Making the Case for Change with Lisa Husken

Speaker A: Hello and welcome to Beyond Packaging, where we interview the people behind the amazing products we use every day. I'm Laura Fody.

Speaker B: And I'm Matthew Wright. Still.

Speaker A: Uh, and today we're joined by a very special guest, our very own colleague, Lisa Huskin. But before we chat with Lisa, Matthew, let's get up to date on what's been going on in the world of packaging. A lot of fun stories. I know we just talked about litter, uh, boxes on one of the last episodes, but one of the first articles we have here is that Big Idea Ventures and Mars Pet Care have launched a 2026 global pet food innovation program. Uh, this is the third year they've done this. It's really about advancing sustainable solutions and pet nutrition, focused on identifying and scaling the next generation of breakthrough technologies. I think what's really interesting here, Matthew, is the idea is to connect all the innovations that are happening in the human food space to the pet industry. Uh, so what are your thoughts on this initiative? The importance, and I know you've spent some time around the pet care space as well.

Speaker B: Well, yeah, first of all, Mars is an incredible company. If you think about just the company, the history, uh, obviously one of the largest confectionary companies in the world, uh, really lead, if you do some studies on the family and how they lead, is really, really good leaders in the industry. So I, uh, think that's interesting. It's kind of, it's not surprising coming from just a great company and a great culture. Uh, but I also think I like the point of where, you know, companies that are done and it just shows you the challenges that are under, that they have to lead these initiatives. These are not easy to do. They have to put their energy, time and money behind, uh, trying to find these things. And so it shows two things to me. One is it's not easy to do, so you have to do it yourself. And then secondarily that you're going to find leaders in the space that are willing to kind of go out and create these funds, create these organizations that are going to go find kind of the next best generation of products for, for us. And then yeah, I think the pet food industry is highly innovative. I mean you think about where it's come in the last 10 plus years. It's a major category with amazing m amount of variety and brands, uh, in the place. And I think, you know, I know you love cats and that's why you remember the litter piece. Uh, I think it's a category you understand and probably go shopping and Just see how, how diverse it is and how innovative it is. So I think it's a lot of fun reading about them.

Speaker A: Absolutely. And I think what's interesting here, we talk a lot about packaging sustainability on this podcast, and I think there's lots of innovation certainly happening there. What's interesting is this is focused on the ingredient innovation specifically, you know, alternative proteins, fats, oils, novel ingredients, you know, supplements have taken off in the human space. I think my cat is eating better than me now. Like, I'm looking at the label for my cat, just like I look at the label for myself. So I think we're in this era of pet parenting and it's allowing, you know, these investments and innovation to really flourish. So, uh, great to see.

Speaker B: Yeah, no, you just said it. You love pets. We all do. And it, it makes a difference when you have the right products being ingested by another being. Their health is going to improve in longevity. Uh, and so not surprising. And it's kind of, It's a fun industry to watch, so. And great leaders in that industry, like Mars.

Speaker A: Yeah. This next article is from Packaging World. Shout out to Matt Reynolds, friend of the podcast. Um, it's all about the recent survey they ran. And the takeaway was that practicality is defining packaging in 2026. And the findings, you know, they surveyed all these professionals and asked them various trends about packaging. And in prior years, the focus had really been around innovation. Right. And now, uh, the sentiment in the packaging industry seems to be less about innovation, more about pragmatism and discipline around cost, labor risk shaping every decision. Um, Matthew, what are your thoughts on this? I mean, I know you just have your pulse on, on the industry.

Speaker B: Yeah, you know, it's interesting. It's just history, you know. You know, I talk a lot about this. Like, things kind of pendulum swing and it comes back and forth. And it's interesting, having first been in the business, I always talk about this. The complexity was pretty low. Uh, and we've really added significant complexity to these operations over the last, you know, 20 years. Uh, definitely the last 10 years. And that was, to your point, by getting very specific on, um, convenience, by really dialing down into the individual, uh, procurement, uh, process. Uh, and so I don't think this is surprising. It got to a point, I don't think it could have gone any further. And it really became disruptive. You know, if you think about just simple thing, not simple new things like epr, you know, how much more complicated is that? Because you skew, you know, it's 2x what it was 10 years ago. You have 2x the complex, uh, complexity on top of something that's new and complex. So I think it's very natural rhythm for industry to want to go back to more operationally sound, uh, you know, business model. And obviously we let the cat out of the bag. Back to your Viking cats, uh, that you know, we can have variety, we can have uh. So I don't think we're going to go back to the days of, you know, one box for everything or one product, but we are going to find a balance. And I think that's what you're seeing the industry doing right now.

Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. I think there's, there's three interesting trends that came out of it that I want to surface for our listeners here. First is that a lot of the survey respondents, they're not viewing automation as transfer transformative, but a hedge against labor challenges. You know, they, they believe labor's not scaling fast enough. They've got to look at automation to be able to keep up. The second is that, you know, it's, it's challenging to invest in equipment right now. Right. Brands want flexibility to try new formats and, and do short runs and things like that. And so they're looking at ah, contract partners. I think we've seen the rise of contract manufacturing in a lot of different areas and co packers and so on. Um, and I think that does enable innovation. Right. Because you're not totally committing to something and it becomes a huge capex expense. You kind of have that flexibility to innovate. And then the last thing that you just mentioned, EPR is now the primary driver of material choice overtaking consumer perception in many cases. So you know, all of these trends, uh, together I think is what's leading to this more pragmatic approach to packaging right now.

Speaker B: Yep, no doubt it's. And again, I think this, the companies are challenged with all this. And so I think again, just changing the business model to alter to the, you know, new and upcoming regulatory landscape as well as the consumer changes, but do it in an economically prudent way I think is what the companies are focused on right now.

Speaker A: Absolutely. And that's a great segue into welcoming our guests on the podcast. You know, we talked, just talked about investments transformation, business challenges. Um, one of the questions we get the most from people we talk to in the industry when they're trying to make a change is how do we convince everyone else? Right. How do we get our leadership eye in, how do we make the business case? And that's what this episode is exactly about. We've brought our very own Lisa Huskin, who's a value engineer to Spec Right to. To help share with our audience. When you want to make a change, what's the most impactful way to do it. Uh, Lisa, welcome to the show.

Speaker B: You're welcome.

Speaker C: Thank you guys so much for having me on the show. Pleasure to be here.

Speaker A: We're excited. Some people might be unfamiliar, uh, with the job of a value engineer. Can you take us through that role and why it's so impactful for people who are listening in?

Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. Uh, so basically my role as a value engineer, or otherwise known as a value, uh, advisor, is to really bridge the gap between a product or a software's capabilities and the customer's expected business outcomes. So really kind of helping them to identify and solidify, like, hey, what can you expect once, uh, you have adopted the platform? Um, over the course of my career, I helped thousands of different organizations really understand, hey, these are my current pain points. This is the value and the impact that leveraging a technology or leveraging. Leveraging a software is going to have on my organization and then giving them the tools that they need, uh, to really have that discussion internally, um, for change management.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's fantastic. You know, I think we experience this a lot at Spec, right? Uh, many folks are out there managing things in spreadsheets or share drives, and they go to their boss and they're like, we have this great new software called Spec Right to manage our specs. And then people are like, well, why should we do this? Uh, what's different, though, about this moment? You know, you're in a lot of these conversations. It feels like it's getting easier to have this discussion, but would love your perspective.

Speaker C: Well, I think you guys already mentioned one of the things, um, is the EPR regulations, right? So all of this stuff is changing right now. There's a lot more regulatory pressure, um, in the United States. EPR is scaling at a rapid pace. We've got about seven different states reporting now. They're anticipating, you know, somewhere in the teens next year. PWR in Europe has some deadlines and some more, um, stringent regulations coming into the play as well. So I think that's, um, honestly, that's top of mind for almost every single conversation that I've been having. Um, is, is really on the regulatory pressure. Um, a couple of other things that are kind of top of mind though, is, um, really the geopolitical uncertainty that's going on, the impact, um, that's having on supply chains, 2020 was a perfect example. And in a top organizations like we need to make sure that we're nimble, we need to make sure that we're flexible and it's really hard to do that we, without having some data and insights in terms of what we might be able to switch out from a packaging perspective or what other suppliers do we already have in our network. Um, so that's another um, driving force, uh, for some of the conversations today. Um, and the last piece is really on data integrity. We have AI, we have um, all of those awesome tools. But if you don't have a solid foundation from which AI can be leveraged, if you don't have confidence in your data and you don't have that in a centralized location, there's really no AI use case. So I think those are kind of some of the um, the three key drivers that um, are really having organizations kind of bringing this a little bit more to light and having some of these conversations.

Speaker A: Yeah. And we just partnered with user Evidence on, on a survey, two customers kind of getting the value and impact of moving to a spec first approach. I think what's interesting is, you know, one of the questions we ask is what you, what were you doing before spec? Right. 60% were still heavily reliant on Excel and 69% struggle to maintain accurate data. So to your point, you know what companies are talking about their AI strategy. What, what about your data strategy? I mean, Matthew, is it surprising to you that this is still so much of the problem in packaging and even for the broader cpg, uh, community?

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean there's two sides to me.

Speaker D: Right.

Speaker B: The real estate spending industry and understands that this is what happens, how it takes. And I just was talking to a large customer. Spec rights, it's looking to continue to grow and the internal operational challenges of change. Right. Change management. And so I think that's. Yes. So I'm not surprised, uh, disheartened in the terms that I think is an easier way to do things than what we've been struggling. And I look at like, you know, delaying. It's a few years. It's just been a few years of, you know, a lack of innovation or lack of other things to spend time on and just consumed with historic kind of rhetoric. And so yeah, I think it'd be wise to move faster. Not surprising. We haven't uh, because to the conversation I just had, his second comment was, oh my God, the world's changes from the division. We got to switch over now. I can't Wait for the next six divisions to switch over quickly. So I think once people realize how good it is, uh, the speed speeds up, if that makes sense.

Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. And um, you know, Matthew, I remember in the early days of Spec Grant, you were just so passionate about giving packaging team members, engineers, designers time back to do their day job. Um, Lisa, how does this show up in the business case? Right, because a lot of these packaging professionals, they know they shouldn't be spending this much time emailing Excels to suppliers, manually validating data, uploading it to 12 different stages systems. But how do they translate that work into a value case that they can bring to their leadership?

Speaker C: Yeah, that's a great question. And literally that resonates with pretty much everybody we talk to, right? You come to your management and say, hey, this is taking me too long, I want to be able to do more or I want to be able to do this faster. And I think where a lot of people miss and what we focus on here at Spec, right, when I'm working with my, uh, with my clients is, is really taking that time savings and translating into the. So what, right? What is the business impact going to be? Because honestly, if we go to our manager and say, hey, this is taking me 40 hours, I want it to only take me 20, that's not really going to hit home for them. We need to make sure that we're tying some of those operational efficiencies, uh, to some of the greater strategic initiatives that the organization has as a whole. Um, and also I know that these packaging engineers and that everybody we're talking to, they have like a stack of other things that they need to be doing, right? Whether that be quality reviews, uh, whether it be safety or risk analysis. And by being able to give them that time back, they're able to do what they're really actually hired to do, right? We're not hired to go and play in spreadsheets and chase down emails. Um, we're really allowing them to kind of focus that skilled talent on some more value added initiatives. And that's really where you need to draw that, that conclusion.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think that's, that's fantastic. Um, you know, one of the things that, ah, again a common experience and I experienced this in my job, right, As a, as a leader, I've only got so much budget, right. And we all want to do so many new things and that's great and everything's going to add value and be transformational. Um, but you know, for someone who's never built a business case how should they think about getting that organizational buy in? Because there's always finite resources, right?

Speaker C: Absolutely. So one of the things, again, I think we need to take a look at it. Uh, when you're building a business case, it's not just about the numbers anymore, right? Return on investment is kind of something that we used if we were buying a piece of machinery or if we were buying something that was, that had a finite life cycle. But when we're talking about building a business case for really, for change management, um, a couple of things that stand out to me is really highlighting the risk associated with the status quo. Obviously every customer that we're talking to, every company, you guys have processes and procedures in place. But what we really need to look at is the what ifs, right? So what if that person who built that Excel spreadsheet leaves the organization? What if um, we have a recall and we're not able to necessarily trace back easily, um, the cause or the, the um, solution of that or the impact of that recall. Um, right now, again, regulatory compliance, this stuff is changing so quickly. What if we can't keep up? Or what if all of a sudden a new state comes on board and they're requiring information that some of the existing EPR regulations didn't have. So I think, um, not only, you know, obviously putting aside the, some numbers and some hypothesis as to what the financial impact would be, but also what is the uh, risk mitigation impact going to be. And again then tying that back to some of the larger strategic initiatives that the organization has.

Speaker A: Absolutely. Lisa, Go ahead. Matthew.

Speaker B: No, I was going to say the other value I think in this, the work that Lisa, uh, and the team do, uh, does is it keeps the uh, the team aligned. You know, we all get busy, we all have a million things to focus on. You know, the day after we do it, we forget what we just did. But this is a good methodology to kind of keep everybody aligned. Are we still in pursuit of our goals? Do the goals, you know, shift to get better? Uh, and then this is why we're doing it when the days are hard and the projects are challenging, is this keeps kind of that North Star, uh, for the team. So I look at it as obviously a way to get the buy in, to get the budget to do those type of things. It's also a way to keep the team on track. And I think that's a good tool to be used and then a reflective tool. How did it, how did it come out compared to what we thought? What can we do to get more out of it. Uh, and so I think that's another way that we should be using this, thinking through it.

Speaker A: It's a great point, Matthew. You know, I spend a lot of time with my team, the client services organization. We love when customers work with Lisa because we get exactly what they want to focus on. Right. And then when we're implementing spec right for them and inevitably someone wants a shiny object. Right. And it may not align with the broader organizational vision or goals. And having that framework allows teams to make decisions about what's important to them during an implementation. To your point, keeping everyone focused and aligned. I think that's a great call out. Um, Lisa, I have to give you a lot of credit here. Love, uh, what you've done with the ROI calculator. One of the things we've talked about is, you know, we, you know, Lisa spends a lot of time with customers, but I think everyone wishes they had more time. And how can people get access to some of the tools that LISA has? So can you talk about the ROI calculator you built? Um, for those listening, you can go to specwright.com backslash ROI hyphen calculator, uh, and it'll take you to kind of your very own business case where you can enter in, um, your industry, your department, some of your pain points and start to evaluate what a potential, uh, you know, ROI could be. So could you walk us through, you know, what led you to create this and how should people use this tool?

Speaker C: Absolutely. So the tool is really meant to be directional and kind of gives um, individuals like a high level assessment of, hey, is this something that we even want to start to pursue? Is this something that's going to have or what is the impact going to be on our, um, organization? So what I was able to do is leveraging some industry, um, benchmarks, some of the client success stories that we have here at spec. Right. Um, we were able to use very conservative assumptions, um, from some of our third party validated studies that we've had as well. I know, Laura, you mentioned user evidence. We've also done one with Forrester, uh, a couple years ago and we were able to put that into an AI tool to really give you the um, the opportunity to say, hey, is there at least enough here to have a valid conversation to start to get some of that internal buy in? And if the answer is yes, if by putting in some of this very basic data you can get an overall idea of, wait a second, there might be something substantial here, that's really when you can start to pull me in and we can dive into some of the numbers kind of finite, um, and refine some of that value hypothesis based upon your actual data. Um, so that could be something from anywhere from the SKU count that you have, your customer base, labor rates, compliance, exposure, et cetera. Um, and that's really going to help us to tighten that down so that way you can take it to procurement, you can really get that, that win. So the calculator was really designed, um, to give people the opportunity to kind of start to tell that story, to start to see the, I'll call it the 10,000 level view. Um, and then once that gives you the opportunity, then hopefully to get some of those resources internally or at least even curiosity to start to have some of that deeper conversation.

Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. And you know, I'm always blown away by the numbers. I think we kind of know them because we're so close to the problem. But you know, we did survey 44 customers and you know, their ROI was over 300% with a four month payback period. I mean Matthew, how many projects when you were in packaging had a four month payback period?

Speaker B: Yeah, none. And we claimed four years and you actually were eight years. So. Yeah, no, this is uh, it's phenomenal success and that's a survey of kind of post implementation. So it's actual numbers. So very strong, uh, case. And I think Lisa mentioned before, and you and I talked about this over the years is like running into your boss's office and saying this is going to make my job easier. Doesn't help make the business case. You need, you know, those 44 companies, uh, proof points and then you need the work Lisa's team does to really show the value and trace the value.

Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. And it's, it's always interesting to me, Lisa, because oftentimes I, I do think the level of awareness of the problems has gotten to more senior levels in these companies. And you know, my guidance to them is always opportunity cost. Like every day you delay fixing this problem, it compounds. Right, because you're onboarding new suppliers. That's more data you don't have. You know, you're launching new SKUs. That's more things that are kind of getting complex. And so there's an interesting element I think, um, to packaging and products where, you know, things don't stop. Like if you have a problem, that compounding issue only gets worse. In contrast, the sooner you fix it, the more you have that compounding value. So, um, in closing, you know what, what's your advice to these people when you sit there and you, you know, you look them in the eye and you build the business case and, and they've got to make that decision of do we move forward? You know, what's, what's always your advice as you close out those engagements.

Speaker C: Um, my advice is always don't be afraid to ask for help. Um, a lot of times trying to champion change, right. Even with a business case that, that we're able to kind of put together, it can be very, very difficult to try to have that, um, conversation internally. Um, and also keep up with your day job. You guys have a 40 hour work week fully baked in. Um, so, uh, my advice is always make sure you leverage your resources. My job is literally to help others articulate the value of change. And I do that on a daily basis. So don't feel like you have to do it alone. Leverage your resources and really make sure that you're building that internal groundswell. Right? Make sure that you're articulating and bringing in other people from other, maybe even other departments in the organization so that way they understand what the value is that you're trying to drive and you can have some of those internal champions as you're having some of those discussions as well.

Speaker A: That's great. I want to give a shout out to two listeners on that front. Uh, first, Matthew will appreciate this. Victoria Chapman Galloway gave a presentation at Summit a few years ago and said don't be a lone ranger. You know, she had on the, the character of the Lone Ranger. She's like, you can't go it alone. You've got to involve others. So I think that just reinforces the point you've made that we've seen. Second one is I want to give a shout out to Zach. Um, I talked to Zach last week. He said he was a big fan of the Pod. Zach, we love, uh, we love that you're listening and wanted to shout you out on this episode. Lisa, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for all that you do to help people make amazing success, sustainable things. We'll catch you guys on the next episode.

Speaker B: Thanks, Susan. My pleasure.

Speaker C: Thanks, everyone.

Speaker A: Awesome. We're back with Matt. Matt, what packaging do you have for us today?

Speaker D: So today we are going towards our pet department. And this is what's called Sani Suite.

Speaker B: This is for you, Laura. This is, this is your product.

Speaker D: So this you can kind of see what, imagining kind of what it is. And I'm gonna set it up for you.

Speaker B: I have to defer to you on this one, Laurie.

Speaker A: I'm ready, Matthew. This is adorable.

Speaker B: You know what era this is, Matt? Or I'm guessing this is.

Speaker D: Let me look at the date. It's here somewhere. Um, and then inside of here is, is a litter pad, uh, section. So I don't know. M. Yep. Kind of see it turned into a little thing. This is from 90, let's say 90s.

Speaker B: That's kind of my guess.

Speaker D: Yeah, 90s. I don't. I think it was 93 or 4. Yeah. Uh, but I kind of thought going back to the pets, you know, obviously it's from the 90s, but we've got a lot of attention on pets these days. And something that's flat. They kind of, you know, everybody's got their opinions of, of litter boxes, so a literal, literal, literal litter box option. But I just thought how the packaging could turn into helping the usage. I think of like, people in small apartments. And I have a, I have a

Speaker B: spin off of this I want to talk about, but Laura is a resident subject matter expert. I'll let you go first.

Speaker A: As a cat who is my child, uh, I can confirm this stuff is really important. You know, Matt, it's interesting because one of the challenges as a pet owner is if you occasionally have to bring your cat somewhere, it's hard to bring a litter box. Like, they're big, they're clunky. You know, a few years ago, Matthew, you remember we got evacuated for the fires and I had to bring. I literally brought the cat and I'm like, we don't have a litter box. You know, if you could go out and buy something like this, it's shipped easier. You know, the cat industry, the pet industry in general has transformed a lot. Now you can buy litter online and, you know, people ship litter now that it's not as sustainable. Um, I think a lot about the litter choices that we make for, for our cats. Because I used to get litter delivered then I felt really guilty about the, the energy it took to ship litter. So now I go to petco or petsmart, I have a refillable litter and I go and I refill it and it's the same, same plastic thing. I'm not buying more. So I think from a sustainability and packaging perspective as pet owners, it's a real, it's a real thing. Um, I think that the actual litter box is hilarious. I have a litter robot now and it's been life changing. Um, because, you know, what's the job to be done? I've yet to meet a cat Owner who loves scooping litter. Um, and so the litter robot has kind of transformed. You know, it's an automatic, it ships and the litter drops out and there's packaging. Right. Because then there's a waste receptacle. So it's fascinating to see how you know, some of these industries. I would argue it's still being transformed by packaging.

Speaker B: Yeah. I come at it m from two perspectives and not a direct expert as Laura is. But, uh, one is I always use the thing that I've seen all things made. I've actually been in a litter mine, uh, tidy cat litter mine many years ago. So I have seen litter mined and how it's processed and bagged. At the time was bagged. Uh, so that is a very nuanced thing to have seen. Uh, the second part is it's kind of fun is I think corrugated people have always tried to make product out of material. And so you think about playhouses and you think about this and window shades.

Speaker D: I don't know if you know, you

Speaker B: know, way back when it was a famous era for, for corrugated.

Speaker A: So.

Speaker B: And then I've seen furniture. A good friend of mine's son was making really nice high end furniture.

Speaker D: Corey.

Speaker B: So we always have this desire to up scale, uh, corrugated and this is an application that it's a product that's not just a material. So to me I look at it from two perspectives and Laura, you look at it from the expert's perspective and so it's a great one. Matt. So thanks for this.

Speaker A: It's funny you say that, Matthew. We get the cats cat, uh, furniture for the holidays. So there's like a Halloween haunted house then. They love it. They, you know, you put it together, it's fun to put together. You feel like you're doing something for your animal. It's cool. It's two levels, it's scratching pad. And then every holiday we get a different one and you know, and they, they wear through it. So you've got to throw the old one away. And so the actual litter box, you know, cat boxes are very real. Even corrugated chippers. I mean open a box, the cat wants to jump in it. So, um, shout out to all our packaging friends. Keeping Ophelia and Ryder entertained.

Speaker B: Laura just said we're bringing it back. We're gonna make Halloween themed ones and Christmas themed ones. Matt, we're in business. So awesome.

Speaker A: Thanks Matt.

Speaker D: Thank.

Speaker C: You.

Speaker A: M.