Doss’ Wiley Jones on Navigating Growth During Uncertain Times

Speaker A: Scaling a brand's never been easy, but today's market of constant uncertainty makes things that much harder. In this episode of Tech Transformation, Wiley Jones of DOS is joining us to break down how CPGs are rethinking growth and operational change. This episode is sponsored by DOS and we're going to get into the hidden inefficiencies that drag down margins. We're going to talk about the things leaders can't ignore and we're going to dig into some of those myths about transformation that really just need to go. Stay tuned for that more on this episode of Tech Transformation. Welcome to Tech Transformation with cgt. I'm um, Lisa Johnson, Editorial director. I'm very excited for this episode because we are going to talk about difficult things, things like uncertainty and volatility and scaling and change management. But I promise this is still going to be a feel good episode because we're not just going to talk about how hard all of these things are, but we're going to talk about some solutions and how we can get through this. And we're going to have what's very interesting, a particular focus on what these challenges mean for mid sized brands in cpg. So with me today is DAS CEO and co founder Wiley Jones. So Wiley, welcome.

Speaker B: Thank you.

Speaker A: It's awesome to have you here. Get us started, set the stage. Tell us in like 30 seconds just a little bit about yourself and a little bit about dos.

Speaker B: We are a adaptive ERP and um, data platform company which uh, sounds like a whole lot of nothing but you know, it's a non sentence as I like to call it. Um, we have to be pretty vague about it because we work with a pretty wide range of types of companies. Food and beverage companies, you know, CPG, home goods, furniture, um, more on the B2C side and on the B2B side, companies that are manufacturing walls, companies that manufacture abrasives. We work with a demolition business. Um, broadly the class of things we do with them is really around their operations, tech stack, uh, things that traditionally people have called ERP or MRP or demand planning workflows, um, all of the connections of the flow of data into and out of their business, the flow of goods into another business and the flow of dollars. And we really help them um, as a technology partner at every step of the way in that process.

Speaker A: Okay, great. So that is, that is a broad spectrum of companies that you work with. Uh, I know for the CGT audience we're going to have a special focus today on those mid sized companies within consumer goods. So Regardless of the company you are in. Uh, we're in a climate of constant uncertainty, right. To kind of put it mildly. Um, you know this, this episode is going to air in a few weeks and I have a feeling it's still going to be very uncertain then. That's one thing we can say for sure. Um, so whether it's supply chain disruptions, economic concerns or shifting demand, there's really no shortage of challenges. So for these mid sized brands, you know, what can you share about what they're facing today within consumer goods? And you know one of the things we are, we're also going to talk about is what it means for when they, for growing and scaling and these present uh, kind of unique challenges to them. So, so that was kind of a two part question. So really start us off. What are you seeing for these challenges for these brands?

Speaker B: So it's actually, I don't think that new of a problem or that distinct and it's ultimately why we as a company chose to go work on the things we're working on is um, the things that I was seeing when I was working in manufacturing. It's the same thing that the brands we work with today see. It's the same thing that really any of these companies are really focused on is how do I go about increasing the top line of our business by going and finding new channels to sell into, finding new partners to work with, going and um, doing so in a way that allows me to respond to the changing landscape of the market, knowing that the market will continue to be more volatile, um, and volatile not in the sense of like, you know, the meaning of the word being bad, more so that things just change underneath your feet and you as a business have to respond accordingly. Um, you know, even a very simple minor example of this is we were working uh, recently with a company who was evaluating uh, you know, one of their large uh, sales channels being TikTok. And they're going to have to completely transform their business depending on a few policymakers, changes that might happen or might not happen. Right. We'll see by the time this episode comes out. But that kind of volatility, you know, it's um, it's only getting higher and higher. And so where, you know, where we focus with these brands and businesses is how do you actually set up your company from the bottom up to be agile and respond to the changing market landscape on a daily basis.

Speaker A: So when it comes to scaling, right, I mean growing and scaling, these are all really important things for these size brands. What, what's especially tricky for this group.

Speaker B: So I don't know if this is necessarily a controversial opinion. I think maybe saying it so bluntly and plainly is a controversial opinion. But there is a shortage of talented, hardworking, competent people who really want to go and solve these hard problems every day. And um, it's really difficult when you're a scaling and growing business to put the right people into the company to go in and focus on these problems on a daily basis. It's just really hard. And you talk to any leader of these businesses, they'll tell you that talent and hiring is always their number one problem. Um, everything else in the business comes second. Uh, especially as you're growing. Specifically referring to the scaling part and where we think that um, there is no direct, uh, replacement yet for competent human beings. We think that the next best option is to put systems into place that allow you as a company to have individuals in your business that are required to make less judgments about things that are outside of their domain. They can put the system on rails, so to speak, and they can follow a very straightforward and well structured process, um, that allows you as a company to bring people into your business who don't have to know how to do everything. They know how to do a few things really well and you give them that structured workflow to go through and execute against. Um, we see that, you know, that this duality of having really competent people but also having really great systems and processes, those are the two things that need to be paired together with these growing and scaling brands. Um, and you know, we, we think that technology is actually a great use case for that.

Speaker A: When you're talking about elevating talent, that also, that often comes with training, right? Training and programs. When you're talking about elevating systems, you know, that can sometimes mean for many companies that they might have to rip and replace. Right? And that's something that companies, they rarely want to do. Um, but at the same time just doing more of the same is, is also not a great option. So how do you work with companies to really balance these two realities?

Speaker B: It's actually super interesting because, um, I find that, and this is actually the most exciting part about our work, but I find that we spend a lot of time asking questions of the business and the business owners and the individual contributors who are the technical leads on various parts of the company or the projects or whatever it is. We just like really get to deeply know their company and understand its idiosyncratic, uh, idiosyncrasies and like why it Works the way it does. And we find that the common pattern is that they end up having to design their business around either pieces of software or limitations of their trading partners or, you know, whatever it is. Right. They're saying, oh well, our 3 PL does things this way or our, you know, we sell into these large wholesale channels. Therefore we have a whole team of operations managers who are specifically servicing those customers. Um, they design their businesses around certain, you know, uh, very bulky and blocky parts of uh, you know, how they can go out and make money. And um, where we really try to spend a lot of time is unwinding the aspects of that that don't need to be that way so that they can design their business, they can design software and they can design solutions around what the business really should be doing as opposed to um, you know, the emergent properties of what certain software vendors have decided they need to do. Um, that is a big thing that we spend a lot of time on, is really challenging those base assumptions with our customers and being like, why do you actually do this? Do you need to do it this way? Uh, does that make sense still, given the state you're at of the company, what your goals are? Um, it's a very therapeutic conversation for them.

Speaker A: I can imagine it. So when you're unturning all of these stones and kind of seeing what's underneath, is there a mistake you can identify that that's maybe a very common mistake. That you see these CPG leaders, that they're all making kind of the same mistake over and over when they're making these decisions during great volatility.

Speaker B: Oh, I don't want to be overly prescriptive about this because uh, the mistakes are always kind of like they have ah, actually quite a high amount of variance. It's not like the same exact mistake. Um, but it's.

Speaker A: I guess if it was the same exact mistake, people were just known to stop doing that.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: Like, I mean everyone knew that was a mistake then, but. Okay.

Speaker B: Right. It's, it, well, it's, it's the pattern that I think that it's actually quite hard is I think it's really easy for these CPG brands to um, especially the scaling ones to like fall into tried and true advice instead of like following what got them through the initial stages of what they were growing and doing. Um, they, you know, I think a lot of them get advice from people as they're scaling up that you need to follow certain systems and processes that are considered best practices and it actually slows their Company down a lot and what they end up doing is, you know, a common version. This is like, oh, let's adopt this system. Let's adopt these, you know, methods of setting goals. Let's adopt this method of training people. Let's go and hire this team this certain way that, you know, some other company you did. Um, uh, this is even just from our perspective, advice I get a lot as a, you know, as a CEO and as a founder is, um, like the average advice is very bad for your company. Uh, you need to go and seek out the advice of people who are maybe giving you something controversial and you decide if you can fit it into your framework or not. But generally you should be rejecting most advice, um, because you know your brand, you know your business, you know all of this inside and out and you obsess over it. Um, you know, be careful about whose opinions are integrating in. And yeah, we see people very regularly plucking, you know, opinions off of regular shelves. And you know, it doesn't apply to their company, um, especially as it relates to like buying and preparing their inventory for the next cycle of growth. Things like that. That's, that's really where it manifests itself. We see.

Speaker A: Do you see a certain tipping point when, when we're talking when companies are scaling and they suddenly realize that they just, they can't get any further with what they have? Like, is there a common thread you're seeing through this? How does a company know when they really need to take that next step to get away from all these duct tape?

Speaker B: Oh, man. Yeah, it's basically actually one thing. It's all bottoms up of people. And it's when the founders, operators, like, you know, this tight consolidated management team who controls the vision in their head and they control the execution in their head. Um, when you lose the ability for like a small group of people to do it all themselves and they have to outsource that to other people. And that outsources in like maybe they have like a, you know, consulting firm or that they have like offshore team or something. I mean, outsources in like the people who originated something now have to bring other people into this and get them to care about it with the same passion and intensity and quality and attention to detail. And when you do that, um, there's this like immediate drop off in, in the execution. And usually we see that that occurs like literally in the supply chain. When you're, like when you're selling in more than one channel and you try to onboard like two to three, you're Onboarding multiple different retail partners. They all act like their own channel. You have multiple different 3pls. You start introducing new product lines, you start going direct to your manufacturers, managing more of those relationships, getting tighter on your freight, get tidying around in your margins or getting tighter on your margins, any of those things. When you start doing multiple of something, usually the management team loses the ability for them to keep all that in their head and they have to bring on new people. And these new people don't have that, um, you know, they don't have that obsession because they're. They're not the founders of the company, they're not the management, you know, uh, people who started the idea. Um, that is the, like, a very, very hard transition to make. Um, and you need systems and processes to help adhere to the quality and rigor that you started the business with.

Speaker A: So it means giving up a little bit of control, which I imagine for many founders can be quite challenging.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: So in some of our past conversations, we've talked a little bit about, um, with. We've talked with your team a little bit about these quiet inefficiencies. The idea of the quiet inefficiencies, um, and many of these can go unnoticed in companies as they're growing, but they can really start impacting margins, they can start impacting spend. I'm, uh, sorry, impacting speed. So what are, are some of these? If you had to give an example of a quiet inefficiency that maybe founders aren't noticing.

Speaker B: I think the quiet inefficiency is

Speaker A: the

Speaker B: easiest way to describe it is it's actually, um, it's almost invisible because it actually is this opportunity cost and this like, fear and anxiety that people feel about going and doing something. And the fear and anxiety of going and doing that introduces friction. And that friction usually separates you and a new channel or you and a new opportunity. As a business, um, you know, we hear a lot from people saying things, whether they be like, I would love to go and onboard to Amazon. I would love to go and onboard into a new Geo. We would love to bring on a new 3PL, so that we could go do A, B and C, but we won't. And then they list off all these operational reasons. And because they have this, you know, this thing that separates them from the execution, that prevents them from getting better margins, going and touching more dollars and adding incremental sales, they're basically just saying that I have to find that, like, optimal Pareto group of things that's relatively easy to go work on. And I'm only going to go and focus on those things. We talked, um, a long time ago with someone who was one of the, uh, founders, co founders of yeti, and they talked about how the channels that ended up working for them were not the ones they initially expected. And they actually ended up being pretty hard channels to go in and activate. But if you don't have the momentum and inertia to push yourself through that friction, um, it gets really hard to actually go and find that next lever to pull as a business that's going to take you through the scaling phase as you're trying to double, triple over, you know, year over year. Um, yeah, trying that, that invisible inefficiency is that friction that you feel inside of yourself when you want to go do a new hard thing.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think we all know what that feels, what that feels like. Uh, well, change is hard, right? I mean, moving change within yourself is very difficult. Moving organizations through changes is even harder. And um, it's incredibly hard when these teams are, they're very lean. They can be very lean. Right. We're talking about a lot of uncertainty, a lot of unpredict. So when you're working with these companies and working with leaders to help them navigate this change management, um, what's some of your advice to them?

Speaker B: Well, it mostly comes back to people. I think that's like, you know, change management is a really nice way of saying getting people to change their minds about something, um, or open their minds about something or try a new thing that's scary and adhere to it, which is painful. Um, and we find that the best remedy for all those things is actually selling them on the vision of the future. Which it sounds, I think, a bit, uh, maybe not naive, but it's a bit optimistic. Right. Um, who's going to get that excited about improving this accounts payable process?

Speaker A: People who are working in accounts payable are probably right.

Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. And you know, I think that's kind of my point with that is like if you can really get someone excited about how much better their life is going to be after you go and do something, um, you know, you get buy in. And that's what we always find is that I, uh, tell our team this a lot is like we have two sales processes. We sell our solution and then we sell the implementation. And when we sell the implementation, it's about going to individual stakeholders, going to senior leadership and like making sure that every single one of them can be a advocate for what we're doing inside of their company. And um, it starts at the top, usually, and then you work your way down. And then kind of on the other hand of it, you work your way up, you know, from the bottom up and finding those individual sticking pain points where you're like, yeah, exactly. Like there's a bunch of people that are managing the accounts payable and they literally have to, you know, they can't be on, they can't take vacations very easily because they're constantly behind and their backlog is so large and the, you know, the CFO is constantly angry at them because they can't close, you know, uh, the quarter very quickly and there's a three week delay or whatever it is. Right. Um, selling the vision on the Delta between where we are today and where we're going and how this thing is going to actually make people's lives easier and make it so that people can take vacations, whatever that looks like for your company, that's the only way to get this to work. Because if you come in and just go, we're doing this, here's what we're doing. And you don't sell the reason. Um, yeah, no one will do it.

Speaker A: Right, Right. Yeah. No, you gotta need to get them to, like you said, have that buy in, have that stakeholder buy in at all levels. Okay, So I have, uh, one last question, really, um, enjoyed this conversation, but last thing I'd love to know is, you know, what's one myth or, you know, one misconception about operational transformation that you would really love to just die from the conversation that you wish people would just stop bringing up?

Speaker B: I don't know if I have one that I would like to kill from the conversation because I think that the conversation is generally always healthy and good in this ecosystem. I think people don't talk about the bigger problems enough anyways. I think people will vent about the state of the world, but be less constructive about what to do about it. Actually, that's the thing I wish would die, I'll put it that way is I think a lot of people, uh, they really rail against the status quo of this industry. But when, you know, pushed and poked and prodded for what is the alternative, people go, you know, I really don't know. And I think that's my biggest frustration is people not having the courage to like, step outside of what they're doing or step outside of the status quo and challenge themselves, challenge their business, challenge their partners, their, you know, their business partners, their trading partners, their whoever, um, to try to do something a little bit better. Um, and, you know, and I think all of the brands in what they do in their goods and services and their products, they're constantly doing that, but they don't do. They don't look internally to challenge themselves operationally, um, or to challenge the software vendors they work with or, uh, you know, the EDI networks that they partner with, to name a very specific example. Um, those things I think, uh, the bar I have just found to be shockingly low. And I think a lot of it just has to do with the fact that people rail against the status quo and they don't. They're not constructive about what we actually should be doing about it.

Speaker A: Totally fair perspective. Uh, great thoughts to leave us with. So, Wiley, thank you so much for joining Tech Transformation. I really enjoyed this conversation. You've given our audience a lot to think about.

Speaker B: Awesome. Thanks, Lisa.

Speaker A: Thanks for listening to Tech Transformation. Be sure to subscribe to learn more innovative strategies and trends in the retail and consumer goods industries. And don't Forget to visit ConsumerGoods.com to sign up for our newsletters.