Inna Kuznetsova is President and Chief Operating Officer of INTTRA, leading sales, service delivery, marketing, strategic alliances, product management, IT infrastructure and software development. Before joining INTTRA in early 2015 Inna was the Chief Commercial Officer at CEVA Logistics and prior to that spent 19 years at IBM, where in her last role she was the Vice-President, Marketing & Sales Enablement for IBM Systems Software.
Discover more details here.
Some of the highlights from the episode:
Follow us on:
Instagram: http://bit.ly/2Wba8v7
Twitter: http://bit.ly/2WeulzX
Linkedin: http://bit.ly/2w9YSQX
Facebook: http://bit.ly/2HtryLd
Inna Kuznetsova is President and Chief Operating Officer of INTTRA, leading sales, service delivery, marketing, strategic alliances, product management, IT infrastructure and software development. Before joining INTTRA in early 2015 Inna was the Chief Commercial Officer at CEVA Logistics and prior to that spent 19 years at IBM, where in her last role she was the Vice-President, Marketing & Sales Enablement for IBM Systems Software.
Discover more details here.
Some of the highlights from the episode:
Follow us on:
Instagram: http://bit.ly/2Wba8v7
Twitter: http://bit.ly/2WeulzX
Linkedin: http://bit.ly/2w9YSQX
Facebook: http://bit.ly/2HtryLd
Hello everybody and welcome to the leaders in supply chain podcast. I'm your host rather Calamar you global supply chain practice head for Morgan Phillips Executive Search. Um, it's my pleasure to have with us today in our prison. It's officer who is the president and chief operating officer of Intra Myntra is the ocean trade platform, which allows a booking, planning and tracking of shipments from one easy to use software system. And obviously some of you might've heard they would if it was all over the news that Internet was just acquired by easy to open and um, and he knows today to share some of the stories behind that. But at the same time, you know, in the context of the acquisition, perhaps some of the future plans will be made public by the company in the coming months. Um, also in terms of what w what I can share is that before joining enjoy in the early 2015, she has had a long standing career with a couple of other big companies having been the chief commercial officer at Ciba logistics. And prior to that she spent 19 years at IBM. We're in her last role. She was the vice president marketing that marketing and sales enablement for IBM systems software. Um, you know, also has a lot of experience in serving on both private and public company boards including chairing grim and duration and nomination committees as well as serving on, on audit and risk committees. She holds a phd in mathematics from the Moscow's State University in Russia as well as an Mba from Columbia business school. You know, thank you for taking the time and it's a pleasure to have you with us today.
Speaker 2:Thank you for inviting me rather. It's a perfect condition.
Speaker 1:Super. Um, so maybe let's start, uh, with uh, with the question of where do you see the industry at the moment, right where we are. Some of the major challenges that they just see the players, uh, that are being faced with, especially when it comes to digitalization.
Speaker 2:I think the industry right now is experiencing a very interesting moment. On the one hand, we see the sudden growth, digitalization with see the industry passing the matron point and starting to invest more in a variety of experiments and proof of concepts. And pilots and you start up with really unusually interesting solutions. And the reason for that is that the industry has had a few very difficult years. And with the constant pressure on pricing with ongoing consolidation between carriers and freight forwarders alike, the companies looking beyond haircuts and basic uh, a reduction measures such as reducing saving for example, into how they can differentiate in the market with a fewer players and still at high pressure on margins. And one eight way to differentiate is to provide a better service. And a business service is often based on inflammation in today's era is the visuals is the end customers the month the better service in terms the usability of their containers in terms of reliability of shipments, in terms of getting more information about how the container traveled to whether it's stilted too much, what she needed to controls in place for the temperature controls are in place and that forces the kid is and faithful with this alike to explore new ways to differentiate. And other parts of the it implementation is the usual cost cutting, uh, being able to run useless in a more efficient manner. Keeping a Kpis, uh, keeping things digital allows, not only to reduce the waste and manual labor, but to reduce errors and also to see a consistent picture of the business supply and now lead and as a result of continuous improvement is still held back. I will, I should add to that it's still held back by things that traditionally have got in the way or for Bro, the implementation of it on one hand. Uh, and I always name it though, it's maybe not the word to discuss is the way how the TNLs I applied in the industry, you see a lot of improvements in customer service or cost reductions, uh, going to the regional PNLs, uh, going to the acceleration PNL as well. All kinds of course, which few. There was improvements sitting with it departments and as a result they did the partners to get more and more work and less and less there's offices and she overbooked and stretch and the spending for this project. So not always tightly, uh, linked to the improvements received in the field. We've seen this sort of electronic booking. We've seen this with VGM implementation. We'll see this with a lot of data analytics project. And I think this is one area that holds a lot of companies back in fully embracing the advantages that it provides. And of course there are, the other two areas are well recognized. It's the shortage of talent, especially the it side, the talent and the overall pressure on the margins, uh, shipping off your rates and much slimmer margins than mania. The industries like hint that for example, and as a result they can afford much less experimentation and much less of a longterm project. Uh, they're really look for very specifically those on investments. So this is where the industry is and if you want, if you want also to summarize the trends, I would say that, uh, this fund's digitalization elevates all kinds of networks and platforms and a lot of stuff stops in the industry, blockchain startups or new platforms in the industry and nothing but an attempt to leverage the network concept to digitalize the connection. Because in the physical world, the road, the physical network of partnerships and agents and uh, customers and trading partners is the more powerful you are as a shipping company. Now you have to get all the relations and exchanges city before them digitally and doing, performing this one on one, uh, digitalizing every single connection through an EDI connection is extremely expensive. So people look for all kinds of places and block chain popularity is one of the signs of that. But there are also another sign I just see elevation among blockchain based platforms are looking at solving a variety of areas from a booking a ocean freight and freight to performing a variety of supply chain management tasks in the network environment. Uh, the success of each open in the market is a good example of that. Um, they'll lots of attempts to create networks form exchanges or a bill of lading or three documentation or global compliance, all of those, all of those areas just illustrate the trend. Okay.
Speaker 1:Yes. I mean, I think it's clear and it's all over the different parts of the world that we've had the, we've had a multitude of platforms come up, some more successful than others, but the trend is, is definitely clear that this will transform the industry. Um, basically beyond, beyond any points of coming back to the original state, which is a good thing, right? Because it's going to go digital. And a lot of that will go away. But it's interesting what you mentioned and I'd love to, to go maybe slightly and more into detail into the part where you said about the it departments, the way they measured based on p and l savings typically go to the regional piano. Maybe, maybe our audience would be interested to know or to hear if you've seen a way, a good way of doing it. Have you seen any organization, and we don't need to name them, but they are doing it in the correct way. Is there a better way to maybe, uh, even, um, organize your organization than European led in a, in a, in a, in a fostering of this type of cost savings? That would also encourage the idea as well as the overall organization to do it.
Speaker 2:Okay. It's a great, great way to of the business. I will give you an example from supply chain, um, uh, eds. So imagine if shipment is delayed and uh, let's see the leads for three full days. Oh, due to the weather conditions or conditions. And who would you six manager hears about it? Right? Today, logistics manager is usually measured on everything being delivered, let's say by February 1st. Um, so the cubic KPI, the logistics manager do what anyone would do, they will try to accelerate. That's right. L If you asked Shipman and access to money, if you look on the be in the future, if you look at this painting the Kpis and rather than shipment on the timing, mentioning the whole supply chain management group on the efficiency, you can look at things in Turin realize to have 12 days of inventory on the other side. So four days delay, we not really present the problem. This is just a very small example, right? But of course everything is patients that have adopted emo holistically or of looking at this type of city of save a lot of money. The same thing to say about it versus accuration, right? If you charge, Ooh, your software for GM compliance and data analytics and empties management and looks a lot of things to the 18 departments, they see department very quickly runs out of the budget. But the true savings from it really reside in the region. It's important to understand the different organizations or different, a lot of shipping companies, kiddies and straightforward is the light grew through merges and acquisitions and also work with the agents in the number of countries. So they don't own the company. Is the 3% them in the country and have limited that you, was it the charge, they keep a savings, a whitey extensive to this company. So in each particular case, it's really the question or more holistic you at how to optimize the system as a whole as opposed to how to optimize each of those possible. Right. Where the wellbe demising supply chain versus shipping. We're optimizing it, uh, versus, uh, the big organizational savings and then it's you, oh, those agreements with an organization tried, tried to improve the men savings on an basis by changing a PNL from the PNL or each region to the TN nail off the wall and suddenly the whole idea of how many empty containers and going out and then have to be returned becomes a very different item. Right. This sounds an expense item in behavior changes, right? The behavior of people activating in such a system change immediately, but as always, it's a very complex area, right? Depending on the company's tradition and structure and a relationship with from the company. So I don't think it's the one prescription seats all city Asian. It just something to note as you move. Cool. Additional savings from the company.
Speaker 1:Yes. I, it is interesting because I think if we had to look across industries and across, I mean I think this applies across industries actually. It says the tendency to any organizations operating in silos, what's the typical way in which organizations used to be set up across segments 10 20 years ago. And of course it's still operates right now. Then is the ability of the senior management of the sea, the sea level suite to come together, um, and basically have this conversations to get the point in the roots of the, I wouldn't want to say evil, but to the root of the matter at the root of the problem and really fix that, not the kind of the symptom and then then those savings can be, can be implemented. But uh, again, in, in, in religion, I think what happens a lot of times and what we see also in terms of our clients on the consulting side is that typically sales and and sales organizations drive out of these conversations. And maybe the, it, the supply chain and the people that actually are doing the operations are not given as much as, uh, as much of a voice to voice out there making sense. So then there's a little bit of a disbalance and then, um, yeah, then this kind of problems occur where you end up shipping by air because you know, you need to be on time rather than, you know, understanding the point which is, you know, make sure that your, your, your, your inventory maybe reaches there at the client. Right. So it's, it's always interesting. Um, and I'd like to, to, to kind of build upon what you've said in terms of, uh, in terms of all these trends and obviously this will transform the industry lots in the next three to five years. But what can you tell us about standardization, uh, in, in general, because I think a, you, you even mentioned at some point you had done a survey where 91% of the respondents called data sharing standards and absolute necessity, uh, or very, very important. But, uh, in, in reality and in practice that is very hard to, that is very hard to achieve, right? So, uh, bills of lading, for example, there'll be, are big issue today. Uh, most carriers have a different, uh, their own methods of doing this. Being able to access rates electronically without manual input is another thing. So where do you see a centralization going and how can they be some significant improvements done in this area
Speaker 2:or rather the Lakoff is one of the planes in the students. We would hope the progress of automation as single books. We goals through five, six companies and between the time when it's packed and the manufacturing side and when it reaches the distribution center on the other side of the ocean and some of those companies may have varied once I two system and then suddenly the book just sells into the black hole and you cannot pinpoint where they followed it all flow, they don't deliver and then suddenly the category peels on the other side. So the left or the abilities of all the companies in this logistic chain, the top they shot and exchange data actually affect the carver onus at the facts. The or who cannot fool a plan for our shelves being field who has to build mobile safety, the spokes or maintain high inventory because the lack of fuel to deal with the lack of reliability of shipments moving. And that's of course creates a, it'd be an issue. Um, there are other examples. There is no sample or Internet of things. A lot of containers today I put two senses. Latest news showed several large is investing in of technology and, uh, it's a great possibility for or for the industry, especially for the shipment of vaccine or other, uh, Refa oh, Carbo, the carbo that requires refrigeration and a specific temperature and she needed division to be able to want it though what are those conditions are met. But unfortunately, if you have the container that belongs to one carrier being shipped on the, uh, uh, on the boat belonging to another kid, that this resource can not always spoke to the soda on the boat. And that's another example of the lack of standardization. So you cannot get the whole value out of the change of this information. Um, the deal of lending is a great example of, you just mentioned a lot of money's being spent in the industry on the printing of people landing on the issue of the letters of credit on inconsistency. Dritan bills of lading standards across the kid is uh, quotes, uh, and being able to digitally ingest and achieve the rates as opposed to manually type them in a single database once the rates I received from the kid is another example of even simple things like the standards for the API Apis and identity manage within the network still would benefit from not being rewritten every single time, but having some standards way to, to manage and, uh, to, to set the smoke and maybe just leverage substandard services, uh, in the industry. So standardization is very important. Standardization is the foundation of a more advanced automation and uh, think the industry come to realization that this is the single point that's called the probe is full. But there are multiple initiatives in the industry to set some such standards. There is an initiative called connect, which was announced by intro just a month ago in deans who fuel additive very fast. Uh, there is, uh, um, and you are as the mitigation or deformed by major key lines that focuses specifically on the carrier. Digitalization of like the one I mentioned, uh, around, uh, I would see there are lots of attempts to get together in blockchain group, uh, in communities and also to set some standards. And in the end of the day I hope the group who find a way to work together to get this book done fast because, uh, this will help the industry to eliminate waste, uh, to reduce the cost of connecting in different ways to multiple data sources. And in the end we could be stepped forward to indulgent supply chain, which is predictive and automated and flexible and react to the changes and can plan for the changes of customer demand and a convention of everybody in the room.
Speaker 3:Yes. And let,
Speaker 1:let's talk a little bit since, since you've mentioned it already and, um, and it's, it's something that a lot of people are asking and wondering and all that. At the same time, it's probably the technology that is, has the most potential to impact the industry in itself, which is the blockchain technology, right? Especially because it can get that visibility and their plan of one source of truth or there's the promise of list. How do you see, you know, how do you see blockchain in the, uh, in the ocean freight business, right. Do you, um, do you see that really as a game changer? Do you see it as is picking up steam? You know, tell us a little bit more about it.
Speaker 2:I think going back to our discussion about the elevation of Naza name, just the block chain is a necessary, um, old run, the old vis sign some checks from gaining popularity with their, um, two years ago. When we look at what may happen to intro in the next coming years and how technology will continue to change shifting, we convicted that NASA will gain high used to deal with it just because of each of the connections to the local connections being digitalized and people will look for the waste, would use the cost to it. And block chain is a very effective we to build a network and uh, I think this is what makes blockchain by any means a great technology for the shipping and certainly something that requires experimentation with and for the investigation exploration and the same time as any new technology. And blockchain is neither as solutions. All pain on the raise, the uh, to use ready to go technology as it is today. Uh, when we predicted the elevational then that will chain primarily you forget coins and financial industry. The last two years we've seen an emergence of multiple projects that the block chain based. And I think it's great news for the industry. What are the projects succeed or fail the mess. Half the industry now is ready to engage in this type of pilots. And proof of concepts in experimentation is a good thing because by doing this, we're learning. We're learning as a community will find the ways that we can improve the process. We'll find the acknowledges that mobile is important to mention. That is any new technology blockchain still have, um, it's sometimes four and lean north settleable query well in high transaction environment, uh, where a cloud based, um, transactional system may be much faster, more efficient, but at the same time, not every process in our shipping requires Tyson's actual environments. Uh, the, it is like tricking the region on the board or the[inaudible] seem to be very well to benefit from blockchain. And uh, I'm sure we'll see some very successful implementation in that area. Another very important thing to have in mind is the distributed nature of the blockchain. That schools of the question of who owns the identity management, uh, in a financial or bitcoin digital currency limitation, any member of the group can add another member. It's an equivalent of a cash exchange, right? If o two people meet, they can exchange cash or one can add another to the digital, uh, carbon. CNS, we're going to change digital currencies to the network and shipping. We are operating under severe restrictions who we need to know. Our partners will need to be cognizant of the knife POTUS. There are functions and that is the variety over restrictions that sometimes maybe applicable to participants from one set of conscious and not applicable to participants from other sets of fonts of conscious. So simply relying with any member of the network, adding another member may be risky. It may expose the participants to assessing the risks. It's really important to think so the security in an incident management, uh, ethics, uh, all the networks. Having said that, I can easily give you examples when it's not an issue. When a large company, a large retail company for example, sets the blockchain based network, all its suppliers to track the origin of the moon. This is solved by definition. If you are a supplier of Walmart, you can do on the network. If you are a supplier of the company, it means the company has performed the necessary checks and you've been cleared to participate. And in this case, there is no question about uh, participation and uh, the fact that, uh, the reference that's not change, nobody can change the records without leaving a trace of it presents a fantastic way, very cheap, very easy way to track all the products, the region. Um, I think we will see the same with some of the deals lettings and mutations. Um, the anywhere it makes presents some problems. Maybe they eat when we're multiple competitors have to run the same network because in this case they have to share the list of participants and one of them has to do, become an identity manager on the platform. And of course the competitors cannot share the customer lists and that's my limit. The participation. And again, there are technological solutions to the end. There is a possibility to name a neutral party playing an identity management role. It just something that has to be thought through in the design of the network. But, um, having, having said all that, in the end of the day, when you select a platform for files of proof of concept, you always want to try anything and to see what additional advantages you can gain, what additional age you can get. A, and in the case of blockchain, it seems rather straightforward in the time when you selected technology, indispensable for the different units to be able to perform the task cheaper or faster or better in any way, then you can do it on a traditional platform. And today, some of the implementations on the blockchain that still full behind a simple, uh, everybody is on the same cloud implementation as simple connection to the same platform or host, which provide a cheaper, faster, easier way to solve the same time. So if all of the blockchain, um, gain the momentum and gains the differentiation, it will be a little bit of a transition period. And I'm sure we'll Stein the community will figure out the tasks that I still better with the blockchain and all the technology and the blockchain will find it.
Speaker 4:Mm.
Speaker 1:And yeah, I mean it, it just seems, and again, I'm not an expert at this stage. It, it, it definitely offers a lot of potential. But like you rightfully said and like I've been hearing a lot of people that know a lot about the subject, the saying it's not a, you know, it's basically not a cure all and it doesn't fix everything. And it's a, I think there's a mistake that some people are making that they think that blockchain can be applied to everything. And at the same time, it's interesting that you mentioned the one source of, uh, maybe or the need for neutral type of a party because what we have seen, and without mentioning names again names again, we've, we've seen a few of these kind of conglomerates or alliances, shipping lines or three beers or boards even on our authorities coming together behind one or two or some other platforms. But there is not one kind of a neutral. Um, it's almost like in some ways I guess if I'm to extrapolate the also what happened at the beginning with intro, right, where it was a conglomerate. It was kind of the industry coming together, right? And then at the end of the day it was nevertheless, it was operated as a neutral company, um, uh, for the, for the benefit of the players in the industry. So maybe we will see something like that in blockchain. I don't know. Maybe not.
Speaker 4:Okay.
Speaker 2:So from the very beginning, because being run by a large number of key areas, it has to remain neutral. It has to lead to stable CNN to trust compliance and also because of having customers outside of shareholding from the very beginning and building the necessary firewall between the shareholders and the customers from the very beginning being forced to do this as an antitrust compliance step into actual maintain its relative from the very beginning. But I can give you another example when you think about such as cloud computing, they didn't start is one. She's either, when you think about 2010, 2011, when I was working for IBM and meeting customers, talking about the advantages of systems management and automation and eventually building the cloud for a lot of our customers. It was a totally new concept and a lot of our customers questions the advantages of using clouds and especially external clouds and the some customers would entertain using cloud for something less mission critical exposition development where you can provision and kill new environments but not necessarily running missions sensitive systems. So they uh, seven, eight years later we see huge what I know of cloud based implementation for the mission critical systems from transactions like instant booking section, which is now trust in the process of being transitioned to the cloud with thousands of customers always. It's fading on the cloud. So a huge number of transportation management systems and a lot of systems which are mission critical outside of our industry from banking to governmental systems. And the technology is so advanced today that in fact it offers better reliability, better school. I deal with a better security than a traditional inhouse implementations. It just takes time. It takes critical mass, it takes a, he has in development, it takes resources and it's a natural lifecycle with technologist. So the block chain technology especially implemented just the natural uh, in supply chain management and logistics. Is it relatively new concepts to, should not judging you technology but the same standards as the charge. Something well developed in the research, but I think the variety of projects, uh, you know, some of the storage will fail. Some of the projects we'll succeeded, but altogether they will generate, uh, the intellectual property and learnings that will help to improve the technology and find the weak spots and address them, the community.
Speaker 1:Excellent. Excellent. Yeah, it was, it was such a, such a big deal at that point in time. And there's a lot of skepticism as with anything, any technology really, right? I mean if we have to be genuine about it, I think every technology at the beginning is met with a lot of skepticism and there's a few crazy are people that believe in it. And then eventually, if it really, really stinks, then more and more people come on board and then all of a sudden it becomes like, of course is the natural way of doing things. Right. So it's a, I guess it's just normal and that's probably what also we are seeing now with blockchain and, and advanced analytics and artificial intelligence in the name, the Internet of things and all of those, uh, those other fancy, uh, fancy, fancy words, good technologies, but you know, still the, still a lot to go in terms of making it an industry standard in many ways. Um, and I wanted to kind of, I kind of shift the conversation on top of this back to the point where you mentioned that one of the challenges that the industry is confronting with his talent, which I, I always liked when I hear this because obviously our main businesses, executive searches, so, um, it kind of gives me a reason to exist, but at the same time, it isn't true. It's just a true, um, I think it is a very true problem that most people are facing, including ourselves. And as the irony were headhunters and our problem is also to recruit people has had that. So I think it's across industries. But let's, let's imagine we forgot to talk about the logistics supply chain shipping in Australia thing is particularly, and especially in the context of moving to the digital age, right, of the industry. Um, what do you see as the most challenging types of skill sets and maybe mindsets to get in the industry. So maybe it's a combination of skills and mindset. So I just love to hear your thoughts on that.
Speaker 2:I will start by seeing that placing people into jobs and giving them the pride of doing something they like and achieving results and making an impact is one of the most noble who is, what's the exist strategy?
Speaker 1:Oh really?
Speaker 2:Um, I think, uh, one of the challenges that we are seeing more and more to be is the most discipline experience and will explain what they mean by when we hire people for technology companies working in shipping or supply chain Eda. We'll look for the combination of three major skill set will look for the professional skill where it's the product management or marketing or sales. We'll look for the understanding of it, the understanding of it. This is in depth between do with technological functions and marketing and sales. And yet it's very difficult to market or sell our believers. So this icy products without being it savvy and understanding the technology and being comfortable around technology. Right. And then of course equally important skillset is the understanding of the industry because unfortunately our industry today is full of examples of companies, forums, y t people who think it's so easy to explain to the shipping how to do things better. And dog humans, me sounds very persuasive for venture capitalists, but the shipping industry just says, well, that's not how we do things, right? To have reasons to alterate. And those reasons may be historical. They maybe do the fragmentation. They may be due to the existing processes in the industry. They may be due to regulation, they may be, do you do other things that people outside the shipping industry may not always appreciate and understand? Um, having crossed the line in my career from it in the state of shipping in the street, I appreciate the complexity of both and that would never consider one to be more or less simplistic than the other, but it's really difficult to find people who know these two industries together and know the discipline that they're working in. So one of the approaches I've been using, uh, in my teams in my career has been pairing people up, trying to create teams that include people, have both sets of skills helping each other and working together on the project. And hopefully some of this knowledge she has some of those skills. Uh, robbing orphan a couple of years is people continue to collaborate closely, but I think it's a good ways of problem in the industry all together. And we started seeing more people from IC backgrounds coming into shipping and spending time in sitting in a variety of functions, maybe doing some internships in the dunes, sometime some hook in, um, in the industry. And then jumping back to the itis backgrounds, uh, and projects, uh, oh, just collaborating, just collaborating across it and shipping expertise. And this is, this is the area where I think we will experience a certain show that you have the town for quite a while. Of course there are other talents that are in short supply in the shipping industry. Right. When I talk about shipping, it's not just all about, I see the shortage of the truck drivers in the yes is a good example. It's a very difficult job. Uh, it's a quiet being away from home for months. It requires hard work and uh, it's not very comfortable with the millennials generation and we'll raise it here from which is this company in the s about that show kitchen. Unfortunately, the legal aspects, both technological aspects of self driving trucks I'm not about to solve with anytime soon. So I think there are multiple ears in the industry have with students the shortage of the talents. But in the particular area where I apply my efforts in the it side, it's through having to combination of both sense the challenge.
Speaker 1:It's very interesting that you mentioned that. And I just want to add some of the searches that we've done recently, and I loved the idea that you've put forward with the pairing of skills because indeed it is extremely in this tends to be quite difficult to find people that have done both technology and industry specific projects at the scale and the depth that would, you know, that would kind of qualify them for four large projects or leading large teams. Um, and that, that skillset of, of the sea level of pairing people with complimentary skills go works quite well. And we've, we've been, uh, kind of engaged in a lot of, a lot more companies seem to be getting this idea of basically trying to cross pollinate. So we've done assignments maybe for a CIO for, for the third party logistics company that came from the gaming industry because they wanted to, they wanted to get some new perspectives whilst at the same time the operations and all the other people on the board were from, from the industry itself. So they were able to kind of, um, almost have this positive tension, isn't it? Right? So there's a positive tension between, um, there's somebody coming with an external perspective, the, with some people within the industry. And then if you, if you managed to push through this tension in a positive way, then you get something better. Right? So, and it, it kind of works as, um, it kind of works as a plus rather than a minus. So I think that is the art is somewhere in that matching match mate matching because Indian having people that, uh, and having visit no, both, uh, those, those are very rare, very well taken care of usually. So it's not, it's not easy to spot them out to find them. Um, I wouldn't
Speaker 2:like to add one other thing to this, which is a very interesting comment that you make about mule made about bringing a gaming they could do into the shipping industry, not for the specific technology in h two skills, but also to cross pollinate. It's very often that innovation crosses the industry borders. There are many examples in the world when something developed for one industry suddenly becomes a great driver of innovation in another industry. Best practices, travel, different approaches, travel Martine was initially used. That's the disgust for bitcoins and digital currency. Now what makes a successful enrolled in the supply chain? Um, in my personal experience, I've seen a great practice for my team, this genes running briefing centers and brainstorming and white boarding socials with the customers being successfully implemented in logistics industry when the open centers of excellence at Siebel logistics and achieved a very high interest from the customers who would come just to spend a day to learn about new solutions. Not necessarily ecological solutions have been well-run warehouse. It could be and well done ABC analysis. It could be a well implemented new crown in one, some of those ideas and a PC, the expertise of the company doing it at the same time. Uh, also in my experience I had a chance of introducing a team from an IT industry trying to improve the product used to be with you, the overall user experience, which is definitely achieve with multiple steps. Uh, you receive information about the products, you search for, the details about the product to download them and so on. All the way down to invoicing and they were struggling with how you get every step refined and identify the weakest is the told you about the most. I introduce the team, the specialist in lean from the shipping industry and suddenly it made a perfect sense. Of course you create a chain, you identify the weakest link you start running. Kaizen means that the old by the team who own all the this particular item, this particular step and sings book. So there are lots of examples where innovation can cross the border line and uh, and I think it also comes hand in hand with something else you've mentioned earlier, which is what attitudes is required and of course the attitude required is being open to learn and being open to adapt something. It seems like it's changed because it's coming from a different industry, but gets this additional advantage, that's additional age in where you are. So this being open minded and being open to new learning and spending time to learn no matter how experienced you are in what you do is the skill necessary that comes together with this approach.
Speaker 1:Also to bring the to bring about, I know that you have written two books, which is very interesting. You've written one book about a practical approach to career growth, right growth and you've written a month in the sky practical notes on the ways of professional growth. So I'd like to kind of ask you if you can give us a little bit of background the story white. Why did you write the books in the first place and tell us maybe a few, a few pointers for the people listening, you know, what's in the books and what can they learn from it
Speaker 2:fresh in the region. It was a big thing for the Russian community and I hit a popular blog at the time in Russia where I just described my life and the US and the just my travels and I started getting a lot of questions from the readers on the career related topics. How do you select the right job? How you select the right track? How you deal with being uh, someone with an accent and booking in an in the bottom and the took wise you communicating with customers in a different language. And different culture. All kinds of questions that I started trying to answer and to help people and I realized is something that the question is can be grouped into an efficient way. So I basically to put this, the blog to a series of false about the career development regions specifically for the Russian audience at that time. I don't think that answers will do. They're different but they had a specific flavor to them because the Russian market lacks any kind of career. They had some leadership with some fleet like um, uh, the book of Jack Welsh and they had a few books written by entrepreneurs who created big banks. Oh when you enterprises in Russia, but there was no books about how you both last getting or how you do your career in finance. That would be written in explaining things that may be 70 bloody but in some cases a little bit special for the foreigners working in a different cultural environment or someone who has to walk with a specifically American western European companies in it is like getting shit back, which is for example is different in different culture. What's considered to be a Norman one call. She would be all liberals in another and send you over the shoulder code. So then the third one, so, um, those set a little posts eventually became the first book and it was so well received of, it'd be, it was on the best selling list for awhile, but that's not to getting even more questions and more feedback and that led to writing the second one. Um, at the time when that all the second book, um, I actually just left IDM foreseeable logistics and running sales for$1 billion organization and hundred 60 countries. I spent a lot of time on the road. I probably traveled three weeks out of four and spent a lot of time on the plains and in the lounges and waiting for the plane and waiting for the car. And I found out that this is a natural science. So it actually syncs through some of those questions and write some of those folks. But also to slap on a different aspect of my career. The first book was mostly devoted to the questions like, uh, how you doing this? Uh, how how you, how you select you. Could we write that and look and talk a little bit more about do you really the oldest have to go into management or can you select the different Pasc and you select the pos of an ax and define your skills? What tools can you get a developing menses, developing sponsorship relationship which had different developing relationship with your colleagues. That may help how you deal with the time management and a while we'll all, all the say you can have, you can get everything. Can you really get everything at the same time if you have to face yourself and there's all this shooting a prototization and sits and decisions that evidence DV though can make yes, absolutely. You can work remotely from a far away island and you can find that you'll be suitable for that and yes, that's civil police. You set your goals when the running a larger organization. You do it early enough and work hard enough and the succeed in this fast, you can do it. Can you do it at the same time? Not all the spray. Certain jobs unfortunately did not allow remote work and certain jobs, uh, allows it, and we'll talk what's would never leave you on this, uh, administrative fos when Quizon female and quizzing number of people in your organization. So, uh, those were the questions. There was a chip, so this was the[inaudible] and the visas to get the Mba, uh, when there was a cap stones working with difficult bosses and also questioning whether it's look, questioning the reasons so by the book becomes difficult and maybe sometimes just trying to put a mural up and um, those, those will a kind of popular topics in the discussion at the time. There was a question of what I call them limiting factor. A lot of us, especially foreigners who will always have an accent; who will feel and look at it as misfit, because our reactions to the same cultural environment. are cruel. So even norms of providing feedback, it would be a little bit different than it would be for the person who grew up in that environment natively. And many people stop attributing anything negative happening to them. To this difference, I call it the limiting factor because it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. If someone does not answer, your good morning, it may happen for a number of reasons. That person might not just be feeling well. The person might be having a difficult time in the family, it is not necessarily that the person doesn't like you because you have an accent. But if you constantly think about that limiting factor you tend to achieve everything negative to that factor. And then of course you start limiting yourself in what you try to achieve and what you do. Many people have limiting factors. Some of them might be the accent; for others it's the agenda; for others it's the level of education. I know o rganizations w here people without a PhD, f ew like, uh, not being a c ob with others. And I a lso know organizations where people try to conceal the number of degrees they have because they almost feel teased for having access to education when others are successful. It's all in the eyes of the beholder. A nd, u h, it's really about not complying with the statistics and assumptions, but u h, charter i n your own thoughts and taking the high road and try to ignore the, it is not that O vis and not assign y our most, we m eet, i n f act t he, s he is s o negative that happens. So this was, this was book when I wrote this book, I became the chief commercial officer. So Sila and the second book was more about getting the senior levels of immunization and whether you really need it because it always comes with the package. It comes to the folks that comes to the responsibilities. It comes with the limitations on your free time and it comes with the necessity to stand up for things and sometimes dry unpopular decisions. Um, so there was a big checks their own, whether you really want to do it as much as you think you won't and then what it entails and what, what it takes to get to this level. Right. The getting beyond just the tactical is from civility, seeking additional projects, developing additional skills, developing the natural, developing the meant as a developing certain ways of billing with the railing factors because each one of us have the railing faxes. So this was the subject of the second book. And uh, you know, unfortunately both books as and only interaction. I've never took time to take on a project to translate the books into English, but I've got quite a lot of feedback in, interestingly enough, even seven years after the first book was published, I still occasionally get an email from a reader saying how much the book help them. And of course those are the most cherished emails that always make my day and make the smile and think I've done something right.
Speaker 1:Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, you've had a very, you have, you've had a very interesting career and you have a very interesting career. You've obviously experienced a lot. And I think you bring a very practical perspective to two things. And it's a, that's basically the, that that's the thing that is a lot of value. And, um, and uh, and um, yeah, it's definitely for, for Russian people is a, is a big, big plus, but I think a lot of, a lot of English readers would also appreciate it. And then I loved your story with the accent and, and I think we all have it at the certain stage and at a certain point of our lives. I think if I am to go a little bit into that, and I did study psychology, uh, maybe for the reason that myself, I tried to fix myself up to a point, but we all have our own limitations and we all have our own, uh, type of, uh, I dunno, a areas in which we may feel inferior, but is that journey of kind of coming to peace with it and then realizing that everybody has, I mean, nobody's perfect at the end of the day, right? It's just a, yeah. Some people unfortunately get stuck stuck in that mindset and they, the, they struggle a little bit harder to overcome. It was other people in the kind of managed to manage to get over it because at the end of the day, even if we look at the most successful entrepreneurs, typically they have some issues like, you know, I'm the, the name that comes to my head is, uh, is the founder of Virginia. Richard Branson was that dyslexics. And then there's a lot more, right? The bill gates dropped out and you're not talking about degrees. And I know CEO's that have barely graduated, the particular CEO, they'd build a 3 billion euro company and then he didn't, he never graduated high school. So it's interesting how all this kind of um, play a part, it's usually in our own minds and if we managed to get out of our own minds, then, um, yeah. And it can, it can help kind of with that break free. Um, and I know, I'd love to ask you the question. Um, you know, let's say that we have a, I know there's a, there's a lot of young people listening to the podcast. There's people that are graduating a young professionals in the industry just to just walking through the, um, through the first, uh, years of their careers. What would be one or two pieces of advice that you will give, give them in terms of kind of, um, I don't know if the word is planning, but in terms of thinking ahead and in terms of what they would a, what would you do if you were them in terms of let's, let's use planning big careers
Speaker 2:could be a planning is not a bad mood. You should exercise because we are planning to create self. That's truly comes from a French word carrier, which roots down lesson and it was the village for the kitty traits for the, uh, for the, uh, will, uh, on the carriage and though the special role that can sustain it. So when you plan the road, when you plan to Juany, you always plan for the destination. At the same time, you should always be ready to the Fed, but you may have to change the destination. So, uh, thinking about the big picture and once in a few years trying to assess it, am I on the right route or should they change my expectations or should they change my goals? Uh, is not a bad idea, but it helps you at least to achieve certain goals and few of who healed and too happy about it. Um, there are this one's ways to plan your cover use today, mainly movies than existed 20 years ago. But I think an important distinction to make really early is what is it career success for you? Because when people are asked about the[inaudible] success been name ever right of things, earning a lot of money, having a lot people reporting to you, managing alleged PNL, but sometimes they forget about are the aesthetics of the career success, which is being an expert, right? They'll just try to give an example of a hospital. The hospital administrator, uh, define the value of the job, of the seniority of the job by the number of beds and patients and facilities and assets managed. But the surgeon doesn't have anybody reporting into human yet. Maybe the gold class of famous star in his or her profession just by getting an expert capable of doing something. Nobody else can. They look for the same medical industry, but they have very different bosses. The same applies to technology. The same applies to shipping. Uh, there are experts in certain areas that may not aspire to manage people or p and l a but really drive the pleasure of being the best experts into something and command higher earnings will come on. Hi resubmissions and, and, and be the premiums as well. Of course, of course. It's an important the specialist and indicate. So I think for all young people, first of all, it's important to try both and to understand what your drive more pleasure from. I driving more pleasure from running. If you go to when you're coaching people, achieving success for the others. Or you may be hate management, but you just like learning the technology and you don't have to be in the position when someone tells you. Yeah. But to be successful, you really have to become a manager. You don't, you can, especially in the environment today, you can be extremely successful on the experts, experts fool around. So that's one advice. And, and think this through. And then planning accordingly after you've tried a few things is important. I think another very important advice is never to underestimate the importance of the network. Being an introvert myself, I've never been comfortable around networking events. A small talk has been a curse for me. What are you going to talk about? You're going to talk about this and that, but it is important to
Speaker 5:pros and what it is, but, uh, it's important.
Speaker 2:Understand that networking does not mean standing with the glass in a networking event and discussing the kids. Networking maybe going to your local meetup and just meeting people or people playing the same games as the adult people gets the same interest as you do or people who like the same Sci-fi books that you do. And you can meet all kinds of people in that area and you can meet people who are in very different businesses and industries and eventually you can tap into that network and developing people who can mentor you and give you an advice and who can open new doors for you is something that also a bit counter, which is an earlier age. We become more and more appreciated as you go forward in your career. And then suddenly you find yourself on a situation when you tap on to your network for different purpose, not to open the doors for you, but to hire the best talent in the team. What do attract advice or to be able to ask someone to very high something for you. Um, and uh, and again, you suddenly realize what a blessing it was to have those Iq friends that you used to hang up. And suddenly you can call them and say, can you please tell me if Hadoop is really the right solution for this problem? Because I have bouts but some technology expert says is the best thing ever. And suddenly you have a video insightful conversation. And so developing the networks is very good for your career and your progress forward no matter what path you choose. And the, and of course, uh, the rest had this thinking the plans and setting some goals and achieving those goals and at least having a goal for the next couple of years, they wouldn't, it after a couple of years you decide to go into different direction. All those help to feel accomplished and fulfilled and getting a feeling of something being done and the pride in it then enjoying it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Setting goals.
Speaker 2:Let's see.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much. I think that that's a very, I mean that's a very, uh, that's very useful pieces of advice and I'm sure that a, that the audience has, um, has taken some good notes. And also I'm, I'm really grateful for the time that you've spent with us today is and for all the good, the good case studies and stories and views that you shared with us in terms of where you think the industry is going as well as where you think the talent skills and mindset should be going, which is always good to hear. And um, and yeah, we showed the best in the coming, uh, in the coming bonds, the adventure and with integration and um, and all the good, the good projects coming your way on that, uh, on that front as well.
Speaker 2:Thank you very, very much shadow and I pulled a PC and an invitation and was successful older listeners and thank them for their attention.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to a podcast. If you liked what you heard, be sure to follow us on[inaudible] dot com slash podcast for all the show notes, links and extra tips covered in the interview. Make sure also to subscribe to our email list to get the news in the nick of time. If you're listening through a three in platform like iTunes or stitcher and you like what we do, please kindly review and give us five stars so we can keep the energy flowing. You'd get more people to find out about our podcast. I'm most active on Linkedin, so do feel free to follow me to stay tuned for all latest articles as well as future guests for the podcast. And if you have any suggestions or any other idea, please feel free to write to me. I respond to all, and also please make sure not to miss our next episode where we will be having a few other c level and top leaders in supply chain joining us. Stay tuned.
Speaker 6:Yeah.