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Hello everyone. This is Kevin L. Jackson, and welcome to digital transformers on supply chain. Now I'm greeting you today from Washington DC, the nation's Capitol, and right here next to me, keeping me safe is Scott Luton from the ATL. Hey Scott, how are things today?
Kevin always a pleasure. It's gorgeous here in the Metro Atlanta area today. And, uh, it's an honor to be your wing man, as we get through this conversation here.
Yeah, absolutely. But today is really, I like this because we're going to talk about, about favorite repeat guests. And we're going to talk about the latest business challenges and how organizational leaders are really looking around and their business process to free up their team members from doing those mundane things like going through the inbox and trying to focus on creating value. You know, I mean every day you get hundreds of emails you've got blocking and tackling and just trying to get to something that's valuable. And we're going to be talking to Dan Reeve, the lead sales for Esker us. Hey Dan. Hey,
Awesome. Uh, you know, I know you've been doing a lot of thing with wildlife, but God, well, we're going to start this conversation today.
Well, gosh, you're talking, blocking and tackling. We could talk football, we could talk American football, but where we're really gonna start with is some travel, some recent travel adventures that Dan has been on a Kev. We're going to, we're going to, uh, you're not going to get all the answer to the question either, but Dan Dan in our, in our kind of calls between the calls as we tee up these conversations, man, not only did you send me pictures, but you told me some great stories about a recent trip to Corsica. So tell us where first off on a map for some of those folks and maybe geographically challenged, like I am, let us know where that is and give us a couple of highlights of your recent trip.
Well, of course it is located between France and Italy. So it's a island, uh, as an hour's flight from, uh, Leon. So they're in the south, uh, very popular kind of the islands traded hands several times over the years. Uh, the Italians invaded, uh, during the second world. And then I think they were encouraged out of there in 1943. So it's interesting because when you drive around the radio stations are dominantly Italian, but uh, yeah, it's a, it's a French. Um, I think the right word is colony. They refer to the Francis the mainland or, but yeah, I think it's a good place to go interest in place. I've heard good things about it. Very nice. Oh, but I didn't have very good time. Maybe it was love work. It was very mundane. It was, it was a hard time
You're blocking and tackling all day. But Kevin, I think we were on a live stream and I shared a snapshot or two. So, so Dan, some of the images we shared earlier, it's like, you're on top of some mountain peaks looking over some kind of bay and it was absolutely gorgeous. What, what were you doing?
Hiking? And, you know, tired my boss out because anytime you're going to negotiate, it's always good to take your boss out hiking for five or six hours or he or she, and then ask for that raise, you know, now, um, so we, we were, um, we were hiking. We went out and hiked for a few days before, uh, our managerial work event. I like to do that because one, it takes me a while to get over jet lag. So getting out there doing a little bit of exercise get on their time zone always helps me too with, you know, the logistics of COVID. It was the first time in two and a half years, I've traveled to Europe and we just wanted to sort of get through it. You know, you have to have an electronic, digital European health pass. And uh, and then obviously you, you know, you had to get a series of tests. So, um, uh, I did discover that in Europe they do the PCP tests a little bit different, and then they put that swamp through the back of your brain. Uh, here it's like a little temple. It's like, whoa, you know, you're, you're like, oh wow.
Yeah, the logistics of travel of course have changed dramatically. And we're still fighting through so that we can get back to some semblance of normality, but a really quick in the pre-show
We had a guest, uh, the other day that was, um, stuck in Dubai for 10 days because they couldn't leave. They were standing next to someone who, uh, apparently didn't test properly for COVID didn't pass the test.
You're right. Kevin and Dan get this as he was wrapping our live stream with us, he was three hours away from finally getting on a flight and getting liberated. So it's amazing. Yes, escaping, but you know, these governments around the world and there's a variety of different policies. And you know, Dan, as you've alluded to different different approaches and methodologies to attack this pandemic, but anyway, we will all look forward to getting back to where we can travel more freely on that note. Pre-show Kevin and Dan, we realized we uncovered that you all have a mutual love for Singapore. Kevin, what's your favorite aspects of traveling to Singapore? Okay.
Okay. Singapore is one of my favorite cities. I, uh, first enjoyed it when I was living in the Philippines. I was in the Navy and I would go there and I was a pilot in the Navy and we would land at the airport and on the way to the hotel, there's this restaurant on the left side. And we would stop there every time and get it's either chili, chili, lobster, and a pepper crab or chili crabbing, pepper lobster, or both. But it's awesome. If you ever go to Singapore, you gotta gotta try that out. You know, food is one of my favorite things here on supply chain now,
And it's a universally bonding element, which is also a good thing. All right. So Dan one, you get the final question here. As we're talking, travel based on what Kevin just shared about Singapore, one of his favorite places to go, uh, he mentioned some, what sounds like delicious food dishes. What was your favorite part about Singapore?
I did eat the same meal. It was pretty good, but I, I th there's that famous hotel shaped like a boat is famous. We did stay there and, uh, they've got, you know, they've got that infinity pool and I thought that was pretty cool. Just the shape of the boat, but, uh, um, but that pool up there, you know, managing to sneak in there, I think managed to sneak in there in between or the end of a long Workday, uh, thrive. It's pretty cool. Lots of work. Oh no, no, no fun. I'm telling you if it was horrendous. No adult.
All right. So now that we've had a little bit of fun and I'm looking forward to, uh, I'm jealous of you, both Corsican Singapore are on our, our top 10 bucket lists, but let's get down to business and do some heavy lifting here. And I want to start Dan first, and then Kevin, we're gonna come to you, you know, we're big believers in level setting. You know what we're going to be talking about, you know, P2P and [inaudible] stay tuned if you don't know what those are, we're going to uncover that, but let's start with just level setting about some things we're seeing out in the marketplace. You know, Dan, not only beyond your travels and beyond all the, um, all the ways you all help organizations, also your conversations with business leaders. And when you pulse all of that, what are some things you're seeing out in the marketplace,
Two themes then I think, uh, when it sort of supply chain leaders, one theme is when they look at how their customer service staff are being used for, should I say they, they, they think about the customer service staff in that order acquisition, the process of receiving orders or inquiries from customers w one of the problems going on right now is so a lot of, a lot of folks are oversold oversold. Therefore there's a lot of pressure from the customer because the customer wants to know, well, okay, I've placed this order. Can you fulfill it? How long will it take? Are you going to give me that particular SKU or something else? Well, if it's going to be back ordered how long, and in many cases, the customer is placing a lot more inquiries in questions before an order comes in. But the customer service staff are already in many cases.
I mean, labor labor is a big issue and many customer service staff, or either, you know, they disappeared like many of the th th th the staff we've seen in industries since COVID came along. And what I mean by that is people seem to have moved on to different roles, different jobs, the expectations sort of work they're going to do has it has, or they're willing to do has changed. So, yeah, so a lot of supply chain leaders are saying, okay, I'm going to struggle here. I've got more work needed to place an order. Customer demand and expectation has gone up. We still have the Amazon effect, but my customer service staff and my sales staff are bogged down. Because again, all these emails, questions, inquiries, and then we need to sort of be able to recognize information to store between the CRM ERP email, which is a, for many, a hot box or a nightmare.
This information is in all different places. And what's happening for some is that the customer is calling the VP of supply chain, or even the head of sales saying, you're not taking care of us. Your service levels are poor. We want to have information sent back almost immediately. And so one of the things we do see folks doing is saying, okay, can I provide the customer with automatic replacing? Or can we recognize you've placed an order? We recognize you have an inquiry. Here's somebody information you need based on ship that your availability or what you can expect. Pass that information back as quick as you can, almost semi-automated automated. So that you're least placate the customer immediate. They can do something with that information. A lot of customer service reps or their leaders feel they're in a swivel chair. You you've been there. Kevin, on the, you know, you've taken off on the flight deck.
You've got folks there in the, um, you know, the control unit monitoring. It's got any sub sonar threats. We've got any air threats and they're back and forth. Well, actually, maybe in the Navy, they focus on sonar. They focus on efforts, but these customer service reps, customer service reps, they're doing that. Okay. I've got CRM ERP, I've got, I've got internal systems and customers calling up or emailing and asking for a response. This is all difficult, not for just placing handling orders and supply chain leaders want fast information about, they want the demand signal. What do people want? When do they want it as folks bounce between these different systems? It's making it very hard for them to actually get a true picture, resolve issues, fix claims issues, deductions, and at the same time service the customer, because because many folks are so oversold, the first thing they do when an order comes in is race to book or find materials from somewhere. So there's a lot of pressure. And I'll talk about a second thing in an issue. I think all of this is compounded by labor. Yes.
So let's pause there for just a second, because you shared a lot there before moving to the second one, will Kevin I'd love for you to respond. And then I have a clarifying question for you, Kevin, and respond to that first observation.
Is that the organization is really struggling with identifying and collecting data and then turning that data into information so that you're going to actually do effective action. So pre COVID, everybody was used to having data in the office or in locations, and they knew where to go. Then when COVID hit and everybody went home, they realized that they didn't have access to that data. And for, you know, for the first 6, 7, 8 months, people said, well, you know, this is going to get over. We'll get back into the office. So we won't worry about doing anything major. We'll just we'll get through it. And then people realized that there is no getting through people are people now need to be able to get access to data, to create information from anywhere. And these people include your customers. So now you have to figure out how to get that data, identify it quickly and get it to the, uh, the need as fast as possible. And this is driving business process engineering, understanding what data is important, who needs that data and how to change that data into information to make effective action,
Love that, uh, you, you gotta be able to manage and, and, uh, play in a transformational time, right? Things have changed dramatically on a number of different planes. I want to ask one more clarifying question for you, Dan, before you moved to your second observation, because some of what I heard is is that pre-sale all those presale activities before you're even assured that there's going to be revenue produced from those activities. You know, cause you know, sometimes the customers don't place the order. So some of what I heard there is how you're seeing businesses try to optimize that time that spent before, you know, if the order's going to be placed. And if all that work's going to lead to revenue, there's a, there's a great opportunity to optimize and improve that aspect of the order to cash cycle. Would you agree?
Yeah, it makes me think of two examples. One is a CIO at a chemical industrial tape manufacturer who said to me years ago, I would like to be able to track all those situations where folks try to place an order, but we didn't give them exactly what they wanted because then I'd like to see, did they make mistake? W are we not carrying the right solutions? Do we need to tweak because they tried to order something different. We didn't have it or there's something going on there. So there'll be value in knowing that the second one is, I remember talking to a sales leader for a aviation distribution unit in the south west. And he said to me, Dan, for every sales order, we actually book, we have three or more inquiries. And then you said, I realized we could increase sales if we could at least respond to those inquiries and give them a quote.
But then he said, so there were, we could increase sales revenue because we'd be faster to serve faster, to answer, but then more value would come if we could actually convert the sales orders or sales order comes in, can we convert that recognize that really got information? Cause we gave them a quote based on what we asked for previously. Well, there's a lot of manual effort they involved in generating that kind of create an order by pulling in all the information, the demand, let history, all that knowledge and if need be presented to the customer, I think this is what you want. Is this what you want to double-check or having taken that, that, that quote history create an order in the ERP. Obviously it's got to be accurate. It's got to be right, but it's fast. And it's removing some of those steps. You know, even this week when I was talking to some of my reps about growth, how do we continue this great growth trajectory we've been, we've been on? Sometimes reps will point to red tape. What can you do as a sales leader to remove red tape, red tape, frictional delays. And I think these, these things that we're talking about here, all about doing that to improve the customer experience,
I agreed I'm with you and you know, all too often folks think of improvements and using technology to increase margins. But there's also to your point, that top line of revenue opportunity, you know, as I heard you described that, I think of my time metal stamping, where we get requests for quotes all the time. Right? And, and you're trying to squeeze, you're trying to figure out what the smart business plays are to the things that weren't as such a good fit. And of course spend the most of your time on that smart business. What the thing is, you still have to get back to the customer and be with a good competitive quote. So they can, you know, that they get some information and can make a decision. That sounds a lot easier than it is for many organizations. So Dan, I appreciate you bringing that up. Let's move to, as we continue our level setting so much to cover. So little time, let's move to your second big observation here in terms of what you're seeing out, out in the market today.
Okay. And you did just make me think of another point, okay, I'm going to mention it when I was hunting this weekend and that does tend to involve lots of times sitting there reflecting, watching, you know, slow days, I've been listening to Stanley McChrystal's book, team of teams in that book. The main premise is that in the past we focused on efficiency predominately it was all about business efficiency. You know, getting a hundred units out instead of the traditional 30 units, Keith, he says, w in the, in the modern age, you have all this data and there's this, these, these networks is what we have to do is bring and enable our teams and our, our CSRs or supply chain planners to have agility. This is, that is what we didn't have in Iraq. Early days, week, we, we, we, we changed that. He says, that's what, and this is what we came to realize. It wasn't just for the special operations command. It was business needs it too. The ability to use technology free up our folks to be more agile, to therefore go serve the customer or prevent issues or fix issues quickly. I'll take a pause. I'm ready to go to my second point. But do you want to
Stop? You want to respond to that really quick?
Well, one of the things about agility is critical and all processes, but many times we get stuck and a process and we don't know how to get out of it and people don't like change. And it it's a, it's a, it's a forcing function. Typically you need a forcing function in order change existing processes. So it it's a change in mindset where agility is important. That's because management leadership provides that freedom to, to change and drive that change of thought.
So on that note, um, I think we could probably stay right here for several hours of this podcast discussion. And by the way, I've got to add Stanley McChrystal's book to my, uh, list of those to read there, Dan, but let's get into your second observation for the sake of time. And then we're going to move into some, some additional level setting and what we're seeing organizations do about some of these challenges that we've identified. So Dan what's the second observation
I hinted earlier. Second one is labor labor. So many of the supply chain leaders, I speak to have said that we were already thinking about, could we make the customer service role, the supply chain planner role more interesting, um, before COVID, COVID hit, suddenly people have to be empowered, able to work from home. Many folks had to stay at home to look after the children. So we've been on a double whammy because we were already thinking or needing that we had to make the work more valuable. We purpose the positions, grow the responsibilities. So those folks would stay in the organization and not DePaul. One company I'm aware of a manufacturer in Chicago has lost 50% of the CSRs in the last five months, 50%. And that was so then you, you, you've got this turnover going on. You've got these manual processes that people don't want to do, and don't enjoy.
Then many of these companies are oversold. Customers have, again, becoming frustrated both by the situation on the macro level and their engagement with your company, managers and directors even are having to step in and do more manual type work when traditionally would be looking at, okay, how could we be more efficient or how could we be more agile? Or how can we plan for the future that actually often leads to more errors because they're not used to doing the day-to-day work or they're pulled away from doing the type of deep social thought value engineering work that they need to be doing. So you've got this sort of cocktail is problematic cocktail going on, where the labor is causing problems. And I think, um, go back to the examples in Chicago, they said, every rate has gone up and actually our demand plan is have ended up replenishing items that we ordered wrong subsequently. So they're back there. They're ordering again because they're looking at what, what did we buy? No, we actually bought that and it was a mistake and that cost us, you know, cashflow
Errors that keep on giving first time errors at lead, the second time errors and third time errors. Right? That's a great, it was a great call out. Uh, Kevin respond to that a minute because you know, it's bad enough. We set back and you know, when you make the error and you make it right again, you know, you lose a little traction, but man, Dan's talking about how, again, just the errors that keep on giving what'd you hear there?
Well, see, what are the things that we have seen is the lack of visibility and in business flows and business processes, because many of those as Dan has pointed out on manual, they're not automated. They're not standardized. It's difficult to, or impossible to hand off like a customer from one TSR to another CSR or to this manager. Who's now sitting at the desk because they don't have enough, uh, labor to manage the customers because it's all manual. It's not automated. It's not standardized because there's no visibility in the internal processes of the organization. This, this is really what's happening today. And it's why organizations are looking to redesign their business processes. Identify what data is critical to those processes that also enables the agility that you may need as things change. And no, mark, my word change is constant in today's world, in today's business. So you can afford, I have a static business process.
Okay. Kevin, excellent, good stuff. There a lot, a lot. There's so much to uncover in, in as we, as we tried again, three, our people up right. Free our people up, let them
That's right. That is right. So I want to continue level setting is so important. We feel in this era where we're moving so fast, we're moving at the, at the speed of a thousand Gazelles. You know, I was going to say that Dan, you know, I was going to say folks, if you don't, if that phrase doesn't sound familiar, you got to get, check out some, a dance previous appearances. I want to move to, you know, we love our acronyms in global business. And certainly in global supply chain, Dan, we'll get you to define a couple. And then Kevin, I want you to also really equip our listeners with some other, have to be aware for some other acronyms that they're certainly going to hear a lot more of. Let's start with Dan with P2P. What does P2P?
So the market typically prefer prefers to P to P as activities involved in procure to pay the activities involved in buying goods and services. Maybe going through an approval, sometimes folks will not go through an approval and get a purchase order, or maybe they have a contract in the background, but it's procure to pay. Typically does cover both purchase of direct and indirect goods and services. I, are you buying more materials or are you buying lighting and laptops and markers paper that will, that will, um, indirect spend that you need for the, uh, for the office that supports the factory and the distribution units. So procure to pay and then pay typically is okay, well, we, we need to pay the vendor. COVID to led to a big change here. Actually, a lot of folks have said, ah, we don't want to cut checks anymore.
I mean, I work with a healthcare organization in Miami. Somebody stole their checks in the middle of COVID try to cash all the checks that were male bound to suppliers. So that one, a lot of people didn't want to come in the office because they were obviously worried about picking up COVID and wanted to take care of their health and the health of their families. Understandably, too, a lot of companies said, okay, we probably need to move away from posting checks for the risk of fraud and three maybe icing on the cake. If not the driver, many of the suppliers are willing to take a virtual payment already, perhaps taken virtual payment of some sort. And the, you know, there's organizations like core pay master data who are, when I say procure to pay, you can go further. He can actually be, let's actually pay the vendor, pay them at the speed of a thousand ELLs, because if you pay him really quick, well, they may well be willing to take an early pay. It'll give you an early payment discount or you can get some rebates, you know, as much as 2% against your spend, that trend has really been lit up by COVID. From what leaders tell me.
I agree. And we see a lot of it. In fact, I'd take it a step further and call to some degree. These last couple of years, as procurement purgatory, especially for small businesses, they have to jump through hoop after hoop, after hoop to get paid. Eventually that company that owes, you know, on the invoice, they develop a reputation for who are easy to work with and who that you do all the work upfront and hoping to prayer. Eventually you'll collect on all of that good work. So I really, I think this what you're talking about, really a finger on the pulse of a lot of pain out there. Let's also talk on a similar note, OTC order to cash. Right? Tell us about that.
I will, I've got to say it. If I forget it, you made a great point there. Scott many companies now having to buy goods and services from many different vendors. Okay. Because there's a risk and just relying on a single source sole source vendor. No, they might, all everyone material might be stuck in the Gulf somewhere on some ship, you know? And so the reality is it's important and many companies are realizing the way you compete is not just through of product alone, it's price, product service, and your supplier. As part of the network, you've got to take care of. If you want to take care of you can retain or grow your customer base. So a good point, order to cash has those activities involved in capturing, uh, the order through to, um, collecting money? So you could say, well, at first point, and this is COVID applicable first, we're going to do more business or we're going to bring on a new customer. So with credit check dam, you need to onboard them. We didn't make sure they're not a risk to our business. Then they're going to bring, sending, sending orders to us through various different formats, EDI e-commerce web PDF,
Pigeons. I have seen napkins. I have seen napkins from being center. $1 billion organization in the UK. Farmers were sending occasionally napkins for potassium. Same again, please. Same as the last month. You know, you don't see many of those nowadays, but I thought that was great. So order the cash, the, the, the, the process of bringing customers on board, capturing that demand signal of the order, and then invoicing them accurately chasing up that money as automated as possible, chasing those who are least, you know, those are the most or those that where you're chasing efforts can be most effective. And then the key thing that a lot of folks are beginning to really pay attention to is the process to apply the cash. Cause what many have gone through, and in some ways the growth of e-commerce and the payments has made us more tricky is payments often come in, decoupled from the actual, the statement or the invoice that you send out.
So you're like, well, okay, you've paid me a hundred thousand dollars, but you've got 15 different invoices. Are you paying off? All of those, you know, is this money all to be paid against the invoice or your account and, or increasingly, okay. The short pays, I don't know why I've got short pay here and I need to go and talk to customer service and shipping and logistics and finance and management to see if will approve the short pale research is valid, but I haven't done that. We're struggling with staff already. We've talked about how labor is a big problem. So this was a massive headache for companies even before COVID, as much as 4% of a company's margin can be stolen or lost right there, short pays deductions anyway. So that's order to cash. And I think traditionally many companies were focused including software vendors on solutions for the order to invoice, but we shouldn't forget that cash process as well.
Excellent point. And we know firsthand, we see, we see all the time how payments are disconnected to the invoice that was sent out. And then if there's a short pay or an overpay or a timing issue, you know, that the control function and the controller function, or the AP you name it, they're so far downstream. They're not sure exactly what took place and what the marry with what, so it just creates more heartburn, especially for organizations are sending out thousands of invoices and are trying to marry up and, and disposition, uh, tens of thousands of transactions. So, excellent point there, Dan, Kevin, I want to bring you in here, whether you want to kind of make a follow-up point on what Dan just shared or what other acronyms should we be having on our radar here these days?
Well, you know, I'm all about, uh, digital transformation and the, the acronyms that are critical to digital transformation are really all about enabling the organization to reduce the labor required to, um, uh, process information and data. Now, one of the things and manual manual business processes, you're leveraging a human to review the data, to decide what it's a patch to what it referred to and the dispose with, or take action in order to leverage or use that beta. But now in digital transformation, we are finding that a lot about humans are being underutilized and that artificial intelligence can be used to do somebody's mundane tasks. So, uh, the hot acronym today is AI because AI artificial intelligence is, uh, can be associated with systems that are self-aware and capable of quote, rational thought that can take this data and interpret the data and take action on it.
I mean, we use it every day with optical character recognition and people don't see that as AI, but, but it is, and it allows the machine to read document and make decisions and take automated paths. The other thing is that we've talked about before is business process management or engineering BPM. And this is where you can look at your business process and identify where do you need humans and where you really don't need humans. And that's typically the first step in a business transformation journey. So it addresses a couple of issues that Dan highlighted, first of all, the speed, it can make a process much faster. And if you can respond to a customer faster, that customer is happier. Uh, and then you can accelerate payments so you can improve your cash flow, but it also helps on the labor because you can reduce the labor required right in your organization. And the third is RPA or robotic process automation. So this is software that can be used to automate all of your structured business processes. Once you do this BPM, you know how to create a standard in your process, then you can apply a RPA or robotic process automation to not leverage or not need that labor any anymore. So the RPA can do these tasks and less time with greater accuracy at a fraction of the cost. Plus they worked 24 7 without picking elect break or feeding them, right? So this is really part of digital transformation.
I love that. And, and you know, that labor, uh, there's team members can also be reassigned. I mean, oftentimes you're talking about folks that may know the organization very well, and we all know the tribal knowledge is leaving out the door based on pay rate differentials based on burnout. You name it. So, gosh, if you can apply technology again to take away these mundane tasks that that technology can probably do better anyway, and then give these folks opportunities to really upon themselves and new ways of creating new value for organization, which also would take some of the burden off of our great HR folks and recruiters that are, uh, in the battles as Dan mentioned, uh, on the hunt for, for great talent. So it really is, it's a win all the way around.
Absolutely. Yeah. Uh, actually Dan, on some of our earlier conversation, I believe this was one of the main objectives on a strategic level is to free up team members that are involved in this peak of P and OTC process. Um, can you give maybe a few examples of, of how this happened?
Yeah. I mean, you remind me of, um, I know I'm going to cover RPA machine learning AI briefly, but, uh, as I answered this, it's got, you talked about, you know, we, we're in, we're in the biggest labor threat dynamic we've seen for many, many years. And, um, you know, years ago I was MCR safety, a great company in Tennessee and they make safety products. And the GM said we were there and they were deploying ESCOs technology for machine learning, AI of order automation to have a tool that didn't really allow them to scale. They wanted to rip that out. And they said, we want something that if orders have been for your network already, great that's learning, we don't need to do, um, your AI will observe and watch uses of it as they tweak or adjust sales orders. I need to learn all that and it'll do it accurately.
And it will free up our folks to go and do cross selling upselling education planning. And we don't mind. They said, Hey today, one of our CSRs is moving into become a procurement officer. We celebrate that the customer service manager said, I celebrate it. And I feel like I've managed to contribute to that. Gentleman's career, little sad to see him go, but I'm far more happy to see him stay with the new organization versus leave the GM. I spoke to the GM. He says, the thing hate Dan is when we lose that talent, we spend so much time hiring them, training them, really trying to, you know, make them sort of enjoy the work-life here, having to spend so much time more on that, but then to lose that, that, that, that, that person who, who can go into the industry, but they know so much th th they could probably contribute to our business.
So he's, this is even pre COVID. And it's, it's just simply been amplified tenfold now in COVID where, you know, the whole customer service staff or the whole procure to pay staff, I thinking is this type of work I want to do, uh, how long do I do this before I get, get to my next sort of progression? Right? I went to university I'm skilled at fixing problems and issues. When can you free me up to collaborate with procurement or to go and talk to the supplier or the customer? How about how we can improve processes? So I think one point Kevin is RPA has its play. Sometimes people use it on the front or the backend of ESCO. When folks deploy ASCA, they'll often say we do use RPA in certain processes, but when we want, when we want to dedicate a process, a business process like order management or payables, we might do like Montreal airport.
Did they injected in that case? They used Solonus and shout out to those guys. They injected that tech, that business process, mining technology into their organization, looking to see if there's any holes in the tire. It said you've got broken processes compared to others. You could make a lot of improvements in, in, in payables. They then went on a journey to look for a AI machine learning technology for procure to pay, looked at a number of vendors and said, love the look of Invesco. So I think, you know, the, I agree with what you said, basically. Yeah.
Uh, that's like a gift box with a ribbon. Nice ribbon. Yeah.
So I was thinking, so, um, if you're, you're saying that people are doing that today, as we go into, hopefully post COVID moving to 20, 22, what is the one thing that business leaders need to focus on? Is it RPA? Is it AI? Is it something else?
Well, you said digital transformation. I think that's a better term because RPA is just one set of scripts in bots. It has its place. I mean, many of my customers, the CIO is, would use RPA. I'm not naive to that, but it doesn't necessarily mean it's the right solution for business process automation every time I think there's, there's various different technologies out there. I think that digital transformation was a bit of a buzzword, but it's really, it's going to stick because companies are realized not only can they be efficient and agile and grow and retain that growth. Now, if they go through their digital transformation, it's almost like companies were getting into it. COVID has broken the ship away from the dock and everybody realizes we have to do it. And I think part of it is not just because the customer supplier has different expectations.
We have to make sure we're serving those networks, not just the customer, but I think the staff, I think increasingly we want work that is more engaging, more interesting. And for many they're not going to even join or stay very long. If the work is mundane and there's dinner, there's not some kind of elements of digital transformation or efficiency or the ability for them to is another book for you. Cal Newport, it's a black and yellow book. Cal Newport's a famous MIT professor. He wrote books and free up your staff because you do your most effective work. When you block out time to go and write your book where you block out time, just get away from those emails and focus on the value of valuable conversation with the supplier at a customer. He knocked out more research papers than any MIT professor at his age, in a short period of time.
And he said, I do it by focus, get rid of social media, cut that off your phone, focus, focus, focus. And, and I think the opportunity is can I free my folks up, not just to sort of engage with customers and suppliers, but maybe even, you know, can AP going to have a chat with payables or procurement? Hey guys, look, this is going on. And I wonder, is this really something that possibly starts in procurement, right? Well, or is it maybe it's starts in procurement, but it's really because the sales reps have set certain expectations or is it just because this customer is difficult, freeing up folks to go and do these sort of interdepartment conversations or mini little projects where people are challenged, but think, oh, I'm getting to develop new skills and learn about different parts of the business. I think we're going to have to do that sort of thing. The people to stay stays, stays a new challenging,
And, and stay in an engaged manner where they feel part and connected and they're contributing and endure being fulfilled at the end. So we're thought while we're throwing books out there, I'll put a book out there. I used to work for a gentleman named Ray Katia at a Cincinnati Ohio. And he wrote a book that really resonates very, very straightforward concept, focused on run, improve, and grow, run, improve, grow, and the whole thrust of it is you can't spend a hundred percent of your time running the business at any level. You know, whether you're a frontline or whether you're in a CEO suite, and you got to find a way of building a system, building a business that frees up that time to improve the business, but also frees up that time to grow the business. And of course, business strategy, you know, talking about growing organization, enterprise, you know, the, the, the leaders of the organization are challenged with that.
So that's where the ratio should be a little different perhaps, but everyone plays a part in running and, uh, improving and growing the business. You can't run all the time. You have to take some time. That's right. You got to call Kevin, you know what? That is a million-dollar point, because as simple as it is, it is a powerful point. You know, some, some, I don't know about y'all, but so my biggest Mo Eureka moments have come when I've called Tom out to Dan's point, shut down social shutdown, zoom shut down email, and just dedicate some time, some focus to figure it out. Okay, why are we doing this? Or why is this happening? And then that's kind of what you're speaking to.
Yeah. I mean, sometimes it's interesting there, they say three days away from email and all the rest of it. That's when your creativity will come back. And sometimes they do find when you give, you will give you, or your people a little bit of a break or, you know, get them out of the office or get to do something. And it's slightly different, you know, that day or the day after creativity, somebody has an idea, you know? And, um, so I think finding those opportunities to do that, you know, I think what's happening too. It seems that we have the book competitions. There's so seven habits of highly effective people show up in the store. I know you shop in the store,
But at the core, bringing it back, bringing it back. And of course, we've got to mention, Kevin's click the transform bestseller, but I bring it back to the conversation here. And the relevancy is leaning on effective and successful technology to help free up your team, help free up the people and get some of those hours back. But then you can apply in different aspects of the organization. And that strikes me as a big part of what, uh, the potential that Esker has and a big part of what Esker delivers to companies you work with. Right? Dan?
Yeah. I mean, people ask me, what are you doing? I said, I like to say, you know, folks will turn to a supply chain leaders, finance leaders, customer service leaders, they'll turn to us because they're trying to free up their staff to be rockstars. And that's put a seven customer to supplier in particular, really in order to cash procure to pay.
Yeah, it is, uh, Kevin, what rockstar would you want to be?
You know, I'm old school. So my, uh, I love earth, wind and fire or anything I like about what's in the fire because they have morphed over the years, but their music, no matter how old it is, seems to resonate. So that's what I want to be. I want to be a rock star, no matter how old I am, I'm still resonating with the industry.
I love that. And then I'm going to ask you how folks can connect with you in a minute, but you know, the rolling stones are, are our own, their next tour. It's amazing. I just saw a commercial for it. And I didn't realize that a little or maybe the big rivalry and war of words they've had with the Badal or, uh, I guess, um, the lead singer of stones, Jagger, Paul McCartney, they're still exchanging some things. But anyway, Dan,
I was going to say Jagger cause anybody who can party like Jagger for like the best part of 40 50 days still be alive. And you seems to have a, you know, he seems to fit. You figured a few things, a few things out, I guess,
Hey, this conversation is coming full circle. We had, we've had some travel, we've had some food, we've had some sports, we've had some transformation and now we're having some rock and roll. So two questions for you, Dan, first off, what rock and roll star would you be? And then let's make sure folks know how to connect with you.
Hi, I'm torn. You know, is he the Bano? Cause you know, he's a little travel in an influence he has. Well, I think Jagger because Jack is clearly at a good time and enjoying still around gnosis is still doing it at the highest level. So maybe Jack
It's remarkable, truly remarkable. Okay. So it's good to have maintain a good, healthy sense of humor as we're, we're fighting through some of the challenges of this time. So the most important, uh, aspects impacting global business. So let's make sure Dan, you know, we've enjoyed several conversations we've had with you and the Esker team. Uh, the work you are doing out in industry as we're, we're making progress through this digital transformation, or really Kevin, as we've talked about it is business transformation, uh, era that we're getting through. Right. Dan, how can folks connect with you?
Uh, Daniel dot reef@escrow.com? They could just help desk a website, S a escrow.com. Or my number is 6 0 8 8 2 8 6 1 3 5. You'll find me on LinkedIn as well as brave,
No telephone number. Well, I'll never get my telephone.
I love it. Hey, he's bold and fearless. Uh, Kevin, uh, that's what we've learned about Dan reef and, you know, by the way, y'all, y'all put out a great podcast and other thought thought leadership via digital content. So look for that out there. Um, before we wrap up, Kevin, we'll make sure folks know how to connect with you as well.
Yeah. So on put up Kevin underscore Jackson, I'm also on, on my band, but the best way is through digital transformers. My show here on supply chain now. So, um, I'll tell you, this has been an awesome time and, and Dan, thank you for your time and perspective. You know, we're going to have to bring you back because we seem to be out of time, but there's just so much we could talk about, we didn't even get to your hunting trip. So, um, yes, I guess we'll have to get you back on the docket, so,
Okay. We're going to make sure we double down on the wildlife component on the next show with Dan Kevin. How's that sound
That puts pressure on that puts the pressure on, I better go to be successful next time.
So, uh, we also, I want to type the audience for 'em because without you, we wouldn't be successful. So I like to invite everyone to check out the wide variety of industry thought leadership that we provide through supply chain now.com. You can find digital transformers now, wherever you get your podcasts. So please be sure to subscribe and on behalf of the entire team here at supply chain. Now this is Kevin Jackson and Scott Luton wishing all about listeners, a bright and transformational future. We'll see you next time on digital transformers.
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