Jonathan Porter: 0:03

Change management is hard enough with a new system, and if you're having to also learn new processes and, you know, change your secret sauce, change the things that you've figured out work really well, you know, what's the point of a new system almost, right? You're, you're really not gaining much if you're having to give up your competitive advantage. And so many companies use their supply chain as a competitive advantage these days

Tom Raftery: 0:23

Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, wherever you are in the world. This is the Digital Supply Chain podcast, the number one podcast focusing on the digitization of supply chain, and I'm your host, Tom Raftery. Hi everyone, and welcome to episode 327 of the Digital Supply Chain podcast. My name is Tom Raftery and I'm excited to be here with you today sharing the latest insights and trends in supply chain. Before we kick off today's show, I want to take a moment to express my sincere gratitude to all of this podcast's, amazing supporters. Your support has been instrumental in keeping it going, and I'm really grateful to each and every one of you. If you're not already a supporter, I'd like to encourage you to consider joining our community of like-minded individuals who are passionate about supply chain. Supporting the podcast is easy and affordable. With options starting as low as just three euros or dollars a month, that's less than the cost of a cup of coffee, but your support could make a huge difference in keeping this show going strong. To become a supporter, simply click on the support link in the show notes of this and every episode, or visit tiny url.com/dsc pod. Now without further ado, I'd like to introduce my special guest today, Jonathan. Jonathan, welcome to the podcast. Would you like to introduce yourself?

Jonathan Porter: 1:38

Yeah. Thanks so much for having me, Tom. My name is Jonathan Porter. I am the founder and CEO of PorterLogic, a low-code supply chain operations platform. So I spent about a decade implementing and designing warehouse management systems at large firms like Manhattan Associates, as well as other small startups. And about three years ago started the company in the classic, there's gotta be a better way moment, which we can dive into if you're curious. But yeah, that's me. WMS and inventory systems are kind of my thing.

Tom Raftery: 2:05

Okay. I'm curious, tell, tell me what was it that, made you go out on your own and set up PorterLogic?

Jonathan Porter: 2:14

Yeah, I come from a really entrepreneurial background is the first part. So my parents have owned a residential construction company for something like 40 years and Wow. I had a side business making marketing collateral and websites in high school, so I kind of always knew I'd do something. It was just getting the timing right. And so, I left my last consulting role in 2019 pretty intentionally knowing I wanted to start a product, but spent a long time doing market research, talking to folks, interviewing, customer discovery, really be trying to be intentional about what problem I wanted to solve. And, got to the point that I just started hearing the same trend and it really aligned with my background. So I was the boots on the ground implementing large scale warehouse management systems. And these are 18 plus month projects. They take, you know, millions of dollars. And so just hearing it over and over again, that's really what set me down this path of, okay, there's gotta be a better way for customized warehouse management systems is really kind of where we started, but we've since pivoted slightly, but grown into more of a supply chain operations platform for mid-market brands. So, whether that means warehouse management or inventory management or procurement we're kind of an all in one end-to-end platform for your supply chain operations. But, yeah, it really started with just, I, I mean, I think I had 30 or 40 conversations with. Folks across the industry just from my network. And, that's really where, where we started. And yeah, I can't believe it's three years ahead. I mean, it, it, in some ways it feels like last week in some ways it feels like I've been doing this forever.

Tom Raftery: 3:47

And what are the main problems you're solving for organizations, Jonathan?

Jonathan Porter: 3:51

So there's really twofold. So one, if you are a company that manufactures something, so whether that's just packing a food kit or you know, some more complex operation around, you know, constructing building materials or something like that, help with the warehouse management side there. So, a lot of nuanced requirements come out of those types of operations you may need to do, receiving in the warehouse in a particular way due to food safety requirements. Or you may to do need to do allocation of inventory in particular way due to weight or length. So there's a lot of nuance around those types of problems that we solve for companies. The other main one is if you are a brand that uses three pls, which is very common, right, for these, CPG and food brands to rely on third party fulfillment partners. In those scenarios, we often solve an inventory management use case. You may not be doing your own warehousing, but you still have a network worth of inventory that you need to manage. You need to know what products are where, and how much you have, and how much value you have of that inventory in various places. So, our, it's a single platform that plugs into a lot of different places that you're already working, pulls data in, and then also visualizes data. So whether that's inventory management, whether that's warehouse management, we work on mobile devices for things like barcode scanners and, you know, everything you're used to with a traditional wms. But, we take a very different approach. It's all low code, it's all designed around workflows. So we tailor very specifically to the way that you and your company operate. And yeah, it's just, it's just a different take on, you know, this traditional WMS world and we're kind of turning it on its head.

Tom Raftery: 5:24

Okay, so just for people listening who might be working with WMSs, what's the big difference between what you have your platform and a traditional wms?

Jonathan Porter: 5:35

Sure. So our platform is built around low-code workflows. We actually call them logic flows, the flow of the logic that you want the system to be following. So compared to a traditional system that may have a number of configuration flags for, it's called receiving, receiving a box into a warehouse, that's kind of an easy example to talk about. So you may be able to switch a number of flags back and forth to affect how your receiving operates, but you're still limited to a finite number of options, whereas with our system, you can drag and drop blocks around to reorder the screens. All of our UIs are low code driven, so you can build screens in whatever format you need, whatever data points you need. So we can really specifically tailor it to a company's needs. I'll give you a very example, but we're working with a food brand and they wanted to do a two-part receiving process specifically because they wanted to hold the delivery drivers on their dock until they looked at all the inventory to make sure it wasn't moldy. Cause if it was moldy, they wanted to put it right back in the truck and not even bring it into their facility. So they needed this initial receiving process that they could just go quickly through everything. Then they wanted to do things like capture lot, capture expiration date, do serial tagging, things like that. So, it's not a traditional way that a warehouse management system would probably receive, but it's very driven by these, you know, food requirements that they have for their facility. So, we were able to structure workflows around those processes, having different blocks in the workflow that do each piece of that, gather data on a screen, query a database, do some logic or conditionals. And that's how we're able to really tailor our system specifically to what a company is needing out of their operational platform.

Tom Raftery: 7:14

Okay. And when you say it's low code, is that something that they could have done themselves but you stepped in and helped them out with it? Or is it something that you really, really should have a programmer help you out with?

Jonathan Porter: 7:26

No, our system is entirely designed that customers can do it themselves. Now, generally what we find is we come in and help initially. We actually bake into our subscription model, a set of initial implementation hours, because we want our customers to be successful as well. So we want customers as much as possible to, be able to do that themselves. And that way they can, you know, implement their systems the way that they need and really maintain what they are, you know, doing uniquely. So,

Tom Raftery: 7:52

Okay. And how long would it take for someone to come up to speed with a no-code solution or low-code solution like that?

Jonathan Porter: 8:00

Yeah, so. Really, we say that customers learn over the course of the initial onboarding. And so that's generally a three to eight week period, depending on the complexity of the system or depending on what you're trying to build. But we get you up to speed as part of that initial process. And then from there, you usually start making smaller tweaks first. So maybe you want to change the way that a screen looks, or maybe you want to change a conditional statement. And so over time you learn how the system operates and how the system works. It's all very visual. So honestly, one of the things, a lot of people see our workflows and they're immediately, they just get it, whether they're technical or non-technical. We've been very intentional about the ways that we put these, these, this system together, so that it's not intimidating for non-technical, but you can also access that level of detail you need. That's one thing I feel like a lot of low-code platforms fall short on sometimes, is that you can't actually get down to that level of detail, unless you're going into some real heavy coding side, right? I mean, there's a number of systems that kind of generate code in the background that you can edit, but you know, you're, to your point earlier, you're still having a programmer at that point, and that kind of defeats the purpose of the speed and agility of low code. So, we've allowed you to access that level of detail, but kind of obscured it in a number of different layers so that if you're technical, you can get to that point. If you're non-technical though, you can just look at the, you know, graphical workflows and know what the system's doing and design from there.

Tom Raftery: 9:21

Okay. There are lots of different solutions out there for different aspects of this. How well do you integrate with those?

Jonathan Porter: 9:33

Integration is a core part of what we do, and honestly, it's one of the things that I found the most fascinating when I started getting into this. So whether it was my time at Manhattan or otherwhere it making systems talk and making data interchange easy. I thought it was this black box forever. And then finally, actually somebody started teaching me how this integration works. And it was just fascinating. So, it's a core part of what we do, pulling data in and out of systems, whether that's across companies. So I mentioned three PL use cases. Pulling all that data in from your three pls. Or even pushing data out. So that's another thing. We're not just this integration platform that kind of puts data from one place to the other. We can actively do API calls or database queries to, you know, trigger events happening in your other systems. We really take this approach of like, don't replace what you already have that's already working. I think that that's one of the things that a lot of companies struggle with is how do you ever tackle this 10 million dollar behemoth project of replacing all of your systems and the way that our flexible system works, the way that we can integrate and push data in and out, it allows you to very incrementally start making changes to your supply chain. Enabling, you know, this automation here or taking this out of a legacy system and doing it over time so that then you build towards this, you know, better future state, but you're not having to take years and years building on a project and testing. And I mean, you know, I think we are all unfortunately aware that a lot of times these big projects end up not working out. Or end up getting ripped out later. And so we're trying to break that mold and give companies the technology they need to really operate the supply chain. I think that's the, another interesting piece of this is that for so long we've tried to force supply chain operations into systems that may not be the most optimal for it. Especially in this mid-market. We see ERPs often acting as that supply chain operational platform, and ERPs are wonderful at what they do, right? But they're rooted in accounting and finance. And when you then try and transition that into warehouse management, you know, code scanning and LP n tag that, they just break down. That's not what those systems are designed for. And so that's a lot of, you know, what we're trying to also do is push that you need an operational platform for your supply chain. And then, yeah, let us integrate with that accounting solution. Let that us integrate with those other solutions you're already using, but focus on a solution that can optimize your supply chain.

Tom Raftery: 11:53

So Jonathan, does, does that mean that your system, your platform, could be like a front end for a more inflexible backend solution that's already in place?

Jonathan Porter: 12:05

Yeah, that actually, that is a lot of what we do for companies as well. More once you're a little bit bigger than maybe, you know, you're implementing your first warehouse management system perhaps. But yeah, if you already have 'em and you're needing to optimize that, or you're needing to improve that, we sit on top of a warehouse management system or an E R P or something like that and interface directly with it, but then allow that flexibility to open up so, whether that's sending API calls back and forth or database queries. We work with flat files, like that's one of the main kind of core tenets of being able to pull data in and out. But then, yes, a lot, a lot of times the company already has a system that they're using. You know, maybe that's not even your core wms. Maybe that's just you have a legacy accounting solution and you've done accounting the same way for 30 years and you can't change it. So, it's inevitable that you're gonna have a system that you can't replace or that you don't want to replace for whatever reason. And so being able to work in that environment, not forcing you to replace systems that you already have, that's one of the key differentiators that we also, you know, can come into. The food brand I mentioned earlier, they already had some custom developed internal solutions. And they were using then another production management solution. And so the ability to be able to come in and play in a space where there's already other systems and to make those systems better at the same time, right? That's one of the things that we're focused on. We're not trying to replace, we're just trying to make your company's operations better whatever that system landscape is looking like.

Tom Raftery: 14:00

Okay. For people listening who might be a little unsure, how do they know that they need a system like yours apart from having moldy fruits sitting in the front of their loading bay?

Jonathan Porter: 14:16

Well, oftentimes companies, I would say, grow up in spreadsheets. That's one of the first places that you always start when you're, whether it's trying to track inventory or track purchasers, is you start with a spreadsheet and actually, that's not a bad thing. That's a really good place to start because it's quick, it's easy. You can try things. You're gonna make changes so you can add a column very easily. You know, just that kind of basic things makes spreadsheets a very good place to start. However, those types of human driven manual processes inevitably breakdown. Specifically when you get to a point of scale when you're starting to grow very fast and add new warehouses or new three pls, it becomes exceedingly difficult to just keep throwing people at the problem. And so that's on usually the point that we try and, talk to customers about is, are you at that point where just throwing more bodies at it really is not solving the pain? Are you growing faster than your spreadsheets can even keep up? Because there's where having this flexible system that can plug into all these different places really play as well. I'll give you another example. We had implemented a customer last year where their procurement team had a PO tracking spreadsheet, and they didn't want to get rid of it for, you know, a variety of reasons. And that's fine. Sure. There's really nothing wrong with that. We pick up that spreadsheet each night from the Dropbox location that it's in, and put it into the inventory management system so that the supply chain team still has visibility to what's on order, what's coming up. So we don't actually even have to replace your spreadsheet. If you know you have a team that's very married to it, we'll pick that up and process that data, along with your inventory data from all of your three pls, along with other internal data sources. So, being able to corral all that data specifically then, and not making you replace processes. I think that's really one of the key that it comes down to. If you change management is hard enough with a new system, and if you're having to also learn new processes and, you know, change your secret sauce, change the things that you've figured out work really well, you know, what's the point of a new system almost, right? You're, you're really not gaining much if you're having to give up your competitive advantage. And so many companies use their supply chain as a competitive advantage these days, so, I think that being able to come in and yeah, work with the existing processes and systems is critical for any application.

Tom Raftery: 16:34

Okay. And is there any one particular industry that you specialize in or are you pretty much across the board?

Jonathan Porter: 16:42

We generally find that our solution fits well with food and bev, as well as CPG and other retail brands. So, generally if you are bringing in product from suppliers or making it yourself to some degree you know, doing kitting processes or maybe you're doing a production of food kits. I keep talking about food kits. That's the project that well, I have on my mind right now, so, those are the types of companies though. Then, yeah, generally speaking also we, mid-market is where we really play well, so we can do up to enterprise, but you know, it's more of these companies that are growing really fast, know they need to scale, know they need better processes and systems, but are kind of just starting to come out of spreadsheets and looking for something that is flexible and can fit with their operations, better than some of the packaged systems.

Tom Raftery: 17:28

Okay. And are you North America, Europe, Asia, all of the above?

Jonathan Porter: 17:35

Yeah. We're based in Atlanta, so, predominantly North America, but we work with companies across the world, so, no, generally geography is not a, not a limiting part, although, yeah, based in Atlanta, based in the US

Tom Raftery: 17:46

Okay. And where to next? I mean, what's coming down the line for you guys in terms of your offerings?

Jonathan Porter: 17:54

We have done a lot around continuing to invest in our actual low-code platform and the low-code experience to continue to make it easier and easier for customers to maintain themselves. So that's one of, been, been one of our biggest focuses over the last, call it six months and will continue now. Um, There's some longer term initiatives we have around, making the platform do more and more for you. That's one of the things that's recently kind of come out from conversations we've had with customers is that they love the ability to tailor the system. but now we're looking to make that happen in a more automated fashion even so we're trying to push towards the, software, creating software almost kind of model, and you're seeing it in a number of different capacities. We have our kind of own take on how we see it, happening, but if you can get to the point that you can almost just tell the system what you want it to be. And it, you know, do a lot of that configuration for you. I think that the way that our logic flows are set up and the ability to drill down all the way to the detail if you need to, gives us an interesting, advantage over some of the alternatives in this space. But, that we're kind of, we're going into this direction of allow companies to just say whatever system they need and have the system be there and fit exactly to their operations. I think that's kind of the the pinnacle of, you know, if, if you were a director of operations and you could just tell, you know, sit in a design session for a day and say, here's what I want the system to do, and it just be there. You know, that's, that's kind of perfect. And I'm not gonna say we're gonna get exactly to that point, but that's kind of our, our North Star.

Tom Raftery: 19:25

Okay. Very nice. And, You started in 2019, 2020, kind of ballpark, which was just when we saw this kind of outbreak of covid, which everyone has, has had run-ins with in, in some form or other. How has that affected the, the shift in supply chain? How has that, or has this had any effect on yourselves and your customers?

Jonathan Porter: 19:51

It's been a wild couple years, I'll say. Yeah, we started in November of 2020 formally. I mean, I'd been thinking about the company previous to that but at the same time, yeah, it, it, it's been a pro and a con I'll say for sure. I mean, obviously the pandemic has been a horrible experience in so many ways, and I, I feel, you know, devastated for what it's done in some capacities, but in the same breath, you know, It has shone a light on supply chain. We really all now know how critical supply chains are even just town to food and toilet paper and you know, proteins in the grocery store and things. So, um, I will say coming out of it, there's a lot more focus on supply chain and digitizing supply chain and, you know, reducing risk, illumina eliminating, excuse me, human errors. And, that I think has been a big positive. I think that a lot of the supply chain professionals have known this industry and known what's going on. And I mean, we're used to disruptions, right? Mm-hmm. You know, for ship to beach itself in the Suez Canal, there's nothing new to us that just happens to now make the news cycle. And so, but leaders at companies are realizing that they have to make these investments. And that's one of the biggest trends that we've seen. Honestly, you know, we, we kind of grew up in the pandemic, but just over my entire supply chain career. There's just a lot more focus and investment on how can we make our supply chains better. So I think that's a really, a really positive thing to come out of the pandemic. But yeah, it's been up and down. I mean, you've seen some really interesting inventory trends. Demand forecasting is significantly harder this year than it's ever been. So, there's a lot of just Yeah. Recoils. And how do, how do you react to, you know, something as long term as this?

Tom Raftery: 21:27

And is it gonna settle down?

Jonathan Porter: 21:31

I think that it will settle to some degree from what we've seen. I mean, I, I think that I, I hope that we don't get to another point where toilet papers are not on the grocery store shelves. Right. But I think there is an inevitability to kind of the variations that you see in supply chain. I mean, the part of why I find supply chain so fascinating is it is the marriage of software and a physical good. Contrast it to not a lot of other, industries where it's maybe pure software. At the end of the day, the entire point of a supply chain operation is to get a box from point A to point B. And so, you know, there's just natural variation. There's just the, you Yeah. A, a ship's gonna, you know, drop a container because of a bad storm. And like, there's just things you can't control. So, I do think that there's an always going to be some level of that. Now having said that, that's also why we're trying to interject these flexible technology solutions because that's, I think the, the answer is you can't operate with these inflexible kind of static legacy systems forever. You need to get to a point where your business can change and adapt, because even if it's not for natural variation, I mean, you have changing business conditions all over the place. Consumer demands change and you know, different trends happen there. So this concept of needing flexibility and agility in your solutions and in your supply chain is, you know, a trend across the board. So, but to your question of my honest answer would be no, I don't think it's gonna ever settle down. I don't think supply chain ever has, I mean, all the way back to, you know, the first containers in the fifties. I think that's, that's always been this bit of controlled chaos, so.

Tom Raftery: 23:01

Okay. Cool. Cool. Jonathan, we're coming towards the end of the podcast now. Is there any question I haven't asked that you wish I had or I. Any aspect of this we haven't touched on that you think it's important for people to be aware of?

Jonathan Porter: 23:15

The one thing that I'd share here is just that I find supply chain and warehouse is fascinating. The software side of it, but just warehouses are a beautiful orchestration of, you know, millions of things happening all at once. And I just think that people probably don't think about what happens behind the scenes a lot. Right? They click a button on, you know, on a website and are almost mad when something doesn't show up two days later. Thanks Amazon. and that's fine, right? That's the consumer's job in a lot of ways. But it is just really, really fascinating what happens behind the scenes, all the different people that have to touch that box and how it gets from point A to point B. And I just, I think that the more people actually maybe look behind the curtain, I think that they'd find it really, really interesting actually, is kind of the thought that I'll leave you with there.

Tom Raftery: 24:01

Okay. Nice, nice. Jonathan, that's been great. If people would like to know more about yourself or any of the things we discussed in the podcast today, where would you have me direct them?

Jonathan Porter: 24:12

Yeah, I'm pretty active on LinkedIn, so that's a great place to find me, Jonathan Porter there. You can find out more information about Porter Logic, specifically at our website, porter logic.com. And, um, we're about to put out a content series about demystifying all these different capabilities specifically for these brands. So I'll send you the link. That might be a good thing to include. Perfect.

Tom Raftery: 24:30

Perfect. I'll put those links in the show notes and that way everyone will have access to them. Jonathan, that's been really interesting. Thanks and million for coming on the podcast today.

Jonathan Porter: 24:38

Thanks so much for having me. Really enjoyed the conversation.

Tom Raftery: 24:41

Okay, we've come to the end of the show. Thanks everyone for listening. If you'd like to know more about digital supply chains, simply drop me an email to TomRaftery@outlook.com If you like the show, please don't forget to click Follow on it in your podcast application of choice to be sure to get new episodes as soon as they're published Also, please don't forget to rate and review the podcast. It really does help new people to find a show. Thanks, catch you all next time.