March 25, 2025 • 22 mins
If you've ever asked “Where’s my container?”—this episode is for you.
Rene Alvarenga, Senior Director of Product Management at Kaleris, breaks down why visibility is still one of supply chain's biggest unsolved problems.
Backed by data from a new report with maritime research firm Thetius, this conversation unpacks the massive disconnect between what terminals think they’re delivering and what shippers actually experience.
Key takeaways:
• 87% of terminals think they offer great visibility—but only 25% of shippers agree.
• In some regions, vessel ETAs change up to 15 times, causing mass disruption.
• Most companies only use about 30% of their logistics tech capabilities.
• Solving for visibility starts by improving your execution—not adding new tools.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Blythe Brumleve (00:00):
Blythe, welcome into another episode of
(00:02):
everything is logistics, apodcast for the thinkers and
afraid. I'm your host, BlytheMilligan, and we were proudly
presented by SPI logistics.
We're back with another liveepisode recording at the
manifest the future of supplychain and logistics, and we've
got another fantastic interviewfor y'all today, we are speaking
with Renee of Kaleris, SeniorDirector of Product Management,
(00:23):
discussing the visibilityperception gap between chippers
and terminal operators, whichvisibility, I think, is a
problem that shippers are alwaystrying to solve. So happy to
revisit this visibilityconversation. We had a
visibility conversation at lastyear's benefits. So give us the,
give us a little bit of overviewof who Renee is and how you got
(00:44):
into logistics in general.
Rene Alvarenga (00:48):
Yeah. So visibility is a very hot topic
right now, topic for, I don'tknow how many years now, maybe
four or five right after COVID,supply chain bottlenecks, and
it's been interesting. I gotinto supply chain right out of
college. So I was a kid 2010someone said that I could make a
(01:08):
difference, and 15 years later,I'm still trying to make still
here. I don't know whysometimes, and I've been in
ocean transportation for most ofmy time. So I've been working
with port authorities, marineterminals, shipping lines for
almost 15 years now. And then Itook a little break, and I moved
(01:29):
into this field of railroads soit was adjacent. So I just, you
know, needed a break for aboutfour years. And I work with some
of the big railroads here in theUS, class one railroads,
intermodal transportation,moving containers around. And
then I came back to Kaleris,2022 I want to say. And I've
(01:51):
been working with collars eversince. And then Kaleris, we do a
lot of things. We mainly buildsoftware, execution software for
shipping lines, marineterminals, port authorities and
shippers. And then we haveterminal operating systems,
shipping lines, transportationmanagement systems, yard
(02:11):
management systems. So prettymuch, if you have a container,
you have it in the ocean and youmove it inland, we pretty much
have a software solution for it.
Oh, wow,
Blythe Brumleve (02:23):
interesting. So even because, for from what I
understand a year ago,discussing the visibility issue,
a lot of problems revolve aroundsort of the last mile, like the
drivers not having access tothat specific information. And
so it kind of sounds like withyour platform, with having a TMS
that that kind of solves thatend to end supply chain. Yeah,
Unknown (02:45):
good question. I'll tell you a story. When I was so
I took a break for four years,and I went to GE transportation.
And I went to one of the GEheadquarters, so, General
Electric Transportation, veryold company, and in one of the
headquarters, I went down tosome basement, I think I got
lost, and I found a bunch ofdocuments from a supply chain
(03:06):
conference from the year 2001 wedidn't have computers.
PowerPoint didn't exist, and itwas a little book someone had
printed that out, and I waslooking through it, and I saw a
slide there from 2001 that's 24years ago, and what you just
said is written on that slide.
That same problem has beenaround for at least 24 years,
(03:29):
and probably before, becausepeople were talking about it in
2001 visibility. Where's mycargo? Why can't I get more
visibility? 2001 so I wish Icould say, Yeah, we have a
platform solves all the problemsin the world. It's probably more
complicated than that,
Blythe Brumleve (03:47):
yeah, and I imagine a lot of drivers, and
just in particular, just fromthe drivers that I speak to,
it's probably going to be aproblem for the foreseeable
future as well. Now I want toget a little bit into this
report that you did in a thoughtleadership report conducted by
maritime research firm the dias,it uncovers a startling
disconnect, that 87% of terminaloperators believe that they
(04:10):
offer adequate to excellentvisibility, but only 25% of
shippers feel that they actuallyreceive it. Talk to me about
this perception. Yeah,
Unknown (04:20):
interesting. Those are those a good paper we published
with Theseus, I think, two orthree weeks ago. And these is
just a great firm. We gathered alot of very interesting data.
And it all started with me andSusie swindle, our marketing
communications director. We werehaving a meeting with theses. We
were just having a conversation,and we were just talking about
(04:43):
supply chain, and in thatmeeting, I couldn't tell them,
in how many executive meetingsI've been talking about
visibility, I couldn't tellthem. I couldn't count how many
times I've talked to shipperexecutives shipping lines. CEOs.
They make billions of dollarsmarine terminal CEOs and Port
(05:04):
Authority directors. I couldn'ttell them how many times I've
been in a meeting with themtalking about, where's my
container? When can I pick up mycontainer? When can I send my
driver to the terminal? When'sthe vessel? ETA, like, when is
the vessel going to show up?
It's been countless of meetingsthat I've had over the years
about this visibility gap thatyou just mentioned. So one of
(05:25):
the conclusions of the researchis that, yeah, there is a gap,
there is a communicationdisconnect, and everyone talks
about it, and everyone has a lotof anecdotes. But through this
research, we looked at a lot ofdata that was very interesting.
So for example, I'll just giveyou data point. So it depends on
where you go. So we haveproducts all over the world, so
(05:48):
it depends on where you go, whoyou're working with, but there's
a specific area in the worldwhere we measured how many
vessel ETAs a terminal receives.
So if you're a truck driver,yeah, breathe. Here we go. If
you're a truck driver and you'reworking for a shipper, and the
(06:08):
shipper tells you, go pick up mycontainer, because I have an
import and it's important stuff,and I have a just in time
factory or whatever, go pick upmy container. If you're a truck
driver, you ask your marineterminal, hey, marine terminal,
when is my vessel going to showup? And where's my container
going to be available? In themarine terminal, they ask the
shipping line depending. Itdepends on where you go. But in
this particular region in theworld, the shipping line would
(06:31):
change the vessel, eta, 15times, 15 times. Just imagine
you you go to an airport andyou're waiting for your flight,
and your airline changes yourvessel, eta, your ship, or your
gate, OR gate, or your airplane,eta, 15 times, that'd be great.
And they have no control. Theyhave no idea. So then we have
(06:54):
this piece of data 15 times, andthen from there, it just, you
know, trickles down, and it justa disaster. So this number that
you gave us 8080 somethingpercent, 87 it's a very real,
it's a very real disconnect. Andsadly, it's such a big problem
that it's not, you know, I wishwe you know, there was a product
out there. Click a button on theright, and then your problems
(07:15):
are solved. This is way biggerthan that.
Blythe Brumleve (07:18):
So how do you attack it? Another
Unknown (07:22):
very good question, good questions today here at the
end, the conclusions of thereport are, I think, are pretty
powerful. They're based on datathat at least I haven't seen
anywhere else, because it, youknow, we gather data from marine
terminals and shipping lines,and then we gather data from
shippers. So it's both sides ofthe fence. In a lot of cases,
(07:42):
you feel like you have two teamspulling in different directions.
The one of the conclusions ofthe report is you probably
shouldn't focus on visibility.
Yeah, for the past maybe fiveyears after COVID or the supply
chain bottlenecks, everyone'slike, you know, I need a
visibility product. And, youknow, visibility, product here
and there. One of theconclusions is that you should
(08:03):
probably, shouldn't focus onvisibility. You should probably
focus on your own execution.
Yeah, so if you are a node inthis supply chain, the better
you execute on your operation.
More likely than not, you'regoing to be helping the
visibility problem. And then wehave some, again, scary numbers.
We measure these with ourcustomers and their customers,
(08:25):
and it's more of like anindustry problem. People call it
digital friction, so that's thetechnical term in supply chain.
We've measured that in a lot ofcases, marine terminals,
shipping lines, Dray providersand sometimes even warehouse
management system users, theyuse around 30% of their
(08:46):
capabilities in the software. Soimagine you're a yard somewhere
inland, and you buy a warehousemanagement system, you're paying
for it every year, and you onlyuse 30% of your capabilities.
Yeah. So one of the conclusionsof the report, or to answer your
question, How do you tacklethis, our suggestion is you
should probably focus on yourexecution first. Well,
Blythe Brumleve (09:08):
it's interesting you brought that up,
because a previous interviewthat we were just talking about
is they kind of said the samething that you were saying
within warehousing, is that evenwith their own processes and
their own sort of roboticsolutions and things like that,
that they only get to about 30%of that usage, and then they
never really see the fullpicture of the solutions that
(09:30):
they already have in house. Andso it's interesting that that is
just permeating throughout, ormaybe it's scary, or, you know,
just little concerning, or maybethis is something that you want
to address
Unknown (09:41):
digital friction is the actual term. Yeah, 30% is very
low.
Blythe Brumleve (09:46):
It makes sense.
If you think about all howsoftware kind of rules our life
now, and you really only have somuch bandwidth for each of these
different tools. And so I guessyou don't know what you don't
know, but you also don't knowwhat you don't want to learn,
either. And that's probably thelatter. Probably more of what's
going on in this situation. Andso how are, how are these? How
are you guys bridging this gap?
(10:06):
How are you guys attempting tosolve this problem? Like, if you
release a report like this, andit's like, just, you know, work
better, yeah, like, how do you?
How do you talk to yourcustomers and tell them to work
better and use their tools morewell?
Unknown (10:21):
People process products, yeah, like, at the end
of the day, I think that nowmore than ever, everyone,
everyone in supply chain, we allunderstand that supply chain is
about people more than it isabout software. And maybe
software is more about peoplethan we want to believe right
now. So people process products.
Yes, we when we talk to ourcustomers, we try to encourage
(10:46):
them to use more of their tools,and that leads to a lot of
process changes. So they need toinvest in training, they need to
invest in knowledge transfer.
They need to invest in theirpeople using their products.
Another very scary number thatwe have is that, you know, a lot
(11:09):
of people don't want to be insupply chain, especially the
users of these products, truckdrivers, marine terminal
operators, ship captains,railroad engineers. You know, 20
years ago, working for arailroad was very appealing. Now
not so much. Yeah, drivers aswell, yeah. So one of the things
(11:32):
we encourage our customers islike, you guys need we can help
you. Someone else can help you,but you guys need to invest more
in your people using our tools,because if you can drive that
number 30% to 35% you're goingto add a lot of value. You don't
have to solve a problem 100% tocreate value. So that's one
thing that we do. So peopleprocess product, and another
(11:53):
thing that we do so focusingmore on software
interoperability is anothertechnical term that you're going
to hear more and more. Weprobably already do. So the
interoperability is just a fancyway of saying you need software
that can talk to each other,that can work together exactly
(12:16):
and depending on where you go,in a lot of places, it's worse
than others, but you still findTMS applications that don't take
EDI. And EDI was built 1980 youstill find applications that run
in Access. I saw a few yearsago, already, two or three years
(12:37):
ago, a truck TMS that was basedon access Windows XP. So they
had kept a desktop. Not heard
Blythe Brumleve (12:47):
that in a while Windows XP,
Unknown (12:49):
they had kept a desktop with a CD driver for Windows XP,
and that was the only desktopthat would run Windows XP, and
that was the GMs. They wouldprint stuff, give that to
drivers. Drivers would give themstuff, type of stuff, then it
was a Microsoft Accessapplication. So one thing that
we try to do is our applicationsneed to be built to talk to each
(13:10):
other. It doesn't matter how itcan be EDI API, data streaming,
smoke signals for whateveranyone
Blythe Brumleve (13:18):
cares. I integrate that. Yeah,
Unknown (13:21):
but more and more we hope that as technology
progresses and people adopt newtechnology, you know, give it 10
years, and applications aregoing to be built to talk to
each other, that'll put us in abetter place.
Blythe Brumleve (13:34):
I just had an interview earlier today that was
talking about different AIagents within logistics that are
talking to each other. And verysoon, you're going to have a
carrier that's going to havetheir own AI agent that is going
to do all the grunt work thatthe driver doesn't want to call
and check in with, the shipperdoesn't want to call and check
in with the broker. So he'sgoing to have his own agent
that's going to call a broker'sAI agent, and they're just going
(13:57):
to the agents are just going totalk to each other. And so,
yeah, I mean, software isreally, you know, kind of taking
away a lot of, like, the gruntwork. But I think if I kind of,
like, read between the lines of,like, what you're saying, like,
it really starts with sort ofthe bare bones of you, you guys,
almost like, work asconsultants, it sounds like to
really help a lot of maybe theselegacy companies adapt in a more
(14:21):
meaningful way into technologyadoption, is that maybe a safe
assumption,
Unknown (14:25):
we have a services arm.
Yeah, we have a product is ourmain thing, but we have a
services arm. And, yeah, that'sjust our experience. Like, you
know, people can have all theproduct in the world you want.
At the end, you still needpeople to stay close to your
customers.
Blythe Brumleve (14:40):
Well, it sounds too like you don't even really
want to sell a product to acustomer unless they're there.
They're capable enough that youdon't maybe want them to be one
of those you know, people thatonly use 30% of
Unknown (14:51):
it, optimization services. That's what the sales
people say. Resell optimizationservices. All right,
Blythe Brumleve (14:58):
so a couple more questions. Questions here,
is there anything important thatyou feel like we should mention
that we haven't already talkedabout
Unknown (15:06):
AI, talked about AI, Oh, please,
Blythe Brumleve (15:08):
yeah, tell us what you guys are doing at AI.
Well, not
Unknown (15:12):
us, but so I'll give you another number. This is a
big number, 315,000,000,003 One,5 billion is the amount of money
in 2025 that the four bigtechnology companies in the US
are going to spend in. Ai, sothat is Amazon, Facebook or
(15:32):
meta, Google alphabet. And soit's Amazon, Google, Facebook
and Microsoft. Oh, I was not
Blythe Brumleve (15:42):
open. Ai, so, yeah, $315
Unknown (15:45):
billion a lot of that is in data centers and compute
power. A lot of that is in theway that they use chips and, you
know, they come up with, youknow, the agent has to say
something. A lot of that is inthe way that happens. But, AI,
yeah, it's coming. It's a bignumber. I
Blythe Brumleve (16:05):
mean, the way that that interview went
earlier, it was one of thosethings where I was like, I would
love to clone myself, and if Icould clone myself as a business
owner, and be able to, you know,have somebody sit down on sales
meetings with me, and I thinkfrom his, from their lens, what
they were saying. As long asyou're upfront and honest with
how you're using AI, then mostpeople do not have a problem
(16:26):
with it. Yeah,
Unknown (16:28):
yeah. It's a big number. And there's a lot that's
happening now. There's morethat's coming in the future. The
World Economic Forum, theypublish reports about
everything. I'm a big fan. Everyyear they published a global
risk report, the one for 2025came out in December 24 the
(16:48):
biggest risk, global risk thatthey found was misinformation
and the misuse of information.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So as long asyou're up front and you tell
people like, Hey, you're nottalking to Lindsey here. This is
a robot. I think there has to bea lot of control around that
legislation. Probably a lot ofstandards need to come into
(17:11):
place. We're working on a lot ofinteroperability standards the
way systems communicate witheach other. Because to your
point, you have to be upfrontabout it, because if not, you
get into a very gray area of,how are you using my
information? Who am I talkingto? Who am I revealing my
information to? Sometimes you'retalking to a human, and it's in
(17:33):
confidence, but if you'retalking to a robot that's
connected to the cloud, youdon't always, you know, click on
the button of accepting userterms when I'm talking to
someone who I think it's a humanso you're right up front. Being
upfront is going to matter inthe future. So,
Blythe Brumleve (17:51):
you know, last couple questions here, you know,
where can Is there anything elsefrom this report? I guess I
should probably ask from thetedious report that you want to
mention
Unknown (18:01):
for eight hours so you can take me wherever you want to
go. Well, any more cool stats? Ishould say I also have a lot of
them.
Well, no, it's just a verydynamic world, yeah, changing
world, evolving, especially ontechnology, especially now,
(18:21):
yeah, in the future, I thinkwe're going to see a lot of AI,
Big Data big data scientist isthe fastest growing job
position, if you will. Big DataScientist Fintech is number two
and number three. You guessedit. AI, the jobs that we're
closing in supply chain, thefastest telemarketers, people
(18:43):
that input data. So you're goingto see a lot of electronic bill
of lading, things going aroundthese days, especially in
shipping. My background is inocean transportation. So in
ocean transportation, everyone'stalking about the electronic
bill of lading. In railroads, weall talk about the electronic
bill of lading, the people thatinput that information, those
jobs are less and less frequentnow. Those are the two at the
(19:06):
bottom, telemarketers, datainput people, and at the top,
you have, yeah, big datascientist, FinTech, sure, and
AI, so yeah, the world's gonnachange,
Blythe Brumleve (19:16):
yeah, evolution, I think, in a very
short amount of time. But it'sinteresting to hear how that
evolution is happening intechnology, AI, but then also
how it affects the global supplychain jobs. So this is
fantastic. So thank you, Renee.
Where can folks follow you?
Follow more of your work. Youknow, maybe get set up with
Kaleris. Kaleris.com
Unknown (19:34):
is our website. We have our links there. I think it's
it's better if people go there.
I'll put them in the show notes,and you'll see what we are
working on. Yeah. Oh, perfect.
Thank you so much. This isfantastic. Cool. Appreciate you.
Thank you.
Blythe Brumleve (19:49):
I hope you enjoyed this episode of
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Blythe, welcome into another episode of
(00:02):
everything is logistics, apodcast for the thinkers and
afraid. I'm your host, BlytheMilligan, and we were proudly
presented by SPI logistics.
We're back with another liveepisode recording at the
manifest the future of supplychain and logistics, and we've
got another fantastic interviewfor y'all today, we are speaking
with Renee of Kaleris, SeniorDirector of Product Management,
(00:23):
discussing the visibilityperception gap between chippers
and terminal operators, whichvisibility, I think, is a
problem that shippers are alwaystrying to solve. So happy to
revisit this visibilityconversation. We had a
visibility conversation at lastyear's benefits. So give us the,
give us a little bit of overviewof who Renee is and how you got
(00:44):
into logistics in general.
Rene Alvarenga (00:48):
Yeah. So visibility is a very hot topic
right now, topic for, I don'tknow how many years now, maybe
four or five right after COVID,supply chain bottlenecks, and
it's been interesting. I gotinto supply chain right out of
college. So I was a kid 2010someone said that I could make a
(01:08):
difference, and 15 years later,I'm still trying to make still
here. I don't know whysometimes, and I've been in
ocean transportation for most ofmy time. So I've been working
with port authorities, marineterminals, shipping lines for
almost 15 years now. And then Itook a little break, and I moved
(01:29):
into this field of railroads soit was adjacent. So I just, you
know, needed a break for aboutfour years. And I work with some
of the big railroads here in theUS, class one railroads,
intermodal transportation,moving containers around. And
then I came back to Kaleris,2022 I want to say. And I've
(01:51):
been working with collars eversince. And then Kaleris, we do a
lot of things. We mainly buildsoftware, execution software for
shipping lines, marineterminals, port authorities and
shippers. And then we haveterminal operating systems,
shipping lines, transportationmanagement systems, yard
(02:11):
management systems. So prettymuch, if you have a container,
you have it in the ocean and youmove it inland, we pretty much
have a software solution for it.
Oh, wow,
Blythe Brumleve (02:23):
interesting. So even because, for from what I
understand a year ago,discussing the visibility issue,
a lot of problems revolve aroundsort of the last mile, like the
drivers not having access tothat specific information. And
so it kind of sounds like withyour platform, with having a TMS
that that kind of solves thatend to end supply chain. Yeah,
Unknown (02:45):
good question. I'll tell you a story. When I was so
I took a break for four years,and I went to GE transportation.
And I went to one of the GEheadquarters, so, General
Electric Transportation, veryold company, and in one of the
headquarters, I went down tosome basement, I think I got
lost, and I found a bunch ofdocuments from a supply chain
(03:06):
conference from the year 2001 wedidn't have computers.
PowerPoint didn't exist, and itwas a little book someone had
printed that out, and I waslooking through it, and I saw a
slide there from 2001 that's 24years ago, and what you just
said is written on that slide.
That same problem has beenaround for at least 24 years,
(03:29):
and probably before, becausepeople were talking about it in
2001 visibility. Where's mycargo? Why can't I get more
visibility? 2001 so I wish Icould say, Yeah, we have a
platform solves all the problemsin the world. It's probably more
complicated than that,
Blythe Brumleve (03:47):
yeah, and I imagine a lot of drivers, and
just in particular, just fromthe drivers that I speak to,
it's probably going to be aproblem for the foreseeable
future as well. Now I want toget a little bit into this
report that you did in a thoughtleadership report conducted by
maritime research firm the dias,it uncovers a startling
disconnect, that 87% of terminaloperators believe that they
(04:10):
offer adequate to excellentvisibility, but only 25% of
shippers feel that they actuallyreceive it. Talk to me about
this perception. Yeah,
Unknown (04:20):
interesting. Those are those a good paper we published
with Theseus, I think, two orthree weeks ago. And these is
just a great firm. We gathered alot of very interesting data.
And it all started with me andSusie swindle, our marketing
communications director. We werehaving a meeting with theses. We
were just having a conversation,and we were just talking about
(04:43):
supply chain, and in thatmeeting, I couldn't tell them,
in how many executive meetingsI've been talking about
visibility, I couldn't tellthem. I couldn't count how many
times I've talked to shipperexecutives shipping lines. CEOs.
They make billions of dollarsmarine terminal CEOs and Port
(05:04):
Authority directors. I couldn'ttell them how many times I've
been in a meeting with themtalking about, where's my
container? When can I pick up mycontainer? When can I send my
driver to the terminal? When'sthe vessel? ETA, like, when is
the vessel going to show up?
It's been countless of meetingsthat I've had over the years
about this visibility gap thatyou just mentioned. So one of
(05:25):
the conclusions of the researchis that, yeah, there is a gap,
there is a communicationdisconnect, and everyone talks
about it, and everyone has a lotof anecdotes. But through this
research, we looked at a lot ofdata that was very interesting.
So for example, I'll just giveyou data point. So it depends on
where you go. So we haveproducts all over the world, so
(05:48):
it depends on where you go, whoyou're working with, but there's
a specific area in the worldwhere we measured how many
vessel ETAs a terminal receives.
So if you're a truck driver,yeah, breathe. Here we go. If
you're a truck driver and you'reworking for a shipper, and the
(06:08):
shipper tells you, go pick up mycontainer, because I have an
import and it's important stuff,and I have a just in time
factory or whatever, go pick upmy container. If you're a truck
driver, you ask your marineterminal, hey, marine terminal,
when is my vessel going to showup? And where's my container
going to be available? In themarine terminal, they ask the
shipping line depending. Itdepends on where you go. But in
this particular region in theworld, the shipping line would
(06:31):
change the vessel, eta, 15times, 15 times. Just imagine
you you go to an airport andyou're waiting for your flight,
and your airline changes yourvessel, eta, your ship, or your
gate, OR gate, or your airplane,eta, 15 times, that'd be great.
And they have no control. Theyhave no idea. So then we have
(06:54):
this piece of data 15 times, andthen from there, it just, you
know, trickles down, and it justa disaster. So this number that
you gave us 8080 somethingpercent, 87 it's a very real,
it's a very real disconnect. Andsadly, it's such a big problem
that it's not, you know, I wishwe you know, there was a product
out there. Click a button on theright, and then your problems
(07:15):
are solved. This is way biggerthan that.
Blythe Brumleve (07:18):
So how do you attack it? Another
Unknown (07:22):
very good question, good questions today here at the
end, the conclusions of thereport are, I think, are pretty
powerful. They're based on datathat at least I haven't seen
anywhere else, because it, youknow, we gather data from marine
terminals and shipping lines,and then we gather data from
shippers. So it's both sides ofthe fence. In a lot of cases,
(07:42):
you feel like you have two teamspulling in different directions.
The one of the conclusions ofthe report is you probably
shouldn't focus on visibility.
Yeah, for the past maybe fiveyears after COVID or the supply
chain bottlenecks, everyone'slike, you know, I need a
visibility product. And, youknow, visibility, product here
and there. One of theconclusions is that you should
(08:03):
probably, shouldn't focus onvisibility. You should probably
focus on your own execution.
Yeah, so if you are a node inthis supply chain, the better
you execute on your operation.
More likely than not, you'regoing to be helping the
visibility problem. And then wehave some, again, scary numbers.
We measure these with ourcustomers and their customers,
(08:25):
and it's more of like anindustry problem. People call it
digital friction, so that's thetechnical term in supply chain.
We've measured that in a lot ofcases, marine terminals,
shipping lines, Dray providersand sometimes even warehouse
management system users, theyuse around 30% of their
(08:46):
capabilities in the software. Soimagine you're a yard somewhere
inland, and you buy a warehousemanagement system, you're paying
for it every year, and you onlyuse 30% of your capabilities.
Yeah. So one of the conclusionsof the report, or to answer your
question, How do you tacklethis, our suggestion is you
should probably focus on yourexecution first. Well,
Blythe Brumleve (09:08):
it's interesting you brought that up,
because a previous interviewthat we were just talking about
is they kind of said the samething that you were saying
within warehousing, is that evenwith their own processes and
their own sort of roboticsolutions and things like that,
that they only get to about 30%of that usage, and then they
never really see the fullpicture of the solutions that
(09:30):
they already have in house. Andso it's interesting that that is
just permeating throughout, ormaybe it's scary, or, you know,
just little concerning, or maybethis is something that you want
to address
Unknown (09:41):
digital friction is the actual term. Yeah, 30% is very
low.
Blythe Brumleve (09:46):
It makes sense.
If you think about all howsoftware kind of rules our life
now, and you really only have somuch bandwidth for each of these
different tools. And so I guessyou don't know what you don't
know, but you also don't knowwhat you don't want to learn,
either. And that's probably thelatter. Probably more of what's
going on in this situation. Andso how are, how are these? How
are you guys bridging this gap?
(10:06):
How are you guys attempting tosolve this problem? Like, if you
release a report like this, andit's like, just, you know, work
better, yeah, like, how do you?
How do you talk to yourcustomers and tell them to work
better and use their tools morewell?
Unknown (10:21):
People process products, yeah, like, at the end
of the day, I think that nowmore than ever, everyone,
everyone in supply chain, we allunderstand that supply chain is
about people more than it isabout software. And maybe
software is more about peoplethan we want to believe right
now. So people process products.
Yes, we when we talk to ourcustomers, we try to encourage
(10:46):
them to use more of their tools,and that leads to a lot of
process changes. So they need toinvest in training, they need to
invest in knowledge transfer.
They need to invest in theirpeople using their products.
Another very scary number thatwe have is that, you know, a lot
(11:09):
of people don't want to be insupply chain, especially the
users of these products, truckdrivers, marine terminal
operators, ship captains,railroad engineers. You know, 20
years ago, working for arailroad was very appealing. Now
not so much. Yeah, drivers aswell, yeah. So one of the things
(11:32):
we encourage our customers islike, you guys need we can help
you. Someone else can help you,but you guys need to invest more
in your people using our tools,because if you can drive that
number 30% to 35% you're goingto add a lot of value. You don't
have to solve a problem 100% tocreate value. So that's one
thing that we do. So peopleprocess product, and another
(11:53):
thing that we do so focusingmore on software
interoperability is anothertechnical term that you're going
to hear more and more. Weprobably already do. So the
interoperability is just a fancyway of saying you need software
that can talk to each other,that can work together exactly
(12:16):
and depending on where you go,in a lot of places, it's worse
than others, but you still findTMS applications that don't take
EDI. And EDI was built 1980 youstill find applications that run
in Access. I saw a few yearsago, already, two or three years
(12:37):
ago, a truck TMS that was basedon access Windows XP. So they
had kept a desktop. Not heard
Blythe Brumleve (12:47):
that in a while Windows XP,
Unknown (12:49):
they had kept a desktop with a CD driver for Windows XP,
and that was the only desktopthat would run Windows XP, and
that was the GMs. They wouldprint stuff, give that to
drivers. Drivers would give themstuff, type of stuff, then it
was a Microsoft Accessapplication. So one thing that
we try to do is our applicationsneed to be built to talk to each
(13:10):
other. It doesn't matter how itcan be EDI API, data streaming,
smoke signals for whateveranyone
Blythe Brumleve (13:18):
cares. I integrate that. Yeah,
Unknown (13:21):
but more and more we hope that as technology
progresses and people adopt newtechnology, you know, give it 10
years, and applications aregoing to be built to talk to
each other, that'll put us in abetter place.
Blythe Brumleve (13:34):
I just had an interview earlier today that was
talking about different AIagents within logistics that are
talking to each other. And verysoon, you're going to have a
carrier that's going to havetheir own AI agent that is going
to do all the grunt work thatthe driver doesn't want to call
and check in with, the shipperdoesn't want to call and check
in with the broker. So he'sgoing to have his own agent
that's going to call a broker'sAI agent, and they're just going
(13:57):
to the agents are just going totalk to each other. And so,
yeah, I mean, software isreally, you know, kind of taking
away a lot of, like, the gruntwork. But I think if I kind of,
like, read between the lines of,like, what you're saying, like,
it really starts with sort ofthe bare bones of you, you guys,
almost like, work asconsultants, it sounds like to
really help a lot of maybe theselegacy companies adapt in a more
(14:21):
meaningful way into technologyadoption, is that maybe a safe
assumption,
Unknown (14:25):
we have a services arm.
Yeah, we have a product is ourmain thing, but we have a
services arm. And, yeah, that'sjust our experience. Like, you
know, people can have all theproduct in the world you want.
At the end, you still needpeople to stay close to your
customers.
Blythe Brumleve (14:40):
Well, it sounds too like you don't even really
want to sell a product to acustomer unless they're there.
They're capable enough that youdon't maybe want them to be one
of those you know, people thatonly use 30% of
Unknown (14:51):
it, optimization services. That's what the sales
people say. Resell optimizationservices. All right,
Blythe Brumleve (14:58):
so a couple more questions. Questions here,
is there anything important thatyou feel like we should mention
that we haven't already talkedabout
Unknown (15:06):
AI, talked about AI, Oh, please,
Blythe Brumleve (15:08):
yeah, tell us what you guys are doing at AI.
Well, not
Unknown (15:12):
us, but so I'll give you another number. This is a
big number, 315,000,000,003 One,5 billion is the amount of money
in 2025 that the four bigtechnology companies in the US
are going to spend in. Ai, sothat is Amazon, Facebook or
(15:32):
meta, Google alphabet. And soit's Amazon, Google, Facebook
and Microsoft. Oh, I was not
Blythe Brumleve (15:42):
open. Ai, so, yeah, $315
Unknown (15:45):
billion a lot of that is in data centers and compute
power. A lot of that is in theway that they use chips and, you
know, they come up with, youknow, the agent has to say
something. A lot of that is inthe way that happens. But, AI,
yeah, it's coming. It's a bignumber. I
Blythe Brumleve (16:05):
mean, the way that that interview went
earlier, it was one of thosethings where I was like, I would
love to clone myself, and if Icould clone myself as a business
owner, and be able to, you know,have somebody sit down on sales
meetings with me, and I thinkfrom his, from their lens, what
they were saying. As long asyou're upfront and honest with
how you're using AI, then mostpeople do not have a problem
(16:26):
with it. Yeah,
Unknown (16:28):
yeah. It's a big number. And there's a lot that's
happening now. There's morethat's coming in the future. The
World Economic Forum, theypublish reports about
everything. I'm a big fan. Everyyear they published a global
risk report, the one for 2025came out in December 24 the
(16:48):
biggest risk, global risk thatthey found was misinformation
and the misuse of information.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So as long asyou're up front and you tell
people like, Hey, you're nottalking to Lindsey here. This is
a robot. I think there has to bea lot of control around that
legislation. Probably a lot ofstandards need to come into
(17:11):
place. We're working on a lot ofinteroperability standards the
way systems communicate witheach other. Because to your
point, you have to be upfrontabout it, because if not, you
get into a very gray area of,how are you using my
information? Who am I talkingto? Who am I revealing my
information to? Sometimes you'retalking to a human, and it's in
(17:33):
confidence, but if you'retalking to a robot that's
connected to the cloud, youdon't always, you know, click on
the button of accepting userterms when I'm talking to
someone who I think it's a humanso you're right up front. Being
upfront is going to matter inthe future. So,
Blythe Brumleve (17:51):
you know, last couple questions here, you know,
where can Is there anything elsefrom this report? I guess I
should probably ask from thetedious report that you want to
mention
Unknown (18:01):
for eight hours so you can take me wherever you want to
go. Well, any more cool stats? Ishould say I also have a lot of
them.
Well, no, it's just a verydynamic world, yeah, changing
world, evolving, especially ontechnology, especially now,
(18:21):
yeah, in the future, I thinkwe're going to see a lot of AI,
Big Data big data scientist isthe fastest growing job
position, if you will. Big DataScientist Fintech is number two
and number three. You guessedit. AI, the jobs that we're
closing in supply chain, thefastest telemarketers, people
(18:43):
that input data. So you're goingto see a lot of electronic bill
of lading, things going aroundthese days, especially in
shipping. My background is inocean transportation. So in
ocean transportation, everyone'stalking about the electronic
bill of lading. In railroads, weall talk about the electronic
bill of lading, the people thatinput that information, those
jobs are less and less frequentnow. Those are the two at the
(19:06):
bottom, telemarketers, datainput people, and at the top,
you have, yeah, big datascientist, FinTech, sure, and
AI, so yeah, the world's gonnachange,
Blythe Brumleve (19:16):
yeah, evolution, I think, in a very
short amount of time. But it'sinteresting to hear how that
evolution is happening intechnology, AI, but then also
how it affects the global supplychain jobs. So this is
fantastic. So thank you, Renee.
Where can folks follow you?
Follow more of your work. Youknow, maybe get set up with
Kaleris. Kaleris.com
Unknown (19:34):
is our website. We have our links there. I think it's
it's better if people go there.
I'll put them in the show notes,and you'll see what we are
working on. Yeah. Oh, perfect.
Thank you so much. This isfantastic. Cool. Appreciate you.
Thank you.
Blythe Brumleve (19:49):
I hope you enjoyed this episode of
everything is logistics, apodcast for the thinkers in
freight, telling the storiesbehind how your favorite stuff
and people get from point A toB. Subscribe. Subscribe to the
show, sign up for our newsletterand follow our socials over at
everything is logistics.com andin addition to the podcast, I
also wanted to let you all knowabout another company I operate,
(20:10):
and that's digital dispatch,where we help you build a better
website. Now, a lot of thetimes, we hand this task of
building a new website orrefreshing a current one off to
a co workers, child, a neighbordown the street or stranger
around the world, where youprobably spend more time
explaining the freight industrythan it takes to actually build
the dang website. Well, thatdoesn't happen at Digital
(20:32):
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
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customers a glimpse into how youoperate your business. Our new
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(20:54):
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month, plus some bonus freight,marketing and sales content
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your digital ecosystem on astrong foundation. Until then, I
(21:18):
hope you enjoyed this episode.
I'll see you all real soon andgo jags. You.
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