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Transcript48 lines
- [00:04]
A
Hi, welcome to CIO Leadership Live. My name is Lucas Marion. I'm a senior writer with Computer World magazine. I'm here at the CIO100 symposium and awards show. I've got with me Tim Walter. He's a CIO at dawn, better known as Edward and Dawn Company. It's a food service and equipment supplier. You supply and distribute out of Chicago,
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B
I believe, actually, Chicago, and seven other distribution centers.
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A
Okay.
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B
Nationwide. We also do international cruise ships and some other locations.
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A
You're all over.
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B
We're all over, you know, everything but the food in a restaurant. So we're your supplier.
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A
Thank you so much for being here today.
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B
Thank you, Lucas. Really appreciate it.
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A
So right off the bat, I wanted to talk to you a little bit about how you're leveraging digital tools, including AI, to enhance sales purchasing experience for restaurant and hospitality clients.
- [00:54]
B
Yeah, that's a great question. So at Edward Don, you know, we're really moving our customers to our e commerce platform. About 65% of our orders come through our Dondoc in some way or another. It could be electronically or direct through the customer. We're really looking at how do we make the user experience easier for them and give them the information that they normally have never seen in the restaurant industry. Restaurants run on very lean margins. How do you tell them? And we all live with this in Amazon, we all excited when our packages are in the way. Well, we have our own trucks, so we're telling people, hey, our truck's on the way. Where's my order? It's going to be there so that you can organize your crews in your restaurants before you open so that your crews are ready to get that product in, get it all ready, get it prepped and ready to go.
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A
So using AI to actually truck to a truck.
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B
Well, AI is tracking the trucks, but we're now starting to integrate some of the tools with technology into dawn.com?
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okay.
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Not using AI 100% there yet, but we're starting to move towards that. We are using some AI in just like many other companies in reporting what haven't you bought in a while? Do you need this? You know, we've always called it the upsell, but in our industry, it's always, hey, are you running low? We've noticed that these are linked. You might need to order this information. You know something that you might be changing how you're doing your menu, how you're changing things. How can we help you? Our biggest thing is we're helping our customers with quoting and when they're doing large RFPs. If they're looking at new products or a large RFP of 1600 items. Is this the right product you're looking for for this, what you're doing? Let's say it's a news cruise ship. Cruise ships, they have very specific items they want. Because you're on a boat, you don't want glass everywhere. It could be plastic, but they might change it. They might change up what they're trying to do and we'll find the right product for them based on where they're coming out of and help them out with that. So AI for inventory tracking, inventory tracking, supply chain. Are you doing the right product? Maybe you're going to change. We have customers all over the country. Maybe they're having upticks in different regions, maybe they're building out. We also help them design their kitchens. We're using AI in a virtual sense to help them look at how your kitchen flow is going to be. How do you want to move this kitchen space around? Maybe this kitchen's smaller than your typical location. How can we help you? We're using AI with that, we're helping AI actually with the blueprints. Move product, move a faucet, move the plumbing, move the sink. Where does it make sense in the
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A
space that you can get more efficient? That's very cool.
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B
So that's some of our new, I guess you'd call our leading edge technology. It's just going in. We're doing the prototypes and the pilots on that. It's looking really good now.
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A
You're also an award winner here.
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B
Yes.
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A
Tell me a little bit about that project.
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B
So our project we really looked at what could AI do to help our sales staff immediately. A lot of people are looking at more of the back end system. We really wanted to find something that would hit them right in the front. So one of our biggest challenges is if we have a new RFP from a customer, let's say it's 2,2000 products they want to evaluate. It's difficult to say what is the best product sometimes for you. If they give us a competitor quote or just a list of products, we actually look at the product, the description, what is the requirement and say, well, what would be the don competitive product? Maybe it's a line from one of our distributors, maybe it's our private brand. And those processes of figuring out an rfp could take 5 to 6 weeks. Using AI and using our database that we're slowly building with our interactions, we're able to turn that RFP down. Around in four to five days with an 85% accuracy on the first pass.
- [04:34]
A
So once again, it went from what to what?
- [04:36]
B
It went from five to six weeks for us to say we have 1600 lines of product and we want to find the right dawn product or the right product for the right, you know, need function. And so it could take our people manually five to six weeks to figure out each and every product you're trying to do, maybe off of a competitor quote or off a requirements list. Now, using AI, we're able to put it through our engine. We could get that information about 85% of the time correct in 20 minutes. Then we're using humans over the next three to four days to make sure we're getting you the best price. We're, we're getting you the right distribution. If it's a large rollout across the whole country, we want to make sure we have that product everywhere you need it.
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A
We talked a little bit about this already, but how are we using AI to forecast demand and optimize supply chain operations?
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B
Well, for us, it's really looking again at what is needed. Where are there trends? Are there changes? Some of our customers are saying, well, we're trying to change how we do things in the Southwest. So the AI helps us predict what kind of product they might need in different regions based on the requirements of the region. So we're not getting into some of the larger external capabilities. But right now it's really more about we have changes in just like any kind of a retail or such a company, we're seeing changes in traffic patterns in the south compared to the Northwest, compared to the west, compared to the Mideast. You might see the weather make a change. So then our system says, well, you need different products, different amount of product. So in the south, if it's still hot and sunny, but in the north, it's starting to turn fall. We might change the menu in those different areas.
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A
Interesting.
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B
Well, we might order three, four, five weeks ahead of time. Depending on the lead times, the system can give you a heads up on changes. As we've all seen, tariffs are changing our supply chain. It gives us some of those heads up.
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A
So are most of these projects still in the pilot phase or have you rolled them out?
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B
We rolled most of them out at this time. The newest one, the kitchen design that's in pilot. So that one we're really excited to see what it really can do to help our customers get those kitchens just right.
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A
Okay. Talked a lot about data. How do you ensure data Quality and consistency across such a wide ranging organization as yours.
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B
For us, data has always been important. And you know, I was just in an SAP demo and they were talking about, you know, garbage in, garbage out. Well, luckily we have SAP, so they're a great partner for us. So it really is about making sure that you can only enter the correct data. So we really keep that at a minimum.
- [07:15]
A
Okay. I've written a lot about the skills gap and how it's changed throughout the past couple of decades, but AI has really thrown this for our loop. What kind of a skills gap do you have now? What kind of talent are you seeking and where do you see that going in the future?
- [07:34]
B
Well, that's a great question because talent and having the right team is always important for us. The biggest challenge is making sure that we can stay innovative because, you know, we do have some older systems, but we also have the new ones. So technology debt. We're filling those gaps. But I'd say our biggest challenge right now is finding people that have some of that older knowledge, but also some of the newer innovations. So what have we been doing? We've been partnering with partners who say, you know, we can bring those people to you until we can get them in house and build our own team internally. So we're not slowing down. Yeah, we're using partners, very good ones, who help us fill those gaps right now. But it is difficult, I'd say, to find it. So we, you know, we allow remote working anywhere in the country so that we can find the right people.
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A
Yeah, that's just it. We don't know where this is completely going yet. So you start hiring, you're not really sure if that person's going to be
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around in a year or will the technology work? A lot of AI projects have failed. A lot of different ways to integrate AI projects have failed. I'm not saying we're doing a lot of them, but we want to make sure we're going to do the right thing. And when we bring those people on board, they're here for a long time. We have a very long tenure at Edward Dahn. Our longest employee was 77 years. Our average employee in IT is 23 years. So we have a lot of people who stay and are loyal to the company.
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A
I was going to say. So you don't want to take any chances that way.
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B
Don't want to take any chances.
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A
What skills or mindsets do you look for when building an IT team in a distribution focused business like Don for Don?
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B
And I'd say this with almost anything, it. I can teach skills. We can all learn skills, but it's really the motivation of a person. Why does a person stay loyal to a company? Because they feel that the company is part of them and they're part of that company. That loyalty, that motivation, that drive for somebody to say, I'm gonna look at the business and say, how do I make this company better? I'm gonna learn those skills. That's what we look for in our people. People are really driven to be the best they can be. So they can be the best they can be. For Don.
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A
That sounds like a line, but you know what? What I've heard a lot of is soft skill versus hard skill.
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B
Right.
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A
What do you look for?
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B
I look for this. Well, it depends on the role. I really think it depends on the role. I look for certain people to be able to talk, but some of our people are heads down and just let them get in their zone and let them code. Right. So it all depends on the person and the role. But I really want that person who wants to be part of the team, and I think we have that at every point.
- [09:58]
A
Great. What excites you most about the next chapter at dawn and Company?
- [10:04]
B
Don has really got a lot of opportunities now. We're moving into Canada, so that's really going to expand our abilities. We have a lot of partnerships. We recently got purchased by Cisco Foods, which opens a lot of doors for us. A lot of customers we have never worked with before that we're gonna bring our capabilities, our quality, our high level of service to them. So for us, it's gonna be about fast growth. How do we be able to adapt and say, look, we're gonna get you that product as quick as you can. That's been Don's uniqueness with our own trucks, our own capabilities. Now we're just opening those doors and really excited about how can we make sure that the customer gets that best experience every time.
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A
And I'm familiar with Cisco. My best friend is a chef, so I hear that name all the time. I know it's a giant in the industry. Last question. How do you handle cybersecurity? Awareness across departments that aren't traditionally tech heavy, which I'm sure your industry isn't always traditionally tech heavy, like, say, warehouse or field operations.
- [11:05]
B
You know, I've always approached cyber from a three point of view. Awareness, protection, and recovery. So awareness we all know, getting people to learn. So we're all about training. At dawn, we do weekly training on vendor product, and we always throw cyber in there. We're always working with our teams to be on top of things, get them to question being paused, and even ask their customers, you know, are we doing this? We're all putting in place all the different levels of security. All, you know, we all hear it, MFA2 factor, what we're doing, but it's really getting a mindset that everybody pauses. Is this really something that I should be doing? Are we doing? Is this from the correct person? Wait, this looks a little funny. Maybe I should ask before I jump. And we've really built that at dawn.
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A
That's good. Well, Tim, again, thank you so much for taking the time to talk today. Great insights. I appreciate it.
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B
Thank you, Lucas.