John Sicard: 0:03

Safety stock is a tax on the planet. That's what that is. I'm not saying it isn't necessary to hold strategic inventory, but make no mistake when you have cascaded state safety stock through your entire bill of material at every point, you're taxing the planet. This comes back to the sustainability. Can you, can you be more resilient, be more agile while simultaneously doing less harm? The answer is yes.

Tom Raftery: 0:32

Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, wherever you are in the world. This is the Sustainable Supply Chain Podcast, the number one podcast focusing on sustainability and supply chains, and I'm your host, Tom Raftery. Hi, everyone. Welcome to episode 31 of the Sustainable 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 sustainability. Before we kick off today's show. I want to take a moment to express my gratitude to all of this podcasts amazing supporters. Your support has been instrumental in keeping the podcast going, and I'm really grateful for 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 sustainability and supply chains. 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 and your support will make a huge difference in keeping this show going strong. To become a supporter. You simply click on the support link in the show notes of this or any episode, or visit tiny url.com/s S C pod. In today's episode. I'm going to be talking to John Sicard, CEO of Kinaxis And in the coming weeks, I'll be talking to Chris Shrope from Model N where we'd be talking about manufacturing emissions. Cally Edgrin from Assent where we'll be talking about PFAS, forever chemicals. The week after I'll be talking to Kevin Frechette from FairMarkit, we'll be talking autonomous procurement. That's one to watch out for. And of course the week after that, again, talking to Dan Spitale from UPS Capital. So some excellent episodes coming up that you won't want to miss. And of course today's episode also awesome. Talking to John from Connexus. John welcome to the podcast. Who would you like to introduce yourself?

John Sicard: 2:26

Yeah, it's great to be here. Thanks for the invitation, Tom. So John Sicard, I'm a software engineer by training, but I figured maybe you can all go on LinkedIn and see all the things that I've done and still not know who I am. So maybe I'll start by saying things that you can't read on LinkedIn. I play drums, rock drums for about 45 years and I'm in a rock band. This is my absolute passion. You know, I've, I was able to meet one of my heroes of the day, Alice Cooper. So that gives you an idea of the type of music that I listen to. You know, so a musician at heart just absolute love supply chain. I think, you know, I'm, I'm thrilled to be part of this conversation because of it. I've got two boys well, they're men now. Alex and Nicholas. Married for 36 years and and hopefully another 36. So we'll, we'll see how that goes. But anyway, a little bit about me.

Tom Raftery: 3:16

And you are also CEO of,

John Sicard: 3:20

Kinaxis. Yes. CEO of Kinaxis. In fact, Tom, I've just crossed over my 30 year mark just a few weeks ago. It's shocking to say out loud, 30 years. You know, I've I guess I just, I'm not done yet. There's still more to do.

Tom Raftery: 3:40

Cool, cool. And John, for the one or two people out there who might not be familiar with Kinaxis, can you give us a kind of a potted history?

John Sicard: 3:47

Absolutely. I mean, Kinaxis, we have been, you know, insatiable innovators around supply chain planning and orchestration for as long as, as I can remember. We serve some of the largest, most well known brands in the world with end to end supply chain orchestration on a platform that's powered by AI. So it's essentially one platform to rule them all. And we're providing our customers with I'd say everything from the sales and operations planning, all the way through to on time and full, and production planning, and everything in between basically.

Tom Raftery: 4:21

Yeah. And you're, you're not kidding when you say innovators either. I mean, looking at the timeline on your website, you came out with an in memory database back in the nineties, if I remember correctly, uh,

John Sicard: 4:33

The 80s even.

Tom Raftery: 4:35

eighties, was it, there you go. That's how bad my memory is. I need an in memory database myself and cloud solutions back in the early two thousands and AI and ML solutions in 2018 or something like that. So. You know, that, that seems to me, you're kind of at the bleeding edge of a lot of these things.

John Sicard: 4:55

yeah, there's no doubt about it. And you know, the 30 years I've been here, I've been able to actually witness a lot of it firsthand. You know, we, we tend to think about what is needed, decades before it's needed. You know, in fact, a lot of people considered can access kind of like David Bowie way ahead of his time. But now we're coming into our own you know, post pandemic, I think we're starting to see. a worldwide, you know, what I'll call a worldwide renaissance around how supply chains are going to be governed in the future. And so some of the, you know, some of these innovations that we have been focused on for the past several decades are, are starting to become table stakes, frankly you know, for the new supply chain model.

Tom Raftery: 5:38

Right. Such as?

John Sicard: 5:41

Well, for one, I would say two things are, two, two narratives are colliding simultaneously that never collided before. Post pandemic every board is asking every CEO, so what are you going to do next time? Clearly our supply chain isn't, quote, as resilient as we thought it once was. That's a common term that we're, we're hearing. Now, simultaneously, many boards are responsible for ESG governance. And, you know, people may not realize that supply chain as a discipline represents approximately 60 percent of the world's global emissions. Just supply chain. And of that, you know, half of that is just food. And so, you know, boards are saying, what are you going to do next time? And, oh, by the way, can you do less harm at the same time? That wasn't a conversation you would hear, you know, even five or six years ago as commonly as you hear it now. And I'd say that's the nucleus, if you will, of the conversation that's driving this, this renaissance.

Tom Raftery: 6:49

Good. Good. That's good to hear, particularly as we're on the sustainable supply chain podcast. And you've said as well that the most carbon neutral product is the one that's never made. Can you, can you discuss that philosophy a little? How could it transform supply chain management? And also if we're not making stuff. How do we make money?

John Sicard: 7:11

yes, exactly. Well, you know, first I'll maybe start with a bit of a narrative around what supply chain is that maybe the listeners will find unique, even at least that, you know, in other conversations I've had, people have said, I've never really thought about supply chain that way. First I'll say supply chain is the oldest discipline in the world. Absolutely. Began when humanity began. It had one purpose only, and that was to serve humanity, to serve societies with the necessities of life. Maybe it started with, you know, as I like to imagine it, somebody sourced the right sized stick, sharpened that stick, traded that stick for a handful of food. That that's a supply chain there. There's sourcing and distribution happening and trade. And it starts with the necessities of life, and the niceties came later, but it starts with the necessities of life. So, you know, the only reason I described this Tom first is to get people anchored on just how mission critical supply chain actually is. It's, it's like the operating system for, for humanity. And so it's, it's necessary. Okay. We can't function as a society without it. Now. But as I said, it starts with the necessities of life and niceties came later and yes, I think the, the most expensive inventory is the one that you can't sell. So you, you source the material, you fabricated it, you put it in a warehouse somewhere and you heated it up until someone might want it. This, this kind of just in case inventory is by far the most expensive and the most taxing to the planet. So yes, it is philosophical, a philosophical statement to try to imagine like with precision, exactly how many widgets will I need? What exactly is my demand? And I will say we are moving away from this outside in kind of perspective where I'm going to, I'm going to make an assumption as to how many I'm going to sell. And then I'm going to push it onto the market. Even Laura Cecere has been talking about outside in where it's like, well, you have to be able to operate your business in a much more high velocity way to absorb actual demand requirements. And so ideally you get to the end of the year and you have zero waste. Theoretically, imagine you've only made exactly the number of cell phones or gadgets that you have sold in that year and not a single one more. Then that's, that's really operating a supply chain at perfection. That is doing the least amount of harm to the planet while simultaneously serving your market with precision, what is required. Now it's theoretical. It's, it's, I'd say it's nearly impossible to be perfect, but we can be a lot better than we were. That's the point of this renaissance.

Tom Raftery: 10:14

Sure, sure, sure. As they say, aim for the stars. And if you hit the moon, well, you're not doing too bad.

John Sicard: 10:20

No, exactly.

Tom Raftery: 10:23

So, I mean, we've talked about, the need for resilience as well. And how, how can companies balance the need for resilience with the imperative for sustainability? Are there specific strategies that can help achieve both?

John Sicard: 10:41

Well, I think there, I think there is. And first, you know, I, the term resilient is hyper used right now. Even to the point where sometimes when I use it, you know, the person I'm talking to will

Tom Raftery: 10:56

yeah. eyes glaze over.

John Sicard: 10:57

eyes, even though they're like, you know, they're being, they're being kind, but they're like, Oh, there's that word again, but I'm tired of that word. But I will say just think of that word more so as it's meaning, right? Resilience is the capacity to avoid or recover from hardship. Think of it as that. And so what you're trying to do is build a supply chain that can either avoid or recover from hardship very, very quickly. And we're, we're now living in a world where, well, uncertainty is really the only certainty. In fact, there was a mathematician. I can't remember what school he taught at. But John Allen Paulos said, uncertainty is the only certainty there is. knowing how to live with insecurities is really the only security. It's a very powerful statement, but it gets you thinking, Hmm, then how do I, how do I succeed if that's true? So I do think there are, you know, post pandemic people are starting to realize a couple of things. We're. We're coming off of at least three decades with an absolute obsession for accuracy, so much attention and tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars being spent by every company, not just collectively. I mean, every company will spend tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars to see if they can squeeze out just one or two more percentage points of accuracy. And you might. You might be or you might be aware of that terminology of forecast accuracy and that constant pursuit for perfection. After the pandemic, here's the uncomfortable truth. Every single one of those math models collapsed, like in a heap of garbage, they collapsed. Even the machine learning algorithms, by the way. Now it's not an indictment on math based algorithms as a, as a pursuit. And I have to be so careful when I say these words out loud, because a lot of mathematicians, you know, I could raise the ire there of that crowd. And I don't want to, I, you know, as I said, that's not the intent. It's not an indictment on math based models whatsoever. It is an indictment though, on the presumption that math based models make you agile, make you resilient. And not by themselves they sure don't not by themselves. They don't. And and that's what we learned. So I do think there is a path forward that we can explore. It starts first and foremost. Maybe I'll, I'll start here and then pause with the realization that this madness, this absolute mad obsession for accuracy has been at the expense of agility. Agility is a competence, but it, you know, we've spent decades just thinking about accuracy as the panacea. If only my plan were more perfect, I'd be in less pain. That was the assertion. Well, it's now being seen more so as a, a bit of a fool's errand. There's a, there's a competence missing there. And so I'll start there and say, you know, the path to resilience starts with the realization that we've been missing a competence and I would, I would posture that that competence is agility.

Tom Raftery: 14:21

Okay. Okay. Fascinating. It's, it's not something I think I've heard anyone in the podcast say before, so very, very profound. I

John Sicard: 14:32

that's a good thing.

Tom Raftery: 14:33

it is, it is, it is. It's, yeah, no, it's, it's a, it's a new take. So that's good. While. I think it's fair to say technology is a significant driver of change. And, you know, that's why we're here on the podcast. It's, I mean, it's obvious that it's not enough on its own. And you've talked about this in the past. Can, can you elaborate on how changes in techniques such as concurrency and orchestration can compliment technological advancements to enhance supply chain sustainability?

John Sicard: 15:04

Yes, absolutely. I would, I would say that and again, not to not to suggest in any way, shape or form that technology isn't part of the solution here as we go forward. I think we've been missing a trick or 2 by applying so much attention to accuracy. I will. The other thing I would say around technique is that we've also, I would say we've, we've also been, we've been led down this wrong assumption that if you optimize every chain link, you've optimized the chain. And so, you know, supply chain as a discipline has been focused on what I call functional excellence. I'm going to be the best demand forecaster in the world. I don't know what happens after I hand my forecast over. There's someone else, two or three chain links down and they're running some multi echelon inventory optimization algorithms to optimize inventory. And they don't necessarily know what's going on around them. You know, this is equivalent to a sports team where it's perfectly legitimate for players to celebrate when the team loses, if they win, you know, the team, you know, I, I, to use a hockey analogy, I'm, I'm Canadian. So hockey is kind of the big sport in Canada, but you know, I often say no one should celebrate a hat trick when the team loses four to three. And yet those are the conditions we've created in supply chain. This siloed cascaded approach has been part of the problem. When you have this, well, two things, one, you're using, you know, you, you have an obsession for accuracy, but worse yet, you're, you're obsessing over accuracy of each chain link separately. Then you haven't really optimized the chain at all for one thing. The other thing you've done is you've created the conditions where teammates are operating in the dark. You know, there's blindness between them because they're so focused on just their functional excellence. They're, they have no understanding of how does this entire system work. There is a lot of waste in that in that model, Tom, I'd say this, you know, waterfall cascaded approach by definition is lethargic. It's slow moving. I've never talked to a practitioner that says, Oh, our waterfall is really fast. They, they, they usually look at me and grin and go, yeah, it's a little lethargic. And who's last to know? Logistics, they're at the end of it, you know, warehousing, they're at the end. So, so that's a, you know, that is one of the fundamental shifts in this technique where it starts with the recognition that the techniques that we've been applying this waterfall, you know, siloed approach is lethargic. Well, can you be simultaneously lethargic and agile at the same time? No. I mean, in fact, lethargy is probably the most poisonous element to agility. And so this comes back to, yeah, that narrative of let's talk technique first. Forget about the technologies, this notion of a cascaded technique, this waterfall, is lethargic. Lethargy, poisonous for agility. You know, I, I'll pause there just to get a reaction if that resonates with you, Tom.

Tom Raftery: 18:33

Yeah, no, I mean, it makes a lot of sense. So how do you fix that though?

John Sicard: 18:40

Well, there's a couple of things I would say, there are a couple of prerequisites, I would say, when you move from what we describe as this waterfall approach, this cascaded approach, to use a term, to one that is concurrent. When you move to a concurrent. technique, you make it impossible to plan one function without simultaneously planning them all. So that's, that's pretty fundamental. You have to sort of pause there and go, wait a minute. That means if I'm planning inventory, I'm going to instantaneously see the impacts on either side. If I'm doing a sales and operations plan in a concurrent environment, it's going to be impossible to create a candidate that breaks a, breaks a constraint that a supplier, it could be three chain links down, five chain links down. Correct. So by definition, when you, when you have a concurrent environment like that, where you plan everything simultaneously, there are no silos, you've essentially codified agility.

Tom Raftery: 19:45

Right.

John Sicard: 19:46

You've codified an agile framework versus a lethargic one. You've also, just by that simple technique change, the notion of moving from cascaded to concurrent not only have you codified agility, But you've eliminated this flawed thinking of optimizing one chain link at a time. Those things don't, you never, I mean, now you're playing a team sport. Now you're making it impossible for a player to score a hat trick and the team loses. There's no celebration in the, you know, in the room, you know, so I'd say those are, those are critical pieces there I've often used the term transparency that comes with concurrency. One of the challenges, again, going back to the techniques of the past, this waterfall, this lethargic cascaded approach, it breeds blindness between functions. So common you know, that I would ask if I ask people in operations, whether they trust the people on the commercial side, and again, they, they never say no, but they grin, you know, there's a, there's an answer in their facial expression, and it's not because they're bad people. It's not because, you know, they, they show up to work with, you know, mal intent, you know, harm their, fellow employees. That's not the point. But there's blindness between them because the systems created that blindness. And well, you can't trust what you don't see. Right. And so now you start to have a trust problem with the technique. Fascinating. So again, when you start moving into this direction of concurrency, you codify agility and you also make it flawlessly transparent, tip to toe. It's literally impossible not to understand the implications of your decisions on either side of you. And, and that wasn't the case in the old world. Well, by definition That makes you agile. And the more agile you become, the more resilient you are, right? This is one of the key attributes, not the only one. I know a lot of listeners may say, yes, there's resilience in the physical supply chain too, and we can certainly have that conversation. You know, but the point of this exercise around concurrency in supply chain in a, in a supply chain governance model is to make you hyper agile. Now the back to sustainability, the more agile you are, okay. The more likely you are to respond to, to uncertainty. And right now the only way to respond to uncertainty is to tax the planet more hairy, more inventory. Well, that's again, people would just say, well, it's safety stock. Safety stock is a tax on the planet. That's what that is. I'm not saying it isn't necessary to hold strategic inventory, but make no mistake when you have cascaded state safety stock through your entire bill of material at every point, you're taxing the planet. This comes back to the sustainability. Can you, can you be more resilient, be more agile while simultaneously doing less harm? The answer is yes. Will you ever get to theoretical zero? Well, it's a great pursuit. We'll get better every single day. You can get 1 percent better a day for a year. Let me tell you, that's, that's getting a lot better.

Tom Raftery: 23:17

It sounds like a big change for organizations though. And we know changing technology is very straightforward. Changing people less so. So how do you deal with the organizational disruption that making that kind of a change causes?

John Sicard: 24:09

Yeah, there's I mean, you're bringing up a, an absolutely valid point. Just one of the reasons why I say, while this is necessary and I've had I've had shareholders ask me, you know, what's the likelihood that people will adopt this new way of governing supply chain. My answer is always 100%. There's a 100 percent chance that people will move in this direction. What I don't know is at what speed. If you don't, you will, you will perish. I think that's true. It's kind of like going back, Tom, imagine saying, you go back before the internet was born. And some people were early adopters of email

Tom Raftery: 24:49

Mm hmm.

John Sicard: 24:50

and some people still, there was a group of people that would still lick some stamps. Now, eventually, if you ask what's the likelihood that, you know, people will continue to write letters and lick stamps to conduct business. There's a 100 percent chance that people are going to move away from that into electronic medium and email and so on. Now, when you do receive a letter, it's usually from a lawyer, you know, anyway all this to say, I think, you know, we are moving in this direction. But to your point, the people management side of it has to be taken into account. Which is why I often say it takes managerial courage to take that first step. Okay, because the other narrative that I'm hearing, Tom, there's another narrative that I'm hearing, and that's chief supply chain officers telling me, I kind of have to leave it better than I got it. You know, there's a bit of that going on, right there. They've been practitioners for 25 years. But during that 25 year period, obviously nobody's lived through a global pandemic like we just did. And so, this is now boardroom conversation. The Renaissance is afoot. Some are, are adopting the movement earlier than others. But we're definitely seeing a bit of legacy pull there with, with chief supply chain officer saying, I need to leave it better than I got it. Now, in, in order to pull people along with you, I do think it's important to talk first and foremost about the shift in technique, not technology. One thing I've noticed, and I don't know if you've experienced this, there tends to be a lot of emotion around technology. This is my software, and I'm an expert in it, and don't take it away from me. And there's that, a bit of an emotional pull, I'd say. Whereas, when you elevate the conversation away from technology, and say, listen, let's just talk about ways of working. It changes. safer, I'd say, to talk about. And so when you, when you describe the, when you describe the problem in the, in those terms first, I think you get more adoption from, from the user community. Right. That's, that's where I'd say it would start, but certainly change management has to be part of any project like this.

Tom Raftery: 27:15

Yeah, no, absolutely. What about the whole movement towards Net zero, zero carbon, a hundred percent zero carbon supply chains and digital supply chains, obviously as well. What are kind of key steps companies need to take to work towards that goal and what benefits can they expect from such a transformation?

John Sicard: 27:39

Yeah. I'd, I mean, I, I think the pursuit is right. You know, when, when people say net zero yes, the theorists would say, well, that's not going to be necessarily possible, in all aspects of life. But that doesn't make the pursuit any less valid. The whole point of it is to say, can we do less harm? We're doing too much harm to serve humanity. Basically. Well, again, as I said, I said, 60 percent of the world's emissions comes, comes from supply chain of that 30 percent of that half is food. So, you know, like, okay, well, the food supply chain is pretty important. We're going to have to continue to till and farm and, and, and grow food and distribute it and keep it cool when it's supposed to and all of that it's valid. But can we do less harm? I think that's the, that is the point of it. Being digital. Well, this is an interesting conversation. Most companies would, if you ask them, are you digital? Well, everything's in a digital database somewhere. What's ERP? Big digital software that houses everything. The point isn't so much being digital, but it is more so how you are digital. So the, the point I was making about this cascaded approach. Let me give you an example of where this, our current digital strategy fails us. If you ask a practitioner how often their statement of demand is replicated in their supply chain, how many times is it copied? Well, we have a version that sits with the executives. In the sales and operations plan. And then they hand it to the master schedulers. And what do you think they do? The first thing they do is change it. So now you're wow. So, so it's no longer now it's muted. So demands mutable. Okay. So after the master scheduler is finished, they handed it off to the capacity people, what do you think they do? Change it, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So it's not enough just saying we have to be digital. I'd say one of the attributes about a hundred percent digital is making sure there's no no duplicate data hanging around there. People, there's really only one truth. There should be one statement of demand, one statement of supply. There should be one operating model for supply chain that got, or at least the, the attributes that govern if they're mutable between functions, you have absolute chaos. Even if it's digital. So I'd say the attributes matter very, very much. And in fact, when we talk to customers about prerequisites to being concurrent, it starts with having one data structure to rule them all. You know, there's a, there's one of these things that you learn when you talk to practitioners, if you ask them, do you ever go to a meeting where the first argument is about whose data is right, and again, everyone chuckles because they know now that's a symptom of a problem. That's not a problem. It's a symptom of one, the fact that everyone is allowed to have their own version of truth. So the future supply chain, you could argue about the data, but there's only one set of it. There's only one reality, you know, reality shouldn't be mutable, mutable between functions. Anyway, I, so I, I do think you know, I'd say appropriate digital content. It starts, it starts with the attributes that I just described. And I don't think you're ever going to get anywhere close to net zero or in that pursuit of net zero, if you continue to have this, you know, what I call it a digital strategy that allows for mutation of truth between functions. That's just, that is a path to pure chaos.

Tom Raftery: 31:27

Fair enough. Fair enough. And I mean, you've mentioned AI and ML a few times now. And as I said, you know, according to the timeline on your, your website, it was back around 2018 that you launched, I think your first AI and ML platforms or applications. What do you think, what do you think are some of the most promising applications of these technologies for enhancing sustainability and efficiency in supply chains?

John Sicard: 31:53

There's a couple of things that we have a lot of interest in you know, around machine learning and AI. And first, I'll say this isn't new technology. I know a lot of startups would want you to think that it's just new stuff, but every mathematician I talked to about how awesome and new it is, they roll their eyes at me and say, do you know how long we've been working on this? Like, you know, the mathematics behind it is quite well known. Now it's application has been very interesting. We started thinking, you know, first a use case that considers the supply chain as being a machine. So imagine that in your head, a supply chain is a machine designed by humans with a performance intent. Everybody I say that to would say, I agree with that. It is a machine. It's a virtual machine for sure. Designed with attributes and a performance intent. Okay. Well, one of the things that's really hard for humans to do is to continuously monitor every design parameter of that supply chain. All tens and tens of thousands of them, and continuously monitor how, how right were your assumptions. And so machine learning algorithms can very simply continuously monitor as designed. Against as demonstrated. So there's a design intent and then there's an actual demonstration in the real world. And certainly there's going, you know, as I say, supply chains vibrate. It's kind of like going and driving a car, a car is a machine, you have shock absorbers. Well, supply chains have shock absorbers too. And the whole idea is to absorb vibrations. But You know, in some cases we, we see supply chains that are vibrating so violently that, you know, people can't even sit still it's, it's. You're absorbing a tremendous amount of volatility. And in cases like that machine learning algorithms can automatically adjust the design. That's just fascinating. Think about, you know, and, and by the way, you know, it may only do it certain months of the year. It's kind of like in Ottawa. You don't drive around in winter tires all year round, but there is a point in time where you better have you know, the design to your car will call for winter tires because otherwise you're sliding all over the road. It's very dangerous. That's just a simple analogy. But imagine, and we've seen this with customers where, you know, I'd say certain raw materials just, just seems to be really difficult to get in September and October, just those two months. Yes, you can look at causal factors to figure out why, but it's more important for the algorithms to detect that for you. So that's one area. I'd say the next you know, I'd say there's a lot of traditional uses right now, even Kinaxis uses machine learning and AI to improve forecast accuracy. We talked about earlier, but the one thing that these algorithms are able to do is ingest unstructured data, sentiment data, weather patterns, sporting events, all kinds of things absorbing a tremendous amount of data that was impossible by, I'd say, traditional forecasting, and you're able to squeeze out more performance on the accuracy side. So there, there you go. It, the pursuit of accuracy isn't, there's no indictment on it. It's still a good pursuit. But that's a, I'd say a more traditional usage of machine learning AI. And lastly. And I think this is going to be a huge, huge, huge, huge value proposition for this technology is to what I say, what I call automate the obvious. And you, you can only do this safely on top of a concurrent engine. You know, when you think of the hundreds and hundreds of thousands of transactions that are required to run a supply chain every single day. Well, today automation doesn't cover the vast majority of those transactions. A lot of humans do. And I believe we will get to a point where 80 percent of those transactions can be safely automated. Hands free from tip to toe. And when I say automating, it's not just, well, we, we're doing inventory transactions. We're automating those. Okay. Well, that's one chain link. You're still stuck in the past. Focused on one link at a time. Think about an entire supply chain where all transactions are being safely automated, or at least a large portion of them. That will be a huge step forward in, in in an agile supply chain. Think of the speed at which you can operate. When you can safely automate 80 percent of your transactions. And by definition you'll be less wasteful. And if you're less wasteful, well, you're doing less harm to the planet. You're doing less harm to the planet. Well, then your carbon footprint will shrink.

Tom Raftery: 36:38

Nice. Yeah. For our listeners who are eager to implement more sustainable practices in their supply chains, what kind of practical steps would you recommend? How can they begin making a tangible impact immediately?

John Sicard: 36:56

Well, you know, you can't improve what you can't measure. So the immediate you know, I'd say step is, is to explore ways of measuring the impact your decisions are having on the planet. You know, I'd say traditional scorecarding of supply chain always has financial measures, you know, what's a on time info, and revenue, and margin, and inventory costs, and expediting costs, and caucus, that's all, that's it. And so when you make business decisions or trade offs, it's often governed by financial implications. And so step one is to appreciate that every decision you make will have a positive or negative impact on the planet. Can you measure it? Okay, so we at Kinaxis, we certainly have a sustainability index of every, on every decision you make. We'll, we, you know, we tell the viewer, the person using the software, am I taxing the planet or am I helping the planet? It doesn't, you know, it's just a, a data point that people weren't using before in their decision making process. That has got to be step one. It doesn't mean that it'll instantly turn into a you know, a massive improvement overnight. But that education, you know, where people know every decision I make has an impact on the planet, not just the business, you have to be balanced. Yes, decisions I make have an impact on the success of the business I'm running. Yes. They also have an impact on the planet. So, you know, let me be more balanced in, in how I how I track decisions.

Tom Raftery: 38:40

Okay. Okay. We're coming towards the end of the podcast now, John, is there any question I did not ask that you wish I did or any aspect of this we haven't touched on that you think it's important for people to think about?

John Sicard: 38:55

I think one thing that, you know, people might think about is the, the difference between say a Renaissance and going after a breakthrough versus just doing what you're doing now only better. I think we are living through a point now where incrementalism is really the race to mediocrity. And people are realizing, yeah, I have to shake my head here or you know, I often use this analogy, you know, when you rub your eyes and you get all kinds of colors and you open them and you have to wait for the colors to settle. It gives you a sort of fresh perspective on what you're viewing. I think people have to rub their eyes and let the color settle and start thinking about you know, what will I leave future generations? Right. If I'm a supply chain practitioner and 60 percent of the world's carbon footprint is related to the craft for which I am responsible for, then what will the future hold? Am I going to be an incremental thinker or am I going to go after a breakthrough? It takes some degree of courage. I will say this to take that step. But there are some phenomenal companies in the world that are already trailblazing a path. It's not like you know, you have the Unilevers and the Proctors and, and so on that are all moving in this direction already. Interestingly, you know, they're, they're already masters in, you know, according to the Gartner top 25, they're in this master's category and yet they're trailblazing the next 30 years for us. So I would say, you know, to the viewers is recognize the value of taking that giant leap. It's a generational shift we're living through right now. It's not an incremental oh, I just need to make it better for the next three years. Now, if I don't, I might not survive three years. The mechanism may not survive the next three years. I've got to rethink the model for the next 30 so that the generations coming in after me. Will benefit from, from what I do now.

Tom Raftery: 41:02

Very good. Very good. Okay. John, if people would like to know more about yourself or any of the things we discussed on the podcast today, where would you have me direct them?

John Sicard: 41:14

Well for Kinaxis, certainly you know, the, the website for, for me personally LinkedIn, you know, I love having conversations about this discipline and I'm always open to debate. And learn, right? That's the thing when you have exchanges like this, you either learn a thing you didn't know or you teach a thing that someone else didn't. And both are positive outcomes. And so I love having exchanges like that. So people can certainly reach out and find me on LinkedIn.

Tom Raftery: 41:43

Great. Superb. John, that's been fascinating. Thanks a million for coming on the podcast today.

John Sicard: 41:49

Thank you, Tom. Thanks for having me.

Tom Raftery: 41:52

Okay. Thank you all for tuning into this episode of the Sustainable Supply Chain Podcast with me, Tom Raftery. Each week, thousands of supply chain professionals listen to this show. If you or your organization want to connect with this dedicated audience, consider becoming a sponsor. You can opt for exclusive episode branding where you choose the guests or a personalized 30 second ad roll. It's a unique opportunity to reach industry experts and influencers. For more details, hit me up on Twitter or LinkedIn, or drop me an email to tomraftery at outlook. com. Together, let's shape the future of sustainable supply chains. Thanks. Catch you all next time.