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Hey, good morning, good afternoon, good evening wherever you may be.

Scott Luton and the one and only Enrique Alvarez here with you on Supply Chain now.

Welcome to today's live stream.

Hey Enrique, how you doing today?

I'm doing great, Scott.

It's always fun and it's been twice in the same week hanging out with you.

So I appreciate this week.

It's been great.

Thanks for having me here.

You bet.

So I owe your rock and roll star agent a nice big fruit basket because we've been able to get two of your very valuable hours this week.

And you know, not only is it fun, but I learned a ton from the international man of mystery, which is one of Enrique's many nicknames.

Great to see you here, Enrique, my dear friend.

But Enrique, better yet, it's the buzz, folks, where every Monday at 12 noon Eastern Time we discuss a variety of news and developments across global supply chain and business.

And today we are not going to disappoint.

We've got a big show with great guests joining us.

Technology is going to be a big theme here, but Enrique, we got to keep it real.

Those of you that are tuned into the live stream here, hey, we recorded today's session because I'm currently out at Sapik's annual conference in Cape Town, South Africa, meeting some wonderful movers and shaker across global supply chain, doing big things across the incredibly innovative continent of Africa.

We're going to be back live with you next week and we always like to keep it real along those lines.

But again, outstanding show here today.

Enrique Alvarez, lots of great topics.

Get this, we're going to be diving into key observations on the global freight market.

Excellent research on what supply chain leaders are seeing out in the market, especially as it relates to technology implementation.

Been there, done that.

Advice along those lines, advice for selecting and implementing tech solutions and a whole bunch more.

And Enrique, as if that's not good enough, as if that's not good enough, we've got a couple of special guests joining us in about 15 minutes.

Brian Greene and Laura Byer with realized solutions.

So folks, should be a great show.

Enrique, are you ready to go?

You're always ready to go, huh?

I'm ready to go.

And as you said, we have very good guest as well.

It's going to be a fun, exciting and very interesting boss like they usually are.

And it's funny that we're pre recording this because you're going to be in South Africa.

So great, great deal.

I'm trying just to be just like you, Enrique.

But kidding aside, you know, supply chain is a global team sport and it's really important to get out and meet folks in person, break bread and talk shop.

And it's certainly an honor to do so.

So, Enrique, there's two things that we want to hit before we bring on our wonderful guests here today.

And I want to start with the first of those items which to gain some of your expertise and perspective because Enrique, I stole a picture.

And the Vector Global logistics team, y' all do a lot of work, but you also have fine tunnels.

Oh, wow.

How about that?

So you got to tell me before we get into some of your global freight market observations, this looks like a beautiful sunset on a mountain perch somewhere.

Do you recall where this was?

I do, and I'm going to have to correct you there.

It's not a sunset, it's a sunrise.

And this is in our office in Aguascalientes.

One of the things that I like to do when I go and visit my team in Aguascalient is invite people to come and climb this very easy 35, 40 minute hike up the Cerro del Muerto, which is the mountain of the dead, because it looks like a little dead person lying.

And that's before.

So we gather around 5, 30, depending on when the sun's coming out.

And then we just climb up and try to watch the sunrise early morning, which is great.

Healthy habit.

I love that.

Now I assumed it was sunset because I could see you baking in a happy hour with a great hike up the mountain.

But I stand corrected.

I appreciate, appreciate you sharing the background there.

And I, I really, again, I love how you bake into the culture of the company beyond the great work you do, but great quality time with the team members that make everything happen.

Okay, so you've been working with companies, as our audience knows, all around the world for years to get stuff delivered on time and in full.

I'd like for you in this interesting start we've had, we're almost halfway through 2025.

It's crazy.

Share a few observations on what you're seeing right now out in the global freight market.

Absolutely.

And I'll give you three to start with and then we can deep dive into one of those.

The first, and everyone already knows this, is that tariffs from China came down from 145% to 30%, which actually has prompted an increase in freight activity, 50 to 100% more freight coming into our ports week by week basis.

This is interesting and it will be also a challenge because this surge of shipments will make the ports congested and it will probably be another two extra challenge to our supply chain.

So people are rushing to ship into the country, which is both interesting and good.

And everyone's trying to take advantage of this 90 day window before anything else happens.

And there's no stock outs on supply chain challenges, is that right, Enrique?

No, no.

It's always fun, right?

I mean there's always something new.

There's always something that you have to face and challenge and be creative about.

And of course we have seen steamship lines, most of them announced price increases up to 3 to $4,000 applicable June 1st.

So again, if you're one of the shippers out there, try to ship as quickly as possible because there's some very high increases coming up.

Yes.

And you know, we may touch on this when we get our guests here too.

But that whiplash effect you're alluding to, right?

Tariff spiked, nothing was coming.

And then tariffs come back down as they continue negotiations.

Now everybody's trying to get product in.

It's what's old is new again and history repeats itself.

But Enrique, so that was the first key takeaway.

You got two others.

I think another one that we have to pay attention to is the fee for Chinese built vessels that is going to be applicable in October this year.

And so steamship lines right now are trying to adjust their fleet.

Just to give you an example to our audience.

CMA alone I think it's around less than 50% of their vessels were made in China.

And so everyone's trying to see how they can change the rotations, adjust their fleet, make sure the vessels that were not made in China come to the US to avoid paying this extra fee.

Of course, companies like Costco and some of the other Asian based carriers are going to be struggling a little bit more and we'll see what happens with that as well.

That's an interesting initiative I'm hoping in our shipbuilding industry for a variety of reasons, some common doesn't surprise anybody and then maybe some reasons that may surprise folks.

It's really been decimated and we've got a lot of work to do to be able to regain shipbuilding capacity in this country, whether it's for military reasons or the private sector.

So we'll see.

I'm not sure if this approach and the two aren't necessarily connected in terms of these new fees and what we're trying to do with reinvigorating the shipbuilding industry, but we've got our work cut out for us in order to do just that, don't we Enrique?

Absolutely.

And as you said, right from a strategic standpoint, we definitely need to regain some capabilities that we have lost.

Now the question that everyone kind of keeps talking about is so what's the best way of doing it and do we have a good implementation, a good strategy plan to achieve it?

And I think those two things that are a little bit more questionable, if you will, and those are two things that of course people are going to be talking about and supply chain managers around the world are going to really pay close attention to to try to come up with smart, efficient and effective solutions for their companies.

Yes.

And one last note before you move on to your third global freight market observation is this is nothing new folks, but our job as ambassadors for holistic global supply chain, which includes manufacturing and many other sectors, we have got to step up our game and really communicate the value proposition that careers especially I think in manufacturing, we've had some challenges in recent years.

You know, I think there's a lot assumptions made about what large swaths of the manufacturing industry looks like and that's not necessarily true as manufacturing has evolved along with the golden age of technology here in recent years.

And you know what I hear, Enrique?

I can't remember what smart person told me this, but they were talking about how our parents are our first consultants and if the parents think the manufacturing is dark, dingy and dead end, that's what they're going to instill in their kids.

And that might be one of the primary challenges we have.

We got to reach not just the kids, we've got to reach our parents and communicate an accurate view of career opportunities across global supply chain.

But I'll save that for another show.

I reckon your quick comment there and then we can roll right into your next observation, right?

No, that's absolutely right.

And I think that a lot of people have been very critical about our industry in the last couple of months.

And I just wanted to say to your point that times like this also present a lot of opportunities.

So try to kind of keep a level kind of view of what's going on and why it's happening.

And then as someone told us that we interviewed yesterday, it's very important to have trustworthy, reliable, efficient and purpose driven teams among us.

It's going back to your team, your culture, your company and how to use what you have to face.

What we're facing yes.

And folks, stay tuned for that interview we're going to be releasing soon with Jenny Stotaker.

I loved her analogy, Enrique.

I think she talked about use what's already in your fridge rather than going out to grocery store.

Use what's in the fridge.

That's.

I love that analogy.

Any food analogy works with me, Enrique.

But nevertheless, do you remember the book.

That she actually recommended to us?

Because I feel like that's.

I do, I do.

I got my note right here.

Hang on.

So Likable Badass is the book that she touted yesterday.

And one of the main thrusts there is finding that balance between all the different personality factors, especially in this case, if you're going to be outspoken and really going to share your voice and your thoughts, which is so important.

Jenny was talking about how we can balance that.

So just like the book, you're a likable badass.

So check that out wherever you get your books from and let us know what you think if you give it a read.

All right, Enrique, We've gone all the way around the horn corn and then some back to the global freight market.

So what's that third observation?

So the third one, a little bit more, I guess, strategic in nature and a little bit longer term.

The imo, the International Maritime Organization has just finished drafted a framework to reduce carbon emissions.

The net zero goal is 2050, but they're going to start in 2028 with a global carbon pricing mechanism to charge or fee vessels that are over a certain threshold.

I think it's $100 per ton of CO2 threshold.

So good news for the sustainability and green initiatives around the world.

Hopefully this will stick and we'll see some advantages of that.

We have lots of opportunities, lots of opportunities.

And I'm with you.

I am practically optimistic that we can continue making strides not just across global supply chain, but all of industry to take care of our home planet more.

Because I'll tell you, as much as I am a space nerd and I love what we're seeing and love some of the ambitious plans, we're not going to be able to move to Mars or the moon anytime soon, are we, Enrique?

Well, and even if we do, if we don't have a planet, it will be hard to launch those rockets from.

I think we need to do both, right?

I think exploration and creativity and it's, it's good.

It inspires people, it fuels that human capability for dreaming big projects.

But we've got to take care of our planet.

That's definitely a priority.

That's Right.

Plus can you imagine the HOA fees up there in Mars?

They would be tremendous.

That'd be tremendous.

But anyway, all right, good stuff.

I appreciate you putting your finger on the pulse of the global freight market where y' all are working every single day and sharing your insights.

One more thing I want to hit before we bring on two outstanding guests here on today's edition of the Buzz, and that is Logistics with purpose.

Logistics with Purpose.

So this is a long running podcast that is the only podcast out there focused on supply chains, positive impact.

And folks, I think episode 129, latest.

One that we've launched.

Yes, 129 podcasts.

Most of the podcasts industry space don't make it past 10 episodes.

So this is a lot of great work you and Christy Porter and the team been doing.

So I want to ask you, this is just the latest one with Alan Barron with Is it Eon Aon?

Yeah, Eon.

That's a good one actually to talk about because it was launch for Mental Health Month and of course mental health is very, very important.

He has a title that I never even knew existed, which is ment Health Manager.

Okay.

And isn't that great that companies actually have titles like that that worry exclusively about the mental health of the employees?

And he was telling us it's highly recommend that you guys listen to it, but he basically can track this mental health to efficiency and return for the company.

Because of course if you have happy, efficient and mentally healthy employees, one can assume that you can perform better.

Undoubtedly.

Undoubtedly.

And I'm just scrolling over my screen over here, not only do I love that theme, love that recent episode, I'm scrolling through all yalls other episodes.

I mean the inspiring leaders and initiatives that y' all focus on at Logistics with Purpose is just remarkable.

It's very much therapy for me masked as a podcast for people to listen to because you talk to these people and they're so interesting and so inspiring that honestly they make my week and I think they give me and people that listen to them a little more energy to continue solving all the problems that supply chain throws at us.

Kotopaxi, VP of Impact and Sustainability, Annie Eagle, she's a really good pod.

I mean all of them are great.

But that's the one that comes to mind.

Recently there's a great interview, EC Ali from Director of Operations at Kuyuchi.

Also a pretty good interview.

How about Hope Solo, the soccer star?

How about astronauts?

How about even?

And if I get in trouble by sharing this.

But one last Note here before we move on is you are out in the market with a, a wonderful contact of yours.

And I think you interviewed Leslie Sims, CEO of Arden's Garden, which is delicious, all natural.

There we go.

She is lending me her office right now.

So all this around me is hers and I'm here with her for a meeting.

So yes, amazing interview as well.

Great story from her and her mom.

Her mom started the company.

Very heartwarming, uplifting story.

So definitely listen to that one as well.

Outstanding.

So folks, find logistics with purpose wherever you get your podcast.

Okay, so we got some great guests joining us here in just a second.

Enrique.

Technology is going to be the big theme.

We're going to get some great insights, great advice who's not dealing with some sort, some level of technology selection implementation out there, Right.

We're here in the golden age of supply chain tech.

We're going to be offering some wonderful advice there.

So I want to welcome in our guests here on the buzz here today, our old friend Brian Green, chief operating officer with Realize Solutions, and his colleague Laura Byer, director of marketing with Realize Solutions.

Hey.

Hey, Brian, welcome back.

How you doing?

Good morning, Scott.

Good morning, Enrique.

Great to see you guys.

Great to see you as well.

I enjoyed barbecue with you a few weeks back and I can't wait to get into some of your expertise here today.

And you brought great friends.

Laura Byer, so nice to meet you here today.

How are you doing?

Good morning, gentlemen.

Good morning, Good morning.

Good morning.

So Enrique, Brian and Laura, we've got a fun warm up question.

I want to start with y' all first.

Now, music's going to be the theme.

We all probably love music here.

But Brian, if you see the drum set behind him, he is a rock and roll drummer pro extraordinaire, if all that makes sense.

He's really good at it.

So I want to use that for our fundamental question.

So I'm a big history nerd, y' all know.

So on this date, June 9th in 1990, MC Hammer broke records as you can't touch this mark, 21 consecutive weeks only on the top of the charts in the world.

How about that?

And I lived it.

Had parachute pants.

I knew every word to that dude.

I'll save that.

Related up Also on This date in 1984, Cyndi Lauper had her first number one hit with Time After Time that stayed on top of the charts for a while.

And then on this date in 1978, the Rolling Stones released their album Some Girls, which included one of my favorite tunes of all time Beast of Burden.

Oh man, the guitar, just the spontaneous guitar work on that album, it's just awesome.

So, Brian, I'm gonna start with you because I know that you're a big musical fan.

My hunch is Laura and Enrique are too.

But what's one of the first albums or singles that you purchased back in the day that you just played a million times?

Brian?

This is a dangerous conversation for me, Scott, as you know.

Well, we could take the entire time talking about music for sure.

But I will give you one anecdote during that period and it was that my very early years, I lived, I think I mentioned on a previous session with you, I lived in Vidalia, Georgia.

Well, there was no place to buy music, so we would go to Dublin, Georgia because they had a mall, that's what they call it.

And I bought my first cassette tape that I bought with my own money.

I had eight tracks until then, but with my own money I bought a Prince tape in the, if you'll remember, they came in those plastic security containers and the store didn't take it out of it.

So I spent two days trying to break my tape out of the plastic container without destroying the tea.

So that was the first experience I had buying my own.

But of course it was Prince who was just a genius, a musical genius.

And during that timeframe, that's what reminds.

Me of that, Brian.

We all can relate to that.

Camelot music, they had this special remover as I would buy singles because I couldn't afford the full albums on that teenage budget.

I love that.

And Prince was a genius indeed.

Lara, same question.

What early album really made its mark with?

You know, you mentioned Cyndi Lauper and I could not represent my gender without saying girls just want to have fun.

I have two daughters to this day when, for the last day of school when we pick them up, that is what I have playing in the car to kick off their summer vacations for them.

Oh, I love it.

Yes, absolutely.

It's a long standing tradition.

And of course, you know, know we also play schools out for the summer.

You know, gotta do that too.

So music is implemented in our lives all the time and we love it.

I will say young kids, they have the best musical taste, thanks to my.

Husband and I.

I think that's a common theme amongst our generation.

I think we really educated our kids on a wide diversity of music from across generations.

I don't think that's common to how we parent these days.

And one other quick, quick comment on City Lopper, folks.

You'd be surprised with some of her musical journey.

I saw watch a great documentary on prom and then search it out, Google it up, you'll be surprised.

Just all that she accomplished in her career, much of it is kind of invisible here in 2025.

All right, Enrique, you're the cleanup hitter here.

What musical album or group made a big impact on you?

Well, I'm not a huge musical fan, as Brian or Laura are, but the first one that I bought, I remember, and it was the Michael Jackson bad lp.

Oh, man, it was pretty cool.

It was a good lp.

Yes.

One of the best of all time, according to, you know, the data.

And to Ryan's point, I think just having the paying it with your own money for the first time, I think makes it even more iconic or significant.

Undoubtedly, as with anything, when we buy our own meals, the food tends to taste better.

So let's do this.

We could have a whole hour dedicated to music, but.

And it's important to have a little fun, which is why we always start with the fundamental question, but we got a lot of good stuff to get to.

And I want to do this.

I want to refresh for our new audience members that are new to you, Brian, and your background, as well as folks here that may be new to Laura.

I want to get both of you all to share a little bit more about your own professional journey.

So, Brian, some of our audience members, I'm sure will recall your earlier appearances here on Supply chain Now, where you served for years in the upper echelons.

Chief supply chain officer out in industry for quite some time.

If you would, though, overall, tell us a little bit more about yourself.

Yeah, thanks, Scott.

I started actually with Home Depot, worked my way up to be a import merchant for Home Depot.

Decided I wanted to try the manufacturing side, so went to a company for many years and ended up being the chief supply chain officer there.

Learned a lot of lessons during that time.

And I'll be honest, during that time, I found myself gravitating towards the technology side and I saw the writing on the wall as far as what I saw technology, the capabilities that were coming that we're able to do.

And so I made a very recent career change and decided I really wanted to focus more full time on the technology side.

And so I've come to spend some time with Laura and our business partner, John and Matt, and really try to help companies decide and create the tools of the future to help them grow their businesses and become more efficient.

So really, as I was an operator for 30 years, I said, you know, let's.

I really am gravitating towards the technology and I loved where the technology was going and so I said, you know, now's the time to really try this.

And so I'm really excited about where we're going.

I've got some anecdotes today to share of where some things are going with the technology, but was really drawn to less and less the operational side because of some of the challenges Enrique talked about earlier.

It was very, very difficult to manage a global supply chain with all the challenges and really was very drawn to the technology changes.

I love you pursuing your passions in this new chapter.

I can't wait to see what's next and I'll tell you, switch over to Laura.

I bet as Enrique was laying out some of those observations from the current global freight market.

While I know you miss your team members, you were in the trenches with day in, day out, but I bet you don't miss some of those headaches.

Brian.

Right.

It was the last five to six years of COVID Strikes, wars, droughts has really actually taken a toll.

And so that's when Enrique started talking about logistics with purpose.

And the mental health could not be more important right now because that last five year period has really taken a toll on the industry and the 24 hours a day, seven days a week on call with the crisis du jour, I call it right because every day there's a new crisis in the supply chain.

That podcast could not be more timely and more important in our industry as we're trying to draw people back in, trying to attract talent into the industry.

That mental health piece is just invaluable.

Well said folks.

You got to take care of yourself and better.

Equally as important, you got to take care of your team members.

All right, Laura Buyer, great to have you here on the buzz.

You and Brian both look forward to learning from y' all.

If you would share a little more about yourself as well as the cool things, kind of what RSI does in a nutshell.

Absolutely.

Well, first of all, thank you for having me and we are absolutely thrilled to have Brian join us at Realize Solutions.

It's been a fun ride already with him and Enrique shared that photo of him climbing the mountain earlier and how that's something he enjoys doing.

Much like the challenges in supply chain technology and finding technology that you're comfortable with and fits your business purpose is really what we help supply chain customers and across multiple industries, private equity, insurance.

We help them with the technical leadership and implementing technology that helps their Businesses grow and makes things easier for them.

You know, their core business is not tech.

That's ours.

We help them shine in their industry using our technical skill set.

And we do that through our network infrastructure.

Also custom software development and integrations to streamline processes and automate what we can to take some of those headaches away from our clients.

Oh, I love that.

Laura.

I've got several headaches right now I want to give to someone else.

And Enrique, I want to circle back to you based on what we heard there from Brian and Laura.

You know, and again, this age of technology, which is just incredible, it giveth and it taketh away.

And oftentimes we don't have, despite our best efforts to kind of what we're talking about earlier to kind of use what's already the refrigerator.

We don't always have all the skill sets and the know how we need internally.

We gotta go to the experts, right, Enrique?

Absolutely.

I think that's kind of where the to the thing that we're talking about earlier.

Right.

Like you have to go back to your fridge and open the door and get what you have.

So we're going to be using that fridge analogy a lot.

But that's, to Laura's point, something that's critical and it's very important now.

Technology has allowed us to leverage those capabilities even more.

So.

Yes.

And you know, speaking from my own experience and some of the organizations I've been a part of, when we have attempted to maximize what we have within the four walls and we burn stuff, we got to bring in, we got to bring in the chefs that have their own expert ingredients that makes everybody happy, especially customers, but also makes our team members days easier, which is one of my favorite aspects around where we are technology wise.

Let's do this.

So technology, Laura, Brian and Enrique are going to be a big theme here today on the Buzz.

And next up, I want to dive intriguing research piece from our friends over at Legility.

Now I happen to spend time with Allen Dow.

This is Allen D.

Down at Gartner in Orlando.

What you could tell, we had a good time talking.

Alan was a very approachable, very smart and savvy supply chain and technology leader.

And what Agility came out with here lately was a report they like to call the Supply Chain Horizons 2025 market report.

Navigating the digital transformation and Gen AI journey in supply chain.

How about that?

Now get this.

They surveyed over over 500 supply chain executives from around the world.

That is a nice sample size.

So I've got some key findings I'm going to share and we're also going to drop the link so you can go download the whole thing.

I think it's like 31 pages of data and insights, but I've cherry picked a few and I'm going to get Brian and Laura and Enrique to kind of share their thoughts.

So first off, again, 500 supply chain executives around the world.

97% of respondents said they are already using some form of generative AI already, but only 33% said they're applying it to supply chain specific use cases to big gap there.

57% of respondents cited data quality as a barrier to AI adoption.

I've heard that a billion times.

A lot of organizations struggle with that.

35% said they struggled to build an effective business case for AI.

That's very common.

In fact, I'm surprised that's as low as 35% now.

No surprise here.

100% said they have challenges with order fulfillment.

That's right, 100%.

To that end, forecast accuracy averaged about 48%, which isn't surprising.

That might be too high on time in full rates, OTIF averaged about 52%.

I want to say industry average is about 80% on OTIF rates, if I'm not mistaken.

And one final note here before I go around the horn and get y' all to comment.

This is not surprising either.

Legacy Technology systems.

That's right, green screens and otherwise is certainly contributing to those last couple performance metrics, as 52% of respondents said that on premise platforms hinder overall progress.

Again, folks, all this comes from the Supply Chain Horizons 2025 market report, which we're going to include a link for you to download so you can dive into it on your own.

Okay, so Brian, let's start with you.

I bet a lot of that doesn't surprise you.

Your thoughts in terms of any of those insights or what you're seeing out in the marketplace?

So I could speak all day on this.

Scott, as you well know, over our barbecue launch, you were like, okay, I got to go.

A couple of takeaways from that article.

First, I was thrilled to see on the title that they say Gen AI Generation Journey.

And why do I say that?

Because we've moved into a new era of AI from regular AI, which was just LLMs that you could ask questions to to generative AI, which can actually do things based on the data.

And so I was really happy to see them focusing on that Gen AI journey.

And what we're seeing is none of that surprises me.

What I do see in the supply chain is a loss of focus on the customer experience.

I have always preached and even to our team today I preach reach.

Everything should start with the customer experience and work backwards.

Not starting at point A and working towards that.

I'm a true believer in if you focus on the customer experience, everything else falls in place.

I truly believe that and I think I will always believe that.

I believe a lot of companies miss the mark on the goals that they have in place for AI.

What is it you're trying to achieve and does it make a better customer experience?

If the answer is no, go back to the drawing board because you're losing what you started it for.

Right?

But there's tons of stories out there.

You know, there's a big Microsoft conference going on right now.

They just did a project with CSX with Gen AI.

The story there is that, you know, CSX as you know, huge part of our supply chain, trains 24 hours a day, seven days a week, all over the place.

And what if you could create, and they've been working with Microsoft on this.

What if you could create tools that if a train carrying hazardous waste at 3am Stopped on a rail somewhere in the middle of, you know, east Arkansas, Right.

And instead of having someone get a phone call that has to call another person, what if you had AI tools that identify the stoppage, alert all the local and state authorities, alert the switch office so that trains can be rerouted and do other things in there that are done without people even having to touch it because of that instance.

This is where Gen AI is going is it's going to create new opportunities in our supply chain to identify and address.

That's the big piece.

Not just address.

You may seen the Lifelock commercials where the guy's a security guard and the bank's being robbed but everybody's laying on the ground and he turns to him and says you're being robbed.

And the guy's like really?

That was AI?

Right now we're in Gen AI where that security guard would actually be acting and doing something about it.

So it's a really exciting time.

But I do think that companies and where we see the struggle, Scott, really is in that small to medium sized business business.

No longer do those companies need to feel left behind.

The Walmarts, the Home Depots, the, the targets of the world, they're going to have entire departments with engineers and everyone who can work on this.

But the small to medium sized companies who don't have that in house team maybe don't have the budgets for that kind of spend, they don't need to be left behind.

There are tons of solutions that can be put into their supply chain and their businesses overall to really focus on that customer experience and make them more productive.

Productive.

It's an amazing journey that we're on and it's changing every day.

Brian, I love it.

Preach it louder for the folks in the back.

Really quick, Enrique, from his emphasis on the journey to of course his emphasis on the customer experience and let that be the North Star to the importance of defining success to where we are right now, the powerful what if and all the scenario we've got to lean into.

Right.

And not just plan the next scenario.

It's that ripple effect.

Let's plan the next 30.

And that's what technology enables.

Supply chains do love the railcar example too.

Enrique, your quick comment for first.

So AI gives us unlimited resources, right.

And I think that it's very important adding up to what Brian said, that companies, medium, small companies, take the time to plan.

Right.

I think every minute spend planning will save like 10 minutes in execution.

And you can do so much so quickly with AI that it's probably very important what Brian said.

Well, make sure that you really understand what you're trying to accomplish at the end and make sure that you actually are trying to improve the client experience as well.

Well, that's right.

And always communicate in the wifm.

What's in it for me?

Right.

Let's build business cases there first.

Laura, what else would you add, whether it's going back to the survey data or what else you're seeing out in the marketplace?

Absolutely.

What we're finding is clients, as you touched on the struggle tends to be with the data.

So we're constantly helping our supply chain customers scrub their data, clean it, make sure it's quality information going in so that the analytics coming out for decision making purposes are spot on.

So our clients can have confidence in their decisions that they're making.

And AI is the future.

And our job is to help show our clients what's possible.

And we do that by learning their business.

We spend a lot of time analyzing their workflow processes, the data, different systems that they're using, and then really tailoring AI agents to perform some of those redundant steps and streamline operations to help give them a competitive edge.

Love it.

I love it.

Competitive advantage that she's alluding to.

Enrique.

I love that.

Easier days for our team members.

That is so important, especially in this friction filled, pressure filled environment, pressure cooker that a lot of supply chain Pros feel every day let's make their days easier.

And of course, delighting our customers.

Delighting our customers.

Enrique, what'd you hear there from Laura?

Well, something similar that reinforces what Brian said.

Right.

It's really all about making sure that if you have poor data coming in, of course you're going to spit terrible data coming out and wrong analysis.

So it's all about the legacy system.

It's all about helping customers make sure the data that they're using to then run their AI is reliable and accurate and updated.

And I was making a couple notes as you comment me on that question because it's very important and usually not something that you initially think about, but it's critical to start with clean data, you know.

Excellent comments.

And by the way, Brian and Laura, Enrique is well known.

He's got a little black book full of the Secrets of Business Success that's going to be a book.

So he's probably had 27 of them at home.

But Brian, I think you were going to add one more quick comment.

Yeah, I was going to add that, you know, the beauty of that is that that that has been kind of a, I almost want to call it a cop out for a while.

As for reasons for companies not to adopt AI, first of all, if you haven't started an AI process, especially moving to a gen AI process, you're already behind, you're losing your competitive advantage.

You must start immediately because I promise you, your competitors are.

Secondly, Laura and I were just recently at the Georgia Tech AI Fest, brought in the world's foremost experts on AI, where it's going to Nvidia, you know, academia, just the top minds in the world.

And I've always said from day one and I was really thrilled to hear they agreed with kind of my personal concept is that companies and employees who adopt AI are going to replace companies and employees who don't adopt AI.

I do not believe that overall AI is going to replace people.

There may be some up training for positions, there may be some changes in positions of course because of AI.

But I truly believe that the companies that embrace AI and the teams that embrace AI are going to become those first of mind best in class performing teams that weren't replaced, but they were letting AI do the administrative part so that we can elevate our teams to use their strengths, which is their minds.

I like that Brian.

And my belief is a slightly adjusted, I believe that modern technology, at least as it stands right now, maybe different definition in just a couple of years.

I think we are going to lose jobs.

Jobs.

But the jobs we gain will be not only will outnumber those jobs lost, but it'll be more fulfilling and creative and more valuable work.

So we shall see.

We shall see.

But Brian, I bet we could do a whole series based on the great conversations you had at the AI Fest there at Georgia Tech.

We may have to do that.

All right, so Enrique, Laura, and Brian, we're gonna hit a couple more topics while we still have our wonderful guests here.

And Brian, where we'll go next is as a longtime chief supply chain officer, I know you've had your share of that, been there, done that advice, knows experiences, firsthand experiences when it comes to selecting and implementing tech solutions.

Right.

So I want to ask you, if you had a captive audience of fellow supply chain leaders right now over the next few minutes, what would be some of your most valuable lessons learned when it comes to, again, selection, implementation.

So a few things.

Scott, I think going back to your use what's in the fridge analogy from your previous webcast is really take stock of what your core competencies are as a company and understand that you can't be good at everything.

And there are partners and strategic partners.

We call ourselves strategic partners because of what Laura mentioned earlier, which is we go in and we really try to understand our customer's business.

We don't come in to sell you tools, we don't come in to sell you software.

We come in to understand your business, understand where your pain points are, and then work with you to try to help with those pain points.

So I would say, especially those small and medium sized companies who don't have the huge teams that maybe the corporate 100 or 500 have is really find a trusted strategic partner who can come in and help you.

The second one is data integrity.

You know, again, I mentioned earlier that it's almost become a little bit of a cop out because guess what?

Generative AI can actually help us with the data integrity.

It can help identify the fails in your data and give you exception management on how to fix them.

So that's a great leap forward from original AI to gen AI is that we have these capabilities to help with that data.

Legacy systems, always a challenge.

As companies grow, they've got lots of different systems bolted together, maybe through M and A.

They've got different companies and different teams who do things differently.

Really, really important to standardize as many of those processes and data sources as you can because garbage in, garbage out, right?

So really those are some of the pieces as I would really Focus on helping.

Finding a trusted partner who can come in and work with you.

Not just a company, you want a strategic partner who can come in and understand your business again.

Again, never losing sight of the customer experience.

It always should start there and work backwards and then really get rid of the fear of AI.

There's so much fear that, oh God, robots are going to come like the Avengers and take over the earth.

If you only listen to the naysayers, you lose all the positive things that AI can do for not just your company, not just you personally, but for society.

So try to erase the fear, embrace that this is the future.

And really work with people who can help bring those solutions to you, which is what we spend a lot of time on doing.

Brian, I love it.

In a very practical manner, we got to be bold and be fearless.

And you know, we have tremendous learning opportunities out there at our fingertips to really tackle the fear of the unknown or our lack of understanding when it comes to new technology.

Lots of great trusty resources, as you pointed out.

Laura, I'm gonna circle back to you first before we get Enrique's take with what Brian shared there.

What would you like to spike the football own or add to that?

Absolutely.

I just want to touch on Brian was saying a lot of times clients and customers are fearful of AI.

Our job as strategic partners is to go in and show the clients what's possible, how we can make their day so much easier, take away some of the logistics decisions and automate processes that cause pain points and have been traditional struggles in the supply chain industry.

There's so much that can be done just by understand where the business is going.

There's so much tech that can assist in that process and people just need to know about it.

And as Brian said, when you have a trusted partner that really takes the time to understand your business, see how your data flows through, they can guide you, tell you these are areas you can use AI, automation, custom software to gain an advantage and make your day a whole lot easier.

And it eliminates the fear instantly.

Once they understand what's available to them and what they can do with it.

Love it.

Communicating the what's possible, right?

Painting that vision.

Painting that very achievable vision out there.

And Enrique, the other point her that Laura and Brian were talking about is we gotta find the trusted Sherpas to help us guide our journey.

Enrique, that what you hear from Laura and Brian.

I'll keep three things very short.

One gen is here.

So if you're not doing it now, if you haven't started yet.

You are are late.

Two is something that you mentioned and both Brian and Laura mentioned, it's all about trust, right?

You have to make sure that you trust and partner with companies, that you share values and cultures so that you can really be efficient and effective.

The third thing for me, which is something that Brian mentioned as well, is if you're still working with legacy systems, if you still have data that is questionable, generative AI as opposed to trying to fix it and then apply generative AI can help you fix it and clean it.

So absolutely no excuses.

They're going back full circle to point number one.

If you haven't started, you're late.

So true.

And in the words of Tevin Emery Taylor, one of our wonderful co hosts here at Supply Chain now, he said on a webinar the other day, folks, there are no excuses.

There are no excuses.

And you know what?

It's so true.

It is so true.

Oftentimes the other thing about the vast array of solutions, including a lot of trusted solutions, is the costs.

We're seeing democratizing technology, right?

So it's much more affordable.

It's like TVs these days.

Goodness gracious.

Well, I'm hoping we're gonna see what happens with all these trade shifts.

But it's easy to say a nice TV, it doesn't cost what it used to cost 10 years ago, right?

Goodness gracious.

You don't have to settle for a Michael Scott flat screen if you have any of the office fans out there.

I think that's a really good point, is that you may already, as a small to medium sized company have technology that you don't even know can do some of these, these things.

Let me give you an example.

Copilot, if you're a Microsoft House copilot, they are significantly increasing the capabilities of Copilot to bring in all kinds of information from the web, including ChatGPT4, lots of other kind of LLMs, all kinds of other agents that they're bringing in.

It's just that some people don't know they have it, don't know how to use it, and don't know how to make it be part of their infrastructure.

And that's where people need help.

They just sometimes they just need help with where to find start.

So true.

That first step journey of a thousand miles or ten thousand miles starts with that first critical step.

Laura, were you about to add something?

Yes, and I wanted to add one of the other challenges that was mentioned was presenting the case for AI and automation to the higher ups and really what the focus should be is how it can help your company grow without adding additional staff necessarily.

And there's such growth and financial opportunity that comes from it in addition to solving some of the pain points.

So lead in with that, folks.

Well said, Laura.

And you know, to that point, we're seeing mandates out across industry where some companies are like before you look at hiring more people, let's make sure our current tools, including AI and all the various forms, cannot do the job.

Y' all read the news stories like I have.

Okay, so let's do this.

We're in the home stretch with Laura and Brian, folks.

We promise you have been there, done that expertise and your getting that here.

So Brian, I want to ask you first to get a flavor of what the RSI team realize solutions.

We love our acronyms around here the RSI team's been working on in recent months.

Can you give a couple of examples, especially any that may be in the supply chain realm.

First of all, I want to mention that we are practicing what we preach.

We have actually started lots of internal AI projects to actually help ourselves internally.

You know, one of our superpowers is unlike a lot of companies, we do network management and we do software development.

So we're kind of using some of our software development development superpowers, I call them internally, to help us do things better for our current clients and set us up for future clients.

So we're practicing what we preach when we come to this AI discussion.

As far as managing tickets, maybe it's better coding, maybe it's error checking in our coding for software development.

We're using these AI tools internally today and we're going to keep doing that.

But I would say, you know, just as a, I call myself a reformed CSCO is really, again, I really want those leaders in supply chain to never lose sight of that customer experience and work backwards.

Everything else takes care of itself when you focus on that customer experience.

I truly believe that after my 30 years in the industry, and I do believe that generative AI, the implementation, as Enrique said, you're already behind.

If you haven't started, use that to help you increase that.

You know, first of all, the out of stocks, generative AI could have helped you with out of stocks.

That's customer experience, right?

Delivery times, generative AI could have helped you with that.

That's customer experience.

So sometimes they're direct impact impacts, sometimes they're not as direct.

Right.

Maybe you're training your team internally which helps them provide better service, which leads to customer experience.

So there's direct and there's somewhat indirect, but I would say training internally in companies, huge piece.

You cannot throw AI out there and not train your teams.

You must give them the tools to compete in the future economy which will be very heavily AI driven.

Focus on that customer experience.

The things in the world that Enrique was talking about earlier are going to continue to happen.

The crisis deja jor are gonna continue to happen.

But if you equip yourselves and you train yourselves and you focus on that customer experience, you'll get through all these things.

That is excellent advice and in fact it's supported by data.

I must struggle to find the right data point.

But on the heels of Gartner supply chain symposium down in Orlando, there was published findings that one of the number one reasons that leads to a lack of success with digital transformation efforts is organizations unwilling to make the investment in training and development.

To your point, Brian.

So Laura, what would you add in terms of some of the great work that RSI is doing out in the marketplace?

Anything you want to mention, Laura?

It's also assisting with risk mitigation and streamlining so that you can have an AI agent run a very specific set of tasks when a trouble issue or alert comes in.

So they can be trained to do the first tier support where someone would normally have to go in and manually touch the that and get involved in correcting that situation.

We can really help manage, really further help exception based management by training those AI agents to do those first line of defenses and help mitigate risk.

Love that.

The manual piece.

Enrique.

When I was in the Air Force, one of the roles I played was in data integrity.

And y' all don't laugh.

Brian, Laura and Enrique.

This is, this is 25 years ago, but one I had to do every day was I had to download spreadsheets and spreadsheets of manual documentation where every maintenance professional would document what they did on aircraft from cleaning a windshield, literally from replacing, overhauling a major structure or component.

So I had to take all the spreadsheets and I had to take my trusty to which was all the standards of how things should be classified.

And I went through manually and with a red pen and, and not to catch people.

But back to a common theme here.

Enrique, Brian and Laura.

If it's not entered into system accurately, it's going to really skew what we're trying to pull out of the system on the back end so we can more proactively get better at maintenance and protect our mission capability rates.

Right.

But that's Supporting the mission.

That's job one.

And Enrique, when I think through those painful manual hours of my day and what we could do nowadays here in 2025, instantly my day would get better.

Right?

Just like that.

And there's countless opportunities to do that in certainly in our military, but also also in global supply chains every day.

Your quick thoughts there, Enrique?

No, absolutely.

Well, I have two.

One, I didn't know the army hired 15 year old kids.

Air Force now Air Force.

Enrique, you're hurting my feelings.

Air Force, no, but yeah, AI is here to stay.

They're actually it's here to help us do things that simplify things and help us learn things more rapidly.

But to Brian's point and Laura's, it's really all about our willingness to learn and be open to, to teaching and learning new things to people.

So I'm with you.

Well said, Enrique.

We gotta be open minded.

Here's another quick point to that, Scott.

We can no longer rely on academia to teach at the tool level.

Academia is teaching concepts, problem solving.

They're equipping their students with that.

It really is becoming increasingly more important for industry to train specific tool sets and needs needs of their employees.

And so a very rigorous training and development investment in your team.

Even if you know some of them are going to leave, you can't focus on that.

You're making them better.

You're making society better by training them.

Training and development goes along with the generative AI.

You cannot do one or the other.

You got to use them together as a combo.

Because it really is becoming more the industry training, the tool specific needs than it is at the academic level.

Well said.

It's like hot dogs, mustards, onions and coleslaw.

You got to have it all together.

You got to have it all together.

We could debate none of y' all out there put ketchup on your hot dog.

Okay?

That's Chicago based.

You're a Chicago guy.

And the things we can do to make our days better for our customers, experience better with our customers, days better for the team members and push the organization successfully at this greater velocity because that's where you the velocity of business today we talk about all the time.

It's not going to get any slower.

All right, so let's do this.

Let's make sure folks know how to connect with Brian and Laura.

So we'll start with you, Brian Green.

Great to have you back.

I think this is probably your fourth or fifth appearance here over the years.

Yep.

I appreciate you constantly having back and I don't know why, but I do appreciate it.

Scott.

Hey, love your perspective.

You can find me on LinkedIn.

Our website is myrsi.com reach out to us.

Let us know how we can help.

We want to be strategic partners.

We don't want to just go pick anyone and sell stuff.

We want to be part of an infrastructure.

And so that's really kind of our business.

But yeah, find me on LinkedIn and then reach, reach out.

Terrific.

Really appreciate that.

Brian Green, Chief operating officer with Realize Solutions Inc.

Rsi.

Same question for you, Laura Buyer.

How can folks connect with you?

Definitely.

I'm on LinkedIn as well.

And you can also email Brian or I directly.

It's just lbuyeri.com Laura by our director.

Of marketing with Realize Solutions Inc.

Really enjoyed meeting you and learning from you here today as well.

And we look forward to having you back.

Brian and Laura, thanks so much for being here.

Absolutely.

Thanks so much for having us.

Great to see you guys.

Appreciate the time.

Thank you.

And we're excited to help everybody.

Outstanding.

Well, we'll have you back soon.

You'll have a great rest of your day.

Enrique, man, that was a lot of fun.

Great guest, great guest.

Yeah, Brian and Laura, I bet they make one heck of a one, two punch out there in industry.

But yeah, it's been great to connect with Brian over the years and extremely change not only supply chain expertise and insights, what he's been seeing and leading, but now especially technology.

I look forward to learning a lot more as he continues to help organizations out there get better at what they do.

So, Enrique, your favorite takeaway.

We got two questions.

I want to wrap up with you here today in this jam packed episode.

First one is really very general, is just this awareness how important generative AI is and how powerful it is and the fact that you need to start, you need to start quick and you need to be open.

So I think that's one of those things, things that do you hear it all the time.

I don't know if this happens to you, Scott, but quick, silly example, my daughter was studying for history exam yesterday and I was listening to her and trying to help her out.

She actually had a lot of notes on Roman history, plugged them into this notebook, something AI generated and the AI created a little podcast of 10 minutes that basically just read these things back to her so that she could just listen to the notes that she just took.

Which really, yes, it's unbelievable.

I was like, what?

How did you do this?

Like, oh dad, this is easy.

Like so I already feel that I'm late.

And so to Brian and Laura's point, just start.

Right.

No time like the present.

Yeah.

You just have to make.

Well, how do you describe.

You just have to make the first step.

Every long journey starts with the one single step.

Yes.

And I wish I could claim that wisdom, but I think that was Confucius that famously said that way back, back when, hey, really quick, you know, I tried doing that same thing to your daughter's AI usage.

You, I tried doing the same thing to create a podcast and chat.

GPT told me, Scott, no one listens to an hour long podcast these days.

I can't do anything less than an hour.

But hey, a lot of context.

It's important.

All right, so that key takeaway, I got one more thing I want to ask you before we wrap here.

Enrique.

You know I'm a big fan of good news.

In fact, I've got, you know, I try to publish every Friday morning something like that, this, that really focuses on what I consider to be personal or professional or industry good news.

I think this is a lighter moment from Gartner down in Orlando where I had a great time with some colleagues down there.

And look at that big cheesy smile of mine.

We're probably laughing about something or other.

But I want to ask you, what's some of your favorite good news that you've come across recently out in industry?

Well, one that's very recent, I did the research for this episode was The Verizon committed $5 billion to help small businesses over the last five years years by pushing their small business accelerator program.

So that's really good news for small business out there here in the US That's a lot of money.

So that's definitely good news.

So kudos, you Verizon.

Thank you for investing in a critical cog in any country's industry, but certainly here in the US and that small business and of course a corollary to that, the startup world.

So kudos to you.

That was Verizon, right, Enrique?

I want to get that right.

Yeah, that's what it was.

At least that's the research I made.

So outstanding.

So enrichment.

Enrique, how can folks connect with you and the Vector Global logistics team?

Well, LinkedIn's probably the easier way to connect with me.

Enrique alvarez@vector globallogistics.

Email enrique.alvarezectorgl.com or really through our website at www.vectorgl.com.

also, please do listen and subscribe to Logistics with purpose.

Beat me to it.

Absolutely, folks.

Find it, run to it.

You'll be glad you did.

Uplifting inspirational stories focused on popular positive work that global supply chains and their leaders are doing everywhere.

Enrique Alvarez, always a pleasure.

Thanks for being here on the buzz with me today.

Thank you, Scott.

Thank you so much.

A pleasure and thanks to all your team.

I know this is a team effort and you guys do a great job.

So thank you.

Appreciate that.

That's right.

Big shout out to Tricia and Amanda and Joshua, all behind the scenes helping to make it happen.

Big thanks to our guest today, Brian Green and Laura Byer with RSI folks.

Connect with them and Enrique, doing a lot of great work out there.

But most of the importantly, big thanks to our global audience for being here with us.

Thanks for all the feedback you give us.

I really appreciate that.

Keep it coming.

And got one more thing, Enrique.

Yeah, I know we're entering the summer school.

School is out.

School is out.

But folks, you got homework.

You got homework.

You got to take one thing you heard here today from Laura or Brian or Enrique and share it with your team.

They'll be glad you did.

Better yet, put it into your career journey or your operations or you name it.

Because we know folks all about deeds, not words.

So with all that said, on behalf the entire supply chain now team, hard working team.

This is Scott Luton.

Challenging you, do good, give forward, be the change that's needed.

And we'll see you next time right back here on Supply chain Now.

Thanks everybody.

Join the Supply Chain now community.

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