April 23, 2024 • 34 mins
In this episode, we’re joined by Zach Horton, Senior Director of Logistics and Supply & Demand Planning at Ember Technologies, Inc. From handling Ember's exponential growth to integrating cutting-edge technology into the heart of their supply chain, Zach shares invaluable insights on the role of AI, the essence of culture, and the art of innovative product development.
Tune in to learn not just how to plan for the future but to shape it with wisdom, agility, and the invaluable FIO (figure it out) mindset. Because in today's fast-paced world, it's not just about the product—it's about the people you serve and the team that drives you. Stay ahead of the curve with us, right here, on the Shelf Life Podcast.
Three Key Takeaways:
- The implementation of a robust sales and operations planning process is pivotal for successful startup growth, promoting transparency and accountability
- AI holds the promise to revolutionize planning and analysis, offering a glimpse into future consumer products industry advancements
- F.I.O - Figure It Out: champion a proactive work culture and encourage your team to embrace challenges with an innovative spirit
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
From Alloy AI.
This is Shelf Life.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
What is the growth trajectory like at a consumer
goods startup?
Speaker 1 (00:23):
What kind of skills do you need to succeed in such
an environment?
Speaker 2 (00:27):
What's the playbook for breaking into new verticals?
Speaker 1 (00:30):
How do you forecast during times of economic
uncertainty?
On every episode of Shelf Life,we answer questions like these
and more, with the help ofleaders across the consumer
goods industry.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Today we welcome Zach Horton, senior Director of
Logistics Supply and DemandPlanning at Ember.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Zach has been with Ember for six and a half years,
during which time he has grownin his role to lead global
logistics fulfillment and demandand supply planning functions.
Ember is a leading design andtechnology company that
pioneered the world's firsttemperature controlled mug.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
I'm your co-host, Joel Beal, CEO of Alloy AI.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
And I'm your co-host, Logan Ensign, Chief Customer
Officer at Alloy AI.
We'll be back with Zach rightafter this.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
As a consumer brand, you connect with dozens of
external partners and internalsystems to get a complete
picture of your business.
Each one is different.
Alloy AI makes it easy toconnect data from retailers,
e-commerce, supply chainpartners and even your own ERP,
then easily surface insights todrive sales growth.
Every day, brands use Alloy AIto see POS trends, measure
(01:37):
promotion performance and makebetter replenishment decisions
with their retail partners.
That's why we're trusted by BIC, crayola, valvoline, melissa,
doug Bosch and many more.
Get a demo at alloyai today.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Zach Horton, welcome to Shelf Life.
Good to have you.
Thank you so much for having me, Logan, To get us started here.
Zach, for the folks listening,we'd just love to hear more
about your background and whatyou're up to today.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
Absolutely.
I have an interestingbackground.
Today I'm leading a supplychain team in a startup
environment, but before that,you know, some of my passions
are actually in creative fields.
I went to school forphotography.
Really enjoyed that time of mylife, had my own small
photography business formultiple years and you know,
kind of going back, my motherwas a painter and grown up in a
creative environment.
(02:25):
So really just think creativelyand always trying to find
solutions for differentsituations that come up.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
Well, that doesn't sound like your typical supply
chains background, although,zach, I would say in my
experience very few people havealmost traditional backgrounds.
In the space, we see a lot ofpeople with certainly a variety
of skill sets and backgrounds.
Curious how in the world didyou go from the arts to supply
chain?
Speaker 4 (02:52):
Yeah, you're totally right, joel.
I think a lot of people fallinto supply chain logistics For
me.
I joined Ember at a time whenwe needed customer service
support, so that was my veryfirst role was customer service
boots on the ground, reallylistening to customers, fielding
questions and really taking inwhat their feedback was, and at
the time, we didn't really havea logistics team.
(03:12):
This is way back in 2016, 2017.
For me, I was always interestedin kind of the A to B, the
movements, making sure that ourcustomers were getting things
fast.
Back then, it was really whenAmazon was starting to be
extremely competitive in howfast they could deliver goods to
customers, so we always hadthat in the back of our minds
how can we take things tocustomers fast, whether it was
response times, emailingcustomers, but also getting them
(03:35):
their orders?
Also, at the time of the company, we were learning what our
customers wanted, what theydidn't like, what they liked.
So, taking that feedback, a lotof customers were sending us
products and saying, hey, trythis.
Or reporting different issuesthat they were experiencing, and
kind of the youth of ourproduct too.
It was really important for usto take that to heart, and so
one of the first things I wasdoing while I was on the CX team
(03:58):
was really taking in customerreturns, reading through the
reported issues and diagnosingthe product and trying to figure
out what was wrong with it and,you know, creatively, like kind
of just like taking the mugapart, looking at the printed
circuit boards and, you know,getting really specific about
what the actual problem was.
I'll be completely honest, a lotof the things I was taking from
really really smart electricalengineers didn't always
(04:20):
understand it, but I knew whatto do to kind of, you know,
check a box and make sure thatit was you know A or B issue.
So it was fun and in reportingthrough that, I think you know,
at the time we had a young COOwho was looking at people across
the company for opportunitiesand he saw me kind of tracking
these issues and really, youknow, organizing what was going
(04:40):
on and he said, you know, look,I want to give you a shot.
We need logistic support, weneed to kind of build a supply
chain that can support a globalpresence At the time it was just
the US.
So he gave me a chance andreally hooked me up with a great
team of leaders at a 3PL thatwe still use today, and that was
kind of the start.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
What stage was the company as all this was going on
?
Speaker 4 (05:00):
I assume it was pretty early, Super early you
early, less than $1 millionrevenue at the time.
Brand new, Our first productwas in the market for six, seven
months at the time.
So we were really trying totake as much input from
customers and clients and thingsas we could to try to apply
that at a later stage.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
And at that point were you selling purely online.
Speaker 4 (05:22):
It was online.
We did have a footprint withinStarbucks stores back in 2016,
2017.
So that was really like ourdomestic US retail opening was
Starbucks.
We were in at the time.
It was 5,600 Starbucks storesacross the house.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Okay, so Starbucks online.
And were you the only persondoing kind of that support
function when you started?
Yeah, we had four total supportpeople.
Speaker 4 (05:47):
So I was kind of veering off and doing the
shipping related issues andcustomer feedback related
product diagnostics.
So we all kind of had ourlittle hat within the CX team.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
I find people are quite fascinated with the
startup environment and whatthat means.
I think sometimes that getsromanticized on something that's
so exciting and you're buildingas you go and so much
opportunity.
But would love to just hearfrom you your experience at a
company with a fast growthtrajectory, kind of what was
that ride like and what's itbeen like for you?
Speaker 4 (06:20):
Yeah, it was amazing, like something that it's hard
to compare to, you know, talkingto friends or colleagues that
aren't here anymore and justkind of validating you know
what's.
What are things like out therein the market.
You know, back when I joinedthe company, I was coming out of
a job that I really didn't like.
I was bagging groceries andjust trying to get a paycheck,
you know, to be completelyhonest, and it was a time where
(06:41):
I was just kind of grinding.
So when the opportunity came up, I didn't really care what I
was going to do at Ember, but Ihad met the people and I had met
, you know, some of theleadership and it was just super
exciting.
So I was like you know I was, Iwas jazzed to join, just to be
a part of the group of people.
And then, over time, over reallythe first year, first two years
, you get to know who's acrossthe table from you and what
(07:03):
really kind of inspired me waseveryone's working super hard.
Everyone has a ton of trust andreally you feel engaged to work
hard because you know thepeople around you are also in
the same boat.
We're all grinding towards thesame end goal and so it wasn't
isolating or anything like that.
Everyone was kind of all handson deck, rowing the boat in the
(07:24):
same direction.
So that's kind of the culturethat that we've, you know, had
for for many years now andcontinuing to kind of move in
the right direction with just anoutstanding amount of trust and
, and you know, great peoplearound.
So it's fun to come to work.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
So what kind of person does really well in that
environment?
Speaker 4 (07:45):
I think that the biggest thing one of my favorite
you know made up acronyms touse is FIO.
Figure it out, and I tell myteam that today.
And it's really just like don'twait for someone to give you
direction.
If you have an idea, bring itto the table, try something, you
know, don't be afraid to fail,take a little bit of a risk.
Obviously there's boundaries tothat, but if you take a risk
(08:11):
and you kind of have this, youknow forgiveness, mindset, you
can always say sorry after thefact.
You know you're really going tosucceed in a startup
environment.
And mindset, just because thereare always too many things to
do, the to do list is nevergoing to be finished and we also
don't really know what we needuntil it's too late.
And so, like proactive, youknow you're trying things ahead
of time, you're kind of testingand learning before it's.
It's really critical that wehave that solution, you know,
(08:32):
whatever it might be acrossdepartments.
So I think, just go, getterswilling to kind of step outside
the boundaries.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
And as you've grown, have you continued to bring in
people that I guess havebackgrounds I don't want to say
like you, but a diverse set ofbackgrounds, people that don't
necessarily have a deepunderstanding of planning or
logistics or these differentfunctions or have you started to
bring in people that have someof that, and so now it's a mix
of both.
How?
Speaker 4 (08:58):
has that looked?
It's a good question.
I'm going to answer this twoparts.
One will be very honest and onewill be a little bit more
political, but I think we'vealways looked for the same
character traits, right, sosomeone you can trust, someone
who's willing to be proactiveand not wanting to wait for
someone a leader, a manager totell them do this, this and this
.
You can't really havehandholding to be successful
(09:21):
because we're just flying amillion miles a minute
handholding to be successfulbecause we're just flying a
million miles a minute.
I think there's another layer ofthis which we've brought in
leadership and middle managerswith tons of experience from the
likes of Apple, best Buys, thetargets of the world.
And it's interesting actuallyhow it doesn't always translate
to success, because we don'tfollow the process every time,
(09:44):
and there are times when it'simportant not to follow the
process because we just have togo get it done.
And it's a really interestingbalance of we're trying to grow
out of the startup, but thenthere's still processes we don't
have.
So you have to kind of createthem and it's not perfect for
sure, but finding those peoplethat are willing to just go for
it and bring it up.
And there's a saying you knowsay the thing, don't be afraid
(10:07):
to hurt feelings.
It's not personal and just bereally honest and open, and I
think that's been.
There's a really strong coregroup of people at Ember who are
willing to be honest withoutyou know having thick, having
thick skin and not, you know,worried about the emotions of it
.
We kind of say that, too, a lotof times in meetings.
It's not personal, you got toget this done.
These are the facts and let'sfigure it out together, but
(10:30):
always a very strong team, teammindset.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Yeah, we can appreciate that, being a startup
ourselves, and that transition,as you're bringing in
experience that can be sovaluable at times, and other
times, as you said, you kind ofsay, hey, there's a scrappiness
that exists and we're not alwaysdoing it by the book, if you
will.
So I think that that's atransition that every company
has to go through.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
And joining.
When you did in the role thatyou did in kind of customer
service, customer experience.
It's probably fun to look backand recognize.
You probably had a pretty bigimpact on the success of the
company and on the products thatyou built, and so I'm always
interested to hear about youknow you talk about the voice of
the customer and how youintegrate that in at Ember.
(11:15):
Could you speak a little bitmore about that customer
feedback, listening to thecustomer and your personal
experience and how that helped,but also more generally how it's
helped Ember get where they aretoday personal experience and
how that helped but also moregenerally, how it's helped Ember
get where they are today.
Speaker 4 (11:26):
Yeah, I mean, I think first and foremost, the
customer is everything to abusiness like Ember.
It's a consumer product.
It's very giftable, so the wordof mouth is very powerful.
So someone that buys Emberloves it, often buys it for a
significant other, a familymember, a friend.
So it's critical for us to havethat relationship with our
customers.
But I think starting when I didit just gave me a foundation to
(11:49):
understand the product.
Because I was tearing them down, taking them apart, I knew what
worked, what didn't work well.
So going into the supply chainside of things and getting into
the details of procurement andmanufacturing and knowing what
to watch out for was reallyhelpful.
It's been a fun ride, but Iwould not be where I am today
without having started incustomer service.
I'm a huge advocate for, likeI've always said, everyone
(12:11):
should do customer service foran hour a week because you just
get such a good baseline of whatcustomers are saying, what
people want.
But also just the communicationtoo goes a long way for the
customer.
So we've always been veryproactive in communication,
whether it's a product launch,whether it's just responding
within six hours.
You know things like that wherepeople are often waiting.
(12:34):
We've all had those toughercommunications with companies in
the CX world that you're kindof waiting, you're not sure, and
so we've tried to mitigate thatas much as we can.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
Yeah, we've all called into these customer
service lines and reached out.
How has the feedback thatyou've gotten?
How has that influenced?
You know, ember, I'm curious.
I mean, does that impact whenyou think about product
development?
Does it impact other things?
Speaker 4 (12:57):
Yeah, definitely.
I think the product is ourbread and butter and so
listening to customers using theproduct, applying it in their
daily lives, we've learned a lot.
I will say, like, originalproduct design was really about
enhancing your life and using itto the best application that
you have.
But like a couple examples I'llsay first, like mothers heating
(13:20):
up coffee and kind of runningaround in the morning with kids
and not having to kind of worryabout like I really wanted that
moment to last longer with mycoffee, things like that.
But then when customers give usfeedback, being a design-led
company, depending on thesituation, the product, the
roadmap, there's times when wecan apply it right away and
there's times when, okay, thatmight be a year or two years
(13:42):
down the line, and it's been funto see what people will give us
feedback about.
And sometimes it's as simple as, hey, we want two lids in the
box just to have options, andthat's pretty simple, right,
it's a plastic mold, you cankind of implement that pretty
quickly.
Sometimes it's hey, I want my48-ounce Stanley thermos that
also heats up, and there's powerlimitations, right.
(14:04):
So you can't always do what thecustomer wants, but we've
listened to customers.
One of our newest products isthe tumblers.
That's a 16 ounce version.
People always over the yearsask for just more size and want
a little bit bigger.
But it's been fun to learn toofrom you know, the engineering
side.
There's clear limitationsaround what we can do safely
(14:24):
with the battery inside of theproduct, heating and just the
electricity output.
Some of the technology hasreally advanced over the years,
so it's given us a little bitmore runway into bigger size,
more capacity, longer life allthose things which are really
all stem from what customershave said and wanted, so it's
been fun to see that growth.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
When you all kind of took the market by storm with
your mugs.
This isn't actually by design,but with these things here,
right?
So what we've also seen fromEmber is actually a pretty
significant expansion of theproduct lines outside of mugs,
and I think that's been reallyinteresting to see from afar.
So you've moved from mugs intobaby products, right?
(15:05):
Could you talk a little bitabout how that has worked, how
maybe you were incorporatingcustomer feedback and what
you've learned about what worksand what doesn't?
Speaker 4 (15:15):
Absolutely.
I think that one of the betterthings about Ember is that
there's a lot of patents thatcover the portfolio of different
products that we can apply thesimilar technology to whether
it's heating, cooling, thosetypes of things.
So there's a broad amount ofprotection, let's say, and so
we've tinkered with differentideas.
But coffee is something thatAmericans drink every day, right
(15:38):
In the morning.
It's a safe space and I think,going into different markets and
different products, it's beenfun to think about the different
iterations that we've gonethrough.
Baby bottles is a huge one andso we launched the baby bottle
earlier this year and we'velearned a ton.
It's a totally different market, it's a different customer,
(15:58):
it's obviously a differentapplication of the product.
I think that what gave us a lotof confidence in this year.
The baby bottle has beendeveloped over the last four to
five years.
So it's been in the works for awhile, first product in the
market, second product in themarket.
We did have some quality issuesand we knew at the time it
wasn't safe, let's say, to bringa baby bottle to the market,
(16:19):
because it's a totally differentlevel of quality and it's
always been a top priority ofmembers is to maintain quality.
So learning through those mugcoffee products, bringing the
baby bottle to market was at apoint where we're ultimately
confident it's a safe product.
It can be used in manydifferent applications, whether
the person's at their home,traveling.
So quality was number one.
(16:40):
But I think, just again, goingback to enhancing that
experience not having to rush inthe morning, or, I will say,
one of the most interesting andI don't have children, but we've
learned from customers that youknow, testing the warmth of,
you know, the milk or theformula has been kind of a put
it on your wrist, you know kindof application Does it feel too
(17:02):
hot?
And so there was never anytechnology behind validating the
actual temperature and soknowing and trusting that it's
going to be perfect bodytemperature every time very
consistent was kind of fun forus to test through different
market studies and people reallybought into it.
So we're really excited aboutthe baby products.
I think it's going to be a biggame changer, different market,
for us in the long term.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
Oh, and in some ways it does sound like.
Of course the technology has alot of similarities and it plays
to your strengths, butdifferent consumers potentially
and also, I'd imagine, a burdento sell through, maybe different
channels, different supplychain challenges how all of you
kind of navigated that.
Have you had to find newpartners from a wholesale
perspective?
Adjusted kind of logisticssupply chain?
(17:44):
What does that look like?
Adjusted kind of logisticssupply chain what does that look
like with this kind of secondmajor product launch?
Yeah, I appreciate that.
Speaker 4 (17:52):
I think, definitely from a supply chain perspective,
the procurement quality becomesa higher priority, even if we
were prioritizing that before,with all of the BPA testing and
depending on different states,and so there's a lot of
complications around.
You know the actual materialsand the plastics and things like
that that moms rightfully so,are checking well before they
(18:13):
buy anything and making surethat they're buying a quality
product, Whereas if you look atour mugs they do have plastic in
them and we weren't worriedabout the BPAs because you're
not really coming into contactwith the plastics.
So it's been fun to release thebaby bottle with truly a
BPA-free product, regardless ofwhat the materials are in there.
So that's been fun, I think,from a distribution standpoint.
(18:36):
Some of the same customersdon't.
Some of our retailers are verytech-driven but they might not
have a baby space, so it's beenfun to see the best buys, the
targets, you know kind of leanback and forth a little bit to
say where can we kind of fitthis in, and most times they're
bought into the product, they'rebrought into the company.
It's more of just a placementand how do we kind of market
(18:57):
this in the best way to ourcustomers?
Speaker 2 (19:00):
What have you seen there?
Has it been consistent?
Because you're right.
I mean, is this sitting more inthe technology part of the
store or is this placed next tobaby it?
Speaker 1 (19:09):
is or a new vertical baby tech, which is going to be
very exciting.
Speaker 4 (19:12):
Yeah, baby tech for sure and hopefully we kind of
kick that off and start.
You know there's a lot ofdifferent monitors and things
like that out there, but I'll goback to when we first launched
with Apple.
This is our global distributionwith the mugs, so this is back
(19:33):
in 2018.
And part of it was we learnedApple to work with a very
high-end customer like Apple alot of trust in the consumer
market.
Apple stores want your productto be part of the ecosystem,
right.
So the health kit how do youconnect it to the phones and how
does it kind of operatetogether?
And so with the baby product,it's a great example of it's all
part of Apple's ecosystem.
But Apple's a very stickycustomer where they don't want
to sell too many third-partyproducts in their stores but
(19:55):
having it influenced by all theApple products and applications
and things like that, so you cantrack the feeding, you can
report to your doctors, you cando all that data analysis within
the ecosystem of Apple thatthey're totally bought into.
It's been interesting to seethat and, going back to, we
wouldn't have learned about theecosystem without having the
coffee products with Apple first, and it just depends.
(20:19):
I think the price point is alittle bit different as well.
So, depending on what retailerit is or what customer is
different placement and kind ofpriority within stores.
Obviously, at the end of theday it's all about sales, but
also having kind of a trustedand well-known brand, you know,
in line at stores is reallyimportant for a lot of these big
retailers.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
I assume you also have a customer that's doing
quite a bit of research beforebuying.
I mean, you talked about thereference aspect of it, which
makes sense.
You know it's a product peoplefind.
They get excited about it, theygift it or tell someone, but
it's a somewhat new type ofproduct, as Logan mentioned.
At the beginning.
You pioneered this space, soI'm curious how that looks, if
(21:00):
you're able to track that.
Are people researching onlineand buying in store?
I?
I mean, I'm sure there's stilla lot of online sales as well
yeah, it's, it's been fun.
Speaker 4 (21:10):
I think the the really big part for ember is,
let's be honest, it's anexpensive product the coffee
products.
It's an expensive coffee mug,it's an expensive baby bottle.
We've really pushed to show thevalue of that purchase.
It's not necessarily theproduct, it's's the time saving,
it's the enhancement to yourdaily life, and so it's more
(21:31):
selling that value to thecustomer versus just buying a
consumable product that you'regoing to use every once in a
while.
You're using that every day andwe're showing that value.
I think that, going back totesting and learning and seeing
how customers are clickingthrough our website, what
they're looking for there's agreat amount of data from Google
(21:54):
, seo and how we can trace it.
So our marketing team hasalways been partnered at the hip
with sales and with operationsto make sure that we're getting
their feedback, they're gettingour feedback, and so it's a huge
collaboration.
We have to know what customersare wanting and how they're kind
of operating amongst the WorldWide Web today, which has grown
to be pretty substantial in allof our lives.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
So, absolutely top of a lot of people's mind right
now is how do you forecast basedon historics?
Right now, we had a globalpandemic.
We now are trying to make senseof what's happening next and I
(22:33):
think you have a great vantagebeing in the space.
So we'd be curious can you talka little bit about how you
think about forecasting andplanning and how you've sought
to kind of improve forecastingat Ember?
We'd love to hear more aboutthat.
Speaker 4 (22:48):
Yeah, for sure.
I mean, this is critical tomany businesses forecasting, you
know, done products,consumables, but also just
services and different kind ofgenres of planning.
I think Ember has learned a lotand, I'll be honest, we were
not good at planning in theearly years.
We were guessing and and, a lotof times, building too little,
and so we were reallyconservative with our
(23:10):
forecasting.
Before taking over demandplanning, we always needed more
inventory, so it was always asupply chain issue.
It was always an inventoryissue.
That was the problem and theone thing we all know about a
forecast it's never going to beright.
So how far away you stray fromit is really what matters.
So last year 2022, followingthe pandemic, which was a huge
(23:32):
spike for many e-commerce brands, we had to really tune up the
process and really bring in asales and operations planning
process to the table, makingsure teams are involved, able to
deliver feedback, and it reallytook weekly meetings on
different parts of the businessto get that collaboration, get
that communication, going, andso I think communication is at
(23:53):
the baseline of planning andmaking sure you have the right
inputs.
I think, too, theaccountability is a big part of
it, so having a person, a teamaccountable for inputs and
accountable for providing aforecast, providing marketing
assets or anything really.
It's a matter of getting thoseinputs in a very consistent way
(24:15):
so you can compare week overweek, month to month.
Really, what I've learned thisyear is that consumer demand
drives everything.
So for a brand like Ember, ourrevenue is based on the
deliveries to the customer.
But if we just stuff any retailchannel with inventory, it's
not selling.
It's going to be a one-timepurchase, and so understanding
(24:35):
consumer demand has been at thebaseline of our forecasting
patterns for the last couple ofyears.
So we report and track everysingle week a forecast and an
actual number against whatconsumers are purchasing at a
target, at a Best Buy.
We're not getting revenue offthat, but we need to know that
information to make sure thatour planning for sell-in is
really validated and proven,that we're giving them the right
(24:58):
amount of inventory, we'reencouraging the retailer to buy
at the right times, and so it'sgiven even our retail partners
and planning teams on the otherside a lot of information as far
as we're kind of projecting 13weeks out.
A lot of these big retailers arekind of short-sighted, so it's
been important for them to seehow far we're looking at
(25:18):
building trust in thoserelationships as well.
So now, when we encourage aretailer to purchase for a list
of reasons, it's not just out ofleft field, it's really proven
and validated.
This is why we've seen thislast year, and the historicals
are a huge, huge part of it aswell.
But every year is different.
Especially the last couple ofyears have been very different.
So it's an ebb and flow.
(25:39):
For sure.
I think it's been a blast.
But the economy, you know,obviously has been a challenge
this year.
So trying to project that isnear impossible, but we're
trying to.
You know, kind of 80, 20 rule,right, you want to be as close
as you can be.
Can't be perfect, unfortunately.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
And were you the first person to kind of kick off
more of a formal planningprocess internally.
Speaker 4 (26:01):
So I was spearheading the S&OP process at Ember last
year and so it was a really kindof a milestone for us.
Before that it was, you know,demand planning was part of
sales and so there really wasn'tthis healthy headbutt that you
need to kind of validate andprove.
So it's been fun and I thinkhaving a positive mindset in
those conversations make themless hard.
(26:22):
You don't have to.
You're not pointing the fingerat anybody, it's just we've got
to be realistic as a team, andso having the S&OP process has
been really fun and encouragingfor even sales team members to
know we're not far off, we'reclose, and if there's risks or
opportunities, everybody's aware, so there's no confusion.
One of my biggest goals as ateam leader is just to avoid
(26:45):
surprise, and so if you canavoid surprise, you can all work
on the solution together.
You can all work to chaseopportunities together and push
things forward.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
And what does your S&OP process look like?
I mean, it seems to look alittle different at every
company you came and implementedit.
I'm curious, you know kind of,yeah, what's a rough outline of
how you?
Speaker 4 (27:04):
run it.
Yeah, there's so manyvariations, right, I think.
As a small company we have apretty small team, and so we
didn't want to do a 12-stepprocess.
We kind of honed in on the fourkey areas that we needed to
inform the company.
So we start every month with aweekly demand review.
We're typically releasing ademand plan in the first week of
the month.
What's changed?
(27:24):
Has anything come up?
Sales is providing their inputsas far as all the customer
communications.
That ultimately provides theinput to supply, to go bring it
to the manufacturing teams.
Procurement can we build it?
Can we get the inventory intime?
So week two is a supply review,which is just supply chain on
the manufacturing side, and sowe kind of look at this is what
(27:44):
sales is saying, what can we doright?
Can we make it happen?
When we have those twoconversations, we kind of bring
in a third week of every monthback to sales and it's kind of
an integrated planning review.
So you sales, you asked forthis.
We talked to our manufacturingpartners and brought our
procurement team in.
We can achieve 90% of it Right,and so there's this kind of
(28:05):
back and forth with well, weneed to make sure, we support
and we totally understand thatthere's obviously limitations at
every step of the way, everycompany.
So that's the third week.
We're kind of doing thatintegrated back and forth.
Sometimes we call itallocations If there's finite
inventory, where do we want toput it?
And we let sales holdaccountability for that.
(28:26):
We don't want to make decisionsfor them.
More of a collaboration.
Fourth week of the month isreally to update any executives
and making sure that theexecutive team is ultimately
signing off on inventorypurchasing and so our supply
plan and our POs that go out toour suppliers, but also that
they're aware with ourtrajectory, whether it's revenue
, profitability, on-timedeliveries, performance all
(28:48):
those metrics are provided atthe end of every month, kind of
looking back a little bit butalso looking forward, typically
anywhere from, you know, 12 to18 months pretty accurately at
this point.
So it's been a learningexperience for myself but also
our team as a whole.
And you know, I think we'vegrown quite a bit and and that's
kind of thinking about growingout of the startup a little bit
(29:10):
more process oriented, havethese consistent meetings.
It's cadenced and so we cankind of follow that trust that
we can talk next week.
We've got a plan for it, soit's been great.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
Well, zach, you may not have grown up in supply
chain, but I think you saidearlier S&OP that process has
been really fun.
So I think that you were builtfor supply chain, because I
don't know if everybody wouldshare that sentiment, but it
sounds like you guys have reallymatured that process.
I'll say today it's very hardto talk about forecasting and
planning without also talkingabout AI right, ai applications
(29:45):
today to improve that.
But also, hey, what is thefuture of planning as AI
technologies develop and areadopted?
So we'd love to hear from youjust your point of view on how
AI is implemented today at Emberand how you think about it, but
also just from your vantage,how it's going to change things
(30:06):
over the next five, 10 years.
Speaker 4 (30:08):
I think AI is I relate it to like the ocean or
space, right, we've onlydiscovered and kind of explored
a very small percentage two, 3%of what it can do.
And thinking about it from aconsumer perspective, there's
definitely the inputs and thedifferent platforms.
You can kind of test and trydifferent things and, you know,
use algorithms to think for you.
(30:28):
It's interesting Ember does notcurrently apply much AI.
We've done some quirky thingsof what are Ember's 10 values
and ask questions like that,which have been really
interesting and surprising howmuch they align with what our
targets are.
But I think consumer productseveryone today has a phone in
their pocket and so how can thatlearn?
(30:49):
I think Tesla is a good exampleof their cars, like taking
photos of the roads and kind ofbuilding up a catalog over time
of value and data.
Our phones are doing the samething.
We're constantly kind oftracked in locations and you
could track consumer purchasinghabits.
You could track where arepeople going, how are people
(31:10):
going, how are people gettingthere with some of the AI stuff.
So I'm really interested.
I think over the next five to 10years it's going to explode and
right now it might feel alittle bit foreign for me
personally, to be honest, and Ithink 10 years from now we'll
look back and kind of rememberhey, you remember when chat GPT
came out and we were all askingfunny questions.
(31:31):
But it'll be much moreintegrated in work life, kind of
across the board.
You know, I'm hopeful that itdoesn't take away jobs.
I think there's still the humanaspect of oversight and
decision making at times.
But it could be really reallyinteresting and curious to hear
you know, joel and Logan, bothyour feedback on you know
curious to hear you know, joeland Logan, both your feedback on
(31:52):
you know Alloy being such a keysoftware for us and how can it
really apply to the future ofplanning and forecasting and
data driven approach.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
Yeah, you know, I think we're all trying to figure
this out, I guess a little bittogether.
And you know, if you look atthe trends in AI, a couple of
years ago it was all aboutmachine learning and how that
can be applied really more toforecasting models, at least in
our space.
But, as you mentioned you knowthe topic the last 6-12 months
has all been on the moregenerative AI and you know, I
(32:21):
think over the years what I'veseen is there's kind of this
idea of I'm going to wake up inthe morning and I want AI to
like tell me what I should do.
It's like these are the threethings you should work on today
and for a long time.
I mean, the machine learningmodels didn't didn't help with
that.
You know they could help youbuild maybe a more accurate
forecast and things of thatnature.
But yeah, it's kind of once we,if you layer generative AI on
(32:43):
top of a lot of the things thatwe have, I mean it's pretty darn
good at being able to summarizewhat it's seeing.
So it will be interesting.
I mean, I think of it as it'skind of going to be all of our
analytical assistant thatthey're on the side.
I think we're still going tohave to drive, but it's
hopefully going to remove a lotof that busy work, that the
(33:06):
combing through spreadsheets,and it can hopefully highlight
some of the key things to kindof dive more into.
But it will be interesting tosee it play out.
We're doing some excitingthings internally, trying
different things, and I you know, as you said at the very
beginning, when it's it's likewe're all in this big startup,
it's a lot of trial, there's alot of error, you know we go
(33:26):
down the wrong directions, butthen there's some really cool
things that that we're alldiscovering and I think that's
going to get flushed out here inthe coming year or two.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
We have another podcast with Lhasa, our head of
engineering, talking about thisconcept right, but I think AI
it's a means to an ends right,and so you need the technology,
the AI technology, but you alsoneed the data and you also need
the right application right, andso there are certain
applications that we feel likereally benefit from AI, and I
(33:58):
think, envision it reallyaccelerating a lot of things.
But you typically in theequation, also need the
underpinning correct data aswell as the technology to make
that happen.
So, anyway, it's a fascinatingtopic and I think it's going to
be a developing story.
Well, zach, we reallyappreciate you putting the time
(34:19):
aside to meet with us and thankyou for joining us on Shelf Life
.
Speaker 4 (34:23):
Yeah, it's been fantastic.
Thank you, joel.
Thank you Logan.
I appreciate the time as well.
It's great to get to know youguys and I wish you the best and
continued partnership.
All things, thanks.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
Zach, appreciate it.
You've been listening to ZachHorton, senior Director of
Logistics, supply and DemandPlanning at Ember.
That's all for this week.
See you next time on Shelf Life.
From Alloy AI.
This is Shelf Life.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
What is the growth trajectory like at a consumer
goods startup?
Speaker 1 (00:23):
What kind of skills do you need to succeed in such
an environment?
Speaker 2 (00:27):
What's the playbook for breaking into new verticals?
Speaker 1 (00:30):
How do you forecast during times of economic
uncertainty?
On every episode of Shelf Life,we answer questions like these
and more, with the help ofleaders across the consumer
goods industry.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Today we welcome Zach Horton, senior Director of
Logistics Supply and DemandPlanning at Ember.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Zach has been with Ember for six and a half years,
during which time he has grownin his role to lead global
logistics fulfillment and demandand supply planning functions.
Ember is a leading design andtechnology company that
pioneered the world's firsttemperature controlled mug.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
I'm your co-host, Joel Beal, CEO of Alloy AI.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
And I'm your co-host, Logan Ensign, Chief Customer
Officer at Alloy AI.
We'll be back with Zach rightafter this.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
As a consumer brand, you connect with dozens of
external partners and internalsystems to get a complete
picture of your business.
Each one is different.
Alloy AI makes it easy toconnect data from retailers,
e-commerce, supply chainpartners and even your own ERP,
then easily surface insights todrive sales growth.
Every day, brands use Alloy AIto see POS trends, measure
(01:37):
promotion performance and makebetter replenishment decisions
with their retail partners.
That's why we're trusted by BIC, crayola, valvoline, melissa,
doug Bosch and many more.
Get a demo at alloyai today.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Zach Horton, welcome to Shelf Life.
Good to have you.
Thank you so much for having me, Logan, To get us started here.
Zach, for the folks listening,we'd just love to hear more
about your background and whatyou're up to today.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
Absolutely.
I have an interestingbackground.
Today I'm leading a supplychain team in a startup
environment, but before that,you know, some of my passions
are actually in creative fields.
I went to school forphotography.
Really enjoyed that time of mylife, had my own small
photography business formultiple years and you know,
kind of going back, my motherwas a painter and grown up in a
creative environment.
(02:25):
So really just think creativelyand always trying to find
solutions for differentsituations that come up.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
Well, that doesn't sound like your typical supply
chains background, although,zach, I would say in my
experience very few people havealmost traditional backgrounds.
In the space, we see a lot ofpeople with certainly a variety
of skill sets and backgrounds.
Curious how in the world didyou go from the arts to supply
chain?
Speaker 4 (02:52):
Yeah, you're totally right, joel.
I think a lot of people fallinto supply chain logistics For
me.
I joined Ember at a time whenwe needed customer service
support, so that was my veryfirst role was customer service
boots on the ground, reallylistening to customers, fielding
questions and really taking inwhat their feedback was, and at
the time, we didn't really havea logistics team.
(03:12):
This is way back in 2016, 2017.
For me, I was always interestedin kind of the A to B, the
movements, making sure that ourcustomers were getting things
fast.
Back then, it was really whenAmazon was starting to be
extremely competitive in howfast they could deliver goods to
customers, so we always hadthat in the back of our minds
how can we take things tocustomers fast, whether it was
response times, emailingcustomers, but also getting them
(03:35):
their orders?
Also, at the time of the company, we were learning what our
customers wanted, what theydidn't like, what they liked.
So, taking that feedback, a lotof customers were sending us
products and saying, hey, trythis.
Or reporting different issuesthat they were experiencing, and
kind of the youth of ourproduct too.
It was really important for usto take that to heart, and so
one of the first things I wasdoing while I was on the CX team
(03:58):
was really taking in customerreturns, reading through the
reported issues and diagnosingthe product and trying to figure
out what was wrong with it and,you know, creatively, like kind
of just like taking the mugapart, looking at the printed
circuit boards and, you know,getting really specific about
what the actual problem was.
I'll be completely honest, a lotof the things I was taking from
really really smart electricalengineers didn't always
(04:20):
understand it, but I knew whatto do to kind of, you know,
check a box and make sure thatit was you know A or B issue.
So it was fun and in reportingthrough that, I think you know,
at the time we had a young COOwho was looking at people across
the company for opportunitiesand he saw me kind of tracking
these issues and really, youknow, organizing what was going
(04:40):
on and he said, you know, look,I want to give you a shot.
We need logistic support, weneed to kind of build a supply
chain that can support a globalpresence At the time it was just
the US.
So he gave me a chance andreally hooked me up with a great
team of leaders at a 3PL thatwe still use today, and that was
kind of the start.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
What stage was the company as all this was going on
?
Speaker 4 (05:00):
I assume it was pretty early, Super early you
early, less than $1 millionrevenue at the time.
Brand new, Our first productwas in the market for six, seven
months at the time.
So we were really trying totake as much input from
customers and clients and thingsas we could to try to apply
that at a later stage.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
And at that point were you selling purely online.
Speaker 4 (05:22):
It was online.
We did have a footprint withinStarbucks stores back in 2016,
2017.
So that was really like ourdomestic US retail opening was
Starbucks.
We were in at the time.
It was 5,600 Starbucks storesacross the house.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Okay, so Starbucks online.
And were you the only persondoing kind of that support
function when you started?
Yeah, we had four total supportpeople.
Speaker 4 (05:47):
So I was kind of veering off and doing the
shipping related issues andcustomer feedback related
product diagnostics.
So we all kind of had ourlittle hat within the CX team.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
I find people are quite fascinated with the
startup environment and whatthat means.
I think sometimes that getsromanticized on something that's
so exciting and you're buildingas you go and so much
opportunity.
But would love to just hearfrom you your experience at a
company with a fast growthtrajectory, kind of what was
that ride like and what's itbeen like for you?
Speaker 4 (06:20):
Yeah, it was amazing, like something that it's hard
to compare to, you know, talkingto friends or colleagues that
aren't here anymore and justkind of validating you know
what's.
What are things like out therein the market.
You know, back when I joinedthe company, I was coming out of
a job that I really didn't like.
I was bagging groceries andjust trying to get a paycheck,
you know, to be completelyhonest, and it was a time where
(06:41):
I was just kind of grinding.
So when the opportunity came up, I didn't really care what I
was going to do at Ember, but Ihad met the people and I had met
, you know, some of theleadership and it was just super
exciting.
So I was like you know I was, Iwas jazzed to join, just to be
a part of the group of people.
And then, over time, over reallythe first year, first two years
, you get to know who's acrossthe table from you and what
(07:03):
really kind of inspired me waseveryone's working super hard.
Everyone has a ton of trust andreally you feel engaged to work
hard because you know thepeople around you are also in
the same boat.
We're all grinding towards thesame end goal and so it wasn't
isolating or anything like that.
Everyone was kind of all handson deck, rowing the boat in the
(07:24):
same direction.
So that's kind of the culturethat that we've, you know, had
for for many years now andcontinuing to kind of move in
the right direction with just anoutstanding amount of trust and
, and you know, great peoplearound.
So it's fun to come to work.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
So what kind of person does really well in that
environment?
Speaker 4 (07:45):
I think that the biggest thing one of my favorite
you know made up acronyms touse is FIO.
Figure it out, and I tell myteam that today.
And it's really just like don'twait for someone to give you
direction.
If you have an idea, bring itto the table, try something, you
know, don't be afraid to fail,take a little bit of a risk.
Obviously there's boundaries tothat, but if you take a risk
(08:11):
and you kind of have this, youknow forgiveness, mindset, you
can always say sorry after thefact.
You know you're really going tosucceed in a startup
environment.
And mindset, just because thereare always too many things to
do, the to do list is nevergoing to be finished and we also
don't really know what we needuntil it's too late.
And so, like proactive, youknow you're trying things ahead
of time, you're kind of testingand learning before it's.
It's really critical that wehave that solution, you know,
(08:32):
whatever it might be acrossdepartments.
So I think, just go, getterswilling to kind of step outside
the boundaries.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
And as you've grown, have you continued to bring in
people that I guess havebackgrounds I don't want to say
like you, but a diverse set ofbackgrounds, people that don't
necessarily have a deepunderstanding of planning or
logistics or these differentfunctions or have you started to
bring in people that have someof that, and so now it's a mix
of both.
How?
Speaker 4 (08:58):
has that looked?
It's a good question.
I'm going to answer this twoparts.
One will be very honest and onewill be a little bit more
political, but I think we'vealways looked for the same
character traits, right, sosomeone you can trust, someone
who's willing to be proactiveand not wanting to wait for
someone a leader, a manager totell them do this, this and this
.
You can't really havehandholding to be successful
(09:21):
because we're just flying amillion miles a minute
handholding to be successfulbecause we're just flying a
million miles a minute.
I think there's another layer ofthis which we've brought in
leadership and middle managerswith tons of experience from the
likes of Apple, best Buys, thetargets of the world.
And it's interesting actuallyhow it doesn't always translate
to success, because we don'tfollow the process every time,
(09:44):
and there are times when it'simportant not to follow the
process because we just have togo get it done.
And it's a really interestingbalance of we're trying to grow
out of the startup, but thenthere's still processes we don't
have.
So you have to kind of createthem and it's not perfect for
sure, but finding those peoplethat are willing to just go for
it and bring it up.
And there's a saying you knowsay the thing, don't be afraid
(10:07):
to hurt feelings.
It's not personal and just bereally honest and open, and I
think that's been.
There's a really strong coregroup of people at Ember who are
willing to be honest withoutyou know having thick, having
thick skin and not, you know,worried about the emotions of it
.
We kind of say that, too, a lotof times in meetings.
It's not personal, you got toget this done.
These are the facts and let'sfigure it out together, but
(10:30):
always a very strong team, teammindset.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Yeah, we can appreciate that, being a startup
ourselves, and that transition,as you're bringing in
experience that can be sovaluable at times, and other
times, as you said, you kind ofsay, hey, there's a scrappiness
that exists and we're not alwaysdoing it by the book, if you
will.
So I think that that's atransition that every company
has to go through.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
And joining.
When you did in the role thatyou did in kind of customer
service, customer experience.
It's probably fun to look backand recognize.
You probably had a pretty bigimpact on the success of the
company and on the products thatyou built, and so I'm always
interested to hear about youknow you talk about the voice of
the customer and how youintegrate that in at Ember.
(11:15):
Could you speak a little bitmore about that customer
feedback, listening to thecustomer and your personal
experience and how that helped,but also more generally how it's
helped Ember get where they aretoday personal experience and
how that helped but also moregenerally, how it's helped Ember
get where they are today.
Speaker 4 (11:26):
Yeah, I mean, I think first and foremost, the
customer is everything to abusiness like Ember.
It's a consumer product.
It's very giftable, so the wordof mouth is very powerful.
So someone that buys Emberloves it, often buys it for a
significant other, a familymember, a friend.
So it's critical for us to havethat relationship with our
customers.
But I think starting when I didit just gave me a foundation to
(11:49):
understand the product.
Because I was tearing them down, taking them apart, I knew what
worked, what didn't work well.
So going into the supply chainside of things and getting into
the details of procurement andmanufacturing and knowing what
to watch out for was reallyhelpful.
It's been a fun ride, but Iwould not be where I am today
without having started incustomer service.
I'm a huge advocate for, likeI've always said, everyone
(12:11):
should do customer service foran hour a week because you just
get such a good baseline of whatcustomers are saying, what
people want.
But also just the communicationtoo goes a long way for the
customer.
So we've always been veryproactive in communication,
whether it's a product launch,whether it's just responding
within six hours.
You know things like that wherepeople are often waiting.
(12:34):
We've all had those toughercommunications with companies in
the CX world that you're kindof waiting, you're not sure, and
so we've tried to mitigate thatas much as we can.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
Yeah, we've all called into these customer
service lines and reached out.
How has the feedback thatyou've gotten?
How has that influenced?
You know, ember, I'm curious.
I mean, does that impact whenyou think about product
development?
Does it impact other things?
Speaker 4 (12:57):
Yeah, definitely.
I think the product is ourbread and butter and so
listening to customers using theproduct, applying it in their
daily lives, we've learned a lot.
I will say, like, originalproduct design was really about
enhancing your life and using itto the best application that
you have.
But like a couple examples I'llsay first, like mothers heating
(13:20):
up coffee and kind of runningaround in the morning with kids
and not having to kind of worryabout like I really wanted that
moment to last longer with mycoffee, things like that.
But then when customers give usfeedback, being a design-led
company, depending on thesituation, the product, the
roadmap, there's times when wecan apply it right away and
there's times when, okay, thatmight be a year or two years
(13:42):
down the line, and it's been funto see what people will give us
feedback about.
And sometimes it's as simple as, hey, we want two lids in the
box just to have options, andthat's pretty simple, right,
it's a plastic mold, you cankind of implement that pretty
quickly.
Sometimes it's hey, I want my48-ounce Stanley thermos that
also heats up, and there's powerlimitations, right.
(14:04):
So you can't always do what thecustomer wants, but we've
listened to customers.
One of our newest products isthe tumblers.
That's a 16 ounce version.
People always over the yearsask for just more size and want
a little bit bigger.
But it's been fun to learn toofrom you know, the engineering
side.
There's clear limitationsaround what we can do safely
(14:24):
with the battery inside of theproduct, heating and just the
electricity output.
Some of the technology hasreally advanced over the years,
so it's given us a little bitmore runway into bigger size,
more capacity, longer life allthose things which are really
all stem from what customershave said and wanted, so it's
been fun to see that growth.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
When you all kind of took the market by storm with
your mugs.
This isn't actually by design,but with these things here,
right?
So what we've also seen fromEmber is actually a pretty
significant expansion of theproduct lines outside of mugs,
and I think that's been reallyinteresting to see from afar.
So you've moved from mugs intobaby products, right?
(15:05):
Could you talk a little bitabout how that has worked, how
maybe you were incorporatingcustomer feedback and what
you've learned about what worksand what doesn't?
Speaker 4 (15:15):
Absolutely.
I think that one of the betterthings about Ember is that
there's a lot of patents thatcover the portfolio of different
products that we can apply thesimilar technology to whether
it's heating, cooling, thosetypes of things.
So there's a broad amount ofprotection, let's say, and so
we've tinkered with differentideas.
But coffee is something thatAmericans drink every day, right
(15:38):
In the morning.
It's a safe space and I think,going into different markets and
different products, it's beenfun to think about the different
iterations that we've gonethrough.
Baby bottles is a huge one andso we launched the baby bottle
earlier this year and we'velearned a ton.
It's a totally different market, it's a different customer,
(15:58):
it's obviously a differentapplication of the product.
I think that what gave us a lotof confidence in this year.
The baby bottle has beendeveloped over the last four to
five years.
So it's been in the works for awhile, first product in the
market, second product in themarket.
We did have some quality issuesand we knew at the time it
wasn't safe, let's say, to bringa baby bottle to the market,
(16:19):
because it's a totally differentlevel of quality and it's
always been a top priority ofmembers is to maintain quality.
So learning through those mugcoffee products, bringing the
baby bottle to market was at apoint where we're ultimately
confident it's a safe product.
It can be used in manydifferent applications, whether
the person's at their home,traveling.
So quality was number one.
(16:40):
But I think, just again, goingback to enhancing that
experience not having to rush inthe morning, or, I will say,
one of the most interesting andI don't have children, but we've
learned from customers that youknow, testing the warmth of,
you know, the milk or theformula has been kind of a put
it on your wrist, you know kindof application Does it feel too
(17:02):
hot?
And so there was never anytechnology behind validating the
actual temperature and soknowing and trusting that it's
going to be perfect bodytemperature every time very
consistent was kind of fun forus to test through different
market studies and people reallybought into it.
So we're really excited aboutthe baby products.
I think it's going to be a biggame changer, different market,
for us in the long term.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
Oh, and in some ways it does sound like.
Of course the technology has alot of similarities and it plays
to your strengths, butdifferent consumers potentially
and also, I'd imagine, a burdento sell through, maybe different
channels, different supplychain challenges how all of you
kind of navigated that.
Have you had to find newpartners from a wholesale
perspective?
Adjusted kind of logisticssupply chain?
(17:44):
What does that look like?
Adjusted kind of logisticssupply chain what does that look
like with this kind of secondmajor product launch?
Yeah, I appreciate that.
Speaker 4 (17:52):
I think, definitely from a supply chain perspective,
the procurement quality becomesa higher priority, even if we
were prioritizing that before,with all of the BPA testing and
depending on different states,and so there's a lot of
complications around.
You know the actual materialsand the plastics and things like
that that moms rightfully so,are checking well before they
(18:13):
buy anything and making surethat they're buying a quality
product, Whereas if you look atour mugs they do have plastic in
them and we weren't worriedabout the BPAs because you're
not really coming into contactwith the plastics.
So it's been fun to release thebaby bottle with truly a
BPA-free product, regardless ofwhat the materials are in there.
So that's been fun, I think,from a distribution standpoint.
(18:36):
Some of the same customersdon't.
Some of our retailers are verytech-driven but they might not
have a baby space, so it's beenfun to see the best buys, the
targets, you know kind of leanback and forth a little bit to
say where can we kind of fitthis in, and most times they're
bought into the product, they'rebrought into the company.
It's more of just a placementand how do we kind of market
(18:57):
this in the best way to ourcustomers?
Speaker 2 (19:00):
What have you seen there?
Has it been consistent?
Because you're right.
I mean, is this sitting more inthe technology part of the
store or is this placed next tobaby it?
Speaker 1 (19:09):
is or a new vertical baby tech, which is going to be
very exciting.
Speaker 4 (19:12):
Yeah, baby tech for sure and hopefully we kind of
kick that off and start.
You know there's a lot ofdifferent monitors and things
like that out there, but I'll goback to when we first launched
with Apple.
This is our global distributionwith the mugs, so this is back
(19:33):
in 2018.
And part of it was we learnedApple to work with a very
high-end customer like Apple alot of trust in the consumer
market.
Apple stores want your productto be part of the ecosystem,
right.
So the health kit how do youconnect it to the phones and how
does it kind of operatetogether?
And so with the baby product,it's a great example of it's all
part of Apple's ecosystem.
But Apple's a very stickycustomer where they don't want
to sell too many third-partyproducts in their stores but
(19:55):
having it influenced by all theApple products and applications
and things like that, so you cantrack the feeding, you can
report to your doctors, you cando all that data analysis within
the ecosystem of Apple thatthey're totally bought into.
It's been interesting to seethat and, going back to, we
wouldn't have learned about theecosystem without having the
coffee products with Apple first, and it just depends.
(20:19):
I think the price point is alittle bit different as well.
So, depending on what retailerit is or what customer is
different placement and kind ofpriority within stores.
Obviously, at the end of theday it's all about sales, but
also having kind of a trustedand well-known brand, you know,
in line at stores is reallyimportant for a lot of these big
retailers.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
I assume you also have a customer that's doing
quite a bit of research beforebuying.
I mean, you talked about thereference aspect of it, which
makes sense.
You know it's a product peoplefind.
They get excited about it, theygift it or tell someone, but
it's a somewhat new type ofproduct, as Logan mentioned.
At the beginning.
You pioneered this space, soI'm curious how that looks, if
(21:00):
you're able to track that.
Are people researching onlineand buying in store?
I?
I mean, I'm sure there's stilla lot of online sales as well
yeah, it's, it's been fun.
Speaker 4 (21:10):
I think the the really big part for ember is,
let's be honest, it's anexpensive product the coffee
products.
It's an expensive coffee mug,it's an expensive baby bottle.
We've really pushed to show thevalue of that purchase.
It's not necessarily theproduct, it's's the time saving,
it's the enhancement to yourdaily life, and so it's more
(21:31):
selling that value to thecustomer versus just buying a
consumable product that you'regoing to use every once in a
while.
You're using that every day andwe're showing that value.
I think that, going back totesting and learning and seeing
how customers are clickingthrough our website, what
they're looking for there's agreat amount of data from Google
(21:54):
, seo and how we can trace it.
So our marketing team hasalways been partnered at the hip
with sales and with operationsto make sure that we're getting
their feedback, they're gettingour feedback, and so it's a huge
collaboration.
We have to know what customersare wanting and how they're kind
of operating amongst the WorldWide Web today, which has grown
to be pretty substantial in allof our lives.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
So, absolutely top of a lot of people's mind right
now is how do you forecast basedon historics?
Right now, we had a globalpandemic.
We now are trying to make senseof what's happening next and I
(22:33):
think you have a great vantagebeing in the space.
So we'd be curious can you talka little bit about how you
think about forecasting andplanning and how you've sought
to kind of improve forecastingat Ember?
We'd love to hear more aboutthat.
Speaker 4 (22:48):
Yeah, for sure.
I mean, this is critical tomany businesses forecasting, you
know, done products,consumables, but also just
services and different kind ofgenres of planning.
I think Ember has learned a lotand, I'll be honest, we were
not good at planning in theearly years.
We were guessing and and, a lotof times, building too little,
and so we were reallyconservative with our
(23:10):
forecasting.
Before taking over demandplanning, we always needed more
inventory, so it was always asupply chain issue.
It was always an inventoryissue.
That was the problem and theone thing we all know about a
forecast it's never going to beright.
So how far away you stray fromit is really what matters.
So last year 2022, followingthe pandemic, which was a huge
(23:32):
spike for many e-commerce brands, we had to really tune up the
process and really bring in asales and operations planning
process to the table, makingsure teams are involved, able to
deliver feedback, and it reallytook weekly meetings on
different parts of the businessto get that collaboration, get
that communication, going, andso I think communication is at
(23:53):
the baseline of planning andmaking sure you have the right
inputs.
I think, too, theaccountability is a big part of
it, so having a person, a teamaccountable for inputs and
accountable for providing aforecast, providing marketing
assets or anything really.
It's a matter of getting thoseinputs in a very consistent way
(24:15):
so you can compare week overweek, month to month.
Really, what I've learned thisyear is that consumer demand
drives everything.
So for a brand like Ember, ourrevenue is based on the
deliveries to the customer.
But if we just stuff any retailchannel with inventory, it's
not selling.
It's going to be a one-timepurchase, and so understanding
(24:35):
consumer demand has been at thebaseline of our forecasting
patterns for the last couple ofyears.
So we report and track everysingle week a forecast and an
actual number against whatconsumers are purchasing at a
target, at a Best Buy.
We're not getting revenue offthat, but we need to know that
information to make sure thatour planning for sell-in is
really validated and proven,that we're giving them the right
(24:58):
amount of inventory, we'reencouraging the retailer to buy
at the right times, and so it'sgiven even our retail partners
and planning teams on the otherside a lot of information as far
as we're kind of projecting 13weeks out.
A lot of these big retailers arekind of short-sighted, so it's
been important for them to seehow far we're looking at
(25:18):
building trust in thoserelationships as well.
So now, when we encourage aretailer to purchase for a list
of reasons, it's not just out ofleft field, it's really proven
and validated.
This is why we've seen thislast year, and the historicals
are a huge, huge part of it aswell.
But every year is different.
Especially the last couple ofyears have been very different.
So it's an ebb and flow.
(25:39):
For sure.
I think it's been a blast.
But the economy, you know,obviously has been a challenge
this year.
So trying to project that isnear impossible, but we're
trying to.
You know, kind of 80, 20 rule,right, you want to be as close
as you can be.
Can't be perfect, unfortunately.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
And were you the first person to kind of kick off
more of a formal planningprocess internally.
Speaker 4 (26:01):
So I was spearheading the S&OP process at Ember last
year and so it was a really kindof a milestone for us.
Before that it was, you know,demand planning was part of
sales and so there really wasn'tthis healthy headbutt that you
need to kind of validate andprove.
So it's been fun and I thinkhaving a positive mindset in
those conversations make themless hard.
(26:22):
You don't have to.
You're not pointing the fingerat anybody, it's just we've got
to be realistic as a team, andso having the S&OP process has
been really fun and encouragingfor even sales team members to
know we're not far off, we'reclose, and if there's risks or
opportunities, everybody's aware, so there's no confusion.
One of my biggest goals as ateam leader is just to avoid
(26:45):
surprise, and so if you canavoid surprise, you can all work
on the solution together.
You can all work to chaseopportunities together and push
things forward.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
And what does your S&OP process look like?
I mean, it seems to look alittle different at every
company you came and implementedit.
I'm curious, you know kind of,yeah, what's a rough outline of
how you?
Speaker 4 (27:04):
run it.
Yeah, there's so manyvariations, right, I think.
As a small company we have apretty small team, and so we
didn't want to do a 12-stepprocess.
We kind of honed in on the fourkey areas that we needed to
inform the company.
So we start every month with aweekly demand review.
We're typically releasing ademand plan in the first week of
the month.
What's changed?
(27:24):
Has anything come up?
Sales is providing their inputsas far as all the customer
communications.
That ultimately provides theinput to supply, to go bring it
to the manufacturing teams.
Procurement can we build it?
Can we get the inventory intime?
So week two is a supply review,which is just supply chain on
the manufacturing side, and sowe kind of look at this is what
(27:44):
sales is saying, what can we doright?
Can we make it happen?
When we have those twoconversations, we kind of bring
in a third week of every monthback to sales and it's kind of
an integrated planning review.
So you sales, you asked forthis.
We talked to our manufacturingpartners and brought our
procurement team in.
We can achieve 90% of it Right,and so there's this kind of
(28:05):
back and forth with well, weneed to make sure, we support
and we totally understand thatthere's obviously limitations at
every step of the way, everycompany.
So that's the third week.
We're kind of doing thatintegrated back and forth.
Sometimes we call itallocations If there's finite
inventory, where do we want toput it?
And we let sales holdaccountability for that.
(28:26):
We don't want to make decisionsfor them.
More of a collaboration.
Fourth week of the month isreally to update any executives
and making sure that theexecutive team is ultimately
signing off on inventorypurchasing and so our supply
plan and our POs that go out toour suppliers, but also that
they're aware with ourtrajectory, whether it's revenue
, profitability, on-timedeliveries, performance all
(28:48):
those metrics are provided atthe end of every month, kind of
looking back a little bit butalso looking forward, typically
anywhere from, you know, 12 to18 months pretty accurately at
this point.
So it's been a learningexperience for myself but also
our team as a whole.
And you know, I think we'vegrown quite a bit and and that's
kind of thinking about growingout of the startup a little bit
(29:10):
more process oriented, havethese consistent meetings.
It's cadenced and so we cankind of follow that trust that
we can talk next week.
We've got a plan for it, soit's been great.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
Well, zach, you may not have grown up in supply
chain, but I think you saidearlier S&OP that process has
been really fun.
So I think that you were builtfor supply chain, because I
don't know if everybody wouldshare that sentiment, but it
sounds like you guys have reallymatured that process.
I'll say today it's very hardto talk about forecasting and
planning without also talkingabout AI right, ai applications
(29:45):
today to improve that.
But also, hey, what is thefuture of planning as AI
technologies develop and areadopted?
So we'd love to hear from youjust your point of view on how
AI is implemented today at Emberand how you think about it, but
also just from your vantage,how it's going to change things
(30:06):
over the next five, 10 years.
Speaker 4 (30:08):
I think AI is I relate it to like the ocean or
space, right, we've onlydiscovered and kind of explored
a very small percentage two, 3%of what it can do.
And thinking about it from aconsumer perspective, there's
definitely the inputs and thedifferent platforms.
You can kind of test and trydifferent things and, you know,
use algorithms to think for you.
(30:28):
It's interesting Ember does notcurrently apply much AI.
We've done some quirky thingsof what are Ember's 10 values
and ask questions like that,which have been really
interesting and surprising howmuch they align with what our
targets are.
But I think consumer productseveryone today has a phone in
their pocket and so how can thatlearn?
(30:49):
I think Tesla is a good exampleof their cars, like taking
photos of the roads and kind ofbuilding up a catalog over time
of value and data.
Our phones are doing the samething.
We're constantly kind oftracked in locations and you
could track consumer purchasinghabits.
You could track where arepeople going, how are people
(31:10):
going, how are people gettingthere with some of the AI stuff.
So I'm really interested.
I think over the next five to 10years it's going to explode and
right now it might feel alittle bit foreign for me
personally, to be honest, and Ithink 10 years from now we'll
look back and kind of rememberhey, you remember when chat GPT
came out and we were all askingfunny questions.
(31:31):
But it'll be much moreintegrated in work life, kind of
across the board.
You know, I'm hopeful that itdoesn't take away jobs.
I think there's still the humanaspect of oversight and
decision making at times.
But it could be really reallyinteresting and curious to hear
you know, joel and Logan, bothyour feedback on you know
curious to hear you know, joeland Logan, both your feedback on
(31:52):
you know Alloy being such a keysoftware for us and how can it
really apply to the future ofplanning and forecasting and
data driven approach.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
Yeah, you know, I think we're all trying to figure
this out, I guess a little bittogether.
And you know, if you look atthe trends in AI, a couple of
years ago it was all aboutmachine learning and how that
can be applied really more toforecasting models, at least in
our space.
But, as you mentioned you knowthe topic the last 6-12 months
has all been on the moregenerative AI and you know, I
(32:21):
think over the years what I'veseen is there's kind of this
idea of I'm going to wake up inthe morning and I want AI to
like tell me what I should do.
It's like these are the threethings you should work on today
and for a long time.
I mean, the machine learningmodels didn't didn't help with
that.
You know they could help youbuild maybe a more accurate
forecast and things of thatnature.
But yeah, it's kind of once we,if you layer generative AI on
(32:43):
top of a lot of the things thatwe have, I mean it's pretty darn
good at being able to summarizewhat it's seeing.
So it will be interesting.
I mean, I think of it as it'skind of going to be all of our
analytical assistant thatthey're on the side.
I think we're still going tohave to drive, but it's
hopefully going to remove a lotof that busy work, that the
(33:06):
combing through spreadsheets,and it can hopefully highlight
some of the key things to kindof dive more into.
But it will be interesting tosee it play out.
We're doing some excitingthings internally, trying
different things, and I you know, as you said at the very
beginning, when it's it's likewe're all in this big startup,
it's a lot of trial, there's alot of error, you know we go
(33:26):
down the wrong directions, butthen there's some really cool
things that that we're alldiscovering and I think that's
going to get flushed out here inthe coming year or two.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
We have another podcast with Lhasa, our head of
engineering, talking about thisconcept right, but I think AI
it's a means to an ends right,and so you need the technology,
the AI technology, but you alsoneed the data and you also need
the right application right, andso there are certain
applications that we feel likereally benefit from AI, and I
(33:58):
think, envision it reallyaccelerating a lot of things.
But you typically in theequation, also need the
underpinning correct data aswell as the technology to make
that happen.
So, anyway, it's a fascinatingtopic and I think it's going to
be a developing story.
Well, zach, we reallyappreciate you putting the time
(34:19):
aside to meet with us and thankyou for joining us on Shelf Life
.
Speaker 4 (34:23):
Yeah, it's been fantastic.
Thank you, joel.
Thank you Logan.
I appreciate the time as well.
It's great to get to know youguys and I wish you the best and
continued partnership.
All things, thanks.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
Zach, appreciate it.
You've been listening to ZachHorton, senior Director of
Logistics, supply and DemandPlanning at Ember.
That's all for this week.
See you next time on Shelf Life.
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