Gain a Strategic Edge: AI Visionaries are Rethinking Trade with Emerging Technologies

Machine Automated Transcript:

Hey, folks, we’re in for another great show on the simply trade podcast, and this is going to be a good discussion today. This is one of those that I will tell you, that we’re going to get to talk about AI or artificial intelligence, and is that I’d listen, folks, I need all the help I can get, because I’m dumb as a box of rocks. But this is going to be one of those things. Hopefully a system will help compensate for my shortfalls. All that to say, allow I’m excited about today’s show. But what do you think? What is like with the AI and everybody’s been talking about all this conceptual stuff, and we’ve seen it in the conferences of late. Teeing this one up is going to be a great show, I think. Well,

for me, I’m excited also, because it’s like a nice in Mexico, or probably anywhere else there’s a, there’s a there’s a bowl of soup that you can buy called siete Maris. Siete Maris means it has, okay, whatever that is, everything it has, everything octopus, and it has any kind of seafood you can it’s like everything, but the kitchen sink goes in there. So this, this show might be like that only because we have AI, we have forced labor, we have supply chain resiliency. I mean, we have all this really cool stuff mixed in there. And then, plus, we have two really cool dudes to to talk to us about that too. So which is really cool, you know, and I’m really excited, because we’re bringing back a favorite on the show that had a great hit on the at the beginning of this year. He kicked off the year for us this year,

which is our first program for this year, folks, this is, this is going to be a good one here. So well, let me introduce our guests. So folks, as we just talked about, Alan Burson. He’s former commissioner and of customs, and I and again, I always screw this up, but you know me, I’m my turtle, my memories, as long as the turtles tell here, Alan, I think you were the was it the associate or Secretary of the Department of Homeland? Whatever it is, DHS,

the Assistant Secretary of Policy and International Affairs at DHS. But there were two or three other titles, though, Andy, so you’re basically circling in,

okay, well, the one that I it’s just and where you and I had the interaction was when you were with customs. And I gotta say, you know, folks, if you go back in history, you look at it, Alan Burson, in my

customs. And I gotta say, you know, folks, if you go back in history, you look at it, Alan Burson, in my opinion, was the leader that broke through a lot of the bureaucratic stagnation of customs to get the development of ACE on its way, getting a lot of other things going. He’s a great visionary. I have a lot of respect for him and and with that, I just it was, to me, it was just a phenomenal time. But with that, he’s joined forces with a company called Altana, and we have the CEO, a guy by the name of Evan Smith. And you know, with all due respect, Evan, you look pretty young here. You know, you definitely, he’s wet behind the ears, it looks like, but your background is, oh my gosh, is Evan, you have really done some phenomenal stuff. You must be one creative dude. I guess

Altona is his. Is his current master’s degree. What is it thesis or theory? He’s, he’s trying to prove something, I guess, because he’s like, super young. Look at him.

And Lala Europe, it’s, it’s so good you you’ve invited Evan. And of course, he’s younger than we are, because he’s closer to where the world is today. But here’s a man who, who not only is understands where the world is going, but has built an institution and is now trying to manage a process to actually bring the benefits of what you know, three of us have spent a lot of time on thinking about, but Evan’s in the process of doing it, and in terms of what behind the ears Andy, I wouldn’t sit down at a poker table with this man. Love

it. He’s probably, you know, or even a chess match. He’s probably, like, two, three steps ahead of you. You got everything. Evan, welcome to the show, my friend.

I’m excited to be here. This is gonna be fun. Oh, it’s,

it’s always a good discussion and whatnot. So all right with that, we’re gonna jump right in. Folks, I’m telling you, this is going to be a show. You need to make point of downloading and look at it. Record back to or forever, back to it, man. I’m telling you what, my tongue is all tied up today, and I don’t know why, and maybe I’m Gideons of Philly on the spring morning to try and get you guys on here. So here we go, with all the things going on, AI technology, and from a strategic perspective, I know the government has been incorporating, and I say government, more specifically, US Customs, I would love to know a little bit too, is, are the other agencies utilizing some AI technology when it. Comes to processing international trade shipments, you know, and all of that so strategically on that Alan, let me just ask this, like, what seems to be going on right now as far as AI technology, and is it with the incorporation of that from customs and the agencies? Is there really a true positive impact. Or is it like, Oh, crap, this is another system we got developed and we don’t know what to do with

it. Yeah, we’re just at the outset of this. This is, this is similar to being Vasco da Gama in the Age of Exploration, or Gutenberg in the invention of the printing press. You know, we’re just, we just have put our put our toe into this, and are learning about it, and like everything else in the world, Andy, we’re in a topsy turvy world, not always bad, but it’s a time of huge transformation. And what that means for government agencies, but also for the private sector is that there’s a mismatch between perception, implementation, capacity and the like. So you know, we did, as we’ve traced on the show

and you have, we built the most advanced border management system in the world, here in the United States. It was emulated much of the rest of the world, starting in the EU but the pace of change is so great that we find ourselves now overtaken by events in the sense that the system is not up for the challenges that currently confront it. So remember, over the last generation, we built an extraordinary system to counter terrorism in international trade, travel, and we built in a regime of basically relying on three elements, advanced information, risk management and traffic segmentation, or adjustment to what the risk signal was. All of that knock on wood kept us from another 911 and although we didn’t avoid terrorist events, it was managed well. But today we’re in a different situation to manage terrorism. We were dealing with what we called, colloquially, you know, needles and haystacks, making haystacks smaller so that we could manage the the flow more effectively. All of these concepts actually are still at play in today’s world, but the challenges that we face the idea that that in addition to non state actors, we have to be on the look at narcotics. We have to be on the lookout for forced labor, carbon imprints, Russian sanctions, Chinese tariffs and the like. And we’ve got to move from looking for needles and haystacks, which most of the agencies are still doing on the 911 model, to being able to examine every piece of straw and to have the scale and the capacity to do that is exactly the problem that that we set out, that Evan, Evan and his colleagues conceived, and that we set out to solve in in the context of Altana, those challenges will define the application of artificial intelligence and machine learning to the problem, and I suspect, as always, the government will lag behind. But as we get into the call, I think you’ll see Evan has some some brilliant insights on how this is going to unfold.

So with the way things are looking at I mean traditionally, and let’s just say the 911 model you were talking about is that traditionally, you have now advanced information that’s coming in from manifest. And in particular, you know the air Express, air cargo side of things is one of the first modes of transportation that we’re supplying so much information other modes are getting there and all that. So you have these massive data elements of manifest trying to scrutinize all that. And you would have a series of and, you know, customs, uh, officers, inspectors, whatever their titles may be, as they’re perusing all that, trying to say, Okay, I want to look at this one or whatever, but you were, as you said it, looking for that needle in a haystack. And that is just a overwhelming thing, utilizing AI technology. Is that something that is in today’s world, allowing customs to be more, shall we say, productive, in an element of getting some of the standard stuff out of the way, looks like it’s legitimate and flagging things, as well as allowing then the customs inspector to apply their. Expertise on things they should be looking for.

It is but it’s being done in a different way. And let me defer to Evan describe how, for example, we’re dealing with CBP and other agencies around the world to to deal with it same structure, but it’s it’s more different than than it is alike at end.

Yeah, I’ll set a little bit of the scene from a policy standpoint. I mean, Alan. Alan kind of took us through the arc of risk targeting for those needles in the haystack, and the whole kind of border management and trade facilitation Trusted Trader regime has really been built up around the idea that there are secure, trusted traders, right? And that’s been the public private cooperation on the border. The way that the policy landscape has moved is, you know, whether it’s a sanction issue, whether it’s Chinese tariffs, whether it’s forced labor, whether it’s the carbon border adjustment in Europe, the way the policy is all going is the thing that matters and is being scrutinized now is the nature of the goods inside the container And the value chain associated with those goods. So that

whole multi tier network of the value chain of those goods, and that’s where the the forced labor issues are coming about. That’s where the carbon intensity needs to get, you know, calculated and measured. So these are all value chain shape problems. Now, as it relates to that sort of public, private model, the imperative and the opportunity now is to say, with artificial intelligence and with this proliferation of data, can we start to go beyond good guys and bad guys, and, you know, security audits basically for for AEO or CTPAT, and start to examine the nature of the goods and predict those entire value chains, and then determine the compliance profile of those value chains in a cooperative model.

Is this a way for as you’re going down this road? And I can see so many great applications of this, the good corporate citizens, the good importers, that if they’ve provided all of the good data, if you will, the accurate data that the things that they need, the descriptions there, their entry is synchronized with their manifest data and the Bill of Lading data and all that, all those kinds of things start coming into play. And the Trusted Trader profiles. Now, if that is looked at then, that it would be a case where, if AI is being utilized based on what you’re saying, there is allowing the facilitation of trade for the good corporate citizens, and again, getting that out of the way, so that, and that would be, you know, as Alan was saying, lots of the strains of straw, if you will. That gets that out of the way, so that he now you can start flagging. Hey, this needs a little bit more scrutiny. Yeah,

it takes you to a world where to keep the metaphor going, you’re qualifying the entire haystack, as opposed to trying to pick needles out of the haystack. So with AI and with this data availability, you can look not only at the traders and who they are and good guys, bad guys, that kind of thing, but you can actually predict the nature of the goods inside of the box, and the value chain networks associated with those goods screen them for forced labor, predict the carbon intensity, look for sanctions deep in the supply chain or value chain network, and you can do all that at scale. And so the you know whether you’re on the enforcement side of things, you know your your mission, of course, is to enforce and facilitate. And the policy that’s being handed down from governments is obligating customs authorities to scrutinize these entire global value chain networks, right? So they’re overwhelmed. Now, on the compliance side of it with the trade the imperative is I’ve got to somehow reach beyond my direct suppliers, my supplier suppliers, my tier three, my tier four, my tier five, and I’ve got to somehow build up a compliance attestation in order to be eligible under this Free Trade Agreement, or to be compliant under the Uyghur forced labor Prevention Act or to provide a admissibility package where my goods have been detained. Excuse

me, Evan, so the, you know, I think you hit it Andy, when you ask, you know, are we going beyond the good guy, bad guy? And that’s where I think, you know, I’d like to hear Evan a little more on the value chain management. Because really what that implies is. That we’re we’re no longer just in the security context. We’re no longer in the bomb in the box or or narcotics stash in the container. We’re into this idea where the visibility of the entire supply chain and the sharing of data completely between public and private sectors will actually give us a chance to do things that we haven’t been able to do before, both on the regulatory side with governments, but this Value Chain Management gives private sector entities the ability not only deal with the government properly, but to deal with its suppliers, to deal with its insurers, to deal with its bankers in ways that have never been possible but are now facilitated by AI and in machine learning. This is, this is the new world that we’re on the verge of. And just to go back to your original question, you know, the the the way to manage this

information in ways that create new public, private partnerships and new partnerships among nations, is, is just at the at the outset, and that’s what the that’s the beacon that I think galtan is casting, you know, into the future.

Yeah, and earlier this week, I was going to mention Ellen to your point, I I saw a product announcement from Altana on LinkedIn when you all streamed this information, which I thought was very interesting, because my mindset was more like Altana helps very well. Again, we know Amy Morgan from from from Altana, and we’ve had her on the show and and, in fact, she was our second show ever, that we ever published on, on our, on our podcast, but with her, and, and, and I know, you know, HOSA, but what we that was my mindset, you know. And then, of course, the biggest visibility that we see of Altana and the trade shows are, because you all are experts in, you know, identifying the supply chains and especially with forced labor. That’s, that’s where we were. But then I saw this product announcement, it goes beyond that. Like you said, Alan, it’s mostly understanding what that product is. So we’re talking about, and it’s very interesting that you say that, Ellen, is that understanding? Oh, no, I think, Evan, you said it. I’m sorry about does my product have the the data behind my product? Does that determine or can I now say it’s, it’s, it qualifies for a free trade agreement, for example, or, or carbon emissions, etc, you know it, it goes beyond that. So it’s really interesting to see that, and what I saw on that announcement, and by the way, I’ll put that link, I’m sure, I know, I revisit it, and saw that. I saw that on LinkedIn. It’s recorded, and it’s on there, I guess, forever, and this, you take it down, but I’ll put a link on on LinkedIn. I mean, on LinkedIn, I’m sorry. I’ll put a link to the LinkedIn video and announcement on the show notes, so anybody can reference that. It’s really interesting. You all should go see it, because it’s really neat how you all showed how, how everything just ties together, you know. And it’s really graphical and really neat, and viewing that end tier on your supply chain. So anyway, and I just want to make note of that, because I do find that interesting, Ellen, that you said now, but okay, but let’s go beyond that. So are you providing just data, or are you telling the client, hey, this does qualify for usmca, because of the rules and regulations and the tariff shifts and all that. I mean, I know we’re going beyond just finding out the supply chain. But are you providing the data so that someone can then say, well, at least I know it’s originating, you know, at that point? Yeah, we

do. We do a few things in combination that all add up to what we describe as value chain management. So the first step is, you’ve got to create a real source of truth for every product value chain, right? So we we take in the bill of materials, the supplier, master data, and then through our AI platform and this whole global data footprint we built over the last five, five and a half years, we’re able to build out that multi tier, product specific visibility off of the bill of materials, and then the platform now permits the enterprise customer, or, you know, a broker on their behalf, to reach into the value chain network, to verify it, to document it, and to build up a real like a real source of truth, to curate a multi tier view and be ready for compliance attestations, right? So it’s not just an outside in, here’s some data. It’s an inside out. You know, this is my source of truth. So that’s step one. You create that foundation. Step two is we overlay these different AI driven lenses on the map, if you will. So some of those are around carbon. Are some of those around forced labor sanctions, free trade agreements, other participating government agencies that have to you know this thing is flagging against this PGA requirement, that kind of thing. We now have an AI assistant that supports the compliance manager in HS classifications. So going off that whole product catalog, looking at the whole multi tier value chain of the goods, the material composition, the origin of goods, and using all that context to assist in HS code classifications,

you just mentioned something sounds like it is a much more in depth application or module. So here’s where I wanna get it. The first traditional thing of AI in the compliance supply chain world has been automation of classification, you know, taking your parts databases and whatever, and auto classifying it and saying, you know, whatever and, well, it’s only 20% accurate. Well now it’s up to maybe 50% accurate. Well that’s still fine. If it’s 50% I’d take whatever. And if you know, yeah, it’s, this is accurate. Now I go on to the next thing, and it’s so it’s, it’s improving my productivity. As time goes on, it’ll get smarter. Let’s hope and improve the the accuracy, but you just hit on something. All right, so I’ve got it. It’s classified the country of origin. All that you’re saying that that module is going in deeper and looking to see, does it really qualify for these things? Or there are red flags back there to say, hey, this could be potential of tier one, tier two or tier three, supplier might have some forced labor. Am I hearing that correct? You are?

Yeah. So it’s looking at that whole value chain, think about as like a parts database that goes back all the way multiple tiers and is, you know, editable and documentable. So it’s not just a kind of outside in view. It’s a source of truth for the enterprise, and then you’ve got an AI assistant that can help you look at all those issues across the entire value chain.

To our listeners, hey, that is a game changer. You’re right. Lalo, folks, I got to tell you, this is something right here from a compliance standpoint, that right there is a is a more in depth, powerful module that I’ve ever heard on the automated classification. Now, we may be getting, well, I am blasted from some other companies, but that right there is really good. Now that said, let me also say this to our listeners. This is something that as we’re going through this and Julian, you hear what customs, what Evan is talking about in Alan has been saying, you know, agencies are using this and using different sources, and they’re diving into tier one, tier two, tier three things, suppliers. They’re looking at different supply chains, the carbon things, and then all that stuff. You need to be looking at it from your own internal company to see if you can be that effective and that productive in utilizing these modules. Because I’m telling you, folks, you can’t do it through spreadsheets anymore. I mean, things have evolved well beyond Alan you mentioned it is like, yes, you guys wound up building and breaking the logger jam and built a phenomenal clearance system when you were with customs that dealt with, you know, finding the bad guys and processing all that information. Well, they have gotten smarter, and things have gotten even more complex, because some of the things we’re talking about, and I guess Evan, coming back, is looking at the characteristic of a product in a shipment. It empowers the clearance folks, if you will, that front line that is facilitating trade. But as it’s dealing with all this, in assessing it, we are actually having systems that can help deal with cultural problems in other parts of the world where there’s forced labor now we’re not going to support that. And guess what? We found an issue here that we would have never known before.

Yeah, I’ll give you, I’ll give you, you know, sort of a commercial and product response. And I think Alan, you should speak to the policy trend here. But you know, on the on the commercial side of things, it’s, you know, it’s in the public record that our platform is also used by us, customs and border protection to actually enforce these laws and deal with these trade facilitation kinds of concerns, right? So they use us to look into those multi tier supply chains. And, you know, meet their enforcement mission. And I think the the opportunity here, one of the reasons we started the company, and why we, you know, back in the summer of 2018 I think caught, caught Alan’s attention and imagination when we were getting. Going with the company was, we said, hey, there’s an opportunity. Through this federated data architecture that we’ve we’re going to build this company

around to permit a shared view of the world between the regulator, the customs authority, and the trading community on the private sector, without actually sharing and commingling all their data so you can kind of have your cake and eat it too, from a supply chain intelligence standpoint, without ever going to share raw data outright. And so that’s what we built the company around. And you know, I’m hopeful in the next few months, we’re going to be able to start talking about some work we’re doing to connect the dots here between the public and private sectors. You know, this is the, one of the key parts of our mission is to enable these trusted global value chains between the public and private sectors, between and among governments and, you know, importers, the defense industrial base, the Financial Services community. So it’s the power of getting all these, you know, coalition of the willing participants into a common operating picture. So Alan, maybe it makes sense to just kind of speak to the geopolitical and policy trends here.

Yeah. So, so the the, you know, whatever’s talking about would, would would have been dismissed outright even 10 years ago, the idea that we we get benefits by sharing our our data signal that we need to overcome and put aside or take. We take them into account, but we don’t let them dominate the sovereignty, proprietary and privacy concerns that have kept people from wanting to share their data either or with their competitors, or even the friendliest of governments not wanting to share data. And this federated architecture permits it’s beautiful because it solves the problem of data sharing, or data signal sharing, in ways I think you Evan can can articulate but, but it permits us to to actually get to a point where we can create new forms of interaction, new forms of partnership, you know. And so you know, Andy, from your experience, the you know, the private sector thinks CBP is, is over, over overly bureaucratic, overly demanding, constantly changing. And all of that may be true, but we I, I appreciate that. I think you do too, the, you know, the challenges that face regulators. But what this situation and the developments that Evans described permits is actually this, this idea of a trusted network. We move beyond the transactional dimension. It’s not just, are you a Trusted Trader for this, this transaction, but rather it’s a relationship that is sustained. And when policy, as it will, catches up with this phenomenon, you’re going to see the kinds of interaction that permit exploiting that value chain management tool that Altan has developed. But there’s always a lag in policy formulation. We’re right in the middle of that now. But this is where the world is going. Sure is sure

you alluded to this. I think it was. It’s worth us just pulling on this thread where you were talking about how the, you know, the forced labor issue, for example, from a policy standpoint, is, is a policy means by which the US government is extending its jurisdiction beyond the border. That’s true. That’s the trend. That’s really this is all going well.

This guy’s smart. Alan, you very eloquently put that, that whole scenario, as far as the government’s reach on this, but it’s like, you’re right and but here’s the thing, I guess, to your point, I guess I look at my listeners, and it’s like, folks, if you’re in the compliance area, this is one of these shows that you need to get your upper management to listen in on your purchasing, sourcing group in the other head department heads, and listen in on this, because this is no longer. Everybody stays in their silo. Do your job without crossing over. You’ve got to open this thing up if you’re going to be an effective company in today’s world. And minimizing your costs, maximizing your revenue opportunities, and all of that. Well, you you’re looking at sources, you’re looking at, you know, cycle times, you’re looking at cost of goods, you’re looking at the quality of the goods. All that’s great, but you’ve got to look as a team, beyond the borders and beyond. What are you that? The initial, hey, I got this now for instead of 10 cents an item, it’s now five cents an item. Well, if there’s that big of a difference, what you got

to ask the question, hey, let me talk to my if I’m in purchasing, let me talk to my compliance person. We got a great price on a product here. Do you see any red flags that ought to be something you’re doing. And most traditionally, that does not happen. Purchasing looks at bigger, better, faster, cheaper, and compliance goes, What the hell were they thinking? I got to cross the t’s and dot the i’s. And

one of the things that’s that’s so amazing is our, you know, we’ve launched a value chain management system. Nobody in the organization has the top the title value chain manager, right? So, by definition, these value chain issues are cross functional, and we see that with our customers, you know, like, we’ll, we’ll have trade compliance teams, working with sustainability stakeholders, working with the sourcing team, working with the procurement teams and the, you know, the category managers Aspire managers, and increasingly, we’re getting pulled over into finance and the insurance buyers. So these are all these kind of, like multi tier, global value chain problem sets and use cases that, by definition, require that cross functional engagement. And one of the really cool things that’s happening with us, with our customers, is we’re helping the trade compliance teams move beyond the kind of reactive, you know. Okay, now here’s the procurement decisions we’ve made. Go figure it out. Go get these across the border and file the paperwork. We’re helping them actually inject upstream strategically into the merchandising decisions and into the engineering and design decisions and into the supplier discovery and sourcing decisions, and we’re starting to put a product experience around what we call value chain design. So imagine that you can you know for this new product, or for this new SKU, or this new item I want to merchandise. I can look at the entire multi tier value chain and then model the tariffs and duties. I can screen it for forced labor. I can have a picture of its carbon intensity, and I can, I can look at the geopolitical considerations. You know, a lot of these big C suite initiatives are around China plus one, right? We want to near shore. We want to create some resilience. I resilience. So all of that, all of that intelligence, can be driven by these trade compliance team members upstream in the sourcing and procurement processes. So you don’t inherit these, these issues after the fact and have to work them out. You get to actually go in strategically and optimize and design for them upfront.

Yeah, just to build on that, this is the transition that has to take place, not only in the in the corporate context, getting it up to the C suite, because the problems are not in the boxes as they’ve been drawn on the organization Sean, but this is a huge problem for CBP as well, because CBP still tends to look at itself at ports of entry as gatekeepers, and they’re really, of course, they’re gatekeepers, but they this is going to be more of an analytical function than a straight police function going forward. And for the same reason that we need cultural and institutional change in the private sector, we need in the public sectors as well, to adapt to the new technologies and the new policy dictates that that are, that are there. But you know, the big, the big thing. And Evan will smile when he hears me say this, because I’ve been saying it When, when, when I first met him and he talked to me about a federated learning architecture in which you could, you could share a signal from data in a risk management context without actually commingling the data. And I I said, if you could really demonstrate that to me, Evan and Peter and Raff, who were there, I said, you will have achieved the Holy Grail, because that problem has kept us from sharing information from time immemorial. And you know what? I know, I think it’d be worth and this has to get up to the C suite as well, because people don’t believe it in the system. They just don’t believe you can do this. And the idea I should share my data with a with the with CBP, or I should share, share my data with with a competitor, unheard of, and it takes a policy decision that the general counsel’s office or up at the at the in the C suite to change that, but this is a technology that people have to become aware of.

Alan, and I just want to do a quick time check we do have. 10 minutes left, but we may do some a little bit of wrap up, and of course, we’re going to edit this part up. But I do want to ask one question. Alan recently, we global Training Center, my company that funds this podcast, day to day training for a bunch of a very large group of CBP agents, auditors that enforce forced labor. Do you feel, or do you think that having access to this? So they came to us and said, Help us understand what you the importer, is facing, because we want to be more we want to be more of a partner with the trade community versus just being the Enforcer. We want to know why you’re having that issue, that problem, etc. So having access to Altana, for example, does that obviously it’s going to bump up enforcement, right? I mean, because they’ll know more about the data. But how is that like beneficial to the importer? I mean, obviously, go get Altana, right, but, but besides that, how do you see that

it permits the the private sector entity, to actually take corrective action? You get to the point where you you the problems identified, you start either correcting it, if you can, or mitigating the impact on your supply chain, but, but this is also the the challenge to CBP so that, as Evan will tell you how to spend training 1000s of CBP agents or hundreds and hundreds of them around the country on on the platform. But it’s a different element. This is the office of trade folks. You’re dealing with the with the Ofo, with the Audit and Review folks, and this is kind of the change within CBP that’s got to take place. Although I’m delighted that you know your auditors were asking, we just don’t want to be cops. We’d like to know how we can assist here. But this is the kind of change within CBP that needs to, needs to take place, because this is an intelligence this has got to become an intelligence driven operation from start to finish.

Hey, you know to that point. And this is the other thing again, I come back to our listeners, folks, this is one of the areas that you know, the audit folks, and I’m talking about from an accounting perspective to a compliance perspective to a legal perspective, when there are audits, and a lot of times, everybody’s so worried about the front end and then in the middle, and they’re reacting to situations if they’ve not done things correctly. But the audit side of this needs to be brought in so they can see what’s going on in your planning, your strategic, strategic plans, if you will, and vision and all. But then, as they’re doing their job, and they find some problems and red flags or some questions or whatever, that it can very quickly go back. Instead of this traditional let me write up a report, and you go through all this action of of trying to do you know, action plans to respond to a report that now maybe three or six months old, is like no man. You got to jump on this stuff quicker than two shakes of a dog’s leg to get it done. Now with that, I will also say some of the things you’re talking about, as far as folks getting in and as far as you know, working together. This is Evan. I was liking what you were talking about because to me, it’s this collaboration. Again, I am a big proponent. You got to break down the silo silos if you were in that C suite. And here’s something I want to ask for both of you and Alan the what should the C suite folks be asking the questions of of their down below? Because one of the things I guess I look at, when you’re collaborating, if you’re allowing your silos to continue on, everybody’s doing their own little thing. They’re working hard. They’re doing their things, but proverbially, they’re going to be the pooper scooper at the end of a parade, instead of getting them in front of this and feeding this beast and letting it go through. So when you’re collaborating, you’re on the front end of this. And that, to me, is where you’re going to be, you know, as a team, working so efficiently rather than reacting to things. So to obtain that with the AI technology type things and all, what is it that the C suite leadership needs to be looking at doing for their company and their people down below to take advantage of this and get ahead of the ball game here, if you will, rather than reacting to it.

Yeah, so you know the cheeky response is by Altana, but the way that I tend to talk to C suites and and just position the problem set is in the 20. First Century, to succeed in a in a global business, you need to be managing, you need to be reorienting your business to manage networks across the value chain, and not merely your customers or your suppliers. Right? So it’s not we got to move beyond the direct buyer, supplier, relationship, outsource paradigm. So, so the 21st century is going to start to look like virtual vertical integration, and the governments are making you do it. You have no choice. So it’s not it’s not just what you should do, it’s what you have to do. So, so the implication is that the that not just network visibility, but that sort of network collaboration has to get baked into the organization and the ways of working and your business processes, right? So, you know, compliance intelligence needs to be baked into the sourcing and procurement decision making, right? It needs to, it needs to be part of your customer relationships and your marketing. If you’re, you know, if you’re an intermediate chemical company or a Ford Forest Products Company, and you’re selling to all these, you know, brands and retailers, they have their own compliance obligations on deforestation, on carbon, on forced labor, on everything else that’s coming down the pipe, these value chain shaped problems, and so part of serving your customers is being able to actually provide that network visibility to them, right? And being part of these collaborative, multi tier value chain networks that become trusted networks. So that’s the C suite pitch, is reorient your businesses around these value chain networks. And you know, you can do it in Altana, but there’s, you know, like I said, I don’t want to make it a an autonomous, centric thing, but that’s just the way the world’s going.

I’m just to that point. That’s what a leader is supposed to recognize. And when you say what’s supposed to be driving the C suite, they’re supposed to be understanding these changes to the sweeping the world, the splintering of the world to order, the end of the first phase of globalization, at the beginning of another one. I mean, these are big, heavy, heavy notions, but that’s what leaders are supposed to be able to grapple with. And the ideas, how is this affecting my organization, and how is it affecting the way we ought to see, the way in which we do business? That’s the That’s what’s called for always, but particularly in the time of huge transformation.

Well, there are things that I have personally done with companies where, and this is something that I think comes into play here, where there is an executive that had the vision to say, You know what? Let me pull together department heads under my umbrella across different things. If there are sister divisions that will willing to participate, that’s great, but we’ve had meetings where somebody from it some compliance from customer service, from accounts payable and accounts receivable, the legal side, the the logistics and transportation side, and the sourcing and purchasing side, and whoever else is wanting to get in there, and pulled them together, and I was a facilitator in the discussion, and it had to have Somebody sponsor it, high enough up that it created enough, shall we say, interest and incentive of some of these middle management folks to say, okay, you know what? That executive is involved with it? I’m going to be there because it from a career perspective, whatever. I mean, you got to face it that that’s some of the things that goes on. So if you’re a leader and you’re going through. They sponsored it. It came through. We had a meeting, and it started out, and we started talking about exceptions, and what was going on in the different areas and and what do you do with the information I give you, the old Quality Process Improvement type things that would be paramount in looking at it, because one of the things I guess, is we’re all suffering from deficiencies. Usually, if there’s an exception, it’s a deficiency of some kind of information. What do I do with it? I need to look something up. I don’t know what this is, or I don’t know where it goes, or I don’t know where to charge it. I can’t do anything with it. Regardless. All that to say as we go through and that those people start

talking about the exceptions like, well, I have that information, but I can give it to you a little earlier. And what happens is people start buying in to, hey, you know, we have an opportunity to eliminate exceptions. It actually dramatically lowers costs. But here’s the thing, companies like Altana and and this AI technology have those are, like some of the solutions, the tools of solutions to put forward, to streamline processes, even streamline data flows, and make everybody involved much more productive. Have I got that kind of you know? What I’m looking at is, I’m excited about what you guys are offering here. Put

your finger on the key thing, right? So we can show up with data AI, and collaborative workflows for you know, internal and external stakeholders, but you still need the business transformation, and that still needs to be driven by executives.

Well, let me say this. We need to wrap this up for now, but I would love to have another show with you all at some point to talk about what do you see in the next two to five years, regarding the AI technology, regarding some of the geopolitical type things are going on? Probably by the time we get to go through this, obviously, we’re in an election year, so either there’s going to be a re election of one president or a reelection of a former president who knows, and all that kind of stuff. Then you have the new president of Mexico. What’s going on there? And then you have the situation over in in the Middle East, and then the China and Taiwan situation, holy crap. I can’t stand all this stuff. How in the world are you guys, from your perspective, managing through that. What are the How are you setting yourselves with those crosswinds of all kinds of things going on? I think that would be a strategic discussion that would be worth going into in another show. That’d be, that’d be, that’d be great. We

could tell you, Andy, why the basic advice, hold on to your hat. I

I love it, I love it, I love it. Okay with that, I will say, guys, this has been a great discussion. It is. We’ve just barely even scratched the surface. And I’m telling you, y’all are gonna forget more than I’m gonna get to learn on some of this. And you are so fantastic. I love both of you guys, you just like man, the knowledge, the wisdom you all have is is phenomenal. So

we appreciate the opportunity. This is really cool. Thank

you, awesome. Well, thank

you. Well, folks simply trade. This is we. Thank you so much for our simply trade podcast listeners. Share this. Please be sure and share this, subscribe to us. We really need you to do that as well as reach out to Lalo myself. Then there’s Alan and Evan, and we’ll have their contact information

appropriately on our show notes. Reach out to us on LinkedIn, reach out to us and make comments or whatever. And if you’ve got some questions that you’d love for us to ask these guys for the next go round, please hit us with that, but with that, Laila, I’m going to turn it over to you to help close us out.

Yeah, well, we’re done. I mean, I in respect of your time and everything, but thank you so much. But we, we did, definitely talk to your team, and we’re hoping to have you guys back on if, if we need to. But thank you very much, and we will have follow up and even the application itself. But thank you for for your time and and hope to see you all and catch up to you maybe at a conference or two here in the future.

This was awesome. Thank you guys. Nice to meet you.