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Embracing a Digital Supply Chain with Mauro Rodrigo Gonzalez
129 Plays1 year ago
In this episode, Mauro Rodrigo Gonzalez, CSO + President of Ascent On-Demand at Ascent Global Logistics, joins Host Brian Glick, CEO of Chain.io, to discuss:
- How technology has powered their supply chain operations
- The challenges of leading on-demand supply chains
- The difference between a digital platform and a logistics operation
- How to approach change management in supply chains
- The differences in workplace culture across the world
- Their strategy for embracing a digital experience
Mauro is an experienced supply chain executive with over 25 years in the industry. He led and transformed one of the top countries within the Kuehne + Nagel Network, and now serves as the CSO and President of On-Demand operations at Ascent Global Logistics. In his current role, he works with the M&A team to search, analyze and execute potential operations around the world to keep growing their business platform. Tune in now!
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Transcript
Introduction to Episode and Guest
00:00:05
Speaker
Welcome to Supply Chain Connections. I'm Brian Glick, founder and CEO of Chain.io. On today's episode, we're going to talk to Maro Rodrigo Gonzalez from Ascent Global Logistics. Ascent specializes in critical freight and what they call on demand, which is all of the really complex things that most of us in the freight forwarding industry are afraid to touch. So we're going to talk a little bit about what it takes to implement technology in that space and change management.
00:00:32
Speaker
The difference in working with different company sizes, all in all, just a great conversation. So I hope you enjoy it.
Maro's Logistics Career Journey
00:00:48
Speaker
Tamara, thank you so much for joining me today. My pleasure. Thank you very much for having me, Ryan. So why don't you just give us a little bit of your background and kind of how you ended up with the scent. Okay. So as you already know, I'm Argentinian. I live in Europe for a while.
00:01:05
Speaker
before living in Mexico for the last almost 20 years and having roles in the U.S. always working in the logistics industry since I was 18 years old and the biggest part of my career has been with United. I was the president of Mexico.
00:01:23
Speaker
and also was in charge of the strategy of North America, Canada, US, and Mexico as well. So after serving for a while, I decided to change and start my own adventure about innovation, you know, transformation in this supply chain with my own company. And then I met the team of Ascend and slowly start first as an external consultant for them and then
00:01:47
Speaker
managing u.s maxico and also the strategy for the synergies for the company right so currently i'm leading the on-demand division in us and Mexico and we are very happy excited because the business has been moving like crazy i think like everyone in the logistic for the last couple of years but the performer of said i sent this outperforming the rest of the market with the on-demand and the critical service division.
00:02:16
Speaker
So I have a whole bunch of questions, but I think the most important one is where in the US are you planning to come to see messy play? Are you going to go to Miami or are you going to wait until it comes to another city where you have a work trip?
00:02:29
Speaker
Definitely Miami, right? We need to go and see. As a matter of fact, I don't think that the in there of Miami realized that they will be flopped by Argentinians flying to Miami every weekend. So I think they need to change the stadium for that for sure. I think they'll be happy to have you.
Ascent's On-Demand Division and Technology Solutions
00:02:49
Speaker
So explain to me what on-demand is in the Ascent world. Yes, we have three divisions in the company, an international division company, then we have the brokerage and transportation within USA for all the ground services that we perform.
00:03:07
Speaker
And the third one, it's the most, how can I say, biggest one and the oldest one is the on demand in which we organize the critical, you know, logistics services for charter OVC or and gallery, depending how you call it, and ground expedite solutions for our key customers or blue chip customers from, you know, the marketplace and
00:03:32
Speaker
booking their need on this critical service because it's a life shutdown or a critical situation in their operations until we execute all the operations with people working 24-7, guaranteeing the performance and the delivery of the parts of the service for keeping the supply chain up and running.
00:03:53
Speaker
So mainly the difference between the three divisions is that one is focused on critical and expedited solutions and the other two are more for plan or scheduled logistics services. Now with the structure and the mini integration that we did a couple of years ago, now we are integrating everything into one single platform which we call Peak.
00:04:17
Speaker
It's our operational platform for the customers and they can have every transportation mode or integration or the chicken experience for the free division into one single place. So I've seen a lot of different companies who work in expedited or project grade or critical where each customer is so unique and the demands and the needs are.
00:04:42
Speaker
you know, very particular that it makes it sometimes hard to add technology to that because it's hard to find the commonalities and the common threads. So kind of.
00:04:52
Speaker
How have you kind of approached tech from that critical space? We have a very strong IT team. They have been doing a fantastic job to integrate our whole operational system. Each division, they work with different TMS or operational platforms. But the connector or the fronting that we have with PEEP, it's what make us unique. And also the capability that we have, so the building and the marketplace solution
00:05:22
Speaker
and from there, connecting with the real execution of the freight service and the monitoring 24-7, that's our strength. That was a very important decision that the company took a couple of years ago and now is paying off because for the customer, it's awesome to have everything into one single place.
00:05:43
Speaker
Interconnecting i mean you just mentioned there is a lot of companies that they are very good in vendor management. All for being solutions other ones are very good for disability analytics but you don't have anyone that really integrate and to end on the market place to destroy the payment asking along the twenty four seven people in us mexico and now we are opening europe that can.
00:06:11
Speaker
the operations and integrate the traditional logistics with the digital solution. So that I think is the biggest advantage that we have over the rest. So that's really interesting because I was having a conversation with someone the other day and I'm trying to describe what I think the perfect IT environment looks like for a
Leveraging Technology in Logistics
00:06:32
Speaker
freight forwarder. And I described sort of an egg
00:06:35
Speaker
And I said, the inside of the egg should be software you buy, right? The ability to create a house bill or send an invoice or do accounting is not the things that your customer care about, but that very thin egg shell around it is what makes everyone unique. It's how they bring those pieces together and package them for the customer. So it sounds like, does that kind of match how you guys have approached this, that you kind of buy the pieces that do the work and then build the shell around it?
00:07:01
Speaker
Does that make sense? Totally agree. Moreover, the business model that we are following, some of my colleagues, they will have fun for what I'm going to say, but it's like a flywheel model because in the way that we set up the technology and we are growing the business,
00:07:19
Speaker
everytime that we are onboarding a new customer or we are onboarding a new carrier or a new provider into our ecosystem, the solution gets stronger and stronger because we optimize all the loads, all the freights, all the volumes. We are certifying all our operators and everyone is winning.
00:07:40
Speaker
It's not only that the customer is getting better price and better service, but also the carriers and the people that is working in the environment. They find themselves that they are much more busy than working independently and the other important thing is that they can grow and they can get more operations. Moreover, right now with the near-shoring,
00:08:01
Speaker
This is for me and I think that will be one of the bottlenecks. So the strategy as you correctly said about the eggs around every single aspect of the digital experience is what we are embracing and then connecting the systems to that fronting and that opportunity to optimize the laws and the freight. So you just actually brought up something else that I'm very curious about because I don't have
00:08:29
Speaker
personally as much experience on the surface transportation side, the trucking. But I've always heard different providers, when they talk about the actual carriers moving the loads, either be very, very passionate about being the provider of choice and the best to work with, and others who are saying it's never even occurred to them. And there seems to be just very, very different attitudes there.
00:08:55
Speaker
It sounds like you're in that first cap that you kind of build partnership with companies that actually own the assets. But what kind of thinking goes into that? Or am I making that completely up?
00:09:07
Speaker
No, I think that you are right. In logistics, you don't have right or wrong. You have different strategies and different ways to lead the business. Our strategy is to make sure that the customer gets the best partners for the shipment and for the operation. We are making sure that we are putting all options into the table to the customer.
00:09:30
Speaker
Our first obligation is to make sure that they are not fading, you know, that everybody's delivering. As I said, in all the manner that I work, there is no room for failure. So we need to make sure that, I don't know, peace or that part or that
00:09:46
Speaker
you know machinery for the production gets to the right place at the right time so you cannot serve the entire market by yourself so that's why we are having these hybrid models in which we have our own asset for the aircraft and you know for the ground services as well.
00:10:04
Speaker
But then the customer has always the freedom to choose to assign the cargo to someone else. But the idea is to serve the customer in a way that they can optimize the market and they can really make sure that they are getting the best benefit for what they are paying.
00:10:23
Speaker
We are working with carriers in AFRAID for the aircraft, different partners that we have in Mexico and USA internationally, same for the ground services. As I said, we are a very weird mix between a digital platform and a logistic operation 24 seven, right? So that's what I would say that we are setting ourselves apart from a traditional carrier. We are more like an Uber solution.
00:10:52
Speaker
and maybe a tradition of free beer. So I would imagine that, given that a sense been around in various forums, but in the last two years, that there's been some change management in bringing new technology and everything. And again, my experiences with Critical have been that the employees get very passionate about the customers and very passionate about it has to be done this way because we can't screw up the next shipment so we can never change anything.
00:11:21
Speaker
because I can't screw up the next shipment and this can't be the first one where I try the new process and every single one of them is a heart monitor going to somebody or a critical part that's going to shut down a line. Someone whose job is to drive change, how do you approach change management?
Managing Change and Innovation
00:11:40
Speaker
It's a very good question. And what you just described is what has been going on in the company for the last couple of years. We have a great mix of personalities and people. We have people that have been with the company over 20, 30 years.
00:11:55
Speaker
delivering on-demand and critical services from our previous name, Arturo, and they are very proud of what they're doing and they're really, really expert. Then we have a group of people coming from different companies, such as myself, that we are trying to bring innovation change and also make sure that we are growing the business globally. I used to work with a German
00:12:21
Speaker
very famous repeal. So the mindset is completely different to what maybe the people are used to. So the idea is to start driving change based on clear opportunities that we are detecting.
00:12:36
Speaker
And because as a customer obsession, as our Germany is always saying, mentality, you know, pushing ourselves to improve and to change, it's not hard when you can show that, right? When you can show reality, not feeling. And this has been the angle that we have been taking advantage based on the technology to show that there is still room for improvement in different areas. And people have been very receptive, create a roadmap and start making changes.
00:13:06
Speaker
changes one at a time and make sure that these feed into our global vision of becoming the number one on-demand autistic provider, right? Do you think that newer employees or younger employees are more embracing of this change? The reason I ask is I got corrected a few years ago. We're just doing a warehouse systems project and we always had this kind of rule that you had to be very gentle with bringing any tech into the warehouse because the
00:13:35
Speaker
employees would literally destroy it if they didn't like it and that I was corrected. Nowadays, a lot of them embrace the tech. They've grown up with it. It's a different thing in that maybe I was getting a little old in my thinking. Do you see the same thing that employees who are newer to the business maybe just expect a lot of tech change?
00:13:53
Speaker
In a way, yes. I agree with your comment. Younger people, it's much more interconnected on their day-to-day stuff with technology and they know that this is evolving and changing on time. On the other side, I think that also has to do with the mentality.
00:14:09
Speaker
Not only from the culture of the company space, when I joined us and I found a team that was prepared to welcome new ideas, new way of operating as a month. That's what they were looking for. So of course you always have, you know, more friction with people that has been doing the same for many years. And sometimes you have these shop, you know, blindness that you have been doing these for so long that you cannot see, you know, the forest because you are seeing so close with tree.
00:14:39
Speaker
You know it's awareness then you also have very young people that they are not expert and they think that everything will be changed with a computer or a system and honestly logistic has been proven for the last couple of years that we are not there yet to really do everything with only.
00:14:58
Speaker
you know having one system definitely we are going into that direction but it's so frightening all the operation with custom clearance you know with. I mean that this is the people that you can you know and power and you can.
00:15:18
Speaker
potentialize with the right platform, definitely. And nowadays it's becoming more and more important to be interconnected and to have everybody in the same picture. When I'm saying the same picture, it's not only from what I'm doing as a logistic provider, but also understanding the data and the information coming from the customers and their final customers or other plans or whatever. So we can make sure that we can see the whole ecosystem.
00:15:46
Speaker
And this would not stop, but still human beings are making the difference on the customer service, on resolution of problems. So I think that you have some pushback from all people that it's more about the pride of what you're doing and if you are the best at doing what you're doing, right. You know, I remember on the customs brokerage side, talking to one of my colleagues one time about the difference between
00:16:14
Speaker
what it took to do data entry on a paper customs filing versus reviewing a customer's electronic data. And that what we found was that it was actually much harder to do the automated filings in the sense of auditing the data and paying attention and looking at the data on the screens versus the sort of raw data entry in that, you know, the people who were our best people
00:16:42
Speaker
got better with the automation because they spent their time thinking about the customer's problems instead of just typing whatever was on the paper into the computer. All of these smart people who've been doing it a long time still have a lot of value when it comes to making sure that the computer is doing what it's supposed to be doing. Tell me a little bit about
00:17:04
Speaker
I won't make you call anyone out, but you know, going from, you know, an organization that was, you know, in excess of 40,000 employees to one that's significantly smaller than that. Was that a cultural whiplash for you? What are some of the pros and cons between big and small?
Experiences in Different Company Sizes
00:17:20
Speaker
As I said, you know, it's not so much about being big or small or to be global or more regional niche player. It's more about flexibility and the willingness to grow.
00:17:34
Speaker
Working in a company like Aston gives you the freedom to create and to transform things much more closer to not only the customer but also related to the people in a very big established organization as where I used to work.
00:17:53
Speaker
people was the driver people was making the change but it was like if you already have all the processes all the system in place so it was more like a repetitive job this one in my particular case is much more fun in the sense of creating from scratch all the solutions that we had been presenting
00:18:14
Speaker
potentializing what we used to have because it was not by chance that the company had so many years and so much success, especially in the on-demand division on international as well, but we were much smaller and in the ground it was much more fragmented piece, the brokerage piece. But what really caught my attention is the difference on the culture between a German organization and an American organization.
00:18:43
Speaker
the point of view is the way to feel the business, how to grow or to embrace the changes are completely different. One is more like process driven and planning, the other one is more about growing the market and be aggressive to whatever it takes to make the changes and then we can do the
00:19:07
Speaker
reverse engineering how we are going to build the process. It has been very fun so far, at least from my personal point of view. Which one is better? I don't know. I have been learning things from the two sides already. I'll tell you, I just got back from a week in Germany and it is always something that as an American, I have to remind myself that not every decision has to be made in the first meeting in the first 30 seconds.
00:19:36
Speaker
Sometimes as Americans, it takes a trip to Europe to kind of help me realize that sometimes we're just running around screaming all the time. We feel like if we're not two steps ahead of the problem, sometimes that we're behind it and that I have to remind myself to slow down and that there's a lot of value in long-term thinking and being methodical in how you make a decision. So I think there's a lot to be said for both approaches.
00:20:01
Speaker
Trust me, I have been working in the German culture almost all my professional life, so I know them quite well. But also the American way of thinking sometimes creates that disruption that the business and the industry needs. And then from there, it follows. So I think that you have right things in both sides, right? Absolutely. The point is try to be balanced, you know, and try to
00:20:28
Speaker
Get order to that disorder and bring some chaos to that organization because otherwise you get complacent because you already have the process. It's very difficult to adapt change so i think that it's a good plan when you have both things in your background. What are you excited about what's coming up sooner what do you see in the industry that's got you kind of worked up nowadays.
Future of Ascent and Industry Trends
00:20:51
Speaker
Well, personally, I'm much more focused on Ascend. If you want, I can split the answer in two. I'm really excited about the opportunity that now we are developing about taking Ascend to be around the world, to not only be a regional player in North America,
00:21:11
Speaker
has been for the last years. But now, you know, opening offices in Europe, in Asia, in Latin America, Africa, Middle East, for serving our customers, and interconnect this on demand and international forwarding for, you know, expedite and schedule services into one. This is really exciting. And I think that for the next five to 10 years,
00:21:37
Speaker
the company will be in this transformation process all the time and for me that's really fun. In terms of the industry, I think that technology is definitely disrupting everything and we are seeing more and more integration and need for
00:21:57
Speaker
move aside from being a traditional 3PL and become more like a data analytics and data driven company, right? This mesh concept about being able to bring everything together and from there make better decisions is shifting the way that the industry is operating and
00:22:20
Speaker
because of the unfortunate current scenario that we are seeing in the geopolitical situation and also with all this disruption in the supply chain and climate change and so on. I think that on-demand services or we see in supply chain are going to be more and more necessary. So I think it's an exciting time or opportunity for a company like ours.
00:22:47
Speaker
continue growing and blending this technology with the expertise that we already have for many years i think that's the most exciting thing for me and the small. Awesome well i think that might be a really good time to wrap will end on a note of optimism i've always been fascinated you know having grown up in the very methodical retail space by.
00:23:10
Speaker
Anytime I ever got to work on anything that was on the band or expedited, it was always the fun stories that you got to tell at parties. So I'm a little bit jealous and thank you so much for joining me on the show today. My pleasure, Ryan. Thank you very much. And thank you to your team. You're doing a fantastic job. Thank you. Thank you so much tomorrow for that wonderful conversation. Again, it's just so exciting to hear about all these different parts of the industry and
00:23:37
Speaker
the different perspectives that people get to bring when they work on unique niches inside of the space. And I hope you enjoyed the conversation. Make sure to subscribe to the CHANIO blog if you haven't already. We have a lot of big announcements coming up and some really, really cool things going on across the industry. Until next time, I'm Brian Glick, founder and CEO of CHANIO.