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Why Your Planning System Can't Help You Change · Speaking of Supply Chain

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: There's a huge amount of disruption on supply chains. Then
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: the last five ideas has just been unbelievable, and people
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: think of disruptions as all being external, and there is
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: a lot of external disruption, but every executive has to
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: deliver growth, right, so there's a lot of internal disruption
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: that comes through.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: Welcome to Speaking of supply chain. I'm Christine Bernhardt, head
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: of industry Engagement and Alliances at Miebach, and your host
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: for this week's episode. This is where we go beyond
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: the buzzwords to unpack what actually drives supply chain performance.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: Today we're talking about planning, one of my favorite subjects,
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: and why despite all the investments in systems, data and
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: now AI, it still doesn't consistently deliver results. Most organizations,
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: in my opinion, do have a planning problem, but what
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: I'm seeing is that they're trying to solve it the
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: wrong way. They're layering on more technology, new platforms, a
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: more data without fixing how decisions actually get made and executed.
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: As a result, planning still does not translate into performance,
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: and that's what we're going to unpack today, and more importantly,
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: we're gonna talk about what needs to change so Before
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: we jump in, I would like to introduce this episode's
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: guest which are Rafa and Paul from Koopa. They're gonna
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: hopefully give us a brief overview of their backgrounds and
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: what it is you do for Koopa today and what
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: you're spending time with customers doing.
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: So, Rafa, you want to start sure.
• 1:38
  Speaker 4: Thank you, thanks for having us, Christine. So, my name
• 1:41
  Speaker 4: is Rafavosciz. I've been in the supply chain industry for
• 1:44
  Speaker 4: about I think eighteen years, and fourteen those eighteen years
• 1:50
  Speaker 4: I actually been with Koopa, the former Lamasal business, so
• 1:53
  Speaker 4: pretty much my entire career as being on the technology
• 1:56
  Speaker 4: and consulting side. I started backing in Latin America, leading projects,
• 2:02
  Speaker 4: building teams, working side by side with the customers, and
• 2:06
  Speaker 4: then out four years ago, I transitioned to the US.
• 2:10
  Speaker 4: I have the opportunity to lead our services teams, to
• 2:14
  Speaker 4: lead our customer success teams, and most recently I took
• 2:18
  Speaker 4: on a new role that is the one that actually
• 2:20
  Speaker 4: brought me to work closely with you, Christine, which is
• 2:23
  Speaker 4: essentially leading the alliances supply chain alliances for Cooper So
• 2:29
  Speaker 4: I essentially worked side by side with our partners on
• 2:32
  Speaker 4: bringing new offerings, you know, staying ahead of the trends
• 2:35
  Speaker 4: and you know, making the best for our joint customers.
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: It's been fabulous too. I've loved it. So Paul, tell
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: us a bit about yourself.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: It is rapha great Christine, thank you for having us.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: This is what an opportunity, so I really appreciate it.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: My name is Paul Webb. I'm Cooper's supply chain industry principle.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: I've got I've got quite a lot of gray hair.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: I've got over twenty years experience as a practitioner work
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: with several of the Fortune five hundred companies, specifically on
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: their strategic supply chain optimization, balancing the service and the
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: cost equation using what was formerly lambsoft at Cooper's supply
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: chain design capability. So I was a three almost four
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: times customer two years ago. I had the opportunity to
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: join the Cooper team. Has been phenomenal. My role now
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: is really to work with executive teams on understanding what
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: the opportunities are, how they can use the capabilities, how
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: they can get most value, and how to govern the
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: capability once they had it. So it's been phenomenal.
• 3:36
  Speaker 4: Thank you.
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: I feel like you were calling out the gray hair thing,
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: and I'm like, well, mine would probably be great too
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: if I allowed it. Come on, Paul, Okay, So I
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: want to level set for just a minute. And because
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: I think when people here Cooper, a lot of people
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: still think procurement or spend. How should people think about
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: Cooper's supply chain.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: Cooper spends curement, finance, and supply chain. So it's really
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: about total spend management. And as Cooper goes from indirect
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: which was historically a big focus, now we've had several acquisitions,
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: capability enhancements, a lot of investment in the supply chain space.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: Lamasof was one of those acquisitions that we made. So
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  Speaker 1: really it's about supply chain optimization and how can we
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: pull together that total spend management. And I think we're
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: going to get into this, Hopefully we're going to get
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: into it. There's so much more than network design. It's
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: really around supply chain optimization and how can you take
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: those strategic goals through the execution.
• 4:36
  Speaker 4: I'll just add like if we think about it in
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  Speaker 4: a more generic way when we talk about spend management,
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  Speaker 4: because with that phrase, people naturally think about procurement. But
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  Speaker 4: I feel like it's it's all about making better decisions
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  Speaker 4: for the business, right. So what we are building here
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  Speaker 4: is a platform that will help the enterprises interact between procurement,
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  Speaker 4: supply chain finance, make it trade offs, have the visibility
• 5:01
  Speaker 4: and have the ability to you know, make faster and
• 5:04
  Speaker 4: better decisions along the way.
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  Speaker 2: And the long term relationship between Meeboch and Koopa has
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: been around network design primarily right building models and really
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  Speaker 2: helping customers determine, you know, what their supply chain network
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: should look like. Is that is that fair Rafa.
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  Speaker 4: Yes, one hundred percent. I'll say like as of right now,
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  Speaker 4: you are probably one of our most experienced partners, you know,
• 5:31
  Speaker 4: from the since the early days, so you have been
• 5:34
  Speaker 4: working side by side on that evolution of the technology
• 5:38
  Speaker 4: and that's why I'm excited, you know, to continue to
• 5:40
  Speaker 4: partner on on what's coming next. That is definitely expanding
• 5:44
  Speaker 4: what we use to call supply chain design.
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: Perfect and before we jump into planning, one of the
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  Speaker 2: things that I think has been interesting for me since
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: I've been at Meeboch is seeing that you know, I
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: think previously my experience was companies did these network design
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: projects on some type of a periodic basis right, it was,
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: you know, every three to five years.
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: Over the last you.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: Know, seven or eight months since I've been with me back,
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  Speaker 2: I'm seeing that that's not necessarily true for more mature organizations,
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: where they're actually looking at their models and their network
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  Speaker 2: on a on a much more frequent basis. Rafa, like
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: you've got a lot of time with Koopa and with
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: lamasoft am I am I reading that correctly one.
• 6:32
  Speaker 4: Hundred percent, and I'll pass it to Pull after my
• 6:35
  Speaker 4: thoughts here because he has been also on the other
• 6:37
  Speaker 4: side of the table. But I've seen the evolution, you know, firsthand.
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  Speaker 4: We used to do you know, five year network design projects,
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  Speaker 4: you know, every other year, every you know, three years,
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  Speaker 4: and and that was the business you know, ten years ago.
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  Speaker 4: I think companies are still doing that a little bit.
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  Speaker 4: It's kind of a nice to have, but most of them,
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  Speaker 4: to your point chasing, the more mature ones are really
• 7:00
  Speaker 4: focus on what's going to happen next, right in the
• 7:02
  Speaker 4: next month, in the next six months. So I also
• 7:05
  Speaker 4: think the evolution of the technology has given us the
• 7:09
  Speaker 4: capabilities and the scalability to build you know, more complex model,
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  Speaker 4: more detail models, and you know, get us closer to
• 7:16
  Speaker 4: that integration with natural you know, planning decisions as well.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think if I can just jump onto that
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: as well, I think we are seeing it's interesting how
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: companies come to us. Generally they're going to come to
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: us with a challenge, but once they start fully realizing
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: the value of the capability, then we start seeing application
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: in many right across the supply chain. If you think
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: any supply chain, I like to think of supply chain
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  Speaker 1: as a collection of assets and relationships. So your assets
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: would be your inventory or equipment, production facilities, et cetera.
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  Speaker 1: Your relationship, which suppliers are you doing business with, what's
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: the terms of agreement, what's your relationship with the marketplace?
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  Speaker 1: Whenever you have to make a different asset or a
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: relationship decision, that's really where people are using supply chain optimization.
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  Speaker 1: Your planning system is very good at holding your current configuration.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: But there's a huge amount of disruption on supply chains
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: in the last five years has just been unbelievable. And
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: people think of disruptions as all being external, and there
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: is a lot of external disruption, But every executive has
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: to deliver growth, right, so there's a lot of internal
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: disruption that comes through. So whenever your supply chain needs
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: to adapt to evolve, how are you making those decisions?
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  Speaker 1: Because quite often you can't make those decisions in your
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: planning system. So what we're seeing with our customers as
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: they grow in maturity is they're taking the supply chain
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  Speaker 1: optimization capabilities and they're applying it to a specific asset
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  Speaker 1: or relationship or area of the business and saying, how
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  Speaker 1: do I need to evolve this area of the business.
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  Speaker 2: So I think we all agree that there is a problem, right,
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  Speaker 2: and that companies a most of them have planning systems
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  Speaker 2: and maybe excel, but especially the big ones have the
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: big companies, they've they've already made investments in an APS,
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  Speaker 2: an advanced planning system, they've already started to layer in
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  Speaker 2: maybe you know, some advanced AI and intelligence, but fundamentally
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  Speaker 2: they're still struggling. So from my standpoint, that means there's
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  Speaker 2: like a breakdown, right, something is breaking down between planning
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  Speaker 2: and the rest of the organization. How would you dive
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: into that, like, what are you seeing? What is the
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  Speaker 2: gap between the way people are planning and then what's
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  Speaker 2: happening with their brighter, broader supply chain.
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  Speaker 1: So if you think about planning systems, the EEIPP systems,
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  Speaker 1: they're they're incredibly reliant on inputs, so they're very good
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  Speaker 1: at doing exactly what you tell them to do. One
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  Speaker 1: of the things when I joined organizations was to try
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: and understand what is the current configuration, how does that
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  Speaker 1: supply change strategy line up with the commercial strategy? Is
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: it feasible and is it optimal? Like quite often, if
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: you think about it, I used to have the teams
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  Speaker 1: of twenty plus planners going in and making changes continuously, right,
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  Speaker 1: So a lot a lot of the job turns into reconciliation.
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  Speaker 1: So there's a huge amount of frustration with the executive
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: team trying to set a strategy and then realize that
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  Speaker 1: through the execution on this platform that's changing. But it's
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  Speaker 1: heavily reliant on the people interacting with it making those
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  Speaker 1: siloed decisions.
• 10:34
  Speaker 4: I'll just add that, I mean, to Poll's point, it's
• 10:38
  Speaker 4: definitely I mean, we're not talking about replacing those advanced
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  Speaker 4: planning systems. I totally agree that, you know, they are
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  Speaker 4: good for what they were designed to do, but now
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  Speaker 4: with so much volatility in the you know, in the ecosystem,
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  Speaker 4: all those constraints. All that data gets outdated pretty quick,
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  Speaker 4: so you end up with plans that are not feasible.
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  Speaker 4: So I think the question or the issue is not
• 11:03
  Speaker 4: about getting a better planning system or you know, revamping
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  Speaker 4: the planning system. I think it's about having better assumptions
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  Speaker 4: and better decisions to drive or to feed those planning
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  Speaker 4: systems so they can actually have the flexibility that they
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  Speaker 4: are lacking today.
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  Speaker 2: And at least from my perspective, one of the big
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  Speaker 2: issues is that the design tools and the metrics the
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: objectives around network design have historically resided in one part
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: of the business and planning teams have resided in another
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  Speaker 2: part of the business, and these two shall never meet
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  Speaker 2: to some extent.
• 11:43
  Speaker 4: Right.
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  Speaker 1: That's you're one hundred percent right by designs, the flight
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  Speaker 1: chain is fragmented, is siloed, right. The transportation team is
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: usually a separate team with a separate planning system TMS
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: than the operations team with a WMS. And then you
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: got the in treating with the advanced planning system and
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: they're all making decisions and a lot of the times
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: those planning systems are cost and capacity agnostic. You say, well, Paul,
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: let's now is that one hundred percent true. Is it
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: capacity agnostic? A lot of times if you put a
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: hard stop capacity in a system, if as you're taking
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: those customer orders, you don't want the system to stop,
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: which it would do if it hit a heart constraint.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: So generally it's just passed through to operations. So a
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: lot of the times these people are making decisions, they're
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: not really provided the information from which to make the
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: decision from. So Rafa talked about it's about making better decisions.
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: What does a better decision look like for the for
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: the organization? How aligned is that the decision with the
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  Speaker 1: strategy the executives are trying to accomplish here and.
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: Planning is happening continuously, but with static data, right, I mean,
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: which is also problematic here.
• 12:58
  Speaker 4: Exactly, which is part of the evolution as well of
• 13:03
  Speaker 4: that we're trying to do with the technology. So when
• 13:05
  Speaker 4: we talk about the buzzword of the digital twins and
• 13:08
  Speaker 4: so on, it's just the idea of, hey, we need
• 13:10
  Speaker 4: this constant feed of data to keep these models as
• 13:13
  Speaker 4: updated as possible or whenever you need a decision. And
• 13:18
  Speaker 4: I think the other biggest gap when I was leading
• 13:21
  Speaker 4: the Customer Success Steam, this was a metric that we
• 13:23
  Speaker 4: used to follow a lot, which was identified value versus
• 13:27
  Speaker 4: realize value. So we always were trying to teach our
• 13:31
  Speaker 4: customers like, it's great, you have a lot of models
• 13:34
  Speaker 4: you're making, you know a lot of scenarios, but anything
• 13:37
  Speaker 4: within the design framework that will be just you know,
• 13:40
  Speaker 4: identified value. You really need to cross the bridge and
• 13:44
  Speaker 4: get into the plimbing systems to actually execute and realize
• 13:47
  Speaker 4: that value. And of course we get into the issues
• 13:50
  Speaker 4: of silos and peoples and different responsibilities or incentives. So
• 13:55
  Speaker 4: it's actually way more complex than just the technology along.
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  Speaker 3: Okay, I'm following you.
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  Speaker 2: I think what we're really talking about then, is this
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  Speaker 2: fundamental need to connect three things, the design, the network itself, right,
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  Speaker 2: like what does your supply chain actually look like? The plan,
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: and then the execution of that plan. So like, what
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: does this look like in practice, like be really practical, pragmatic,
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: What would this look like in an organization?
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: The process that I think everyone is familiar with that
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: normally connects these tries to connect is the S and
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: OP or the IBP process, right that tries to bring
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: it all together is generally discussed at an aggregate level,
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: and that tries to bring everything together. But if you
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: think I've run the S and OP processes, if you
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: think in an organization, where do you get the information
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: from which to frame that S and OP discussion? Generally
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: is going to be from your planning systems. And then
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: the heart of the S and OP process is really
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: what is the current trend of the business? Given the
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: constraints of the suppliers and our ability to produce and
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: support new product introduction and everything, what is the current
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: trend of the business the demand, the revenue volume versus
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: the annual operating plan or the executive commitment to the
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: board of director's shareholders. Now, let's go through a scenario.
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: Let's say there's a gap between your financial commitment to
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: the marketplace and then your current trend of the business.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: That's where the executives really need to make decisions on
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: how are they going to evolve adapt their supply chain
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: to close that gap. Quite often you're coming back and
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: you're saying, can I let's run a scenario, how about
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: we bring this product launch forward, or we accelerate the
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: going into this specific market. Where are you going to
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: run those scenarios? You don't have the data to support it.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: You certainly don't have the transaction data. This is where
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: scenario planning really comes into its own, and let's executives
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: know that, run through the scenarios and understand the financial
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: and operational impacts of some of those decisions they're trying
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: to make to close the gaps to make sure that
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: they can meet that financial objective.
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: And so, if I'm hearing you correctly, what we're saying though,
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: is those scenarios really should be ran in the supply
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: chain design software, not necessarily in the planning software.
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: Is that correct?
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: Because your planning software is heavily input dependent and it
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: holds your current configure. Let's go through a scenario, Christy.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: Let's say let's say we're expanding business and we need
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: to open up a new we're bringing a new supplier
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: on board, or we're a wrapp a new distribution center. Right,
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: so in three months time, this capacity is going to
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: come on board. Can I put that in my planning
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: system today? Because it's not available to me today, right?
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: And then at what level of detail am I going
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: to put it in my plan system? Normally there's a
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: go live and there's a whole project about standing that
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: up but these executives will have several things on the
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: horizon that will impact the financial year end, which is
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: where they've got to ultimately meet their financial objectives. So generally,
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: the S and OP process, with scenario planning supported in
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: their design environment, gives them the opportunity to run those
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: scenarios baking in some of those decisions that are ongoing
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: across different business units, to give them that strong picture
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: of what's the financial and operational impacts of these decisions
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: we're making. I don't think it's feasible to run these
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: scenarios in a planning system.
• 17:39
  Speaker 4: Now.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: A lot of the planning systems have quote scenario planning capability,
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: and that's phenomenal. That's supply and demand balancing within the
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: infrastructure that you currently have. Right if you're changing your constraints,
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: your capacities, your suppliers, planning systems really struggle to run
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: those scenarios.
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: It is, yeah, incredibly challenging.
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: I mean I ran S and OP when I was
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: at me Johnson, and to your point, even if we
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: knew we had a new product, or we had additional
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: capacity coming on board the product development team, the PD team,
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: you weren't putting anything into the APS or the ERP
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: until it was one hundred percent approved, until it had
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: gone through all the regulatory hurdles. Right, So we were
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: pulling things out of the planning system and putting it
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: into Excel because it was the only option to kind
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: of see what those impacts are. And what you're really
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: saying is you've already made investments in KOOPA or a
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: similar tool. Why aren't we love reaching those investments to
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: really start to do more.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you're one hundred percent right changing And you say, well,
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: don't I have test environments to do this? Well, if
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: you start embedding your test environment into a monthly process,
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: then you've taken it away from the core function of
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: being able to test functions for update.
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: So it gets incredibly challenging to incorporate some of these
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: changes to answer executive questions before they occur.
• 19:15
  Speaker 4: Right. If I put it in a slightly different way,
• 19:18
  Speaker 4: I think when you were talking about the gaps and
• 19:20
  Speaker 4: analyzing the gaps, I still remember one of your fancy
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: salizes that you have to explain that. But for me,
• 19:26
  Speaker 4: it's all about creating the feedback loop. Right, Like I feel,
• 19:30
  Speaker 4: companies are very anxious and put a lot of effort
• 19:34
  Speaker 4: on in that order like design, plan, execute, and then
• 19:39
  Speaker 4: everything ends there and then they start all over again,
• 19:42
  Speaker 4: design and execute. So I think that final loop off. Okay,
• 19:46
  Speaker 4: let's learn like, why are we still seeing a gap
• 19:49
  Speaker 4: here at the end after we did all this process
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: kind of readjust and you know, circle back to the
• 19:55
  Speaker 4: first phase rather than starting all over again. I think
• 19:58
  Speaker 4: that feedback loop is very more than for the connection
• 20:01
  Speaker 4: between the three agreed.
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: Are there specific areas where you would think this is
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: like a hole in one, like we shouldn't even we
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: shouldn't even have to talk about it very much, right,
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: it should just make sense.
• 20:13
  Speaker 4: I can start like, I mean, there are definitely, I mean,
• 20:17
  Speaker 4: we have several use cases that we can support within
• 20:20
  Speaker 4: the platform, but I think the ones that come up
• 20:24
  Speaker 4: more commonly to you know, get into the planning and
• 20:27
  Speaker 4: get it into those feedback loops. One will be the
• 20:30
  Speaker 4: capacity planning, right like adjusting sourcing and production and making
• 20:34
  Speaker 4: sure everything stays in sync and also maybe even put
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: it in the inventory perspective, rebuild, inventory, cycle, stock, safety,
• 20:45
  Speaker 4: stock things like that. I think that's a very common one.
• 20:52
  Speaker 4: And perhaps the other one I will mention is on
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: the transportation side. Because you could do a more strategic
• 21:00
  Speaker 4: level road droub design transportation optimization. But then as you
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: get closer to execution and the changes that you might
• 21:10
  Speaker 4: have or the volatility you might have week by week.
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: Let's say we have customers that actually run their models
• 21:15
  Speaker 4: every week, you can adjust base on the actual demand
• 21:20
  Speaker 4: and the actual need of assets by location and things
• 21:23
  Speaker 4: like that. So I think on my side, those first
• 21:26
  Speaker 4: two could be a very good starting point for clients
• 21:30
  Speaker 4: looking into this.
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: I love it. I love it.
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: So I mean, at the end of the day, we
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: don't make investments just to make investments, right, It's has
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: to drive value, it has to improve performance. So it
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: really isn't about the plans or the models or the systems.
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: It's about what is going to deliver the results that
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: the company needs. So, Paul, what in your opinion, needs
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: to change for planning.
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: To drive better real world outcomes.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: So the key thing for me, and we talked about
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: the S and O b IVP process, The key thing
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: is how do we take the plans and we follow
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: them through the execution right? And I think the first
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: step of that is saying the planning system is great
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: at holding the configuration, but it's not great at adapting. Right,
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: So let me give you an example here with ravel
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: mentioned inventory optimization. Your deployment where you choose to stock
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: product is an input into a planning system. It doesn't
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: mean there's demand there, and as that demand changes, it
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily change the planning system. If I have a
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: forecastt demand and it satisfies the supply, that inventory stays there. Well,
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: your chief financial officer is probably not going to be
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: super happy about the working capital that's deployed in a
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: location that the planning system satisfied, but now there's no
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: demand for right. So some of the going back to
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: the concept of the I've got a collection of assets
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: and relationships, when do they need to change? So one
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: of the looking for quick return on investment is your
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: inventory actually optimized? Why do we deploy things where they're deployed?
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: Can we rebalance it? How can I optimize that working capital?
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: Working capital? I think really there's a lot of opportunities
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: and a lot of companies unlocking that working capital. The
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: S and OP is a big area of return.
• 23:21
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: So if you think your supply chain is not adaptable today,
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: how do you get there? You can be proactive but
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: you can also be reactive at agile.
• 23:30
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: I used to have a boss. I used to say,
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: if you can't be proactive, you need to be really
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: agile and reactive. I think the design capabilities give you that.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: If you have what we termin always on supply chain
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: design digital twin, yes, you can get ahead of a
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: lot and mitigate a lot of the disruptions that are
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: coming through because you can run contingencies and you can
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: safeguard and not subject yourself to the lost sales of
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: stockout positions and everything else. You can rebalance your inventry
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: to make sure that you're continuing to those revenue goals,
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: but reactive as things are happening. Can you read, can
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: you rebalance? Can you look at those capacity shortfalls or
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: those service level shortfalls from suppliers and can you respond
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: to those to ensure that you're you're still delivering value
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: and delivering on the expectations.
• 24:22
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: So I'm going to ask you, guys, how do you
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: recommend people get started? But before I do, I want
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: to address what I'm going to call the elephant in
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: the room. And by that what I mean I think
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: there's a perception in the market that this would be
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: incredibly expensive to do. But I think one of the
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: things that I've been really excited about that I've seen
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: in the last couple of months of working with Koopa
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: is you guys are actually changing your model and and
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: you're changing how you interact with customers. So do you
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: want to spend just a few minutes to kind of
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: highlight like like that. It's a it's a really big
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: shift in how Cooper's thinking about this, correct.
• 25:02
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think the main change we have done over
• 25:05
  Speaker 4: the past twelve months is to really align our very
• 25:09
  Speaker 4: own Cooper you know objectives and incentives with our customers
• 25:14
  Speaker 4: objectives and incentives. So rather than charging or selling our platform,
• 25:21
  Speaker 4: you know, by the traditional number of users and as
• 25:24
  Speaker 4: everyone has been doing business in the task, we're actually
• 25:27
  Speaker 4: trying that to use such and value right. So I
• 25:31
  Speaker 4: think that's a big shift because if you are not
• 25:34
  Speaker 4: getting value out of the platform, then we are not
• 25:36
  Speaker 4: getting you know, our incentives on our site, right, So
• 25:40
  Speaker 4: customers will be essentially paying for what they use for
• 25:44
  Speaker 4: the value they're extracting from the platform, and that essentially
• 25:48
  Speaker 4: incentivizes the whole team, like services, customer success marketing you
• 25:52
  Speaker 4: call it, to actually drive more adoption, more use cases,
• 25:57
  Speaker 4: more value together with our customers, rather than we already
• 26:00
  Speaker 4: made a transaction, you bought you a bunch of licenses.
• 26:04
  Speaker 4: I'm don you figure it out. We are now more
• 26:07
  Speaker 4: than ever very close to our customers on this.
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: Well, and it actually, from my perspective, it helps to
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: kind of tear those silos down, where previously we would
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: have said, well, this this group, whether it was logistics
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: or transportation or maybe a network coe, they owned the
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: licenses and they were not going to give up a
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: lot of functionally to another group. Right, So this really
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: allows better collaboration within the customer base of those various stakeholders.
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: Okay, So as a practitioner, it was always a point
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: of frustration for me because the capabilities were phenomenal, but
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: we almost penalized customers, right, So, as I had my
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: center of excellence, I really wanted to set up processes
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: to allow the transportation team to optimize. But in the
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: old model, we've kind of penalized through the pricing for
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: doing that. Right, We're moving away from that. So Cooper's
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: done a couple of really good things for us, right.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: It gave us the scale and the security, the ability
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: to uh to support. So the investment from Cooper has
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: been phenomenal for the capabilities overall. The use user based
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: pricing is great and that overcomes a huge point of frustration.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: At least it was for me. I imagine for many people.
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: And then the other thing that I don't think everyone
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: realizes is as we invent and there's a lot of investment,
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: the world's changing and the agentic platforms coming through, I
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: don't want another skew for every time we do something clever.
• 27:37
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: So the capabilities are developing, but it's developing and it's
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: embedded in the capabilities that we have. So when you
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: form a strategic relationship, you're benefiting from all of that
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: investment and where we're going to. So I really I
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: used to get frustrated when companies would do something clever
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: and say, but I have this extra skew, right, so
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: you got.
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: To charge I'm charging you more money to use this? Yeah, no,
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: I agree with you. I it's incredibly aggravating. Okay, So
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: let's get to the juicy part. How does somebody get started?
• 28:11
  Speaker 4: Right?
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: I mean this seems like a lot. Do I have
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: to rip everything out? Do I start over?
• 28:16
  Speaker 4: I'll say the good news is that you definitely don't
• 28:18
  Speaker 4: need to rip and replace anything. We are usually coming
• 28:23
  Speaker 4: to ougment what you have and complement and give that
• 28:26
  Speaker 4: flexibility that we're talking about. So for me, the best
• 28:30
  Speaker 4: place to start will be to you know, first of all,
• 28:34
  Speaker 4: peak one or two high value decisions or areas that
• 28:37
  Speaker 4: we want to improve. Then you know, bring the proper
• 28:40
  Speaker 4: capabilities or close that gap that you might be missing.
• 28:44
  Speaker 4: But again it's going to be augmenting, complementing what you
• 28:47
  Speaker 4: already have, and then essentially start creating those you know,
• 28:51
  Speaker 4: feedback loops that we were talking about. So there is
• 28:54
  Speaker 4: obviously a component of technology implementation consulting, but for me,
• 28:59
  Speaker 4: it's also about you know, how the organization is operating,
• 29:03
  Speaker 4: how we are aligning you know, those different areas, how
• 29:06
  Speaker 4: we're breaking down the silos. So it goes beyond the technology,
• 29:10
  Speaker 4: but it definitely pays off if we will invest into this.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely there's no rip and replace. This is if
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: you think of this scenario, planning capability applied to the
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: right processes and supporting the executive team more is really
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: a phenomenal capability Coopers. As I think you know, maybe
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: many of the listeners know have thousands of successful customer implementations.
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: Maybec is incredibly experienced in this space as well, So
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: how do we get the customer from where they are
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: today to the point the return on investment?
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: I like to call it funding the journey. So generally
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: the approach I would recommend is, as Raphael said, Let's
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: find where the real pain points are at the moment,
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: the frustration points, and that's the low hanging through. Let's
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: unlock that and then think through what else can we
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: use this capability for to support support you achieving those
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: service levels, support you achieving the growth aspirations of your executives,
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: to take away some of the pain of those disruptions,
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: mitigate them as much as possible. So there's a huge
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: amount of opportunity right across supply chain, whether it's in inventry, warehousing, transportation,
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: production planning. So there's a lot of opportunity out there.
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I love it. I mean, I'm a true supply
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: chain NERD, so I'm like, oh, this is so exciting.
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: If people want to learn more, are they want to
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: continue the conversation? How do they get in touch with you?
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: Where can they find additional information?
• 30:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah? Absolutely, I think it can definitely reach out directly,
• 30:52
  Speaker 4: reaches out through LinkedIn, we will definitely connect with the
• 30:55
  Speaker 4: right people. But this is also part of why we
• 30:57
  Speaker 4: are building our partner ecosystem. Definitely called me back as well.
• 31:02
  Speaker 4: I think we have been working side by side on
• 31:04
  Speaker 4: addressing these challenges. And I'll say also, the best way
• 31:10
  Speaker 4: to get to know more is join us at the
• 31:13
  Speaker 4: various events that we're going to be participating in the
• 31:16
  Speaker 4: following weeks. We have a very tight schedule from now
• 31:20
  Speaker 4: till the summer, so I know there's gonna be a
• 31:22
  Speaker 4: lot of opportunities to interact, listen to our panels, wearing
• 31:26
  Speaker 4: ours things that we're doing just to get the word out.
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, as Rafael said, weed, so this is I call
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: this conference season. So I sm Inspire got a whole
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: host of a whole host of events that we do,
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: so please come and say hello to us there. Often
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: we're side by side with Maybec. The Cooper website is
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: also phenomenal as well. We've got it. We've got a
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: huge amount of information and resources there. So if you
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: just like that sounds interesting, let me go learn more.
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: Go to the Cooper website. We've got demonstration on there.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: We've got a lot of white papers on there, so
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: but reach Out I love it.
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: UH LinkedIn for me as well.
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: Although I always tell people to be patient, I will
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: get through all the messages eventually. Sometimes I'm a little slow.
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: But I will be at Gartner. The Supply Chain Symposium
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: will be actually Mebach will have a booth both at
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: the US and the European symposiums. I personally am going
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: to be at Kooper Inspire. It's my first one. I'm
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: super excited about it. And then people can also find
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: me in May at Home Delivery World in Nashville. So
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: if you're attending reach Out, I'd love to connect. We
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: can get a coffee or a cocktail or just you know,
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: shoot the breeze a little bit and get geeked out
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: on supply chain. And as always, thank you so much
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: for joining us. Appreciate you, Paul, Appreciate you Rafa. Can't
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: wait to spend some quality time with you over the
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: next couple of weeks, and so excited that you joined us.
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: On speaking of supply chain, our next episode is actually
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: centered on warehouse automation trends with me Box owned Sophie James.
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: So I hope everybody will join us again in two
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: weeks as we continue to unpack what's happening in the
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: world of supply chain.
• 33:33
  Speaker 5: You've been listening to Speaking of Supply Chain, a meboch podcast.
• 33:36
  Speaker 5: Keep connected with us by subscribing to the show in
• 33:39
  Speaker 5: your favorite podcast player. If you like what you've heard,
• 33:41
  Speaker 5: please rate the show that helps us to keep delivering
• 33:44
  Speaker 5: the latest in supply chain information. Thanks for listening. Until
• 33:48
  Speaker 5: next time,