December 2, 2025 • 49 mins
In this episode of DynamicsCorner, join hosts Kristoffer and Brad as they discuss an innovative e-commerce solution for Business Central, featuring special guests Tom Flierl and Jeff Seidel from Amla Commerce. Discover how Artifi and Znode are revolutionizing product customization and digital commerce. From real-time virtual proofs to seamless integrations, explore the cutting-edge innovations that are setting new industry standards. Tune in for insightful discussions, laughter, and a glimpse into the future of online shopping.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_04 (00:00):
Welcome everyone to another episode of Dynamics
Corner.
What is an e-commerce and customartification?
I'm your co-host Chris.
SPEAKER_02 (00:11):
And this is Brad.
This episode was recorded onNovember 20th, 2025.
Chris, Chris, Chris.
E-commerce.
Custom orders.
I have so many ideas now afterhaving that conversation.
With us today, we had theopportunity to speak with Tom
and Jeff about Artify andXenode.
(00:52):
How are you doing?
SPEAKER_01 (00:53):
Hello.
Hi, good afternoon.
Hey, good afternoon.
Doing great.
SPEAKER_02 (00:59):
Uh great, great.
Uh thank you for taking the timeto speak with us this afternoon.
Thank you.
Um appreciate it.
No, no, it's good.
You know, I I I'm kinda just alittle quiet right now.
I have been AI vibe coding allweek long.
Wow.
(01:21):
It's unbelievable.
Unbelievable.
Like I literally now just didlike do a code review of this
application, and I think I did abetter code review than I could
have done.
SPEAKER_04 (01:32):
So you're vibe coding.
A lot of people are doing uhvibe agent agent vibing or
something like that.
SPEAKER_02 (01:38):
Well, I I'm pa I I'm I'm putting it all in one bucket
because I really don't know whatyou call it.
I don't know if it's reallyvibing.
If I know about the applicationand I know about the language,
and I'm doing it.
I think the term or the uh thevibe coding has been coined from
you just kind of going with thevibes.
(02:00):
I have to I I know the historyof it, but I'm so odd at the
moment that I can't thinkclearly about it.
So it's uh it's a strange worldthat we're coming into.
I think uh uh and it's going tooquickly.
Anyway, enough of my short burstof uh uh conversation.
SPEAKER_04 (02:23):
Well, that vibe is applying everywhere to
everything you do now.
SPEAKER_02 (02:27):
It is, it is, and I think I'll have to try to go a
day without talking about it orthinking about it.
I think the only way to do thatis to just go out into the woods
and walk around and not have anycell phone or anything or talk
to anybody uh to see about it.
Anyway, um uh thank you both fortaking the time to speak with
us.
Uh and before we get into theconversation, would you mind
(02:48):
telling us a little bit?
Yeah, so you bet.
SPEAKER_00 (02:50):
Um by the way, I did fill out the form that was
linked in the meeting with allmy information.
So chief commercial officer atAMLA Commerce, which is our
parent company.
We have two products Artify,which is for product
customization.
So a good example is Land Zandhas a uniform division.
They customize products like uhbusiness uniforms, and our
(03:15):
platform allows them to do thatdirectly in an e-commerce
experience and see a real-timevirtual crew.
And then our other product is CNode, which is a V e-commerce
platform uh built in theMicrosoft stack, and we work
with a lot of mid-marketenterprise manufacturers and
distributors.
And my background is I grew upin the SI world and the digital
(03:35):
agency space before coming toour public.
SPEAKER_02 (03:37):
And uh okay, great, thank you.
How about you, Jeff?
SPEAKER_01 (03:40):
Yeah, um, I'm Jeff Seidel.
I'm the director of partnershipshere at AMLACommerce for our
products, Artify and Zenode.
I've been in the Microsoftchannel for about four years.
Um, and my day-to-day is workingwith our Microsoft partners, our
agencies or systems integrators,and our ISV partners.
So thanks for having me on.
SPEAKER_02 (03:59):
Oh, great, great, thank you.
So you have two products on themarket that you work with uh in
the business central space.
Um can you tell me a little bitmore about each of those
products and uh how that howthey can be leveraged within uh
somebody who has a businesscentral implementation?
SPEAKER_00 (04:18):
Sounds great.
Jeffrey, you okay if I jump inon that?
Yeah, so um one of our productsis called Artify, A-R-T-I-F-I.
Uh the URL is artifylabs.com,and Artify is for online product
customization.
So the use case really is in thepromotional product space, the
(04:40):
uniform industry, the safetyindustry, where product
customization is missioncritical.
So a good example is uh Land Zenis a very large uniform
manufacturer and they have abusiness uniform division where
Fortune 500 companies work withLand Zen to create their uniform
program.
It could be an airline thatallows pilots to go in and
(05:03):
customize their airline uniform.
The pilot wants to be able tosee what that uniform looks like
in a shopping experience.
They want to see where theirlogos go, maybe on their
shoulders or on their chest.
Uh, and this those are typicallypre-approved logos.
Um, they may have someflexibility to add their own
logo.
So perhaps they're they're a vetand they have a military logo
(05:26):
they want to add.
There's different rules that canbe configured or created for
every different scenario withuniforms, promotional products,
etc., including even having thecaptain write Captain Tom in
embroidery on that on that uhuniform before they hit the buy
button.
So our product Artify actuallyallows, it's it sits on any
(05:48):
platform, it's agnostic, but itallows for that customization to
occur in a shopping experience.
So there's a real-time virtualsample on screen before the
customer hits the buy button.
SPEAKER_02 (05:59):
Uh I like that.
And I asked for that.
I've come across the need forthat before.
So now if you have a productthat is customizable, this gives
your customer a shoppingexperience to where they can
customize it on the web, see theresults, and then it will be put
(06:21):
into business central for you toprocess.
And what does it create?
Does it create a an assemblyorder, production order,
purchase order, sales order?
SPEAKER_00 (06:31):
How does that dynamic information get into the
question?
So typically that information ispassed back into the e-commerce
platform, and the e-commerceplatform typically has both SKU
level pricing and variant levelpricing, and then that gets
pushed into business centralalong with so that'd be the
order file, and then along withthe metadata for the actual
(06:54):
customizations, and Artifyprovides a PDF output file.
So think of a think of a the PDFfile showing what the product
is, what are the coordinates forwhere the different
customizations occur, what arethose customizations, as well as
information.
So, for example, if it's anembroidery file, it will
(07:15):
actually provide the DST file,it will provide the thread
color, the thread count, all ofthat information.
That's cool.
So somebody who's on the floorwho's actually got to produce
the product gets the output fileand they punch it into a machine
and they create the actualuniform or could be a
promotional product, etc.
So it provides all the data forthe production team as well.
SPEAKER_02 (07:39):
So this creates more it's so it it's more than just
creating an order, it soundslike to me.
It's if you have a customproduct or custom in your case
embroidery.
Fortunately, I know, orunfortunately, I don't know if
you how you call it.
I know a little bit aboutembroidery.
So so then you receive the oreven other uh type of design,
(08:00):
because I've had worked withsystems this before where they
had customizations and you'resending a file to feed into the
machine, and then it willautomatically uh adjust that
product for you.
And if it's embroidering, itwill create the design without
the operator having to setanything up.
They just load the file, let themachine run, and then that
product gets output.
(08:20):
That's pretty cool.
There's so many uses I could seefor that.
And honestly, in 2025, everybodyseems to have that on demand.
I want it now and I want it myway.
That having that flexibility Ithink is creative.
Um does it work with other thanuh embroidery could it work with
(08:42):
other types of products, or isit geared towards more just
embroidery?
And I'm getting to I can thinkof jewelry where people want to
customize their settings.
I can think of other types of uhlogo type products where they
maybe print.
So if you have a custom t-shirtshop that you may want to uh be
able to quickly createcustomized t-shirts for some.
SPEAKER_00 (09:05):
It works with all of the above.
It could be a heat transferfile, an embroidery file, an
engraving file.
Those are just in our world,those are decoration methods.
And we have a long list ofdecoration methods we support.
I brought up embroidery becauseembroidery is a very expensive
decoration method to manage.
Most companies have to take alogo and they have to have it
digitized, which is expensive.
(09:27):
And there's large offshore teamsthat do this.
Before Artify, companies wouldactually receive the order, and
a customer service rep wouldhave to take the logo and send
it to an offshore team.
They would get it back five dayslater, then they email the
customer, go in.
Maybe they would have a designteam create a virtual proof, you
know, that'd be emailed.
(09:48):
So your sales cycle in that timeperiod would be anywhere from
one business week to twobusiness weeks to get one
uniform completed or to get auniform program approved.
Today, today they can be done intwo minutes automatically.
Now, to your question, is itbeyond just embroidery types?
Absolutely.
I mean, we have customers in theuh the Christmas card catalog
(10:13):
where you can customize aChristmas card.
We have customers that do parkbenches uh and and things like
garbage cans for golf courses.
Um but where you see I I use theterm earlier, mission critical.
Where you see mission criticalproduct customization is
typically in some very largecategories like uniform
promotional product safety.
(10:34):
Think of all the guys on thehighway and and and uh gals too
that have high viz vests withthe logo on the back.
It's very common in thoseindustries, but we support a
very, very broad number ofindustries.
Wow, so it saves a lot of timethen.
SPEAKER_04 (10:48):
I mean you you gotta think about all the uh companies
that uh does this a long life,long sales cycle and and kind of
compress that into minutes,sounds like it's not just a long
sales cycle, it's a lot ofmanual labor that can be
automated.
unknown (11:06):
Wow.
SPEAKER_02 (11:06):
See, so it's just like it's just like vibe and
embroidery, vibe and customproducts.
The uh I'll tell you something.
SPEAKER_00 (11:12):
We were talking about AI before we got on here,
but one of the we're justreleasing this feature and we're
starting in the promotionalproducts category.
So one of the um challenges ifyou have a very large catalog of
SKUs and you have customizationon every product is knowing the
exact XY coordinates on aproduct.
(11:33):
So in the promotional productspace, we're actually using AI
to do automatic product setup.
So if you have a catalog of5,000 products and you want to
set up the XY coordinate onevery different water bottle,
t-shirt, uniform, we're actuallyautomating that entire process
with AI.
So there's there's some reallycool releases that we're uh that
(11:54):
that we are releasing um inArtify as well that not only
automate the buying process butalso the the operational process
in the background.
SPEAKER_02 (12:05):
So with Artify, where so you had mentioned so
Artify then communicates with ane-commerce solution.
That e-commerce solution is ityour e-commerce solution or can
it work with other e-commercesolutions?
SPEAKER_00 (12:21):
I'll I'll get a little bit deeper into that.
Um our e-commerce solution,Zenode, absolutely.
There's a pre-built integration,uh obviously because sister
products.
However, Artify does integrateinto any other platform.
We actually have partnershipswith Big Commerce, uh Adobe
Magento, go down the list,Shopify.
(12:43):
Now, I want to get a littledeeper on that answer.
In bigger uh companies that dothis where it's mission
critical, such as uniforms,there's a need to stand up at
typically a unique store for acustomer.
So, for example, if I ammanaging airline programs and
hotel programs, I can't besharing the same product catalog
(13:06):
that I share with a Hilton hotelchain that I share with an
American Airlines program.
And typically there's a customportal for each customer.
You typically can't do that on atraditional B2C platform.
So that's where Xenode reallypartners well with Artify
because Zenode managesmulti-store very, very easily,
because Zenode was built forthese complex B2B use cases, not
(13:31):
for the mom and pop Shopifystore owner or you know, maybe
the smaller retailer that mightrun big commerce.
SPEAKER_02 (13:43):
I understand.
So in essence, your solutionwith Xenode is you have a
different portal for eachcustomer.
Therefore, it's their productlines and their customizations
that are available for theircustomer to purchase.
SPEAKER_00 (14:00):
There's one one use case for Xenode, but Xenode does
manage that use case very, veryeasily.
SPEAKER_02 (14:06):
Okay.
I like this Artify.
SPEAKER_00 (14:08):
Now, with Artify, can someone upload their own
design or is it already pre ithas to be pre set up from the
the You can do both amerchandiser can create
templates and and typically youdo have to have some templated
rules, um so but also withinthose templates, then they can
(14:32):
control a rule like let the userupload a logo.
But there's still rules on likewhere can the logo go.
Can the logo does it have to beforced to fit into a small space
where it's very defined, or doyou give them an op, we call it
an open canvas where the logocan be moved around?
So there's a bunch of rules thatstill go into that.
(14:52):
Um because on the back end, themore the fewer rules you have,
the more difficult it is toautomate the process to set up
the product when you're in aproduction environment.
Also, most companies want tocontrol the brand experience so
their pilots don't walk onto anairplane and the uniform looks
crazy because they put theirname on the back of the uniform
(15:12):
instead of on the left chest.
Right.
So there's some practicality tothis as well.
I wonder if that ever had ourproduct, but who knows?
I want to make the logo goahead.
I'll wear that.
SPEAKER_04 (15:29):
Yeah, I'll wear that today, huh?
SPEAKER_02 (15:32):
It's not a basketball uniform, it's a
pilot's uniform, right?
No, it's um so so with thesetup, so we're talking about
Artify and then the Zenode, uh,we'll we'll talk about maybe the
setup of them both.
So Zenode is uh an e-commercesolution that interfaces with
(15:52):
Business Central.
That e-commerce solution, wheredoes that reside?
Is that a cloud-based solution?
Is it a solution that a customeror or a merchant that uses that
would have to host themselves orhost elsewhere?
Uh how does that question?
SPEAKER_00 (16:09):
No, it's completely cloud-based.
Everything is in uh MicrosoftAzure SQL, so cloud database, uh
uh Azure Kubernetes for updates.
It's a true SaaS platform,although the database is siloed
because a lot of biggercompanies don't want their data
intermingled with other withother companies' data.
But everything is cloud-based,true distributed SaaS model, and
(16:32):
all all built in Microsoft.
SPEAKER_02 (16:34):
Okay.
And then the interface withBusiness Central, uh, does it
work with Business Centralonline or Business Central
on-premises?
SPEAKER_00 (16:44):
Um it can work with both.
Um, you know, on-prem, sometimesthere are latency issues and and
depends upon how customized theimplementation was for the ERP.
Xenode has, we call it aCommerce Connector, and within
that Commerce connector, there'sdata exchanges.
So you can simply map Xenode'sAPI and Xenode's an API first
(17:05):
platform with the BC API orwhatever webhook is available,
and you can just create touchpoints for them to communicate.
So it's very easy to map it witha standard BC integration.
If there's customization, thenthere's ways around that within
our platform.
But we have this this connectordata exchange uh engine that
(17:26):
that really powers all of that.
SPEAKER_02 (17:28):
So it does work with custom.
So if you have an extensionwithin Business Central, you add
fields, you can those fields canalso be used to send data up to
Zenode so that the experiencefor your customer uh or however
how you may be processing it arealso uh available.
Yep, absolutely.
Absolutely.
(17:49):
With it being an e-commerceplatform, uh payment processing,
do you do the payment processingor can they use their their own
payment processor?
Can a merchant use their own paypayment processor uh or select
from a list of those Tom, I canjump in on that.
SPEAKER_01 (18:06):
Um we have a partnership with a company
called Spreadly.
Uh Spreedly is a paymentaggregate.
Um so we actually allow ourcustomers to choose from any of
those.
There's about 150 differentpayment gateways that they can
choose from, um, which reallysimplifies that process.
SPEAKER_00 (18:23):
And that's great.
Spreadly and all these paymentgateways are PCI compliant.
So typically an e-commerceplatform doesn't actually own
the payment gateway.
That's a specialized productthat is provided by typically
large banks or financialinstitutions or the the
companies like FIServe thatprovide the services underneath
(18:44):
those banks.
SPEAKER_01 (18:47):
That's great.
SPEAKER_02 (18:47):
I know, I know if I had an e-commerce solution, I
wouldn't want to manage thepayment gateway myself.
I think there's just too much tome personally, I think there
would be too much risk there.
I know there's others that cando it and they do it on their
own, but and they do itsuccessfully, but I would leave
that to someone else because I'drather just vibe away over here
and not have to worry about thatsensitive information.
(19:08):
So a lot of liability to carry.
Oh, absolutely, absolutely.
Um so for an implement.
So what else is in the Xenodeproduct for e-commerce?
So you mentioned that it worksuh and integrates with um uh
your other product.
(19:29):
If somebody wanted to use thatas a standalone e-commerce
solution, is that also an optionfor them?
SPEAKER_00 (19:36):
Oh, absolutely.
Yeah, absolutely.
Xenode has many customersintegrated with Artified as many
customers that aren't in thosecategories.
We have a number of globalmanufacturers that run global
aftermarket parts on Xenode.
We have a number ofmanufacturers that are based in
North America that createportals for their dealers.
(19:56):
Um Xenode's just an it sothere's a couple things because
the e-commerce category rightnow is kind of confusing to
understand.
A lot of traditional B2Cplatforms have started to get
into the market and say we'realso B2B.
Um, and they're not.
And so that's where Xenodereally stands out.
We we really focus only on B2B.
(20:19):
100% of our customers aremanufacturers and distributors.
Um and so and we have thecapabilities to help those
companies manage thecomplexities of what
manufacturers and distributorsneed to manage in e-commerce.
unknown (20:36):
I get it.
SPEAKER_02 (20:37):
Okay, I understand that.
So now there is a big differencebetween B2B and B2C, and I've
come across that, and a lot oftimes someone tries to have a
platform that does both, and itrequires some specialization
because uh customization andspecific features because you
may need uh and I'm I'm askingsome of these questions as I go
(20:59):
through it, is you can so thenwith it being B2B, you can have
specific catalogs, productcatalogs, pricing catalogs for a
specific customer.
And again, working with Artify,where you're saying you have a
separate portal.
I see how all that flowstogether.
SPEAKER_00 (21:13):
Right.
Um I was just saying one of thebiggest um requirements in B2B
is customer-specific catalogs.
It could be customer-specific,like account-specific
assortments, segment-specificcatalogs.
If you're a large distributor,you may serve plumbing
electrical and industrial.
Well, depending, you know, ifJeff logs in and he's uh he's an
(21:34):
MRO purchasing agent, he mayonly be purchasing industrial
products where if I log in andI'm an electrical contractor,
I'm only gonna look at theelectrical catalog potentially,
right?
So catalog manager managementmatters a lot.
Now you get into extreme usecases like uniform programs or
even government contracts, it'swhere you have to show a pre
(21:56):
procured approved catalog to thebuyer, or you're gonna lose your
business with that buyer.
Makes sense.
SPEAKER_04 (22:03):
No, someone someone that's interested in and uh I
know you have two products,right?
You're Zenode and uh Rtify.
Uh just going back to Artify,for for an organization that uh
you know want to um notnecessarily eliminate but
minimize all the manual process,uh, what does it usually take
for someone to implement thatthat product?
SPEAKER_00 (22:26):
Um you know, typically uh one, they would
have to have an e-commerceplatform.
It's hard to implement withoutan e-commerce platform.
Although do we have some we dohave some companies that
actually implement it andintegrate it into their ERP so
their salespeople can createvirtual proofs and and
customizations on behalf of thecustomer.
Think of somebody in an insidesales role.
(22:47):
But one, you would need ane-commerce platform, and then
two, you would need decentassets.
Um, so think about if you'regonna do a uniform, you need to
have the flat asset of the frontof the uniform, the flat asset
of the back of the uniform godown the list.
We can also do 360 rotation ifyou have a graphic file.
Um, and then you need to havesome sense of where the rules
(23:09):
are on those uniforms.
Right?
Or you have to have somebodywho's going to somebody in the
merchandise, they call itmerchandising or um e-commerce
management department who'sgoing to know those rules and
set up the products orunderstand how to set those up.
That's that's really about it.
SPEAKER_04 (23:28):
Yeah, pretty straightforward.
Do you do you guys help for likeorganizations that maybe don't
have those prepared?
Because there's there's beentimes where I'm helping them
implement something like we needthese requirements, and like, I
don't know what those are.
Can you help me out?
SPEAKER_00 (23:44):
Yeah, I mean, we we absolutely help with the a set
of requirements ahead of time.
Uh we are a software company, sowe don't have a photo studio for
flat assets.
We don't have a um, you know, wedo offer some product setup
help, and we've automated a lotof it with AI, but we are a
software company.
So at the end of the day, weprovide what I would say is base
(24:05):
the base software and the someassistance with product
information and setup.
Gotcha.
Gotcha.
SPEAKER_04 (24:12):
And and so there's a requirement to get their
e-commerce.
Hopefully they do havee-commerce.
Um do you typically then uhperhaps uh work with them if
they're not happy with theire-commerce?
Uh so they implement e-commercefirst before uh doing Artify.
SPEAKER_00 (24:33):
Typically, what happens is they will come to us
and say we love Artify, butwe're unhappy with our
e-commerce platform.
And like like literally, this ishow the story goes.
We have a B2C platform and werealize we need program
management and we need a B2Bplatform.
Any recommendations, and wetypically say, Well, can we
introduce you to Zenode?
(24:55):
And it's not even part of oursales strategy, it literally is.
There's just a lot of companiesthat are suffering with the the
wrong e-commerce platform.
So there is there's an overlapthere.
I think the data is like 68% ofmanufacturers and distributors
are unhappy with theire-commerce platform and want to
replatform.
SPEAKER_04 (25:12):
That's it, that's fun.
That's interesting because uhyeah, every time there's an
e-commerce conversation, uh,they always mention that you
know we want to change, we justdon't know where where to go.
Right.
Who to go to.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (25:28):
Jeff has been like a vital part of our company.
Um, we see a lot of that in theMicrosoft channel.
I think Jeff identified thatvery early on as there's a lot
of manufacturers anddistributors, whether than BC or
uh what used to be called FNO,that are struggling.
SPEAKER_02 (25:45):
So is yeah, to take away from that a little bit,
just from that topic, because II think about this with a lot of
applications.
People struggle with their ERPsoftware, people struggle with
the e-commerce software.
I struggle with uh my walletsometimes.
If you're struggling with thee-commerce platform, is it a
(26:07):
case of growth often?
Do you see uh Tom, you mentionedthat Jeff, you see that space.
Is it typically an issue of Ioutgrew the e-commerce platform?
Meaning my either my businesshas changed, or my business
model has changed, or mybusiness volume has changed,
because you may start off withum, I know you have Zenode, but
(26:31):
you may start off with Shopifyor something, or you may start
off with Big Commerce.
There's a lot of e-commerceplatforms out there.
And you started off as a B2Cshop, and then you realize that
there's a space for B2B, andthen you try to squeeze B2B
within that same platformwithout exploring other options
or even expanding uh uh youknow, expanding the use of the
(26:53):
application.
I I see this often on the ERPimplementations where you go
through an ERP implementation,we talked about this in previous
episodes as well.
When are you done?
You're really never done becauseyou need to have maintenance on
that to keep up with yourbusiness.
Do you find that's a oftenstruggle for them, or do you
think it's they just chose thewrong platform?
SPEAKER_01 (27:13):
I think it can be both.
Um I think that if you end uppurchasing Shopify as your
platform, or not to pick onShopify, it could be any uh
direct consumer platform, um,it's it's very simple to run
that type of retail model,right?
So um typically you have an MSRPprice list, we all log on, see
(27:35):
the same catalog um and pay thesame price unless you have some
sort of coupon code orsomething.
Whereas with B2B, uh it's verylikely you have a
customer-specific catalog,customer-specific pricing.
There needs to be a differentdata model on the e-commerce
experience for that to work.
So um I think that people gointo the process of selecting a
platform, maybe they know thebrand name, Shopify, and
(27:57):
purchased it, and then two yearslater they're running into
issues and replatforming.
SPEAKER_00 (28:02):
I I'll jump in and actually how Jeff and I met,
Jeff worked uh with anothercompany and uh in the e-commerce
space, and they had a customerthat actually was on BC, they
still are, and they had acatalog of 1.5 million SKUs.
Wow.
They were making calls back andforth to BC to surface that
(28:26):
product information, and theirERP was getting overtaxed,
overburdened.
E-commerce experience was very,very slow, and they actually
found Zenode, and now they'rethey have almost six million
SKUs on Zenode, and they have noperformance issues.
And uh, that's actually how Jeffand I got to know each other,
but it was literally it wasn't abad platform, it just wasn't a
(28:49):
platform that's made for theirB2B business model, and so
they've actually myunderstanding is their it's
their sales have increasedfivefold online since moving to
Zenode because they can now runa much bigger catalog and they
can create uh customer-specificcatalogs because they have a lot
of government contracts.
So there's a lot of problemsthat were solved that maybe
didn't surface initially thatnow have surfaced and and we've
(29:12):
helped them.
SPEAKER_01 (29:13):
Yeah, I think that goes to the use case of they
bought the right platform forthemselves at the time, and then
a few years later their companyhad grown so much that it was
time to find something a littlebit more scalable.
SPEAKER_04 (29:25):
Yeah, that that makes sense.
That's I think that's a lot ofthe common scenarios, um, at
least from my experience, wherethey may be coming from an ERP
system, and along the way,they're also not only they're
outgrowing their ERP system, butthey're also outgrowing their um
e-commerce, right?
And and so uh the the questionbecomes, you know, how much of
(29:46):
those project you want to takeon, uh, you know, because first
of all, you gotta upgrade ormove to an ERP system, and then
at the same time trying to buildan entire e commerce platform,
which typically Coincides withthe decision of do we stay with
the existing one or look forsomething else?
And that usually a commonconversation is that yeah,
(30:08):
you're right.
Brad had mentioned and Jeff,they outgrow that.
And it may not be a bad solutionat that time, but eventually
they'll outgrow.
And they want to do otheravenues.
SPEAKER_02 (30:19):
Right.
Right.
Step back to the architecture alittle bit, thinking of uh the
use case of the experience foruh those that are using it.
Artify is a web-basedapplication that has data and
has information in it to allowfor the customization of
product.
(30:40):
Um I'll simplify it.
Uh I know you it does it has alot of features.
I'm just kind of breaking itdown.
And then you have Zenode, whichis the e-commerce or it can be
any e-commerce solution in themiddle, and then you have your
underlying ERP software, whichwe're talking about with
Business Central, and I heardyou mentioned, and I always say
this every time I say it, FNO, FA X, FNSCM, F.
(31:00):
I can give you the whole lineageuh of names that it's had.
It's had I think it's had morethan Business Central, to be
honest with you, uh, in ashorter period of time.
We have to look that up.
It's hard to keep up.
It's very hard to keep up.
Where does the data reside andhow does the data get there?
So one of the challenges that Isee with implementations is we
(31:21):
have master data managementissues.
That master data management canbe within business central
itself, across companies, acrosstenants, and then now you add
e-commerce to it, and sometimesyou have there would we have
duplicate entry of data?
How does the data go back andforth?
You know, one system has a needfor more data than another.
(31:43):
Uh, and now we add this otherlayer to it.
Where does the data reside andhow does the data get managed?
SPEAKER_00 (31:51):
Jeff, do you mind if I jump in on that?
Yeah, you got it.
Yeah, so it depends upon thesize of the company.
Um and it depends upon theire-commerce platform.
One of the reasons that thescenario we were just talking
about, they were having issuesis because all the data resided
within the ERP.
(32:11):
And that means constant callsback and forth.
Um, with Zenode, at the core ofZenode is a PIM or a product
information management system.
And the data is actually pushedfrom BC or any ERP into Zenode,
into the PIM.
The PIM has unlimitedattributions, so a lot of Zenode
(32:32):
customers will enrich the datathere as well.
Um, and then from there, that'swhere you can have catalog
management.
Because the PIM can createunlimited numbers of catalogs,
and the catalogs can be appliedto stores one to many, many to
one.
But Zenode also does multi-storevery, very well.
And so when you think about it,having that type of architecture
(32:55):
allows for that ability to havesix million SKUs rather than
topping out at one million,right?
It allows for customer-specificcatalogs, and then those
catalogs are applied based upona counter profile that log in to
the actual portal or thee-commerce experience.
SPEAKER_04 (33:13):
Oh, so yeah, I was gonna ask about that PIM
solution.
So Zenode has a built-in PIMsolution.
SPEAKER_00 (33:20):
Correct.
SPEAKER_04 (33:21):
That's amazing.
Okay, very good.
SPEAKER_00 (33:22):
And in the PIM is there, I just want to be clear.
It's not there for if you thinkabout traditional MDM, if you
think about workflow forinternal teams uh as a source of
truth, it really doesn't replacea true best of breed pim.
It can have a two-way sync witha best of breed pim, it can have
a two-way or one-way sync withan ERP.
It's really meant for ease ofmanagement of the e-commerce
(33:46):
experience.
And it also reduces your yourtech stack and your tech debt
because you don't have to haveconstant calls to a third-party
PIM to get your catalog data,right?
Your merchandisers are in oneadmin console and they're
running 2,000 catalogs on onestore, or they're running 2,000
stores with 4,000 catalogs allcentrally in one system.
SPEAKER_04 (34:07):
Yeah, that's fantastic.
But it can it also work with ifthey if for some reason they
love their PIM solution, willit, Xenode, uh, work with that
with another PIM solution?
SPEAKER_00 (34:19):
Absolutely.
There's unlimited attribution,our connector, commerce
connector we talk about, canalso do full data exchanges back
and forth with any PIM solution.
And then in that case, thearchitecture typically is your
ERP pushes your base productinformation into the PIM.
Your best of breed PIM is forMDM and for workflow.
(34:41):
So that the marketingdepartment, the engineering
department are all have a sourceof truth for product
information.
From there you would push itinto Zenode, and that's where
you would actually have yourcatalog creation and your
account-specific catalogs, etc.,configured in the platform.
SPEAKER_02 (35:00):
Okay, so we have the product information catalog do
you have within Zenode?
So does it have integrations toother systems as well outside
that it can use to source that?
Uh so we have the e-commercesystem.
And I'm just thinking from dataintegration from many systems uh
that you can bring into youre-commerce uh platform.
Um does it have the opportunityto integrate with other systems,
(35:22):
fulfillment centers uh or thelike?
Or even other catalog type oreither other or other catalog
type programs, because again,I'm thinking of in some of these
cases where you may be amerchant or a provider that you
you know, you think of some ofthese organizations that they
may not necessarily source theproduct or they may have uh
three PLs to distribute theproducts for them.
(35:44):
I know in the in the case ofArtify where it's custom or
niche, it may be in-house, butit also may be at other
facilities as well to get thatinformation over to there.
So do you have that type ofaccess?
SPEAKER_00 (35:58):
Absolutely, but that's not a catalog issue,
that's at more of an order issueand a warehouse issue.
So because Zenode is made fortrue B2B, you can have unlimited
unlimited numbers of warehousesand you can assign inventory to
warehouses within the platformor pull inventory from multiple
warehouses.
You can also display thatbecause that affects shipping
(36:20):
rules.
Right?
Yes, if I'm in Milwaukee,Wisconsin, and I'm buying
commercial plumbing parts for aproduct.
SPEAKER_02 (36:28):
If you are, I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_00 (36:33):
Oh you just upset a good portion of the the northern
part of the country.
SPEAKER_02 (36:40):
Um I don't know about a good portion of it, but
um it's cold up there.
SPEAKER_04 (36:46):
I spent time up there uh January February, and
man, the Milwaukee, that that'suh when I was walking over the
bridge, it's like everything'sfrozen over.
And uh yeah, it's it's too cold.
Too cold for me.
SPEAKER_02 (37:00):
I don't know where my dissatisfaction with
Wisconsin had come in from.
I I don't know.
Maybe I know with Minnesota, Ithink it's just the two of them,
Minnesota and Wisconsin.
All right.
Sounds like you're a Bears fanas a kid.
SPEAKER_00 (37:15):
I can't solve for that.
I can solve for formulti-warehouse and complex BW.
SPEAKER_02 (37:21):
I'm sorry, I go on a little tangent here and there,
and I I just hear some of thesethings and I get triggered.
No, I'm definitely not a Bearsfan.
Come on.
SPEAKER_00 (37:28):
I don't think anyone is.
Most people are Packers fans.
I assume you two are, right?
I thought everyone was.
The other one is.
The Packers.
SPEAKER_02 (37:38):
Are you really a Packers fan?
Oh yeah.
No, you're not.
You're just saying that now.
Listen, I've known Jeff quite abit now, and he is definitely
not a Packers fan, or he's oneof those that he's a fan of
whoever he's talking with.
I'm definitely not a Patriotsfan.
I'll say that.
(38:00):
Everybody I'll I'll I'll I'llI'll I'll sound like Tom H.
Everyone loves the Patriots.
Everyone hates the Patriots.
Everyone hates the Patriotsbecause they won for so long.
It's very easy to be a haterwhen your team loses to them all
the time.
We had a few rough years, butlook at this year.
I yes, everyone can say that wehave an easy schedule, but I'll
tell you, Drake May, you you youpay attention.
(38:22):
The Pats dynasty will be back.
Um I I don't know.
Uh we could talk about Jeff Bobtoo if you want.
SPEAKER_04 (38:30):
They do have an easy schedule this season.
SPEAKER_02 (38:32):
Okay.
Okay.
They may have an easy schedule,but they're still beating all
those teams.
So that's true.
You can only beat who is infront of you.
SPEAKER_00 (38:41):
So yeah, that's it.
So um we've just gone frome-commerce to ESPN.
SPEAKER_02 (38:47):
Well, yeah, we we cover a wide range of uh topics
here today.
Now we're talking about uh uh Itold you, I just sometimes I
just get triggered by things,and um I'm definitely not a
Green Bay Packers fan, nor aMinnesota Vikings fan.
SPEAKER_00 (39:02):
Nobody is a Vikings fan, we understand.
SPEAKER_02 (39:04):
No, yes, I understand that too.
Uh, how many Super Bowls have uhthe Packers won?
SPEAKER_01 (39:11):
Four Super Bowls in 13 World Championships, I think.
If you go way back back to whenTom was a kid.
SPEAKER_02 (39:24):
Oh, good times.
No, that's good.
So yeah, I'm sorry I went there.
So you you do support to have uhmulti-warehouse uh 3PL type uh
access uh inventory by location.
I know that's not a product uhcatalog type uh integration, uh,
but I've um I've worked withother type of channel
(39:46):
applications, so I was justtrying to think about that used
too, and that's what theirproduct information uh catalog
um uh information manager excuseme uh came to mind, and then I
was thinking about even likewith Shopify integrations with
3PL access uh to ordersfulfillments uh to be able to
help facilitate the the orderprocess.
SPEAKER_00 (40:04):
Absolutely.
So with Shopify, it's probablymore of a 3PL for a retailer.
With us, it's more than likely adistribution center or a
warehouse.
And you know, think uh I wasmentioning if you're it's a
commercial plumbing purchaseonline, it's probably an order
that is worth$100,000, right?
(40:25):
For commercial plumbing productsfor a big a big building uh
that's being built, maybe it's astadium.
Um, they're gonna want to havethat ship from the warehouse
where the products are closestdue to weight.
It's probably being shipped onpallets or truckloads.
That's B2B, right?
So that matters a lot, and it'sa whole different thing than
having your uh your tennis shoesshipped from a local 3PL because
(40:50):
the retailer has them stored ina 3PL.
Whole whole different mindset.
SPEAKER_02 (40:59):
Okay, I have that.
So with this, have you workedwith other e uh ERP applications
besides Business Central and Fuh whatever the other one?
FNO, FNX, FNSCM?
unknown (41:12):
Yes.
SPEAKER_02 (41:13):
AX.
Okay.
What other product what otherproducts have you worked with,
other uh ERP applications?
SPEAKER_00 (41:19):
Zenode is integrated into multiple versions of
Epicore.
Uh Epicore Kinetic is amanufacturing ERP that's very
prominent in the Midwest.
So we have lots of customers onEpicore.
Uh and also Epicore's other illuh Eclipse, which is in the
distribution space we'veintegrated with.
Well I go down the list, uh NetSuite, SAP, you know.
(41:44):
I would say the ones that aremore mid-market enterprise that
serve manufacturers anddistributors.
But but I there's a long list ofthem.
SPEAKER_01 (41:52):
Yeah, if you if you can name it, we've probably
integrated to it, to be honest.
But um the the dynamics ERPs arecertainly our fastest growing
user base.
SPEAKER_02 (42:03):
Oh it's great.
But the application itself isgrowing significantly.
And the uh also I mean I thinkin 2025, again, you bring it up,
which is the year we're in, uh Ithink.
And um if you don't have somesort of e-commerce presence or
online presence, it's I thinkit's a challenge for most
businesses.
(42:24):
I mean, there still may be somethat uh quite uh aren't there
yet, but I think as umtechnology is advancing and
increasing, you know, to havethat option um is important.
Even if it's just for orderentry, never mind selling.
You know, I've I've worked withsome that they've had online
catalogs for just order entry.
Um the whole purchase and othertype process uh or payment
(42:46):
excuse me, processing they stilldo uh with B2B you can still do
POs and uh and bills and suchlike that.
SPEAKER_04 (42:53):
So yeah, so so you guys uh growing in the dynamic
space.
Uh I do I am curious if you aregoing to be at directions in
Orlando in April.
Absolutely.
You guys have you guys getting abooth?
SPEAKER_01 (43:10):
We are.
Yep.
Oh, very good.
We'll be at pretty much anyMicrosoft show that you can name
off right now next year.
No, okay.
SPEAKER_04 (43:18):
You guys have signed up for all of them.
That's awesome.
SPEAKER_01 (43:21):
Yeah, we'll we'll be at directions, we'll be at at
Summit, um the AI Summit orwhatever they're calling it now.
SPEAKER_04 (43:27):
Oh, AI and Copilot Summit.
SPEAKER_01 (43:29):
Yep, you got it.
So any of the ones that you canname we're we're probably going
to that.
Yeah.
No, and we'll be at convergencenext month, too.
SPEAKER_04 (43:40):
Consider going to convergence.
Yes, uh bringing it back.
SPEAKER_02 (43:45):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I remember that, geez, manyyears ago when I first got into
it.
I think I went to a convergence.
My first one was in Atlantamany, many moons ago.
So we'll see how that goes.
I may take the drive over to itand see uh with it being a
relatively short drive umthrough the alligated land uh to
(44:09):
take a look at it.
Uh when it goes through animplementation, uh I know this
is a tough question because I Ihear this all the time myself
and it's tough to answer.
But what can someone expect fora typical implementation time?
I know there's a lot ofvariables to it, but from your
experience, just you think oflike an average company, you
know, not uh there's always edcases, there's different sizes,
(44:29):
there's different requirements,but generally speaking, um how
how long does an implementationusually take?
Is it days, hours, weeks,months, years?
SPEAKER_00 (44:39):
Uh typically I would say on the low end, three to six
months for a mid-marketdistributor manufacturer.
We have had some companies thathave you know four ERPs and four
different e-commerce platforms,and they're centralizing
everything and going throughmajor digital transformation.
That can be more than a year.
(45:00):
Because it it has less to dowith our platform and more with
deprecating old systems andcentralizing the data and change
management and go down the list.
SPEAKER_02 (45:09):
Yeah, that's I can see what that's a challenge for
this because usually uh I'msaying in that case, then it's
because they're doing an entiresystem implementation, so the
time period's not necessarilyimplementing the product, it's
getting everything implementedas a whole and the people to do
that and the reorganization andthe strategy versus saying I
already have this in place and Ican get this done and set up.
(45:32):
Exactly.
It's a it's a that's Iunderstand that model.
That's why it's it's always atough question to ask, but uh
sometimes it's good to just getan idea of the you know the
simplicity of um getting it setup.
Uh the strategy of it's always achallenge, and it's tough.
I hear that question all thetime with ERP implementations.
Everyone's just like, ah, youcan just set it up.
But they forget about the peopleportion of it, they forget about
(45:52):
the data portion of it.
If you don't have changemanagement.
Oh yes, oh yeah, yeah.
And then also you're stilltrying to, it's almost sometimes
like trying to change the buswheels as the bus is going down
the freeway as you're goingthrough this.
So uh same same concerns,absolutely.
Yeah, it's it's a littlechallenge.
(46:13):
Well, uh Jeff and Tom, thank youvery much for taking the time to
speak with us this afternoon.
We really do appreciate it.
Um I'm interested in thisbecause I have some good ideas
as well with uh the whole artifypiece.
The artify piece, yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (46:25):
That is interesting.
SPEAKER_02 (46:28):
I I can't tell you how many times I've come across
the need for that.
And you wouldn't think about it,but we're in that world.
Everybody wants the unique andon-demand type product, right?
It's not just uh I mean you'reyou're talking about in
uniforms, but it's almost likeassemble to order, but
variations, and you want to beable to get it out easily,
(46:50):
quickly, and let the customersget what they want with all the
different combinations andvariations.
So I have uh I may have to callyou up.
I may want to set up my ownlittle store for something.
I have a good idea for I'm nottelling anybody what the idea is
yet, but um they'll have to see.
Jeff, I'll talk uh if the Jeffand Tom, if you guys, if I make
it to um Convergence, I'll talkwith you there.
(47:11):
If not, I'll definitely see youin the directions in April.
Back in Orlando.
So um, but again, thank you verymuch for taking the time to
speak with us this afternoon.
And if anyone would like to havemore information about uh
Xenode, Artify, or how this uhcan be implemented with this
system, what's the best way toreach you?
SPEAKER_00 (47:30):
Yeah, I I think the best way go to either either of
the uh URLs, artifilabs.com, orZenode is Z N O D E.com.
Uh fill out a form, request ademo, contact us.
We'll have the right peoplefollow up immediately, or you'll
actually be able to hitsomeone's calendar and schedule
(47:52):
time.
SPEAKER_02 (47:53):
Excellent, great, thank you.
And we'll also have uh links toum in the show notes for to be
able to get in contact with bothof you.
Again, thank you, and uh lookforward to seeing you soon.
Ciao ciao.
Thanks, Brad.
Thanks.
Bye.
Thank you, Chris, for your timefor another episode of In the
Dynamics Corner Chair, and thankyou to our guests for
participating.
SPEAKER_04 (48:13):
Thank you, Brad, for your time.
It is a wonderful episode ofDynamics Corner Chair.
I would also like to thank ourguests for join joining us.
Thank you for all of ourlisteners tuning in as well.
You can find Brad atdeveloperlife.com.
That is D V L P R L I F E dotcom.
(48:34):
And you can interact with themvia Twitter, D V L P R L I F E.
You can also find me atMatalino.io, M-A-T-A-L-I-N-O.io,
and my Twitter handle isMatalino 16.
And see you can see those linksdown below in the show notes.
(48:57):
Again, thank you everyone, thankyou, and take care.
Welcome everyone to another episode of Dynamics
Corner.
What is an e-commerce and customartification?
I'm your co-host Chris.
SPEAKER_02 (00:11):
And this is Brad.
This episode was recorded onNovember 20th, 2025.
Chris, Chris, Chris.
E-commerce.
Custom orders.
I have so many ideas now afterhaving that conversation.
With us today, we had theopportunity to speak with Tom
and Jeff about Artify andXenode.
(00:52):
How are you doing?
SPEAKER_01 (00:53):
Hello.
Hi, good afternoon.
Hey, good afternoon.
Doing great.
SPEAKER_02 (00:59):
Uh great, great.
Uh thank you for taking the timeto speak with us this afternoon.
Thank you.
Um appreciate it.
No, no, it's good.
You know, I I I'm kinda just alittle quiet right now.
I have been AI vibe coding allweek long.
Wow.
(01:21):
It's unbelievable.
Unbelievable.
Like I literally now just didlike do a code review of this
application, and I think I did abetter code review than I could
have done.
SPEAKER_04 (01:32):
So you're vibe coding.
A lot of people are doing uhvibe agent agent vibing or
something like that.
SPEAKER_02 (01:38):
Well, I I'm pa I I'm I'm putting it all in one bucket
because I really don't know whatyou call it.
I don't know if it's reallyvibing.
If I know about the applicationand I know about the language,
and I'm doing it.
I think the term or the uh thevibe coding has been coined from
you just kind of going with thevibes.
(02:00):
I have to I I know the historyof it, but I'm so odd at the
moment that I can't thinkclearly about it.
So it's uh it's a strange worldthat we're coming into.
I think uh uh and it's going tooquickly.
Anyway, enough of my short burstof uh uh conversation.
SPEAKER_04 (02:23):
Well, that vibe is applying everywhere to
everything you do now.
SPEAKER_02 (02:27):
It is, it is, and I think I'll have to try to go a
day without talking about it orthinking about it.
I think the only way to do thatis to just go out into the woods
and walk around and not have anycell phone or anything or talk
to anybody uh to see about it.
Anyway, um uh thank you both fortaking the time to speak with
us.
Uh and before we get into theconversation, would you mind
(02:48):
telling us a little bit?
Yeah, so you bet.
SPEAKER_00 (02:50):
Um by the way, I did fill out the form that was
linked in the meeting with allmy information.
So chief commercial officer atAMLA Commerce, which is our
parent company.
We have two products Artify,which is for product
customization.
So a good example is Land Zandhas a uniform division.
They customize products like uhbusiness uniforms, and our
(03:15):
platform allows them to do thatdirectly in an e-commerce
experience and see a real-timevirtual crew.
And then our other product is CNode, which is a V e-commerce
platform uh built in theMicrosoft stack, and we work
with a lot of mid-marketenterprise manufacturers and
distributors.
And my background is I grew upin the SI world and the digital
(03:35):
agency space before coming toour public.
SPEAKER_02 (03:37):
And uh okay, great, thank you.
How about you, Jeff?
SPEAKER_01 (03:40):
Yeah, um, I'm Jeff Seidel.
I'm the director of partnershipshere at AMLACommerce for our
products, Artify and Zenode.
I've been in the Microsoftchannel for about four years.
Um, and my day-to-day is workingwith our Microsoft partners, our
agencies or systems integrators,and our ISV partners.
So thanks for having me on.
SPEAKER_02 (03:59):
Oh, great, great, thank you.
So you have two products on themarket that you work with uh in
the business central space.
Um can you tell me a little bitmore about each of those
products and uh how that howthey can be leveraged within uh
somebody who has a businesscentral implementation?
SPEAKER_00 (04:18):
Sounds great.
Jeffrey, you okay if I jump inon that?
Yeah, so um one of our productsis called Artify, A-R-T-I-F-I.
Uh the URL is artifylabs.com,and Artify is for online product
customization.
So the use case really is in thepromotional product space, the
(04:40):
uniform industry, the safetyindustry, where product
customization is missioncritical.
So a good example is uh Land Zenis a very large uniform
manufacturer and they have abusiness uniform division where
Fortune 500 companies work withLand Zen to create their uniform
program.
It could be an airline thatallows pilots to go in and
(05:03):
customize their airline uniform.
The pilot wants to be able tosee what that uniform looks like
in a shopping experience.
They want to see where theirlogos go, maybe on their
shoulders or on their chest.
Uh, and this those are typicallypre-approved logos.
Um, they may have someflexibility to add their own
logo.
So perhaps they're they're a vetand they have a military logo
(05:26):
they want to add.
There's different rules that canbe configured or created for
every different scenario withuniforms, promotional products,
etc., including even having thecaptain write Captain Tom in
embroidery on that on that uhuniform before they hit the buy
button.
So our product Artify actuallyallows, it's it sits on any
(05:48):
platform, it's agnostic, but itallows for that customization to
occur in a shopping experience.
So there's a real-time virtualsample on screen before the
customer hits the buy button.
SPEAKER_02 (05:59):
Uh I like that.
And I asked for that.
I've come across the need forthat before.
So now if you have a productthat is customizable, this gives
your customer a shoppingexperience to where they can
customize it on the web, see theresults, and then it will be put
(06:21):
into business central for you toprocess.
And what does it create?
Does it create a an assemblyorder, production order,
purchase order, sales order?
SPEAKER_00 (06:31):
How does that dynamic information get into the
question?
So typically that information ispassed back into the e-commerce
platform, and the e-commerceplatform typically has both SKU
level pricing and variant levelpricing, and then that gets
pushed into business centralalong with so that'd be the
order file, and then along withthe metadata for the actual
(06:54):
customizations, and Artifyprovides a PDF output file.
So think of a think of a the PDFfile showing what the product
is, what are the coordinates forwhere the different
customizations occur, what arethose customizations, as well as
information.
So, for example, if it's anembroidery file, it will
(07:15):
actually provide the DST file,it will provide the thread
color, the thread count, all ofthat information.
That's cool.
So somebody who's on the floorwho's actually got to produce
the product gets the output fileand they punch it into a machine
and they create the actualuniform or could be a
promotional product, etc.
So it provides all the data forthe production team as well.
SPEAKER_02 (07:39):
So this creates more it's so it it's more than just
creating an order, it soundslike to me.
It's if you have a customproduct or custom in your case
embroidery.
Fortunately, I know, orunfortunately, I don't know if
you how you call it.
I know a little bit aboutembroidery.
So so then you receive the oreven other uh type of design,
(08:00):
because I've had worked withsystems this before where they
had customizations and you'resending a file to feed into the
machine, and then it willautomatically uh adjust that
product for you.
And if it's embroidering, itwill create the design without
the operator having to setanything up.
They just load the file, let themachine run, and then that
product gets output.
(08:20):
That's pretty cool.
There's so many uses I could seefor that.
And honestly, in 2025, everybodyseems to have that on demand.
I want it now and I want it myway.
That having that flexibility Ithink is creative.
Um does it work with other thanuh embroidery could it work with
(08:42):
other types of products, or isit geared towards more just
embroidery?
And I'm getting to I can thinkof jewelry where people want to
customize their settings.
I can think of other types of uhlogo type products where they
maybe print.
So if you have a custom t-shirtshop that you may want to uh be
able to quickly createcustomized t-shirts for some.
SPEAKER_00 (09:05):
It works with all of the above.
It could be a heat transferfile, an embroidery file, an
engraving file.
Those are just in our world,those are decoration methods.
And we have a long list ofdecoration methods we support.
I brought up embroidery becauseembroidery is a very expensive
decoration method to manage.
Most companies have to take alogo and they have to have it
digitized, which is expensive.
(09:27):
And there's large offshore teamsthat do this.
Before Artify, companies wouldactually receive the order, and
a customer service rep wouldhave to take the logo and send
it to an offshore team.
They would get it back five dayslater, then they email the
customer, go in.
Maybe they would have a designteam create a virtual proof, you
know, that'd be emailed.
(09:48):
So your sales cycle in that timeperiod would be anywhere from
one business week to twobusiness weeks to get one
uniform completed or to get auniform program approved.
Today, today they can be done intwo minutes automatically.
Now, to your question, is itbeyond just embroidery types?
Absolutely.
I mean, we have customers in theuh the Christmas card catalog
(10:13):
where you can customize aChristmas card.
We have customers that do parkbenches uh and and things like
garbage cans for golf courses.
Um but where you see I I use theterm earlier, mission critical.
Where you see mission criticalproduct customization is
typically in some very largecategories like uniform
promotional product safety.
(10:34):
Think of all the guys on thehighway and and and uh gals too
that have high viz vests withthe logo on the back.
It's very common in thoseindustries, but we support a
very, very broad number ofindustries.
Wow, so it saves a lot of timethen.
SPEAKER_04 (10:48):
I mean you you gotta think about all the uh companies
that uh does this a long life,long sales cycle and and kind of
compress that into minutes,sounds like it's not just a long
sales cycle, it's a lot ofmanual labor that can be
automated.
unknown (11:06):
Wow.
SPEAKER_02 (11:06):
See, so it's just like it's just like vibe and
embroidery, vibe and customproducts.
The uh I'll tell you something.
SPEAKER_00 (11:12):
We were talking about AI before we got on here,
but one of the we're justreleasing this feature and we're
starting in the promotionalproducts category.
So one of the um challenges ifyou have a very large catalog of
SKUs and you have customizationon every product is knowing the
exact XY coordinates on aproduct.
(11:33):
So in the promotional productspace, we're actually using AI
to do automatic product setup.
So if you have a catalog of5,000 products and you want to
set up the XY coordinate onevery different water bottle,
t-shirt, uniform, we're actuallyautomating that entire process
with AI.
So there's there's some reallycool releases that we're uh that
(11:54):
that we are releasing um inArtify as well that not only
automate the buying process butalso the the operational process
in the background.
SPEAKER_02 (12:05):
So with Artify, where so you had mentioned so
Artify then communicates with ane-commerce solution.
That e-commerce solution is ityour e-commerce solution or can
it work with other e-commercesolutions?
SPEAKER_00 (12:21):
I'll I'll get a little bit deeper into that.
Um our e-commerce solution,Zenode, absolutely.
There's a pre-built integration,uh obviously because sister
products.
However, Artify does integrateinto any other platform.
We actually have partnershipswith Big Commerce, uh Adobe
Magento, go down the list,Shopify.
(12:43):
Now, I want to get a littledeeper on that answer.
In bigger uh companies that dothis where it's mission
critical, such as uniforms,there's a need to stand up at
typically a unique store for acustomer.
So, for example, if I ammanaging airline programs and
hotel programs, I can't besharing the same product catalog
(13:06):
that I share with a Hilton hotelchain that I share with an
American Airlines program.
And typically there's a customportal for each customer.
You typically can't do that on atraditional B2C platform.
So that's where Xenode reallypartners well with Artify
because Zenode managesmulti-store very, very easily,
because Zenode was built forthese complex B2B use cases, not
(13:31):
for the mom and pop Shopifystore owner or you know, maybe
the smaller retailer that mightrun big commerce.
SPEAKER_02 (13:43):
I understand.
So in essence, your solutionwith Xenode is you have a
different portal for eachcustomer.
Therefore, it's their productlines and their customizations
that are available for theircustomer to purchase.
SPEAKER_00 (14:00):
There's one one use case for Xenode, but Xenode does
manage that use case very, veryeasily.
SPEAKER_02 (14:06):
Okay.
I like this Artify.
SPEAKER_00 (14:08):
Now, with Artify, can someone upload their own
design or is it already pre ithas to be pre set up from the
the You can do both amerchandiser can create
templates and and typically youdo have to have some templated
rules, um so but also withinthose templates, then they can
(14:32):
control a rule like let the userupload a logo.
But there's still rules on likewhere can the logo go.
Can the logo does it have to beforced to fit into a small space
where it's very defined, or doyou give them an op, we call it
an open canvas where the logocan be moved around?
So there's a bunch of rules thatstill go into that.
(14:52):
Um because on the back end, themore the fewer rules you have,
the more difficult it is toautomate the process to set up
the product when you're in aproduction environment.
Also, most companies want tocontrol the brand experience so
their pilots don't walk onto anairplane and the uniform looks
crazy because they put theirname on the back of the uniform
(15:12):
instead of on the left chest.
Right.
So there's some practicality tothis as well.
I wonder if that ever had ourproduct, but who knows?
I want to make the logo goahead.
I'll wear that.
SPEAKER_04 (15:29):
Yeah, I'll wear that today, huh?
SPEAKER_02 (15:32):
It's not a basketball uniform, it's a
pilot's uniform, right?
No, it's um so so with thesetup, so we're talking about
Artify and then the Zenode, uh,we'll we'll talk about maybe the
setup of them both.
So Zenode is uh an e-commercesolution that interfaces with
(15:52):
Business Central.
That e-commerce solution, wheredoes that reside?
Is that a cloud-based solution?
Is it a solution that a customeror or a merchant that uses that
would have to host themselves orhost elsewhere?
Uh how does that question?
SPEAKER_00 (16:09):
No, it's completely cloud-based.
Everything is in uh MicrosoftAzure SQL, so cloud database, uh
uh Azure Kubernetes for updates.
It's a true SaaS platform,although the database is siloed
because a lot of biggercompanies don't want their data
intermingled with other withother companies' data.
But everything is cloud-based,true distributed SaaS model, and
(16:32):
all all built in Microsoft.
SPEAKER_02 (16:34):
Okay.
And then the interface withBusiness Central, uh, does it
work with Business Centralonline or Business Central
on-premises?
SPEAKER_00 (16:44):
Um it can work with both.
Um, you know, on-prem, sometimesthere are latency issues and and
depends upon how customized theimplementation was for the ERP.
Xenode has, we call it aCommerce Connector, and within
that Commerce connector, there'sdata exchanges.
So you can simply map Xenode'sAPI and Xenode's an API first
(17:05):
platform with the BC API orwhatever webhook is available,
and you can just create touchpoints for them to communicate.
So it's very easy to map it witha standard BC integration.
If there's customization, thenthere's ways around that within
our platform.
But we have this this connectordata exchange uh engine that
(17:26):
that really powers all of that.
SPEAKER_02 (17:28):
So it does work with custom.
So if you have an extensionwithin Business Central, you add
fields, you can those fields canalso be used to send data up to
Zenode so that the experiencefor your customer uh or however
how you may be processing it arealso uh available.
Yep, absolutely.
Absolutely.
(17:49):
With it being an e-commerceplatform, uh payment processing,
do you do the payment processingor can they use their their own
payment processor?
Can a merchant use their own paypayment processor uh or select
from a list of those Tom, I canjump in on that.
SPEAKER_01 (18:06):
Um we have a partnership with a company
called Spreadly.
Uh Spreedly is a paymentaggregate.
Um so we actually allow ourcustomers to choose from any of
those.
There's about 150 differentpayment gateways that they can
choose from, um, which reallysimplifies that process.
SPEAKER_00 (18:23):
And that's great.
Spreadly and all these paymentgateways are PCI compliant.
So typically an e-commerceplatform doesn't actually own
the payment gateway.
That's a specialized productthat is provided by typically
large banks or financialinstitutions or the the
companies like FIServe thatprovide the services underneath
(18:44):
those banks.
SPEAKER_01 (18:47):
That's great.
SPEAKER_02 (18:47):
I know, I know if I had an e-commerce solution, I
wouldn't want to manage thepayment gateway myself.
I think there's just too much tome personally, I think there
would be too much risk there.
I know there's others that cando it and they do it on their
own, but and they do itsuccessfully, but I would leave
that to someone else because I'drather just vibe away over here
and not have to worry about thatsensitive information.
(19:08):
So a lot of liability to carry.
Oh, absolutely, absolutely.
Um so for an implement.
So what else is in the Xenodeproduct for e-commerce?
So you mentioned that it worksuh and integrates with um uh
your other product.
(19:29):
If somebody wanted to use thatas a standalone e-commerce
solution, is that also an optionfor them?
SPEAKER_00 (19:36):
Oh, absolutely.
Yeah, absolutely.
Xenode has many customersintegrated with Artified as many
customers that aren't in thosecategories.
We have a number of globalmanufacturers that run global
aftermarket parts on Xenode.
We have a number ofmanufacturers that are based in
North America that createportals for their dealers.
(19:56):
Um Xenode's just an it sothere's a couple things because
the e-commerce category rightnow is kind of confusing to
understand.
A lot of traditional B2Cplatforms have started to get
into the market and say we'realso B2B.
Um, and they're not.
And so that's where Xenodereally stands out.
We we really focus only on B2B.
(20:19):
100% of our customers aremanufacturers and distributors.
Um and so and we have thecapabilities to help those
companies manage thecomplexities of what
manufacturers and distributorsneed to manage in e-commerce.
unknown (20:36):
I get it.
SPEAKER_02 (20:37):
Okay, I understand that.
So now there is a big differencebetween B2B and B2C, and I've
come across that, and a lot oftimes someone tries to have a
platform that does both, and itrequires some specialization
because uh customization andspecific features because you
may need uh and I'm I'm askingsome of these questions as I go
(20:59):
through it, is you can so thenwith it being B2B, you can have
specific catalogs, productcatalogs, pricing catalogs for a
specific customer.
And again, working with Artify,where you're saying you have a
separate portal.
I see how all that flowstogether.
SPEAKER_00 (21:13):
Right.
Um I was just saying one of thebiggest um requirements in B2B
is customer-specific catalogs.
It could be customer-specific,like account-specific
assortments, segment-specificcatalogs.
If you're a large distributor,you may serve plumbing
electrical and industrial.
Well, depending, you know, ifJeff logs in and he's uh he's an
(21:34):
MRO purchasing agent, he mayonly be purchasing industrial
products where if I log in andI'm an electrical contractor,
I'm only gonna look at theelectrical catalog potentially,
right?
So catalog manager managementmatters a lot.
Now you get into extreme usecases like uniform programs or
even government contracts, it'swhere you have to show a pre
(21:56):
procured approved catalog to thebuyer, or you're gonna lose your
business with that buyer.
Makes sense.
SPEAKER_04 (22:03):
No, someone someone that's interested in and uh I
know you have two products,right?
You're Zenode and uh Rtify.
Uh just going back to Artify,for for an organization that uh
you know want to um notnecessarily eliminate but
minimize all the manual process,uh, what does it usually take
for someone to implement thatthat product?
SPEAKER_00 (22:26):
Um you know, typically uh one, they would
have to have an e-commerceplatform.
It's hard to implement withoutan e-commerce platform.
Although do we have some we dohave some companies that
actually implement it andintegrate it into their ERP so
their salespeople can createvirtual proofs and and
customizations on behalf of thecustomer.
Think of somebody in an insidesales role.
(22:47):
But one, you would need ane-commerce platform, and then
two, you would need decentassets.
Um, so think about if you'regonna do a uniform, you need to
have the flat asset of the frontof the uniform, the flat asset
of the back of the uniform godown the list.
We can also do 360 rotation ifyou have a graphic file.
Um, and then you need to havesome sense of where the rules
(23:09):
are on those uniforms.
Right?
Or you have to have somebodywho's going to somebody in the
merchandise, they call itmerchandising or um e-commerce
management department who'sgoing to know those rules and
set up the products orunderstand how to set those up.
That's that's really about it.
SPEAKER_04 (23:28):
Yeah, pretty straightforward.
Do you do you guys help for likeorganizations that maybe don't
have those prepared?
Because there's there's beentimes where I'm helping them
implement something like we needthese requirements, and like, I
don't know what those are.
Can you help me out?
SPEAKER_00 (23:44):
Yeah, I mean, we we absolutely help with the a set
of requirements ahead of time.
Uh we are a software company, sowe don't have a photo studio for
flat assets.
We don't have a um, you know, wedo offer some product setup
help, and we've automated a lotof it with AI, but we are a
software company.
So at the end of the day, weprovide what I would say is base
(24:05):
the base software and the someassistance with product
information and setup.
Gotcha.
Gotcha.
SPEAKER_04 (24:12):
And and so there's a requirement to get their
e-commerce.
Hopefully they do havee-commerce.
Um do you typically then uhperhaps uh work with them if
they're not happy with theire-commerce?
Uh so they implement e-commercefirst before uh doing Artify.
SPEAKER_00 (24:33):
Typically, what happens is they will come to us
and say we love Artify, butwe're unhappy with our
e-commerce platform.
And like like literally, this ishow the story goes.
We have a B2C platform and werealize we need program
management and we need a B2Bplatform.
Any recommendations, and wetypically say, Well, can we
introduce you to Zenode?
(24:55):
And it's not even part of oursales strategy, it literally is.
There's just a lot of companiesthat are suffering with the the
wrong e-commerce platform.
So there is there's an overlapthere.
I think the data is like 68% ofmanufacturers and distributors
are unhappy with theire-commerce platform and want to
replatform.
SPEAKER_04 (25:12):
That's it, that's fun.
That's interesting because uhyeah, every time there's an
e-commerce conversation, uh,they always mention that you
know we want to change, we justdon't know where where to go.
Right.
Who to go to.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (25:28):
Jeff has been like a vital part of our company.
Um, we see a lot of that in theMicrosoft channel.
I think Jeff identified thatvery early on as there's a lot
of manufacturers anddistributors, whether than BC or
uh what used to be called FNO,that are struggling.
SPEAKER_02 (25:45):
So is yeah, to take away from that a little bit,
just from that topic, because II think about this with a lot of
applications.
People struggle with their ERPsoftware, people struggle with
the e-commerce software.
I struggle with uh my walletsometimes.
If you're struggling with thee-commerce platform, is it a
(26:07):
case of growth often?
Do you see uh Tom, you mentionedthat Jeff, you see that space.
Is it typically an issue of Ioutgrew the e-commerce platform?
Meaning my either my businesshas changed, or my business
model has changed, or mybusiness volume has changed,
because you may start off withum, I know you have Zenode, but
(26:31):
you may start off with Shopifyor something, or you may start
off with Big Commerce.
There's a lot of e-commerceplatforms out there.
And you started off as a B2Cshop, and then you realize that
there's a space for B2B, andthen you try to squeeze B2B
within that same platformwithout exploring other options
or even expanding uh uh youknow, expanding the use of the
(26:53):
application.
I I see this often on the ERPimplementations where you go
through an ERP implementation,we talked about this in previous
episodes as well.
When are you done?
You're really never done becauseyou need to have maintenance on
that to keep up with yourbusiness.
Do you find that's a oftenstruggle for them, or do you
think it's they just chose thewrong platform?
SPEAKER_01 (27:13):
I think it can be both.
Um I think that if you end uppurchasing Shopify as your
platform, or not to pick onShopify, it could be any uh
direct consumer platform, um,it's it's very simple to run
that type of retail model,right?
So um typically you have an MSRPprice list, we all log on, see
(27:35):
the same catalog um and pay thesame price unless you have some
sort of coupon code orsomething.
Whereas with B2B, uh it's verylikely you have a
customer-specific catalog,customer-specific pricing.
There needs to be a differentdata model on the e-commerce
experience for that to work.
So um I think that people gointo the process of selecting a
platform, maybe they know thebrand name, Shopify, and
(27:57):
purchased it, and then two yearslater they're running into
issues and replatforming.
SPEAKER_00 (28:02):
I I'll jump in and actually how Jeff and I met,
Jeff worked uh with anothercompany and uh in the e-commerce
space, and they had a customerthat actually was on BC, they
still are, and they had acatalog of 1.5 million SKUs.
Wow.
They were making calls back andforth to BC to surface that
(28:26):
product information, and theirERP was getting overtaxed,
overburdened.
E-commerce experience was very,very slow, and they actually
found Zenode, and now they'rethey have almost six million
SKUs on Zenode, and they have noperformance issues.
And uh, that's actually how Jeffand I got to know each other,
but it was literally it wasn't abad platform, it just wasn't a
(28:49):
platform that's made for theirB2B business model, and so
they've actually myunderstanding is their it's
their sales have increasedfivefold online since moving to
Zenode because they can now runa much bigger catalog and they
can create uh customer-specificcatalogs because they have a lot
of government contracts.
So there's a lot of problemsthat were solved that maybe
didn't surface initially thatnow have surfaced and and we've
(29:12):
helped them.
SPEAKER_01 (29:13):
Yeah, I think that goes to the use case of they
bought the right platform forthemselves at the time, and then
a few years later their companyhad grown so much that it was
time to find something a littlebit more scalable.
SPEAKER_04 (29:25):
Yeah, that that makes sense.
That's I think that's a lot ofthe common scenarios, um, at
least from my experience, wherethey may be coming from an ERP
system, and along the way,they're also not only they're
outgrowing their ERP system, butthey're also outgrowing their um
e-commerce, right?
And and so uh the the questionbecomes, you know, how much of
(29:46):
those project you want to takeon, uh, you know, because first
of all, you gotta upgrade ormove to an ERP system, and then
at the same time trying to buildan entire e commerce platform,
which typically Coincides withthe decision of do we stay with
the existing one or look forsomething else?
And that usually a commonconversation is that yeah,
(30:08):
you're right.
Brad had mentioned and Jeff,they outgrow that.
And it may not be a bad solutionat that time, but eventually
they'll outgrow.
And they want to do otheravenues.
SPEAKER_02 (30:19):
Right.
Right.
Step back to the architecture alittle bit, thinking of uh the
use case of the experience foruh those that are using it.
Artify is a web-basedapplication that has data and
has information in it to allowfor the customization of
product.
(30:40):
Um I'll simplify it.
Uh I know you it does it has alot of features.
I'm just kind of breaking itdown.
And then you have Zenode, whichis the e-commerce or it can be
any e-commerce solution in themiddle, and then you have your
underlying ERP software, whichwe're talking about with
Business Central, and I heardyou mentioned, and I always say
this every time I say it, FNO, FA X, FNSCM, F.
(31:00):
I can give you the whole lineageuh of names that it's had.
It's had I think it's had morethan Business Central, to be
honest with you, uh, in ashorter period of time.
We have to look that up.
It's hard to keep up.
It's very hard to keep up.
Where does the data reside andhow does the data get there?
So one of the challenges that Isee with implementations is we
(31:21):
have master data managementissues.
That master data management canbe within business central
itself, across companies, acrosstenants, and then now you add
e-commerce to it, and sometimesyou have there would we have
duplicate entry of data?
How does the data go back andforth?
You know, one system has a needfor more data than another.
(31:43):
Uh, and now we add this otherlayer to it.
Where does the data reside andhow does the data get managed?
SPEAKER_00 (31:51):
Jeff, do you mind if I jump in on that?
Yeah, you got it.
Yeah, so it depends upon thesize of the company.
Um and it depends upon theire-commerce platform.
One of the reasons that thescenario we were just talking
about, they were having issuesis because all the data resided
within the ERP.
(32:11):
And that means constant callsback and forth.
Um, with Zenode, at the core ofZenode is a PIM or a product
information management system.
And the data is actually pushedfrom BC or any ERP into Zenode,
into the PIM.
The PIM has unlimitedattributions, so a lot of Zenode
(32:32):
customers will enrich the datathere as well.
Um, and then from there, that'swhere you can have catalog
management.
Because the PIM can createunlimited numbers of catalogs,
and the catalogs can be appliedto stores one to many, many to
one.
But Zenode also does multi-storevery, very well.
And so when you think about it,having that type of architecture
(32:55):
allows for that ability to havesix million SKUs rather than
topping out at one million,right?
It allows for customer-specificcatalogs, and then those
catalogs are applied based upona counter profile that log in to
the actual portal or thee-commerce experience.
SPEAKER_04 (33:13):
Oh, so yeah, I was gonna ask about that PIM
solution.
So Zenode has a built-in PIMsolution.
SPEAKER_00 (33:20):
Correct.
SPEAKER_04 (33:21):
That's amazing.
Okay, very good.
SPEAKER_00 (33:22):
And in the PIM is there, I just want to be clear.
It's not there for if you thinkabout traditional MDM, if you
think about workflow forinternal teams uh as a source of
truth, it really doesn't replacea true best of breed pim.
It can have a two-way sync witha best of breed pim, it can have
a two-way or one-way sync withan ERP.
It's really meant for ease ofmanagement of the e-commerce
(33:46):
experience.
And it also reduces your yourtech stack and your tech debt
because you don't have to haveconstant calls to a third-party
PIM to get your catalog data,right?
Your merchandisers are in oneadmin console and they're
running 2,000 catalogs on onestore, or they're running 2,000
stores with 4,000 catalogs allcentrally in one system.
SPEAKER_04 (34:07):
Yeah, that's fantastic.
But it can it also work with ifthey if for some reason they
love their PIM solution, willit, Xenode, uh, work with that
with another PIM solution?
SPEAKER_00 (34:19):
Absolutely.
There's unlimited attribution,our connector, commerce
connector we talk about, canalso do full data exchanges back
and forth with any PIM solution.
And then in that case, thearchitecture typically is your
ERP pushes your base productinformation into the PIM.
Your best of breed PIM is forMDM and for workflow.
(34:41):
So that the marketingdepartment, the engineering
department are all have a sourceof truth for product
information.
From there you would push itinto Zenode, and that's where
you would actually have yourcatalog creation and your
account-specific catalogs, etc.,configured in the platform.
SPEAKER_02 (35:00):
Okay, so we have the product information catalog do
you have within Zenode?
So does it have integrations toother systems as well outside
that it can use to source that?
Uh so we have the e-commercesystem.
And I'm just thinking from dataintegration from many systems uh
that you can bring into youre-commerce uh platform.
Um does it have the opportunityto integrate with other systems,
(35:22):
fulfillment centers uh or thelike?
Or even other catalog type oreither other or other catalog
type programs, because again,I'm thinking of in some of these
cases where you may be amerchant or a provider that you
you know, you think of some ofthese organizations that they
may not necessarily source theproduct or they may have uh
three PLs to distribute theproducts for them.
(35:44):
I know in the in the case ofArtify where it's custom or
niche, it may be in-house, butit also may be at other
facilities as well to get thatinformation over to there.
So do you have that type ofaccess?
SPEAKER_00 (35:58):
Absolutely, but that's not a catalog issue,
that's at more of an order issueand a warehouse issue.
So because Zenode is made fortrue B2B, you can have unlimited
unlimited numbers of warehousesand you can assign inventory to
warehouses within the platformor pull inventory from multiple
warehouses.
You can also display thatbecause that affects shipping
(36:20):
rules.
Right?
Yes, if I'm in Milwaukee,Wisconsin, and I'm buying
commercial plumbing parts for aproduct.
SPEAKER_02 (36:28):
If you are, I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_00 (36:33):
Oh you just upset a good portion of the the northern
part of the country.
SPEAKER_02 (36:40):
Um I don't know about a good portion of it, but
um it's cold up there.
SPEAKER_04 (36:46):
I spent time up there uh January February, and
man, the Milwaukee, that that'suh when I was walking over the
bridge, it's like everything'sfrozen over.
And uh yeah, it's it's too cold.
Too cold for me.
SPEAKER_02 (37:00):
I don't know where my dissatisfaction with
Wisconsin had come in from.
I I don't know.
Maybe I know with Minnesota, Ithink it's just the two of them,
Minnesota and Wisconsin.
All right.
Sounds like you're a Bears fanas a kid.
SPEAKER_00 (37:15):
I can't solve for that.
I can solve for formulti-warehouse and complex BW.
SPEAKER_02 (37:21):
I'm sorry, I go on a little tangent here and there,
and I I just hear some of thesethings and I get triggered.
No, I'm definitely not a Bearsfan.
Come on.
SPEAKER_00 (37:28):
I don't think anyone is.
Most people are Packers fans.
I assume you two are, right?
I thought everyone was.
The other one is.
The Packers.
SPEAKER_02 (37:38):
Are you really a Packers fan?
Oh yeah.
No, you're not.
You're just saying that now.
Listen, I've known Jeff quite abit now, and he is definitely
not a Packers fan, or he's oneof those that he's a fan of
whoever he's talking with.
I'm definitely not a Patriotsfan.
I'll say that.
(38:00):
Everybody I'll I'll I'll I'llI'll I'll sound like Tom H.
Everyone loves the Patriots.
Everyone hates the Patriots.
Everyone hates the Patriotsbecause they won for so long.
It's very easy to be a haterwhen your team loses to them all
the time.
We had a few rough years, butlook at this year.
I yes, everyone can say that wehave an easy schedule, but I'll
tell you, Drake May, you you youpay attention.
(38:22):
The Pats dynasty will be back.
Um I I don't know.
Uh we could talk about Jeff Bobtoo if you want.
SPEAKER_04 (38:30):
They do have an easy schedule this season.
SPEAKER_02 (38:32):
Okay.
Okay.
They may have an easy schedule,but they're still beating all
those teams.
So that's true.
You can only beat who is infront of you.
SPEAKER_00 (38:41):
So yeah, that's it.
So um we've just gone frome-commerce to ESPN.
SPEAKER_02 (38:47):
Well, yeah, we we cover a wide range of uh topics
here today.
Now we're talking about uh uh Itold you, I just sometimes I
just get triggered by things,and um I'm definitely not a
Green Bay Packers fan, nor aMinnesota Vikings fan.
SPEAKER_00 (39:02):
Nobody is a Vikings fan, we understand.
SPEAKER_02 (39:04):
No, yes, I understand that too.
Uh, how many Super Bowls have uhthe Packers won?
SPEAKER_01 (39:11):
Four Super Bowls in 13 World Championships, I think.
If you go way back back to whenTom was a kid.
SPEAKER_02 (39:24):
Oh, good times.
No, that's good.
So yeah, I'm sorry I went there.
So you you do support to have uhmulti-warehouse uh 3PL type uh
access uh inventory by location.
I know that's not a product uhcatalog type uh integration, uh,
but I've um I've worked withother type of channel
(39:46):
applications, so I was justtrying to think about that used
too, and that's what theirproduct information uh catalog
um uh information manager excuseme uh came to mind, and then I
was thinking about even likewith Shopify integrations with
3PL access uh to ordersfulfillments uh to be able to
help facilitate the the orderprocess.
SPEAKER_00 (40:04):
Absolutely.
So with Shopify, it's probablymore of a 3PL for a retailer.
With us, it's more than likely adistribution center or a
warehouse.
And you know, think uh I wasmentioning if you're it's a
commercial plumbing purchaseonline, it's probably an order
that is worth$100,000, right?
(40:25):
For commercial plumbing productsfor a big a big building uh
that's being built, maybe it's astadium.
Um, they're gonna want to havethat ship from the warehouse
where the products are closestdue to weight.
It's probably being shipped onpallets or truckloads.
That's B2B, right?
So that matters a lot, and it'sa whole different thing than
having your uh your tennis shoesshipped from a local 3PL because
(40:50):
the retailer has them stored ina 3PL.
Whole whole different mindset.
SPEAKER_02 (40:59):
Okay, I have that.
So with this, have you workedwith other e uh ERP applications
besides Business Central and Fuh whatever the other one?
FNO, FNX, FNSCM?
unknown (41:12):
Yes.
SPEAKER_02 (41:13):
AX.
Okay.
What other product what otherproducts have you worked with,
other uh ERP applications?
SPEAKER_00 (41:19):
Zenode is integrated into multiple versions of
Epicore.
Uh Epicore Kinetic is amanufacturing ERP that's very
prominent in the Midwest.
So we have lots of customers onEpicore.
Uh and also Epicore's other illuh Eclipse, which is in the
distribution space we'veintegrated with.
Well I go down the list, uh NetSuite, SAP, you know.
(41:44):
I would say the ones that aremore mid-market enterprise that
serve manufacturers anddistributors.
But but I there's a long list ofthem.
SPEAKER_01 (41:52):
Yeah, if you if you can name it, we've probably
integrated to it, to be honest.
But um the the dynamics ERPs arecertainly our fastest growing
user base.
SPEAKER_02 (42:03):
Oh it's great.
But the application itself isgrowing significantly.
And the uh also I mean I thinkin 2025, again, you bring it up,
which is the year we're in, uh Ithink.
And um if you don't have somesort of e-commerce presence or
online presence, it's I thinkit's a challenge for most
businesses.
(42:24):
I mean, there still may be somethat uh quite uh aren't there
yet, but I think as umtechnology is advancing and
increasing, you know, to havethat option um is important.
Even if it's just for orderentry, never mind selling.
You know, I've I've worked withsome that they've had online
catalogs for just order entry.
Um the whole purchase and othertype process uh or payment
(42:46):
excuse me, processing they stilldo uh with B2B you can still do
POs and uh and bills and suchlike that.
SPEAKER_04 (42:53):
So yeah, so so you guys uh growing in the dynamic
space.
Uh I do I am curious if you aregoing to be at directions in
Orlando in April.
Absolutely.
You guys have you guys getting abooth?
SPEAKER_01 (43:10):
We are.
Yep.
Oh, very good.
We'll be at pretty much anyMicrosoft show that you can name
off right now next year.
No, okay.
SPEAKER_04 (43:18):
You guys have signed up for all of them.
That's awesome.
SPEAKER_01 (43:21):
Yeah, we'll we'll be at directions, we'll be at at
Summit, um the AI Summit orwhatever they're calling it now.
SPEAKER_04 (43:27):
Oh, AI and Copilot Summit.
SPEAKER_01 (43:29):
Yep, you got it.
So any of the ones that you canname we're we're probably going
to that.
Yeah.
No, and we'll be at convergencenext month, too.
SPEAKER_04 (43:40):
Consider going to convergence.
Yes, uh bringing it back.
SPEAKER_02 (43:45):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I remember that, geez, manyyears ago when I first got into
it.
I think I went to a convergence.
My first one was in Atlantamany, many moons ago.
So we'll see how that goes.
I may take the drive over to itand see uh with it being a
relatively short drive umthrough the alligated land uh to
(44:09):
take a look at it.
Uh when it goes through animplementation, uh I know this
is a tough question because I Ihear this all the time myself
and it's tough to answer.
But what can someone expect fora typical implementation time?
I know there's a lot ofvariables to it, but from your
experience, just you think oflike an average company, you
know, not uh there's always edcases, there's different sizes,
(44:29):
there's different requirements,but generally speaking, um how
how long does an implementationusually take?
Is it days, hours, weeks,months, years?
SPEAKER_00 (44:39):
Uh typically I would say on the low end, three to six
months for a mid-marketdistributor manufacturer.
We have had some companies thathave you know four ERPs and four
different e-commerce platforms,and they're centralizing
everything and going throughmajor digital transformation.
That can be more than a year.
(45:00):
Because it it has less to dowith our platform and more with
deprecating old systems andcentralizing the data and change
management and go down the list.
SPEAKER_02 (45:09):
Yeah, that's I can see what that's a challenge for
this because usually uh I'msaying in that case, then it's
because they're doing an entiresystem implementation, so the
time period's not necessarilyimplementing the product, it's
getting everything implementedas a whole and the people to do
that and the reorganization andthe strategy versus saying I
already have this in place and Ican get this done and set up.
(45:32):
Exactly.
It's a it's a that's Iunderstand that model.
That's why it's it's always atough question to ask, but uh
sometimes it's good to just getan idea of the you know the
simplicity of um getting it setup.
Uh the strategy of it's always achallenge, and it's tough.
I hear that question all thetime with ERP implementations.
Everyone's just like, ah, youcan just set it up.
But they forget about the peopleportion of it, they forget about
(45:52):
the data portion of it.
If you don't have changemanagement.
Oh yes, oh yeah, yeah.
And then also you're stilltrying to, it's almost sometimes
like trying to change the buswheels as the bus is going down
the freeway as you're goingthrough this.
So uh same same concerns,absolutely.
Yeah, it's it's a littlechallenge.
(46:13):
Well, uh Jeff and Tom, thank youvery much for taking the time to
speak with us this afternoon.
We really do appreciate it.
Um I'm interested in thisbecause I have some good ideas
as well with uh the whole artifypiece.
The artify piece, yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (46:25):
That is interesting.
SPEAKER_02 (46:28):
I I can't tell you how many times I've come across
the need for that.
And you wouldn't think about it,but we're in that world.
Everybody wants the unique andon-demand type product, right?
It's not just uh I mean you'reyou're talking about in
uniforms, but it's almost likeassemble to order, but
variations, and you want to beable to get it out easily,
(46:50):
quickly, and let the customersget what they want with all the
different combinations andvariations.
So I have uh I may have to callyou up.
I may want to set up my ownlittle store for something.
I have a good idea for I'm nottelling anybody what the idea is
yet, but um they'll have to see.
Jeff, I'll talk uh if the Jeffand Tom, if you guys, if I make
it to um Convergence, I'll talkwith you there.
(47:11):
If not, I'll definitely see youin the directions in April.
Back in Orlando.
So um, but again, thank you verymuch for taking the time to
speak with us this afternoon.
And if anyone would like to havemore information about uh
Xenode, Artify, or how this uhcan be implemented with this
system, what's the best way toreach you?
SPEAKER_00 (47:30):
Yeah, I I think the best way go to either either of
the uh URLs, artifilabs.com, orZenode is Z N O D E.com.
Uh fill out a form, request ademo, contact us.
We'll have the right peoplefollow up immediately, or you'll
actually be able to hitsomeone's calendar and schedule
(47:52):
time.
SPEAKER_02 (47:53):
Excellent, great, thank you.
And we'll also have uh links toum in the show notes for to be
able to get in contact with bothof you.
Again, thank you, and uh lookforward to seeing you soon.
Ciao ciao.
Thanks, Brad.
Thanks.
Bye.
Thank you, Chris, for your timefor another episode of In the
Dynamics Corner Chair, and thankyou to our guests for
participating.
SPEAKER_04 (48:13):
Thank you, Brad, for your time.
It is a wonderful episode ofDynamics Corner Chair.
I would also like to thank ourguests for join joining us.
Thank you for all of ourlisteners tuning in as well.
You can find Brad atdeveloperlife.com.
That is D V L P R L I F E dotcom.
(48:34):
And you can interact with themvia Twitter, D V L P R L I F E.
You can also find me atMatalino.io, M-A-T-A-L-I-N-O.io,
and my Twitter handle isMatalino 16.
And see you can see those linksdown below in the show notes.
(48:57):
Again, thank you everyone, thankyou, and take care.
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