[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:12] Speaker B: Welcome to AppCudo's podcast, a series where we talk to players up and down the connected device supply chain. My name is Allison Mitchell and I'm the VP of Sustainability at App Kudo and the host of App Kudos podcast series covering industry trends, customer journeys, sustainability topics and more. If you have topics of interest or guests you'd like to hear from, email me at allison.mitchellbcudo.com throughout the lifecycle of a connected mobile device, many individuals are involved, making decisions and executing tasks that impact its path. A critical stage in the device's life occurs between the end of its first life and the beginning of its next life. In this episode, we're going to learn about the role of a quality manager, a key individual whose actions determine the fate of an individual device and in the aggregate majorly impact outcomes up and down the supply chain and device lifecycle. Today our guest is Manoj Sabnani, Chief operating officer at AppCudo. Manoj works directly with the individuals in the quality manager role at our customer's organization and has seen the supply chain from multiple perspectives and therefore understands their unique needs and challenges. Welcome to the podcast, Manoj.
[00:01:22] Speaker A: Thank you Alison. Thanks for having me.
[00:01:24] Speaker B: Great to have you back. How does your background in this industry give you insights into the role of quality managers?
[00:01:32] Speaker A: Just going a little bit back of my overall, I've been in wireless industry more than 25 years and in fact I started my journey with a carrier launching new devices, working on the network and then I work on the infrastructure side. Then I was actually part of a OEM team for almost nine years, creating new devices, launching new devices, working through the lifecycle of the device and kind of working very alongside with different stakeholders in that device lifecycle. And I think when I came to appgudo, I kind of had that whole perspective of different stakeholders within the industry and what their pain points are or what's working, what's not working. So that kind of helped me through this opportunity at appgudo to kind of help our product teams to kind of come up with the things which help different stakeholders. So that's, that's the kind of background that I've had from a device supply chain and industry perspective.
[00:02:27] Speaker B: Well, and quality managers are part of a team, they don't just work by themselves. So can you briefly describe the role and responsibilities of a quality assurance team when it comes to the mobile device supply chain?
[00:02:39] Speaker A: Absolutely. I think yeah, there's no individual quality managers. They are part of a big team. They're part of mostly they're part of the supply chain team and both within different stakeholders in the mobile device. Like earlier, we have carriers, we have OEMs. So carriers have their own quality team which is working from the launch of the device through the end of the life cycle. You talked about that first life and second life. So the new devices as well as the device which were refurbished and they're making sure end to end of that. Similarly, on the OEM side, there are quality managers who are working alongside with their carrier counterpart or working with their other partners and the stakeholders, whether it's parts or any of that supply chain. So there are definitely big teams because there's a lot to do. It's just not device, it's the process and everything.
[00:03:30] Speaker B: So why does quality matter at this point in the supply chain?
[00:03:35] Speaker A: Quality is a really, really critical thing. You know, whether it comes to a new device launch or whether it's a new refurbished device. Because your quality of the device is determining your customer satisfaction. You know, when I buy a device I'm. I have certain expectations of a device that is the quality, its expectations are nothing but a quality. So it's important that it works as I'm expecting or as the marketing sold it to so that I don't return the device and factor goes above and beyond. So it reduces the return and improves the customer satisfaction. So the quality is what is kind of driving that, that whole part of the expectations. And that's why that role becomes very critical. Both again I keep saying that, but I think it's very important. It's just not the new devices, but the devices that. Because I think the world we live in is where we are from a cost perspective of the device or sustainability. Devices have much more life. There is always a second life for the device. A lot of people are buying that second devices. The quality is not just a lot of focus. When I was part of the OEM was not a new device launch. But now I think the device quality focus is literally across the device lifecycle. Because the life cycle of the device, we are all trying to expand it and extend it because it works from an ecosystem for different reasons.
[00:04:57] Speaker B: So what are the key processes that quality managers are overseeing to ensure that.
[00:05:02] Speaker A: Quality from a day to day role? From a quality manager, they deal with a lot of data, they deal with a lot of vendors, they lead with a lot of processes and compliance. It starts from the launch. As I said, there is a first article inspection which is basically the device has been technically approved for a new device. Both OEMs and carriers whoever all the stakeholders have agreed what the software version, what the hardware version would be based on some sample of devices that has been tested and gone through certain certification for FCC and all that other industry or other technical certification that are needed for even for each country has different requirements. And then the FAA is making sure, it's like an audit process that to make sure before the millions of devices are shipped out of factory that you know, the Q samples are sent to the quality managers and they're running their test to make sure that the batch of devices that are going to be shifted sent out from the factory are good. So that's one of the processes. As the device get launched, the monitoring of the devices starts. You know, how's. Is there a buyer's remorse? Is there a. You know, there's a EWP process. So everybody starts watching the exchanges and returns. So there's a EWP is nothing but an early warning process where again the stakeholders are looking into the first devices that are being returned and to see if there's anything wrong with the software or hardware so they can get ahead of it before it becomes a big issue within the, within the network. And as we move on to the device quality, there is a processes which are set up for looking at the, you know, the triage of the devices as they're coming back and as they go for repair. Once they come back looking, doing a quality check or sampling on the repair devices AQL and things like. Which is accepted quality limit. So there are processes throughout the life cycle which they're working and all this needs data processing, all these needs actionable insights and things like that.
[00:07:03] Speaker B: So they're taking all of this data that's collected at these various points and analyzing it for opportunities to improve quality or design out some flaw that might be in the mix.
[00:07:15] Speaker A: Absolutely. I think the quality is best addressed as the source. The later it gets into the stage, it gets expensive. So if I found something wrong before it got shipped out of the factory, I can easily address it versus if I found an issue after it was already shipped from the factory, was sitting in the retail stores or in a warehouse, I have to unpack the device. I have to do whatever I have to do to make those devices work. So there, there's actually more cost delays because all these have, there's a timing impact. You know, we live in a world of devices. Time is money and the resources. So it just. The quality becomes much more expensive. Plus you probably be dealing with much more dissatisfied customer which could result in churn so it's very timely. Actions have to be taken at the very timely manner. And we live in a world of different stakeholders. You know, somebody's watching the quality, but there are other people who have to go address the issues. So it's a continuous effort that goes on through the device lifecycle.
[00:08:15] Speaker B: Sounds like they're working with a variety of different players in the industry at different levels and managing a variety of tasks. Can you kind of give me what a typical day might look like for a quality manager?
[00:08:29] Speaker A: First thing is they need the data. They need some insights on how different processes are doing, how their different quality metrics are doing. So that's their first thing is that they need that data because they're, they're at a location, they have to manage everything across the globe. The manufacturers are somewhere in Asia, the, the retailers are all over the place, and then the consumers are all over the US So they have to kind of get that data from different sources and be available to them. So they can, they can set the metrics they have set up, they can, they can review those metrics, then they can take actions on those metrics based on the, any diversions or the thresholds they have set up. As they see, okay, this is going in a different direction. I need to take action. And then when they drive action, the actions are with the vendors, with the suppliers, depending upon what those could be. So the data and the action becomes really important and then continuously reinventing on the processes because the things are changing. It's, it's a dynamic world we live in. The devices have evolved so they have to continuously kind of keep working on how do I kind of work on that, solving those new set of challenges that they face on a daily basis. But a lot of data management and process management literally on a daily basis and working through those actions and there's new stuff coming on on a daily basis. And I think the critical thing is the, not only the system, but different stakeholders. They're working with the OEMs, the three PLs, the warehouses, the retail stores, the repair guys, if they're working with some repair things. So it's a variety of stakeholders that they have to collaborate and work on a daily basis.
[00:10:15] Speaker B: Yeah, that sounds like a lot to keep track of, a lot of moving parts. What are the biggest challenges that quality managers face?
[00:10:26] Speaker A: I think as I said, it's data coming through different systems. So they are dealing with many disconnected applications systems. Sometimes it's not coming aggregated. They have to go log in into different systems to get it or they're dealing with a lot of manual data coming in spreadsheets or they have to create their own spreadsheets based on some discrete data that comes in or within or their analysts within their team. They're just giving them hey, is the spreadsheets or even some of the vendors are just throwing at spreadsheets them. So a lot of spreadsheets in this still in supply chain and then the collaboration, right. The data has to be timely. If, if there's an issue brewing in the field or people are returning, say for a faulty camera. And by the time that it comes, the information is a week or two weeks old, it's probably done more damage. So the timely information and then collaborating with the right people, getting them, hey, it looks like here's the data from the field that we're having an issue that people are returning and working. So problem solving in real time collaboration is another big thing.
[00:11:32] Speaker B: Wow, it sounds like that could get expensive to try to get in front of all of that. How does quality get seen increasing quality at this stage? How does it usually land?
[00:11:44] Speaker A: Yeah, interestingly a lot of times I think in many organization quality is always seen as a cost center because you know, as I mentioned, the quality team is setting up metrics, setting up processes, setting up certification. So every time the vendors will feel oh, oh, I have to do this extra certification, oh, I have to now show my data that I've done my due diligence. And then also that each quality team has to be staffed with the quality managers who are, who are experienced with the quality standards. You know, it's not just one. There's a lot of quality, industry quality standard as well as within the, within the supply chain that has its own standards. So you know, as I talked about certain key processes, fai ewp, these are industry levels processes that all stakeholders are coming in. So all these is investing of resources, investing in systems, investing in some certifications. So they are seen as the cost center. I think that's the biggest challenge. But now I think with all the education it's coming up, if the they are able to show roi, you know, there is, hey, if, if I'm able to invest in this quality, look at how many returns I was able to save. You know, that's, that's money saved, how many customers I was we would have lost or the churn rate, you know, you have for carriers. It's all about monthly revenue that is coming through the consumers. And everybody's buying more than one connections. Now I have one then more than one device. I Have multiple devices. So it's, it's a, it's becoming a little bit more direction, it's more, becoming more of an investment in quality. And there is a return on investment. But even today there is a notion of cost. Quality is seen as a cost manager or is seen as a cost.
[00:13:30] Speaker B: So that's another level of data I can imagine, right, is to be able to compare the cost of putting these systems in place to provide insights to your quality manager. In order to then prevent costs later. You gotta be able to show there's a delta and a cost savings to that. So how do quality managers sort of quantify those savings, those cost saving impacts of making those investments upfront?
[00:13:57] Speaker A: That's a continuous challenge that quality managers are faced with because they have to not only get the work done and help with this doing their job, but at the same time justify their job. And that has been a very industry common thing. But I think the way they are able to show now is I think the data is king, right? They are collecting that data. They're showing that if this issue went out what that returns would look like, what those exchanges would look like, what could that essentially do with the churn rate? And not only that, I think it's not just the cost of the exchange, but the whole thing of logistics. So it's not just device coming back, it's device going through the whole life cycle. Like when a device comes back, there is a cost of shipping the device back. Whether it's a consumer doing it directly or retail doing it. Then it's a processing done that is done at the 3 Art Center. Somebody's testing the device and checking it. That is good. And a lot of time it goes to a 3pl, then it goes to the OEMs who actually are the manufacturers. And if there's something wrong, it'll go to the repair, other OEMs will repair it or they'll send it to somebody else to repair it. Or depending upon where we are in the cycle, it's in warranty, out of warranty. There's just a lot of variables and all that steps. It's a cost, it's resource, it's time. And you know, a device which is in not in consumer's hand, it's getting repaired. That's a double impact in terms of cost. Because now you had to give a device to a consumer or that you lost that consumer because they went to somebody else for the device or a connection. So that's the data that they're collecting, they're able to you know, is a lot of math that that relationship that I work with.
We didn't take logistics cost into the consideration. It's now taken into the consideration. There's a lot of sustainability thing that is coming into the play that hey everything this packing, unpacking, shipping has a carbon footprint. Everything. The more I have to work through and fix the quality downstream versus upstream has a big impact. So I think those data are helping quality managers now start to think roi. So as the in fact the new devices are being built in they work with a certain numbers that hey the return is 4% I cannot and with this, this is what my device profitability look like. So as soon as the number goes say my return was expecting 4% start to see 5 or 6 boom.
That's the indication to the senior management look at let's that's there is an issue going on, we need to address it because it's going to hit our profitability and that's where the quality managers are ensuring that we don't go to the 5 and 6 person which hits the device with profitability. So all that data now, all that I think recognition within the senior management, recognition within the whole industry and I think the big driver has been the over a period of time the cost of the device has really, really gone up. So if a consumer is paying, you know, it's not $100 200 device anymore, if it's getting to 1000 even more and if I'm paying that I want the device to be with me for more than a year, more than two years. In fact somehow I'll buy a new device and I'll pass it on to my kids and they can use it on my parents. So there's much more expectations that that device that I'm buying will last longer. And the only way you can increase the life of the device is through quality.
[00:17:26] Speaker B: Well, you have some examples of some ways that you and your team have been helping quality managers and for example you were just talking about sort of basically a tolerance level for a return rate and making improvements and helping them be able to lower the tolerance level because they can reliably predict and get in front of some of these issues. Can you talk about some ways that your team has has done that?
[00:17:54] Speaker A: We have within AppCudo we have our business unit called Device Intelligence and it's as the name says, it's one of the areas which is kind of providing real time dashboards, tools to the quality managers and stakeholders across which is kind of taking helping the first thing is integrating with all sort of different systems and being able to work in any kind of data source. So as I said, there's spreadsheets we are dealing with, there is a lot of stakeholders and lot of systems involved. So we are able to seamlessly integrate that system so that quality managers doesn't have to go into three systems or four or five. Plus the data, whether it's a spreadsheet, whether it's coming through an email or it's getting on a server, we go get that data in any shape or form and we are able to put that all together to the metrics there. And so as when they log into the dashboard, they're seeing the metrics and they're seeing within the metrics if there is any deviation, they're able to get notification alerts. So they're able to do that. Plus we're able to give them actionable insights. So it's not just giving you the dashboard something which is reporting. So we do that. In some cases it's more of reporting, but then it takes to the one level high where it's kind of giving you a little bit more actionable insights. And in some cases the system itself will take an action. So if it needs to open up a corrective action report or something to a supplier or even internally, it's able to do that so that the relevant party is able to gets a action report that they need to act on and then it's being tracked with the time, with the SLAs within the KPIs so that everything is being done. And then on top of that, I think with the evolution of AI and I think AppCuro as a company like I started with apcudo more than 10 years ago and we have been using AI in all our systems. So we bring in that as the AI is developing, maturing, we are able to bring in more and more of that to be able to do some predictive analysis which kind of helps with the based on the historical Asia information, influence the design of the next device or design new processes if the process, because a lot of processes are old and sometimes the process are not effective. So how do you, what do you do? So it's all about continuous evolvement. So I think the stakeholders, or I call them partners, our quality managers are able to work with us and say, hey, this metric is old. How do we think out of the box? So we are actually bringing technology and working more closely with them to help them in that. And I think the third biggest thing that has helped is Real time collaboration. So we've taken that data or the tool which was only available to them now and they used to download and send out hey look there's a problem over here, go fix it. You know, either side it's OEM or it could be the repair partner, anybody they're able to know real time that whatever I am seeing as an example, I'm a quality manager, my vendor or that they're hey, look at that. In fact sometimes they even already got an alert on their side. And before I come into the office I get oh yeah, I saw that, I'm already on it. So it's a real time collaboration which has actually saved them a ton of like their examples they take. They tell us hey, by just this collaboration you saved eight hours of my week, which is 20% of their time. And if each quality manager saves 20% of time as they scale and which they have and grown then they don't have to hire more people. It's helping with their efficiencies too or they're able to do more with the same. So I think that's where we've been very effective. And I think as. And one of the metrics which is I think, I don't know if I mentioned bounce is another metric where we are. It's again an industry wide metric which is used for a device. This is the second life of the device. A device came for a repair, repair is done, it's resold in the market as a refurbished device. If the device comes back for any reason as a return within that 90 day period, that's a bounce because now the device, it's a repair device, shouldn't be coming back again in such a short time. And as a has a negative impact again for the same reason. We talk about the, you know, the customer interface and all that and there was a cost of repair, there's cost of logistics, there's all this processing and everything. And I think in some cases that's one metric. As an example, it was all manual, there was not timely information coming out. But that's now we are able to give through our tools some of as that one of the metric, it's translated into millions of dollars of saving because now you can monitor it and you can bring that deviations under control. So as I talked about say my goal is 4% and was running at 20% and I didn't know it was 20% because I was relying on different data. Now I can real time monitoring it and keep it under control. And that does resolve into saving of millions of dollars because you're able to avoid, you're able to go back and see where your what whether it is a repair process is a, is it a part issue, is the operator doing the repair issue or whatever it is, you are able to go address that issue so you can have a better repair quality, reduce your churn, reduce your returns and that it's money saved in a, in a big way and it's is translated into millions of dollars in annual savings. I would say tens of millions of dollars for some of our customers.
[00:23:37] Speaker B: Wow, that's incredible. And that's just the visibility of the data from not only the customer but through their partners in the supply chain that are kind of adjacent for them to be able to see the data and not have to wait for it to come to them, but to go get it and start acting on those insights immediately. That, that sounds pretty transformational.
[00:24:01] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:24:02] Speaker B: And then you were mentioning, you know, this minimizing the bounce for these devices kind of coming back again within a 90 day period. I can hear the sustainability savings in that. Right. Both through the packaging and through the transportation. So there's opportunities here in the work that a quality manager is doing to improve the sustainability outcomes for what they're doing. Our quality managers aware of those impacts.
[00:24:31] Speaker A: That's an interesting thing. I think I've started bringing that up with the quality managers because usually a sustainability is a different function within an organization. And I think now organizations are getting mature. I think we all are thinking about okay, how do we keep our planet healthy or green for our upcoming generations? I think there's much more recognition of sustainability. But interestingly, it's still a different teams. A lot of quality managers, they don't are not thinking there. I think they were justifying the ROI because they were so much under pressure just because as I said, they were always considered as a cost center. So a lot of their focus in last years and months has been to prove themselves that the quality is such a critical piece. Then let's invest in quality. And organizations are investing in quality because they see an roi, but they haven't been able to show that everything that they are saving, it's not just helping save a lot of money, they're actually retaining customers, making them happy. But it's a huge sustainability thing. Like this whole packaging and the whole transportation has a big impact on sustainability. And I think that's something as a company now, I think we are, we are actually helping our stakeholders to recognize that part of the equation. So that's but that's a really, really good point that how it's not just the cost or the savings, the efficiencies that go with it because I think the data which used to be days, now they have it in minutes. In fact it's and, and, and not only they have to drive actions that it's, it's actually either taking actions from them or the actions already taken because of the collaboration. So it's a. Tools and systems have evolved them to do that. And I think this is the next thing that we need to bring in is the whole sustainability side of the thing.
[00:26:19] Speaker B: Yeah, we're excited to bring that to bear for our customers in a quantified way. That's something they can measure just like the improvements to the bounce rate and things like that. What other features from App Kudo have made a difference in day to day for quality managers of our customers? Are there other innovations that are coming?
[00:26:40] Speaker A: I think the biggest thing that we've done is I think as the device connected device has evolved from mobiles to smartwatches to home Internet because every, everybody is getting into different spaces and different devices. I think the good thing about our system is that we have, we've created or we have, we're continuously innovating that, that's seamless to that. So if you, if you bring in a new device family or you work with a partner and you bring in the device family, it's very seamless. We can get it integrated with no issues. I think that's, that's where we have, that's been our biggest innovation and I think the other big innovation is in a lot of investment in the, in the predictive analysis. How do we make your help with your next business goals? How do we help the data we have to help design a better device from both cost perspective, from better user experience and then the sustainability perspective too. How do we kind of help reduce that carbon footprint and a lot of that. So there's a lot more going on into that and then the new process is kind of seamlessly can be integrated. The new workflow say they decide to go work with the change their workflow for any reason. We made it very, very seamless. The systems kind of adapt that very easily. So those have been the investments and the collaboration and that's through the collaboration we are continuously. We have hundreds of users using it on a daily basis. So their feedback on a continual improvement basis is what is helping us. Plus our obviously we always, we are big industry players so trying to stay ahead from a cutting edge perspective and I think bringing that innovation AI into the systems have helped us make sure that the system we are designing are not just for today. They are from a scalability perspective and keep, keep evolving and helping our users.
[00:28:39] Speaker B: Yeah, well, and I think that's something that I often get when I talk with you, whether it's on the podcast or just, you know, day to day is your team is really focused on working with our customers in that partnership approach. So continuous innovation, continuous collaboration and communication, the mindset that we get better when they get better and likewise. And so that constant evolution for improvement is pretty apparent from you and your team. So that's always great to hear how you're working with quality managers to sort of push that attitude and that approach to, you know, the secondary market for mobile devices. If listeners want to learn more, what, what will you recommend?
[00:29:24] Speaker A: We have a little bit more information on the website, but I think they can reach out to to us through our website or through other channels. I think our, our team will be more than happy to, to engage and share a little bit more depth on our systems. I think that would be probably the best way to reach out to us. We've always about partnership as I said, we know I've never treating our customers or vendors as vendors, our customers. It's all about partnership. The world we live in is all partnerships and happy to hear from others. Also if there's other inputs or feedback or areas, then we're definitely always open for partnerships and collaboration. But yeah, website is the best way to reach out to us for any, any questions or any inputs.
[00:30:07] Speaker B: Awesome. That sounds great. Well, thanks Manoj for being on the podcast today and sharing with us about the role and the day in the life of a quality manager. It's very insightful and it sounds like a new position out there in the world that I have a much greater appreciation for the the challenges that they face and the ways that App Kudo is helping making their life a little bit easier. Thanks to our listeners for tuning in to today's podcast session. If you have any questions or feedback, I would love to get an email from you. Allison
[email protected] thanks again and I will see you at the next one.
[00:30:41] Speaker A: Thank you so much Alison. Thanks again for having me.
