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#UserManual – Send Us All The Early-Stage Supply Chain Technology Startups

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Brian Laung Aoaeh and Lisa Morales-Hellebo, at #SCIT2019, June 19 – 20, Microsoft, Times Square, NYC. Photo Credit: Ray Neutron.

Author’s Note: This blog post is an updated version of User Manual: The Early Stage Startups I Want To Hear About Most in 2016 and 2017 and User Manual: The Early Stage Startups I Want To Hear About Most in 2017 and 2018. Certain portions of this version may be exactly the same as in the prior versions. However, there are significant differences between the prior versions and this one.

About REFASHIOND Ventures

REFASHIOND Ventures is a seed-stage venture fund that Lisa Morales-Hellebo and I are building to: invest in startups developing technology innovations to refashion global supply chains – across different industries. 

We are in the process of raising our first fund. Once we raise the fund, we will be based in New York City. 

While we are raising the fund, we are collaborating with a family office to make some early investments that fit our investment thesis, and the family office’s investment interests.

The three philosophical pillars of our investment thesis are;

  1. The world is a supply chain.TM
  2. Software is eating the world.
  3. Disruption creates opportunity.

Our working definition of a supply chain: “A network of connected and interdependent organisations mutually and cooperatively working together to control, manage and improve the flow of materials and information from suppliers to end users.”

– Martin Christopher, Logistics & Supply Chain Management: Creating Value-Adding Networks, 4th ed, Pearson Education Limited 2011, p4

We believe that a perfect storm of irreversible social, economic, technological, and environmental forces, has created an urgent and critical need to refashion global supply chains. This process presents the biggest investment opportunity of the next half-century. We are building a fund to invest in that opportunity.

We’ll invest in startups in the following areas; Supply Chain Management, Supply Chain Logistics, and Supply Chain Finance – across industries.

Our initial focus is on startups based in the United States, and Canada.

About The Worldwide Supply Chain Federation

The Worldwide Supply Chain Federation, which we founded in August 2017, is the collaborative, and mutually supportive coalition of grassroots communities focused on technology and innovation in the global supply chain industry. Each chapter is a community of practice that connects the builders of technology innovations for supply chain with the buyers of technology innovations for implementation in real world commercial supply chains. The New York Supply Chain Meetup is its founding chapter.

The Worldwide Supply Chain Federation is the world’s first, largest, fastest growing, and most active network of grassroots driven communities focused on supply chain, innovation, and technology. You can learn more here: The Worldwide Supply Chain Federation.

You can check out our Youtube Channel here. Join our community here. Follow @tnyscm on Twitter.

Characteristics We Look for in Teams, and Founders

We look for – we will not learn this until we actually interact with you. But this is what we will be looking for;

  • Teams in which the founders have known one another for a considerable amount of time prior to launching their startup; We look for teams in which the level of trust and respect between the co-founders is high. This reflects our belief that at the earliest stages of a startup’s life, team risk is the greatest risk we must worry about.
  • Teams that will not have difficulty attracting other great people to join the startup; We look for founders who inspire confidence and loyalty from others because they are good at what they do, the kind of people we could picture myself working for. We look for people that others outside the startup can come to look up to as thought leaders in their chosen area of expertise.
  • Founders for whom solving the problem that their startup is solving has become their life’s mission and they will work to solve that problem with or without help from outside investors; We look for founders who have an unconventional opinion about the market opportunity they are pursuing, and can explain their position is with evidence that investors can analyze independently. We look for founders who are focused squarely on solving their customers problems.
  • Teams that can focus on building a simple product that their initial customers love, and who can focus on a niche within which to launch that product. We look for teams that are judicious and frugal in how they deploy the startup’s resources.
  • Founders who value teamwork, and who can become great leaders if they desire to do so; We value transparency, honesty, and openness. We value self-awareness. We like people who are determined and tenacious, who do not give up just because the going gets uncomfortable and things seem bleak.
  • Founders who have a hard time doing something simply because it is what someone else expects them to do; We do not like obedience. We detest arrogance. We admire confidence. We look for founders who are not afraid to be different. We look for founders who have prior demonstrable experience of good decision-making when things are uncertain and information is incomplete. We are not looking for perfection.

Characteristics We Look For in Markets

We look for;

  • Large markets that could ultimately be served by the startup’s product, even though the initial target might be a small portion of the whole. We look for customers capable of and willing to pay for the product, and who are looking for and eager to find a solution to their problem.
  • Markets in which the pain is acute because the problem suppresses customers’ profits significantly, or because the problem makes users far less effective and efficient than they could be.

If currently the addressable market is between $1B and $10B, we want to see evidence that it is growing quickly enough to support the startup’s future goals, and the competition that we assume will quickly follow if the team is successful.

Characteristics We Look For in Business Models

We look for products and business models that:

  • Will benefit from network effects as time progresses,
  • Can scale efficiently and quickly once product-market-fit has been established, and
  • Can eventually benefit from an economic moat as the startup matures into a company, and the business model becomes established.

The Themes We Are Focused On

Notes:

  • These themes cut across different industries and sectors. That is a deliberate choice in the way we are designing REFASHIOND Ventures.
  • The technology sector evolves constantly. Accordingly, our team’s interests might adjust in response. The themes we have described below should serve as a rough guide to how we think about the universe of startups in which REFASHIOND Ventures will invest. It is not comprehensively exhaustive, nor is it mutually exclusive of themes we have not described. If the innovation you are working on fits our definition of supply chain and the descriptions above, please reach out to us.
  • We anticipate that REFASHIOND Ventures first fund will be a pre-seed and seed-stage fund. Our current collaboration will primarily focus on startups raising an institutional seed round, or raising a round between a previous institutional seed round and a series A round.

Our current investment themes;

  • Next Generation Logistics: Platforms or applications that significantly improve how logistics and transportation networks are operated and managed.
  • Advanced Materials: Platforms or products that make it possible to research, invent, and create new types of materials at scale. We are especially interested in the conversion of large quantities of waste of different types into new materials. 
  • Advanced Manufacturing: Platforms or applications that make it possible to integrate advances in software engineering into manufacturing processes. 
  • Data & Analytics: Platforms or applications that help people or other machines to manage, analyze, interpret, make decisions, and take actions based on vast and growing amounts of centralized or decentralized data from disparate sources. Such platforms or products enable large numbers of different types of connected devices, machines, apps, and websites to communicate with one another seamlessly, and with the people managing or using them, within a secure environment. 

Connecting With Us

If you know someone who knows us, an introduction would help. If you do not, never hesitate to communicate with us directly. We are both very easy to reach on the major social networking platforms. 

The best time to start communicating with us is before you are raising a round because we believe it is important to build trust and understanding before entering into the kind of working relationship that exists between startup founders and their early stage investors.

That also gives us sufficient time to understand the problem you are solving, so that if REFASHIOND Ventures invests, we are doing so with conviction. Time enables us to become a more effective advocate on your startup’s behalf when we have discussions about you with other investors we know, and who we feel would be a good match for the round you are raising.

Communicating With Us

If we are not meeting through an introduction, we will respond quickest to founders who get straight to the point, and explain why we should speak with them in 250 – 400 words in their first email to us. We try our best to respond to founders who initiate communication with us. However, depending on what else we have going on, we may not respond if we feel the startup is outside REFASHIOND Ventures’ areas of interest. 

Follow up with us once or twice if you believe we have made a mistake by not responding.

Things We Believe Are Red Flags

  1. Exploding rounds: An exploding round comes with a caveat like “Seed round in ground-breaking tech startup closing in 1 week!” We need time to do our own homework.
  2. Meetings led by an advisor: We prefer our first few interactions with a startup to be with the team of co-founders, not with an advisor or an investment banker. It is okay for an introduction to come from an advisor if that advisor is someone we already know. We do not like to have advisors or mentors micro-manage our interactions with startup founders. That does not inspire confidence.
  3. Lack of control over core technologies: We try to avoid situations in which the startup has a product that has launched to the public, but the startup’s team has no primary responsibility for actually building the core product. If there’s IP we’ll spend some time trying to understand who owns the IP.
  4. Founders who are mainly focused on invention: Some founders are born inventors. In and of itself, that is not a bad thing. However, as investors we have made a choice to invest in founders who want to build potentially big businesses. 

Our Commitment To Startup Founders

Based on Gil Dibner’s VC Code of Conduct;

  • We will be transparent.
  • We will respect your time.
  • We will not ask you for material we do not need.
  • We will not string you along.
  • We will let you know about any competitors in our portfolio.
  • We will be transparent about conflicts of interest.
  • We will not share any of your material without your permission.
  • We will not speak with your customers without your permission.
  • We will educate before we negotiate.
  • We will be honest about what standard terms are.
  • We will not issue a term sheet unless we have made a firm decision to invest.
  • We will reflect the term sheet in the final legal documents.
  • We will not seek an unreasonable equity stake.
  • We will avoid surprises.
  • We will always act in the best interests of the startup.

Without doubt, there will be times when we fail to live up to these ideals. When that happens we hope founders will let us know. That is the only way we can get better.

Can Collaboration and Community Serve as Catalysts For Innovation in Supply Chain?

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Note: A version of this article was first published on July 31, 2019 at Port Technology.

The innovations required to reinvent global supply chains will not happen without collaboration. This article describes our experience facilitating such collaborations, starting in late 2017.

In late 2016 and early 2017, I spent a lot of time studying trucking and shipping, with a view to understanding the industry dynamics at play, and to see what opportunities might exist for software startups. What I learned about the trucking industry piqued my interest in logistics overall, and ultimately led me to a decision to focus on early stage technology investing in supply chain by building REFASHIOND Ventures to invest in early stage technology startups reinventing supply chains.

Through that work it became painfully clear to me that there is a need for closer collaboration between software startups and established, mature companies. 

This article will explain why there’s a need for such collaboration. I will also discuss the approach our community, The Worldwide Supply Chain Federation, has taken to enable such collaboration. Although it is still early, we will end with a discussion of some early indicators of the results we might expect in general.

Note on prior and recent work: Disruption, supply chain management, supply chain finance, and supply chain logistics are topics I have been studying for some time – from the perspective of an early stage venture capitalist specializing in supply chain; Notes on Strategy; Where Does Disruption Come From? (2015), Industry Study: Freight Trucking (#Startups) (2016), Updates – Industry Study: Freight Trucking (#Startups) (2016), Industry Study: Ocean Freight Shipping (#Startups) (2017), Updates – Industry Study: Ocean Freight Shipping (#Startups) (2017), Where Will Technological Disruption in The Fashion Supply Chain Come From? (2018), Is disruption finally underway in the freight brokerage industry? (2019), and Why digital freight brokers might fail to disrupt the freight brokerage industry (2019).

Identifying The Chasm

A consequence that arose from my decision to publish my articles on trucking and shipping is that it prompted several executives at established companies to reach out to me to talk about my findings. The same happened with startup founders – though, they mostly wanted to meet an early-stage venture capitalist who cared about supply chain logistics.

Those conversations made it painfully clear that: On the one hand, executives at established companies know the business problems in supply chain operations for which they desperately need new innovations. However, they typically do not have sufficient time to meet their daily responsibilities at work and scour the globe seeking out such new innovations. Moreover, their companies might not be plugged into the right communities to find such innovations through tradition RFP processes. Moreover, such executives also tend not to have a very good sense of how much certain emerging technologies have matured, and if such technologies might be applicable to the problems they need to solve. I call such executives BUYERS: these are people and organizations who want to buy new technology innovations for supply chain operations. This is particularly true in a nascent area like cryptocurrencies and blockchain.

On the other hand, founders of software startups that are creating new innovations for supply chain tend to understand the technology well, but they lack a deep and nuanced understanding of the business problems that potential customers face. They lack a sufficiently mature understanding of the value proposition they must offer to the BUYERS if they are to win market adoption. I call such startup founders BUILDERS: these are people and organizations who are building new technological innovations for supply chain operations.

For this conversation to make sense, it is critical that we share a common understanding of what I mean by supply chain. 

The definition I have adopted is from the 4th edition of Martin Christopher’s Logistics & Supply Chain Management: Creating Value-Adding Networks. A supply chain is: “A network of connected and interdependent organisations mutually and cooperatively working together to control, manage and improve the flow of materials and information from suppliers to end users.”

Crossing The Chasm

In order to bridge this chasm between BUYERS & BUILDERSTM, Lisa Morales-Hellebo and I founded The New York Supply Chain Meetup in August 2017. We started with a very simple premise: Once a month, for about 9 out of the 12 months each year, we would bring these two groups of people together to:

  • Network, 
  • Talk to one another about the problems they were trying to solve and the products that they were building, and
  • Participate in curated programming that is based on relevant and topical themes related to supply chain. 

Each event would last about 3 hours. The format of a meetup appealed to us because it is inherently grass-roots driven, and emerges spontaneously based on a shared enthusiasm among a group of like-minded people for a particular topic. 

We ultimately settled on a mission for The New York Supply Chain Meetup: To nurture and grow the world’s foremost open, global, multidisciplinary community of people devoted to building the supply chain networks of the future – starting in NYC.

Even before we held our launch event on November 16, 2017 people in other parts of the United States, and in other countries asked us if we would be live-streaming the event. We took this as a promising sign. As we approach 24 months since we initially started working on this, our tentative first efforts have grown into an initiative to build The Worldwide Supply Chain Federation; A collaborative, and mutually supportive coalition of grassroots communities focused on technology and innovation in the global supply chain industry. The New York Supply Chain Meetup is its founding chapter. 

The initiative is entirely grass-roots driven. Our community includes:

  • Startups,
  • Mature Companies – across all industries,
  • Academics from research institutions,
  • Early-stage technology venture capitalists, and other late-stage investors, and
  • Journalists, regulators, professional services providers, and any other groups of people with interests and skills relevant to innovation in supply chain.

We have 1900+ members in The New York Supply Chain Meetup – the founding chapter, 2700+ members around the world, an active chapter in Charleston, South Carolina, and chapters in the process of being formed in several other cities around the world. 

The Worldwide Supply Chain Federation held its inaugural global summit, #SCIT2019, on June 19 and June 20 in NYC. 

  • We had 1000 people sign up for the event before we closed registration. 
  • During the event we had about 400 people attend on each day of the summit. Attendees came from 15 countries. 
  • We had 31 speakers: With 11 startup showcases, and a presentation by the Singapore Economic Development Board on June 20. Video of the event is available on our YouTube channel. 

Also:

In An Age of Platform Competition, Open Collaboration, Open Communities, and Open Ecosystems Matter A Lot

Why are companies like Amazon, Apple, AirBnB, Microsoft, Alibaba, Google, JD.com, Uber and others, posing a threat to companies in traditional industries? Why are startups that many people have never heard of beginning to attack and threaten companies in mature, established industries that one may have considered immune from such threats as recently as even just half a decade ago?

It is because the companies I have listed, and others I have not, understand the importance of business models that are built on open ecosystems rather than proprietary and linear value chains owned by a single company. 

Using the internet and other maturing software-enabled technologies as the foundation, these companies are launching demand-side and supply-side attacks on industries that have become accustomed to relatively sanguine competition among well established companies. 

That raises the question: What is an ecosystem? A business ecosystem has three main characteristics;

  • First: It is a network of networks.
  • Second: The focus of the ecosystem orchestrator must be on enabling and facilitating the creation and exchange of value, between all participants of the ecosystem.
  • Third: The creation and exchange of value must occur in a way that increases the aggregate well-being of the entire network over time.

When executed well, platforms and ecosystems give rise to powerful network effects. Network effects matter because, in the most extreme cases they can lead to winner-take-all outcomes. At best, they lead to winner-take-most situations. 

What’s are network effects? 

As I explained in my September 2014 article on the topic Revisiting What I Know About Network Effects & Startups: “A network effect occurs when the value of a good or service increases for both new and existing users as more customers use that good or service. The network effect is a virtuous cycle that allows strong companies to become even stronger. Network effects are also known as direct-benefit effects.”

The Results Are Early, But The Signs Look Promising 

As I have pointed out already, our effort is entirely grass-roots driven. We are yet to attract significant outside support to accelerate our efforts. Nevertheless we are showing promising early results in the 24 months during which we have been working on this. Here are just a few highlights.

  • A startup in our community is working with a very large shipping company that is seeking software technologies that enhance its ability to make decisions under uncertainty. Such software can be applied in various aspects of the shipping company’s global operations. The software could also be introduced to the shipping company’s customers who also need to optimize their own supply chain operations. The shipping company gains new technology, while the startup wins a channel partner to aid its go-to-market efforts.
  • A handful of startups in our community are building software to enable established freight forwarders modernize their business operations without bearing the expense of developing software from scratch. Many such efforts are led by people with significant experience in the freight forwarding business who have teamed up with technologists to build the technology. For such startups, a community like ours provides a great, low-pressure opportunity for them to connect with potential customers as well as potential investors.
  • Another startup in our community is building a derivatives exchange for the freight markets, creating a new suite of tools that shippers and carriers can use to manage risk.
  • One startup in our community is building a communication platform to enable communication around the transactions that take place between shipping companies and beneficial cargo owners, freight forwarders, and other parties involved in the shipping of cargo. Currently that communication happens over email, and relies on manual, paper-based processes. The team already has significant experience building software for the maritime shipping industry. The need for the product it is building is confirmed by the explosive rate of growth in adoption by very large shipping companies around the world. Where our community can help is with advice about the startup’s interactions with potential venture capital investors, and providing opportunities for the startup to tell its story to a wider audience. In one instance, after presenting at one of our events, a real estate broker told the startup’s founder that the same problem exists in the real estate industry. He also met an executive from a large shipping company who offered to introduce him to the shipping company’s corporate venture capital arm.   

Collaboration Is Especially Critical in Blockchain + Supply Chain

Like everyone who is enthusiastic about supply chain and technology, we are exploring how blockchain and other distributed ledger technologies will affect the supply chain. Here are some of the things I have learned;

In relation to blockchain, one of the lessons I learned while studying the shipping industry in early 2017 was this: 

“One product that it appears the industry would gravitate towards is a system of record that connects all participants in the supply chain, from end-to-end. This would be a platform into which various shipping industry data could be input, and other data can be obtained as outputs. Probably most input data would come from other platforms and data repositories, while output data would be fed to different counterparties based on their access rights and information requirements.” 

In that blog post, which I published in June 2017, I went on to say that this product seemed to be one ideally suited to be built on a blockchain. The platform would need to allow several independent parties to collaborate with one another while providing each of them with anonymity for certain aspects of their interactions. 

For example: Customs agencies around the world might demand special access rights to enable them monitor international trade transactions happening under various national regulatory jurisdictions. Such agencies could desire anonymity under certain scenarios.

About a week after I published the blog, I discovered that IBM and Maersk were beginning to release more details about their plans for TradeLens to the public.

During our meetup in January 2018, we hosted a discussion featuring speakers from UPS, SAP, Sweetbridge, Blockcience, and MState. The keynote speaker at that event was Dr. Michael Zargham, CEO and Founder of Blockscience, and at the time, also a technical advisor to Sweetbridge. The overarching conclusion I reached by the end of the event was this:

 “Successful implementations of cryptocurrencies and blockchains in supply chain will require more collaboration than the traditional industry is accustomed to.” — Why? The technology combines: digital systems; physical systems; social and political organization; economic structures and incentives; finance; and capital markets. No single organization is expert enough in all those fields to go it alone.

At our meetup in April 2018, we had speakers from: Algorand, Maersk, IBM, TigerTrade, EY, MState, Celsius Networks, and Sweetbridge. Professor Silvio Micali of MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory was the keynote speaker at that event. He described the key ideas behind Algorand, a blockchain he invented expressly to satisfy the demands of businesses. The other speakers discussed what it would take to bring blockchains out of the lab and into the real world of supply chain. Based on the discussions that day, I reached the conclusion that: 

Blockchain applications for supply chain must be interoperable with other blockchain platforms, and they also must be interoperable with the older technologies that businesses have relied on up till now.

TigerTrade started a conversation with IBM as a result of initial informal interactions at our in April 2018. Ultimately, this led them to partner and collaborate on the creation of TRADEFLO, a blockchain-powered platform for global trade facilitation and financing. Tanjila Islam, CEO and founder of both TigerTrade and TRADEFLO presented TRADEFLO at The Worldwide Supply Chain Federation’s inaugural global summit in New York City on June 20, 2019. Tanjila’s experience building TigerTrade directly informed her understanding of the need for a platform with TRADEFLO’s attributes. 

Conclusion

Platforms and ecosystems work well because they allow each participant of the platform to play to its unique strengths, while relying on its ecosystem partners for capabilities that it does not have in-house. This is not an issue that has mattered for shipping companies in the past. But, it is becoming more of an issue now, and it will continue to become a more acute problem in the future as beneficial cargo owners demand more sophisticated services from their supply chain partners. 

Collaboration is difficult because it requires a change in culture. It requires an openness that is not customary in many organizations. Collaboration for the purpose of discovering and nurturing innovative new ideas, products, services, and business models is even more difficult because it requires a commitment from senior leadership. Given how often individuals are shuffled around in organizations, it can be difficult to get anyone to focus appropriately on the long and difficult work that is required to build collaborative partnerships.

However, those companies that do not partner with others to meet their customers’ demands stand the risk of losing those customers to companies that come to grips with platform-and-ecosystem-driven competition more quickly. 

Supply Chain, Innovation, & Technology (#SCIT2019) – Event Summary

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More than 800 Supply Chain Professionals from 15 Countries Attend Supply Chain, Innovation & Technology Conference 

The Worldwide Supply Chain Federation (#TWSCF) held its inaugural global summit on June 19 and June 20, 2019 in New York City. The 2-day conference was hosted by Microsoft Reactor NYC and Microsoft For Startups in NYC. 

The Supply Chain, Innovation and Technology Summit (#SCIT2019) is produced by The Worldwide Supply Chain Federation. Attendees of this FREE global gathering are the most obsessively enthusiastic technologists, supply chain executives, professionals, academics, entrepreneurs, and investors from around the world.  

BUYERS & BUILDERSTM of innovations for future-ready global supply chains came together over two days to talk about how technology is transforming their respective industries. 

A Cross Section of The Audience at #SCIT2019

Here are the highlights… 

Day One #SCIT2019 put all the emphasis on the future of supply chains – globally, and across industries.  Innovators in Fashion Technology, Logistics, Maritime and BlockChain talked about a variety of issues including:

  • What problems remain that need to be solved? 
  • What problems have now arisen that we did not anticipate even a decade ago? 
  • What is now possible with software-enabled technologies? 
  • How can intra-industry and inter-industry collaboration between BUYERS & BUILDERSTM  help make this future a reality? 
  • Why is this an important discussion we need to have now?

Day One Session Highlights – BUYERS

The first day of #SCIT2019 focused on people and organizations who want to buy new innovations for supply chain. 

Keynote with Q&A: Paul McCulloch, NYC Cyber Law Group

Title: The T.A.O of Supply Chain — Technology, Architecture, & Operations

Link to YouTube Video: #SCIT2019 Day I Welcome Remarks, Keynote, & Fashion Track

Notes: Paul’s keynote presentation starts at about 19 minutes.

Paul McCulloch is a coder and information technology architect, a government advisor, and an attorney in technology, privacy, and cybersecurity law at NYC CyberLaw Group. He is a former vice president of technology law & digital compliance at JP Morgan Chase. He now spends his time empowering companies to get compliant, innovate, and implement digital transformation.

The world is becoming more complex, more interconnected, more distributed and more decentralized. At the same time, society demands more from the BUYERS, BUILDERS, and OPERATORS of the world’s supply chain networks. In “The T.A.O of Supply Chain – Technology, Architecture, & Operations”, Paul discussed the issues that emerging startups, medium-sized businesses, and large corporations operating anywhere in the world should be concerned about.

  • Organizations that do not have a strong grasp of technology law risk being burdened by liabilities off-loaded onto them by their more knowledgeable competitors. This is especially critical for startups which can easily be hobbled with fines for non-compliance with technology related regulations.
  • The risks increase as data and information crosses borders and becomes subject to different compliance regulations each time national borders are crossed. This is the internationalization of risk as data is transmitted around the world.
  • Compliance has usually been used as a defensive mechanism. More and more it is being weaponized and used as an offensive mechanism to handicap competitors.

FASHION TRACK

Link to YouTube Video: #SCIT2019 Day I Welcome Remarks, Keynote, & Fashion Track

Notes: Fashion Track discussion starts at about 60 minutes.

How is the fashion industry adopting customization, personalization, and on-demand manufacturing? How is data being leveraged to provide predictive, personalized digital experiences? How are brands allowing their consumers to co-create? What does luxury on-demand manufacturing look like today and where will it be in 5 years?

Moderator — Emma Cosgrove, Supply Chain Reporter, Supply Chain Dive

ELSE Corp — Andrey Golub, Founder & CEO

Milaner — Elisa Rossi, Co-founder

Queen of Raw — Stephanie Benedetto, Founder & CEO

  • Technology makes it possible for fashion and apparel to operate on the basis of customization, personalization, and real-time inventory.
  • Companies who can introduce technology to address huge issues with waste and pollution will be the ultimate winners.
  • This requires major shifts in supply chain operations. It is NOT the same as the fast-fashion business model.
  • Speed to market is critical for luxury fashion which is all about exclusivity. Speed does not have to compromise the product and brand.
  • Breaking down silos can speed up the process of manufacturing luxury fashion and accessories.
  • There is a growing interest in localization, but there are still a lot of outstanding questions, and the process of transition will be gradual. 

LOGISTICS TRACK

Link to YouTube Video: #SCIT2019 Day I Logistics Track

What problems can technology solve in land-based supply chain logistics? What’s most promising in the near term? Where do we still have challenges? What’s happening in other parts of the world?

Moderator — Eric Johnson, Senior Editor, Technology at JOC.com

Maersk — Bob O’Donnell, Head of North America E-Commerce Logistics

Princeton University & Optimal Dynamics — Juliana Nascimento, Optimization Expert, Operations Research

SCMI University of San Diego — Joel Sutherland, Managing Director & Professor of Practice                                                                                                    Transfix – Ahmad El-Dardiry, Chief Revenue Officer

  • The biggest problem is harnessing technology to reduce waste in a fragmented industry.
  • Supply chain is a massive optimization problem. There’s a lot of value in implementing simple technologies in supply chain logistics.
  • Transparency and automation matter A LOT to shippers and carriers.
  • For supply chain optimization to be effective it cannot be siloed. It has to be organization-wide. Optimization requires critical mass.
  • Technology is allowing us to do things we could not do in the past but we still need people with expert knowledge to augment software systems.
  • Startups still make the mistake of building technology that is too cutting-edge for market realities, and there isn’t enough collaboration. 

MARITIME TRACK

Link to YouTube Video: #SCIT2019 Day I Maritime Track

What problems can technology solve in maritime supply chain logistics? What’s most promising in the near term? Where do we still have challenges? What’s happening in other parts of the world?

Moderator — Timothy Simpson, Maritz Global Events

Advent Intermodal Solutions — Allen Thomas, Chief Strategy Officer

Maersk — Erez Agmoni, Regional Head of Supply Chain Warehousing and Distribution, Americas

Gemini Shippers Group — Kenneth O’Brien, Chief Operating Officer

  • Shippers in the maritime industry are facing several complex problems, and many are looking for builders to help them solve those problems.
  • Visibility across intermodal systems was an issue 10 years ago, and it’s still a problem.
  • Shippers expect reliability, but it’s complicated. Reliability means different things to different companies.
  • Market-driven collaboration is the new norm.
  • Blockchain is still controversial in maritime and it is unlikely to have a meaningful impact on maritime logistics. 

BLOCKCHAIN TRACK I

Link to YouTube Video: #SCIT2019 Day I Blockchain Track I

Notes: Tanjila starts at 2 minutes, Patrick starts at 24:30 minutes, and Michael starts at 37:30 minutes.

What lessons have we learned about bringing blockchain + supply chain from the lab and into the real world? 

Emcee — Kelly LeValley Hunt, Blockchain Specialist, Forbes 2018 Blockchain “Pioneer”, Microsoft’s 2018 Women in Blockchain Award for Hyper-growth & Innovation

Blockchain in Transport Alliance (BiTA) — Patrick Duffy, President

BlockScience — Michael Zargham, Founder & CEO and Harry Goodnight, Lead Executive Advisor

TradeFlo — Tanjila Islam, Founder & CEO

  • Tanjila Islam is building TRADEFLO, a blockchain-powered platform to facilitate global trade and trade-financing with an initial focus on emerging markets. When she spoke at The New York Supply Chain Meetup’s event in April 2018, she had not yet started building TRADEFLO. However, after meeting an IBM executive at that event she began exploring building TRADEFLO in partnership with IBM. She’s been building TigerTrade for over a decade, and TRADEFLO is inspired by that experience. TigerTrade is the largest wholesale reseller of excess retail inventory.
  • The Blockchain in Transport Alliance (BiTA) focuses on creating open-source and royalty-free technology standards to encourage the adoption of blockchain in the transportation industry by bringing together technology companies, service providers, transportation companies, financiers, and insurers. Patrick Duffy is President of BiTA and he talks about the progress they’ve made in the two years or so that the organization has existed.
  • BlockScience’s Michael Zarghan and Harry Goodnight touched on supply chains as cyberphysical systems, what blockchains enable, and the implications on operations research, applied AI, and distributed systems. They believe that blockchains are ideally suited for describing and establishing supply chain network ontologies. They emphasize that corporate executives need to start thinking about ecosystems.

BLOCKCHAIN TRACK II

Link to YouTube Video: #SCIT2019 Day I Blockchain Track II

Given some of the lessons learned, what work is being done to bring blockchain + supply chain from the lab and into the real world? Kelly and Rob are returning speakers: They have each spoken at past meetups organized by The New York Supply Chain Meetup on the topic of blockchain in supply chain.

Emcee — Kelly LeValley Hunt, Blockchain Specialist, Forbes 2018 Blockchain “Pioneer”, Microsoft’s 2018 Women in Blockchain Award for Hyper-growth & Innovation

Inflection Point Blockchain Advisors — Joshua Klayman, Founder & CEO

MState — Rob Bailey, Co-founder & CEO

r3 — Alisa DiCaprio, Head of Trade and Supply Chain

  • We’re in the early days of figuring out how blockchains will impact supply chains and it is important to get try to get the fundamentals right.
  • Companies interested in figuring out how to deploy blockchain can tap into a wealth of resources, partnerships, and organizations focused on understanding how blockchains can be integrated into supply chains – no one has to go it alone.
  • There are many more blockchain projects that no one is publicizing than those that are in the news. There are a lot of questions that remain open.
  • Blockchain in supply chain is complicated by the fact that data traverses multiple legal jurisdictions. There are also relevant questions that surround laws specific to specific industries. This is an important part of the conversation. The role of incumbents is a source of concern.
  • Blockchain is a point of convergence of many other technologies. Container shipping is one of the industries doing early work on this issue. Here, blockchains function as a permissioned data transfer layer.
  • Supply chain might require the development of new blockchain protocols that are uniquely designed for application in supply chain.
  • There’s an outstanding question about the utility of product provenance for mass consumers. 
  • Here’s the reading list Kelly refers to during the conversation. 

Day Two Session Highlights – BUILDERS

The second day of #SCIT2019 focused on people and organizations who are building new innovations for supply chain. 

Keynote with Q&A: Rosemarie Truman, Center For Advanced Innovation

Title: SCALE – Supply Chain and Logistics Enterprises

Link to YouTube Video: #SCIT2019 Day II Welcome Remarks & Keynote

Rosemarie Truman is an entrepreneur, growth strategist, distinguished corporate executive, angel investor and prolific startup catalyst. She is the Founder and CEO of the Center for Advancing Innovation (CAI), a 501c3 non-profit which identifies breakthrough inventions and maximizes their commercial potential. 

SCALE – Supply Chain and Logistics Enterprises is a global contest to disrupt retail supply chain, logistics, and transportation. SCALE is orchestrated by the Center for Advancing Innovation (CAI) in partnership with the Walton Family Foundation. CAI’s past challenges were the catalyst for 200+ startups and 2000+ knowledge-based jobs in the past 4 years. 

The rest of the day featured presentations from start-ups around the globe as well as a guest presenter from the Singapore Economic Development Board.

STARTUP SHOWCASES

BLOCK I – Emcee: Sapna Shah, Principal, Red Giraffe Advisors

MILANER

Elisa Rossi is co-founder MILANER. MILANER empowers the world’s top luxury manufacturers to sell direct to consumers for the first time. MILANER has operations in Europe and San Francisco, CA.

Link to YouTube Video: MILANER

FAST Applications

Adam Yaron is ceo of FAST Applications. FAST Applications designs, develops, and manages professional networking software solutions for the freight industry.

Link to YouTube Video: FAST Applications

limbiq, by Setlog

Guido Brackelsberg is a founding partner and managing director of Setlog. Setlog develops supply chain management software that optimizes transparency, digitalization and real-time data exchange. In this presentation, Guido premieres limbiq, a new platform for digital procurement that has been developed by Setlog.

Link to YouTube Video: limbiq by Setlog

FreightWaves Sonar

Description: Patrick Duffy is President of Blockchain in Transport Alliance, a sister organization of FreightWaves. FreightWaves is a provider of data for the freight markets. Patrick showcases Sonar, a platform that brings together millions of disparate freight market data points with a robust analytics toolset and the market intelligence of the FreightWaves team. FreightWaves operates from Chattanooga, TN.

Link to YouTube Video: FreightWaves Sonar

Queen of Raw

Description: Stephanie Benedetto is founder & CEO of Queen of Raw. Queen of Raw turns pollution into profits across the textile supply chain by building a marketplace for brands to sell excess and scrap textiles rather than warehousing or shipping and incinerating them at a loss. Their analytics tools provide real-time actionable insights, helping to create transparency and efficiency. Queen of Raw operates from New York, NY.

Link to YouTube Video: Queen of Raw

Voyage Control

Description: Jameson Peterson is Head of Construction Solutions at Voyage Control,  a cutting-edge ‘Air Traffic Control’ for inbound logistics management. 

A powerful and easy-to-use software platform, Voyage Control enables ground transport hubs to proactively manage, optimise, track, and communicate with their traffic. Voyage Control has operations in the UK and the US.

Link to YouTube Video: Voyage Control

BLOCK II – Emcee: – Michael Rentz, Founder, The Charleston Supply Chain Meetup

Optimal Dynamics

Daniel Powell is co-founder and CEO of Optimal Dynamics, a NY-based company bringing advanced AI to the supply chain and logistics industry. Based on over 30 years of innovation, Optimal Dynamics is changing how companies operate. 

Link to YouTube Video: Optimal Dynamics

Singapore Economic Development Board 

Samuel Chan is the regional vice president for the Americas at the Singapore Economic Development Board (SEDB). SEDB is a statutory board of the Government of Singapore that plans and executes strategies to sustain Singapore as a leading global hub for business and investment. *This is not a startup showcase, but rather an update on what’s happening in Singapore as the government facilitates and enables supply chain innovation to boost economic growth.

Link to YouTube Video: Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB)

PeerLedger

Dawn Jutla is founder and president of PeerLedger. PeerLedger uses cutting-edge blockchain technology to help companies collaborate to protect human rights, improve environmental performance and significantly reduce key risks, such as counterfeiting and safety, in their supply chains. PeerLedger is based in Halifax, Canada.

Link to YouTube Video: PeerLedger

ELSE Corp

Andrey Golub is founder and CEO of ELSE Corp, an Italian B2B and B2B/2C startup. Headquartered in Italy, ELSE Corp, designs new technological solutions for virtual retail and cloud manufacturing. 

Link to YouTube Video: ELSE Corp

Kontainers

Graham Parker is co-founder and CEO of Kontainers, an ocean freight platform serving some of the biggest brands in shipping. Kontainers allows users to get instant container shipping rates and transact entire shipments online in under one minute. Containers has operations in the UK, and in New York, NY.

Link to YouTube Video: Kontainers

Locus

Shaun Siler is vice president of sales for North America at Locus. Locus is a global decision-making platform in the supply chain that uses deep learning and proprietary algorithms to automate all human decisions required to transport a package or a person, between any two points on earth. Locus is headquartered in Bangalore, India and is establishing operations in the United States.

Link to YouTube Video: Locus

The Worldwide Supply Chain Federation

The Worldwide Supply Chain Federation is the collaborative, and mutually supportive coalition of open and multidisciplinary grassroots communities focused on technology and innovation in the global supply chain industry. Founded in August 2017, The New York Supply Chain Meetup is the founding chapter of #TWSCF with a sister chapter launched in Charleston, SC, and other chapters in the process of forming in Vancouver, Athens, Singapore, Bangalore, Chicago, San Francisco and other cities around the world. There are more than 1900 members in New York, and 2700+ members globally.

#UnderConstruction | #TNYSCM15: Supply Chain Tech – From The World To NYC

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A shot of Manhattan, taken from the 48th Floor of 10 Hudson Yards, New York, NY

WHAT IS A SUPPLY CHAIN?

A network of connected and interdependent organisations mutually and cooperatively working together to control, manage and improve the flow of materials and information from suppliers to end users.

— Martin Christopher, Logistics & Supply Chain Management: Creating Value-Adding Networks, 4th ed, Pearson Education Limited 2011, p4

For the month of June, The New York Supply Chain Meetup aka The Worldwide Supply Chain Federation is thinking of hosting a “Supply Chain Tech – From The World To NYC” themed event. 

It would be a “showcase + demo” event, and each company/startup would get our customary 15 minutes, perhaps 20, to talk about what the company does and give a product demo. We are targeting 6 – 8 startups, but we could make room for more depending on the level of interest.

We already have a company from Germany earmarked – this is pending confirmation. We have confirmed participation from a startup from India. We have a request out to startups from Greece and Australia as well – and we can easily get many more if we really tap into our network. We are starting with startups we have been engaged with for more than 6 months. Obviously, that is only a small pool of all the supply chain technology startups that exist around the world.

The dates we have earmarked for June are a weekday during the week of June 17 (Ideally June 19 or 20), or during the week of June 27 (Ideally, June 26 or 27).

Here’s a form that you can fill if you are a startup or a small to medium size company that builds supply chain technology and want to be considered for the final list of participants. We would like participation in this event to be free, except for the cost of making the trip to NYC. So we will try to find sponsors to help us with space for the event, and food for the people who attend.

Cross-sections of the audience at #TNYSCM02 in January 2018 at SAP in NYC.

Background

A small group of us in New York City started building The New York Supply Chain Meetup in Summer 2017. In that time we have become the largest, most active, and fastest growing community on Meetup that focuses on supply chain, technology and innovation. Here are some of the things we have accomplished;

  • Our public launch was on November 16, 2017. We have had 10 events, at which we have attracted an average of 100+ attendees. We had roughly 150 at our very first event.
  • Our events have attracted speakers from emerging supply chain technology startups, as well as companies like SAP, IBM, Maersk, UPS, Tapestry, A.T. Kearny, L’Oreal, ALDO Group, EY, and GS1-US over the course of our first year.
  • We now have more than 1,600 members in The New York Supply Chain Meetup, and more than 1,700 across the network.
  • We are in the process of scaling to other cities (based on demand) and created the Worldwide Supply Chain Federation to facilitate that process.
  • We are launching The Charleston Supply Chain Meetup on March 27, 2019 and we launched The Bangalore Supply Chain Meetup on November 24, 2018. Other cities in which communities are in the process of forming are Athens, Singapore, Vancouver, Chicago, Jakarta, and Lusaka.

According to Mercedes Delgado and Karen Mills, in their book The Supply Chain Economy: A New Framework for Understanding Innovation and Services; “The U.S. supply chain contains 37% of all jobs, employing 44 million people. These jobs have significantly higher than average wages, and account for much of the innovative activity in the economy.” I believe similar conclusions can be inferred about the role supply chain plays in any growing economy around the world.

This makes the community we have set out to build one that offers enormous promise for collaboration between cities, states, and companies as well about how supply chain can function as a foundation for economic growth. The work we are doing to build this community is driven by our motivation to bring together two key groups of people;

  • The people inventing new technologies and developing the new innovations that will refashion the world’s supply chain networks, and
  • The people who make buying decisions related to deploying new technologies and innovations within the supply chains on which businesses are reliant for their commercial operations.
    • I believe firmly that supply chain is the basis on which companies win or lose competitive advantage. It is arguably the basis on which communities, countries, and societies prosper or fail.

Selfishly, we also want every growing supply chain technology startup, from any part of the world, to eventually set up a United States headquarters in New York City, with The New York Supply Chain Meetup as the community of first call, based on prior engagement with a local chapter of The Worldwide Supply Chain Federation. Moving to a new place is hard – I know, I came to the United States in 1997 from Ghana, after growing up in Nigeria. Knowing that you have friends when you arrive makes a big difference.

My Supply Chain Credo

About The Worldwide Supply Chain Federation

The Worldwide Supply Chain Federation is the collaborative, and mutually supportive coalition of open and multidisciplinary grassroots communities focused on technology and innovation in the global supply chain industry. Founded in August, 2017, The New York Supply Chain Meetup is its founding chapter. Local chapters are run by volunteer organizers who each build a team to manage chapter activities and events. You can learn more here: The Worldwide Supply Chain Federation – Our Manifesto.

About REFASHIOND Ventures

REFASHIOND Ventures is an emerging early stage venture capital firm that is being built to invest in early-stage startups creating innovations to reinvent global supply chain networks. REFASHIOND Ventures is based in New York City. The Worldwide Supply Chain Federation and The New York Supply Chain Meetup are initiatives of REFASHIOND Ventures.

#TWSCF & #TNYSCM Mantra

#UnderConstruction | Why Is A Global Grassroots Supply Chain Community Starting in NYC, and Charleston, SC?

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Disclaimer: This blog post reflects my personal opinions only. It does not represent the opinions of REFASHIOND Ventures, or REFASHIOND CO:LAB. It does not represent the opinions of The New York Supply Chain Meetup, or The Worldwide Supply Chain Federation. It does not reflect the opinions of any other person who is associated with any of those entities. This blog post does not represent the opinion of any other individual or organization that is mentioned by the author.

ANNOUNCEMENT – We’re Coming to Charleston, SC!

The Worldwide Supply Chain Federation is launching a sister chapter in Charleston, South Carolina: The Charleston Supply Chain Meetup (#TCHSSCM). It is being organized by G. Michael Rentz, Jr., CEO and Co-founder of Antimatter.

The Charleston Supply Chain Meetup will host its launch event on Wednesday, March 27 from 6:00 PM – 8:30 PM at the South Carolina Ports Authority’s new headquarters. The event will be highlighted by a keynote address by Jim Newsome, President and Chief Executive Officer of The South Carolina Ports Authority. Other details are being finalized, and will be posted to the event page on Meetup.com.

When I asked Michael about his motivations for wanting to start organizing The Charleston Supply Chain Meetup, he said: “After nearly 3 years working in global trade and logistics at Maersk, I was amazed by the enthusiasm and expertise that I encountered in the community in New York City. I believe that enthusiasm and expertise exists in other places too, and I am excited to start building the community in Charleston, South Carolina, to harness that potential entrepreneurial energy and passion and to build collaborative connections with the other chapters in our growing and global network of communities.” He goes further to say: “The goal of The Charleston Supply Chain Meetup is to leverage the existing assets, players, and progress already accomplished in the state by both people, agencies, and companies – by bringing them together, nurturing conversations, building relationships, and then watching something special develop.”

A Shot of the NYC Skyline – January 2018

HOW DID WE GET HERE?

After launching The New York Supply Chain Meetup in November 2017, we attracted speakers from emerging supply chain technology startups, as well as companies like SAP, IBM, Maersk, UPS, Tapestry, A.T. Kearny, L’Oreal, ALDO Group, EY, and GS1-US over the course of our first year.

We celebrated the one year anniversary of our public launch in NYC with an anniversary party on November 15, 2018. We followed that with the launch of a sister chapter in Bangalore on November 24, 2018.

Since our launch in NYC;

  • We have become the largest, most active, and fastest growing community on Meetup that focuses on the intersection of supply chains, technology and innovation.
  • We have more than 1,600 members in The New York Supply Chain Meetup, and more than 1,700 across the network.
  • Other chapters in process include; Vancouver, Athens, Singapore, and Chicago.

According to Mercedes Delgado and Karen Mills, in their book The Supply Chain Economy: A New Framework for Understanding Innovation and Services; “The U.S. supply chain contains 37% of all jobs, employing 44 million people. These jobs have significantly higher than average wages, and account for much of the innovative activity in the economy.” This makes the community we have set out to build one that offers enormous promise for collaboration between cities, states, and companies as well about how supply chain can function as a foundation for economic growth. The work we are doing to build this community is driven by our motivation to bring together two key groups of people;

  • The people inventing new technologies and developing new innovations for supply chains, and
  • The people who make buying decisions related to deploying new technologies and innovations within the supply chains on which businesses are reliant for their commercial operations.
    • I believe firmly that supply chain is the basis on which companies win or lose competitive advantage. It is arguably the basis on which communities, countries, and societies prosper or fail.
#TNYSCM02 – January 2018 at SAP in NYC

WHY ARE WE BUILDING THIS COMMUNITY?

When I asked Lisa Morales-Hellebo to help me build The New York Supply Chain Meetup in August 2017, it was because we share the belief that the world is in the early stages of one of the largest sector-driven opportunities of our lifetime, the secular refashioning of global supply chains. The innovations that drive the technology-led reinvention of global supply chains will begin at the grassroots. We started in New York City, but our vision has always been that we would ultimately build a global network of interconnected, and mutually cooperative communities that nurture, champion, and support the entrepreneurs, innovators, and technologists who will propel this transformation.

We also believe that software-enabled technologies will lead to the rearrangement of supply chains all over the world. This process will cause the reorganization of industrial processes, the displacement of incumbent market leaders, and the disruption of formerly stable markets. We are building a decentralized network of open and multidisciplinary communities to act as catalysts in the adoption of the technological innovations that accelerate the reinvention of global supply chain networks.

Our strategic goals for 2019 are:

  • To grow the number of chapters in our global network of communities – both internationally and within the United States,
  • To continue to engage our members with rich programming and networking opportunities,
  • To recruit sponsors and other partners who believe that supply chain, technology, and innovation serve as a powerful economic multiplier and as a catalyst for a sustainable and profitable future.

I am excited that we can formally announce the new chapter in Charleston, SC. I met Michael in early 2018. We have become friends over that period – talking on the phone, and texting one another multiple times each week. I believe he’s exactly the sort of person who can act as a catalyst around which a thriving community develops.

About The Worldwide Supply Chain Federation

The Worldwide Supply Chain Federation is the collaborative, and mutually supportive coalition of open and multidisciplinary grassroots communities focused on technology and innovation in the global supply chain industry. Founded in August, 2017, The New York Supply Chain Meetup is its founding chapter. Local chapters are run by volunteer organizers who each build a team to manage chapter activities and events. You can learn more here: The Worldwide Supply Chain Federation – Our Manifesto.

About REFASHIOND Ventures

REFASHIOND Ventures is an emerging early stage venture capital firm that is being built to invest in early-stage startups creating innovations to reinvent global supply chain networks. REFASHIOND Ventures is based in New York City. The Worldwide Supply Chain Federation and The New York Supply Chain Meetup are initiatives of REFASHIOND Ventures.

Update #1, Thu Feb 14 2019, at 21:05 EST: To fix some mechanical errors, and add bullet about supply chain and competitive advantage.

#CountDown: 3 Days to #TNYSCM04 – Supply Chain & Artificial Intelligence

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A cross-section of the audience at #TNYSCM #02, January 2018.

We’re now less than a week from The New York Supply Chain Meetup’s fourth gathering. The purpose of this post is to outline our plans for that event, and preview what we expect to do between now and June 2018 . . . We’re still in the early days of building this community, so much of this is subject to change, especially as we go through the process of recruiting sponsors.

Our Mission

To nurture and grow the world’s foremost open, global, multidisciplinary community of people devoted to building the supply chain networks of the future – starting in NYC.

Become a coporate sponsor. Email me at: brian@tnyscm.com for more details about our vision, and the team that’s working behind the scenes to build this community.

The New York Supply Chain Meetup is powered by Particle Ventures, a seed-stage fund based in NYC that invests in Supply Chain & Industrial Intelligence. Particle is built by the same team that launched KEC Ventures.

Logistical Details: #TNYSCM #04

  • Date: Thursday, March 15, 2018.
  • Time: 17:30–20:30
  • Location: SAP America, 10 Hudson Yards - 48th Floor, New York, NY. An organizer will be downstairs, at the security counter.

#TNYSCM #04 combines a Lightning Talk, a "Fire-Side" Chat, and a Showcase. It is sponsored by SAP.iO and co-hosted by The New York Supply Chain Meetup and the New York City Bots and Artificial Intelligence Meetup.

SAP.iO helps innovators inside and outside of SAP build products, find customers, and change industries.

REGISTER HERE!

Agenda

5:30 PM - 5:55 PM: Pre-event Networking
5:55 PM - 6:00 PM: Welcome Remarks (#TNYSCM, NYCBAI, SAP.iO)
6:00 PM - 6:30 PM: Lightning Talk (15 Minutes), Q&A (15 Minutes)
6:30 PM - 6:50 PM: "Fire-Side" Chat (15 Minutes), Q&A (15 Minutes)
7:00 PM - 8:00 PM: Showcase (10 Minutes, with 5 Minutes of Q&A, each)
8:00 PM - 8:30 PM: Closing Remarks, Post-event Networking

Lightning Talk: Evolution & Use Cases of Artificial Intelligence in Supply Chain, From An Industry And SAP Point of View

David Judge (@DHJudge) is Vice President of Predictive Analytics and Machine Learning products at SAP. He guides product strategy and drives increased market awareness for SAP Leonardo.

Geoff Maxwell (@geofflm) is Global Head of Business Strategy and Execution Analytics and SAP Leonardo. He is responsible for go to market strategy for SAP’s portfolio of Leonardo solutions.

Fireside Chat: The Future of AI-Driven Transformation in Retail Supply Chains, and in Government Agencies.

José P. Chan is VP Business Development for Celect, a predictive analytics firm founded out of MIT, which helps retailers optimize their inventory portfolios in stores and across the supply chain. Previously, he worked internationally in retail for over two decades with LVMH, Richemont and Roberto Cavalli. José has held senior management positions and has extensive experience in buying, marketing, merchandising, planning, and has run retail store networks. He holds an SM from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, an MBA from University of Rochester, a BS from Cornell University and an AAS from the Fashion Institute of Technology.

Sameer Anand is a Partner with A.T. Kearney’s operations practice with over 16 years of experience in management consulting. He advises clients on large scale transformations to drive step changes in productivity with an underpinning of analytics and digital across CPG, retail, industrial products, and high tech industries. His areas of expertise include consumer products, manufacturing, supply chain planning, sourcing, bracket pricing, logistics, and advanced analytics. Prior to joining A.T. Kearney, Sameer worked at Deloitte and American Airlines.

REGISTER HERE!

Showcase Presentations

At #TNYSCM #04 we'll have 3 startups talk about the artificial intelligence-driven products they are building for the supply chain logistics industry. They will appear in the following order;

ClearMetal (@ClearMetalInc): Founded in 2014, and based in San Francisco, CA, ClearMetal provides predictive data and analytics for the supply chain logistics industry, enabling its customers to unlock increased efficiencies in global trade as ClearMetal enables them to solve complex problems using a data-driven approach. According to CrunchBase and CBInsights ClearMetal has raised $12M over two rounds of financing, most recently raising $9.0M in its Series A financing which was led by Innovation Endeavors. SAP.iO is an investor in ClearMetal.

Wise Systems (@goWiseSystems): Founded in 2014, and based in Cambridge, MA,  Wise Systems develops route-optimization software that schedules last-mile delivery truck drivers while considering multiple constraints like customer time windows, traffic, and service time. Wise automatically dispatches schedules to drivers and the software recalculates and updates schedules in real-time as things change in real-time. According to CrunchBase and CBInsights, Wise Systems has raised $1.1M in seed capital. Dynamo Accelerator is an investor in Wise Systems. Santosh Sankar, a co-organizer of The New York Supply Chain Meetup, is also a co-founder & director of Dynamo.

Optimal Dynamics: Based in Princeton, NJ, Optimal Dynamics brings AI to the trucking industry based on over 30 years of academic research and development centered on the use of Computational Stochastic Optimization and Learning in solving problems related to dynamic assignment problems in transportation and logistics. Optimal Dynamics recently raised an undisclosed amount in pre-seed funding.

REGISTER HERE!

Preview — #TNYSCM  in April, May, June

Here is what our team of organizers is working on, between now and June.

  • April 26: A panel discussion and keynote presentation, focused on the issues that have kept blockchain and other distributed ledger technologies in the lab and out of the real world. The keynote presentation is by Silvio Micali, he will talk about his work creating Algorand. THIS IS GOING TO BE BIG!
  • May 24: A showcase of startups in Fashion, Apparel, and Retail supply chain. THIS IS GOING TO BE BIG!
  • June 21: A Sourcing 101 workshop for startups building physical products.

Other "Upcoming" Supply Chain Events

  • TPM2018: Is now behind us. It was awesome. Read my blog post about it here: #TPM2018: The Woodstock Of International Container Shipping & Logistics
  • Maritime Global Technologies: Reverse Pitch on March 15, 2018 from 09:30–12:30. MGTIC is an initiative of SUNY Maritime College to build a global maritime technology innovation hub by bringing together all that the New York City metro-region has to offer entrepreneurs building software for the global shipping and maritime logistics market. I’m a member of the advisory board and have previously blogged about it here and here. I will be there. Say hello, if we've never met before
  • Transparency18: This is the flagship event series started by the founders of the Blockchain in Transport Alliance. It follows BiTA’s Spring Symposium, a members only event that occurs on May 21, 2018. I will attend both days of Transparency 18 May 22 and May 23.