April 22, 2025 • 52 mins
From de minimis drama to geopolitical trade shakeups, tariffs are doing more than raising prices, they're forcing a full rewrite of how e-commerce logistics gets done.
Harshida Acharya, Chief Strategy Officer at Fulfillment IQ and host of the eCOM Logistics Podcast, joins the show to explain what these policy changes really mean for brands. If you’re still relying on one warehouse, one fulfillment model, or one country, consider this your wake-up call.
Key Takeaways:
- Tariff shifts and de minimis changes are disrupting the global cost structure for e-commerce brands.
- Brands overly reliant on Chinese imports or DTC fulfillment models are the most exposed.
- U.S. regulatory changes are pushing a long-term shift toward nearshoring and diversified supply chains.
- Fulfillment strategy must align with evolving trade rules to remain sustainable.
- Strategic investments now will separate the survivors from the reactive.
LINKS:
- Harshida's LinkedIn
- eCOM LOGISTICS Podcast
- Fulfillment IQ on CargoRex
- Tariff Shockwave: US Import Bookings Collapse After Q1 Surge (Vizion & Dun & Bradstreet)
- Ladies Who Logistic LinkedIn Group
- How To Handle Supply Chain and Logistics Masterfully with Sandra MacQuillan
Feedback? Ideas for a future episode? Shoot us a text here to let us know.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Harshida Acharya (00:05):
One of the things that I really admire
about certain companies andcertain individuals in times of
crisis or in times of volatilityis when they lean in rather than
lean back. So when you're seeingthat there's volatility and
there's all of thesedisruptions, rather than saying
I'm just going to hold off ondoing anything because I just
don't know what's going tohappen, I think that would be
the wrong approach. I think thebest way to tackle this is
(00:29):
rather than, you know, beingscared or being fearful of not
knowing and not being able topredict, try and think of what
would be the best possibleoutcome, what could be the worst
possible outcome. And how do youkind of, you know, find your
reality in between those two.
Blythe Brumleve (00:47):
Welcome into another episode of Everything is
Logistics, a podcast for thethinkers and afraid. We are
proudly presented by SPIlogistics, and I am your host,
Blythe Milligan, and on thisepisode, I'm so pumped to
finally be able to have aconversation with her. We have
Harshida Acharya, and she iseCOM logistics podcast host and
Chief Strategy Officer atfulfillment IQ, and we're going
(01:07):
to be talking about the big Tword tariffs and how it's
shifting and rewriting ecommerce logistics playbook for
2025 and probably beyond. Soharshita, welcome to the show. I
wish it was under friendliercircumstances.
Unknown (01:23):
I wish that as well.
Blythe, but this is where weare. We were just chatting right
before this, that unless you'reliterally keeping on top of how
the situation is evolving on anhour by hour basis, you just
cannot stay on top of it. Sokeeping that in mind, excited to
get into this, I think you'vebeen talking about having this
podcast episode for the longesttime, so I'm really glad that
we're making it happen. It'sbeen amazing to run into you at
(01:46):
industry events, and I've beenfollowing you on LinkedIn and
been watching your podcasts andvideos for a really long time as
well. So happy to be with youtoday. And yeah, let's get into
it. Likewise, I've beenfollowing your show for a while.
Can't wait to have thisconversation. Think we wanted to
try to make something happenaround, you know, the holidays
with E commerce, but I'm kind ofglad that it didn't work out
(02:08):
around the holidays, becausethen now you can, you can help
us and help me, and maybe we canshare some ideas on what the
hell is going on with tariffsand all of that shifting in
global trade. But first, beforewe get into that, I do want to
give the audience a little bitof a background on who you are,
how you came to work inlogistics, how you started the
podcast, you know, all that goodstuff. So, so how did you get
(02:31):
here today? Yeah,I'll keep it brief for for the
audience's sake, it's funny. Iactually, I grew up in
logistics. So I, I remember, youknow, as a kid, my dad had a
logistics company back when Iwas growing up. So he literally
founded it the year that I wasborn. So I remember being a five
(02:52):
year old running around in like,sort centers. And, you know,
being, you know, in the the mixof the action that happens on on
the the real floor of where, youknow, ops are done. So was kind
of got to learn and realize justhow much complexity there is,
how much human involvement andhow many little pieces have to
(03:14):
align for logistics to trulywork. I decided as a kid that I
want to stay as far away from itas possible. So of course, I
decided after school I was goingto do something totally
different. I majored in businessand strategy was my minor. So
right out of school, I went intomanagement consulting, enjoyed
(03:34):
that for a little bit, alsoworked throughout with various
different types oforganizations. So starting with
like manufacturing totelecommunications as well as
financial industry, andit it's interesting when you
when you get to see that kind ofbreadth of problems and the way
they're tackled, and howcultural nuances as well as
(03:58):
practices of specific leaders,and also what happens at
strategic level, how thatinfluences what actually ends up
being built. I think it givesyou a very good context on how
do you align your strategy withexecution, and think about
results first, as you are tryingto navigate the complexities of
(04:18):
our world, and I feel like thatset me up really well for the
world of logistics. And yeah, soI've been with IQ for about five
and a half years now, and we'rea supply chain consultancy, very
niche. So even though we could,you know, potentially solve all
sorts of problems, because wehave specialists in Operations
(04:39):
and Technology, we choose to bean inch wide and mile deep
operation. So what that means iswe just focus on warehousing and
distribution and all of thechallenges that and there are
tons just in our space, right?
So we always have tons ofchallenging and interesting work
to.
(05:00):
Focus on, but any anything thatis within the four walls of a
warehouse. So this could be, youknow, a tech problem, or, you
know, need to figure out whatkind of technology or tech stack
Should we buy, customizations,implementations, advisory work,
etc. That's kind of whatfulfillment IQ specializes in,
(05:21):
and so I imagine, for this week,for the audience sake, we were
recording this on April 9, at12:17pm,
just in case, you know news,further news drops. So you know,
with tariff drama going on for,I mean, really over the last few
months, since, you know, Trumpwon the presidency, but then
really, in the last week with,you know, the Liberation Day
that happened on April 2. Andthen now we're, we're kind of in
(05:44):
the throes of it. And, you know,kind of what you alluded to.
There's been a lot of latenights for a lot of folks in
supply chain and logistics, andfeels a little, you know,
overwhelming. So I imagine for alot of your customers and
clients, I imagine they'reprobably feeling the the same
thing too, or are they? What'sthe mood like with your client
base, with fulfillment? IQ,yeah, absolutely. I mean, again,
(06:07):
to the point that you weremaking earlier, Blythe, you
know, having having podcasts asa platform and having a channel
to interact with individuals inaddition to all of the clients
that we have at fulfillment. IQ,I think gives us a really good
perspective and pulse on what'shappening in the market, and get
to kind of empathize with allthe different perspectives. And
I think right now, thevolatility is it's real. I mean,
(06:29):
people are concerned. You seethe market drop over the last,
you know, 48 hours. It's really,really concerning. I think for
us, you know, one of the commonthemes that we tend to see again
and again with this as well. As,you know, we've seen a lot of
disruptions in the last fiveyears as as logistics industry
in general. So I think it the,you know, the philosophy around
(06:53):
how the only constant is changeis kind of what we are embracing
at this point, because we don'tknow for sure exactly where that
tariff number is going to land.
We don't know, you know, howmuch of it is negotiation tactic
versus not. What matters is thatwe're seeing a lot of brands and
a lot of businesses that arestruggling around Hey, we don't
have options. We don't have theability to, you know, take this
(07:16):
near shore or onshore, justbecause that's not like the the
capabilities don't exist. Sothat's that's more of a
challenging problem to kind oftackle, and hopefully, you know,
by the time the dust settles,some of these things will will
get sorted out. But I think alot of brands are figuring out
that it's not just it's not justabout faster, it's about making
(07:38):
sure that you're truly designingyour fulfillment and your
strategies in a way that you're,you know, not beholden, or you
don't have single points offailure throughout that that
journey.
But again, you can't really doanything overnight. This is
going to take and we're going tosee the impact of this, not just
in the market, but even in ourindustry. We'll see over the
(07:59):
next, you know, 12 to 24 months,there are going to be some big
disruptions, unfortunately, buthopefully that's going to, you
know, frame itself and from theperspective of a correction, and
get us closer to where we wantto, where we want to go, be more
resilient. I think the waytechnology is evolving, I think
this is a really good time forus to go through this
(08:20):
unfortunate disruption, justbecause I think technology can
really expedite and can helpalleviate a lot of challenges
that organizations have, andrather than just trying to, you
know, place all your bets in onebucket, which is, if I get this
product for super cheap, Then Ican meet a certain unit
(08:42):
economics goal. I think you canreally spread that out across
and have, you know, youryour tech as well as your ops
support, you know, themathematics that goes into your
unit economics at the end of theday. So it doesn't just become,
you know, heavy on one end. So Ithink it's again, you know, just
taking a macro look at exactlywhat the business does, what
(09:03):
those points of vulnerabilityare, and truly, you know, trying
to look under the hood and say,Okay, how can we truly think
through a better way of movingforward? And keeping in mind
that it's not going to beovernight, but let's make sure
that this is, this is a way thatwe can evolve and get better,
and not, you know, it doesn'tmake us obsolete, or we don't
(09:24):
get into a situation where this,you know, causes the end of the
business as well, whichunfortunately will happen for a
lot of them, I think, too. Andjust to echo your statements, I
got an email this morning fromSammy amons, who is she works
over at vision, and they do alot of visibility and a lot of
tracking and with theiroffering. And so she's sent over
(09:45):
these numbers because theyworked with done and Bradstreet,
and they said that in January,the year over year change for us
import bookings from China wasplus 72% in January, probably a
little bit to do with, you know,two.
Chinese New Year and things likethen trying to get ahead of the
any kind of tariffannouncements. In February it
dropped to minus 30% and thenMarch is minus 8% so if I'm
(10:10):
reading between the lines here,it kind of looks like a lot of
businesses were planning forthis ahead of time, which is, is
smart. And so I think for a lotof those companies, if you
planned ahead of time, and youload it up on a lot of your
merchandise and a lot of yourinputs, store them in a
warehouse so you can kind ofwait out this, this drama,
you're in a much better positionversus the businesses that kind
(10:32):
of maybe put their head in thesand and tried to ignore a lot
what was going on.
And I imagine that thosebusinesses are probably feeling
a little bit more calmer thisweek after post Liberation Day.
But to your point, I wouldimagine that some of the people
that didn't plan properly areexperiencing a lot of stress,
(10:53):
probably as much as we all are,yeah, and it's a constant state
of evolution as well, right? Soto your point, though, I think I
was reading ona news story about how Apple was
actually trying to fly three orfour planes overnight before
that midnight deadline to makesure that they can get in as
many of their iPhones intoUnited States as possible, to,
kind of, you know, go aroundthis, the loophole. But, I mean,
(11:15):
that's apple. They have all ofthe resources they have, you
know, the best of the bestadvisors. They have an
incredible team that issupporting them from, you know,
logistics and fulfillment andstrategies perspective, and if
they are still scrambling, Ithink, you know, one word that I
would say to brands that aresmaller and probably don't have
(11:38):
the the kind of means that Appledoes is, you're okay, you're,
you're doing the best you can,and again, just, you know, pivot
and keep, keep evolving, becausethese times are extremely
unpredictable, and things areprobably not going to work out
the way you hoped or imagined.
But,yeah, that's, that's basically
what Logistics is many ways,right? It's kind of a whack a
(12:02):
mole like, you think you'vesolved one problem, and a few
other problems are going to showup, ones that you you never
expected, and you just have to.
It's like, what Mark Watney,from the scientist from the
movie, where he's planting thepotatoes on Mars,
like, you know the movie name,but he talks about solving
problems. He's like, you solveone problem. You solve one
(12:23):
problem, and then you solve thenext, and you solve the next,
and then you get to come home.
So I'm I'm gonna blank on thatmovie name. It's gonna hit me
later on during theconversation. So I've read the
book as well, but I can'tremember. We have our brains are
maximum right now of just drama,so forgive us if we can't
remember a specific movie name,but I do want to kind of stay on
(12:43):
this for a minute, because withthese, I guess all of this as
much planning as you couldpossibly do to prep for an event
like this. Is the normal flow ofgoods still happening if you
have those goods in the UnitedStates or in North America. Is
that normal flow stillhappening? Or is trade kind of
(13:03):
halted for until, you know, someof this, you know, kind of evens
out. I mean, just because of theway our industry works and the
way logistics works, I don'tthink there's a way for us to
just stop the flow unless, youknow, we have a situation like
we've had where, you know,there's, you know, the canal is
blocked, or something like that.
(13:25):
I think the the flow is probablygoing to continue, but there are
going to be players that have topay the price, have to suffer
the consequences of what thatbecause if you think about it,
like a lot of these traits thatare happening, they've been
committed a long time ago,right? So it's not like they can
change their mind or stopovernight. In cases where they
(13:46):
can, I'm sure they'll try, butin a lot of cases, that's just
not possible. So it's going tobe more of, you know, feeling
the financial impact andhopefully adjusting and making
sure that there are somecountermeasures that are being
put in place. There was alsosome news that was coming out
with the removal of the deminimis. And correct me if I'm
(14:07):
wrong, because I'm very, again,very, I guess, quote, unquote,
new to all of this information.
But the de minimis rule was arule that really benefited
companies like Shein and temu,where they could ship in
packages to the United States,and as long as it was, it was
under $800 then they wouldn'thave to pay any taxes on that.
That effectively has beenremoved. And Ryan Peterson from
(14:28):
Flexport was saying that he'shearing that de minimis is going
to be gone for good, that it's,it's one of those things that's
not going to be coming back. Sobetween that and, you know, some
of these other issues that aregoing on. What kind of ripple
effects do you see it happeningin the E commerce world, where
this is the new reality, andyou're not going to essentially
(14:49):
be able to go back to the way itwas? What kind of, I guess,
ripple effects are you seeing?
Yeah, I mean, personally, Iwouldn't be too mad about that.
I.
You know, loop being permanentlyclosed, because, in reality, we
just,we just saw a flood of really
cheaply made goods flooding intoour, you know, our countries.
(15:09):
And, you know, we also workreally closely with a number of
different organizations onreturns management, and we see
the impact of it on the otherend as well, right? So if you
think about the sustainabilityand the impact that these
cheaply made goods, andspecifically, if you talk about
clothing that has on ourenvironment, it is, it is
catastrophic. So hopefully thisis going to move us more
(15:33):
towards, you know, the beingmore in style with, you know,
investing in pieces of clothing,maybe, you know, thrifting more,
upcycling, etc, etc. I thinkthat would be good for the
general economy. So that's justone personal call out, because I
thinkthis is it in general. I don't
think it did us any favors. AndI think, you know, as I think
(15:57):
about the the kind of purchaseslike my my niece would literally
order, you know,20 different outfits for one
prom dress that she wanted, andthen she would send all the rest
of them back. And, you know, thedresses were probably like she
purchased this total, you know.
Qual, sorry, the total amountwould be like, $100 right? But
(16:19):
just think about how much wentinto making that happen, and
what is going to take for it toget back to where it needs to
go, right? So the freight, thecost of, like, someone manually
packaging, sending it out, andthen also, I don't know if they
it gets back on shelf, if itgets re sent to someone else, or
if it's just going in some sortof a, you know, a dump, because,
(16:43):
again, that's causing a hugeproblem for us. So I think in
from that perspective, it is areally good move. It's going to
be really difficult, though. Soagain, you know, bringing it
back to the reality for us, Ithink a lot a lot of folks have
become very used to expecting,you know, the timos and she ins,
type of, you know, I'll spend$10 and I'll have, like, a huge
(17:06):
bag of, you know, goods thatarrive at my home. So I think
there's going to be, fromcustomer experience perspective,
there's going to be anadjustment needed, and it will
have to happen over time,because companies are just not
going to be able to, you know,operate as as usual. Yeah, I
mean, the net positive. And meand my husband were talking
about this earlier in the week,where it was like, we kind of
need to be broken of this habitof buying these cheap goods and
(17:30):
buying things like, you know,more buy it for life, and, you
know, these things that puttingvalue in. You know, what I think
the phrase is, is, cry once,instead of, you know, crying a
bunch of times, spend the moneyonce, spend a little bit extra,
but it's going to last you somuch longer. And I think that's,
that's where, you know, a lot offolks, including myself, we need
(17:50):
to be broken of this habit. ButI have noticed that, I think it
was about a month ago I wasinside the the the temu app, and
it was, it was right around thetime that Tiktok was, you know,
quote, unquote, going to bebanned or not going to be
banned, but inside of the temuapp, because I figured that temu
and she and we're going to benext, if the reasonings for
banning Tiktok were one, thenthat could probably apply to a
(18:12):
few other different Chinesecompanies. And so inside of the
app, it would tell you that thisships locally. And so I to your
point, I think that that'sright, that these companies have
been knowing that these kinds ofthings are going to be coming
for a while, and they're settingup residual plans. I'm curious
if you've been paying attentionor watching maybe Amazon, and
how they're reacting to thisnews, because to do or to
(18:35):
combat, what the dominance thatshe and and Timu have had, you
know, over the last couple ofyears, Amazon started setting up
similar factories over in EastAsia, and I'm curious if there's
going to still be doing that, orif they're maybe doubling down
on their US carrier obligationsor carrier offerings.
(18:58):
Yeah, I think Amazon is such afascinating case study of our
times. I mean, what they've beenable to accomplish within their
logistics practice alone? Imean, let's not even talk about
AWS and all of the work thatthey've done there, but just in
terms of logistics, I think theythey truly think about customer
first. So you know, even as Ithink back to the days of when
(19:22):
they launched prime that was wayahead of even where customer
expectations were at that point.
You subscribe for, I don't knowwhat it was like, $79 or
something, and then you canorder as much as you want, free
shipping. I mean, that wastotally unheard of. But what was
super interesting about this,and I think this was probably in
my last year of university, iswhen this was all kind of
unfolding. And I remember thenumbers around why it made so
(19:46):
much sense were incredible. Soit was, you know, if you compare
someone who was not subscribedto prime versus someone who was
subscribed to prime, the amountof spending that they did per
year, just.
Because they have this programthat they paid $79 for. It was
1000s of dollars. So you wereliterally converting people's
(20:07):
mindsets on, you know, shoppingbehaviors, from one channel to
another by subscribing them tothis loyalty program, basically,
which, you know, takes care ofthe shipping, absorbs that cost,
but gets you into the habit ofshopping at Amazon. One thing
that I've seen,seen them do over time is get
really, really good at theactual act of fulfillment. So
(20:30):
again, if you think of the, youknow, the most painful jobs in
our industry are probably theones where you have to be on a
warehouse floor, or you're, youknow, you're actually doing the
pick, pack and ship and all ofthe, you know, painful walking
that needs to happen, exceptionhandling, the you know,
(20:50):
everything that goes into it, Ithink, is, is what makes it
super challenging. But whatAmazon has been able to do is
take technology, take processes,marry them together in a way
where you are making youroperations run super smoothly,
and you know, align that back tonow. Make sure that every
(21:10):
customer who orders something,you know, gets it in time,
because you never know what itis. The philosophy that they
kind of follow is it could be alife saving medication that they
might not receive. So it everyorder matters, and customer
comes first, right? So I thinkgrounding in that philosophy,
what I saw earlier this week, Ibelieve, was
(21:34):
Amazon is now using AI, and, youknow, some of the agentic
capabilities of AI, and tappinginto, again, doubling down on
this right? And I don't knowexactly how this is going to fit
into their long term strategy,but basically, it allows
customers to go through Amazonon their app and go in and
purchase something from anexternal site. So let's say, for
(21:55):
instance, Blythe wants to get,you know, a studio light, a key
light. I think both of us shouldget a key light. But, you know,
you go and search for a keylight, Amazon doesn't have the
one that you're looking for. Itcan actually search and give you
options for purchasing somethingthat is available on an external
website. And in the back end,they would take care of all of
the payment processing and, youknow, filling out the the
(22:18):
information, etc. And as acustomer, it's a very seamless
experience for you to be able tojust receive that. You might not
get the Amazon experience interms of, you know, the fast
delivery, etc, but it saves youthat step of having to go
somewhere else. Be like, oh,Amazon doesn't have it. So now
let me see who else can, youknow, fulfill this need for me.
So it feels like you know theyare going to continue to
(22:40):
dominate in this space, and theywill, you know, try and find
ways that they are puttingcustomers at the center of their
focus on, okay, what exactly dothey need? Are we giving them
what they need? And if not, howcan we enable that? So from my
perspective, Amazon is, youknow, it already is, but it will
continue to be the destinationthat customers will go to for
(23:02):
research as well as purchase forany goods that they need. So
with all of that said, Walmart,too is becoming a major player
in offering marketplacesolutions for third party
sellers. Think they just kind ofsecretly announced that they're
going to start providing orbecoming a broker and offering
their transportation andfulfillment services to other
(23:25):
other businesses. And I'mcurious between the moves that
Amazon and Walmart and then youknow, some of the offshore
players, she and temu is acouple of the ones that we've
talked about already, what cansort of the average e commerce
business learn from those, thebig players.
Yeah, I mean, diversify. Don't.
Don't just rely on one channelas your end all and be all if
(23:49):
you're not already on Amazon, ifyou're not already on, you know,
Walmart, make sure that you'refinding all of these different
avenues of distribution, becauseat the end of the day, with all
of the volatility in the market,it is critical that you get your
products to as many customers asyou can. I think the other thing
that is super critical for thesebrands to you know, truly
(24:11):
reflect on, and I think like youdo a really good job of this,
which isjust marketing yourself really
well, right? So it's with thethe amount of AI generated
content and blogs and stuff thatwe see out there, it's becoming
(24:32):
really difficult for people tomake decisions just based on
content. So people are going torely more and more on human
interaction. And, you know, relyon humans as the anchor for a
brand and purchase based on maketheir purchase decisions based
on that. So I think, you know,you might not have the scale
that Amazon and Walmart has, butyou have the ability to build
(24:55):
that brand narrative, be infront of your end customers,
engage, have authentic.
Conversations. You know, AI cando its job in terms of scaling
you, in terms of how often youare getting your content out,
but you truly do need to take itdown to that level of, how do I
make sure that I have a businessthat's sustainable, and that can
only happen if you actually havecustomers. And how do you grow
those customers? Make themloyal, make them, you know,
(25:17):
repeat buyers, and you knowpeople that maybe bring
additional customers to your toyour store, you know, give your
products as gifts, etc. So Ithink all of that really
requires that human human touch,for sure. And you said in one of
our pre show documents, yousaid, tech without a strategy,
is just expensive noise. And aswe're talking about some of
(25:39):
these big retailers, obviouslythey have or big fulfillment
centers.
We they have access to the besttechnology in the world. So I'm
curious, with your expertise intechnology and helping e
commerce companies, how, whatis, I guess, the tech that is a
must have right now and then,what's something that's maybe a
(25:59):
little over hyped? Yeah,definitely. I mean,
you and I were at manifesttogether, and I was at
Promat just a few weeks ago. Andjust the amount of AI and
agentic AI that you get to comeacross in every single booth, in
(26:20):
every single conversation. Imean, there's a huge hype around
that, and I don't think anyone'sgoing to deny that. However,
it's really, really importantfor businesses to truly
understand what the impact ofthat AI can be. Don't just buy
it because it's AI. This issomething that, you know, we we
talk about on a daily basis. Youknow, start with your problem.
What exactly are you trying tosolve? Because there are things
(26:41):
that you can do really well as ahuman, like we talked about, you
know, previously on, you know,your personality and who you are
as a person, and, you know,connecting with other
individuals AI is not going tobe able to do a good job at that
you can, but there are thingsthat you probably are not that
great at. And I don't mean youpersonally, but just humans in
general, being able to, youknow, do detailed work or admin
(27:02):
stuff, things that require a lotof data processing and being
quick and scaling. I think thoseare the things that you should
be giving to your agents or yourAI capabilities.
And in my mind, that's trulywhat makes sense, and to maybe
add a little bit more contextaround that comment around
if you have tech without somesort of grounding in strategy,
(27:24):
then you're just wasting yourmoney.
I've seen so many businesses getinfluenced by, or, you know, get
inspired by some sort ofinteresting tech pitch that they
heard, or, you know, a hype, andthey're just throwing money down
the drain, because they have notthought about the basics of why.
What would this tech do for me?
Yes, it's great that it candrive all of these results, and
(27:47):
it sounds super impressive, butit doesn't work that way, right?
Like, just because you have thisamazing WMS, for instance, it's
not going to fix your problemsovernight. You need to have a
clear understanding of whatexactly as as a three PL or as a
brand, what are the things thatI need to do to make my customer
successful? Or, you know, to toachieve the kind of KPIs and
(28:07):
metrics that I need to achieve?
And where do I want to be fiveyears from now? Right? So all of
these three, pls, and brands areconstantly growing, and they're
trying to figure out, okay,which, what is my ideal
positioning in the market aswell. So, you know, do you want
to stay in the same market? Doyou want to have, you know,
customers that are a little bitabove market? So maybe you want
to go to mid market andenterprise, that's going to
require completely differenttech stack, right? So thinking
(28:30):
through stuff like that, thecapabilities as well, as you
know, who do you haveoperationally available to you
on the floor? What about youryour capabilities, as you take a
look at your physical space,right? So is it, is it, are you
going to have, you know, newfacilities that you're opening?
So the green field facilityconversation versus brownfield
retrofitting, certain, you know,automations, for instance, is a
(28:50):
completely different ballgame.
So how do you make sure that youalign on that strategy and have
clarity?
And trust me, that that clarityis gold for any organization,
right? And being able to havethat clarity across the
organization on this is this iswhere we're at. This is what we
need, and here's where we aretrying to go, and then use
(29:11):
technology to kind of backfilloff the holes that you've
identified. I think that wouldbe the right approach. But in a
lot of cases, that clarity piecedoesn't happen, the alignment
and strategy doesn't happen. Andyou go straight to, I need to
solve this problem. I have, youknow, inventory accuracy issues.
Let me just have the best, youknow, whatever system and it's
going to solve it. Andunfortunately, that just doesn't
(29:31):
happen. Yeah, I think it's a lotof tech debt with what you're
talking with it. They fall forthe fancy sales pitch, and they
haven't done the boring butnecessary work to optimize your
own internal processes and thensee where technology fits into
place. Just want the magicbullet, and it's not gonna it's
not gonna solve, you know, much.
It'll probably create moreproblems, a whack a mole issue,
(29:53):
if you will. Now in one of theother quotes that you had said
you talked about great.
Being essential in logistics.
How do you see that showing upwith founders and other e
commerce businesses? Because youhave, as a podcast host, you
have access to these people whoare, you know, elbows deep in in
the hard work of of building upthese different companies and
(30:16):
trying to compete with theAmazons and the Walmarts of the
world. So, so what are those, Iguess, personality traits that
you see in successful founders?
Yeah, I mean, grit is tablestakes at this point, right?
Like, just take a look at wherewe are in terms of the market. I
you know the the amount of theamount of uncertainty that
(30:38):
entrepreneurs are having to dealwith, and have had to deal with
over the last five years, likethere's just no comparison to
anything previously. At the sametime, there are a lot of
opportunities as well, right? SoI think grit is a table stakes
ingredient in the makeup of anentrepreneur, but I think it's
also just having the ability tobe persistent, and, you know,
(31:01):
don't leave things at the ideastage, because everybody has,
you know, those wonderful ideas.
I mean, how many times have you,you know, sat with a friend in a
restaurant be like, Oh, wouldn'tbe cool if you had a restaurant
or a bed and breakfast? And, youknow, we all kind of have these
ideas on wouldn't be cool ifthis existed. But the ability to
take that idea, you know, eitherget it funded, or bootstrap it
and actually build it out hasit's a path that is super
(31:24):
complicated, full of pivots,full of challenges. So you truly
need to have that, that grit andperseverance, but also just the
the student mindset, right? Sothe ability to take feedback and
truly listen, because it's youhave to have a thick skin, there
is, you're going to hear things,and if you're not, then you're
not asking the right questions,because you should be hearing
(31:46):
about how something doesn't makesense, or something should be
done in a different way, becausethat's how you're going to make
your solution service, whateverit is, as robust as it can be,
right? So it's it's notglamorous, but if you truly are
invested in it, from theperspective of, I want to make
this the best possible product,or put something that is the
(32:07):
best possible, you know, legacythat I can leave behind in the
world, I think that's such asuch a good way to kind of
tackle real problems in ourworld. They're messy. It's going
to be challenging. It'scompletely, you know, it's going
to go off whatever plan you had.
But it's kind of shifting to,how do you make sure that you
(32:30):
still continue to, you know,keep marching forward.
Unfortunately, a lot ofbusinesses have kind of, you
know, kind of shut down over thelast couple of years, and
it's, it's really unfortunate,because I know how much
innovation there is needed inour space, and how much we need
fresh blood and, you know, newideas and for things to just
(32:51):
keep evolving. But at the sametime, it is a really tough
market, and it is a really toughindustry. You need to kind of
Master the basics. I thinkLogistics is one of those
industries where we have so muchrich foundation of operational
practices, so things like LeanSix Six, Lean Six Sigma, and you
(33:11):
know, other practices that trulymake it clear for any operator
how you should be running Thereal operations on on grounds,
and then adding AI, automation,robotics technology, layer them
in as they make sense.
I think that is truly the onlyway to win in this space. Yeah.
(33:32):
I mean, you really hit the nailon the head with saying all that
entrepreneurship is already justin and of itself, hard. But
then, if you're doingentrepreneurship inside of
logistics, especially with, youknow, everything that we've been
talking about in this episodeand everything that's been going
on with global trade, it's notfor the week, and you gotta be
able to your point, grit is themost essential tool that you can
(33:53):
have in your tool belt. Andwith, you know, sort of slightly
switching gears a little bit tothe podcast that you're a
producer and a host of E commlogistics Podcast. I'm curious
as to what was the initialreason to get that show started.
I think I heard you say it wasbeing able to talk to customers
directly. Is that kind of stillthe goal? Is it spreading
(34:14):
education awareness? Maybe acombination of the two. Yeah,
the podcast was honestly, Istarted it because it just
seemed like such a great idea. Imean, we were having all these
interesting conversations.
Anyways, we got, got asked allthe time by folks that we were
talking to, like, you shouldmake a podcast. Like, I would
listen to what you're saying.
(34:35):
So, you know, at one point I waslike, okay, dinad Dan, are we
doing this? Like, does it makesense for us to have our own
podcast? They were like, yes,let's do it. You know, couple
minutes later, I was like, Okay,guys, where are we at on that
podcast thing? They were like,Yeah, we should totally do it.
It's like, you know what? I'mgoing to do it, because I'd
rather do a podcast rather than,you know, write blogs or
(34:55):
articles anyway. So it justseemed like such a good fit
because.
So we love having conversations.
We love sharing knowledge. Welove learning from other leaders
in the industry. So beyond justcustomers, you know, we we
decided to just talk toindividuals in the in the
industry that were truly,you know, making things happen
(35:16):
from tech and ops perspective.
And again, we stay kind of inchwide and mile deep, even in the
podcast itself, because we knowwhat we specialize in and what
where we bring the value, andit's truly been a labor of love
for us. I think, you know, justbeing able to have conversations
with different, you know,leaders and get their
(35:38):
perspective and get theirinsights on, you know, not
necessarily looking for like thesecret sauce or the magic
bullet, because, to be honest,that never works. Like, even if
you if I tell you exactly whatmy secret sauce is, it would
never work, because it has to,you know, all of the context
around that magic sauce also hasto align. So it's more around
the playbooks. It's more around,you know, what is your
(35:59):
philosophy? How do you what'syour vision? How do you actually
make this happen? And you know,when you have all of these
obstacles, what is a good wayfor me to position it, reframe
it, and think about it? I thinkthat's kind of what we we set
out to build in the world. Andit's, it's been a very enriching
experience. I mean, as I'm sureyou might attest to it as a
(36:19):
podcast host and podcastcreator. You know, it's, it's
such a joy to be able to learnfrom various individuals in the
industry, sharpen the acts, soto speak, and also, just, you
know, be involved in, in in theconversations that are happening
in the industry as well, right?
I think it, it really gives youthat stage and the ability to
shape the narrative which is,which is really, really cool. I
(36:40):
think one of the things thatmakes me super proud is, you
know, when, when I meetindividuals, or I get comments
about how they're using, youknow, certain episodes of our
podcast as training material foronboarding new staff that joins
their organization and stufflike that. And I think that's
really cool. I mean, we, wedidn't set out to, you know,
create any sort of like learningcurriculum to start with, but I
(37:04):
think, you know, a lot of theepisodes kind of stand on their
own and have enough depth ofexpertise that folks that are,
you know, trying to level upwithin our industry can truly
use it as a learning resource.
Which makes me really happy, andI'm looking forward to seeing,
you know, how we can evolve thepodcast and, you know, kind of
(37:24):
keep it going. And, yeah, it'sreally inspiring to see, you
know, yourself and Sarah and allthe other podcasters in the
industry that are also, youknow, sharing some really good
conversations and making surethat the importance of logistics
and the importance of supplychain is felt heard, and there's
education around it, and I thinkthat's something we need to keep
(37:45):
pushing for and keep drivingforward. Do you have a favorite,
like guest quote or insight ornugget of information from a
previous guest?
Can't think of a specific quote,but I would say one of the
guests that has left me forever,inspired and changed me, in a
(38:07):
way, is Sandra McKellen. She wasthe CS CEO at Mondelez, and just
a phenomenal leader in thespace.
I think every interaction withher would just left me kind of
speechless. And, you know, Itook tons of notes. She
unfortunately passed away acouple years ago.
She, I think what she kind ofthe, the biggest impact that she
(38:31):
had on me was around just havingthe confidence in being able to
state, you know, what you bringto the table, and just going
through with it, you know, holdpeople accountable. Just
because, you know, something hasbeen said doesn't mean it's
actually going to get done. Takethe initiative to actually hold
people accountable and make surethat the results actually
follow. I mean, she, she hadthis ability to kind of take the
(38:54):
human perspective and marry itwith the results that needed to
be achieved from, you know,logistics and supply chain
perspective, and she did such agood job of marrying the two,
which is really, reallydifficult. But yeah, that that
would be for anyone that wantsto check out that episode. Maybe
we can link that in the the shownotes, because I think she's,
she was an incredible human Yes,absolutely. I'll get that link
(39:19):
from you, or I'll just probablysearch for it on your YouTube
channel and make sure I put itin the show notes for the folks
that are curious. But on asimilar note, you also started
up another group called ladieswho logistic tell me what
brought that idea to light andto fruition. Yeah, absolutely.
Again, it was another one ofthose conversations where it was
(39:41):
myself and the two other cofounders of ladies who logistic,
you know, we were at aconference together, and we're
like, Would it be cool if therewas, you know, a group where you
could just meet other women inlogistics and just have
friendships, you know, no, noother agenda. I think there's a
an.
Instagram poster on, you knowhow women should just show up
(40:03):
for each other and, you know, bea part of your tribe. No
jealousy, no, you know, nothingbackhanded. Just Just be there
and support each other. Like,yeah, that would be very cool.
So what would it take for us todo this? We're like, you know
what? Let's just test it out. Isthere, is there a need for
something like this to exist inthe world, and we just took a
chance. We posted on LinkedIn.
We're like, we're going to startthis group, and we're just going
(40:25):
to see if anybody's interestedin joining. And we saw a really
big turnout of women that wantedto join. We still have monthly
conversations and a couple ofdifferent programs that have
evolved out of it as well. It'sa free group. And again, it was
another labor of love, type ofan initiative. And what we try
(40:46):
to do is just get get womentogether and have them kind of
find each other in this world oflogistics. And hopefully, you
know, find some similarities,find some friendships, and be
able to rely on each other.
I think one of the key learningsthat we've had in that group as
well is just how isolated womenfeel at certain industry
(41:10):
conferences, and especially ifyou are newer in the industry,
and you're kind of trying tofind your place, and you go to a
conference that has where you'rejust underrepresented. And then
you go to, you know, anetworking event that has a huge
room with, I don't know, 500men. You just, you naturally
feel a little bit,you know, taken aback by, how do
I, how do I do this? I got I,personally, I'm not a very
(41:34):
outgoing person. I can do one onone, but when it's a huge crowd,
I immediately get overwhelmed. Ijust, you know, walk backwards
out in the room. But you know,having a friend with you just
makes it so much easier, becausethen you can have someone you
know who can get you out of theconversation if needed, or
introduce you to interestingpeople and help you expand your
network, etc. So it was kind ofborn out of that. And what we've
(41:56):
been doing is, in addition tothose monthly meetups, we we try
and organize, you know, premeetups at conferences, where we
just, you know, grab a coffee orgrab a meal and get to know each
other. So again, it can be like,hey, when we go to that, you
know, big networking thingthat's coming. You can look out
for me, I can look out for you.
We can, you know, find eachother kind of thing. So it's,
(42:16):
it's been, it's been reallyrewarding for me, being a woman,
minority woman in STEM inTechnology and Logistics. You
know, I've always found myselfin as a minority, in on most,
you know, stages, most tables.
So it's been, you know, reallyimportant for me to kind of pass
the ladder back down and try toteach whatever I can, as well as
(42:38):
give that platform to otherindividuals in the industry. So
this has kind of helped enablethat. And I have two other
amazing co founders with me, andthey bring their own perspective
from, you know, ventures inlogistics, space, sustainability
and logistics space, like, it'sjust a really well rounded
group. And, yeah, it's, it's a,it's a great one. Yeah. I mean,
(43:00):
between that group, Legacylogistic and your podcast, like
it's a beautiful thing when youcan set up a resource, not only
for yourself but for otherswithin the industry, to be able
to learn through that educationof what you're sharing within
those meetups and within thoseconversations. So So kudos to
you for having I was going tosay, having the balls to do it,
(43:23):
but that's obviously lack of abetter phrase, having the guts
to do it, the grit to do it, iswhat I should say.
So last couple, last couplequestions here, you know, as we
kind of, you know, round outthis discussion. What advice
would you give to the folks whoare kind of in our similar
(43:43):
shoes, where they're feelingjust overwhelmed with a lot of
the tariff conversation and whatthey should do with their
business planning and just kindof like, which direction should
I go? How should I even bethinking about planning for the
rest of 2025 what advice wouldyou give to e commerce companies
out there who are listening?
Yeah, that's a really greatquestion. I mean, I wish we had
(44:05):
some way of predicting how therest of the year is going to
unfold, but unfortunately, wedon't. So based on where we're
at, I think the best thing wecan do as experts and operators
in the industry, as well asbrands three PLS, and retailers
is truly get that clarity,right? So again, going back to
that strategy, as as as the edgethat you can truly have as an
(44:29):
organization, is probably what Iwould suggest they start with.
And it's, it's a really goodexercise to go through and think
about, you know, what impact areyou having on your customers?
Where do you drive the mostvalue? Where do they? Where do
they feel they get the mostvalue? And then what also
contributes value? As in thebottom line to your
organization, try to marry thetwo, and then figure out, are
(44:51):
you positioned in a way that youcan truly protect that and if
not, what are some of thosepractices or measures, or what
can.
You do to make sure that you areprepared, because things are
going to continue to be rocky.
I think you know, one of thethings that I really admire
about certain companies andcertain individuals in times of
(45:15):
crisis or in times of volatilityis when they lean in rather than
lean back. So when you're seeingthat there's volatility and
there's all of thesedisruptions, rather than saying,
I'm just going to hold off ondoing anything, because I just
don't know what's going tohappen, I think that would be
the wrong approach. I think thebest way to tackle this is
rather than, you know, beingscared or being fearful of not
(45:36):
knowing and not being able topredict, try and think of what
would be the best possibleoutcome. What could be the worst
possible outcome? And how do youkind of, you know, find your
reality in between those two andkeep it, keep it as realistic as
possible. Bring in an outsideexpert, if you need to, or
friend, or someone who can justcall you out in case you are,
you know, lying to yourself. Andtruly, you know, listen to
(45:58):
those, those difficultconversations, or, you know,
that reflection that you need tohave to truly make yourself
future proof, becauseotherwise, we're going to come
out of this disruptive time, andthen you'll find that because
you've been holding back, you'vealready lost out, you know,
because the competitors that didnot hold back and invested in
the right things and made themoves that they needed to make,
Very well said, and anincredible mic drop moment. So
(46:21):
where you know harshita, wherecan I be sure to add links to
fulfillment IQ and ladies whologistics, but where can I send
other people to find you,connect with you and possibly
work with you? Yeah, absolutely.
LinkedIn. I post semi regularlyon LinkedIn. I think the last
(46:42):
couple of months have been a bitcrazy, so I haven't been as
regular as I used to, though Ido try to post at least a couple
of times. So you can alwaysreach me on LinkedIn. You can DM
me, connect with me there,follow me. Fulfillment IQ is,
you know, as you'd spell it,fulfillment iq.com you can check
out our website or follow us onLinkedIn as well. Super
(47:05):
interested in talking to anyonethat is, you know, trying to
figure out how they are going tonavigate the future, as well as
folks that are truly interestedin, you know, taking a look at
how the disruptions might mightbe the best time for them to
actually invest in theirtechnology, invest in their
operations, and truly makethemselves a leader. So
(47:27):
again, open to anyone that wantsto have a chat. I love having
these kind of conversations aswell. So happy to meet for
virtual coffee and anyone, anywomen in the industry you know,
if you're interested, I wouldwelcome you to join ladies who
logistic as well. There are alot of different ladies
organizations. We have a ladiesconference as well. So lots of
(47:50):
amazing tools that are availableout there, and maybe we can link
them in the show notes as well.
So, you know, we can kind ofpass that ladder back down and
help more women, you know, feellike they have place in our
industry. 100% arjita, this wasa great conversation. Thank you
so much for your time.
Absolutely thank you.
(48:12):
I hope you enjoyed this episodeof everything is logistics, a
podcast for the thinkers infreight, telling the stories
behind how your favorite stuffand people get from point A to
B. Subscribe to the show, signup for our newsletter and follow
our socials. Over at everythingis logistics.com and in addition
to the podcast, I also wanted tolet you all know about another
company I operate, and that'sdigital dispatch, where we help
(48:35):
you build a better website. Now,a lot of the times we hand this
task of building a new websiteor refreshing a current one off
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explaining the freight industrythan it takes to actually build
the dang website. Well, thatdoesn't happen at Digital
(48:55):
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website management, maintenanceand updates starting at $90 a
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(49:40):
then, I hope you enjoyed thisepisode. I'll see you all real
soon and go jags.
One of the things that I really admire
about certain companies andcertain individuals in times of
crisis or in times of volatilityis when they lean in rather than
lean back. So when you're seeingthat there's volatility and
there's all of thesedisruptions, rather than saying
I'm just going to hold off ondoing anything because I just
don't know what's going tohappen, I think that would be
the wrong approach. I think thebest way to tackle this is
(00:29):
rather than, you know, beingscared or being fearful of not
knowing and not being able topredict, try and think of what
would be the best possibleoutcome, what could be the worst
possible outcome. And how do youkind of, you know, find your
reality in between those two.
Blythe Brumleve (00:47):
Welcome into another episode of Everything is
Logistics, a podcast for thethinkers and afraid. We are
proudly presented by SPIlogistics, and I am your host,
Blythe Milligan, and on thisepisode, I'm so pumped to
finally be able to have aconversation with her. We have
Harshida Acharya, and she iseCOM logistics podcast host and
Chief Strategy Officer atfulfillment IQ, and we're going
(01:07):
to be talking about the big Tword tariffs and how it's
shifting and rewriting ecommerce logistics playbook for
2025 and probably beyond. Soharshita, welcome to the show. I
wish it was under friendliercircumstances.
Unknown (01:23):
I wish that as well.
Blythe, but this is where weare. We were just chatting right
before this, that unless you'reliterally keeping on top of how
the situation is evolving on anhour by hour basis, you just
cannot stay on top of it. Sokeeping that in mind, excited to
get into this, I think you'vebeen talking about having this
podcast episode for the longesttime, so I'm really glad that
we're making it happen. It'sbeen amazing to run into you at
(01:46):
industry events, and I've beenfollowing you on LinkedIn and
been watching your podcasts andvideos for a really long time as
well. So happy to be with youtoday. And yeah, let's get into
it. Likewise, I've beenfollowing your show for a while.
Can't wait to have thisconversation. Think we wanted to
try to make something happenaround, you know, the holidays
with E commerce, but I'm kind ofglad that it didn't work out
(02:08):
around the holidays, becausethen now you can, you can help
us and help me, and maybe we canshare some ideas on what the
hell is going on with tariffsand all of that shifting in
global trade. But first, beforewe get into that, I do want to
give the audience a little bitof a background on who you are,
how you came to work inlogistics, how you started the
podcast, you know, all that goodstuff. So, so how did you get
(02:31):
here today? Yeah,I'll keep it brief for for the
audience's sake, it's funny. Iactually, I grew up in
logistics. So I, I remember, youknow, as a kid, my dad had a
logistics company back when Iwas growing up. So he literally
founded it the year that I wasborn. So I remember being a five
(02:52):
year old running around in like,sort centers. And, you know,
being, you know, in the the mixof the action that happens on on
the the real floor of where, youknow, ops are done. So was kind
of got to learn and realize justhow much complexity there is,
how much human involvement andhow many little pieces have to
(03:14):
align for logistics to trulywork. I decided as a kid that I
want to stay as far away from itas possible. So of course, I
decided after school I was goingto do something totally
different. I majored in businessand strategy was my minor. So
right out of school, I went intomanagement consulting, enjoyed
(03:34):
that for a little bit, alsoworked throughout with various
different types oforganizations. So starting with
like manufacturing totelecommunications as well as
financial industry, andit it's interesting when you
when you get to see that kind ofbreadth of problems and the way
they're tackled, and howcultural nuances as well as
(03:58):
practices of specific leaders,and also what happens at
strategic level, how thatinfluences what actually ends up
being built. I think it givesyou a very good context on how
do you align your strategy withexecution, and think about
results first, as you are tryingto navigate the complexities of
(04:18):
our world, and I feel like thatset me up really well for the
world of logistics. And yeah, soI've been with IQ for about five
and a half years now, and we'rea supply chain consultancy, very
niche. So even though we could,you know, potentially solve all
sorts of problems, because wehave specialists in Operations
(04:39):
and Technology, we choose to bean inch wide and mile deep
operation. So what that means iswe just focus on warehousing and
distribution and all of thechallenges that and there are
tons just in our space, right?
So we always have tons ofchallenging and interesting work
to.
(05:00):
Focus on, but any anything thatis within the four walls of a
warehouse. So this could be, youknow, a tech problem, or, you
know, need to figure out whatkind of technology or tech stack
Should we buy, customizations,implementations, advisory work,
etc. That's kind of whatfulfillment IQ specializes in,
(05:21):
and so I imagine, for this week,for the audience sake, we were
recording this on April 9, at12:17pm,
just in case, you know news,further news drops. So you know,
with tariff drama going on for,I mean, really over the last few
months, since, you know, Trumpwon the presidency, but then
really, in the last week with,you know, the Liberation Day
that happened on April 2. Andthen now we're, we're kind of in
(05:44):
the throes of it. And, you know,kind of what you alluded to.
There's been a lot of latenights for a lot of folks in
supply chain and logistics, andfeels a little, you know,
overwhelming. So I imagine for alot of your customers and
clients, I imagine they'reprobably feeling the the same
thing too, or are they? What'sthe mood like with your client
base, with fulfillment? IQ,yeah, absolutely. I mean, again,
(06:07):
to the point that you weremaking earlier, Blythe, you
know, having having podcasts asa platform and having a channel
to interact with individuals inaddition to all of the clients
that we have at fulfillment. IQ,I think gives us a really good
perspective and pulse on what'shappening in the market, and get
to kind of empathize with allthe different perspectives. And
I think right now, thevolatility is it's real. I mean,
(06:29):
people are concerned. You seethe market drop over the last,
you know, 48 hours. It's really,really concerning. I think for
us, you know, one of the commonthemes that we tend to see again
and again with this as well. As,you know, we've seen a lot of
disruptions in the last fiveyears as as logistics industry
in general. So I think it the,you know, the philosophy around
(06:53):
how the only constant is changeis kind of what we are embracing
at this point, because we don'tknow for sure exactly where that
tariff number is going to land.
We don't know, you know, howmuch of it is negotiation tactic
versus not. What matters is thatwe're seeing a lot of brands and
a lot of businesses that arestruggling around Hey, we don't
have options. We don't have theability to, you know, take this
(07:16):
near shore or onshore, justbecause that's not like the the
capabilities don't exist. Sothat's that's more of a
challenging problem to kind oftackle, and hopefully, you know,
by the time the dust settles,some of these things will will
get sorted out. But I think alot of brands are figuring out
that it's not just it's not justabout faster, it's about making
(07:38):
sure that you're truly designingyour fulfillment and your
strategies in a way that you're,you know, not beholden, or you
don't have single points offailure throughout that that
journey.
But again, you can't really doanything overnight. This is
going to take and we're going tosee the impact of this, not just
in the market, but even in ourindustry. We'll see over the
(07:59):
next, you know, 12 to 24 months,there are going to be some big
disruptions, unfortunately, buthopefully that's going to, you
know, frame itself and from theperspective of a correction, and
get us closer to where we wantto, where we want to go, be more
resilient. I think the waytechnology is evolving, I think
this is a really good time forus to go through this
(08:20):
unfortunate disruption, justbecause I think technology can
really expedite and can helpalleviate a lot of challenges
that organizations have, andrather than just trying to, you
know, place all your bets in onebucket, which is, if I get this
product for super cheap, Then Ican meet a certain unit
(08:42):
economics goal. I think you canreally spread that out across
and have, you know, youryour tech as well as your ops
support, you know, themathematics that goes into your
unit economics at the end of theday. So it doesn't just become,
you know, heavy on one end. So Ithink it's again, you know, just
taking a macro look at exactlywhat the business does, what
(09:03):
those points of vulnerabilityare, and truly, you know, trying
to look under the hood and say,Okay, how can we truly think
through a better way of movingforward? And keeping in mind
that it's not going to beovernight, but let's make sure
that this is, this is a way thatwe can evolve and get better,
and not, you know, it doesn'tmake us obsolete, or we don't
(09:24):
get into a situation where this,you know, causes the end of the
business as well, whichunfortunately will happen for a
lot of them, I think, too. Andjust to echo your statements, I
got an email this morning fromSammy amons, who is she works
over at vision, and they do alot of visibility and a lot of
tracking and with theiroffering. And so she's sent over
(09:45):
these numbers because theyworked with done and Bradstreet,
and they said that in January,the year over year change for us
import bookings from China wasplus 72% in January, probably a
little bit to do with, you know,two.
Chinese New Year and things likethen trying to get ahead of the
any kind of tariffannouncements. In February it
dropped to minus 30% and thenMarch is minus 8% so if I'm
(10:10):
reading between the lines here,it kind of looks like a lot of
businesses were planning forthis ahead of time, which is, is
smart. And so I think for a lotof those companies, if you
planned ahead of time, and youload it up on a lot of your
merchandise and a lot of yourinputs, store them in a
warehouse so you can kind ofwait out this, this drama,
you're in a much better positionversus the businesses that kind
(10:32):
of maybe put their head in thesand and tried to ignore a lot
what was going on.
And I imagine that thosebusinesses are probably feeling
a little bit more calmer thisweek after post Liberation Day.
But to your point, I wouldimagine that some of the people
that didn't plan properly areexperiencing a lot of stress,
(10:53):
probably as much as we all are,yeah, and it's a constant state
of evolution as well, right? Soto your point, though, I think I
was reading ona news story about how Apple was
actually trying to fly three orfour planes overnight before
that midnight deadline to makesure that they can get in as
many of their iPhones intoUnited States as possible, to,
kind of, you know, go aroundthis, the loophole. But, I mean,
(11:15):
that's apple. They have all ofthe resources they have, you
know, the best of the bestadvisors. They have an
incredible team that issupporting them from, you know,
logistics and fulfillment andstrategies perspective, and if
they are still scrambling, Ithink, you know, one word that I
would say to brands that aresmaller and probably don't have
(11:38):
the the kind of means that Appledoes is, you're okay, you're,
you're doing the best you can,and again, just, you know, pivot
and keep, keep evolving, becausethese times are extremely
unpredictable, and things areprobably not going to work out
the way you hoped or imagined.
But,yeah, that's, that's basically
what Logistics is many ways,right? It's kind of a whack a
(12:02):
mole like, you think you'vesolved one problem, and a few
other problems are going to showup, ones that you you never
expected, and you just have to.
It's like, what Mark Watney,from the scientist from the
movie, where he's planting thepotatoes on Mars,
like, you know the movie name,but he talks about solving
problems. He's like, you solveone problem. You solve one
(12:23):
problem, and then you solve thenext, and you solve the next,
and then you get to come home.
So I'm I'm gonna blank on thatmovie name. It's gonna hit me
later on during theconversation. So I've read the
book as well, but I can'tremember. We have our brains are
maximum right now of just drama,so forgive us if we can't
remember a specific movie name,but I do want to kind of stay on
(12:43):
this for a minute, because withthese, I guess all of this as
much planning as you couldpossibly do to prep for an event
like this. Is the normal flow ofgoods still happening if you
have those goods in the UnitedStates or in North America. Is
that normal flow stillhappening? Or is trade kind of
(13:03):
halted for until, you know, someof this, you know, kind of evens
out. I mean, just because of theway our industry works and the
way logistics works, I don'tthink there's a way for us to
just stop the flow unless, youknow, we have a situation like
we've had where, you know,there's, you know, the canal is
blocked, or something like that.
(13:25):
I think the the flow is probablygoing to continue, but there are
going to be players that have topay the price, have to suffer
the consequences of what thatbecause if you think about it,
like a lot of these traits thatare happening, they've been
committed a long time ago,right? So it's not like they can
change their mind or stopovernight. In cases where they
(13:46):
can, I'm sure they'll try, butin a lot of cases, that's just
not possible. So it's going tobe more of, you know, feeling
the financial impact andhopefully adjusting and making
sure that there are somecountermeasures that are being
put in place. There was alsosome news that was coming out
with the removal of the deminimis. And correct me if I'm
(14:07):
wrong, because I'm very, again,very, I guess, quote, unquote,
new to all of this information.
But the de minimis rule was arule that really benefited
companies like Shein and temu,where they could ship in
packages to the United States,and as long as it was, it was
under $800 then they wouldn'thave to pay any taxes on that.
That effectively has beenremoved. And Ryan Peterson from
(14:28):
Flexport was saying that he'shearing that de minimis is going
to be gone for good, that it's,it's one of those things that's
not going to be coming back. Sobetween that and, you know, some
of these other issues that aregoing on. What kind of ripple
effects do you see it happeningin the E commerce world, where
this is the new reality, andyou're not going to essentially
(14:49):
be able to go back to the way itwas? What kind of, I guess,
ripple effects are you seeing?
Yeah, I mean, personally, Iwouldn't be too mad about that.
I.
You know, loop being permanentlyclosed, because, in reality, we
just,we just saw a flood of really
cheaply made goods flooding intoour, you know, our countries.
(15:09):
And, you know, we also workreally closely with a number of
different organizations onreturns management, and we see
the impact of it on the otherend as well, right? So if you
think about the sustainabilityand the impact that these
cheaply made goods, andspecifically, if you talk about
clothing that has on ourenvironment, it is, it is
catastrophic. So hopefully thisis going to move us more
(15:33):
towards, you know, the beingmore in style with, you know,
investing in pieces of clothing,maybe, you know, thrifting more,
upcycling, etc, etc. I thinkthat would be good for the
general economy. So that's justone personal call out, because I
thinkthis is it in general. I don't
think it did us any favors. AndI think, you know, as I think
(15:57):
about the the kind of purchaseslike my my niece would literally
order, you know,20 different outfits for one
prom dress that she wanted, andthen she would send all the rest
of them back. And, you know, thedresses were probably like she
purchased this total, you know.
Qual, sorry, the total amountwould be like, $100 right? But
(16:19):
just think about how much wentinto making that happen, and
what is going to take for it toget back to where it needs to
go, right? So the freight, thecost of, like, someone manually
packaging, sending it out, andthen also, I don't know if they
it gets back on shelf, if itgets re sent to someone else, or
if it's just going in some sortof a, you know, a dump, because,
(16:43):
again, that's causing a hugeproblem for us. So I think in
from that perspective, it is areally good move. It's going to
be really difficult, though. Soagain, you know, bringing it
back to the reality for us, Ithink a lot a lot of folks have
become very used to expecting,you know, the timos and she ins,
type of, you know, I'll spend$10 and I'll have, like, a huge
(17:06):
bag of, you know, goods thatarrive at my home. So I think
there's going to be, fromcustomer experience perspective,
there's going to be anadjustment needed, and it will
have to happen over time,because companies are just not
going to be able to, you know,operate as as usual. Yeah, I
mean, the net positive. And meand my husband were talking
about this earlier in the week,where it was like, we kind of
need to be broken of this habitof buying these cheap goods and
(17:30):
buying things like, you know,more buy it for life, and, you
know, these things that puttingvalue in. You know, what I think
the phrase is, is, cry once,instead of, you know, crying a
bunch of times, spend the moneyonce, spend a little bit extra,
but it's going to last you somuch longer. And I think that's,
that's where, you know, a lot offolks, including myself, we need
(17:50):
to be broken of this habit. ButI have noticed that, I think it
was about a month ago I wasinside the the the temu app, and
it was, it was right around thetime that Tiktok was, you know,
quote, unquote, going to bebanned or not going to be
banned, but inside of the temuapp, because I figured that temu
and she and we're going to benext, if the reasonings for
banning Tiktok were one, thenthat could probably apply to a
(18:12):
few other different Chinesecompanies. And so inside of the
app, it would tell you that thisships locally. And so I to your
point, I think that that'sright, that these companies have
been knowing that these kinds ofthings are going to be coming
for a while, and they're settingup residual plans. I'm curious
if you've been paying attentionor watching maybe Amazon, and
how they're reacting to thisnews, because to do or to
(18:35):
combat, what the dominance thatshe and and Timu have had, you
know, over the last couple ofyears, Amazon started setting up
similar factories over in EastAsia, and I'm curious if there's
going to still be doing that, orif they're maybe doubling down
on their US carrier obligationsor carrier offerings.
(18:58):
Yeah, I think Amazon is such afascinating case study of our
times. I mean, what they've beenable to accomplish within their
logistics practice alone? Imean, let's not even talk about
AWS and all of the work thatthey've done there, but just in
terms of logistics, I think theythey truly think about customer
first. So you know, even as Ithink back to the days of when
(19:22):
they launched prime that was wayahead of even where customer
expectations were at that point.
You subscribe for, I don't knowwhat it was like, $79 or
something, and then you canorder as much as you want, free
shipping. I mean, that wastotally unheard of. But what was
super interesting about this,and I think this was probably in
my last year of university, iswhen this was all kind of
unfolding. And I remember thenumbers around why it made so
(19:46):
much sense were incredible. Soit was, you know, if you compare
someone who was not subscribedto prime versus someone who was
subscribed to prime, the amountof spending that they did per
year, just.
Because they have this programthat they paid $79 for. It was
1000s of dollars. So you wereliterally converting people's
(20:07):
mindsets on, you know, shoppingbehaviors, from one channel to
another by subscribing them tothis loyalty program, basically,
which, you know, takes care ofthe shipping, absorbs that cost,
but gets you into the habit ofshopping at Amazon. One thing
that I've seen,seen them do over time is get
really, really good at theactual act of fulfillment. So
(20:30):
again, if you think of the, youknow, the most painful jobs in
our industry are probably theones where you have to be on a
warehouse floor, or you're, youknow, you're actually doing the
pick, pack and ship and all ofthe, you know, painful walking
that needs to happen, exceptionhandling, the you know,
(20:50):
everything that goes into it, Ithink, is, is what makes it
super challenging. But whatAmazon has been able to do is
take technology, take processes,marry them together in a way
where you are making youroperations run super smoothly,
and you know, align that back tonow. Make sure that every
(21:10):
customer who orders something,you know, gets it in time,
because you never know what itis. The philosophy that they
kind of follow is it could be alife saving medication that they
might not receive. So it everyorder matters, and customer
comes first, right? So I thinkgrounding in that philosophy,
what I saw earlier this week, Ibelieve, was
(21:34):
Amazon is now using AI, and, youknow, some of the agentic
capabilities of AI, and tappinginto, again, doubling down on
this right? And I don't knowexactly how this is going to fit
into their long term strategy,but basically, it allows
customers to go through Amazonon their app and go in and
purchase something from anexternal site. So let's say, for
(21:55):
instance, Blythe wants to get,you know, a studio light, a key
light. I think both of us shouldget a key light. But, you know,
you go and search for a keylight, Amazon doesn't have the
one that you're looking for. Itcan actually search and give you
options for purchasing somethingthat is available on an external
website. And in the back end,they would take care of all of
the payment processing and, youknow, filling out the the
(22:18):
information, etc. And as acustomer, it's a very seamless
experience for you to be able tojust receive that. You might not
get the Amazon experience interms of, you know, the fast
delivery, etc, but it saves youthat step of having to go
somewhere else. Be like, oh,Amazon doesn't have it. So now
let me see who else can, youknow, fulfill this need for me.
So it feels like you know theyare going to continue to
(22:40):
dominate in this space, and theywill, you know, try and find
ways that they are puttingcustomers at the center of their
focus on, okay, what exactly dothey need? Are we giving them
what they need? And if not, howcan we enable that? So from my
perspective, Amazon is, youknow, it already is, but it will
continue to be the destinationthat customers will go to for
(23:02):
research as well as purchase forany goods that they need. So
with all of that said, Walmart,too is becoming a major player
in offering marketplacesolutions for third party
sellers. Think they just kind ofsecretly announced that they're
going to start providing orbecoming a broker and offering
their transportation andfulfillment services to other
(23:25):
other businesses. And I'mcurious between the moves that
Amazon and Walmart and then youknow, some of the offshore
players, she and temu is acouple of the ones that we've
talked about already, what cansort of the average e commerce
business learn from those, thebig players.
Yeah, I mean, diversify. Don't.
Don't just rely on one channelas your end all and be all if
(23:49):
you're not already on Amazon, ifyou're not already on, you know,
Walmart, make sure that you'refinding all of these different
avenues of distribution, becauseat the end of the day, with all
of the volatility in the market,it is critical that you get your
products to as many customers asyou can. I think the other thing
that is super critical for thesebrands to you know, truly
(24:11):
reflect on, and I think like youdo a really good job of this,
which isjust marketing yourself really
well, right? So it's with thethe amount of AI generated
content and blogs and stuff thatwe see out there, it's becoming
(24:32):
really difficult for people tomake decisions just based on
content. So people are going torely more and more on human
interaction. And, you know, relyon humans as the anchor for a
brand and purchase based on maketheir purchase decisions based
on that. So I think, you know,you might not have the scale
that Amazon and Walmart has, butyou have the ability to build
(24:55):
that brand narrative, be infront of your end customers,
engage, have authentic.
Conversations. You know, AI cando its job in terms of scaling
you, in terms of how often youare getting your content out,
but you truly do need to take itdown to that level of, how do I
make sure that I have a businessthat's sustainable, and that can
only happen if you actually havecustomers. And how do you grow
those customers? Make themloyal, make them, you know,
(25:17):
repeat buyers, and you knowpeople that maybe bring
additional customers to your toyour store, you know, give your
products as gifts, etc. So Ithink all of that really
requires that human human touch,for sure. And you said in one of
our pre show documents, yousaid, tech without a strategy,
is just expensive noise. And aswe're talking about some of
(25:39):
these big retailers, obviouslythey have or big fulfillment
centers.
We they have access to the besttechnology in the world. So I'm
curious, with your expertise intechnology and helping e
commerce companies, how, whatis, I guess, the tech that is a
must have right now and then,what's something that's maybe a
(25:59):
little over hyped? Yeah,definitely. I mean,
you and I were at manifesttogether, and I was at
Promat just a few weeks ago. Andjust the amount of AI and
agentic AI that you get to comeacross in every single booth, in
(26:20):
every single conversation. Imean, there's a huge hype around
that, and I don't think anyone'sgoing to deny that. However,
it's really, really importantfor businesses to truly
understand what the impact ofthat AI can be. Don't just buy
it because it's AI. This issomething that, you know, we we
talk about on a daily basis. Youknow, start with your problem.
What exactly are you trying tosolve? Because there are things
(26:41):
that you can do really well as ahuman, like we talked about, you
know, previously on, you know,your personality and who you are
as a person, and, you know,connecting with other
individuals AI is not going tobe able to do a good job at that
you can, but there are thingsthat you probably are not that
great at. And I don't mean youpersonally, but just humans in
general, being able to, youknow, do detailed work or admin
(27:02):
stuff, things that require a lotof data processing and being
quick and scaling. I think thoseare the things that you should
be giving to your agents or yourAI capabilities.
And in my mind, that's trulywhat makes sense, and to maybe
add a little bit more contextaround that comment around
if you have tech without somesort of grounding in strategy,
(27:24):
then you're just wasting yourmoney.
I've seen so many businesses getinfluenced by, or, you know, get
inspired by some sort ofinteresting tech pitch that they
heard, or, you know, a hype, andthey're just throwing money down
the drain, because they have notthought about the basics of why.
What would this tech do for me?
Yes, it's great that it candrive all of these results, and
(27:47):
it sounds super impressive, butit doesn't work that way, right?
Like, just because you have thisamazing WMS, for instance, it's
not going to fix your problemsovernight. You need to have a
clear understanding of whatexactly as as a three PL or as a
brand, what are the things thatI need to do to make my customer
successful? Or, you know, to toachieve the kind of KPIs and
(28:07):
metrics that I need to achieve?
And where do I want to be fiveyears from now? Right? So all of
these three, pls, and brands areconstantly growing, and they're
trying to figure out, okay,which, what is my ideal
positioning in the market aswell. So, you know, do you want
to stay in the same market? Doyou want to have, you know,
customers that are a little bitabove market? So maybe you want
to go to mid market andenterprise, that's going to
require completely differenttech stack, right? So thinking
(28:30):
through stuff like that, thecapabilities as well, as you
know, who do you haveoperationally available to you
on the floor? What about youryour capabilities, as you take a
look at your physical space,right? So is it, is it, are you
going to have, you know, newfacilities that you're opening?
So the green field facilityconversation versus brownfield
retrofitting, certain, you know,automations, for instance, is a
(28:50):
completely different ballgame.
So how do you make sure that youalign on that strategy and have
clarity?
And trust me, that that clarityis gold for any organization,
right? And being able to havethat clarity across the
organization on this is this iswhere we're at. This is what we
need, and here's where we aretrying to go, and then use
(29:11):
technology to kind of backfilloff the holes that you've
identified. I think that wouldbe the right approach. But in a
lot of cases, that clarity piecedoesn't happen, the alignment
and strategy doesn't happen. Andyou go straight to, I need to
solve this problem. I have, youknow, inventory accuracy issues.
Let me just have the best, youknow, whatever system and it's
going to solve it. Andunfortunately, that just doesn't
(29:31):
happen. Yeah, I think it's a lotof tech debt with what you're
talking with it. They fall forthe fancy sales pitch, and they
haven't done the boring butnecessary work to optimize your
own internal processes and thensee where technology fits into
place. Just want the magicbullet, and it's not gonna it's
not gonna solve, you know, much.
It'll probably create moreproblems, a whack a mole issue,
(29:53):
if you will. Now in one of theother quotes that you had said
you talked about great.
Being essential in logistics.
How do you see that showing upwith founders and other e
commerce businesses? Because youhave, as a podcast host, you
have access to these people whoare, you know, elbows deep in in
the hard work of of building upthese different companies and
(30:16):
trying to compete with theAmazons and the Walmarts of the
world. So, so what are those, Iguess, personality traits that
you see in successful founders?
Yeah, I mean, grit is tablestakes at this point, right?
Like, just take a look at wherewe are in terms of the market. I
you know the the amount of theamount of uncertainty that
(30:38):
entrepreneurs are having to dealwith, and have had to deal with
over the last five years, likethere's just no comparison to
anything previously. At the sametime, there are a lot of
opportunities as well, right? SoI think grit is a table stakes
ingredient in the makeup of anentrepreneur, but I think it's
also just having the ability tobe persistent, and, you know,
(31:01):
don't leave things at the ideastage, because everybody has,
you know, those wonderful ideas.
I mean, how many times have you,you know, sat with a friend in a
restaurant be like, Oh, wouldn'tbe cool if you had a restaurant
or a bed and breakfast? And, youknow, we all kind of have these
ideas on wouldn't be cool ifthis existed. But the ability to
take that idea, you know, eitherget it funded, or bootstrap it
and actually build it out hasit's a path that is super
(31:24):
complicated, full of pivots,full of challenges. So you truly
need to have that, that grit andperseverance, but also just the
the student mindset, right? Sothe ability to take feedback and
truly listen, because it's youhave to have a thick skin, there
is, you're going to hear things,and if you're not, then you're
not asking the right questions,because you should be hearing
(31:46):
about how something doesn't makesense, or something should be
done in a different way, becausethat's how you're going to make
your solution service, whateverit is, as robust as it can be,
right? So it's it's notglamorous, but if you truly are
invested in it, from theperspective of, I want to make
this the best possible product,or put something that is the
(32:07):
best possible, you know, legacythat I can leave behind in the
world, I think that's such asuch a good way to kind of
tackle real problems in ourworld. They're messy. It's going
to be challenging. It'scompletely, you know, it's going
to go off whatever plan you had.
But it's kind of shifting to,how do you make sure that you
(32:30):
still continue to, you know,keep marching forward.
Unfortunately, a lot ofbusinesses have kind of, you
know, kind of shut down over thelast couple of years, and
it's, it's really unfortunate,because I know how much
innovation there is needed inour space, and how much we need
fresh blood and, you know, newideas and for things to just
(32:51):
keep evolving. But at the sametime, it is a really tough
market, and it is a really toughindustry. You need to kind of
Master the basics. I thinkLogistics is one of those
industries where we have so muchrich foundation of operational
practices, so things like LeanSix Six, Lean Six Sigma, and you
(33:11):
know, other practices that trulymake it clear for any operator
how you should be running Thereal operations on on grounds,
and then adding AI, automation,robotics technology, layer them
in as they make sense.
I think that is truly the onlyway to win in this space. Yeah.
(33:32):
I mean, you really hit the nailon the head with saying all that
entrepreneurship is already justin and of itself, hard. But
then, if you're doingentrepreneurship inside of
logistics, especially with, youknow, everything that we've been
talking about in this episodeand everything that's been going
on with global trade, it's notfor the week, and you gotta be
able to your point, grit is themost essential tool that you can
(33:53):
have in your tool belt. Andwith, you know, sort of slightly
switching gears a little bit tothe podcast that you're a
producer and a host of E commlogistics Podcast. I'm curious
as to what was the initialreason to get that show started.
I think I heard you say it wasbeing able to talk to customers
directly. Is that kind of stillthe goal? Is it spreading
(34:14):
education awareness? Maybe acombination of the two. Yeah,
the podcast was honestly, Istarted it because it just
seemed like such a great idea. Imean, we were having all these
interesting conversations.
Anyways, we got, got asked allthe time by folks that we were
talking to, like, you shouldmake a podcast. Like, I would
listen to what you're saying.
(34:35):
So, you know, at one point I waslike, okay, dinad Dan, are we
doing this? Like, does it makesense for us to have our own
podcast? They were like, yes,let's do it. You know, couple
minutes later, I was like, Okay,guys, where are we at on that
podcast thing? They were like,Yeah, we should totally do it.
It's like, you know what? I'mgoing to do it, because I'd
rather do a podcast rather than,you know, write blogs or
(34:55):
articles anyway. So it justseemed like such a good fit
because.
So we love having conversations.
We love sharing knowledge. Welove learning from other leaders
in the industry. So beyond justcustomers, you know, we we
decided to just talk toindividuals in the in the
industry that were truly,you know, making things happen
(35:16):
from tech and ops perspective.
And again, we stay kind of inchwide and mile deep, even in the
podcast itself, because we knowwhat we specialize in and what
where we bring the value, andit's truly been a labor of love
for us. I think, you know, justbeing able to have conversations
with different, you know,leaders and get their
(35:38):
perspective and get theirinsights on, you know, not
necessarily looking for like thesecret sauce or the magic
bullet, because, to be honest,that never works. Like, even if
you if I tell you exactly whatmy secret sauce is, it would
never work, because it has to,you know, all of the context
around that magic sauce also hasto align. So it's more around
the playbooks. It's more around,you know, what is your
(35:59):
philosophy? How do you what'syour vision? How do you actually
make this happen? And you know,when you have all of these
obstacles, what is a good wayfor me to position it, reframe
it, and think about it? I thinkthat's kind of what we we set
out to build in the world. Andit's, it's been a very enriching
experience. I mean, as I'm sureyou might attest to it as a
(36:19):
podcast host and podcastcreator. You know, it's, it's
such a joy to be able to learnfrom various individuals in the
industry, sharpen the acts, soto speak, and also, just, you
know, be involved in, in in theconversations that are happening
in the industry as well, right?
I think it, it really gives youthat stage and the ability to
shape the narrative which is,which is really, really cool. I
(36:40):
think one of the things thatmakes me super proud is, you
know, when, when I meetindividuals, or I get comments
about how they're using, youknow, certain episodes of our
podcast as training material foronboarding new staff that joins
their organization and stufflike that. And I think that's
really cool. I mean, we, wedidn't set out to, you know,
create any sort of like learningcurriculum to start with, but I
(37:04):
think, you know, a lot of theepisodes kind of stand on their
own and have enough depth ofexpertise that folks that are,
you know, trying to level upwithin our industry can truly
use it as a learning resource.
Which makes me really happy, andI'm looking forward to seeing,
you know, how we can evolve thepodcast and, you know, kind of
(37:24):
keep it going. And, yeah, it'sreally inspiring to see, you
know, yourself and Sarah and allthe other podcasters in the
industry that are also, youknow, sharing some really good
conversations and making surethat the importance of logistics
and the importance of supplychain is felt heard, and there's
education around it, and I thinkthat's something we need to keep
(37:45):
pushing for and keep drivingforward. Do you have a favorite,
like guest quote or insight ornugget of information from a
previous guest?
Can't think of a specific quote,but I would say one of the
guests that has left me forever,inspired and changed me, in a
(38:07):
way, is Sandra McKellen. She wasthe CS CEO at Mondelez, and just
a phenomenal leader in thespace.
I think every interaction withher would just left me kind of
speechless. And, you know, Itook tons of notes. She
unfortunately passed away acouple years ago.
She, I think what she kind ofthe, the biggest impact that she
(38:31):
had on me was around just havingthe confidence in being able to
state, you know, what you bringto the table, and just going
through with it, you know, holdpeople accountable. Just
because, you know, something hasbeen said doesn't mean it's
actually going to get done. Takethe initiative to actually hold
people accountable and make surethat the results actually
follow. I mean, she, she hadthis ability to kind of take the
(38:54):
human perspective and marry itwith the results that needed to
be achieved from, you know,logistics and supply chain
perspective, and she did such agood job of marrying the two,
which is really, reallydifficult. But yeah, that that
would be for anyone that wantsto check out that episode. Maybe
we can link that in the the shownotes, because I think she's,
she was an incredible human Yes,absolutely. I'll get that link
(39:19):
from you, or I'll just probablysearch for it on your YouTube
channel and make sure I put itin the show notes for the folks
that are curious. But on asimilar note, you also started
up another group called ladieswho logistic tell me what
brought that idea to light andto fruition. Yeah, absolutely.
Again, it was another one ofthose conversations where it was
(39:41):
myself and the two other cofounders of ladies who logistic,
you know, we were at aconference together, and we're
like, Would it be cool if therewas, you know, a group where you
could just meet other women inlogistics and just have
friendships, you know, no, noother agenda. I think there's a
an.
Instagram poster on, you knowhow women should just show up
(40:03):
for each other and, you know, bea part of your tribe. No
jealousy, no, you know, nothingbackhanded. Just Just be there
and support each other. Like,yeah, that would be very cool.
So what would it take for us todo this? We're like, you know
what? Let's just test it out. Isthere, is there a need for
something like this to exist inthe world, and we just took a
chance. We posted on LinkedIn.
We're like, we're going to startthis group, and we're just going
(40:25):
to see if anybody's interestedin joining. And we saw a really
big turnout of women that wantedto join. We still have monthly
conversations and a couple ofdifferent programs that have
evolved out of it as well. It'sa free group. And again, it was
another labor of love, type ofan initiative. And what we try
(40:46):
to do is just get get womentogether and have them kind of
find each other in this world oflogistics. And hopefully, you
know, find some similarities,find some friendships, and be
able to rely on each other.
I think one of the key learningsthat we've had in that group as
well is just how isolated womenfeel at certain industry
(41:10):
conferences, and especially ifyou are newer in the industry,
and you're kind of trying tofind your place, and you go to a
conference that has where you'rejust underrepresented. And then
you go to, you know, anetworking event that has a huge
room with, I don't know, 500men. You just, you naturally
feel a little bit,you know, taken aback by, how do
I, how do I do this? I got I,personally, I'm not a very
(41:34):
outgoing person. I can do one onone, but when it's a huge crowd,
I immediately get overwhelmed. Ijust, you know, walk backwards
out in the room. But you know,having a friend with you just
makes it so much easier, becausethen you can have someone you
know who can get you out of theconversation if needed, or
introduce you to interestingpeople and help you expand your
network, etc. So it was kind ofborn out of that. And what we've
(41:56):
been doing is, in addition tothose monthly meetups, we we try
and organize, you know, premeetups at conferences, where we
just, you know, grab a coffee orgrab a meal and get to know each
other. So again, it can be like,hey, when we go to that, you
know, big networking thingthat's coming. You can look out
for me, I can look out for you.
We can, you know, find eachother kind of thing. So it's,
(42:16):
it's been, it's been reallyrewarding for me, being a woman,
minority woman in STEM inTechnology and Logistics. You
know, I've always found myselfin as a minority, in on most,
you know, stages, most tables.
So it's been, you know, reallyimportant for me to kind of pass
the ladder back down and try toteach whatever I can, as well as
(42:38):
give that platform to otherindividuals in the industry. So
this has kind of helped enablethat. And I have two other
amazing co founders with me, andthey bring their own perspective
from, you know, ventures inlogistics, space, sustainability
and logistics space, like, it'sjust a really well rounded
group. And, yeah, it's, it's a,it's a great one. Yeah. I mean,
(43:00):
between that group, Legacylogistic and your podcast, like
it's a beautiful thing when youcan set up a resource, not only
for yourself but for otherswithin the industry, to be able
to learn through that educationof what you're sharing within
those meetups and within thoseconversations. So So kudos to
you for having I was going tosay, having the balls to do it,
(43:23):
but that's obviously lack of abetter phrase, having the guts
to do it, the grit to do it, iswhat I should say.
So last couple, last couplequestions here, you know, as we
kind of, you know, round outthis discussion. What advice
would you give to the folks whoare kind of in our similar
(43:43):
shoes, where they're feelingjust overwhelmed with a lot of
the tariff conversation and whatthey should do with their
business planning and just kindof like, which direction should
I go? How should I even bethinking about planning for the
rest of 2025 what advice wouldyou give to e commerce companies
out there who are listening?
Yeah, that's a really greatquestion. I mean, I wish we had
(44:05):
some way of predicting how therest of the year is going to
unfold, but unfortunately, wedon't. So based on where we're
at, I think the best thing wecan do as experts and operators
in the industry, as well asbrands three PLS, and retailers
is truly get that clarity,right? So again, going back to
that strategy, as as as the edgethat you can truly have as an
(44:29):
organization, is probably what Iwould suggest they start with.
And it's, it's a really goodexercise to go through and think
about, you know, what impact areyou having on your customers?
Where do you drive the mostvalue? Where do they? Where do
they feel they get the mostvalue? And then what also
contributes value? As in thebottom line to your
organization, try to marry thetwo, and then figure out, are
(44:51):
you positioned in a way that youcan truly protect that and if
not, what are some of thosepractices or measures, or what
can.
You do to make sure that you areprepared, because things are
going to continue to be rocky.
I think you know, one of thethings that I really admire
about certain companies andcertain individuals in times of
(45:15):
crisis or in times of volatilityis when they lean in rather than
lean back. So when you're seeingthat there's volatility and
there's all of thesedisruptions, rather than saying,
I'm just going to hold off ondoing anything, because I just
don't know what's going tohappen, I think that would be
the wrong approach. I think thebest way to tackle this is
rather than, you know, beingscared or being fearful of not
(45:36):
knowing and not being able topredict, try and think of what
would be the best possibleoutcome. What could be the worst
possible outcome? And how do youkind of, you know, find your
reality in between those two andkeep it, keep it as realistic as
possible. Bring in an outsideexpert, if you need to, or
friend, or someone who can justcall you out in case you are,
you know, lying to yourself. Andtruly, you know, listen to
(45:58):
those, those difficultconversations, or, you know,
that reflection that you need tohave to truly make yourself
future proof, becauseotherwise, we're going to come
out of this disruptive time, andthen you'll find that because
you've been holding back, you'vealready lost out, you know,
because the competitors that didnot hold back and invested in
the right things and made themoves that they needed to make,
Very well said, and anincredible mic drop moment. So
(46:21):
where you know harshita, wherecan I be sure to add links to
fulfillment IQ and ladies whologistics, but where can I send
other people to find you,connect with you and possibly
work with you? Yeah, absolutely.
LinkedIn. I post semi regularlyon LinkedIn. I think the last
(46:42):
couple of months have been a bitcrazy, so I haven't been as
regular as I used to, though Ido try to post at least a couple
of times. So you can alwaysreach me on LinkedIn. You can DM
me, connect with me there,follow me. Fulfillment IQ is,
you know, as you'd spell it,fulfillment iq.com you can check
out our website or follow us onLinkedIn as well. Super
(47:05):
interested in talking to anyonethat is, you know, trying to
figure out how they are going tonavigate the future, as well as
folks that are truly interestedin, you know, taking a look at
how the disruptions might mightbe the best time for them to
actually invest in theirtechnology, invest in their
operations, and truly makethemselves a leader. So
(47:27):
again, open to anyone that wantsto have a chat. I love having
these kind of conversations aswell. So happy to meet for
virtual coffee and anyone, anywomen in the industry you know,
if you're interested, I wouldwelcome you to join ladies who
logistic as well. There are alot of different ladies
organizations. We have a ladiesconference as well. So lots of
(47:50):
amazing tools that are availableout there, and maybe we can link
them in the show notes as well.
So, you know, we can kind ofpass that ladder back down and
help more women, you know, feellike they have place in our
industry. 100% arjita, this wasa great conversation. Thank you
so much for your time.
Absolutely thank you.
(48:12):
I hope you enjoyed this episodeof everything is logistics, a
podcast for the thinkers infreight, telling the stories
behind how your favorite stuffand people get from point A to
B. Subscribe to the show, signup for our newsletter and follow
our socials. Over at everythingis logistics.com and in addition
to the podcast, I also wanted tolet you all know about another
company I operate, and that'sdigital dispatch, where we help
(48:35):
you build a better website. Now,a lot of the times we hand this
task of building a new websiteor refreshing a current one off
to a co worker's child, aneighbor down the street or
stranger around the world, whereyou probably spend more time
explaining the freight industrythan it takes to actually build
the dang website. Well, thatdoesn't happen at Digital
(48:55):
dispatch. We've been buildingonline since 2009 but we're also
early adopters of AI automationand other website tactics that
help your company to be acentral place, to pull in all of
your social media posts, recruitnew employees and give potential
customers a glimpse into how youoperate your business. Our new
website builds start as low as$1,500 along with ongoing
(49:17):
website management, maintenanceand updates starting at $90 a
month, plus some bonus freight,marketing and sales content
similar to what you hear on thepodcast. You can watch a quick
explainer video over ondigitaldispatch.io, just check
out the pricing page once youarrive, and you can see how we
can build your digital ecosystemon a strong foundation. Until
(49:40):
then, I hope you enjoyed thisepisode. I'll see you all real
soon and go jags.
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