#46: Mathew Elenjickal Founder & CEO of FourKites and Stephan de Barse EVP of o9 Solutions

In this episode, we have Mathew Elenjickal Founder & CEO of FourKites and Stephan de Barse EVP of o9 Solutions as our guest.

About Mathew Elenjickal:

Matt is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of FourKites. He founded FourKites in 2014 after recognizing pain points in the logistics industry and designing elegant and effective systems to address them.

Prior to founding FourKites, Matt spent 7 years in the enterprise software space working for market leaders such as Oracle Corp and i2 Technologies/JDA Software Group. Matt has led high-impact teams that implemented logistics strategies and systems at P&G, Nestle, Kraft, Anheuser-Busch Inbev, Tyco, Argos, and Nokia across North America, Western Europe, and Latin America. Matt is passionate about logistics and supply chain management and has a keen sense of how technology can disrupt traditional silo-based planning and execution.

Matt holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from College of Engineering, Guindy, an MS in Industrial Engineering and Management Science from Northwestern University, and an MBA from Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management. He lives in Chicago.

About Stephan de Barse:

Stephan de Barse is the EVP of o9 Solutions, driving digital transformation with some of the leading Fortune-500 companies. Globally responsible for all Business Development, Digital Marketing, Creative Marketing, o9 Design Lab, Alliances, Sales Activities, and Strategic Networks and shared P&L responsibility for the Global Revenue Number of the Company.

Founded in 2009, o9 is an AI-enabled platform providing solutions for operations and business planning. Its offerings include demand forecasting, commercial planning, supply chain planning, and Integrated Business Planning, among others.

o9 serves clients in many industry verticals, including retail, consumer goods, apparel, consumer electronics, industrial manufacturing, and oil & gas. It boasts large enterprises such as Google, Walmart, Estee Lauder Companies, Bridgestone, Caterpillar, Nike, General Electric, T-Mobile, and Starbucks, among its clients.

Discover more details here.

Some of the highlights of the episode:

• [05:17] Connectivity between freight visibility and planning Control Towers – why does this matter?
• [07:00] “I know where my truck is and when it’s supposed to arrive, so how can I proactively address any potential issues arising from it?”
• [10:02] Creating a full digital twin of the supply chain
• [22:16] Digital transformation and planning based on real-time data has now become an executive board topic.
• [27:51] How do you know the partnership is successful? 

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hello, and welcome to the leaders in tech and e-commerce podcast. I am your host, Andrew pandemonium, and I am the APEC director for elk global executive search. Our mission is to connect the tech in supply chain and e-commerce ecosystem in Asia and globally by bringing forward some of the most interesting stories about success and failure from leaders in the industry. Today, we have a special episode. We have two guests on the one hand, we have Matthew LNG Carr. He's the founder and chief executive officer of forkites. He founded four kites in 2014 after recognizing the pain points in the logistics industry and designing an elegant and efficient system to address them. And on the other hand, we have stiffened the bars. Stephanie is the EVP of all nine solutions driving digital transformation with some of the leading fortune 500 companies. He's globally responsible for all business development, digital marketing, creative marketing alliances, sales, strategic networks, and shared PNL responsibility for the global revenue number of the company. We are going to speak today about their strategic partnership, where all nine combines industry leading integrated business planning and kind comes with visibility cloud to provide end to end visibility, to freight tracking. It is a very interesting discussion about how both technologies come together to offer more value to their clients. Please enjoy Matt Stefan, welcome to the podcast. It's a pleasure to have you with us today. Thanks so much.

Speaker 2: 1:35

Right. So the question to me,

Speaker 1: 1:37

Excellent. So as we were talking just beforehand, it would be great to start with a slight introduction. I know most of our listeners and a lot of people know about both of your companies, but it's always good to tell them a bit more. Maybe you can share what are the main problems that both online and in four kinds are focusing on at the moment. And maybe we start with Matt and then with the fun.

Speaker 2: 2:00

Absolutely. So yeah, for guides, we are a Chicago based company and we are in the supply chain visibility and predictive analytics space. Our foundational product is the real time visibility platform, which is a new category that we created back in 2014, 2013 timeframe. A lot of things were changing in the market. A lot of data was becoming available. So we saw the need for companies to really connect with their trading partners, mostly carriers, and, you know, for the shipping lines to get real time data in terms of logistics and then figure out what is, you know, what the exceptions are in terms of, you know, moving goods from point a to point B. So that's what we do. So the high level, we collect the data in real time from all these different partners, we create automation workflows. So, uh, shippers can communicate with their customers and vendors. And we also create point applications that use visibility, data obligations, like appointment scheduling, yard management systems so-and-so so that is for pets in a actual

Speaker 3: 3:06

Excellent. That's the fun.

Speaker 4: 3:08

Yeah. Thanks so much. So, Oh, nine solutions is an AI powered platform, right? That is supporting organizations with revenue planning, supply chain planning, and financial planning with the purpose to drive better planning and better decisions based on real time market data, the Monday on supply chain data. And I think the crux of the business problem that you're solving is that a lot of executives today, they're still sitting in business planning meetings asking themselves, you know, why am I missing the plan? Why am I building up excess inventory? Why are my service levels not on the control? So they still see the same issues that they've been seeing over the years and years. Well, on the other side, there are so much more data available that they can utilize. So obviously what we are seeing is organizations are better able to digitally connect with consumers and customers, right? To get real-time data in terms of purchase intent and changing or buying behaviors, they're able to get real-time data, forthcoming product innovation. So companies are putting, you know, embedded, so software and IOT devices and products, so they can get real-time data in terms of, you know, product usage and product performance, but then obviously on the execution layer. And that's where we are so excited about the partnership at four guys, there's the real-time visibility, right? That forecast is providing, but also companies are investing in digital warehouses and digital factories and so forth. So the issue is on the idea that, well, you know, there's so much real time data available that you drive better decisions. I'm planning yet when executives, you know, sit in business planning meetings, the same questions and same issues come up. So really, Oh nine is the digital brain of the enterprise that is connecting all those different data sources and is enabling better planning. And decision-making by doing,

Speaker 3: 4:56

Go ahead. And I think you mentioned already data and both of you men focused a lot on the idea of having access to data and understanding what it means. Now, tell us both of you in your own perspective, how the partnership came together, right? How did you bring connectivity between freight visibility and then planning control towers? And maybe Stephanie, you can start at this time and then we'll get you to Matt.

Speaker 4: 5:22

Okay. Sure. So I think what is an common ask that we get from clients right? Is, Oh, nine, can you help me? Well, Spalding risks and opportunities faster to understanding the impact of those risks and opportunities, tree, you know, run scenarios to actually see what options I have and then for who step to execution and then have an AI layer so that we actually keep learning, you know, and updating the resolution protocols, nobody see when it comes to risks and opportunities, right? You have the month risks and opportunities that you get from, you know, the Mount sensing activities, but then you also have supply, right. Risks and opportunities and especially disruptions. And I think where we are excited about the opportunity is that poor guides is an excellent provider. Real-time visibility of what's happening with shipments. So if a particular shipment, right old, a critical components is arriving two days later because you know, that component is, you know, on the truck that the stock at the border in Mexico and needs to arrive to a certain manufacturing location in Detroit. Right. I want to know that I want to get an updated ETA based on that outdated ETA. Right. I want to see what the impact is on my ability to serve the demand. And if that is causing issues in, you know, satisfying the demand, then obviously I want to see, okay, are there any alternate suppliers? Could I expedite something? Could I, you know, repurpose some inventory that I have and so forth, certainly the integration between visibility of what's happening to ARDS, what is the impact on my ability to serve the month? And then the ability to run scenarios and see the trade-offs is of critical importance. And that's where we are super, super excited about, you know, the connectivity as we are, you know, both cloud native platforms and obviously providing value to our clients.

Speaker 2: 7:26

How do you see the benefits of collaborating with Dona Ana? I'm sure there are similar elements, but I'm curious to hear your side of the story. Yeah, no, Stefan explained it very well. Maybe I can, you know, talk about how this partnership is, you know, more important than the current current environment, right? With Covina nor the disruptions happening. So when you think about traditional, you know, supply chain management, you have supply chain planning, right. And supply chain execution. And when you think about supply chain planning, traditional supply chain planning companies are looking at historic data to do the planning, right? At least that's what they've been doing. What, what online is bringing to the table is doing that planning based on real-time data. And it critical piece of that real-time data is what is happening in the supply chain execution space, right? With transportation yard, how so-and-so and that space. So supply chain, execution, transportation, warehousing so-and-so, they are not in the control of a company. Usually it is managed by third parties, right? If the us highly fragment, or more than a hundred thousand trucking companies, or half a million trucking companies, if you add up everything, a Europe, the same thing, subcontractors. So the supply chain execution that is fragmented, it is fragmented across many different providers. So we, you know, we are bringing that data together and imagine the possibilities of, you know, plugging in that data, in the planning, right? The real time data in the planning. So you moving away from the traditional planning of using historic data to real time data that is powerful. Right. And in the current environment with COVID, if one thing that we learned is, you know, historic data doesn't make any sense, right. I think, you know, things are changing every day, whether it is different buying patterns, right. Dimension of supply shift, all these things are happening in real time. So the historic data and planning using historic data is useless, right? So that's where we believe, you know, this partnership is going to be super powerful because we have the real time data of what is happening throughout the six space where our products are moving from and moving to. Are they, you know, arriving on time or they're delayed. A good example is during COVID in the U S market, some States they put driving restrictions, right? Like Pennsylvania, for example. So you can drive through that, you know, that state, which means he had to dig a loader out and that is happening in real time. Right. How do you incorporate that into, you know, demand planning and supply planning previously goes from possible, but with this partnership, it is becoming a reality, but I think you've thought about it.

Speaker 4: 10:02

And I think too, to add to that, I think what is super exciting as well as if you think about in essence, what we are doing right, is we create a full digital twin of the supply chain. So from the ship to locations and then the entire supply chain, right? All the older notes, the warehouses, the DCS, the suppliers, the suppliers of the suppliers, and then all the cost constraints and so forth. But one of the issues today, many organizations, why are they by default in firefight mode is because they rely on master data in their planning processes. So give you an example. The lead time from this supplier to death's warehouse is four weeks. And, you know, for the second component, right, the lead time is, you know, 21 days. Now, the problem is that lead time has been keyed in whatever three years ago, two years ago. Right. But to match this point, that is not reflective of today's situation. So it's not only responding to those disruptions that are happening right today, but it's also helping in cleansing the most, the data on a continuous basis so that, you know, companies, you know, start making better plans and decisions from the start rather than, you know, using a lot of tribal knowledge because that's what happening today and say, Hey, on the, you know, that that's not normally four weeks, but five weeks. So because you have that knowledge and you're doing this job all the time, you sort of are making manual changes. But if you do that at the global scale of an organization, it becomes just, you know, chaos. And I think that is also where forkites plays a critical and pivotable pivotal role in sort of cleansing the master data, uh, so that the starting point of plans become much more accurate. And I think that's, that's very important too. Let's talk about the examples. I think

Speaker 3: 11:54

Both of you mentioned a few of them, but maybe a, I know the partnership is quite new, right. And as time goes on, you will implement the solution as a joint venture in, in other clients is, um, businesses, but is there, um, a client that already is doing something with both of your solutions together and maybe some numbers, some resources that you could share?

Speaker 4: 12:16

Yeah. Uh, I mean, uh, absolutely. I think the, our clients, we can necessarily name all of them. Right. But, uh, that are using the online platform and are using the, the forecast platform. I think what is very exciting to see is that the moment a control tower gets deployed and it gets integration with four guys, we have, for instance, seen use cases, right. Uh, that I was talking about before, Hey, this shipment is delayed, right. Um, uh, that has impact on this particular development and this demand has a high priority. So now as an organization, I immediately want to run a scenario and see what are my alternatives. And I see I can actually get the same components from this alternate supplier. If I make a decision to do, you know, an, an air expedite. Now, obviously there is a cost associated with that. So now I want to have the evaluation, you know, satisfying that the monks, you know, against this ghost, right. Is that still a profitable decision for me to make yes or no? I think that is now feasible. And companies are using that. Secondly, I think this is also very interesting when it comes to the sustainability impact, right. Am I going to satisfy the demands, even though that might be very profitable for me, but if I need to make an air expedite, obviously, you know, that also has an impact on my environmental impact of my business. Right. So again, right. Can we bring that data together and make that kind of decisions? And again, the answer to that is yes. And then I think whether it's super exciting as well is again, the ability to get a sort of lane, uh, analytics. So you know, this lane from this vendor to debt C you know, I see that the OTF normally is 85%. So in the cases that it's late, why is it late? Is it weather? Is it, you know, for delays? Is it, you know, whatever it is. And I think having more and more insights in what is driving those issues will also help us in the predictability, right? So, no, we actually turn that entire conversation around and we get into a situation that we are today in Google maps, right? Where the moment you have a flight to catch Google can send you a message when you should leave for the airport. So now we applied it in the enterprise, right. We can actually do the same start prescribing when particular shipments will be delayed and then, you know, update the resolution protocols accordingly. And that's what we are seeing across clients. And that's what we see super exciting.

Speaker 3: 14:43

Matt, how about yourself? Any feedback from, from clients that are using this? Yeah, absolutely is relatively new, but

Speaker 2: 14:52

You know, we are starting to see some of the areas where we can apply this pretty quick, like the low hanging fruit, if you will do things again, what's defined mentioned, right? The ability to inject, you know, better master data. I think two examples that basically is of course, a transit times in forkites platform becomes lead times in planning engine engines and the plan. Sometimes, you know, it, it is not static anymore, right? We can provide transit times in an API, right by day off, we can, by time of day, it just, just a good example between, you know, Chicago to LA the transit time in the middle of winter, let's say February on a Tuesday morning, right. Will be very different than in the middle of summer. Right? So we have those patterns, you know, in the system that you can inject into planning. The second one is the waking times and locations, we call it dwell times, or, you know, how much time has surveyed for loading and unloading.

Speaker 5: 15:48

Now, again,

Speaker 2: 15:49

In the planning engines, you know, traditional planning engines, that's a very static value, right? Like two hours for loading and unloading at every location. But that doesn't make any sense because you know, many locations, uh, some, you know, by depending on the time of day by day of week by commodity changes, right? Because you might need special equipments, you know, there might be shifts happening at warehouses. It might take three hours for unloading something at 10:00 AM. Whereas it might take only, you know, 45 minutes, 200 something at 3:00 PM, right. The same location. So there's a lot of parameters that change throughout the day that can make planning better. So one specific example that we have seen is the safety stock, right. Coming down. So you plant with static transit times or lead times, um, you know, uh, loading and loading times, then you're introducing a lot of Slack into the supply chain, right. Uh, and that Slack will have certain inefficiencies throughout the supply chain. Many times, you know, companies have to, uh, haul, you know, more safety stock, right? Because, you know, they have all these inefficiencies built into the planning process. But as you can tighten that, you know, supply chain, if you will, with better lead times, better loading and loading times, you can reduce the safety stroke. And that's huge. So we have seen, you know,[inaudible] production at our clients. Second is Devon mentioned about the software. They find Sentinel, design, everything else. Again, companies are always wanting to, you know, run a lean supply chain, right? And traditionally, what retailers have done is

Speaker 5: 17:18

They pass the

Speaker 2: 17:19

Burden of that into the vendors. So they will tell the vendor, you have to show up between, you know, 3:00 PM and 5:00 PM, right? If you show up early, be able to find you, if you show up late, we have to find it right. So, uh, going up early is not on time anymore. You have to show in that specific time window, because if you show up early, the retailer ha you know, they have to, you know, unload it and keep the stock cost. So that is keeping, you know, costing a lot of fines and penalties in the industry and by planning better, right. He can predict the arrival times and he can reduce a lot of fines and penalties. We have seen customers saving anywhere from 300 to half a million dollars every month, just in fines and penalties. And the third piece I would say is, you know, collaboration, right? Stefan mentioned about sustainability. So key piece of sustainability is companies working together, right? I mean, you cannot achieve sustainability goals by just optimizing within the four walls of your supply chain. And a good example is Walmart recently announced a product called, uh, I think it's called project gigaton, where they are, you know, asking their vendors to record the sustainability metrics, right. Of products that are delivered to Walmart. And then they get credits accordingly. I don't know if I'm explaining it right, but the concept is something that is similar. It is out there to the public product lead account. So my point is you cannot achieve your sustainability goals by just sitting in a vacuum or silo. You have to collaborate with their partners and collaborate with the partners, right. You need better data and, you know, either an execution data and you'd take the execution data in a planning process like Oni. And now you're optimizing at a network level, right? You're not optimizing, you know, just within the four walls anymore. So those are some of the things that we are seeing the savings sense of examples of where the industry is going in the future.

Speaker 4: 19:09

And I think on top of that,[inaudible] I think, um, I think, well, well, mental is explain right on, on an offloading times, I think that cannot be underestimated, right? How big that impact is. And if you think about in, in retail landscape, right, where, you know, we're working with some of the largest retailers in the world, right. Sending, you know, 500,000 plus use across, you know, thousands of stores and then, you know, hundreds of distribution centers, right. Having that information accurate and using that information to then replant and reprioritize is of utmost important student also improve, right. The availability at the store level, but also for large, for instance, you know, manufacturing companies, right. It's really having an impact on the OTF, right. And as you know, right higher on shelf availability and a higher OTF, uh, translates into higher revenues. So we also see that there is significant impact on the top line, by using, you know, real time execution data in a planning engine then drives the decisions. And I think that is where we are seeing more and more where tradition the, if you think about how companies were evaluating their technology stack, that their ear fee was sort of mission critical for their business. Now we actually see a slightly different trends that the ERP is the core function of recording transactions, but, you know, planning solutions and real-time visibility solutions, you know, like now, Oh nine and forecast together. That is where the true value is in terms of, you know, understanding disruptions immediately responding to those disruptions, finalizing the plans, and then just pushing executional signals down to the ERP. And I think that shift is pretty interesting. And a lot of companies are seeing that just upgrading their current ERP stack. There's not much, you know, ROI to get, but if you think about, you know, combining real-time data and planning together, that's where the business case sits. And we definitely see a shift in the market of companies moving into that direction

Speaker 3: 21:23

And talking about the market and trends, right? Both, both you want us to find, and Matt, you work with the large array of clients across industries. I was wondering, do you see some unexpected trends that are happening? Because of course we live in an unprecedented time because of COVID, some industries are beginning to embrace change faster than others. I was listening to a podcast recently, and one unexpected trend was mentioned by them. That market of used cars has been growing in a used cars. Value has been growing tremendously in the past few weeks or months because of the demand and supply in that market. I'm wondering, have you seen these kind of cases that were unexpected for you and are there certain industries that stand out?

Speaker 4: 22:12

Yeah, I think, um, what we have seen is a couple of things. First of all, I think we've seen that supply chain digital transformation, right? Planning based on real-time data and making real-time data available, turning that into insights is not something that sits at the director or VP level, but it has now become, you know, an executive board topic, you know, given the disruption that we have seen over the past, you know, nine, 10 months. So I think the need for transformation is there, uh, is a topic and companies are acting. Then what we expected is the companies that have seen sort of revenue growth, right. And have seen an RSA doing pretty well in, in, in times of COVID we expect that those companies to accelerate their digital transformation programs, even foster. And while that is true, we actually see, you know, industries that are hit very hard by, uh COVID then you mentioned one of them, the automotive industry and all the suppliers through the OEMs, you know, they're seeing obviously a trend where people might not buy, you know, a new card. They go for, uh, you know, a secondhand car and instead of buying a new car, they might go, you know, to actually repair their current car. So we've seen how that those companies are trying to figure out how can I optimize my supply chain of spare parts, but then also, you know, if they're not acting today and they keep managing their business, you know, with service level issues and, you know, a lot of norming or a lot of incremental in the supply chain and inventory at the right spot, at the right location, that's not going to help them, uh, uh, forward. Right. So also those companies are actually investing and we definitely see a big trend of companies taking action. And I think that's, that's, uh, most needed than, uh, I think we are, we are happy to see the trend.

Speaker 2: 24:08

Yeah. I see. You know, uh, I wanted to highlight three different industries where we are seeing some significant changes, right. Or trends. Uh, the first one is the, the house, you know, the appliances market, right. It seems like that used to be a very slow moving supply chain, if you will. Right. People are not quite, you know, microwaves every day. So I'm sure, you know, I think all the major home appliance manufacturers in the war there either, you know, one of our customers, our joint customers, um, so we are seeing that that supply chain is in moving fast. Maybe people are buying additional appliances, right? Store products, give aren't, you know, they're spending more time, you know, in the house, what we're seeing that, you know, there's a lot of, you know, demand and variability happening in the, in the, in that, in that market. Number one, number two is on the food service that we're to go companies like Cisco send GFS useful food services, right. That are distributing food products to restaurants and, you know, hospitals and stuff like that. They saw part of the business is drying up, right? Because restaurants are closed. So they were able to be pretty quick into using their private and dedicated fleets, tens of thousands of trucks that are not delivering to restaurants anymore. They are able to, you know, pick pivot into other businesses, businesses, for example, delivering the grocery stores, right. Because that's what people are buying instead of eating out. So they were able to do that pretty quick. And again, because they have visibility into, you know, where the demands are right now, the dementia and where their products are. And also, you know, where the assets on the practice and trailers. So they were able to be pretty quick. The third one is, you know, the ecosystem of CPG for that InBev and retail, right? Uh, traditionally it's been a love, hate relationship, right? With the retailers calling the shots. And, you know, again, like I said, in the audit scenario, you deliver, you better deliver it within this window. Otherwise I'm going to find you that that has changed. I mean, people don't want to, you know, find anymore. They are realizing that, you know, it's not stick, right. It's more category space. How can we collaborate? How can we share data? And the data sharing aspect is, is, you know, something that people are more open to, they're not open to it before a good example. If I'm a CPG manufacturer, I don't want to name anyone, but you know, anyone you can think of many times I am only managing 50% of my, you know, delivery to a retailer, right? The remaining 50% of the time the retailer is doing a customer pickup. They are sending it prop to pick up the products. So if I am, you know, the retailer, then I need to know not only the trucks that I'm sending to pick up the product, also the CPD isn't delivering. So I need to have that a hundred percent information to manage my metal houses and manage my, you know, uh, outbound deliveries to stores in an optimal fashion. And my point is, if I'm at a retailer, I'm only controlling 50% of the supply chain. The remaining 50% is controlled by my vendors. So having access to the vendor, managed supply chain, it never used to happen when there's not like, no, we will not share it. If you share the data, you're going to find us now, the conversation is we will share the data because you know, it's not a more, you know, finding it is about how can we collaborate to better, more products. So, you know, we can avoid the, you know, empty shelves, stuff like that. So the collaboration is sort of flushing. So those are some of the changes that we're seeing in the market during. COVID

Speaker 3: 27:46

Good. Now Madden's defined as the last question for today's podcast. Looking ahead for the next few months for the partnership, how would you measure or what are some KPIs that you are going to use or are currently using this will tell you that the partnership is a success.

Speaker 4: 28:04

Yeah. Great, great question. I think, first of all, I think why there is not only technology fit, but also like cultural fit between the two organizations is very similar to Oh nine, four guys is extremely value-driven. So we want to drive value for our clients. We want to measure that value and we want to then celebrate that together with our clients. And I think that helps in terms of how to define success. So while the success is not the number of deals, right, it's how much value we joined a generator, our clients, and we have, you know, key metrics on how we do that. Nobody's the, we believe we can generate more value the moment we do more engagements together. So we also looking, you know, add, um, you know, where our clients are losing value by not having forkites type of capability. And we want to bring four guys to the table, obviously forkites would like to do the same on the sort of the visibility, augmentation, but planning that we are providing. And then the, our, you know, customers that, you know, don't use any visibility today and they don't have advanced planning capabilities and other sort of the white space that we are both pursuing, but really, uh, critical for the partnership is valued delivery for our clients, but happy to have Matt.

Speaker 3: 29:22

Yeah. But maybe metsys is different. I'm sure not, but yeah,

Speaker 2: 29:28

The guts of visits very important, right. That it's a strong cultural fit between the two companies, given the, you know, the ITU backing out and drive off on Inn forkites so that important. So the value pieces, you know, that is that isn't the DNA, especially in this new age where, you know, SAS solutions can be switched out, right. If, if, you know, people would just stop paying, if you're not delivering value, it's very simple. They will just send a termination notice and you're not you're out. Right. It's as simple as that. So you have to deliver value and you know, this partnership, it is more than just, you know, putting out a possibly sign, you know, creating some noise in the social media, but it's about what can we do together to really take the execution better and do better planning and, you know, and how do you measure the value, right? Whether it is, you know, safety stock or whatever it is, we just have to keep on, keep on singing the same song, otherwise, you know, it will get lost out. So that is number one. So the endorsements matter, that's, that's, that's my point. So that's something that we'll be measuring, uh, continuously, right? That's a key indicator of how the partnership is doing, isn't doing good. And the second thing is traditionally our partnerships from a forecast standpoint, we have been partnering only with supply chain execution systems, whether it's transportation management, warehouse management, right auto management, this is a very first partnership in the planning space. Um, so again, I would say, you know, given the nature of the partnership, right, very first in the industry, if you will, between real-time execution and dynamic planning, possibilities are endless. We are, we haven't, you know, we are just scratching the surface, if you will. Uh, the use cases, you know, again, our customers will find use cases. So, you know, you're not saying we know everything, right. I mean, it's just, we know that the concept makes sense. It is powerful, but the customers will really help us figure out where can we unlock efficiencies by combining the data from the two companies. And that's something, you know, we are excited, uh, looking forward to what we can find out.

Speaker 4: 31:30

And maybe, maybe that's an ask to the, to the listeners, to this podcast, right. Is, uh, both Matt and I, and in our companies obviously are, but we'd like to do complex problem solving. So if there are any complex problems that you think we should be solving, we definitely want to hear from you. I'd love to start engaging in and see how we can solve those problems and start generating value.

Speaker 1: 31:54

That's an excellent challenge for sure. I will. I will spread it across on this note, Matt and Stefan, thank you very much for the, for the story shared and for the examples and everything. I think you're doing great. And to be honest, I think more and more companies should be doing this type of partnership, bring together the ecosystems that they influenced and kind of create more sustainability.[inaudible] I appreciate your efforts and we're happy to spread the word about, thank you again, please subscribe to the podcast, Spotify on my pleasure or one of the podcast platforms we are looking forward to your feedback.