The Buzz: Navigating the Complexities of Cold Chain Logistics

Episode Transcript
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(00:02):
Welcome to Supply chain nowthe number one voice of supply chain.
Join us as we share criticalnews, key insights and real supply
chain leadership from acrossthe globe.
One conversation at a time.
Hey, good morning, goodafternoon, good evening wherever
you may be.
Scott Lewton and TandraBellamy here with you on Supply Chain
now.
Welcome to today's live stream.

(00:22):
Hey Tandra, how you doing?
I'm great, Scott.
How are you doing?
I am wonderful.
I know you're coming off anincredible weekend.
Weather was largely nice herein metro Atlanta and I think the
fellowship was even better, huh?
The fellowship was tremendous.
Had a great, great, greatfriendsgiving weekend.
Seven out of nine guests werefrom out of town and we just had

(00:43):
a great time hanging out andbonding and everybody cooked something
and everybody helped clean.
So it wasn't a big burden fromthat standpoint and we just had a
blast.
Outstanding.
Sounds like your fellowshiplogistics was like moving like a
world class organization.
Great to have you here Tan.
You're really excited abouttoday's show folks.
It's the buzz.

(01:03):
Every Monday at 12 noonEastern Time we discuss a variety
of news and developmentsacross global supply chain.
Really global business newsthat matters is what we like to call
it.
And folks, the buzz is poweredby our friends over at autoscheduler
AI who's on a mission to makeyour warehouse operations smarter,
more efficient and adaptable.
You can learn more at AutoScheduler AI Now, Tandra, we've got

(01:24):
a big show to appear today.
We going to be offering a bestpractice or two on leadership coaching.
We all need a good coach in life.
We'll talk about the moves onecompany is making to navigate this
challenging trade environment.
Hey, I love case studies andpractical examples.
We'll be talking aboutwarehousing cyber security trends
all that much more.
And in about 10 minutes or sowe're welcoming a special repeat

(01:45):
guest today on the Buzz, IliaPreston, co founder and CEO with
Pack Safe who's going to besharing intriguing perspective on
the fast growing cold chain industry.
Tandria should be one heck ofa show, huh?
It's going to be packe jam packed.
That is right.
So we're going to have to stayon top of our orchestration, our
decision intelligence makingand our overall supply chain optimization

(02:06):
to get it all done.
Stay tuned for a great show folks.
Hey, two things before we get going.
Give us your take in the comments.
We'd love to hear what you'rethinking about your take on these
topics.
Whether you're tuned in viaLinkedIn, YouTube X Facebook, Twitch
to matter.
Let us know what you think.
Just like Trisha, Trisha whoshares Happy Buzz Day, say hello
and let us know where you'rewatching from.
That's right.
We love connecting the dotsfor sure.

(02:27):
And secondly, if you enjoy theshow, we'd love for you to share
it with your friends, yournetwork, your Aunt Edna up in Idaho,
you name it, they'll be betteroff because you did.
Hey, Leah Kim is back with usvia LinkedIn from beautiful Seattle,
Washington.
Lee, I hope this finds youwell and wonder what the weather.
Tandra, I wonder what theweather's like up in Seattle this
time of year.
What do you think it'sprobably looking like ours is today,

(02:50):
Scott.
Maybe not as sunny, but nice.
Cool, you know.
Okay, we'll see if I had to.
Have on my fall shirt becausewe actually have fall today.
We will see if you're right.
So Leah, let us know.
All right, so we got a lot ofstuff, as Tandra mentioned, a lot
of stuff to get to today.
And we're going to start withthree things before we bring on our
excellent featured guests here today.

(03:11):
Let's start with our latestedition of with that Said, which
published over the weekend.
We started Tandra with thenews, including this interesting
perspective from WorldEconomic Forum.
Folks, you may not know it'sCyber Security Awareness Month and
this is going to surprisenobody because as you see there in
front of you, over the lastfour years, the average weekly cyber
attacks on organizations,well, it's more than doubled.

(03:33):
However, this might surprisesome folks.
According to some people'sdata, cybersecurity budget growth
has continued to decline from17% growth in 2022 to 4% growth this
year.
Now that seems to be a problem.
Tander we also touched on abig potential disruption that may
bring automotive supply chainseverywhere to a full stop.

(03:53):
So we asked you to keep youreye on what's going on with the Dutch
chip maker Nexperia.
I think I'm saying that right.
Nextperia it's been the targetof trade sanctions by both the US
and by China.
It's right in the middle whichis threatened chip supply for large
portions of the automotivesupply chain ecosystem.
So beyond those two stories inthis edition, with that said, you
can see a lot more resources,data points and upcoming live events.

(04:17):
Tandria, did you happen, Iknow you had a busy weekend.
Did you happen to take aglance at what was in this edition?
And with that said,absolutely, Scott.
And the cyber securitybudgeting is just unbelievable to
me.
I just don't understand howwhen everybody is getting more and
more attacks.
You can't flip on yourcomputer for your emails or your

(04:39):
texts without getting spammedby somebody or somebody somewhere
that's trying to.
So it just is illogical for that.
It's like safety.
If you're going to ignore it,you're going to have a significant
event that could have seriousrepercussions for your organization.
Keeping an eye on what's goingon and being very diligent is extremely

(05:00):
important.
But for organizations, that isa must.
Well said, Tangeri.
That old adage, you figure outwhat's important to you based on
your calendar and yourcheckbook, where you spend your time
and where you put your dollars.
None of us are surprised withthe growing quantity or complexity
of the cyber securitylandscape right now.
But to see budgets and theirgrowth drop back that that dire was

(05:24):
really interesting.
But folks, hey, let us knowyour take.
Check out the latest with thatsaid and subscribe so you get it
almost every week.
We bake in a little bit ofleeway there and let us know what
you think.
Hey, Alan, Jacques tuned infrom beautiful Canada.
The Rodney Dangerfield ofglobal supply chain.
Tangerine was the nickname weand Alan and Amanda came up with.
So, Alan, great to see youhere today.

(05:45):
T Squared.
Oh my gosh.
He's calling out thedisruptions over at Amazon this morning.
And Tandria, those havelingered for a while.
I was just on Amazon rightbefore we came on here a few minutes
ago and it's still down, so.
Speak of the devil.
I'm not sure what the rootcause is just yet, but Tandra did
delay any of your Mondaymorning activities.
I didn't do any Monday morningon Amazon, but I did Sunday afternoon

(06:07):
and thankfully I didn't have a problem.
Okay, good, good, good.
And squared says cybersecurityis boring until something big happens.
That's right.
Well said.
Let's see here.
I want to shift over fromcybersecurity, which is it should
be cybersecurity awarenessmonth every month, but also it should
be supply chain leadership andcoaching month every month.

(06:28):
I want to touch on thiscritical element for organizations
everywhere, talent development.
Now, effective coaching is oneof the many elements that go into
the talent development equation.
Tandra, you've coachedcountless individuals in your successful
supply chain leadership career.
What would be one key bestpractice for current and potential
coaches out there?
You know, leaders have todevelop great active listening skills

(06:52):
so that you can coach through questioning.
A lot of mentees really don'tknow how much they know until you
start questioning them andgetting them to think about things
from a different perspective.
You know, when you can getyour mentee to self discover a different
perspective, then they are nottrying to think like you.

(07:12):
They're really learning tothink for themselves which lets them
have more of a 360 examinationof situations, whether it's people
issues or system problems orwhatever it may be.
Being able to take a stepback, really break it down and know
how to question what's goingon and to really be able to think

(07:35):
through and examine it from adifferent perspective will lead them
to a more well rounded solution.
It's just going to help themhave a better outcome which is then
going to give them confidencein what they're doing.
Tandria.
Love it.
Love it.
Folks, make sure you follow orconnect with Tanjira bellamy, especially
on LinkedIn for a lot moreleadership and coaching.

(07:56):
Goodness.
Just like that.
And I would just add one more thing.
Then of course there's a longlist we'd add.
It would be here for hours.
But one thing, over theweekend there's a YouTube channel
I watch regularly called PilotDebrief and it's a former Air Force
pilot that flew the F15, Ithink maybe F16.
Anyway, he, he dives intomishaps and crashes and unfortunately
a lot of them lives are lost.
And he kind of analyzes whatwent wrong from a human standpoint,

(08:17):
from a machine standpoint.
And it's really fascinating.
And one of the things thatcame out, Tandra, this weekend, an
episode was he was reallystressing that instructors, you know,
that teach and coach pilots,patience is so important because
everyone's not going to learnand absorb and the light bulb is
not going to click off at thesame time at the same rate for everybody.

(08:38):
So coaches that are patient,he put above all others your quick
response to that.
Tangeria, you know, that tiesin directly what, what I was saying
because you have to be patientto actively listen.
To actively listen.
You may have to ask the samequestion three or four times to see
do they really understand whatyou're asking.
Whether it's a concept or asoft skill, you know, conflict management

(09:01):
or a technical skill, beingable to really listen to what the
person says will let you knowwhere those gaps and understanding
are.
Excellent point.
If you don't know that, youcan have a hard time really making
a bigger impact on thatperson's journey.
Excellent stuff.
Tandria Bellamy, Gosh, wetalked for hours here.
But I'm going to move along.

(09:21):
We got a big guest coming up.
I got one more thing I want to share.
I take the world's worst selfies.
Tangerine.
I'm still working on that.
But this is me at a great timeout at SAP Connect in Las Vegas a
week or two ago.
I enjoyed the opportunity ofmeeting old new friends, including
this is Dominic Metzger, who'spresident, Chief Product Officer
with SAP Supply Chain Management.
Now, big news came out of thisevent, including the launch of SAP

(09:44):
Supply chain orchestration.
Folks, if you want to learnmore about this, come join us on
November 4th as Corinne Bursaand I host David Vallejo with SAP,
who's going to talk all aboutthis development and the power of
orchestration across globalsupply chains.
And I've got a sneakingsuspicion, Tandria, we're going to
talk more about orchestrationtoday with another mover and shaker.

(10:04):
But are you ready, Tandrea, asI introduce that mover that said
mover and shaker here on the buzz?
Absolutely.
You're always ready, Tandria.
Always ready.
Well, we've got a terrificguest joining us here today on the
Buzz.
Powered by auto scheduler,Ilia Preston is a seasoned supply
chain leader that's worked inroles for some of the biggest brands
in global industry, includingCummins and PwC.

(10:25):
Now, about seven years or soago, Ilia Co founded Pacsafe, a logistics,
orchestration and decisionintelligence platform that's doing
some really big things,especially in the cold chain space.
Please join me in welcomingIlya Preston, co founder and CEO
of pacsafe.
Ilya, how are you doing this afternoon?
Great to be with you.
It's nice chilly and sunny, sono complaints on my end.

(10:47):
Hey, I love, I love gettingweather updates.
I'm not sure why, but I love it.
And Tangerine, I tell you, theweather this week in Atlanta is going
to be just gorgeous as well.
Ilya, of course, is inIndianapolis where it's clearly,
it's nice too.
But Tandra, we're going to getoutside and get some of that fresh
air, huh?
Most definitely.
All right.
So, Tandrea and Ilia Elliot,great to have you back with us.
By popular demand, I want tostart with a fun warmup question.

(11:10):
So today's many things.
It marks the start rather of Diwali.
So happy Diwali to all thosewho celebrate around the world.
It's also International ChefDay, which makes me hungry.
It's World Statistics Day.
I think every day is should beData and Statistics Day.
And it's Heroes Day in Jamaica.
Heroes Day.
And that's where I want tocheck in with both of y'.
All.
Right.
So I want to use thiswonderful Jamaican holiday to ask

(11:32):
you both, who is one of yourheroes in particular?
Someone that may havefurthered your own career or someone
that you admire out in industry?
Ilya, what comes to mind?
Yeah, so mine's probably notall that exciting, but definitely
close to home, I would say,you know, first of all, my parents
for, you know, immigratingover to the US and obviously giving
us the opportunity to dothings like start companies and grow

(11:56):
them like pacsafe.
But certainly my mom, my mom'sbeen, you know, a very big part of
pacsafe's journey, I'd say,especially in the early days.
We've been at it for aboutseven years now.
We're coming up on ourbirthday, I think next week or maybe
this week, maybe it's thisFriday, October 25th actually.
So we're coming up on ourseventh birthday.
We've been at it for a while,the last, you know, several years.

(12:17):
We've seen a lot of growth andwe figured things out.
But those first two, threeyears especially were not easy.
And certainly there were timeswhere, you know, both my co founder
and I and even our small teamat that point, you know, we, we had
make or break moments.
And I think for each of thosekey moments, you know, my mom was
there and was very supportiveand whether it be, you know, emotionally

(12:38):
or advice or financially, shekind of had had our back and you
know, and that enabled us tomake it through those toughest of
times and, you know, here weare today.
Love that.
Congrats on the eureka momentsclearly are having and in this new
chapter of growth.
That's awesome.
I parents immigration story.
I'd love to hear a lot moreabout that.
And then of course your mom inthose wobbly of knees moments where

(13:02):
your knees are knocking andshaking and she's got your back.
I love that.
Tandrea.
I'll tell you, between yourcoaching and Ilia's founder story,
we could be here whole have awhole different version of the buzz.
But what's one of your specialheroes, Tandria?
My great grandmother.
My great grandmother was myrock, my heart.
She really instilled my workethic, which helped me tremendously

(13:24):
with school and also with UPS.
My great grandmother was bornin 1904, had a 6th grade education,
but was the smartest personthat I knew.
She managed a household, shetook care of budgets.
She gave me so many lifelessons that are still with me.
I lost her in 1996, but I hadmy great grandmother until I was

(13:46):
32.
So she is a huge, huge, hugepart of who I am as a person.
I used to tell her when I wasyoung, okay grandma, when I go to
college you gotta come andstay in the dorm with me.
Oh man.
Something tells me that shewas fearless, probably ready to do
that.
So her name was Catherine.
So for all the Catherine's outthere, really appreciate that.
And Ilya, your mother's nameis Irene.

(14:09):
Irene.
Okay, well let's take fromjust a quick moment, celebrate all
the Catherine's and Irene'sout there that make so many things
happen at home and at work andacross industry every single day.
Love that Ilya and Tandria,really quick.
Nadine, great to see you fromSaudi Arabia.
Back with us on the Buzz.
Look forward to yourperspective here today.
This is we're going to figureout who this is from Indianapolis.

(14:30):
I bet they might be a Colts fan.
Amanda and Trisha, let me know.
And finally, Trisha's alsoshared that earlier opportunity coming
up in November.
So check that out.
Okay.
We got a lot to get to here today.
Jam packed.
So we're going to get down tobusiness here on the Buzz.
Powered by our friends at Auto Scheduler.
A lot of good stuff.
I'm going to start with one ofmy least favorite topics.
Yes, but we got to talk about it.
Tariffs and the ongoing trade war.

(14:50):
But I want to start how one,this one interesting company is navigating
this ongoing situation.
So tariffs abound.
I don't have to tell y' allany all that.
Some of the newest announcedtariffs in the White House include
25 tariffs on heavy trucks andtruck parts and a 10 tariff on buses,
all set to go into effectNovember 1st.
Our friends at Supply ChainDive are reporting that furniture

(15:10):
retailer lovesac are seeingbig gains from a four step tariff
plan.
Now I don't know if y' allhave seen the commercials.
It's the couch I hope to beable to afford one day.
It's really cool.
They make more stuff thancouches but y' all may have seen
a commercial.
Now they've got a fascinatingapproach to building modern day highly
functional couches and otherfurniture, integrated furniture as
I'll call it.
Nevertheless, their four stepapproach to mitigating the trade

(15:32):
environment includes one,negotiating new agreements with some
of their longest serving suppliers.
Two, shifting production outof China which eventually could be
as low as in terms of theirproduction there, as low as 13, 14%
of overall production byFebruary 2026.
Number three, price increases.
Yes, a lot of customers aregoing to be paying some of Those
price increases and numberfour, cost cutting.

(15:53):
Now this is probably aplaybook that countless other organizations
are using as well, right?
One last thing, neat thing Ifind neat about Lovesac.
The company says it hasdiverted over 180 million plastic
bottles from landfill byincorporating the materials into
its products.
Get this, they chop up thebottles into flakes, then they melt
the flakes into chips whichthen they spin into yarn that's woven

(16:17):
into its products.
That is cool.
But Ilya, back on this, thefour step tariff mitigation approach,
your thoughts?
Well, as a recoveringmanagement consultant, I would say
the playbook looks familiar.
Right.
Raise pricing, lower costs.
So I think nothing too out ofthe ordinary or nothing jumps out.

(16:39):
I could say that, you know,based on our own customer base, we've
certainly seen a lot ofcompanies kind of address the whole
China tariff concern and.
Right.
Moving stuff out of China asquickly as possible.
And I think the articlecertainly mentions that to neighboring
countries.
We haven't seen the kind ofinflux of near shoring or onshoring

(16:59):
into the US that we, wethought we would.
A lot of manufacturing,assembly and production is still
remaining outside of the country.
And you know, I'm suredomestic inflation maybe has something
to do with that, but certainlythere's still, you know, a tremendous
amount of cost benefit frompartnering with various European
and Asian countries especiallyfor that kind of work.
We don't do any work withobviously furniture retailers, but

(17:22):
we do work, you know, broaderretail and especially in life sciences.
And we've seen a lot of focusaround cost reduction.
Now cost reduction looksdifferent, I think across different
industries in our industry andespecially in life sciences.
It's looking for opportunitiesto move lanes from air to ocean.
It's looking to remove, youknow, the, the amount of packaging
or how long you're qualifyingpackaging for.

(17:44):
With thermal life.
It's holding suppliersaccountable with regards to performance
and optimizing supplierselection and holding them accountable
for SLAs and collecting onthose SLAs and penalties.
I think, you know, a couple ofmaybe broader things that we saw
in the article that alsoapplied to what we're seeing.
There's certainly been aninflux of, I would say this is anecdotally

(18:06):
at this point, but there'sbeen an influx of rail that's been
used as a mode of transport.
And then I think the articlealso mentions optimization of warehousing.
And we've seen that across theboard, across all industries.
So heavy investment intoautomation, heavy investment into
visibility of in transit cargoand making sure that your warehouse
crews Kind of synchronizetheir labor.

(18:28):
No one product is coming in,have the right appointed, have people
ready, not having downtime ofthem waiting around for a truck or
getting there too early orgetting there too late.
So I think there's been a, youknow, fairly heavy investment across
the board.
But I think generallyspeaking, from what we saw in the
article, no real surprises.
You know, maximize revenue,reduce cost.
It's the old tried and true playbook.

(18:49):
What's old is new.
Again, loved your perspective there.
Ilya and Tanria, your thoughtson Love sac's approach at least as
stated.
The biggest surprise for mewas that cost cutting was the last
leg of the strategy.
Right.
You have a lot oforganizations to start with, cost
cutting and as we spoke aboutcybersecurity, you start out, you

(19:10):
look at cost and say, oh thiscost is high and growing, we must
have to cut it, we must needto cut it.
And you can absolutelypositively have negative impacts
when you startindiscriminately cutting without
truly understanding theimportance of the connectivity dependencies
before you start the cost cutting.

(19:31):
So I was happy to see thatcost cutting was the last list.
Andrew's great call out andour own Kim Reuter, one of our outstanding
posts that you've met.
I know Tandria and Ellie, youmay have met her as well.
She was in a, in a relatedsupply chain dive article talking
about, hey folks, calltimeout, make sure you understand
all the inputs where they'refrom so then you can kind of put

(19:52):
together a sound plan forwhere there's opportunities and where
you're most susceptible totariff impact.
So good stuff there.
Kim, Tandria and Ilya, good stuff.
Really quick couple comments.
Let's see Bobby, Bobby's tunedin from Indianapolis, he's at this
HP CLC conference.
Hey Bobby, let us know somekey takeaways there and great, see
you via LinkedIn.

(20:13):
Tamaji from Seattle, we'rewaiting to get a weather report from
Seattle.
Tamaji, great to see you here today.
Let's see here.
Hey Ivan, the biggest Mets fanI know at least east the Mississippi
is here, tuned in from New Jersey.
Great to see you Ivan.
And Trisha is posting links toall these articles so go check that
out.
One more comment.
Amanda says hey, here's to allthe Catherine's and Irene's.

(20:34):
Makes me tear up.
All right, so Ilya, you.
One of the things youmentioned was warehousing.
That's where I want to go next.
Right from the story with,from the Wall Street Journal.
So as reported by the WSJ, theworld's largest owner of industrial
real estate, says warehouseleasing decision making and overall
demand is picking up steam.
This comes after about threeyears of slower demand.

(20:56):
Now, Chris Katan, I hope I'mgetting his last name right with
Prologis, said just last weekthat demand has, quote, clearly turned
a corner in quote, Cushman andWakefield says that the average warehouse
vacancy rate across thecountry, what remained flat at an
11 year high of 7.1% in thirdquarter 2025.
That doesn't sound great.
However, it's the first timein three years that vacancy rates.

(21:19):
Right.
Haven't increased.
So it kind of reflects thatwe're seeing a pickup in activity.
So Ilya, your thoughts on whatwe're seeing domestically with the
warehouse industry?
Yeah, so I think it's, I meanit mirrors kind of some of the broader
economic trends and lagging indicators.
Right.
So the, you know, inflation,the rate of inflation increase has
certainly turnaround.

(21:39):
I think we've seen a lot ofother economic indicators kind of
start trending in a morepositive direction over the last
year.
So I think it's, you know,it's really a byproduct of at least
a couple of different things.
Number one is tariffuncertainty still looms large and
I'm sure people want to kindof shore up and make sure their capacity
is there, especially given the seasonality.

(21:59):
Right.
So given what time of the yearthat we're in, given that we're coming
up on holiday season and we'vegot Thanksgiving, you know, Christmas,
New Year's, Valentine's Day, alot of big dollar holidays coming
up.
And so it's really, I wouldsay not a surprise given both the
economic indicators and giventhe uncertainty around tariffs as

(22:20):
well as I think the where weare in time of year.
So no surprises.
I wish we all had lesssurprises day to in global supply
chain.
But Tangerine, you agree withIlya, What'd you see here in the
warehouse space, by the way?
I should level set.
Tandra, I think the count is1.27 million warehouses you've been
in and out of throughout yourcareer, is that right?
Yeah, I think that's it.

(22:41):
Yeah, I completely agree with Ilya.
It'll be interesting to seewhat inventory levels are doing.
So are we having increaseddemand just because inventories are
expanding because of the uncertainty?
If inventory levels remain thesame and warehouse demand increases,
that means that consumerspending is moving in the right direction.

(23:03):
That's going to help theeconomy if inventory levels start
to expand because it's justsafety stock then, you know, not.
As great a story, not as greata story.
And we need more good storiescertainly, but things that keep our
finger on the pulse.
I really appreciate that.
Ilya and Tandria Salisu via Xhey, thanks for resharing the buzz

(23:26):
here today.
Hope you have a big week ahead.
Also looking forward to yourperspective on the India stories
here today.
Vadia Nathan From India via LinkedIn.
Great to see you here today.
And the good old sheriff TevinE. Taylor Tandri is here asking tough
questions.
Is demand picking up withwarehousing or new builds slowing
down to reduce capacity?
It's a great question, Tevin.

(23:46):
If you got answers, let us know.
But great to see you, Tevin.
We're going to move rightalong in this jam packed edition
of the Buzz, powered by ourfriends at Auto Scheduler.
I want to pull up this story.
Not only folks, is OctoberManufacturing Month, but it is also
Cybersecurity Awareness Monthas we established earlier.
Now here's our interestingread from our friends at CIO DOB,
which offers up findings froma survey of over 200 CEOs and CIOs

(24:11):
in the United Kingdom and theUS clash of the Titans is not just
a movie, right?
What's old is new.
Again, the research shows thatmore than two in five, right?
More than two in five CIOs areclashing with their CEOs when it
comes to spending more ITinvestment dollars.
Kind of goes and supports thatearlier data that we shared on the
front end.
Andrea.

(24:31):
Now perhaps a root cause isthis 1/3 of CIOs say they were not
confident that they knewexactly what their CEO wanted from
them.
That's telling.
And only 36% of CIOs saidtheir company is adequately investing
in IT modernization.
All right, Ilya, as wementioned, we've seen a lot of this
for quite some time.
The 1/3 of CIOs figure interms they weren't exactly sure what

(24:54):
what their successful role was.
Essentially they kind ofsurprised me.
But your thoughts?
Ilya Yes, I mean I, you know,earlier in my career I was in supply
chain strategy.
It was always very frustratingand telling for me to see, you know,
functions at all levels of theorganization kind of optimize for
whatever primary KPI they'reoptimizing for.
So if you're in procure,procurement or sourcing, you're optimizing

(25:16):
for cost.
If you're in quality, youknow, you're optimizing for zero
defects.
If you're in materials oroperations you're optimizing for
inventory.
I think the fact that thisbubbles up to the, to the highest
levels isn't overly surprisingwhere you have competing priorities.
I think maybe a bigcontributor to this is the rate of
technology.
Change is changing so fast andI would venture to guess that most

(25:40):
CIOs have a deeper grasp andstronger understanding of that change
and of technology in generalthan, than a lot of the CEOs, especially
at, you know, large organizations.
Now in our organization, youknow, we're a 40 person company.
My co founder and CTO and Ihave to be on the same page 100%
of the time or this is nevergoing to work.
So this is very unrelatable, Ithink, to most startups that are,

(26:04):
you know, starting out or inthe growth phase and kind of going
from, you know, call itproduct market fit through scaling
and growth.
And you have to be rowing inthe same direction that you can't
have a company that goes from,you know, 0 to 1 and then 1 to 10
and then 10 to 100 withouteverybody rowing in the same direction.
But at large organizations,it's, you know, it's.
Once again, I hate to be thebearer of bad news, but not overly

(26:25):
surprising.
Again, I think it'stechnological proficiency that may
be playing a role here and therate of change in general where CEOs
can't really keep up.
They have a full time job.
Right.
Good stuff there.
And you know, Tandria, one ofthe elements that Ilya just shared
there, and the unsurprisingbucket, I'll put it, is something
that I think of a lot.
You know, in this era where wecan break down silos more powerfully

(26:48):
than ever before, it seems insome cases we're building up silos
more often than not.
And when the CIO and the CEOaren't aligned on how each other
view each other's roles,there's some serious silos.
Your thoughts, Tangerine?
The overall story and thesurvey and some of the lack of alignment.
Absolutely, positively.
They have to be 100% and lockstep.

(27:08):
What Large multinational corporations.
If that's the case, thebusiness strategy hasn't been defined
because they should be workingtowards the same goals for the same
reasons, with the samepotential outcomes, there shouldn't
be that mismatch, it shouldn'tbe that disconnect if the company's
strategy is sound.

(27:29):
Well said, Tandria.
It sounds like they need to becoached up a little bit.
Tandrea and Ilya, we'll see.
All right.
A lot more stuff to get tohere today on the buzz, but I want
to bring a special resource tothe table folks and we covered this
last week week great new resource.
So from our friends at autoscheduler Keith Moore and the team
rolled out a free warehouseagent about two weeks ago.
It's available to anyone out there.

(27:50):
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of help crunching numbers andanalyzing data a use the warehouse
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Do all of that and then somein minutes rather than days.
We're going to drop a linkright there in the chat so you can
learn a lot more.

(28:11):
Okay.
Hey Ilia, me and Tinder bothwant to dial it in a little bit more
on your perspective and whatyou're seeing, especially as you
and your team are doing bigthings in the cold chain space which,
gosh, some data projects.
Get this folks, the globalcold chain market rather is going
to grow from $380 billion herein 2020, or as it was last year in
2024 to a whopping $2.2trillion in 2034.

(28:36):
Oh my gosh.
I should join you in that space.
Iliad.
Key drivers include risingconsumption of fresh and frozen food,
growth of E commercegroceries, tighter specs on temperature
controls and pharmaceuticals,and much, much, much more.
Ilya, when it comes to thehigh growth cold chain industry,
give us a few generalobservations in terms of trends or
hot topics.
Yeah, so I think you, youmentioned some of the drivers.

(28:57):
I would add aging populationsdefinitely to that, especially on
the, on the life sciencesside, transportation infrastructure
and being able to getmedicines to, you know, parts of
the world that were muchharder to reach prior to now.
Obviously medical innovation,things like car t therapies that
are highly effective attreating blood cancers and other

(29:19):
types of diseases.
It's, it's really fascinatingto see what's going on.
I think our space, you know,predominantly focuses on kind of
that transportation andquality segment of the cold chain.
So how do I most efficiently,most safely move my goods from point
a to point zone and then howdo I ensure that those goods can
are safe for consumption,whether it's medicines or foods or

(29:40):
whatnot.
And we, we do see a lot ofthemes in, in the industry in, in,
in our space.
I, I think, you know, yearsago, 2020, 18, 2019, 2020, it was
visibility, visibility, visibility.
We want visibility.
We want to see where ourproduct is now.
I'd like to take the creditfor being the first ones, to my knowledge,
I think we were the first onesthat kind of, of self identified

(30:02):
as orchestration back in 2019.
And we were truly, we kind ofenvisioned this world where you have
to synchronize labor, you haveto synchronize what's happening with
your transportation decisions,with your quality decisions, and
truly become an orchestration platform.
So I think the shift fromvisibility and this realization that
visibility got on the map isonly going to go so far in getting

(30:25):
you outcomes that you want.
And it's really more so aboutaggregating that data with other
valuable data that you have inyour network work to be able to drive
decision making.
Right.
It's, it's the ability to take action.
I think that's been anunderlying theme that we've seen.
We've seen another theme inour space where, you know, a lot
of the businesses that werereally, really hot in 2020, they're

(30:46):
still hot, don't get me wrong.
But like IoT device companiesfor one, you know, maybe, you know,
certain services, packagingfor example, and, and you know, specific
subsets of packaging.
I think now people want a moreagnostic kind of software solution
where they don't need to traintheir employees on 10 different platforms.

(31:08):
You know, if you're usingthree different device providers,
if you're using conventionaldevices versus real time devices,
if you're using packaging Xversus packaging Y, today there's
like 10 different softwaresthat you have to get to know, log
into, try to bring all thisdata together.
Whether you're looking atpassive data, real time data, milestone
data, telematics data,shipment documentation, which are

(31:30):
typically in like ERP and TMSplatforms, SOPs which are in quality
management platforms.
All of that is there's nosingular shipment record that ties
it all together.
There's been a massive shiftin our world over the last 24 months
with companies saying, youknow what, I just want one unified
standard experience with myplatform and I'm going to interchange

(31:51):
what they view as the morecommoditized aspects around it.
So whether it's devices,whether it's packaging, whether it's
3 PLs, 4 PLs or carriers.
So that's, that's been apretty big, big, I would say theme
in the orchestration andvisibility space over, over the last
two years.
Ilya, you shared a lot ofthings that it could be a whole podcast
series.

(32:11):
Tangeria synchronization,seamlessness, streamlining were some
of the trends that he touched on.
And I loved his commentsaround thousands of apps and platforms
and, and we shouldn't have tobecome experts and super users and
all those things.
But Tandra, what'd you hearfrom Ilya on some of the things going
on in the cold chain space?
If I may, can I ask a question please?

(32:32):
Sure.
As long as good with it.
How does like theproliferation of all of these food
recalls work into what you'redoing from a orchestration standpoint?
I mean in the supply chaintypically once the product was delivered,
it was done.
Now there's so many otherthings that are going on from a specifically

(32:54):
a food safety standpoint.
What do you see in that space?
Yeah, I mean very, verysimilar thematically in the life
sciences space as well.
I mean anytime that you havean influx of food recall or product
damage, right.
That's going to impact theentire value chain.
Starting with insurance, cargoinsurance and loss ratios and of

(33:14):
course replacement product,then there's root cause analysis
that has to happen.
There's obviously processquality processes that have to come
into play play.
I mean it kicks off the entirevalue chain.
So I would say anytime youhave a plethora or a heightened prolonged
sense of product loss, thatcertainly helps the business case
for solutions like ours.
I will say, you know, coredriver has always been for a lot

(33:37):
of these companies it'severybody kind of, I would say builds
in loss ratios into theirfinancial model.
So people expect to lose product.
It's really more so there's,there's a lot of other costs costs
associated around everyday decisions.
Which routes are you taking,what modes of transport, how much,
how much packaging, thermallife are you qualifying your packaging
for?
How much inventory?

(33:58):
I think to your point, are youholding right in buffer stock and
how quickly is that inventoryselling through?
And there's a lot of decisionsthat have to be made around cost.
And today all of that datastill remains fragmented.
So putting it all togetherunder a singular shipment record
eliminates those data silosand effectively enables you to make

(34:18):
those real time trade off decisions.
But certainly I will say toyour question, anytime that you see
heightened levels of foodrejection recalls, I mean even worse
safety, like people gettingsick, potentially life threatening,
that is massive, massive,massive issue for the bcos.
And that's when they kind of,you know that that adds a massive

(34:40):
justification to the business case.
Now it's not just about cost,it's actually about compliance and
safety and regulatory.
Okay, I tell you what.
Billion dollar question,billion dollar answer.
Stay tuned.
Ward 11 good stuff.
Before I move on, I want toget to this blog article that I think
created a lot of feedback outin the marketplace.
Ilya.
But before I do that, the oneonly call Claudia Freed is in the

(35:02):
comments here.
She fearlessly leads a greatnon profit called EAL Green doing
some really cool things.
Claudia says focus is criticalin successfully navigating the sea
of data.
That's right, a ton of wavesof data and there's plenty more changes
coming away.
That's like alert.
That's right, Claudia.
And she also mentionsintegration is key to scaling.
Excellent point.
That's right.
We got to integrate all thistechnology being thrown at us.

(35:24):
Okay, so let's do this.
Tangerine.
Ilia, I got this little imageI'm going to share now.
Interesting side note.
This I think is a picture ofme and one of my tougher days.
Illy.
I don't know how y' all gotinto my home studio there, but I
think we've all had days like that.
That aside, I want to get intoa couple of your key thoughts related
to this blog article that ispublished over on the pacsafe website.
Now here you talk about howthe pharma logistics industry has

(35:46):
defined its problem way toomuch at the surface level and somehow
thought that was good enough.
And you share this goldennugget which is related to a lot
of what we talked about here today.
You say, quote, orchestrationisn't about watching shipments, it's
about continuously improvingthe entire life cycle in quote.
That's right.
If we're only gaining someinsights on our shipments with a
successful orchestrationplatform and approach, we're in trouble.

(36:10):
Ilia, tell us more here, huh?
Yeah, well, I guess let me,you know, walk you through kind of
the status quo of what's beendone in our industry.
I think, think first andforemost you kind of go through this
planning process, right?
It's, it's known as lane qualification.
It's, it's basically doing alane risk assessment on a particular
lane, selecting the rightvendor mix for that lane, and making

(36:31):
sure that everything from acompliance standpoint is set.
You have things put in as apart of your standard operating procedures.
You're good to go and then youkind of set it and you forget it.
So you have this SOP, you putit into place three months, six months,
12 months down the road.
You have no idea.
How did my original planactually go compared to real world

(36:52):
performance?
I think that's what we've seenin the cold chain space specifically.
There's a lot of really,really good technologies that are
out there.
You know, data loggers, IoTdevices, real time, like aggregation,
visibility platforms.
Who I'M sure, you know, riskmanagement platforms, even decision
intelligence platforms thathave been out there for well over
a decade and they're really,really good at tracking commoditized

(37:15):
goods.
But when it comes to these,you know, much more, I would say
sophisticated products,temperature sensitive, time sensitive,
value sensitive.
These are your life sciences,these are your food and beverage,
these are your electronics.
These are products where youcan't mess around.
And you need truly a verticalkind of software platform that ingrains
itself deeply into existingworkflows and helps you get things

(37:39):
done.
And so I think a lot of thesesolutions have been around for well
over a decade.
We haven't seen anythingreally move the needle in cold chain.
Product loss ratios keepgetting worse year over year.
Operational inefficienciesstill, you know, remain rampant.
And most importantly, peopledon't have the data and the information
that they need at theirfingertips to drive decisions in

(38:00):
near real time.
You still need to rely onexpensive consultants.
You still need to have, youknow, a plethora of data scientists.
You need to analyze data andpower bi and all these tools.
There's nothing that kind ofbrings together both the planning
aspect of what should havehappened, what did I put in my sop,
and then autonomously looks atyour real world performance data
to create that feedback loopback into the planning process.

(38:23):
Have AI that comes in andautomates root cause analysis and
corrective action andrecommendations that are hyper contextual,
that are based on yourexisting SOPs.
So it's actually telling youwhat to do based on your existing
processes and workflows.
Yes.
You know, that's really whatwe try to call out there in that
blog post is, you know, you,you can't keep doing the same things

(38:44):
over and over again and expectto get a different result.
You, you truly have tounderstand the, the nuances of the
problem in Cold Chain.
And, and you know, I can go, Ican go deep into that for Dave if
you'll have me.
I bet.
Well, first off, we'redropping a link to the blog article
right there.
Thank you, Trish, I appreciate that.
So y' all go give it a read.
Let us know your thoughts.

(39:04):
Let Ilya know.
I bet he welcomes your t takewhether you agree with anything he
says or disagree.
What do we hear there fromIlia Tandria?
I think it really, reallypoints out that Cold Chain is different.
So not only can you not do thesame things you've always done, you
can't do the same things thatare done and other transportation
chains and understanding howto Properly optimize is different

(39:27):
for cold chain.
I think we put moreconstraints on ourselves simply because
it is cold chain and we don't.
Because the information issiloed, you don't optimize it as
well as it should be donebecause you're doing it in silos.
And that is a great call out.
You know, every industry andevery sector believes it's different

(39:48):
in many ways and then there'sa handful that probably really is
different and that you don'twant to mess around with.
As Ilia said, that certainlyis cold chain in that, in that smaller
bucket.
All right, so Ilia, reallyquick in our remaining time we've
got here and we're going toget tangerious Pat and a key takeaway
for a wrap here, here.
The buzz Powered by Auto Scheduler.
So pacsafe has been on a tear.
It sounds like I've enjoyedrubbing elbows with you and your

(40:09):
team over, over the years andit sounds like you are rocking and
rolling right now.
What does organization do in a nutshell?
And then secondly, what's oneproject you're really excited about
here as we're coming down tohome stretch for 2025?
Yeah, that's a great question.
So what do we do?
We are logistics orchestrationand decision intelligence specifically
for temperature controlled logistics.

(40:31):
So in a nutshell, we helpplanning transportation and quality
teams essentially do three things.
Number one is eliminate datasilos and number of logins that they
have to use via data agnostic,basically transportation control
tower which we call commandcenter that brings in all of this
data agnostically.
Number two is we help digitizeand automate key portions of the

(40:54):
actual workflows.
So things like lanequalification exceptions management,
temperature and product release.
You can only do that ifyou're, if you're GXP validated in
our space and, and we are GXP validated.
It's, you know, it's, it's.
I hate to say that it's amoat, but it is somewhat of a moat
because it's not easy to do that.
And then number three is wehelp companies and people essentially

(41:16):
make better decisions fasterusing their own networks data.
That's probably, simply put,we have AI that injects itself all
throughout the platform.
Whether it's looking at liveshipments and essentially silencing
noise and highlightingshipments that are actually at risk,
whether it's looking at kindof that feedback loop and aggregating
data after the fact and thentelling you what you can do better

(41:39):
tomorrow.
Those are the kinds of thingsthat our platform does today.
What am I really excited about?
So you know, one of the bigthemes that I didn't mention earlier
but that we do see is agenticsolutions and agent agentic workflows.
I think that's, you know, oneof my most recent blog posts is,
is is actually just about thatwhere you have to be able to discern

(42:01):
what is real versus what issmoke and mirrors.
I think building agenticwithout having the right infrastructure
in place is very dangerous.
Your agents are not going tobe able to do what's necessary without
the right infrastructure in place.
Without really the fullunderstanding of the entire workflows
and, and a full segmentationof even those workflows.

(42:22):
You really need agentsperforming one core aspect of one
core workflow.
Workflow.
And so we're introducing ourfirst set of agents in, in Q4 of
this year.
And I think because we are avertical software, because we are
deeply ingrained into theseorganizations existing workflows
and decision making andautomation, these agents from what

(42:43):
we've already kind of beenbeen testing with, with our partners
are going to be highly, highly effective.
And so we're very excitedabout that.
And that's probably what I'mmost excited about in terms of what
we're working on.
I would be too.
And maybe your agents can helpmy, my beloved Atlanta Falcons.
The better offense.
We shall see.
I don't know if there's hopefor that.

(43:04):
As the Colts fan.
The Colts are doing big thingsthis year.
That is outstanding news.
Congrats on the growth,congrats on the new initiatives here
this year, new innovations andyou know one of the core things Tandrea
that he mentioned, they do,they help teams do make better decisions
faster.
And my hunch is they even helpeliminate some decisions that humans,
very busy humans, have to makeout in our global supply chains.

(43:26):
And I love that.
Tandria, your quick yourresponse before we make sure folks
how to connect with you bothand we round things out.
You know Scott, this is our1500 and third podcast together and
guess what?
We're still talking about theimportance of data.
When he started he said thefirst thing that they help do is
eliminate data silos.

(43:47):
Because if your data isn'tintegrated properly, there's no way
you can make the correctorganizational decision.
So once again, data wins.
It does.
It sure does.
And you know we keep talkingabout it because industry doesn't
listen to us.
But you gotta, you gotta tunein folks to great, great resources,

(44:09):
innovators like Ilya andTandria and folks that have Been
there and done that.
And we try to facilitate thatreally easily almost every day of
the week here at Supply Chain now.
Okay, let's do this.
I've got a question from Tom,which I want to answer it here in
a second.
But first, Ilya, let's makesure folks know how to connect with
you and Ivan and the wholeteam on the move over there here
at Pacsafe.
Yeah, first name@packsafe.com.

(44:29):
so in my case, it'silyapacksafe.com you can also find
me, Elliot Preston on LinkedIn.
You can also find me inIndianapolis today at the HPCLC conference.
If you're here at theMarriott, swing on by.
We're here.
Bobby, Chris, and myself.
Where else can you find me?
I. I think that's.
Those are probably the big ones.
That's a lot of places.
And we're gonna make it even easier.
We're gonna drop Ilya'sLinkedIn profile right there.

(44:51):
So engage with us them right there.
And before we get out of here,I got a couple final questions for
you.
Tandrea, what's your favoritekey takeaway from this holistic and
big conversation we've hadhere with Ilya?
And how can folks connect with you?
My key takeaway is peoplereally need to tune in to Supply
Chain now to continue to get educated.
Even with great conferencesall over the world, it's really difficult

(45:15):
to try and get all of thisinformation on your own.
So, Scott, you do a tremendousservice to all of us by finding these
incredibly informative gueststhat bring the information to us.
So thank you.
And I'm always available on LinkedIn.
Tandria Bellamy.
It's just that easy.
You're two way too kind, Tandria.
But, hey, we love doing it.

(45:36):
We've loved doing it for along time.
And, you know, as youmentioned, it's like 2 million episodes.
I can't wait.
We're going to be thrilledwith it at 4 million and then 6 million.
There's so many differentstories to cover with the innovators
like you both.
They're doing some really cool things.
So.
And we want to be connectors,very effective connectors.
So to that end, I'm alsodropping a link.
Thank you, Tricia.
Pack safe right there.
You can learn more.
You can check out that blogarticle, you name it.

(45:58):
And be sure to follow andconnect with Tandra Bellamy right
there on LinkedIn as well.
Okay, Tandra, again, thanksfor your key takeaway.
Really appreciate TaniaBellamy being here with me.
Ilya Preston, co founder andCEO of pacsafe.
Really enjoyed yourperspective here today.
Thank you for challenging howwe've always done things in cold
chain and in industry.

(46:18):
So great to have you here, Ilya.
Anytime, anytime.
Scott.
Thank you for having me.
You bet.
Enjoy the great conferencehere in Indianapolis, Tandra.
Look forward to breaking breadwith you soon, my friend.
Of course.
Big thanks Amanda and Trishabehind the scenes helping to make
production happen each andevery day.
And most importantly, bigthanks to our global audience for
being here with us.
Hope you enjoyed the show asmuch as I have, but you got homework

(46:39):
folks.
Tangeria and Ilia both droppeda ton of knowledge on you gotta take
one thing you heard here fromour esteemed panel.
Share it with your team.
Put it into practice.
These not words.
That's how we're going tocontinue changing how global supply
chain happens and leave no one behind.
So with that said, on behalfthe entire supply Chain now team
Scott Luden challenge you dogood, get forward.
Be the change that's needed.
We'll see you next time rightback here on Supply Chain Now.

(47:01):
Thanks everybody.
Join the Supply Chain now community.
For more supply chainperspectives, news and innovation,
check out supplychainnow.com,subscribe to Supply Chain now on
YouTube and follow and listento Supply Chain Now.
Wherever you get your podcasts.

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