[00:00:00] Antonio Bustamante: it's all about opportunity cost. I've been there myself. When I was building my previous company, we worked with people that were managing distribution warehouses.
[00:00:09] Antonio Bustamante: They're on their feet all day. They gotta move really fast. If I have to spend 10, 15 minutes inputting an order into a system, that's another three, four customers that I'm not serving.
[00:00:32] Scott W. Luton: Hey, good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you may be. Scott Luton and Kevin L. Jackson with you here on Supply Chain Now welcome to today's live stream. Hey, hey Kevin. How you doing?
[00:00:44] Kevin L. Jackson: Hey man. Hey, great to see you, but you know, you have a magic touch. You know exactly what to say to get me running to the show. The magic words. You said data, you said artificial intelligence, and you said digital transformation. Boom. I appear it's like a genie.
[00:01:05] Scott W. Luton: I thought you were gonna add in sake, uh, but. Well, we'll get to that in just a second. But folks, great to have you here, Kevin. Great to have you here. Got a great show teed up. We're gonna be featuring a business leader that's helping supply chain teams to truly automate the mess away, and there's a lot of mess and friction.
[00:01:24] Scott W. Luton: And pressure and pain
[00:01:25] Scott W. Luton: and global supply chains, right? Well, we're gonna get into
[00:01:28] Scott W. Luton: what real supply chain automation looks like here in 2025. We're gonna be talking about the true cost of manual
[00:01:34] Scott W. Luton: workflows. What's driving that cost? How it can create all sorts of
[00:01:39] Scott W. Luton: chaos. Right. and we're gonna be exploring why unstructured data is still such a big time supply chain challenge, all that.
[00:01:47] Scott W. Luton: And much, much more. Kevin, we're talking your language here today. It should be a great show, huh?
[00:01:51] Kevin L. Jackson: Yeah, especially how to use sake to lubricate your supply
[00:01:57] Kevin L. Jackson: chain.
[00:01:58] Scott W. Luton: Hey, I love it. I love, hey, whatever. Whatever gets to friction out my
[00:02:02] Scott W. Luton: friend. But Kevin, given your status as a global technology guru and digital transformer, I look forward to gaining your insights as well.
[00:02:10] Scott W. Luton: Okay, are you ready to go? Kevin L. Jackson?
[00:02:13] Kevin L. Jackson: Let's rock baby.
[00:02:15] Scott W. Luton: We've got a great guest. I wanna bring in our featured rock and roll star here today. Antonio Bustamante, CEO, with Bem.
[00:02:23] Scott W. Luton: Hey, hey Antonio. How you doing today?
[00:02:26] Antonio Bustamante: Scott, Kevin, so good to see You.
[00:02:27] Kevin L. Jackson: Hello, hello.
[00:02:29] Scott W. Luton: You as well. You as well. Now, uh, we're gonna start with a fun moment question. We really enjoyed our conversations with you prior to today. Uh, and I'm not gonna mention me, and you both are big. Back to the future fans. We'll have to save
[00:02:41] Scott W. Luton: depth to another show because Kevin and Antonio, we learned something here today earlier in the
[00:02:47] Scott W. Luton: green Room folks, today is Global Running Day. Which is not my favorite holiday. It's National Cheese Day and it's National Cognac Day. So on that note, adult beverage is this topic that we've learned about. I wanna ask you, Antonio, about, because you've got a passion for brewing your own sake.
[00:03:06] Scott W. Luton: Check out this delicious ice cold bottle there. So tell us more about this, Antonio.
[00:03:11] Antonio Bustamante: you caught me. I mean, I just really enjoy it. Um, and I wanna say to everyone, anyone can do it. And if you.
[00:03:17] Antonio Bustamante: want tips, I will jump on a call with you to explain to you how easy it is
[00:03:22] Antonio Bustamante: to do
[00:03:22] Antonio Bustamante: it.
[00:03:23] Scott W. Luton: Oh, I like that, Kevin. that sounds terrific to me. How about you?
[00:03:27] Kevin L. Jackson: You know, it's DYI, sake.
[00:03:33] Scott W. Luton: Antonio was also sharing the pre-show, just how surprisingly easy it is. So, folks, take him up if you don't want to talk. All cool, cool things about supply chain automation, making life easier for your teams. Talk to Antonio about sake. Promise you you'll enjoy the conversation.
[00:03:48] Scott W. Luton: Um, okay. So Antonio and Kevin, we got a lot to get into here today. A lot to get into. I wanna start with some level setting, Antonio, because we do not get enough context in this ever fast moving world. The velocity just keeps picking up and picking up. So if you would, for starters, tell us briefly about yourself,
[00:04:07] Scott W. Luton: about the organization Bem, and the problems you're solving in the
[00:04:11] Scott W. Luton: supply chain space.
[00:04:12] Antonio Bustamante: I'm Antonio. I've been building in supply chain automation for the last 10 years. I've been an operator myself, and I'm the founder of a company called Bem. And what we do is actually really simple. We help companies with our platform to automate some of the most painful manual parts of their operations.
[00:04:33] Antonio Bustamante: So especially where teams are stuck, processing emails, PDFs, and spreadsheets by hand. we've just seen that in supply chain that often means freight contracts, invoices, rate confirmations, all the things that just don't fit nearly into the system. We help You turn
[00:04:51] Antonio Bustamante: those into clean data.
[00:04:52] Scott W. Luton: man, that is music to my ears. But Kevin, I wanna get you to respond to what we heard there from Antonio. One of my favorite parts is he is been there and done it as an op. So he knows the pains and the processes
[00:05:04] Scott W. Luton: and what has to happen successfully every day. And so to use that knowledge and help teams find an easier and a more automated way to find
[00:05:12] Scott W. Luton: success, that is terrific. Kevin, what'd you hear there, Antonio?
[00:05:16] Kevin L. Jackson: I just wanna clarify. You know, some of my best friends are
[00:05:19] Kevin L. Jackson: human right. Humans make some of the worst
[00:05:23] Kevin L. Jackson: mistakes when it comes to data entry.
[00:05:27] Kevin L. Jackson: So, you know, you, uh, you
[00:05:29] Kevin L. Jackson: type something up and you send
[00:05:30] Kevin L. Jackson: it, or you scan something and then a human has to type that rate or
[00:05:35] Kevin L. Jackson: type that price or into another computer, right?
[00:05:40] Kevin L. Jackson: And this happens over and over and over again. And every time you have a human in the loop. There's a mistake that can happen. So what you're doing is, is helping us reduce that, that rate of mistakes,
[00:05:56] Antonio Bustamante: We want to help humans actually, right? Like we don't even wanna replace them. We actually think this is a tool that in the long run is going to generate
[00:06:03] Antonio Bustamante: more jobs and reduce risk.
[00:06:05] Antonio Bustamante: and so we think of it as a tool.
[00:06:07] Kevin L. Jackson: and who wants to sit there typing in numbers
[00:06:09] Kevin L. Jackson: all day.
[00:06:10] Antonio Bustamante: No one.
[00:06:12] Scott W. Luton: to your point, no one does probably, uh, although I've known some data nerds in my life that love that and hey, to each their own. To each their own. But you know what's interesting though? 'cause there's all kinds of studies. 10,000 studies. I pulled up one here the other day. let's see here.
[00:06:28] Scott W. Luton: I'm gonna get the numbers right. No pun intended. For 10,000 data entries humans can make somewhere between 104 hundred errors. And actually I've seen other studies that show that rate, that rate may be over 7% in some cases, and that probably is still conservative.
[00:06:45] Scott W. Luton: And it's not fun. It's not fun work, and there's lots of pressure on getting the numbers
[00:06:50] Scott W. Luton: right. So I can't wait to dive more into this conversation. Antonio, let's do this. I wanna ask you. Of course, automation, everybody, you know, tariffs and AI is a part of every, every conversation,
[00:07:01] Scott W. Luton: and there are companies everywhere that are using automation, not only to help empower their human teams, but overcome some of the labor
[00:07:09] Scott W. Luton: market challenges and much, much more out there. So, Antonio, in your, view, what does supply chain automation really look like here in
[00:07:17] Scott W. Luton: 2025?
[00:07:19] Antonio Bustamante: You know, it's interesting. I think the reality today is
[00:07:22] Antonio Bustamante: still back and forth endless emails. It's still humans reading PDFs and invoices and spreadsheets and entering
[00:07:29] Antonio Bustamante: them into another system. It's a lot of
[00:07:32] Antonio Bustamante: errors, a lot of delays, and I. think the risk is just massive. I think AI has done an okay job for the last couple of years, but it's still to DIY. you know? operators are being sold, AI coworkers and pro tooling,
[00:07:45] Antonio Bustamante: and what we hear from them is, look, I just, I don't wanna be taught how to fix my pipes. I just need a plumber to do it.
[00:07:51] Antonio Bustamante: that's the really, the market. It's, there's a lot of noise, but
[00:07:55] Antonio Bustamante: there's still a lot of risk, a lot of. Manual data entry, And we just, wanna meet people where
[00:08:01] Antonio Bustamante: they're at.
[00:08:01] Antonio Bustamante: You know, operators don't want DIY ai, they want a system that just
[00:08:06] Antonio Bustamante: works.
[00:08:07] Scott W. Luton: I love that Kevin meet people where they're where they're at. That's my favorite part of his response right there. Your
[00:08:13] Scott W. Luton: thoughts? I.
[00:08:14] Kevin L. Jackson: Yeah, and you were talking about supply chain automation, and I keyed on the word 2025 and tariffs. Okay. I mean, ugly words of course, but there used to be a bit of stability. I. In that world. I mean, a, a rate may change, but it'll be that rate for the next year, five years, you know? Now these rates may change every hour, and that can change your forecast.
[00:08:44] Kevin L. Jackson: That could change what you're gonna order. that could change your, your business and all that data has to go into your planning. And it's just, can be too much unless you have automation in place.
[00:08:59] Scott W. Luton: Well, and two thoughts there. Technology is not optional in so many cases because of the scope that you're talking about. We got to lean into it. And secondly, you're mentioning some of the, you know, changes and, the landscape we're in. Well, you know, I read a recent study. I don't have it in front of
[00:09:15] Scott W. Luton: me. Uh, you know, pricing. it changes all the time in many relationships. Well, there was a study put out by some friends of ours over enable, I think the number
[00:09:24] Scott W. Luton: is 86% of pricing professionals,
[00:09:27] Scott W. Luton: uh,
[00:09:27] Scott W. Luton: in that survey said they would lose profit because they cannot, their pricing isn't as dynamic as it needs to be.
[00:09:34] Scott W. Luton: And.
[00:09:35] Scott W. Luton: We can lean in technology for that. okay, I wanna do this. I want to talk about some of the industry challenges we have. We're kind of already opening the gen. Partially outta that ball already. But I wanna dive a little
[00:09:46] Scott W. Luton: deeper here. speaking of data and factoid, maybe I'm the data nerd here.
[00:09:51] Scott W. Luton: Gartner reports that manual processes cost companies up '
[00:09:55] Scott W. Luton: to $5 million a year. Goodness gracious. So Antonio, let's dive more into what's behind that and beyond the dollars. What's the real cost of manual data entry, especially in the freight world?
[00:10:09] Antonio Bustamante: I mean, honestly, every manual process in supply chain is a liability. It, it compounds over time. the quickest go-to is labor, Right. Labor is a huge part of it, but actually I feel like the bigger cost is lost revenue, it's all about opportunity cost. I've been there myself. When I was building my previous company, we worked with people that were managing distribution warehouses.
[00:10:32] Antonio Bustamante: They're on their feet all day. They gotta move really fast. If I have to spend 10, 15 minutes inputting an order into a system, that's another three, four customers that I'm not serving. And so I think while labor and errors and delays in the risk is a huge one, we actually wanna be in a place where we wanna make people more money, and that is by serving
[00:10:53] Antonio Bustamante: their customers much better.
[00:10:55] Scott W. Luton: That's right. Uh, name of the game. And Kevin,
[00:10:58] Scott W. Luton: he focused on the time. You know, time is money, but time's also many other things. And if we're gonna talk about the real cost, uh, we gotta include time and probably a, a, a laundry list of things.
[00:11:08] Scott W. Luton: Your thoughts there, Kevin?
[00:11:09] Kevin L. Jackson: Yeah, he was talking about how internal manual
[00:11:12] Kevin L. Jackson: processes prevent.
[00:11:14] Kevin L. Jackson: Your internal process is moving forward, but what about responding to your external customers, responding to your external partners, managing those external
[00:11:25] Kevin L. Jackson: links, you know, so you get problems on top
[00:11:30] Kevin L. Jackson: of problems. They're compounded by having the
[00:11:34] Kevin L. Jackson: manual processes.
[00:11:37] Scott W. Luton: Kevin, along those lines, and Antonio, I will get you to respond before I move on to the next question. I'll pose to you, going back to the error
[00:11:44] Scott W. Luton: rates, I talk about this a lot, but when I was in the Air Force forever ago, I was, uh, one, one of my big tasks every day was part of our data integrity efforts, right?
[00:11:54] Scott W. Luton: Uh, our, our mission there was to keep, our fleet of aircraft mission capable, right? And maximize and optimize that rate. Well, we were, we were focused on eliminating the errors. That can tie up maintenance teams and waste hours and not get to the root cause of the problem. And to kind of what Kevin's point there, if we can imagine if every organization could cut their errors in half, can you Ima, or a third or a fifth, can you imagine how much time and how less headaches we would have Antonio?
[00:12:26] Scott W. Luton: So really, this is a huge proactive opportunity. Huh?
[00:12:30] Antonio Bustamante: you'd be surprised when we,
[00:12:32] Antonio Bustamante: every company we've onboarded, they always show us their existing data as a way to, to say, Hey, here's
[00:12:38] Antonio Bustamante: our golden data, they call it, right It's like this is the. The, the golden standard and we actually
[00:12:44] Antonio Bustamante: find errors in every single input. I think it's really
[00:12:47] Antonio Bustamante: interesting.
[00:12:47] Antonio Bustamante: They think that their teams of, of humans, of people are doing such a great
[00:12:51] Antonio Bustamante: job, but we actually start running into errors. And so, um, it's a, huge, huge operational risk. And we've actually decided in the past few months that We now have. a larger AI model that supervises us And supervises our users And kind of gives them hints of like, Hey, you told us this data was perfect, actually we identified it's not.
[00:13:14] Antonio Bustamante: Um, 'cause we've seen that not, we can't even be trusted with, with that,
[00:13:17] Antonio Bustamante: you know?
[00:13:19] Scott W. Luton: it's a massive risk as you shared, Antonio. It's also a massive opportunity and I love the work you're doing. We're gonna get into that in just a second, but you mentioned data and we were talking data with Kevin. That's one of those things Kevin loves right up his alley, so I wanna ask you, and hey, the gold standard that we think is a gold standard.
[00:13:38] Scott W. Luton: We're fooling ourselves. Sometimes there's another point Antonio just made. So why is the supply chain industry uniquely burdened by unstructured data? Antonio?
[00:13:48] Antonio Bustamante: it's just document driven. It's been, it's been like this for decades, right? Like we have we see insurance, we see bills of lading, we see fray, customs, and there is no universal schema. I'm sure people in the audience that have been like operators know, what EDI is. That was something we tried. We've tried for the last 30, 40 years.
[00:14:09] Antonio Bustamante: It doesn't quite work. And so we've seen that legacy tools just break on edge cases. And what ends up happening is, is not that we're just burdened by unstructured data. It's what we call the human API, right? So like humans are actually the ones. Being this layer of communication, I've worked with companies That
[00:14:29] Antonio Bustamante: have literally someone in a corner of a room with two computers just passing data from one computer to the other eight hours a day, and they did not seem very happy.
[00:14:39] Antonio Bustamante: And so we just see this continuously data just arriving in form of emails, scans. And so we thought, Hey, why don't we just build this like self-healing system that learns from the operator and makes them much faster, easier to use? it's truly where automation has to start,
[00:14:57] Antonio Bustamante: in my
[00:14:58] Antonio Bustamante: opinion.
[00:14:59] Scott W. Luton: Well said Kevin, back to that
[00:15:01] Scott W. Luton: person, uh, working two computers and not real happy.
[00:15:06] Scott W. Luton: Not many humans would be happy. And, kidding
[00:15:08] Scott W. Luton: aside though, the quality of life for our teams, right? The work life
[00:15:13] Scott W. Luton: balance, you know, how, how, can we act as leaders to take some of that pressure and
[00:15:18] Scott W. Luton: get some of that friction and have them enjoy their days better?
[00:15:22] Scott W. Luton: that might sound kind of hokey to some people, but I, that's a very important thing to many organizations out there, as it should be. But Kevin, what'd you hear there about
[00:15:30] Scott W. Luton: unstructured
[00:15:31] Scott W. Luton: data?
[00:15:32] Kevin L. Jackson: Yeah, so Antonio
[00:15:34] Kevin L. Jackson: mentioned, I guess he said there's no perfect data schema. and that's
[00:15:38] Kevin L. Jackson: true because. The world is all about change and your
[00:15:42] Kevin L. Jackson: business is all about change. Um, and if you
[00:15:45] Kevin L. Jackson: create a, data
[00:15:47] Kevin L. Jackson: schema, the second you're finished, it's old, right? Because it. Deal with change and, that, you know, you visualize that human taking data outta one computer and putting in the other computer, that's because the entire system can't deal with change.
[00:16:07] Kevin L. Jackson: The change that occurs in the schema, because you don't know today what data is important to you. Or next week. and that's actually I think the value of things like artificial intelligence. 'cause it allows the system to deal with change and basically communicate with the humans around it saying, Hey, you know, this is different.
[00:16:36] Kevin L. Jackson: Don't you wanna change?
[00:16:38] Scott W. Luton: You know, Kevin, I also heard in your, in your example, and go back to Kevin, uh, Antonio's original example. and we also have a terrific, terrific opportunity to lean technology so that not only can the systems and platforms and apps and processes talk to
[00:16:53] Scott W. Luton: humans, but they talk to each other and we don't need that person sit between the two computers.
[00:16:58] Scott W. Luton: And I'm sure that's, uh, the focus of a lot of Antonio's work.
[00:17:03] Scott W. Luton: and really quick before I move on, actually, actually, Antonio Interoperability, I'm sure that really important as part of all your conversations y'all are having, I imagine. Is that right?
[00:17:11] Antonio Bustamante: that's a huge one. People don't want to just integrate it really well with their systems. They also want communicate with people that have. Systems different than theirs, right?
[00:17:20] Antonio Bustamante: And so, I mentioned EDI earlier, if you wanna do business with a Walmart or a Costco or a Trader Joe's, they're going to ask you to integrate with their system.
[00:17:31] Antonio Bustamante: And we think of them as a way to seamlessly translate the data so that you don't have to build, you know, the 50th integration to sell to someone new. Um, EDI is something that a lot of people in the audience may recognize. Like we've had it for the last 20 to 30 years. It's been the closest we ever got to have a, like a universal interface.
[00:17:52] Antonio Bustamante: But, uh, it just falls short. Everyone has a very different format and protocol, and when you have, you know, 150 standards, There's no standard,
[00:18:00] Antonio Bustamante: right? And so.
[00:18:01] Scott W. Luton: There's a better way. So stay tuned folks. We're gonna get more into that in just a
[00:18:04] Scott W. Luton: second. Be parsed. Some data is transactional and then there is master data, which is the basis of the business, which is the data type that has, that is a bigger issue. Antonio, you're nodding your head. do you wanna give a quick response?
[00:18:18] Antonio Bustamante: That's a huge one. So, we see two types of data. Indeed, there is uh, uh, transient data that you just keep receiving from partners and vendors, and then there is what we call your source of truth, which is your business's data. We use both, right? We think that without your business's data, we can't do a proper job at it So every time we receive an email or a PDF, we use your business data to inform our ai. Hey, give it context essentially, and make it understand what is this? Is this person a, a vendor? Is this person a customer? So I think both are incredibly important. the goal is to make all of this data coming in to be just as clean and neat as all the data
[00:18:59] Antonio Bustamante: you already
[00:18:59] Antonio Bustamante: have.
[00:19:00] Scott W. Luton: Yep. Well said Kevin, you wanna add a quick thought there?
[00:19:04] Kevin L. Jackson: Well, actually I wanna ask Antonio a question, so
[00:19:07] Kevin L. Jackson: I'm gonna blindside him here a
[00:19:08] Scott W. Luton: oh. oh. Watch
[00:19:09] Scott W. Luton: out.
[00:19:12] Kevin L. Jackson: Talk about, you know, transient data
[00:19:14] Kevin L. Jackson: and persistent or business data. I mean, we learned during COVID
[00:19:21] Kevin L. Jackson: that data from the past doesn't necessarily help you with your. Present situation.
[00:19:28] Kevin L. Jackson: you can't throw away your,
[00:19:31] Kevin L. Jackson: transactional data because that reflects what's happening today and that may have
[00:19:36] Kevin L. Jackson: an effect or may need to change your persistent data.
[00:19:41] Kevin L. Jackson: How do you deal with that?
[00:19:43] Antonio Bustamante: that's super important to us. I think the way we see this is. you have a system of record that contains all of your what we call the source of truth. And for a lot of our customers that. system of record is an ERP system or ATM S.
[00:19:57] Antonio Bustamante: Um, we treat that as everything has happened so far. Not necessarily as fact.
[00:20:04] Antonio Bustamante: 'cause you were saying that you, you had a really good point earlier, which is, Hey, we, we live in a really volatile industry. Tariffs change, pricing change. Um, we've seen customers just have pricing changes like 10 times a day, especially if you work in like perishables. And so the way we think about it is it informs the process, it gives it context, but we treat it just as a way to say to the system, look.
[00:20:27] Antonio Bustamante: This is what things look like now, but expect change. And we actually give more value to the, the new data coming in than the data that you already have. So it's almost just a way to shape the way that you would train a human being in your, in your team, right? To say, Hey, this is, what has happened so far.
[00:20:45] Antonio Bustamante: FYI, things are going to change, so beware.
[00:20:48] Antonio Bustamante: and that's kind of how we think about it.
[00:20:50] Scott W. Luton: it's a great
[00:20:50] Scott W. Luton: question Kevin and, and, Antonio, appreciate your response. And now
[00:20:54] Scott W. Luton: I'm out. I'm well over my head in just that last exchange there, Antonio and
[00:20:59] Scott W. Luton: Kevin. Uh, so I'm gonna bring it back to where, what I know and, uh, can reminisce
[00:21:04] Scott W. Luton: around, and really don't even have to reminisce here.
[00:21:06] Scott W. Luton: Studies show that 80% of logistics communication. I'm not gonna surprise
[00:21:10] Scott W. Luton: anybody. Still happens via email. Email. And there's still some fax machines out there. There are probably still some, some blackberries still at work. So why is
[00:21:21] Scott W. Luton: that Antonio?
[00:21:22] Antonio Bustamante: it's the most universal way we found of communicating between companies. It just, it just works, right? I can't blame anyone. Like I can just fax anyone if they have a number. funny enough, my co-founder and I built a, a huge fax integration in our last company. We were sending out a million faxes every week.
[00:21:41] Antonio Bustamante: it still exists. People love it. So we figured, look, rather than trying To remove it, 'cause people have tried to remove this right? Remove emails, remove facts. Why don't we just adapt to it? so. uh, it goes back to meeting people where they're at. If they feel comfortable communicating by email, by any means, please continue to do so and we'll just deal with the
[00:22:02] Antonio Bustamante: messiness of it.
[00:22:04] Scott W. Luton: Oh, okay, man. Give the messiness to other people.
[00:22:07] Scott W. Luton: Kevin. I love that.
[00:22:10] Scott W. Luton: Can wish it away. Just about, uh.
[00:22:12] Kevin L. Jackson: yeah, but you can't really, because messiness is everywhere. Think about your daily
[00:22:16] Kevin L. Jackson: life. How many different communications channels do you have to deal
[00:22:21] Kevin L. Jackson: with every day? I mean, you're
[00:22:24] Kevin L. Jackson: texting on your phone, you're doing a
[00:22:27] Kevin L. Jackson: WhatsApp, you're sending an email, or you're talking with your voice. and everyone, all of
[00:22:34] Kevin L. Jackson: your
[00:22:34] Kevin L. Jackson: personal contacts have different favorites or preferences.
[00:22:38] Kevin L. Jackson: I can't email my daughter 'cause she never
[00:22:41] Kevin L. Jackson: looks at that. But if I text her, gets
[00:22:43] Kevin L. Jackson: response right away.
[00:22:45] Kevin L. Jackson: it is no different with a company trying to deal with,
[00:22:48] Kevin L. Jackson: its, its partners and its
[00:22:50] Kevin L. Jackson: supply chain. You have to deal with multiple communications channels. You have to understand which is the preference of your partner so that you can be more efficient. and I, I guess, Antonio, That's a, a key aspect of, of what you're talking about, right.
[00:23:10] Antonio Bustamante: It's efficiency at the end of the day, and it's being able to just operate your business and look, to your point with texting and emailing and all that, we are what we call multimodal, which is lingo for just being able to structure data from texts, calls, voicemails, emails. 'cause we figured your customers and your vendors are not going
[00:23:32] Antonio Bustamante: to be. You know, just guardrail to communicating with you in one way. You're gonna have 15 different
[00:23:38] Antonio Bustamante: channels. Yeah.
[00:23:39] Scott W. Luton: Yes. Uh, and maybe, maybe, uh, 30 by tomorrow, maybe 45 by next week I'll tell you.
[00:23:45] Scott W. Luton: So Antonio, before we get into the good news and some of the cool stuff y'all doing, let's go back to, uh, Abado. Why does RPA and email triage, uh, those tools fall short?
[00:23:58] Antonio Bustamante: We just think it's too brittle. It, it breaks when formats change. It still handles, Uh, very poorly what we call real world data, right? RPA,
[00:24:08] Antonio Bustamante: we've had it for about 20 years, hasn't actually
[00:24:11] Antonio Bustamante: improved much, and we still see em, what we call email triage, which is as humans reading emails manually.
[00:24:17] Antonio Bustamante: And so. We figured instead of trying to standardize everything, let's
[00:24:22] Antonio Bustamante: just automate what we call the messy middle let's adapt to real world data. Rather than trying to pretend and convince people that we are some AI
[00:24:31] Antonio Bustamante: coworker, we have no ambition in trying to create a system that, that resembles a
[00:24:37] Antonio Bustamante: human being.
[00:24:38] Antonio Bustamante: We actually wanna make humans, much, much better. And, and much, much. Happier at their job. Right? and so, um, that's really why it falls short. We've been trying to eliminate this, like the
[00:24:50] Antonio Bustamante: entropy of like human communication for so long. And I think with this latest wave of technology, we can finally embrace it and do something
[00:24:58] Antonio Bustamante: about it.
[00:24:59] Scott W. Luton: I love it. Uh, a couple thoughts there. Uh, Kevin, first off, Antonio's voice. You should do books on tape. You should be, uh, the voiceover. It is soothing Antonio. It really is soothing. But Kevin, uh, he talked about the brittle, messy middle right in terms of why these tools fall short. I love that, and it's very, very true.
[00:25:20] Scott W. Luton: Your quick thoughts before I move on?
[00:25:22] Kevin L. Jackson: You know, one of the things that that catches me off guard is let's say I'm, I have a topic I'm discussing with an individual. they don't stay on the same channel. Okay. You may start on text and you may shift to email and then shift to a phone, and then go back to email. Um, I think a lot of the brittleness, caused by humans is, is simply that, uh, humans change.
[00:25:50] Kevin L. Jackson: They do
[00:25:51] Kevin L. Jackson: things differently. They don't
[00:25:53] Kevin L. Jackson: they're inconsistent and you have to, uh, deal with
[00:25:58] Kevin L. Jackson: That I said change.
[00:26:00] Scott W. Luton: Yes. Hey, we have bad days. We, we'd have to drink bad coffee. Sometimes we, you know, we're not
[00:26:07] Scott W. Luton: consistent. Let's face it.
[00:26:09] Scott W. Luton: while faxes may be
[00:26:10] Scott W. Luton: dated, old is still gold for many spaces of operation. It's true in Antonio, I.
[00:26:16] Antonio Bustamante: And by any means, if you if you and your vendors and customers use faxes today, please continue using them. I think a lot of software, I think what's really interesting, not to get too, too riled up, is that a lot of software companies come in barging into like industries and try to change everything you're doing and tell you, hey.
[00:26:36] Antonio Bustamante: Just stop faxing and stop emailing. we
[00:26:39] Antonio Bustamante: actually want people to continue doing what they're doing and be this
[00:26:42] Antonio Bustamante: invisible automation layer under the hood. Don't retrain an entire company on new
[00:26:48] Antonio Bustamante: formats. Keep faxing
[00:26:50] Antonio Bustamante: people. If that's what you enjoy,
[00:26:51] Antonio Bustamante: it works,
[00:26:52] Antonio Bustamante: right? Why change that
[00:26:53] Kevin L. Jackson: we're not gonna get rid of a form and pencil.
[00:26:58] Antonio Bustamante: on.
[00:26:58] Scott W. Luton: squares,
[00:27:00] Scott W. Luton: slide rules, whatever those things are that smart people use, I'll go to my grave not knowing how to use a slide rule. And that's okay. That's okay.
[00:27:09] Antonio Bustamante: you'd be surprised. A lot of our customers are sending BA handwritten notes.
[00:27:14] Antonio Bustamante: And pictures. Yeah. Especially warehouse management. They use a lot of handwritten notes for inventory tracking, and the system works really, really well for handwritten notes. So, it's not crazy like we actually
[00:27:25] Antonio Bustamante: want people to continue doing
[00:27:26] Antonio Bustamante: what they're
[00:27:26] Antonio Bustamante: doing.
[00:27:27] Kevin L. Jackson: my daughter went to school and they, they didn't have to learn cursive writing, so.
[00:27:33] Scott W. Luton: Really, they're not teaching cursive anymore. Okay. That's new. I didn't know that.
[00:27:37] Scott W. Luton: so Antonio,
[00:27:39] Scott W. Luton: we've teased
[00:27:39] Scott W. Luton: this. I think we've wallowed a bit in the pain, and this is pain a lot of folks out there can connect with. I know I can connect in my days as a practitioner to some of the things we've talked about. So let's get firmly into the good news and let's start with giving us a few examples of how teams are using Bem to process freight documents or invoices, rate conversions, you name it, in real time.
[00:28:00] Antonio Bustamante: honestly, we've seen up to a 90% reduction in manual processing. We have a lot of customers using us to process customer orders from their vendors, uh, freight contracts. you don't wanna have a team of people inputting
[00:28:14] Antonio Bustamante: manually an 80 page contract into a system. Um, invoice approvals is a huge one, like procurement.
[00:28:22] Antonio Bustamante: Is a big, big part of supply chain. We ought to extract vendors, we connect it to their, system. the reason why this works is because we have exception management built into the platform. And so whenever our systems detect, Hey, this is looking a little off, we immediately flag it to someone in the team that can like, take a look at it. Um, and so it's not about automating. One document, right? I think a lot of people think about it as like one document at a time. It's about teaching your system to handle thousands and thousands of them every day, and the system improving over
[00:28:58] Antonio Bustamante: time by itself.
[00:28:59] Scott W. Luton: before I get Kevin to comment here, I want to stick with that train of thought, uh, that you just finished your response on Talk to us more about how operators can patch and fix workflows
[00:29:10] Scott W. Luton: and then to your point, teach the systems as they go. So the systems truly are machine learning.
[00:29:15] Scott W. Luton: Tell us more about that, Antonio.
[00:29:17] Antonio Bustamante: So we've seen a lot of
[00:29:19] Antonio Bustamante: the even current systems don't
[00:29:21] Antonio Bustamante: actually learn really well from the, messiness of real life workflows. and so the way Bem works is because we're not replacing
[00:29:30] Antonio Bustamante: your existing systems, we're just a layer under the hood.
[00:29:33] Antonio Bustamante: when an operator corrects something that has been missed, Bem captures the correction immediately
[00:29:40] Antonio Bustamante: and starts training himself itself on
[00:29:43] Antonio Bustamante: those changes, right?
[00:29:44] Antonio Bustamante: And so. The way. we think about it is if you onboard to Bem, maybe you start automating, let's say 30 to 50% of your workflows, which is pretty good. but we actually want the system to
[00:29:55] Antonio Bustamante: learn over time in a way that it improves. So that's what we call self-healing Workflows is fewer errors each cycle. One correction today prevents a hundred errors tomorrow.
[00:30:07] Antonio Bustamante: That's kind of how we think about
[00:30:08] Antonio Bustamante: it.
[00:30:08] Scott W. Luton: Oh, I love that self-healing workflows and that. Title IV makes perfect sense all the stress and the errors and the problems we can prevent, truly. Kevin, your thoughts?
[00:30:21] Kevin L. Jackson: What's, you know, a machine plus human, right? It's not one or the other. It's both working together and both improving. that's what's important about, Um, all of this, leveraging the tool for what it's worth, leveraging the human for what they're worth.
[00:30:39] Scott W. Luton: okay, so let's talk about the command center now, Kevin, you know, I'm a big space nerd. This question reminds me of, uh, the nasa, you know, Johnson Space Center or mission tracking, all that. So, Antonio, y'all got a command center at Bem. What's important about the Bem’s version of the command center and how it, I think it, from what I understand, puts control in the hands of the ops team where it should be.
[00:31:01] Antonio Bustamante: when we started Bem, we were to DIY to be honest. We made, we made the classical mistake of trying to just barge in and change everyone. And here's the system. It's like giving someone a game boy. But instead of having like a casing and everything, it's just, here's the screen and here's the buttons.
[00:31:19] Antonio Bustamante: Go figure it out. we've built a command center for operations teams to see correct and route the data. and so there's not a new dashboard. It's essentially a very, very simple, uh, interface that allows, um, operations teams to see everything coming in and shape the, system like they want. we don't want them to have to rely on an engineering team to change something.
[00:31:44] Antonio Bustamante: To your point earlier, Kevin,
[00:31:46] Antonio Bustamante: the industry changes every day. And so as new data comes in, we want the
[00:31:50] Antonio Bustamante: system to actually shape the data and become this, what we call this invisible
[00:31:54] Antonio Bustamante: feedback loop. And so we just let their operations,
[00:31:59] Antonio Bustamante: the way that they use the system is training the system toserve
[00:32:01] Antonio Bustamante: them better in a way. Um, and So if you go to the command center. Which we're gonna release really soon. You'll be able to essentially tell them, Hey, here's how I run my business. Here are examples of the things that are the most tedious that I receive. And then the system starts shaping itself in a way that it makes sense to the operator, and then it basically at the end, it says, Hey, I.
[00:32:22] Antonio Bustamante: Tell your customers to fax to this number, email orders, do whatever they need to do, and we will just update the, system automatically and, and act as this like intake platform. And so, so far feedback has been, has
[00:32:36] Antonio Bustamante: been great.
[00:32:37] Scott W. Luton: It sounds pretty cool, Kevin,
[00:32:38] Scott W. Luton: your thoughts.
[00:32:40] Kevin L. Jackson: Well, it sounds like this command center is, looking at ways to help. Communication across your internal team so that you can, uh, keep track. You don't lose that institutional knowledge of how to make things work better, quicker, faster. Is that true?
[00:33:02] Antonio Bustamante: yes. And in fact, I think one of the pitfalls we see from companies coming in is that they, uh, run their operations in a brittle way. In, in such a way. Uh, to give you an example, we work with a company where I. If one of the customer service reps is sick one day, their customers don't know who to talk to because they're just individually, you know, they have assigned customers.
[00:33:25] Antonio Bustamante: And so we see this as a, way, to your point, we see this as a way to, uh, take advantage of institutional knowledge and just have one,
[00:33:33] Antonio Bustamante: one single place for the
[00:33:35] Antonio Bustamante: entire team to
[00:33:35] Antonio Bustamante: manage operations.
[00:33:37] Kevin L. Jackson: yeah, it.
[00:33:37] Kevin L. Jackson: reminds me of a story, you
[00:33:38] Kevin L. Jackson: know, we were talking about when NASA decided to go back to. Go back to,
[00:33:43] Kevin L. Jackson: the moon. they say, oh, done this before. Just go build another Saturn file. And they said, well, we
[00:33:49] Kevin L. Jackson: can't. Why? You have all the
[00:33:51] Kevin L. Jackson: blueprints? Well, yeah, but
[00:33:54] Kevin L. Jackson: 80% of
[00:33:55] Kevin L. Jackson: the knowhow. A building,
[00:33:59] Kevin L. Jackson: a Saturn V
[00:34:00] Kevin L. Jackson: was actually in that soft matter
[00:34:03] Kevin L. Jackson: between people's
[00:34:04] Kevin L. Jackson: ears, right? And it's not documented
[00:34:07] Kevin L. Jackson: anywhere, so
[00:34:08] Kevin L. Jackson: the institutional knowledge
[00:34:10] Kevin L. Jackson: was, was lost. Um, so something like this command center will help you,
[00:34:16] Kevin L. Jackson: uh, actually document that.
[00:34:19] Kevin L. Jackson: information, that data,
[00:34:20] Kevin L. Jackson: that institutional
[00:34:22] Kevin L. Jackson: knowledge, uh, that's been in this soft, soft matter for 20 years.
[00:34:27] Antonio Bustamante: that's exactly it. What we see from a, a, lot of systems now in the industry is that they're not thinking about the soft matter. And so every time you use Bem, we have a, what we call a knowledge base that gets built dynamically with all your system, right? And that builds that soft matter for everything moving forward to always run better and better and not lose what you were saying,
[00:34:49] Antonio Bustamante: like that 80% of
[00:34:50] Antonio Bustamante: knowledge, the
[00:34:51] Antonio Bustamante: know-how That is so
[00:34:52] Kevin L. Jackson: That documentation, that's
[00:34:54] Kevin L. Jackson: critical.
[00:34:54] Kevin L. Jackson: That's important.
[00:34:56] Scott W. Luton: Well, so to that end, does it help Bem ensure systems are learning from that operator feedback as well?
[00:35:04] Antonio Bustamante: It makes them more accurate, it makes them more contextual. Uh, I equate it. I I don't like making, you know, pretending to be a, human or an AI coworker, but in a way it is like training someone to be the best team member you could have, right? It means now the system understands what you do.
[00:35:22] Antonio Bustamante: What's your path to revenue? What are your margins? Who are your customers? And so we figured, you know, the best way to serve our customers is to make sure that our system always on a unique customer basis, that understands them and adapts to them not
[00:35:36] Antonio Bustamante: the other way around.
[00:35:37] Scott W. Luton: command center,
[00:35:38] Scott W. Luton: is it better for small, medium sized businesses or large
[00:35:41] Scott W. Luton: enterprises? And can you share a detail or two around how it iterates based on what it's ingesting?
[00:35:48] Scott W. Luton: Quick comment
[00:35:48] Scott W. Luton: there, Antonio.
[00:35:49] Antonio Bustamante: we have everyone from small, small businesses to Fortune 500 companies using Bem today. Um, I think the key is that it integrates very seamlessly with your existing systems. SMBs usually have a variety of QuickBooks and maybe are an ERP. Uh, larger companies we work with have, I mean, we've seen everything IBM mainframes from the 1980s that are still running.
[00:36:13] Antonio Bustamante: and so we can integrate really seamlessly. Um, the and to your other question, the way that it. iterates is every time you receive something in Bem, we start building this knowledge base and trying to understand. And not to get too technical, but it's, it's something we call evals and, a lot of people in the AI industry understand what it is, but to, explain it super simply.
[00:36:34] Antonio Bustamante: It is having a larger AI supervise, how the AI is actually working. It's almost like a self supervision and then figure, oh, here's what we're missing and here are the opportunities that the system is missing. I. And trying to shape to them. I, I equate it to a human. If you, if you were told by your boss, Hey, you're gonna be receiving up 500 invoices every day, just make sure you capture these things and you start seeing that every invoice coming in just has this, like, blurb at the bottom or something
[00:37:05] Antonio Bustamante: like that.
[00:37:06] Antonio Bustamante: You would flag it to someone. You'd be like, Hey, we're, we're getting a lot of these. That's exactly the kind of thing that we wanna do.
[00:37:11] Scott W. Luton: let's talk about accuracy and compliance for heavily regulated industries. Really important here, Antonio. A couple thoughts
[00:37:18] Scott W. Luton: there.
[00:37:19] Antonio Bustamante: It is super important. When we started them, the first question we always got And we still get is how accurate is the, system and, can I trust it? and I think the way we frame it is you can trust it because we've built it in a way that we don't even trust it ourselves. and so we want you to see it for yourself.
[00:37:38] Antonio Bustamante: And so We uh, create audit trails for absolutely everything. Everything that comes in is evaluated.
[00:37:45] Antonio Bustamante: And also we give you the numbers, right? So let's say that. Your operation is incredibly complex, and we see
[00:37:53] Antonio Bustamante: that Accuracy starts at 95%. We tell you that it's 95%, and then we essentially
[00:38:00] Antonio Bustamante: show you how to make that into a hundred percent. that is, incredibly important to our customers. So it's not just, you know, we are compliant on a bunch of certifications, but you ultimately. The way to do this is rather than promise people, Hey, this system is
[00:38:16] Antonio Bustamante: perfect and it's perfectly accurate, which a lot of people wanna
[00:38:20] Antonio Bustamante: promise is it's absolutely not true. What we tell them is look, accuracy is, and
[00:38:25] Antonio Bustamante: compliance is very dependent on your business context. And so let's start using it. Let's see how it behaves. And then what we guarantee you is not perfect accuracy of the bad is that you can get to, perfect accuracy while you use the platform. And that's
[00:38:39] Antonio Bustamante: kind of how we think
[00:38:40] Antonio Bustamante: about it.
[00:38:40] Scott W. Luton: Okay, perfection is in reach. I love that. Antonio, man. Um, we're gonna get a glimpse in the future in just a second, but Kevin, your thoughts there? Accuracy and compliance is important for any sector, any industry. But when there's heavy regulation of all, we better get that right. Huh?
[00:38:58] Kevin L. Jackson: So when a company is, you
[00:39:02] Kevin L. Jackson: know, buying new hardware or buying new software, or buying any type of technology, they always have those questions, but what they don't ask is the problem. They never ask, well, what is my accuracy right now with humans? What is my efficiency right now with humans? And they never compare the human accuracy to the perspective, automation that they're about to, uh, maybe buy.
[00:39:33] Kevin L. Jackson: And that's a mistake. I mean, humans aren't perfect and they're a imperfect human. A perfect human is actually typically worse than an imperfect robot. So let's, let's think about that.
[00:39:47] Scott W. Luton: we like to fool ourselves pretty regularly. Uh, Antonio and Kevin, we do all of us. Um, okay, so. Really appreciate those examples, and I really appreciate not only where y'all are in terms of Bem, but where, where you're headed and some of that command center. I can't wait to get a look at that. not just because I'm a space nerd, but that's really cool.
[00:40:08] Scott W. Luton: Let's talk about what else is coming. Let's look at a little, take a little peek into the future. So Antonio, I've picked up on your, some of your worldview and global view in our earlier conversations. Tell us all why you see the future of operations, not, not to be dashboards or chat bots, but rather what you call composable infrastructure that anyone can use.
[00:40:31] Scott W. Luton: I love that your thoughts.
[00:40:33] Antonio Bustamante: after talking to so many operators, they, we realized people don't want more dashboards. They don't want yet another software that they're buying. They want systems to just work. I. They've been promised for decades. The new shiny system that is better than the previous one. And we honestly think that the winning model is composable.
[00:40:55] Antonio Bustamante: It needs to fit into your business, invisibly it. It's not right in your face. It's not changing everything that you do, it adapts to what you already do. And so Bem doesn't replace your existing systems. It helps your systems think better. I think that's how companies really scale. Without adding operational drag is hey, the, the future is not a dashboard.
[00:41:18] Antonio Bustamante: You stare at it's decisions happening invisibly with the ability for people to monitor what the system is
[00:41:25] Antonio Bustamante: actually doing and, and interject when necessary, which is super, super important. So working in tandem with teams, We're not selling a chatbot. I think chatbots are really interesting. Voice agents are very interesting.
[00:41:38] Antonio Bustamante: I think ultimately what people want is for the system to, to work. And so we just want to help real businesses run smarter behind the scenes. I think, uh, we've built our strong thesis that I think a lot of the companies today, and we see this every, every day. We see this more and more. A lot of the people that we work with on logistics and supply chain.
[00:41:59] Antonio Bustamante: Never thought about software five years ago. Now they're becoming software companies. They're hiring CTOs, they're hiring engineers. And so the whole thought of, oh, we're replacing humans, actually, there's more jobs being created because they see the potential in becoming software companies themselves, we want to be that. building
[00:42:18] Antonio Bustamante: block that they use.
[00:42:19] Scott W. Luton: I like that. And Kevin, going back to the first part of
[00:42:22] Scott W. Luton: his response there. I might be thinking out loud here, but he said no one
[00:42:26] Scott W. Luton: wants more dashboards. And it's so
[00:42:28] Scott W. Luton: true. You know, we talk about the need to enhance all of our human team members' ability to make decisions faster and better. We talk about all the time because that's a big objective of, of much of where we are in
[00:42:42] Scott W. Luton: 2025, but the even.
[00:42:44] Scott W. Luton: Better part on that is in some cases, if we can eliminate the need to even make a decision,
[00:42:50] Scott W. Luton: that's a beautiful thing. But Kevin, what'd you hear there In Antonio's glimpse
[00:42:54] Scott W. Luton: of the future I.
[00:42:56] Kevin L. Jackson: I hear, uh, that they're striving to be more intuitive so that it's not like, a one way, conduit of
[00:43:04] Kevin L. Jackson: information. Just looking at what
[00:43:06] Kevin L. Jackson: the chat bot tells you or what the dashboard shows you more of, uh, interactivity, more understanding the data and how it relates to what's actually happening.
[00:43:21] Kevin L. Jackson: Um, and you, by doing that, you're leveraging humans for their value, their their thinking ability. Their understanding of what's right and what's wrong, um, and how it compares to what's actually happening, and it actually enables that change to be more effective. So I, I like that approach. I really do.
[00:43:45] Scott W. Luton: Hey, if you like it, I like it, Kevin. If it passes the Kevin L. Jackson Litmus test, uh, it's good for me too. Uh, alright,
[00:43:53] Scott W. Luton: Kevin L.
[00:43:54] Scott W. Luton: Jackson. Antonio has really, you know, he really has a way of making. What's really complex, at least for, for folks like me, right? I started in computer science in college and learned quickly, hey, programming c plus plus back in the day, that wasn't my bag, but it, it's got away at really simplifying things that's important in this fast moving world.
[00:44:15] Scott W. Luton: But what's your favorite takeaway from the conversation here
[00:44:18] Scott W. Luton: today, Kevin?
[00:44:19] Kevin L. Jackson: I like the approach to, um, that blend of advanced technology with AI and humans in order to tackle the data challenge, uh, the unstructured data challenge. and I think that's An effective approach, uh, to dealing with, dy dynamicism of the, uh, supply chain and logistics environment.
[00:44:44] Kevin L. Jackson: So, uh, good on you.
[00:44:45] Scott W. Luton: Ooh, high praise there from Kevin, and it's not either or. It's a, it's
[00:44:49] Scott W. Luton: a, it's a, and
[00:44:51] Scott W. Luton: right. Lean into the, and,
[00:44:53] Scott W. Luton: well, I've really enjoyed today's conversation, Antonio. I can't wait to have you back. Uh, kudos to you and, and Zoe and the wonderful team that's helping other teams. Elsewhere across supply chain and beyond, find more success and find it easier and make their, their days more fulfilling and less pressure filled and less friction filled.
[00:45:16] Scott W. Luton: That's good
[00:45:16] Scott W. Luton: news in my book. So big thanks to Antonio Bustamante, CEO, with Bem. Great to have you here, Antonio.
[00:45:24] Antonio Bustamante: Thank you, Scott. Thank you Kevin.
[00:45:26] Antonio Bustamante: Uh, thank you so much for having
[00:45:27] Antonio Bustamante: me.
[00:45:27] Scott W. Luton: Now, hey, we're looking for, we're gonna compare Saki
[00:45:29] Scott W. Luton: notes, uh, soon too.
[00:45:31] Kevin L. Jackson: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I want that recipe, by the way.
[00:45:33] Scott W. Luton: that's right.
[00:45:34] Antonio Bustamante: I'll send it to you.
[00:45:36] Scott W. Luton: Yeah. Kevin, always a pleasure. Enjoyed your perspective and expertise here today.
[00:45:40] Scott W. Luton: Always a pleasure to have these sessions with you.
[00:45:42] Kevin L. Jackson: No, you're stretching my mind, baby. I like it.
[00:45:44] Scott W. Luton: Oh, watch out. Watch out World. Oh, a big thanks to Antonio. Big thanks to Kevin L.
[00:45:49] Scott W. Luton: Jackson. Uh, folks, be sure to connect with both Antonio and Kevin. but whatever you do, here's the challenge folks.
[00:45:55] Scott W. Luton: Here's the homework. Y'all know where I'm going. the homework is you gotta take one thing that Antonio or Kevin shared and you gotta do something with it, right?
[00:46:03] Scott W. Luton: Otherwise it's meaningless. We change industry through deeds, not words. So with all that said, on behalf of the entire supply chain now, team 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
[00:46:17] Scott W. Luton: everybody.