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Welcome to Enabling Digital, the systems plus podcast series.
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My name is Abhan Choksi and I'm here today with a very exciting guest, Charles Griffith.
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Charles has been disrupting retail logistics for over 20 years, beat with behemoths such
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as Amazon to startups like Mile Zero and Quiet Platforms.
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Charles, it's great to have you here today.
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Thanks for having me.
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Appreciate it.
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Absolutely.
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It's our pleasure.
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So let's jump right in.
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Why don't we start by just you telling us how you helped build the foundation for Amazon
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logistics and how that led you to creating Mile Zero?
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Well, that's a big question.
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But I'll start with a lot of blood, sweat and tears, emphasis on tears.
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So I joined Amazon back in 2006.
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And this is kind of a familiar story for anyone who's met me before.
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But I joined when Amazon was still a startup.
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Amazon at that point, for people that don't recall and wish they could go back in time,
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was about 26 bucks a share.
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So that gives you some idea.
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I had joined after doing a startup that isn't listed in my public resume or LinkedIn called
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Three Data, which was a startup that was a global CRM solution for manufacturing of garments,
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which is ironic since this last thing I was working on was for American Eagle.
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But this startup was really before the growth of the internet.
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And we had built a distributed system that allowed brands and private labels and manufacturers
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in Mexico to collaborate and to basically build out product, which were clothes, of
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course.
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A lot of this, you know, with the emergence of things like blockchain and others are still
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going on and still, you know, there's still a lot of innovation very similar in what we
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had started back in this particular period of time.
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Unfortunately, for a number of reasons, one being that I learned an important lesson,
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never have a startup with guys that are already rich because they lose focus quickly.
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And the second being bad luck because whereas Mexico looked like it was poised to be a big
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player in those particular times with NAFTA and so forth, China ended up becoming a huge
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player in terms of manufacturing, as we all know.
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But the point was I was infected at that point with the desire to learn more about automation
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of supply chain.
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And so when Amazon came along, Amazon already had a reputation in those times of being great
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at logistics.
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And so I joined the transportation team there and led the technology growth from 2006 through
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2014.
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And that began with, you know, actualizing prime, which had started in 2005, going through
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the category expansion where Amazon moved from BMVD to everything.
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And that required a lot of changes in terms of how you ship.
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And then ultimately, injecting deeper and deeper into carrier networks and moving away
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from a dependency on enterprise carriers, enabling a lot of the local couriers that
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have become bigger couriers now.
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And then finally, leading what we had called transportation by Amazon, which is now called
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AMZL or Amazon Logistics, which was the creation of Amazon as a carrier.
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And that included building out sort centers, building out better controls for line hall
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management, and then finally expanding its capabilities in terms of last mile, mostly
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for the enablement of products like fresh, but also for the launch of various marketplaces
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like India and China and to shift some of the dependencies off of carriers in places
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like the UK.
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In about 2014, I realized, excuse me, that we were at the end of an era for building.
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And now it was going to be all expansion and build out for the next five years.
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That's what I thought, five years, but it looks like it's going to be a lot more than
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five years.
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So as we moved on, I decided I'd go back and build the startup that I'd wanted to.
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And I founded a company called Mile Zero.
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Mile Zero was a last mile platform.
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It's interesting when you come out of the behemoths, as you mentioned, your view of
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the market is skewed in terms of everyone is competing with you when in fact, no one
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is.
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So whereas I thought there was a tremendous market for last mile, we were way early.
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And it took time for that to catch up.
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But we built from the ground up a lot of ex-Amazonians.
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We delivered a product that started out with Noon in the Middle East, and then we found
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traction with Staples, Harvey Norman, a big retailer in Australia, and another large retailer
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called Endeavor Drinks in Australia, before getting acquired by HIG slash Capstone in 2019.
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And at that particular point, once we were kind of owned by private equity, we started
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focusing on an expansion into groceries.
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And I'd probably still be there if it wasn't for a guy named Shaker Najran who came along.
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He'd approached me several times and said, hey, I want you to join this new startup I'm
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building.
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Well, it turned out this startup he was building was actually within a big, huge retailer called
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American Eagle Outfitters.
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And the idea was to combine all of the logistics for American Eagle and for other retailers
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into a sharing platform.
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And once they made a few big acquisitions, I decided, yeah, this is the place to go.
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And so I joined in 2022.
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However, over the next couple of years, as we all know, in the tech field here, it was
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an interesting time where the focus shifted from big ideas to profitability.
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And so we went through a refocusing and ultimately changed the entire focus of the platform to
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be about using data science and inventory and intelligence to get positioning based
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on demand for retailers and developing basically a surety model where they could get delivery
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with a surety but not have a stake in which particular player made those deliveries.
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So almost a round trip back to the beginning of the story.
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And so I just recently left after we got back on the right path here.
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And now I'm looking forward at what's next.
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Well, that's awesome.
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So you've been, well, even though you work with Amazon, but you work with them really
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in let's call it a well-funded startup stage.
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So it's pretty interesting.
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So you sort of have that experience of doing it all big and small and meaningful things
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across the board.
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That's pretty exciting.
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That's pretty interesting, in fact.
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But I guess I want to touch on retail logistics.
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It's a very big word, to be perfectly honest, right?
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So how do you sort of look at it?
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How do you define it?
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I'd love to sort of understand your thoughts on the state of the industry today.
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And more than that, where are you seeing the core friction points today?
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Well, it's interesting.
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You're right.
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It is a big word and it covers a lot of ground.
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I think it's also an evolutionary word where it's changed over time.
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If you look at Amazon, for example, we never thought of transportation as part of the product
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originally, right?
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It was a cost center.
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And people just, you know, and lesser retailers at that particular time, effectively outsourced
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the customer relationship for delivery.
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So it's become a key part of what retailers do.
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So I think retail logistics is very much a term that refers to how do you interact with
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your customer?
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And that includes everything from inbound, you know, getting the products that you want
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to how it's delivered and all of those interchanges.
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And I think, you know, it's changing and it's always changing.
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There are years when, you know, retailers over buy and now it's all about just, you
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know, how do we get rid of our old stock, right, at a profitable amount?
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And how do we basically serve customer demand?
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We saw how during the pandemic, how ineffectively that was done, right, which created scarcity
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and created inflation.
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So it's also a big indicator of how the economy is going to go, right, because so much of
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every country is, you know, tied to retail.
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The other thing is I think that retail logistics is moving away from something that for the
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last 100 years has been very manual, right?
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There are still a tremendous number of warehouses around the world that have spreadsheets that
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are, you know, managing off a hook or crook based on the guy that's there and been there
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for 20 years.
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And that is all changing.
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It's not changing by enterprise logistics solutions, right, because that's cost prohibitive
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for many companies, but it's changing based on the availability and evolution of technology.
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And so I think, you know, the first step was we saw more access to tools that's changing
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the way people operate.
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The next is we're starting to see more automation.
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And really, I think as we move into the future, just like we're talking about advances in
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AI and other forms of technology evolution, logistics is going to move to being more of
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an orchestrated and executed transaction that's done by machines versus humans.
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Oh, perfect.
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I want to touch on something you just talked about, being customer centric.
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And I've heard you say this in the past, saying, well, the success of the customer has to be
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at the forefront of thinking.
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So my take on that is I might have built the most amazing product, but if no one's using
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it, then, well, according to me, that product is a failure.
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Do you agree?
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Oh, absolutely.
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I think that, you know, in previous eras, you could be very successful and I have a
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product that's not leveraged.
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For example, you could have an enterprise tool that sits in a warehouse that nobody
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uses, but the backer is paid for it, right?
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And some companies would be completely satisfied with that.
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I think, you know, that one of the big learnings I had through Amazon was to think very broadly
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about who your customer is.
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And coming from games and other industries, you know, I believe in, you know, making sure
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that customers are fully engaged with your product, right?
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And that takes, you know, interviewing them, understanding how the product's learned and
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actually designing and collecting information without interaction.
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That's one of the big things that I think people forget to do, but you have to be able
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to effectively understand why your product's not functioning, even if you can't interact
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with a human.
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And so building that, those types of collections, whether it's sensory or whether it's just
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basically the way you monitor and track the way the activity within your platform, those
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are key aspects, but you're dead on.
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If you don't have a product that people use, you won't live very long in any industry.
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Right.
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I want to touch a little bit on your background initially in the games industry, right?
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How have you seen that help you through your career?
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Because it is a very different step that you took, but I'm sure there were probably a lot
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of learnings, which you're probably even used to that.
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You're dead on.
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I think a lot of people are aware of Amazon's two pizza team, right?
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The number of people, you know, regardless of function that can consume two pizzas is
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a team almost like microservices for organizations.
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That idea is not new to me, wasn't new to me when I arrived at Amazon back when I was
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doing games, which we're going back into the dark ages and please don't Google it and find
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any of my games on YouTube.
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I'm already writing apologies on a daily basis.
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But back in those days, we didn't have monolithic teams that were focused.
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It was a very, you know, emerging industry where, you know, there wasn't even an established
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market.
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You know, I started out doing games for the Amiga was my first one.
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And then PC and then moved on to Super Nintendo Sega Sega Genesis, just to give people an
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idea of the era.
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And in those particular times, I guess, fortunately, unfortunately, yes, I consider it like Amazon.
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One of two times I poisoned the world, not necessarily for good.
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But in any event, when we were working on those games, many times would be five or eight
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people, you know, max that were working on these games.
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You'd have an artist, you'd have a project manager, you'd have a couple of engineers,
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you know, you'd have a sound artist that was basically using very, very, very difficult
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tools in those times.
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And you know, you were working together and it was a shared vision.
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So that was one of the things that I took away.
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And I think it's changed the way that I become a manager and a leader is, you know, your
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role could change any particular day, so, you know, lead with humility and lead more
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for the benefit of the team than the individual.
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And you know, make sure everyone is working, you know, kind of at their maximum level,
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because it's the strength of everyone in the team, almost like an equalizer on a stereo,
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right?
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If you're getting the max out of all particular limited resources, you know, you're moving
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more effectively than some of these big orchestras that, you know, they have the guy with the
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bell that hits it once every 10 songs.
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No, definitely.
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That makes a lot of sense.
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Yeah, it does make a lot of sense.
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So pulling you back to your current area of expertise, you know, so looking at the rise
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of omnichannel, you know, fundamentally, retailers are facing a lot of pressure to manage their
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costs.
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And of course, the complexity of the last mile customer fulfillment is becoming more
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and more sort of, you know, complex, to say the least.
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So how do you see technology sort of helping quell some of those challenges or the role
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that technology plays in helping retailers address these challenges?
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And fundamentally, how do you see technology play a major role in optimizing, you know,
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especially retail logistics, the last mile delivery challenges that I believe pretty
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much anyone you talk to faces these days?
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Or is it an unsolvable problem?
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I don't know.
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You know what?
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I think it again is changing over time.
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You know, a lot of these things, think about the consumer and then we'll work backwards
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to the problems, right?
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Consumer expectations are very much driven by a moment in time.
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If we go back to COVID, right?
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Amazon was able to relax and had to relax some of the expectations just based on labor
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and ability to reach customers.
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So you know, that two day promise was no longer an expectation.
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And as the pandemic lifted, I would still argue that they weren't moving as aggressively,
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right?
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Because of the cost constraints and so forth.
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But if you look now, they're back up to, you know, kind of the speeds they were pre-pandemic
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from my estimates.
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And if we just, if we expand that out, there are times when a retailer needs to compete,
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you know, against somebody like an Amazon and be able to deliver it, that kind of a
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very competitive speed and quality.
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And they have limited partners to work with.
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And so, you know, their ability to sell an item versus their competitor becomes how well
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can I negotiate with, you know, carrier X, Y or Z?
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And I think this was kind of the basis originally of Amazon or of Quiet was to consolidate this
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and give more democratization to customers.
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I think the entire industry is moving in that direction.
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I think that what we're going to see is we're going to see more automation and we're going
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to see non-traditional carriers.
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We already have seen the foray of Uber and others moving into the space, right, to offer
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retailers directly, excuse me, other options besides the enterprise carriers or local couriers.
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I think we'll continue to see more and more options to get to the last mile that will
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continue to bring down costs and improve the scale that it can be offered because we just
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can't have the world working the way it is now.
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The other thing that I think is going to change is the way that buying and fulfillment happen.
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With the expansion of AI, we're going to stop seeing people shop the way they do now.
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We have a very on-demand kind of e-commerce world today.
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You know, I think about something and I go out and order it, right?
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Oh, I need a hammer.
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Well, it'll be here in two days.
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Oh, they could deliver it for, you know, more with a greener method in five days.
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I really don't need the hammer in two days, but I feel entitled to get it in two days,
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so I'm going to take the two-day option.
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When we start seeing an aggregation of purchasing from, you know, kind of an automated shopper,
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an AI shopper that's basing the purchases based on cost and based on need from an availability
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perspective, that aggregation will start to translate into more of like a B2B delivery
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to consumers at their homes.
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Obviously, I hate to keep going back to Amazon, but they've been so early and smart in so
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many ways.
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If you look at things like Amazon Day, that's what Amazon's trying to instill in customers,
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try and get more things on the same day for less.
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I think that as you start to automate the purchasing process and move away from this
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consumer-driven model, we're going to see it because economically, it doesn't make sense
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to do everything as a per-parcel delivery.
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We should be looking at larger deliveries based on the quantities that are coming to
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people's houses.
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Right.
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And how do you see the new trend that is taking shape in the retail world where, you know,
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they are sort of charging customers for returns, et cetera, at least if it's pickup from home,
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right?
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Obviously, it's a strategy that, yeah, you can free returns in store, but that's to drive
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traffic to the store and they know they're going to be able to sort of do this.
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But Amazon doesn't have that option as such.
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And I know from what I've read, et cetera, and of course, you probably read a lot more
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around that, you know, in terms of how the reverse of that works, it's still a last mile
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problem just in a different way.
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So how do you see that challenge being addressed?
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Reverse logistics specifically?
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Yeah, reverse logistics, especially when I need to return something, but I still, you
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know, my expectation is somewhat the same, right, from a service point of view, but of
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course, it works very differently.
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Absolutely.
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So I think there's a number of factors with reverse logistics.
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The first one is that what does the consumer really care about?
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I care about getting my money back, right?
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Right.
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So what they're really caring about is how quickly will that retailer give me my money
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back?
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What does the retailer care about getting?
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Do they care as much about getting that product back?
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In some cases, no, because it doesn't make sense to return the item, as we've seen, right,
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but they don't want to become a target for fraud either.
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So there's a balancing act there.
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You can't tell people don't return something and it gets on the internet and everybody
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starts buying and returning those items.
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So you know, what it comes down to is how do you create an effective reverse logistics?
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And obviously, you can't expect that the items coming back are in mint condition, right?
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So you have to introduce grading.
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It can be very complex based on the type of product.
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Electronics, for example, are extremely difficult, right?
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And ultimately, as a retailer, you want to be able to get if it's a product that, you
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know, has a significant margin, you'd like to recoup some of that, right?
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So I think reverse logistics are very difficult.
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They require strategic planning by companies.
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They need to think about, you know, what is a return?
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What is a return being, you know, something that is sellable versus something that's going
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to be ultimately dispositioned and then you have to pay a vendor to get rid of it or something
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that's going to end up in the seconds market that's going to compete with your brand.
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So there's a lot going on the logistics side of it.
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You know, for smaller products, I think USPS has really made a big difference, right?
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Because it's so inexpensive to include a sticker or give somebody the ability to print a sticker
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and return it through USPS.
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And some of the other carriers have had to reconcile that and start selling, you know,
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reverse pickups at a lower cost, you know, to kind of because obviously, as you think
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about a logistics route for a carrier, they can take back products as they deliver and
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it reduces the cost of that stop.
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And so the more the carriers are able to sell that capability, the better it is for them.
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And so I think, again, we're seeing kind of the evolution of this space and it has a lot
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to do with the individual retailer's needs versus, you know, what the carriers can offer.
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Right, that's, yeah, that's, you're absolutely right.
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It's such a complicated problem.
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And it's the balancing act.
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I actually never thought about the balancing act, but you're absolutely right, because
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it cannot make sense for the retailer to get back, you know, at least say, socks, I don't
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like them and I'm returning them.
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But you know, it does tie back to what you said earlier about retail logistics.
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You know, again, reverse logistics were never really a consideration about a product early
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on.
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Of course, they were, right?
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If you look the way brands would plan, they'd plan for a certain conversion level and then
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they would have seconds that would go to outlets like Ross and others.
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But it wasn't done collectively and it wasn't done kind of at an individual skewer item
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level when you're looking at the, you know, revenue per unit or you're looking at the
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cost per, you know, transportation.
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Now you kind of have to factor that in and aggregate all of these factors.
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Right?
341
00:24:00,160 --> 00:24:09,480
So, I'm going to talk a little bit about the future of retail logistics and the role technology
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is already playing, but you touched, you mentioned a couple of times on AI and you said that
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AI has a big role to play.
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How so do you mean?
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And what I mean by that is like, what are some examples that you've seen that are really
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leveraging AI in retail logistics and how do you feel that AI will help further along?
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That's another big area.
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I think that in logistics, obviously we've seen a number of different types of, you know,
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data science and AI techniques used for a long time.
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As I alluded to with things like prime, you know, that is based on machine learning and,
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you know, initially and other aspects to get more out of a carrier's network than they
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advertise.
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Right?
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As we're looking forward though, I think where we start to see more automation, we're going
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to start to see, you know, large planning systems that are going to be planning the
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traversal or movement of a package over multiple carriers, multiple different modes and basically
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revising that continuously in real time.
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I think that that's going to be unlocked based on more sensory data and more tracking than
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just say the traditional EDI 214 where you're getting, you know, the five or six updates
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on your delivery of your package that you'd see through any e-commerce.
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I think these systems are going to start to really start routing things much more like
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an air traffic control system.
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The other thing, so a lot of that is on the planning and orchestration of packages and
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putting packages together to get a lower cost per delivery.
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So that's where that's going to go and I think it's critical to be able to continue to reduce
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the cost per shipment.
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I think the other thing that we're going to start to see is we're going to start to see
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frameworks for execution so that the partners in a particular transaction start to, whether
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they standardize or whether they're forced to start, you know, surfacing APIs that provide
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very similar information, we're going to need more real time control from partners to effectively
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automate this type of flow and I think we're going to see that as well.
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And as we continue on, we all know that, you know, we're going to see more automation.
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I don't, I think there'll be special reasons for things like drones, right, for per package
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delivery immediacy, things like medical for the delivery of a medical sample, something
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00:26:53,040 --> 00:26:58,360
like a drone would make a lot more sense than a human being a truck that gets caught in
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traffic.
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But I think we're going to start seeing the mass of shipments start to move into a much
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more automated process that's going to be driven by some big computing.
379
00:27:15,240 --> 00:27:23,480
And do you see retailers coming together to solve this, I don't want to say, or optimize
380
00:27:23,480 --> 00:27:26,040
is probably the right word, the whole loss.
381
00:27:26,040 --> 00:27:29,160
Well, let me rephrase that.
382
00:27:29,160 --> 00:27:36,720
So do you see retailers coming together to solve this last mile problem or challenges
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00:27:36,720 --> 00:27:42,920
or do you see that they will try to figure out on their own because they can, you know,
384
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can potentially become a competitive advantage?
385
00:27:45,880 --> 00:27:48,640
I think the answer is both.
386
00:27:48,640 --> 00:27:53,200
There certainly, you know, the large retailers that have the volume do that today, right.
387
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And they get the price negotiations with partners as a result.
388
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It's the midsize to smaller.
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Some of these growth brands that we see need the ability to access that.
390
00:28:05,980 --> 00:28:11,680
And I think we'll start to see more and more consortiums of, you know, groups of those
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types of retailers collecting together, whether it's behind the facade of a marketplace or
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an interim player like that was kind of the intent of quiet platforms.
393
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But I think that's an overdue mechanism because what we're not going to see is we're not going
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to see the carriers themselves give those common rates to everyone.
395
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It just, you know, would undermine their businesses.
396
00:28:39,480 --> 00:28:45,080
But if these consortiums are able to give them back a better sense of consistency and
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reduce their costs for pickup, then it's kind of a two way street, just as an example, right.
398
00:28:52,260 --> 00:28:57,280
It's very costly to go to a number of places for pickups, which is why they have stores
399
00:28:57,280 --> 00:29:00,760
and so forth for injecting into their network.
400
00:29:00,760 --> 00:29:03,860
But things are going to continue to get more complex.
401
00:29:03,860 --> 00:29:07,060
So I think we'll see movement in all facets.
402
00:29:07,060 --> 00:29:09,640
But it has to make business sense as well.
403
00:29:09,640 --> 00:29:10,640
Absolutely.
404
00:29:10,640 --> 00:29:16,320
And in fact, I'm glad you touched on the problem that quiet platform is trying to solve because
405
00:29:16,320 --> 00:29:23,880
that, you know, basically, there has to be, you know, for the, let's call it the small
406
00:29:23,880 --> 00:29:30,000
and the middle retailer, size retailer, there has to be a way to come together even if they
407
00:29:30,000 --> 00:29:37,320
don't want to outright say it because, you know, to try to create some rather call it
408
00:29:37,320 --> 00:29:40,080
cost savings, some leverage, something or the other.
409
00:29:40,080 --> 00:29:43,400
And I guess that's exactly the problem you were trying to solve.
410
00:29:43,400 --> 00:29:44,400
Absolutely.
411
00:29:44,400 --> 00:29:46,780
I think, you know, it's interesting.
412
00:29:46,780 --> 00:29:50,480
Most customers still just expect to get it for free, right?
413
00:29:50,480 --> 00:29:55,800
I think I'm constantly when I go, I try to shop across a number of different experiences.
414
00:29:55,800 --> 00:30:04,440
And when I'm hit with a $30 transparent fee to ups for, you know, say, plant delivery
415
00:30:04,440 --> 00:30:08,520
or something like that, I'm just like, that is exorbitant.
416
00:30:08,520 --> 00:30:12,840
That is like a decision moment where I decide should I just go down the street to a nursery
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00:30:12,840 --> 00:30:14,780
and get it get it there instead.
418
00:30:14,780 --> 00:30:21,640
So I think that, you know, it has to change for some of the local businesses to be able
419
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to survive and some of the smaller businesses to survive.
420
00:30:25,720 --> 00:30:30,600
And again, these smaller businesses, the ones that really have something unique are going
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00:30:30,600 --> 00:30:33,160
to become the next generation of larger.
422
00:30:33,160 --> 00:30:39,200
And so if they don't have that ability to be viable earlier, we're really hurting our
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00:30:39,200 --> 00:30:42,800
entire landscape of choice and selection.
424
00:30:42,800 --> 00:30:47,080
So I do think that that things are going to move in that direction.
425
00:30:47,080 --> 00:30:50,080
But they're going to move in that direction because somebody is going to figure out how
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to do it profitably.
427
00:30:52,320 --> 00:30:56,200
And the hardest thing, I'll tell you this, one of the hardest things to do these types
428
00:30:56,200 --> 00:30:59,720
of missions is you have to have volume to make a difference.
429
00:30:59,720 --> 00:31:05,080
And so the key is how do you get enough small players to aggregate the number of volume
430
00:31:05,080 --> 00:31:08,840
that's significant to the carriers you want to introduce it to?
431
00:31:08,840 --> 00:31:09,840
Right.
432
00:31:09,840 --> 00:31:10,840
Right.
433
00:31:10,840 --> 00:31:11,840
You're absolutely right.
434
00:31:11,840 --> 00:31:15,000
I mean, of course, you know this inside out, but you're bang on.
435
00:31:15,000 --> 00:31:18,080
Without the volume, none of this works.
436
00:31:18,080 --> 00:31:20,840
I know it because I've got a lot of tears behind it.
437
00:31:20,840 --> 00:31:22,960
So don't make me cry publicly.
438
00:31:22,960 --> 00:31:24,400
Oh, not at all.
439
00:31:24,400 --> 00:31:26,200
Not at all.
440
00:31:26,200 --> 00:31:34,040
So well, speaking of the public, my last question to you, well, I know we can keep talking,
441
00:31:34,040 --> 00:31:36,600
but we are about to run out of time.
442
00:31:36,600 --> 00:31:42,800
So my last question to you is, so I want to give you, I would like you to give something
443
00:31:42,800 --> 00:31:48,040
back to our listeners, those who are extremely interested in the retail logistics industry
444
00:31:48,040 --> 00:31:59,680
you know, what areas do you think can be future disruption areas so that some young guy coming
445
00:31:59,680 --> 00:32:07,840
in looking at solving a problem in this sort of area can start thinking, yeah, I can go
446
00:32:07,840 --> 00:32:08,840
after that.
447
00:32:08,840 --> 00:32:12,520
Or if you've not thought about that, what are the disruption areas that you will definitely
448
00:32:12,520 --> 00:32:14,120
see in the next five years?
449
00:32:14,120 --> 00:32:16,600
I mean, I think about that all the time, right?
450
00:32:16,600 --> 00:32:20,640
There are so many different areas that are yet to be disrupted.
451
00:32:20,640 --> 00:32:26,060
And I think, you know, so many people think of the costly ways to disrupt, right?
452
00:32:26,060 --> 00:32:31,960
We have a lot of large scale automation that's available, which is great for those companies
453
00:32:31,960 --> 00:32:33,240
that can afford it.
454
00:32:33,240 --> 00:32:35,400
It's the small ones that can't.
455
00:32:35,400 --> 00:32:40,560
And this is where, you know, there are mobile solutions that could be done that could continue
456
00:32:40,560 --> 00:32:48,680
to move those particular supply chains towards a mechanized automated manner by creating
457
00:32:48,680 --> 00:32:50,480
a repeatable process.
458
00:32:50,480 --> 00:32:57,760
I think that's a great area for younger engineers and product managers to focus on.
459
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I think there are a number of very creative ways that you could improve gig related access
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and create consortiums of people that are available for things.
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I mean, if you look at things like DoorDash and you look at Uber and so forth, these all
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basically created more of a mechanization of a set of resources that were already there,
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but it made them more accessible.
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And so I think there's a lot to be done there in the logistics space that no one's really
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working too hard on.
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There are a lot of people that look at the experience, but don't look at the business
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as they try and solve these problems.
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So what I'll just plant in any of the entrepreneurs out there that want to look at this space,
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the logistics delivery is really a series of exceptions and a lucky event at the end
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where the customer gets their delivery.
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That's what I'll say.
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And most of what we do in this space is figure out how to reduce those exceptions and those
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failures.
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So if you can provide a more efficient, effective way to get something from here to there, whether
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we're talking reverse logistics, whether we're talking inbound of moving a product into a
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marketplace or whether we're talking about the delivery of that product to a customer,
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if you can make that more visible, repeatable and efficient, you're going to be very successful
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and you're going to have something that's going to garner a lot of traction.
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But Charles, I'm going to hold you back for two more minutes because you touched on something
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which got me thinking.
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Why do you feel that logistics in general is such an under invested, at least from a
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technology point of view, such an under invested industry?
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I don't think that it's necessarily under invested.
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I think that there are a lot of companies that are building bespoke solutions.
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And that's where I think that misinvested might be the way to speak to it.
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I used to see this with games as well, right?
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Going back to games, everyone had to write their own graphics drivers, their sound drivers,
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etc early on in gaming, and then all of a sudden, players came along that started to
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put that out and then eventually the actual game platforms would put out effective platforms
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to enable developers.
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I think we're at a very early period of time, as I said, even though it seems we've been
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looking at e-commerce for 20 years or so, 20 plus years, we're very early in terms of
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thinking about logistics as being a service that's a common platform for customers, right?
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Look at how many different ways it happens.
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Look at by country, how different the experience is.
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There isn't really, there hasn't been the business driver there.
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As I said, we've had very big companies like Manhattan and others that have attacked the
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ability for a large player to build a very effective solution.
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But when you get down into all of these bespoke smaller players, there hasn't been an effective
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way of creating repeatability so everyone does it the way they can do it, which varies.
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So more opportunity for all of us, right?
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Yes, absolutely.
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It's an exciting time.
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Awesome.
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Well, Charles, thank you once again for joining us on this podcast of Enabling Digital with
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00:36:25,680 --> 00:36:27,960
Systems Plus.
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It's been really, really fantastic for me to get to learn and understand your thoughts
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and get to know you a lot better as well.
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Really appreciate it.
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And I'm sure our listeners really appreciate it.
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00:36:39,960 --> 00:36:41,720
So thank you once again.
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Thank you, Sumpin.
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It was a great opportunity and I enjoy the questions.
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A lot of times we don't get into some of the automation and AI and the direction where
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we're headed in the future.
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I think sometimes we focus too much looking backwards and the real opportunity is to look
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forwards.
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Thank you.
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Absolutely agree.
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Thank you again.
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Thank you.
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:19,480
Welcome to Enabling Digital, the systems plus podcast series.
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My name is Abhan Choksi and I'm here today with a very exciting guest, Charles Griffith.
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Charles has been disrupting retail logistics for over 20 years, beat with behemoths such
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as Amazon to startups like Mile Zero and Quiet Platforms.
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Charles, it's great to have you here today.
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Thanks for having me.
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Appreciate it.
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Absolutely.
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It's our pleasure.
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So let's jump right in.
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Why don't we start by just you telling us how you helped build the foundation for Amazon
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logistics and how that led you to creating Mile Zero?
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Well, that's a big question.
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But I'll start with a lot of blood, sweat and tears, emphasis on tears.
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So I joined Amazon back in 2006.
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And this is kind of a familiar story for anyone who's met me before.
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But I joined when Amazon was still a startup.
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Amazon at that point, for people that don't recall and wish they could go back in time,
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was about 26 bucks a share.
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So that gives you some idea.
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I had joined after doing a startup that isn't listed in my public resume or LinkedIn called
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Three Data, which was a startup that was a global CRM solution for manufacturing of garments,
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which is ironic since this last thing I was working on was for American Eagle.
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But this startup was really before the growth of the internet.
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And we had built a distributed system that allowed brands and private labels and manufacturers
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in Mexico to collaborate and to basically build out product, which were clothes, of
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course.
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A lot of this, you know, with the emergence of things like blockchain and others are still
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going on and still, you know, there's still a lot of innovation very similar in what we
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had started back in this particular period of time.
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Unfortunately, for a number of reasons, one being that I learned an important lesson,
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never have a startup with guys that are already rich because they lose focus quickly.
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And the second being bad luck because whereas Mexico looked like it was poised to be a big
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player in those particular times with NAFTA and so forth, China ended up becoming a huge
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player in terms of manufacturing, as we all know.
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But the point was I was infected at that point with the desire to learn more about automation
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of supply chain.
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And so when Amazon came along, Amazon already had a reputation in those times of being great
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at logistics.
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And so I joined the transportation team there and led the technology growth from 2006 through
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2014.
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And that began with, you know, actualizing prime, which had started in 2005, going through
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the category expansion where Amazon moved from BMVD to everything.
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And that required a lot of changes in terms of how you ship.
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And then ultimately, injecting deeper and deeper into carrier networks and moving away
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from a dependency on enterprise carriers, enabling a lot of the local couriers that
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have become bigger couriers now.
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And then finally, leading what we had called transportation by Amazon, which is now called
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AMZL or Amazon Logistics, which was the creation of Amazon as a carrier.
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And that included building out sort centers, building out better controls for line hall
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management, and then finally expanding its capabilities in terms of last mile, mostly
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for the enablement of products like fresh, but also for the launch of various marketplaces
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like India and China and to shift some of the dependencies off of carriers in places
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like the UK.
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In about 2014, I realized, excuse me, that we were at the end of an era for building.
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And now it was going to be all expansion and build out for the next five years.
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That's what I thought, five years, but it looks like it's going to be a lot more than
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five years.
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So as we moved on, I decided I'd go back and build the startup that I'd wanted to.
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And I founded a company called Mile Zero.
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Mile Zero was a last mile platform.
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It's interesting when you come out of the behemoths, as you mentioned, your view of
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the market is skewed in terms of everyone is competing with you when in fact, no one
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is.
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So whereas I thought there was a tremendous market for last mile, we were way early.
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And it took time for that to catch up.
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But we built from the ground up a lot of ex-Amazonians.
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We delivered a product that started out with Noon in the Middle East, and then we found
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traction with Staples, Harvey Norman, a big retailer in Australia, and another large retailer
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called Endeavor Drinks in Australia, before getting acquired by HIG slash Capstone in 2019.
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And at that particular point, once we were kind of owned by private equity, we started
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focusing on an expansion into groceries.
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And I'd probably still be there if it wasn't for a guy named Shaker Najran who came along.
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He'd approached me several times and said, hey, I want you to join this new startup I'm
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building.
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Well, it turned out this startup he was building was actually within a big, huge retailer called
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American Eagle Outfitters.
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And the idea was to combine all of the logistics for American Eagle and for other retailers
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into a sharing platform.
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And once they made a few big acquisitions, I decided, yeah, this is the place to go.
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And so I joined in 2022.
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However, over the next couple of years, as we all know, in the tech field here, it was
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an interesting time where the focus shifted from big ideas to profitability.
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And so we went through a refocusing and ultimately changed the entire focus of the platform to
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be about using data science and inventory and intelligence to get positioning based
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on demand for retailers and developing basically a surety model where they could get delivery
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with a surety but not have a stake in which particular player made those deliveries.
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So almost a round trip back to the beginning of the story.
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And so I just recently left after we got back on the right path here.
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And now I'm looking forward at what's next.
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Well, that's awesome.
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So you've been, well, even though you work with Amazon, but you work with them really
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in let's call it a well-funded startup stage.
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So it's pretty interesting.
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So you sort of have that experience of doing it all big and small and meaningful things
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across the board.
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That's pretty exciting.
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That's pretty interesting, in fact.
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But I guess I want to touch on retail logistics.
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It's a very big word, to be perfectly honest, right?
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So how do you sort of look at it?
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How do you define it?
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I'd love to sort of understand your thoughts on the state of the industry today.
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And more than that, where are you seeing the core friction points today?
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Well, it's interesting.
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You're right.
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It is a big word and it covers a lot of ground.
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I think it's also an evolutionary word where it's changed over time.
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If you look at Amazon, for example, we never thought of transportation as part of the product
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originally, right?
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It was a cost center.
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And people just, you know, and lesser retailers at that particular time, effectively outsourced
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the customer relationship for delivery.
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So it's become a key part of what retailers do.
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So I think retail logistics is very much a term that refers to how do you interact with
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your customer?
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And that includes everything from inbound, you know, getting the products that you want
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to how it's delivered and all of those interchanges.
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And I think, you know, it's changing and it's always changing.
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There are years when, you know, retailers over buy and now it's all about just, you
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know, how do we get rid of our old stock, right, at a profitable amount?
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And how do we basically serve customer demand?
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We saw how during the pandemic, how ineffectively that was done, right, which created scarcity
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and created inflation.
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So it's also a big indicator of how the economy is going to go, right, because so much of
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every country is, you know, tied to retail.
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The other thing is I think that retail logistics is moving away from something that for the
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last 100 years has been very manual, right?
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There are still a tremendous number of warehouses around the world that have spreadsheets that
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are, you know, managing off a hook or crook based on the guy that's there and been there
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for 20 years.
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And that is all changing.
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It's not changing by enterprise logistics solutions, right, because that's cost prohibitive
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for many companies, but it's changing based on the availability and evolution of technology.
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And so I think, you know, the first step was we saw more access to tools that's changing
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the way people operate.
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The next is we're starting to see more automation.
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And really, I think as we move into the future, just like we're talking about advances in
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AI and other forms of technology evolution, logistics is going to move to being more of
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an orchestrated and executed transaction that's done by machines versus humans.
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Oh, perfect.
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I want to touch on something you just talked about, being customer centric.
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And I've heard you say this in the past, saying, well, the success of the customer has to be
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at the forefront of thinking.
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So my take on that is I might have built the most amazing product, but if no one's using
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it, then, well, according to me, that product is a failure.
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Do you agree?
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Oh, absolutely.
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I think that, you know, in previous eras, you could be very successful and I have a
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product that's not leveraged.
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For example, you could have an enterprise tool that sits in a warehouse that nobody
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uses, but the backer is paid for it, right?
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And some companies would be completely satisfied with that.
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I think, you know, that one of the big learnings I had through Amazon was to think very broadly
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about who your customer is.
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And coming from games and other industries, you know, I believe in, you know, making sure
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that customers are fully engaged with your product, right?
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And that takes, you know, interviewing them, understanding how the product's learned and
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actually designing and collecting information without interaction.
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That's one of the big things that I think people forget to do, but you have to be able
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to effectively understand why your product's not functioning, even if you can't interact
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with a human.
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And so building that, those types of collections, whether it's sensory or whether it's just
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basically the way you monitor and track the way the activity within your platform, those
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are key aspects, but you're dead on.
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If you don't have a product that people use, you won't live very long in any industry.
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Right.
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I want to touch a little bit on your background initially in the games industry, right?
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How have you seen that help you through your career?
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Because it is a very different step that you took, but I'm sure there were probably a lot
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of learnings, which you're probably even used to that.
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You're dead on.
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I think a lot of people are aware of Amazon's two pizza team, right?
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The number of people, you know, regardless of function that can consume two pizzas is
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a team almost like microservices for organizations.
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That idea is not new to me, wasn't new to me when I arrived at Amazon back when I was
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doing games, which we're going back into the dark ages and please don't Google it and find
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any of my games on YouTube.
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I'm already writing apologies on a daily basis.
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But back in those days, we didn't have monolithic teams that were focused.
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It was a very, you know, emerging industry where, you know, there wasn't even an established
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market.
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You know, I started out doing games for the Amiga was my first one.
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And then PC and then moved on to Super Nintendo Sega Sega Genesis, just to give people an
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idea of the era.
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And in those particular times, I guess, fortunately, unfortunately, yes, I consider it like Amazon.
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One of two times I poisoned the world, not necessarily for good.
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But in any event, when we were working on those games, many times would be five or eight
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people, you know, max that were working on these games.
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You'd have an artist, you'd have a project manager, you'd have a couple of engineers,
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you know, you'd have a sound artist that was basically using very, very, very difficult
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tools in those times.
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And you know, you were working together and it was a shared vision.
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So that was one of the things that I took away.
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And I think it's changed the way that I become a manager and a leader is, you know, your
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role could change any particular day, so, you know, lead with humility and lead more
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for the benefit of the team than the individual.
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And you know, make sure everyone is working, you know, kind of at their maximum level,
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because it's the strength of everyone in the team, almost like an equalizer on a stereo,
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right?
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If you're getting the max out of all particular limited resources, you know, you're moving
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more effectively than some of these big orchestras that, you know, they have the guy with the
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bell that hits it once every 10 songs.
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No, definitely.
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That makes a lot of sense.
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Yeah, it does make a lot of sense.
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So pulling you back to your current area of expertise, you know, so looking at the rise
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of omnichannel, you know, fundamentally, retailers are facing a lot of pressure to manage their
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costs.
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And of course, the complexity of the last mile customer fulfillment is becoming more
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and more sort of, you know, complex, to say the least.
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So how do you see technology sort of helping quell some of those challenges or the role
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that technology plays in helping retailers address these challenges?
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And fundamentally, how do you see technology play a major role in optimizing, you know,
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especially retail logistics, the last mile delivery challenges that I believe pretty
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much anyone you talk to faces these days?
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Or is it an unsolvable problem?
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I don't know.
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You know what?
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I think it again is changing over time.
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You know, a lot of these things, think about the consumer and then we'll work backwards
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to the problems, right?
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Consumer expectations are very much driven by a moment in time.
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If we go back to COVID, right?
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Amazon was able to relax and had to relax some of the expectations just based on labor
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and ability to reach customers.
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So you know, that two day promise was no longer an expectation.
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And as the pandemic lifted, I would still argue that they weren't moving as aggressively,
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right?
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Because of the cost constraints and so forth.
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But if you look now, they're back up to, you know, kind of the speeds they were pre-pandemic
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from my estimates.
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And if we just, if we expand that out, there are times when a retailer needs to compete,
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you know, against somebody like an Amazon and be able to deliver it, that kind of a
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very competitive speed and quality.
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And they have limited partners to work with.
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And so, you know, their ability to sell an item versus their competitor becomes how well
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can I negotiate with, you know, carrier X, Y or Z?
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And I think this was kind of the basis originally of Amazon or of Quiet was to consolidate this
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and give more democratization to customers.
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I think the entire industry is moving in that direction.
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I think that what we're going to see is we're going to see more automation and we're going
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to see non-traditional carriers.
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We already have seen the foray of Uber and others moving into the space, right, to offer
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retailers directly, excuse me, other options besides the enterprise carriers or local couriers.
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I think we'll continue to see more and more options to get to the last mile that will
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continue to bring down costs and improve the scale that it can be offered because we just
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can't have the world working the way it is now.
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The other thing that I think is going to change is the way that buying and fulfillment happen.
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With the expansion of AI, we're going to stop seeing people shop the way they do now.
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We have a very on-demand kind of e-commerce world today.
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You know, I think about something and I go out and order it, right?
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Oh, I need a hammer.
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Well, it'll be here in two days.
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Oh, they could deliver it for, you know, more with a greener method in five days.
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I really don't need the hammer in two days, but I feel entitled to get it in two days,
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so I'm going to take the two-day option.
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When we start seeing an aggregation of purchasing from, you know, kind of an automated shopper,
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an AI shopper that's basing the purchases based on cost and based on need from an availability
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perspective, that aggregation will start to translate into more of like a B2B delivery
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to consumers at their homes.
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Obviously, I hate to keep going back to Amazon, but they've been so early and smart in so
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many ways.
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If you look at things like Amazon Day, that's what Amazon's trying to instill in customers,
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try and get more things on the same day for less.
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I think that as you start to automate the purchasing process and move away from this
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consumer-driven model, we're going to see it because economically, it doesn't make sense
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to do everything as a per-parcel delivery.
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We should be looking at larger deliveries based on the quantities that are coming to
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people's houses.
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Right.
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And how do you see the new trend that is taking shape in the retail world where, you know,
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they are sort of charging customers for returns, et cetera, at least if it's pickup from home,
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right?
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Obviously, it's a strategy that, yeah, you can free returns in store, but that's to drive
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traffic to the store and they know they're going to be able to sort of do this.
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But Amazon doesn't have that option as such.
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And I know from what I've read, et cetera, and of course, you probably read a lot more
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around that, you know, in terms of how the reverse of that works, it's still a last mile
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problem just in a different way.
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So how do you see that challenge being addressed?
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Reverse logistics specifically?
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Yeah, reverse logistics, especially when I need to return something, but I still, you
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know, my expectation is somewhat the same, right, from a service point of view, but of
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course, it works very differently.
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Absolutely.
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So I think there's a number of factors with reverse logistics.
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The first one is that what does the consumer really care about?
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I care about getting my money back, right?
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Right.
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So what they're really caring about is how quickly will that retailer give me my money
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back?
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What does the retailer care about getting?
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Do they care as much about getting that product back?
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In some cases, no, because it doesn't make sense to return the item, as we've seen, right,
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but they don't want to become a target for fraud either.
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So there's a balancing act there.
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You can't tell people don't return something and it gets on the internet and everybody
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starts buying and returning those items.
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So you know, what it comes down to is how do you create an effective reverse logistics?
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And obviously, you can't expect that the items coming back are in mint condition, right?
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So you have to introduce grading.
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It can be very complex based on the type of product.
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Electronics, for example, are extremely difficult, right?
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And ultimately, as a retailer, you want to be able to get if it's a product that, you
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know, has a significant margin, you'd like to recoup some of that, right?
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So I think reverse logistics are very difficult.
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They require strategic planning by companies.
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They need to think about, you know, what is a return?
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What is a return being, you know, something that is sellable versus something that's going
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to be ultimately dispositioned and then you have to pay a vendor to get rid of it or something
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that's going to end up in the seconds market that's going to compete with your brand.
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So there's a lot going on the logistics side of it.
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You know, for smaller products, I think USPS has really made a big difference, right?
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Because it's so inexpensive to include a sticker or give somebody the ability to print a sticker
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and return it through USPS.
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And some of the other carriers have had to reconcile that and start selling, you know,
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reverse pickups at a lower cost, you know, to kind of because obviously, as you think
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about a logistics route for a carrier, they can take back products as they deliver and
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it reduces the cost of that stop.
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And so the more the carriers are able to sell that capability, the better it is for them.
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And so I think, again, we're seeing kind of the evolution of this space and it has a lot
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to do with the individual retailer's needs versus, you know, what the carriers can offer.
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Right, that's, yeah, that's, you're absolutely right.
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It's such a complicated problem.
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And it's the balancing act.
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I actually never thought about the balancing act, but you're absolutely right, because
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it cannot make sense for the retailer to get back, you know, at least say, socks, I don't
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like them and I'm returning them.
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But you know, it does tie back to what you said earlier about retail logistics.
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You know, again, reverse logistics were never really a consideration about a product early
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on.
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Of course, they were, right?
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If you look the way brands would plan, they'd plan for a certain conversion level and then
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they would have seconds that would go to outlets like Ross and others.
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But it wasn't done collectively and it wasn't done kind of at an individual skewer item
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level when you're looking at the, you know, revenue per unit or you're looking at the
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cost per, you know, transportation.
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Now you kind of have to factor that in and aggregate all of these factors.
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Right?
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So, I'm going to talk a little bit about the future of retail logistics and the role technology
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is already playing, but you touched, you mentioned a couple of times on AI and you said that
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AI has a big role to play.
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How so do you mean?
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And what I mean by that is like, what are some examples that you've seen that are really
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leveraging AI in retail logistics and how do you feel that AI will help further along?
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That's another big area.
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I think that in logistics, obviously we've seen a number of different types of, you know,
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data science and AI techniques used for a long time.
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As I alluded to with things like prime, you know, that is based on machine learning and,
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you know, initially and other aspects to get more out of a carrier's network than they
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advertise.
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Right?
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As we're looking forward though, I think where we start to see more automation, we're going
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to start to see, you know, large planning systems that are going to be planning the
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traversal or movement of a package over multiple carriers, multiple different modes and basically
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revising that continuously in real time.
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I think that that's going to be unlocked based on more sensory data and more tracking than
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just say the traditional EDI 214 where you're getting, you know, the five or six updates
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on your delivery of your package that you'd see through any e-commerce.
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I think these systems are going to start to really start routing things much more like
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an air traffic control system.
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The other thing, so a lot of that is on the planning and orchestration of packages and
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putting packages together to get a lower cost per delivery.
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So that's where that's going to go and I think it's critical to be able to continue to reduce
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the cost per shipment.
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I think the other thing that we're going to start to see is we're going to start to see
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frameworks for execution so that the partners in a particular transaction start to, whether
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they standardize or whether they're forced to start, you know, surfacing APIs that provide
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very similar information, we're going to need more real time control from partners to effectively
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automate this type of flow and I think we're going to see that as well.
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And as we continue on, we all know that, you know, we're going to see more automation.
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I don't, I think there'll be special reasons for things like drones, right, for per package
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delivery immediacy, things like medical for the delivery of a medical sample, something
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like a drone would make a lot more sense than a human being a truck that gets caught in
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traffic.
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But I think we're going to start seeing the mass of shipments start to move into a much
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more automated process that's going to be driven by some big computing.
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And do you see retailers coming together to solve this, I don't want to say, or optimize
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is probably the right word, the whole loss.
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Well, let me rephrase that.
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So do you see retailers coming together to solve this last mile problem or challenges
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or do you see that they will try to figure out on their own because they can, you know,
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can potentially become a competitive advantage?
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I think the answer is both.
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There certainly, you know, the large retailers that have the volume do that today, right.
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And they get the price negotiations with partners as a result.
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It's the midsize to smaller.
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Some of these growth brands that we see need the ability to access that.
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And I think we'll start to see more and more consortiums of, you know, groups of those
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types of retailers collecting together, whether it's behind the facade of a marketplace or
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an interim player like that was kind of the intent of quiet platforms.
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But I think that's an overdue mechanism because what we're not going to see is we're not going
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to see the carriers themselves give those common rates to everyone.
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It just, you know, would undermine their businesses.
396
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But if these consortiums are able to give them back a better sense of consistency and
397
00:28:45,080 --> 00:28:52,260
reduce their costs for pickup, then it's kind of a two way street, just as an example, right.
398
00:28:52,260 --> 00:28:57,280
It's very costly to go to a number of places for pickups, which is why they have stores
399
00:28:57,280 --> 00:29:00,760
and so forth for injecting into their network.
400
00:29:00,760 --> 00:29:03,860
But things are going to continue to get more complex.
401
00:29:03,860 --> 00:29:07,060
So I think we'll see movement in all facets.
402
00:29:07,060 --> 00:29:09,640
But it has to make business sense as well.
403
00:29:09,640 --> 00:29:10,640
Absolutely.
404
00:29:10,640 --> 00:29:16,320
And in fact, I'm glad you touched on the problem that quiet platform is trying to solve because
405
00:29:16,320 --> 00:29:23,880
that, you know, basically, there has to be, you know, for the, let's call it the small
406
00:29:23,880 --> 00:29:30,000
and the middle retailer, size retailer, there has to be a way to come together even if they
407
00:29:30,000 --> 00:29:37,320
don't want to outright say it because, you know, to try to create some rather call it
408
00:29:37,320 --> 00:29:40,080
cost savings, some leverage, something or the other.
409
00:29:40,080 --> 00:29:43,400
And I guess that's exactly the problem you were trying to solve.
410
00:29:43,400 --> 00:29:44,400
Absolutely.
411
00:29:44,400 --> 00:29:46,780
I think, you know, it's interesting.
412
00:29:46,780 --> 00:29:50,480
Most customers still just expect to get it for free, right?
413
00:29:50,480 --> 00:29:55,800
I think I'm constantly when I go, I try to shop across a number of different experiences.
414
00:29:55,800 --> 00:30:04,440
And when I'm hit with a $30 transparent fee to ups for, you know, say, plant delivery
415
00:30:04,440 --> 00:30:08,520
or something like that, I'm just like, that is exorbitant.
416
00:30:08,520 --> 00:30:12,840
That is like a decision moment where I decide should I just go down the street to a nursery
417
00:30:12,840 --> 00:30:14,780
and get it get it there instead.
418
00:30:14,780 --> 00:30:21,640
So I think that, you know, it has to change for some of the local businesses to be able
419
00:30:21,640 --> 00:30:25,720
to survive and some of the smaller businesses to survive.
420
00:30:25,720 --> 00:30:30,600
And again, these smaller businesses, the ones that really have something unique are going
421
00:30:30,600 --> 00:30:33,160
to become the next generation of larger.
422
00:30:33,160 --> 00:30:39,200
And so if they don't have that ability to be viable earlier, we're really hurting our
423
00:30:39,200 --> 00:30:42,800
entire landscape of choice and selection.
424
00:30:42,800 --> 00:30:47,080
So I do think that that things are going to move in that direction.
425
00:30:47,080 --> 00:30:50,080
But they're going to move in that direction because somebody is going to figure out how
426
00:30:50,080 --> 00:30:52,320
to do it profitably.
427
00:30:52,320 --> 00:30:56,200
And the hardest thing, I'll tell you this, one of the hardest things to do these types
428
00:30:56,200 --> 00:30:59,720
of missions is you have to have volume to make a difference.
429
00:30:59,720 --> 00:31:05,080
And so the key is how do you get enough small players to aggregate the number of volume
430
00:31:05,080 --> 00:31:08,840
that's significant to the carriers you want to introduce it to?
431
00:31:08,840 --> 00:31:09,840
Right.
432
00:31:09,840 --> 00:31:10,840
Right.
433
00:31:10,840 --> 00:31:11,840
You're absolutely right.
434
00:31:11,840 --> 00:31:15,000
I mean, of course, you know this inside out, but you're bang on.
435
00:31:15,000 --> 00:31:18,080
Without the volume, none of this works.
436
00:31:18,080 --> 00:31:20,840
I know it because I've got a lot of tears behind it.
437
00:31:20,840 --> 00:31:22,960
So don't make me cry publicly.
438
00:31:22,960 --> 00:31:24,400
Oh, not at all.
439
00:31:24,400 --> 00:31:26,200
Not at all.
440
00:31:26,200 --> 00:31:34,040
So well, speaking of the public, my last question to you, well, I know we can keep talking,
441
00:31:34,040 --> 00:31:36,600
but we are about to run out of time.
442
00:31:36,600 --> 00:31:42,800
So my last question to you is, so I want to give you, I would like you to give something
443
00:31:42,800 --> 00:31:48,040
back to our listeners, those who are extremely interested in the retail logistics industry
444
00:31:48,040 --> 00:31:59,680
you know, what areas do you think can be future disruption areas so that some young guy coming
445
00:31:59,680 --> 00:32:07,840
in looking at solving a problem in this sort of area can start thinking, yeah, I can go
446
00:32:07,840 --> 00:32:08,840
after that.
447
00:32:08,840 --> 00:32:12,520
Or if you've not thought about that, what are the disruption areas that you will definitely
448
00:32:12,520 --> 00:32:14,120
see in the next five years?
449
00:32:14,120 --> 00:32:16,600
I mean, I think about that all the time, right?
450
00:32:16,600 --> 00:32:20,640
There are so many different areas that are yet to be disrupted.
451
00:32:20,640 --> 00:32:26,060
And I think, you know, so many people think of the costly ways to disrupt, right?
452
00:32:26,060 --> 00:32:31,960
We have a lot of large scale automation that's available, which is great for those companies
453
00:32:31,960 --> 00:32:33,240
that can afford it.
454
00:32:33,240 --> 00:32:35,400
It's the small ones that can't.
455
00:32:35,400 --> 00:32:40,560
And this is where, you know, there are mobile solutions that could be done that could continue
456
00:32:40,560 --> 00:32:48,680
to move those particular supply chains towards a mechanized automated manner by creating
457
00:32:48,680 --> 00:32:50,480
a repeatable process.
458
00:32:50,480 --> 00:32:57,760
I think that's a great area for younger engineers and product managers to focus on.
459
00:32:57,760 --> 00:33:04,880
I think there are a number of very creative ways that you could improve gig related access
460
00:33:04,880 --> 00:33:09,600
and create consortiums of people that are available for things.
461
00:33:09,600 --> 00:33:15,280
I mean, if you look at things like DoorDash and you look at Uber and so forth, these all
462
00:33:15,280 --> 00:33:24,000
basically created more of a mechanization of a set of resources that were already there,
463
00:33:24,000 --> 00:33:25,840
but it made them more accessible.
464
00:33:25,840 --> 00:33:30,920
And so I think there's a lot to be done there in the logistics space that no one's really
465
00:33:30,920 --> 00:33:32,880
working too hard on.
466
00:33:32,880 --> 00:33:36,520
There are a lot of people that look at the experience, but don't look at the business
467
00:33:36,520 --> 00:33:38,680
as they try and solve these problems.
468
00:33:38,680 --> 00:33:44,840
So what I'll just plant in any of the entrepreneurs out there that want to look at this space,
469
00:33:44,840 --> 00:33:51,360
the logistics delivery is really a series of exceptions and a lucky event at the end
470
00:33:51,360 --> 00:33:53,740
where the customer gets their delivery.
471
00:33:53,740 --> 00:33:54,740
That's what I'll say.
472
00:33:54,740 --> 00:34:00,080
And most of what we do in this space is figure out how to reduce those exceptions and those
473
00:34:00,080 --> 00:34:01,360
failures.
474
00:34:01,360 --> 00:34:07,440
So if you can provide a more efficient, effective way to get something from here to there, whether
475
00:34:07,440 --> 00:34:13,520
we're talking reverse logistics, whether we're talking inbound of moving a product into a
476
00:34:13,520 --> 00:34:18,240
marketplace or whether we're talking about the delivery of that product to a customer,
477
00:34:18,240 --> 00:34:23,320
if you can make that more visible, repeatable and efficient, you're going to be very successful
478
00:34:23,320 --> 00:34:26,680
and you're going to have something that's going to garner a lot of traction.
479
00:34:26,680 --> 00:34:31,360
But Charles, I'm going to hold you back for two more minutes because you touched on something
480
00:34:31,360 --> 00:34:32,840
which got me thinking.
481
00:34:32,840 --> 00:34:36,560
Why do you feel that logistics in general is such an under invested, at least from a
482
00:34:36,560 --> 00:34:41,640
technology point of view, such an under invested industry?
483
00:34:41,640 --> 00:34:44,240
I don't think that it's necessarily under invested.
484
00:34:44,240 --> 00:34:49,760
I think that there are a lot of companies that are building bespoke solutions.
485
00:34:49,760 --> 00:34:55,840
And that's where I think that misinvested might be the way to speak to it.
486
00:34:55,840 --> 00:34:58,240
I used to see this with games as well, right?
487
00:34:58,240 --> 00:35:03,840
Going back to games, everyone had to write their own graphics drivers, their sound drivers,
488
00:35:03,840 --> 00:35:09,360
etc early on in gaming, and then all of a sudden, players came along that started to
489
00:35:09,360 --> 00:35:15,280
put that out and then eventually the actual game platforms would put out effective platforms
490
00:35:15,280 --> 00:35:16,960
to enable developers.
491
00:35:16,960 --> 00:35:23,080
I think we're at a very early period of time, as I said, even though it seems we've been
492
00:35:23,080 --> 00:35:31,560
looking at e-commerce for 20 years or so, 20 plus years, we're very early in terms of
493
00:35:31,560 --> 00:35:39,600
thinking about logistics as being a service that's a common platform for customers, right?
494
00:35:39,600 --> 00:35:41,600
Look at how many different ways it happens.
495
00:35:41,600 --> 00:35:46,720
Look at by country, how different the experience is.
496
00:35:46,720 --> 00:35:51,400
There isn't really, there hasn't been the business driver there.
497
00:35:51,400 --> 00:35:56,080
As I said, we've had very big companies like Manhattan and others that have attacked the
498
00:35:56,080 --> 00:36:00,440
ability for a large player to build a very effective solution.
499
00:36:00,440 --> 00:36:05,880
But when you get down into all of these bespoke smaller players, there hasn't been an effective
500
00:36:05,880 --> 00:36:12,680
way of creating repeatability so everyone does it the way they can do it, which varies.
501
00:36:12,680 --> 00:36:14,480
So more opportunity for all of us, right?
502
00:36:14,480 --> 00:36:15,480
Yes, absolutely.
503
00:36:15,480 --> 00:36:18,000
It's an exciting time.
504
00:36:18,000 --> 00:36:19,000
Awesome.
505
00:36:19,000 --> 00:36:25,680
Well, Charles, thank you once again for joining us on this podcast of Enabling Digital with
506
00:36:25,680 --> 00:36:27,960
Systems Plus.
507
00:36:27,960 --> 00:36:34,000
It's been really, really fantastic for me to get to learn and understand your thoughts
508
00:36:34,000 --> 00:36:36,680
and get to know you a lot better as well.
509
00:36:36,680 --> 00:36:37,680
Really appreciate it.
510
00:36:37,680 --> 00:36:39,960
And I'm sure our listeners really appreciate it.
511
00:36:39,960 --> 00:36:41,720
So thank you once again.
512
00:36:41,720 --> 00:36:42,720
Thank you, Sumpin.
513
00:36:42,720 --> 00:36:45,720
It was a great opportunity and I enjoy the questions.
514
00:36:45,720 --> 00:36:51,120
A lot of times we don't get into some of the automation and AI and the direction where
515
00:36:51,120 --> 00:36:52,120
we're headed in the future.
516
00:36:52,120 --> 00:36:57,440
I think sometimes we focus too much looking backwards and the real opportunity is to look
517
00:36:57,440 --> 00:36:58,440
forwards.
518
00:36:58,440 --> 00:36:59,440
Thank you.
519
00:36:59,440 --> 00:37:00,440
Absolutely agree.
520
00:37:00,440 --> 00:37:01,440
Thank you again.
521
00:37:01,440 --> 00:37:28,440
Thank you.
