Camelot Podcast: eCommerce Acceleration – Reg Adams from Techdinamics with host Geoff Greenhill

To start, can you introduce yourself and explain a little about the solutions your company offers?

Reg Adams, co-founder and a manager partner of Techdinamics Integrations. I have been in the logistics and supply chain industry for the last 28 years. Reg and co-founder Edward Aguiar have developed systems that eliminate touchpoints from order integration through the final mile carrier selection. Its about  “Smarter Fulfillment: finding the right system, technology, and partners.”            

How has your business been able to adapt and remain safe during this COVID pandemic?

We have been very fortunate through these times, our customer base is  global and even though technically we have offices in EU, South America, North America and now our most recent addition in the Philippines , for the last years we have developed a process where the entire company can work from their home offices. We have systems and processes where we are able to communicate and measure productivity from our  Toronto office and it all works very well for the employees, they love it.

In light of COVID, has that opened up new opportunities for Techdinamics?

Covid has changed everything, Techdinamics is an E-com solutions organization and all though we all know the market was tracking incredible growth (6 billion worldwide by 2023), today in 2020 its up about 58  % versus a 16-18% pegged growth prior.  We think COVID has moved numbers 2 years ahead of plan and its not going back.

What are some eCommerce trends that you are seeing?

Obviously retail has been hurt the most, brick and mortar is in big trouble. Thousands of vendor PO’s have been deferred or canceled in the last three months so manufactures are turning to e-com solutions to help sell their own products directly to the consumer, the largest area of growth is an accelerate launch of shopping carts and market place solutions. 3pl ‘s and fulfillment centers will also see a big win from this which is great for companies like yours and ours because they are our number one customer base.

Regarding efforts to improve warehouse operations, what is one of the most important opportunities you see for improving operations at 3PL warehouse?

This is a million-dollar question, to compete against the likes of Amazon you cannot add 10.00 dollars of order processing costs to a 30.00 dollar item, you need to get rid of every possible touchpoint you have. This means reinventing how you typically get and process orders, from order entry to final mile selection and the delivery you need an automated process. There is no room for the fulfillment centers to have manual entry or touchpoints where a person has to be in the decision process, it all needs to be automated, system-driven, we call it Smarter Fulfillment.

Are companies demanding more?   Quicker service or shorter implementation timeframes? 

Look there is no secret here, the Elephant in the room is Amazon with about 40% of the market, they have raised the bar year after year, from 4-7 days for delivery, to 48 hours, to next day and now same day. Meanwhile there including  visibility to your order throughout the entire process which is bringing a whole new experience to the e-comm consumer This is good competition but puts a serious crunch on the fulfillment process,  it has all the companies demanding more of their supply chain partners.

I’ve recently seen Shopify dabble into the fulfillment arena as a direct competitor of Amazon fulfillment, touting much-discounted commissions, have you seen a growth in adoption of these services?

This is an interest concept but yet to be perfected. Un like Amazon which touts their own products, name and Prime brand Shopify has taken a different  approach. They are  concentrating on helping the manufacture get to market and are trying to supply additional tools to do so, that being said a well-managed 3pl with the right systems and tools is a major asset to any manufacture and they have direct knowledge and support to help their customers day in day out, I think the jury is still out on the Shopify distribution plan and certainly the costs have not been proven out yet. They have actually been working with groups of 3pl providers in partnership and we believe this may be the better approach, we’ll wait and see.

What are some ways eCommerce fulfillment companies are improving their operations?

Systems and automation, it goes back to our comment on touch points through out the process, it may be as simple as printing the packing slip with the courier label because having to match these up is a touch point or fully automating their conveyors or bagging machine with label generation. Batch process or wave picking to a scan and go process for the courier selection, your entire process needs to be reviewed. Not all are do-able depending on your client but certainly need to be assessed.

Do you see 3PL warehouses performing more for suppliers?  In what ways?  Are 3PLs looking for more comprehensive/fully integrated solutions from their software providers i.e. WMS, TMS, Accounting etc?

For the 3pl’s today it is all about selecting the right partners and this includes partners that are flexible and are moving forward with times. Today there is no one solution for all your needs, your partners need to recognize that, not one system can do it all based on today’s demands. You need to have a fully integrated process between systems with all the latest tools.

As you’re probably aware, we have mostly a 3PL audience listening, so what advice would you give someone who has been involved in traditional warehousing for the past decade and is interested in getting involved in the eCommerce Fulfillment movement? Three key step:

1. Automate your integration process from the order source, we are climbing on hundreds of platforms involved in the e-commerce markets between ERP, OMS, Shopping carts, WMS, TMS and  you need to be able to connect quickly and cost effectively to all platforms regardless of file types or formats.
2. Select the right WMS who is flexible and willing to work with you specifically in the E-com world, this is the future and Manufactures are migrating quickly.
3. Automated your TMS type solution which needs to be embed with your WMS system, today small parcel represent 42-43 % of the E-comm supply chain cost.  Amazon has the best UPS discount in North America but yet they rate shop every package they ship because they know depending on package type, weight, size and destination that there is no one carrier that can do it for you. Mining the data between LTL and small parcel is the next biggest revenue opportunity for the 3pl’s and the smart ones today are saving their customers money while gaining revenue by sharing in the cost savings.

Is Techninamics seeing more competition over the past year?  How are you differentiating the business?

As mentioned prior there hundreds of TMS systems, Accounting Systems, WMS systems, OMS systems,  Shopping carts, Order Integrators and ERP solutions but they all concentrate on their own respective offering which is typically one piece of the channel. Sometimes even  selling it when its not in the best interest of the customers. Techdinamics looks at the fulfillment process differently,  we try to look at the process from order entry right through to the final mile selection and then to accounting, its about a completely integrated process and  working with the right partners. If we can help our supply chain partners become fully integrated beginning to end with the right solutions knowing full well that no one supplier has the be all end all solution for the customers than it’s a win win.  We find this is our differentiating factor.