New AI Advancements—And Cyber Threats—In Wholesale Distribution

[00:00:00] Welcome to Around The Horn in Wholesale Distribution with Kevin Brown and Tom Burton. Sponsored each week by Lead Smart Technologies, Tom, Kevin and their guests review the news of the week

[00:00:16] and dive deep into the topics impacting manufacturers, Wholesale Distribution, Independent Sales Agents, and the global Wholesale Supply Chain. Whether it's M&A, Sass and Cloud Computing, B2BE Commerce or Supply Chain Issues,

[00:00:31] we peel back the onion with our guests into the topics that impact your business the most. How are you, my friend? To an okay. Good, good, so you're survived. You know, it's crazy.

[00:00:43] I'll just see this real quick before we dive in this morning, Kevin Brown here with Tom Burton, Lead Smart Technologies and Around The Horn in Wholesale Distribution will do all our housekeeping in a moment.

[00:00:53] But first thing I want to say is Tom and I both in Southern California, but we're in a different world of Southern California, right? You're at the northernmost end and I'm 60 miles or 70 miles from the Mexican board. All that's more central than Southern.

[00:01:08] Yeah, you're at the... I was wondering, what is there a true definition of that? Because in my mind, you're like at the bottom most part of the same thing on the road. You're in the bottom of the central is that right? Yep.

[00:01:21] All right, so how much rain did you get at your house or near the office? Seven inches and three days. And then up on the mountain pass right above you. I guess 11 or something somewhere around there, 11 and a half.

[00:01:35] And we're, you know, with traffic three and a half, four hours away from you, but as the crow flies and the normal drive with no traffic,

[00:01:45] just under three hours away and I don't think we got if we have an inch in the last two days I'd be shocked right? So it's pretty different. Yeah, I know the atmospheric river parked over us. Yeah. What was the sounding?

[00:02:00] Well, if you looked at the models, if I'd use something one of those to look at yesterday, that was a wild time. So anyways, you know, as interesting I was talking with a customer in Minnesota yesterday and they used the term brown Christmas

[00:02:12] because in fact, those with another, another polyester was folks in Ohio and they've got a little bit of snow but Minnesota is no snow on the ground. So it's a weird, weird world and timing where we're in.

[00:02:25] Yeah, we kicked off the first year of winter in a big way yesterday here. You did so well, let's get ready to die that we got a lot of stuff to cover today again, I'm Kevin Brown. This is my co-founder of Leedsmark Technologies and Lifelong Friend Tom Burton.

[00:02:40] We get together every Friday morning sometimes it's the two of us sometimes. It is a steamed guests. Well, actually be talking about some exciting esteemed guests. It's a steamed might be there.

[00:02:51] I don't know if that's the right word but probably for some of these folks, but we got a great great line of guest coming in 2024. And we're going to kick off the year in January 12th with that. We'll talk about that later in today's broadcast.

[00:03:05] But we get together every Friday morning, Tom and I do. And we talk about the news in the world in the US, in North America, Latin America. We talk in depth about mergers and acquisitions lately a lot about artificial intelligence.

[00:03:23] Stay where you'd be talking a little bit more about cyber security and cyber crimes. And we bring all this data together throughout the week. We put it into a newsletter that goes out every Friday morning, two thousands of people. And it's called around the Horn and wholesale distribution.

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[00:04:13] So we do this every Friday, Tom and I do the production costs, the editors that we use, the people that are involved in this are all sponsored by Leedsmark Technologies, which happens to also be the company that Tom and I both work for.

[00:04:28] And the Leedsmark is an AIA enabled CRM and customer intelligence platform that has been developed solely and specifically for manufacturers and wholesale distributors. Leedsmark's not sold the construction companies and school districts. And whoever else it might be solely working with that marketplace.

[00:04:46] I bring to the table almost 35 years of experience and wholesale distribution of manufacturing. And Tom is the WizzBang with the technology running that team. And we put our heads together on Fridays to have these discussions. So that's what we do again if you'd like to get that newsletter.

[00:05:01] That's great for those of you who are listening later in the day, whether it's on or later in the future on Spotify on LinkedIn, or on Tuesday on Apple podcast Spotify, Odyssey wherever you get your podcast.

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[00:05:38] Be great to kind of see where everybody is as they kind of wrap up this final final real work week of the year. Well, I'm that said, good you mentioned there. Good point is today is is it for us for the year we're going to.

[00:05:51] Yeah, it's right off like most people many are off today. I was actually surprised in looking in you mentioned this mention is an I failed to earlier is that we broadcast this live every Friday morning at 9 o'clock Pacific time.

[00:06:06] LinkedIn live Facebook live YouTube live as I looked at just the audience that was checking in just on LinkedIn. I think we had three or four countries represented today some great regular listeners some new listeners that we're happy to have with us.

[00:06:23] And then we just saw some statistics the other day that came from our podcast hosting forum platform and think what was it where I think we're averaging.

[00:06:36] Some are either there's either six or eight countries a week that the podcast is going out to is so kind of growing out there we appreciate everybody's time that they give us to listen and do our chatter.

[00:06:48] So, you know, it wouldn't be the week if we didn't talk a little about about the economy. But we always like to do that related to how it impacts wholesale distribution.

[00:06:58] So, first article we talked about you got this one actually came from our friends at Modern distribution management we posted their article but.

[00:07:08] So read the same stuff in Yahoo and lots of other places housing starts in November were significantly ahead and that 18% ahead of the previous period so compared to October's note so big deal right we bought that impacts a lot of folks in a positive way.

[00:07:26] And I was reading I don't know if that's more of an economic indicator as much as it is that inventory and materials indicator and having availability of that.

[00:07:36] You know they mentioned here comes a 30 year mortgage rates of fallen which is true but that's that's not really relevant to housing starts which are going to be using construction loans and other things for building so.

[00:07:49] Yeah, I don't know if that's an economic indicator as much as it is maybe inventory indicator but definitely it's picking up and people must you know they must believe that people are going to be in a place where they can buy houses as mortgage rates fall.

[00:08:04] So why I would say what I truly believe this isn't it was kind of hinted at a few places in the start of it is you know.

[00:08:11] The first off is that the home builders are looking at this and they the US needs housings right so everywhere you turn there's a shortage of housing but the other side of that is this thing started even before the announcements last week from the Fed.

[00:08:26] Because obviously this was November data was we've started to get a more dovece feeling so to speak and I don't like that doesn't talk thing but.

[00:08:36] It's we've started to have a sentiment that's there right and then it's where we I think it's six straight weeks of mortgage rates starting to dip.

[00:08:46] And so my view of this isn't kind of pulled it out of some of this as well is that you have the home builders looking at this and saying okay.

[00:08:55] Take a deep breath we're ready you know interest rates are probably going to start coming down even further things we're looking to have a she even during that time or positive during that time from Wall Street to you.

[00:09:07] I think people look that said let's pull the trigger on this land that we have and so forth because we've got.

[00:09:13] Got building that needs to be done and people need housing so I think it's extremely positive it just it kind of ties in though you know we we look at pretty consistently if you're with us today for the first time will use different statistics when we talk about the economy sometimes it's you know the mid east manufacturing index the other times it you know might be.

[00:09:35] Manufacturing technology index is we look at all kinds of different formats with that and so we just looked at housing starts this week but when you look at that as a whole right and you look at the stock markets been doing not just this year but for the last you know what.

[00:09:50] And so this close to 90 last 45 to 60 days and then specifically the last couple weeks has just been phenomenal starting to put these things together now this hinting at you know interest rates dropping in the new year. There's a pent up demand I think for people to get moving.

[00:10:09] I agree you know as I've said many times I don't I wouldn't say I don't believe we're out of the woods but I do believe that next year in particular is going to be I think.

[00:10:21] I think you're going to see a lot of momentum and a lot of willingness to take more risks obviously starting more homes and everything is the risk right or that's the risk of.

[00:10:31] But they were doing before so I think you're going to see more risk you're going to see more willing to invest I do think there's going to be a lot of relief from as interest rates do drop and they will drop next year.

[00:10:43] Is it the whole story in my opinion, no but I think over the next year I think we'll see quite a bit. So let me ask you a question about that because a contrary and way too strong of a word.

[00:10:56] And if I'm going to take a shot at you all use a big bad word. But you talk regularly at about the you know consumer debt big concerns about that and there's no argument right that that's the potential of a big issue.

[00:11:13] Other articles earlier in the week quite a few things published on on the consumer sentiment in the marketplace and still very bullish right whether it's pulling from 401k's and running up credit cards or whatever it is people are spending.

[00:11:29] And a lot of people that are cutting back but clearly the marketplace is saying they're spending.

[00:11:35] But when we look at what's going on from a standpoint in housing starts as an example today we've got you know and this housing starts article really is a side note just to digress for a moment.

[00:11:46] You know we I was on the phone yesterday with a new customer that's in the building materials market and that it's just just coming on using lead smart and.

[00:11:56] It's a conversation right they sell drywall and metal studs and tools and equipment and all the things to go with all of that and there going to.

[00:12:06] See the impact of these housing starts right all of those customers so as we bring this background whole so distribution this is going to play real real strong but as we look at the macro view.

[00:12:17] And so we're going to have a look at the value of housing starts being great stock market doing well if in fact there's a larger impact to consumers that you've talked about most weeks. Yeah, you reference a concern about that what do you see is that.

[00:12:33] Is it a bubble of some sort that's going to have some major impact on things or what's your take. And so, you know, you know, you're going to be at two things one is right they're going to run at consumers are going to run out of spending power.

[00:12:44] So you max out your credit cards you. You know take money out of your 401k you start paying more and more higher you know you are paying higher interest rates on the credit cards if you're not paying them down. Right.

[00:12:58] And so, you know, you know, you know, you're going to be there'll be an opportunity for people to take money out of their house is the next way to do that I don't you know know all the so I think that's the the one potential risk is running out of spending power.

[00:13:10] The second one is really something a bit more maybe less probable but a little more drastic as we saw in 2008 related to mortgages but.

[00:13:20] You have a tremendous amount of defaults and what we don't know what those defaults can do the whole economic structure in the same way the defaults happened with you know what do they call them the the crappy mortgages that that existed back in the in the day.

[00:13:35] So far less it is now right on the mortgage side I believe there is but now there's a tremendous amount of credit card debt and other debt. That is same semel-models that's packaged sold it's the same.

[00:13:47] Yeah, a lot of this the same basic framework so I just you know there's and there's also a lot of other things above and beyond the consumer again I'm not trying to be a.

[00:13:57] A bear I guess if you called on this I just think that it's again as I said many times over eyes wide open and I'm even being cautious it's just eyes wide open.

[00:14:07] And I think sometimes you get people get caught up in oh the stock market or one thing like that and then you don't you kind of just get caught up in the hype and the party of it and you lose I have other things that all said I think 2020 for is going to be a big growth year for on a lot of friends will see how it plays out in 2025.

[00:14:26] Well I think I think something you know major would need to happen for the coming year not to be a very solid year with everything that we're seeing and all the indicators that we're looking at from that standpoint.

[00:14:36] Frankly just because it would take right for foreclosures or to start happening it would be. Bad loans that are adjusting and or people losing their jobs and we don't see either of those to the magnitude that we've seen in the past.

[00:14:51] I think I'm very bullish on I'm bullish on globally and I'm bullish on it and the company that you and I both work for.

[00:15:00] Of a positive new year so it's kind of jump ahead we get lots to cover today so we we posted another article and we've started to talk about this little bit more in fact.

[00:15:10] I think we have Casey with us today at least a I believe you's coming to Casey if you're here and you're going to listen to this. I had an opportunity to meet a gentleman that's a founder of a cybersecurity company at a software conference recently.

[00:15:24] I think he was going to join us today they do quite a bit of stuff with. Smaller mid-sized businesses you know sometimes we think about cybersecurity is you know the the lockheeds or the bowings or the three ends or whoever it is that have these big issues but.

[00:15:38] You know as we've seen with this article talks about what went on at Henry Shine you know and it was quite interesting so. You know Henry Shine the huge distributor medical products and dental products and so forth has been hit twice by the same group.

[00:15:56] Clearly they still had access to their system it appears maybe negotiations on payments weren't going well but Henry Shine's a publicly traded company so they've had to restate earnings because what it appears is they've had two also three major components of this attack that's causing them big problems.

[00:16:15] One is they compromise 30,000 customer.

[00:16:19] A piece of 30,000 customers other data compromised right big deal right it says that they've lost over 500 million dollars in revenue because they crippled their e-commerce system for weeks right and then you've got the whole factor of all the other disruptions of just having this in the costs of business continuity and so forth.

[00:16:39] Big big deal right with this and in the the latter part of the article that we posted here and some other research I did on this says that actually this group that has attacked them is saying they may be back for a third time.

[00:16:54] Yeah it's a bit of a mess I mean obviously. I mean if I'm in Henry Shine and they've certainly got a what a target on their back there's that.

[00:17:06] Yeah and you know I don't it seems like you know there's a lot of press around this I don't know if that's a good thing you know in some ways I think it's good that.

[00:17:17] It creates awareness of the problem of the situation I think on the on the negative side it could you know cause more people to go oh wow this is you know another. I need to get into this business right of this kind of stuff so.

[00:17:31] But I do think on the positive side it's providing some more awareness and we're going to talk a little bit more about that in a minute about some of the other things to be thinking about.

[00:17:39] But yeah it's it can be even for a big company with lots of IT and all of that it can be very very devastating.

[00:17:47] No it's it's critical and I you know that's one of my favorite things that I can bring to this show is all the conversations with you know with the customer based on leads more technologies and.

[00:17:59] I was talking to a distributor earlier in the week and they they're have a whole program and they put together the third party to really protect their company in this case and and they're not a huge company there there. You know.

[00:18:12] Modern size nice company and five six branches and so forth but they're there following this guidance of some of the things that is kind of nice segue to our next article. In fact it's from industry today attacks by cyber criminals remain a threat obviously that's pretty straightforward but.

[00:18:32] It's interesting what I thought about it and I don't know your take on this but they talked about one of the first kind of bullet points I might take away notes was that they talked about there having been a spike in ransomware activity in 2019 to 2021 but a huge decrease in 2022.

[00:18:51] They look at as likely that the threat actors involved in this. More in a part of the world i.e. Eastern Europe and the you basically the the Russian Ukraine conflict had slowed things down through 2022.

[00:19:09] But yet the first half of 23 is he an image of resurgence even you know greater than it had been previously.

[00:19:16] That seems logical right yeah it does it just it was like when it was so clearly state I was like wow you know what winner winner other parts of the world going to get on board with the.

[00:19:29] The Eastern Europeans and and the Russians and so forth that are involved in this. It was interesting to me though.

[00:19:38] They talked about the expectation of you know growth in 2024 of these types of attacks and they kind of broke them down to being the biggest one in fact they talked about it at FBI identity the federal. The federal government investigation identifying.

[00:19:54] Business email attacks as the most prevalent online threat of anything out there and you know we think about it is. Oh yeah you know spam and you know I shouldn't click on this or whatever but I don't think people can state the importance.

[00:20:11] And the magnitude and I wonder if that bridge worker Joe in a you know 300 worker 1000 worker company really realizes the magnitude of what can happen to the organization he works at. If he clicks on the wrong thing sure.

[00:20:28] And it's it's very easy to do right I mean it's you know sometimes I find myself I'm going through emails and I'll see something in my inclination is just oh that it is legitimate or it's some my legit.

[00:20:42] Microsoft logo right right and you're not even thinking right you're not thinking about that aspect of it.

[00:20:50] And it's interesting the fact that some of these emails you know we have a decent spam filter and through is gets through they get through and they get into the you know the main.

[00:20:59] The main inbox versus the promotional inbox so yeah others a lot of different ways that you know in. In the same way I think I think a lot of companies are doing this.

[00:21:11] In fact I know a person who runs a company that does security training for company so that's what they do is they train employees really train employees on.

[00:21:22] And I would to deal with this because it's not and it's not just an issue of having better spam filters and having better. You know security measures around your servers and cloud and all that it's also.

[00:21:34] Making everybody in the organization aware of it as they say to do proper cyber hygiene yep and I think that's going to become more and more of a. Of a requirement and especially in larger companies but even in smaller companies.

[00:21:48] And the magnitude of what can happen is is phenomenal so they they hit some some. Pretty critical pieces here to be thinking about you know and and they talked about this shift in the focus on moving a lot of this moving to.

[00:22:02] Midsize and small and midsize businesses which I thought was interesting and they described it as you know what do they say.

[00:22:10] Targeting midsize businesses for quicker lower risk financial gains said the tax are seeing is low hanging fruit compared to a larger more complex attacks on big organizations and anything I made this comment a few weeks ago.

[00:22:23] I think we're talking about this and I think this is important for your audience and wholesale distributors and manufacturers to be thinking about because.

[00:22:30] You know and all frankness and and with do respect right is a lot of these organizations are still a little bit later doctors and a lot of technology.

[00:22:39] And you know no one can afford to have their business at risk and it's more than just we had a comment a week or two ago.

[00:22:47] You know on this and somebody's saying oh, you know get everything to the cloud well that that's important right getting things to the cloud versus on site big step.

[00:22:56] But that's not the only step and but I do think it's an important one the number of people that we see even running Microsoft exchange in house yeah, it's as using 365 and the cloud right there's there's things that you can do.

[00:23:13] To that immediately can take some steps I agree it's not the only steps, but moving to the cloud is something that I think.

[00:23:20] It's probably the most important one of the most important things and the and you kill you if you're getting multiple benefits of that right you're handling it from a security perspective.

[00:23:29] And you're all going to get in yourself more lined up for the future and what's what can be done in the future so it's got to added benefit.

[00:23:37] I think that's good, you know, and you kind of nailed it maybe you can impact that slightly a little bit further is. I just think that example right of running on premise.

[00:23:49] Email server still right Microsoft can help you a lot or Gmail can help you and I guess it would be early Microsoft running on premise.

[00:23:56] Microsoft can help you a lot if you're in the cloud with 365 right there's limits to things that they can do when you're on premise and you know what if you're running your ERP system on the same server that is running your exchange server.

[00:24:13] It's just you know open the door. Well, yeah and most I mean whether it's it's on the same network right so whether it's on the same server or not or the same physical machines or whatever but it's almost always in the same network.

[00:24:26] Yeah and so most people have not established the right network security that's necessary to protect those servers so it whether you have one server 10 server or whatever.

[00:24:38] When you move to the cloud you let them deal with that issue and right and you know most of the almost all the big players are investing literally millions and millions of dollars to make sure that they don't have that as a problem.

[00:24:52] Yeah, and so you don't want that as a problem you let them let them deal with that right there that's let them that be that let them let them take that job because that's not really a job any of us want to deal with.

[00:25:03] Well, absolutely I couldn't agree anyways I last comment all make on this particular I just I think it's important you know as they made this comment about low hanging fruit with us is that. You know every.

[00:25:18] Every technology advancement every new market that we've seen ever right in the world is we have a big player and then people start spinning off from that right so if I'm and and others use the simplest example I can't remember without going back but you know the group behind the it's pretty well known in the technology world the group behind the heart Henry shine attack right why wouldn't.

[00:25:46] For three of their top guys go on say well you know you guys work on the publicly traded companies and I'm going to go work on ABC industrial supply over here that's got 27 branches in you know quarter quarter billion dollars of revenue and all extract 150 thousand dollars out of them three times over two years you know versus the big deals right.

[00:26:14] Yeah, I'm you know I'm sure that's all these are sophisticated operations so. Expect any of that stuff but again all we can do is do the best that we can to try and prevent it and I think you know will I think reinforce that is.

[00:26:29] I think you said it well it's a great step for a distributor to increase security provides robust data protection and including encryption.

[00:26:37] Encryptions another big deal and disaster recovery so it's those you know things together that look I don't want to deal with that no I don't I know and that's not your core business so let somebody else deal with that. Anyway yep.

[00:26:52] Good stuff thanks for that comment we'll appreciate that glad that you're with us today so jump in ahead kind of it you know wouldn't be Friday if we're not talking about AI right so.

[00:27:01] Hey Friday it's I'm sorry AI Friday AI Friday it's some days it feels like that but. Also it's also feels like AI Saturday sending money Tuesday Wednesday Thursdays in the world of living and right now so.

[00:27:16] But this is an interesting article from tech target talking about how AI is shaping ERP listen AI is shaping everything around us you know it's some level we're going to talk about some robotics in a few minutes as well and it's just astounding right but they did some some nice.

[00:27:34] Break down some of the things and so it's great will will will is with us I think there's others with us today from from some other ERP companies that have joined us today I think some some some of them active out of us with us.

[00:27:45] Will's within for this article talks about some of the things that are being done by SAP Microsoft and Oracle about using AI within ERP systems and before you launch into your thoughts on this topic I'm really looking forward to as.

[00:28:02] You know I'm 35 years I guess it is now in in wholesale distribution and. In manufacturing so the folks that we deal with day in and day out that's just my life of who I've dealt with my whole career.

[00:28:18] You're the technology guy right you you know distribution you've been working with industry vision for six eight years now and. But you you comment it just it seems like you comment weekly still as as long as you've been involved in many different projects we've been on together including.

[00:28:37] Watching launching leads for technologies you commented about how astounded you are at the amount of data that specifically wholesale distributors have it their fingertips.

[00:28:48] Yeah, no absolutely it's a I mean this is a very data rich industry yep and in the tech world and other industries that I've worked in.

[00:29:00] You don't have that volume of data you don't have you know tens of thousands of skews or more and tens of thousands of quotes and transactions and it's just not the world we're in right in tech world so we have we're very data rich.

[00:29:16] What's what I found promising about this article and I think it goes way beyond the RP right I think we all whether we have ERP or CRM or other tools.

[00:29:28] The way that we have growing up using those tools is through I call it more transactional I go to a screen I look up some information I put some information into the screen I get our run a report.

[00:29:42] You know some tools of course do have some process type things in them as well but for the most part a lot of enterprise software or software that's used to run organizations.

[00:29:52] And we see this all the time and dealing with the ERP in our own company is transactional yeah I think what AI and what they were talking about in this article is really opens up the door to changing how we use technology how we use these technologies.

[00:30:11] And that to me is because yes these technologies do have and we'll continue to have a tremendous amount of data.

[00:30:19] And valuable data that the way that we use AI to use these technologies whether it's to automate processes or to do digital twins like we talked about last week or whatever the case may be.

[00:30:34] It's going to reshape and it says how AI is shaping the future of ERP I think they were even just scratching the surface in the article you're talking about some co pilots and things like that I think we're going to see a completely different.

[00:30:48] You know is this something in 2024 not so sure is it something that in the next two years maybe in 2025 where we're going to see and we're doing this so I'm sure if we're doing this others are doing this is rethinking the entire interface the user experience the UX the UI all of that to be different because AI to create a different experience and transactional of what we're used to so.

[00:31:13] Yeah, that's I think we're just scratching the surface on what's being talked about this on.

[00:31:17] I think one of the big factors it goes with us and it was alluded to in this article as well right is and do your point that you made I think was was wise at the moment ago was about you may be it's not early in 2024 is and you joined me for a call yesterday with a customer and we were talking about AI I wrote a I wrote maps and so forth in technology and things and it was good.

[00:31:40] And but we're early right in and all of this technology is changing quickly and so from the standpoint we still have.

[00:31:52] The that whole issue of a hallucinase hallucinizations right that can't even talk this morning we until we get I think things a little bit more sorted out with.

[00:32:06] How the AI is going to work for things and so for there's going to be some challenges and it's not going to be simple until or perfect they should say tell some of this is sorted out.

[00:32:16] Yeah, it's it's not so much hallucinations as it is unpredictability with a I you can ask. You know, I can ask do fish swim and I'll get one answer and I can ask do fish swim five minutes later and get a somewhat different answer yeah that's hard to.

[00:32:32] It's that's hard to test and debug sometimes but again there's more more I was watching really good video this week from open AI that they put out on.

[00:32:44] Really how you go about testing and and refining and optimizing some of the models that are there and how you know where to start and all that so you're starting to see methodologies and structure for doing this. And for building these things so that'll get worked out.

[00:32:59] But yeah it's very different than then some of the transactional things that we are used to and even when we're building transactional type applications well and you talk about this regularly is.

[00:33:10] You know that the natural language conversation right and so I mean I've lived this in my business life over and over again where you've got.

[00:33:21] Folks that you know are in maybe their purchasing maybe their operations maybe it's even some sales leadership that wants some very specific data out of the ERP and it's outside of the realm.

[00:33:35] And the ERP systems are getting better and better and better all the time right of what's available and how easy it is to access but if we could go from a natural language standpoint and literally just tell that ERP much like we you're already able to do in a lot of instances within the CRM.

[00:33:51] Is to be able to say I need these things in natural language versus literally having to put a request into an IT department or another group within a company that says go figure out how to write me this report and it goes into a queue and it gets evaluated about the level of importance against other thing in the company and.

[00:34:11] It's a very different world beginning ready to head into. I mean we were demoing that ourselves right we have a beta version I call it talk with your data right have a conversation with your data versus report on your data.

[00:34:24] That's a very different type of thing and hey let's think about it right whether you're an executive or whatever there's many times you probably late and bad or you're thinking about going I wish I knew this or I wish I had this or I wish you could get it this.

[00:34:39] Again, if you set up the right structure it's there to be had and literally you know on demand so that's the beauty of AI2 right is it's learning in these models or learning more about how you use them.

[00:34:53] Right they're going to be helping do even anticipate what you might need next which is I'm I'm extremely excited about some of this stuff that you and your team are working on related that let's move ahead for for time sake before we jump to the next article time which I just love it that was so interesting.

[00:35:08] Is I just was looking on my mobile device on LinkedIn and where we're broadcasting live on LinkedIn YouTube and Facebook.

[00:35:19] I'm seeing some comments there that did not show up in the stream thing has been a real is been really problematic the last couple weeks about getting its comments together and these are AI or something to sort things up.

[00:35:34] So I'm kind of watching a little closer now those of you that made some comments just quite a number of them that made comments earlier that we missed I apologize for that.

[00:35:43] I'll look a little bit closer from a mobile device we as a streaming tool that's supposed to gather them all everything I've seen from other podcasts that you participate in time and others is that there's some real challenges with the LinkedIn side of this so if you're on the LinkedIn side and you've made some comments then we missed a more of apologize for that but we're appreciative of.

[00:36:03] So next article this is this is I love this right it's from in gadget and gadget dot com and talks about warehouse robot that understands natural language commands. You want to take your first stab at this I love this.

[00:36:19] No go ahead I know you had some really some interesting. Well you know it was interesting right if you if you watch 60 minutes the weekly news. Television show here in the US that they have run a number of times that. The.

[00:36:42] I think I've seen it on there a couple of different times is they is they do these update articles are update episodes on AI within this new show they show I think it was an MIT I think it was they have a you know where house a small little soccer field or soccer pitch there and they.

[00:36:59] And they put these small robots in there with a soccer ball did not tell them the rules of soccer did not load them in with any any very specific. For you know what I wanted to do to do not cut intended but.

[00:37:17] They actually taught themselves all of these different plays and they had soccer experts right watching them develop that they got better in understanding the game through their learning methods will this time now we're seeing an example of this the companies called the agility robotics.

[00:37:35] And this, if you get a chance, it's on Engage.com, ENGage. ENGA, DGET, great video because what we're first seeing is, and again, our audience's manufacturers and wholesale distributors is the activity of it going on of what a robot can do in a warehouse.

[00:37:59] And what they did is in this video is they just show a prompt that's going to move the box that is the same color as Darth Vader's light saber to the highest stack. And so at the front of what the robot sees is,

[00:38:17] three stacks, what look like it could be stacks of boxes, at varying degrees of height. And on the other side of the area, it's going to work within our three boxes. I think they were yellow, green,

[00:38:28] and red. But it shows you in the video the thinking that it's going through so you can see what the robot is thinking. And it shows you, right? It does its search for what colors Darth Vader's light saber.

[00:38:42] And identifies its red. And it goes over to the box. And then now it's processing, right? What's behind it of the different heights of these different stacks? And then it goes through and starts asking these questions

[00:39:00] of which of these will I find? And how do I get there and all of these? And it shows you the progression. And it takes the red box because it went and searched what Darth Vader's light saber was. And it moves it to the right stack.

[00:39:13] Now if you just think about all that that can do long term about whether it's unloading trucks or it's using that after we've used digital twins to rearrange a warehouse, it's astounding to me.

[00:39:27] Yeah, I think I mentioned this year. I think 2024 is going to be the year of the robot. Where you really start to see more mainstream usage and examples of it. And you heard it here first. This is my prediction. I don't know if that's

[00:39:43] left but in 2024 but I think by 2025, I was in Costco the other night. And I asked a person for something. You know, do you where do you have? I don't know. I was looking for something. Where is that in Costco?

[00:39:56] And that person didn't know and then she called over somebody else and they didn't know and it was like the most inefficient thing ever. And I was thinking about going, you know, if you had a robot like a natural language robot

[00:40:09] in Costco. And I said, hey, where is the, you know, Brandar wine or whatever it is? I mean, they would know exactly where it is and probably we just go over get it for you

[00:40:21] and then come back. I mean, the amount of efficiency that could be created in a place like that like a consumer place like that which is some simple robotics like we're talking about

[00:40:32] really see. Yeah, I think robots have been, you know, most of us don't see them if they're in use there in warehouses and things like that. I think you're going to start to see them

[00:40:44] come out more often. I was seeing the gas station there. I wonder, you know, remember back in the day when they had full serve? Sure. Well, you have robots doing full serve. Yeah. You know, that kind of stuff. These are the types of things that I look at.

[00:40:58] And I guess that I don't know if this is going to happen in a mainstream way. But it's, I think it will happen in the next year or the year and a half we're going

[00:41:09] to see some real mainstream applications of this as consumers were going to run into as well. But yeah, that video was really cool just to show what's possible. No, it's it was really, I really appreciate it and join in the difference right if you think about this.

[00:41:24] And I want to reference back if anybody saw this, this 60 minutes episode and it's, it's I'm sure available online. But, you know, with these, these robots playing soccer right in teaching themselves. But imagine, and this is the difference. The big difference here is

[00:41:40] describing in this particular article was about opening up large language models that are now available right to the robots, which is where you know to your Costco example or our gas station thing. It's like, you know, the robot could look over your shoulder and see what you're looking

[00:41:58] at on your iPad while they're filling your gas tank for you and comment to you about what you're reading. Right? But in this case, I think back to that whole thing with a soccer playing robots,

[00:42:08] imagine if they opened up an LLM that could even if just accessing internet and let alone a large language model that was focused on football is the rest of the world calls it, right?

[00:42:22] Or soccer. And just imagine what those things could have picked up and how quickly by reading every rule and every blog that a coach has written or whatever it is, right? And the things that we can introduce with these language models is just astounding.

[00:42:36] Yeah. And I know we're not going to be on next week, so I don't know if you heard but today I think it was today or maybe yesterday Apple announced that there are new phones and are going to have their own

[00:42:47] micro large language model built in by zero. Yeah. It's not surprising, which it's kind of expected this to happen, but they believe that that could really change the well, it's going to sell a lot more phones, right? Because our phones don't have the hardware currently

[00:43:04] to handle the language model, but that's Apple's going to be incorporating on there and so forth. I think Will Quinn has special powers because he somehow gets through here and nobody else knows does

[00:43:17] does so whatever you're doing well, well done. And he will write a really good link here about that soccer robot. Yeah. Will if you see that other link from in-gag it throw it up there as well

[00:43:31] if you would mind. That's great. Appreciate it. Yeah. It's interesting. I'm just looking here. We don't have any more since the ones I missed Kelly, half myster had made a couple of comments

[00:43:43] and Brandon Lee, I appreciate that we in fact tell even just emailed me an article about one of our topics earlier. So apologize that we couldn't comment on those but that's fine. Let's kind of jump ahead and

[00:43:58] get the next. Each week in fact this is a good time. I should have done this already. If you're listening on any of the podcast formats and you're not seeing us live here, what Tom and

[00:44:10] I do every Friday is we get together and we talk about the news around the world, economy, we're just in acquisition, so on and so forth. And we talk about how that references back to

[00:44:20] wholesale distribution manufacturing. You are not seeing our screen if you're listening to the podcast and we look at the newsletter we put out every week. If you would like to get that newsletter,

[00:44:29] you can easily do that by emailing us at helloatleadsmarttech.com or we have a website for the podcast www.aroundthehornpod.com. Tom, good article here from in our tech

[00:44:46] talk section that we do every week about the year and review. We won't spend a lot of time because there's really good articles. We've got to still cover today but this was nice. Can I talk

[00:44:55] about some of the key things that happened? You need to take the ways of anything particular from this? No, I was helpful for me because if you just asked me the year, it's going

[00:45:05] to be a ice centric but there was a lot of other things that happened this year that weren't AI that impacted the tech industry. The Silicon Valley Bank thing which was what back in April

[00:45:16] or whatever. March 10th, big impact on a lot of things over there. I thought there was some really good key things in there that we kind of forgotten about or got overshadowed that were worth looking at. 42 billion dollars worth of withdrawals from Silicon Valley Bank in two days.

[00:45:36] It's a little bit of an issue. It talked about the FTX scandal going on there and with the cryptocurrency. There's an interesting thing and one of the podcasts I think that you and I both listen to pretty regularly is that all in podcast and the guys there, all

[00:45:54] technology had a lot of things. They're all billionaires but they do some really good research on stuff and they were in this, well I guess it was last week's episode. I was listening to a Wednesday but they were just talking about all the things going on

[00:46:08] at Twitter and all the free speech ideas and things going on with that. The stuff going on with even the US, the bands on TikTok that it talks about here. These are important things though. It's interesting too because we see more and more

[00:46:24] manufacturers and distributors who are hiring social media consultants and or bringing on somebody that can be working on social media. There's some good stuff in this article about that as well. We're going to be talking a little bit about

[00:46:39] more discussion coming up about the upcoming year and the year in behind us. So we'll make an announcement in a few minutes but just kind of going through the rest of our newsletter here, we do each week another section called industry scuttlebot.

[00:46:54] We try and highlight a few different things happening. Blackhawk industrial, the large, very large industrial equipment, cutting tools and so forth distributors just in an acquisition. Then there's two articles about private equity groups,

[00:47:11] jump in and do enroll ups with different one is a roll up a three different metal fabrication companies and the other one is about developing a new industrial distributor called Venturi Supply. The reason I'll focus on those for a second

[00:47:29] is just we'll probably feature this article in next couple weeks. I had an opportunity to participate in an article that was coming out in Ted, which is the electrical distributor magazine, Ted magazine about private equities roll in wholesale distribution. This particularly was focused

[00:47:49] on the electrical market so that comes out sometime in January. So we'll talk about that more because there's a bigger and bigger role every day. The consistently throughout this year in particular with PE and their private equity and their involvement in distribution.

[00:48:06] Any thoughts on any of those down? Yeah, the rollups I'm finding intriguing. It makes sense to me again looking at it more from a technology perspective when we talked about data before. The key would be as if that, for example, the roll up six, it says

[00:48:27] distributors are last one there. Can you leverage the data across those different distributors? That's a lot of the things that we're working on even at LEADS smart. It's an ecosystem. How do we leverage data securely and

[00:48:41] securely and with the right things across the ecosystem to help drive some of the intelligence that goes into some of these things that are here? So I don't know if that was a part of their strategy. I don't know how it could not be.

[00:48:54] I think it's got to be, right? It's got to be as they acquire and they put these together as they have to basically silo out. And it looks like all of a sudden we are comment things started to work. Yeah, good point for Mike.

[00:49:07] It's been a surprisingly busy holiday week on the newsfront here in distribution. It's been quite a few things all of a sudden happening at the end of the year. Yeah, it's been a busy last week for us. It's been a probably Wednesday week or going into a holiday.

[00:49:20] I've seen we had just and this was just I think a lot of hard work throughout the year coming together. I did not expect the second half of this week to create much.

[00:49:32] Our year as a company at LEADS smart is going to close out significantly better than I had anticipated. These were deals that closed in the last couple of days that I was just expecting a couple of my wasn't expecting.

[00:49:46] And a couple of them were like just, I think we're you know, handful of them are rolling over to the new year. So yeah, so I'm, but now when I looked at the out of office replies from the email that went out this morning is a

[00:49:59] stowning that people that are out, but you we also one Mike's with us today. Thank you, Mike. Um, a Mike's with modern distribution management. We, I guess we'll say republish with credits to them every week quite a bit of a few articles.

[00:50:14] Mike's been on the show, Mike just said you're real quick. Got to get you back in Q1. So let's connect on that. Will Quinn gets the award for being the editorial assistant in the podcast to sit down for the day.

[00:50:27] Will's within force of thanks will for doing that for us. And will's going to be back on with us to in Q1. Chatted with him a week or so ago about that. So Tom, let's bust through last couple things we have today with the time that we have.

[00:50:41] We also do each week. Um, what we call, uh, we off the times have a special feature and then what we call a good read here. And, um, Let's jump Tom to the, uh, the good read one first.

[00:50:57] If you don't mind, uh, you want to come back to the other one or you want to just. Let's talk about the other one first. That's fine. I think there was one point in there. I really liked about the 2024. Uh-huh.

[00:51:08] Or maybe it what they, I don't know, you may, I may be missing the articles, but it was talking about. In a wholesale distribution, having a great history does not guarantee a great future. And I thought that was a very interesting point that they brought in there.

[00:51:24] The, um, this was tied to, uh, it's called 2024, um, expect to be to be thrilled right of highs and lows, right? So, um, that was, um, tied to some, uh, forced or research as well. So they did some good predictions obviously tying to AI again as well.

[00:51:45] And then I think that point that you just made is really good, right? Is, um, what is, what do they say in the investment world? Um, past performances, no guarantee of future results. Something like that. Yeah. Uh, I've said this forever about, um,

[00:52:03] you know, we talked to hear people, you know, doom and gloom, right? If you're, yeah, wholesale distributor manufacturer and you're not doing these things, right? You're going to be extinct soon. And, and I, I've never had that view that you'll be gone.

[00:52:16] There will be some that are gone. Uh, there will be many that will be gobbled up. But your business is not going to be the same, right? You won't, you won't thrive in the way you've thrived in the past by working harder.

[00:52:28] The working smarter people are going to clover the hardworking people in this setting, right? Doesn't mean we're not going to need guys and tricks and gals running out to job sites and taking care of things and working with customers and still doing some lunches and things like that.

[00:52:44] But there will be more and more AI and technology enabled competitors showing up. Uh, probably some of them are going to be startups and some of them are going to be as we saw in our,

[00:52:56] in our industry scueblo but section, more private equity groups coming in and wanting in this marketplace. Yep. So let's go ahead to the strategic planning. Yeah, so this was, uh, just lost my notes spot here is, uh,

[00:53:14] This was a good article that was said, John Gunderson with the, uh, Dorn group and just did some, just a good, a good kind of, He called a three tips to elevate strategic planning performance in 2024. And, uh, talked about strategy planning unpredictability of the distribution channel.

[00:53:36] And his key three key tips were strategy as guard rails. He talked about a good strategy acts as a guide preventing the business from derailing while allowing for aggressive growth and aggressive strategies are preferred over the overly safe ones, which may only achieve slow progress.

[00:53:52] And I think in any talked about, uh, you know, this part of the adapting quickly and failures and successes. And the third was diversification to mitigate risk. All this ties back to right to what you were kind of just talking about a few minutes ago,

[00:54:06] right, which is you have got to use these things to accelerate, right? And the tools that are available to us in planning and organizing, you know, back to that. What you've always done will not get you where you want to go next.

[00:54:21] Yeah, and I think there's, and I've seen it worse this year in business and working with some of the, you know, people that we've talked to is I call it the, the fear of messing up.

[00:54:32] And I think there has been a bit of a, you know, lot of fear when it comes to trying things or buying new things. Uh-huh. Yeah, foe mood. It actually comes from the Joltifact book. Yep.

[00:54:44] So the fear of missing messy not sometimes is a lot of times trumps the fear of missing out. I think that as a from a mindset perspective and what he was saying in that article about failing fast

[00:54:57] and you know, be willing to make some, some bets but you know, if you fail, right? Move on. Mm-hmm. I think that I think that's going to be a key strategy that will help companies that adopt that strategy do much better than the ones that are,

[00:55:12] well, I have the fear of messing up so I won't do it. Right. And it's okay. We're going to fail, right? We're all going to fail. We're all going to learn because there's so much change.

[00:55:22] We, it's not that we were screwed up and were, we're bad at what we do. It's just there's so much change and there's so much things moving around. But of course, we may not make the perfect decision.

[00:55:32] Um, but then we just get our AI to keep getting trained more and more and more and then we keep making better decisions. So. Great. I love that. You're describing that, you know, in this goes all the way back around full circle kind of on the day, right?

[00:55:47] Is it talks about in the circle. And John talks about this here and he says, look, with the end of the day, it's very similar to what you've been saying. It's relationships and history are becoming less influential and customer decision making, right?

[00:56:03] And that almost kind of recaps a bunch of discussions we've had over the course of this year. It really does and I'm looking your eyeballs, grab a sandwich, still meet in person when we can develop relationships person.

[00:56:19] But the reality of it is is in day to day procurement and purchasing. What you did for me last week or how long we've been doing business together or our companies or whatever. It's just less and less important all the time.

[00:56:34] You know, so it's it's again goes back to the customer and the customer buying experience and what they're looking for and so forth.

[00:56:43] So it's it's just at the end of the day line yourself to how you want to buy and those are likely going to be the things you need to be doing.

[00:56:50] But yeah, be willing to my take or my recommendation is be willing to take some chances, be willing to try some things. And we agree, fail fast and open and be okay with failing and take the learnings from it and go into the next one. Yeah, nobody's there.

[00:57:04] None of us know what the hell is actually really all this is going to play out and work well in in John mentions in this article right he talks about the danger of rigid strategy, so which is we've always done it this way, right?

[00:57:15] He talks about outdated strategies based on past successes. Look what got you here is not going to get you there. And we see that in so many facets of life, right?

[00:57:24] Whether it's your reach and a plateau at the gym doing the same old thing or it's in your business and how my dad did this when he ran the business or whoever it might be.

[00:57:34] That's that's not going to that's not going to get us where we want to go next. So all right, well let's wrap it up. Let's wrap up for the day. So you know what we talked about in article earlier, about 2024. What to expect?

[00:57:51] We talked a little bit earlier today about some things that went on in technology in particular in 2023. So we are going.

[00:58:03] Lack of a better term, we're going to go on hibernation or hiatus until the fifth and you and I'll be back on the fifth but on the 12th of January. I am so excited to share with you. We have somehow and I'm so appreciative to get three yeses.

[00:58:23] We are bringing together the three musketeers of keynote speaking research and just some granddaddies. No offense gentlemen to your age because some of you are with us today, but Ian Heller from the distribution strategy group.

[00:58:40] Dirt beverage who is just one of the best speakers out there that runs the we supply america tour each summer and has a wonderful business consulting with mostly distribution. And a great human being and then Mike marks from any river consulting group.

[00:58:58] If you know these gentlemen look them up, Ian Heller, Dirt beverage, Mike marks. We all of them to align their calendars. I'm scared to death of the hat cat hurting that's going to go on because there is no shortage of opinions from these fine gentlemen.

[00:59:14] I think it's going to be a quiet shy show. Right. You know look at each other waiting for the next guy to speak. I've tacked to a couple of people who have suggested.

[00:59:25] Don't put a time limit on this show just let it go, but anyways, I'm extremely appreciative one that all three of these I've been trying to get Mike to join us for close to a year he's just you know Mike says he's retired is like one of the board members said that lead smart here says he's retired but he's busy or than ever.

[00:59:45] And so getting Mike has been tough. Dirt's been with us before. Ian's been with us before those two were some of our top episodes that we had from listeners and follow up with those so we are.

[00:59:58] I might be a little giddy and overstating this but I'm I'm very appreciative that we get three gentlemen of this magnitude to come join us. And we're going to talk about 2023 and we're going to talk about 2024 and what's to come.

[01:00:12] And if you've ever heard any of these gentlemen speak there they're wise their sage. They've got huge industry experience and to think you mentioned this earlier time there's no shortage of opinions. If this group be there so it's going to be fun.

[01:00:28] So that's coming January 12. So what's that three weeks from today? So so dark next week.

[01:00:36] We're going to take the day off we'll be back for two of us on the fifth but please come back join us on the 12 share this with friends and when you see this posted on LinkedIn coming up.

[01:00:47] And your networks it should be great I think wills comment there kind of states that absolute legends he says these guys and that's probably true.

[01:00:57] You know, so I'm appreciative of them coming on say think this will be this will be one for the record books we hope so. Good. All right. Thank you everybody for.

[01:01:07] Yeah, no I want to thank everybody for all the support this year it's been a great year have a great holiday and we'll see you on the fifth. Yeah, thank you everybody again. It's where are we at today's to the 71. Yeah, yeah.

[01:01:23] It's astounding. I mean, I'm grateful as we close out today for the people that come we got people that are here every week and every single week we have new people.

[01:01:32] Every time I go to a trade show or an industry event I meet people I've never heard of who are listening to the podcast or her joining us on the live broadcast and make a new friends out there.

[01:01:46] I appreciate that you like what we're doing. We were carded getting better if you have suggestions or ideas about how we can improve our weekly broadcast or the newsletter please let us know.

[01:01:56] I don't have any capability to make Tom or I more handsome so let's leave those alone but from a content standpoint let us know what we might do better, but we'll see you all next year.

[01:02:07] Thank you all for each and every one of you that join us and contribute. We're looking forward to well we're going to we're going to pass 100 if everything goes right next year so that's going to be a lot of fun.

[01:02:19] So we'll wish everybody a wonderful time off if you're enjoying some time with family. A great weekend ahead and we thank you will wish you good things and ask you to be kind, be safe and do good things. Happy New Year.

[01:02:37] We hope you enjoyed today's episode and our guests. Each week we try our best to dig into the topics that are impacting your business.

[01:02:45] So please reach out to us and let us know how you think we can make the show better or topics you'd like for us to tackle or talk about more often and even guests you'd like to see join us.

[01:02:55] We're looking forward to bringing you next week's session and hope that until then you stay safe, stay focused and do great things. If you haven't already, please subscribe to the podcast and leave a review to help others in wholesale distribution get access to the conversation.

[01:03:12] And finally, please check out our sponsor LeedsMart Technologies and their manufacturing and wholesale distribution industry CRM, customer intelligence and channel collaboration platform. That's LeedsMart Technologies at LEEDSmartTech.com