time is right and we didn’t have to go out and pay 50 grand for a recommendation from some firm, right?
Dillon Atchley (28:51):
That that’s a big thing. It’s a big win. Helps a
Scott Luton (28:53):
Lot. No, I agree. And, and you know, one of the many things you mentioned there, and that sounds so simple, maybe sounds naive, but I think the strongest relationships you’re gonna have, both with current suppliers, but also those potential suppliers that you mentioned may have a conversation here and, and years may go by and, and maybe it’s just an email back and forth carving out time for those folks so you could have meaningful discussions and maybe even, uh, tack that blind spot for where you may have pigeonholed, you know, some of these potential suppliers and, and then you sit down and have a eureka moment, oh, they’re doing this and they’re doing this really well, man, and, and by the way, it’s in the same neighborhood, right? We’re not shipping it to Portugal and back to, uh, South Carolina or what have you. Uh, so excellent point there. The approach talking often or at least talking regularly, and then your approach in how to have those conversations and the folks that should be involved. That’s, uh, good stuff there. So what’s number three on this list of, uh, this informal list of, uh, three or four ways that supply chain pros can optimize our supplier sourcing approach?
Dillon Atchley (29:55):
Yeah, I think one thing, and this is, this is kind of underrated, I mean my opinion, but talking to your vendor’s partners is oftentimes a really good strategy and a lot of people overlook it, but when you find a company, for example, and they may, they may offer a certain value prop and they have a partner who sits just upstream of them and seamlessly compliments what they’re doing, they partner for a reason, right? Those solutions are better together. So I feel like when you, when you really take a deep dive and you find out like, who is this company partnering with and why? What is this partner doing that is helping to compliment their value proposition? I think it opens a door for more holistic transformation, right? Not not point solutions because there’s, you know, digital transformation with an umbrella term big endeavor, right? Multimillion dollar endeavors most of the times.
Dillon Atchley (30:43):
It’s tough, it’s hard. It takes time. Everyone who’s gone through it knows that. But I think when you’re like, Hey, we, we, we found something that’s just so, so out the gate hot right now that for that’s gonna work so beautifully for us. What are the other things that are maybe considered point solutions that just will seamlessly work into that? And you know, back, back when I was in the data space, I saw this a lot, you know, I worked at all Trix. It was the, it was one of the best tools in the world for helping to grab data from somewhere, uh, combine those two data sources together and then push it somewhere else, right? It was great. Then alert for that. And the partner that we would always go talk to was Tableau. And Tableau is great for taking that data once it was clean, once it was all organized, and it would just visualize it in these stunning dashboards. And everyone likes Tableau dashboards, right? Um, nowadays it’s more power bi it’s kind of more in vogue. But, but I think that the point of the story is that, you know, you find the vendor who works beautifully with the other one and it’s like a peanut butter jelly sandwich. Just, it just works and everyone’s gonna love it and no one’s gonna question it. You’re just gonna eat your peanut butter and jelly sandwich and be happy like we all were as kids one day, right? Unless you had a peanut allergy, then I guess maybe
Scott Luton (31:48):
Not <laugh>. I love that. But I’m gonna up the Annie a bit. Dylan, I’m gonna up the Annie a bit instead of peanut butter and jelly. How about a delicious grilled cheese sandwich? Cause really the whole world loves a good grilled cheese sandwich, right? I’m sure there’s some and j holdouts, but, uh, kidding aside, I love that idea. It reminds me when you’re talking about, you know, kind of going to your, uh, your vendor suppliers and vendors partners and whatnot, it, it brings my mind to the clustering that we see take place in aviation and automotive and, and they, they create kind of a, uh, a local ecosystem, right? Especially when a in a, in a big plant goes into a certain region. And man, there’s strength, obviously there’s strength in numbers, but that, that’s where it reminds me. Those are, those could be some great doors to open and great discussions to be, had great potential suppliers by really uncovering the entire ecosystem there. Dylan, we’re gonna touch on r e a again here in a second. Cause that’s gotta be on, on the, I I’ll say it, you may not wanna say it, but I’ll say it, it’s gonna be part of a list to optimize, uh, how to optimize your supplier sourcing approach. But anything else before we go to r e a? Anything else you wanna add to this? I’ll call it an independent list of best practices.
Dillon Atchley (32:58):
<laugh>? Yeah. I’d say, uh, throw in a, a tomato soup with your grilled cheese metaphors slam dunk. Okay. Absolute slam dunk. Um, no, I think, I think, yeah, that’s, that’s the key of it, right? And I think the thing too is that a lot of people’s procurement organizations and a lot of people’s supplier relationship management, it tends to happen in a vacuum, right? And I think it makes so much more sense to grab those people and to get them more enmeshed with the broader organization for numerous reasons, right? Because if, if people are having these healthy cross-functional dialogues, I think it makes the supplier and the procurement people’s jobs a lot easier. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> because they get broader perspective as to the, the ins and outs of the niches. It’s like, hey, we’re saving X amount of dollar per unit on whatever. It’s like, that’s awesome and that should be the goal all the time too, right? Quality, price, et cetera. You want those, those key components. But knowing the why and how it intersects with a lot of the functionality of another team member is, is honestly something that I don’t think enough people are taking into consideration and makes a big impact if it’s done correctly.
Scott Luton (33:57):
Hmm. Love it. Dylan. Uh, and, and man, you, you did one up me with that, uh, both the tomato soup and the grilled cheese sandwich, man, all of our listeners now are gonna be hungry, uh, around the globe. Let’s talk about a as we, cause that’s a great solid four, four part list there. And then we’re gonna add really number five because r e eight is now live. It is live. You’ve got lots and lots of companies we were talking to pre-show that are already signed up and taking advantage. So let’s talk about how can folks become part of the r e eight family? You, how can they take advantage of what you’re offering there?
Dillon Atchley (34:32):
Yeah, of course. So I mean, the key thing to know is if you’re an executive or a buyer, you’ll have a project you wanna explore r eight’s free, right? Don’t, don’t worry about that. No cost. You just go to try orate.com and create an account and create a project. And within three minutes or so, give or take, you’re able to have a curated list of vendors for whatever it’s you need, right? Whether it’s robotics or whether it’s, you know, physical things like warehouse flooring or the things that we all take for granted, like rails that keep us safe when we’re on the mezzanines. All that stuff is there and it’s really simple to get going. That’s pretty much all you do. You just go in, sign up, make a project and film, you’re off the races,
Scott Luton (35:09):
Man, as simple is good, simple as words, it may sound isn’t always easy, right? Cause it can be really challenging and complex, um, uh, to make things simple. But man, I love how, I love this resource that y’all built and no wonder y’all had droves of folks take you advantage. What, when did y’all go live?
Dillon Atchley (35:31):
Yeah, so we went live, uh, beginning of April. Okay. So we were, we were pretty much there. We had a lot of folks, folks from Proma who were just bustling to get in, which was great. I bet. Um, that was one of the best parts about it in my opinion. So we had a, we had a good catalyst with that. And yeah, now our main goal is just two things. One, helping make people’s lives simpler and easier on the sourcing, procurement, uh, vendor engagement side and helping vendors come out with really good success stories from customers that they should be working with, right? Not the ones that they shouldn’t be. They’re kinda like, eh, on the fence, but the ones who genuinely have the initiatives that they’re the best fit for. Love it. And it’s like Einstein said, genius is making complex ideas simple. It’s not making simple ideas complex. Yes. So taking that, that simplicity and, and driving it home and just trying to make it to where, you know, there’s no hoops to jump through. You just go on and just get what you need. That’s what we really wanna go for. We took this e-commerce philosophical approach of, you know, less than four clicks to get from A to B. That was our thought process. And I, I’m hoping it serves people well, especially considering how inundated we all are. So that’s my, that’s my, uh, my hypothesis and I’m sticking to
Scott Luton (36:33):
It. Well, and you should, uh, I, I really think, you know, who knows Dylan, we may be third cousins. I think we look at the world very similarly and I love that Einstein quote because you know, I think there’s lots of of folks, uh, uh, across the globe that are really smart and intelligent and they wanna make sure folks know that they’re smart and intelligent. And unfortunately what that does is it really can make things a lot more challenging than what they should do. Make things a lot more complex than they should be. And lesser are those that can do exactly what Einstein said. Hey, let’s keep it simple in some of the hard stuff. Simple, right? And give folks a confidence that yes, anyone can do this and let’s, uh, let’s move forward together. So I think the URL there that we may have missed a try r eight.com, is that right?
Dillon Atchley (37:20):
That’s correct,
Scott Luton (37:21):
Yeah. And we’re gonna have that in the show notes of the episode. So you’re one click away, Dylan. Hey, one click away. We’re quick learners there, just like y’all baked that into a lot of your functionality. And that’s t r y for any of you just listening maybe driving or flying or what have you. Uh, t r y a u r e a t e.com. I get that right, Dylan?
Dillon Atchley (37:42):
That’s correct. Yeah.
Scott Luton (37:43):
Okay. Sometimes phonics is not my friend. I think I got that right. So try r eight.com and uh, sign up. It’s free. That’s more good news here today. And sounds like it’s chock full of ideas. Okay, Dylan, you’re a breath of fresh air. Have you been told that before?
Dillon Atchley (38:00):
Uh, I’ve been told that once or twice my 10 month old thing, so I’m probably the best breath of fresh air cuz he’s never heard my jokes. So he thinks they’re funny the first time and the third time.
Scott Luton (38:08):
Well, I can appreciate that as a father of three and then eventually you, you become less cool maybe <laugh>. But, um, I love the bookends here that is as evident in this conversation. You know, your intention, your deliberate passion for helping others, like from a personal standpoint back to Rory and the dog and your appreciation for all the workforce that make, that truly makes things happen even in the digital era that we’re living in. And then, then you have, you’re bookending that with your purpose in business as a founder and an entrepreneur to create, uh, a marketplace that helps professionals and practitioners and businesses, both folks looking for solutions to the problem as well as those folks looking to grow their business. Right? It’s a beautiful thing. So Dylan, thank you. And let’s make sure folks know, folks you already know how to check out r e eight try r eight.com. How can folks connect with Dylan actually? Cause I believe folks are gonna wanna sit down and share a grilled cheese sandwich and tomato bowl of tomato soup with you soon.
Dillon Atchley (39:08):
Yeah, yeah, definitely. Um, so I think the best way to connect with me is just on LinkedIn, right? Um, I I pretty much live on there. Um, so yeah, my LinkedIn, my LinkedIn URL is linkedin.com/n/just my first and last name, D i l l o n a t c h l e y. And then boom, right to my page. Or if you just search d i l o n and r e eight, I’ll probably pop right up.
Scott Luton (39:29):
I bet you will. And we’re gonna make sure, again, that’s one click away too. We’ll have the LinkedIn profile so you can connect with Dylan, actually c e o with r e eight technologies. Dylan a pleasure man, really, uh, uh, congrats on on, uh, this journey. You’re on. Congrats on the successful launch. Congrats on clearly it’s resonating with folks in need around the globe. Congrats on all this growth and success thus far. And I bet you’re like, just wait, we’re just getting started. That’s my hunch how you’re gonna respond. Is that right?
Dillon Atchley (40:00):
Uh, yep. Absolutely. Yeah, we’re gonna, we’re gonna aim for the moon. We’re aim for the stars. New land on the moon. We’ll get lucky. Who knows, <laugh>. We’ll
Scott Luton (40:07):
Figure it out. Love it. Well, Dylan, thank you so much for your time here today. Again, Dylan Ley, c e o with r e eight Technologies, a real pleasure to get to learn more about your venture and all the good work that it’s gonna do now and moving forward for folks across global supply chain. Thank you, Dylan.
Dillon Atchley (40:23):
Thanks Scott. Appreciate
Scott Luton (40:24):
It To our listeners, man, what a, uh, again, forgot their fresh share, uh, with Dylan and the r e eight team, maybe that last, uh, hour or so created some FOMO in your mind, that fear of missing out. Check out. Try r eight.com. You can learn a lot more. But more than anything else, I, I really enjoy Dylan’s, you know, beyond R eight, his key takeaways from ProMat, right? His list of four ways to help optimize your supplier sourcing. Even if you don’t check out the r e eight platform from someone that’s been there and done it, but hey, we can’t do it for you, right? You gotta take this expertise, apply it, deeds, not words. That’s what it’s all about. So if you’ve enjoyed this episode, be sure to find supply chain now, wherever you get your podcast from. Subscribe so you don’t miss stuff like this. And hey, find us on YouTube. It’s easy to watch, listen and engage in those shows there. And on behalf of the entire team here at Supply Chain now, Scott Luton wishing all our listeners nothing but the best challenging you to do good. Give forward and be the chain. Hey, be like Dylan Ashley, and we’ll see you next time, right back here on Supply Chain now. Thanks everybody.
Intro/Outro (41:26):
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