[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to Second Sense. I'm your host, Allison Mitchell. Every episode we explore the complex supply chain behind the mobile device industry, from data driven decisions to sustainable solutions and how smarter systems can give tech a second life.
Because when you trust your data, second life tech just makes sense.
Today on the podcast we have two guests joining us and both are App Kudo team members. Johnny Baer is executive vice president for Technical Program management and Steven Mattson, Director of Support and Training. Welcome to the podcast, John and Steven.
[00:00:40] Speaker B: Thanks for having me.
[00:00:41] Speaker C: Thanks for having me.
[00:00:41] Speaker A: Well, before we dive in, I'd love to hear a little bit about your backgrounds and how it has informed the work you do now at App Kudo. John, let's start with you.
[00:00:49] Speaker B: Well, I've been in program management space now for about 20 years, working in primarily the telecommunications space. Been with App Kudo now going on just about seven years.
[00:00:58] Speaker A: Steven, how about you?
[00:00:59] Speaker C: I've had about 18 years of experience working in the mobile device industry with the last six years working at AppCudo, leading support teams across our SaaS and automation products, supporting the device supply chain.
[00:01:09] Speaker A: Have you guys been in various different types of organizations? Now with App Kudo as a software and technology company, you've been with variety of different perspectives within the industry?
[00:01:23] Speaker B: Yes, I have. So I've been both with telecommunications, with different healthcare companies and just various travel companies as well.
[00:01:31] Speaker C: Prior to Apkuto it was, for me it was two different OEMs, so original equipment manufacturers that actually produce mobile devices and prior to that it was defense contracting work.
[00:01:41] Speaker A: So I'm sure those perspectives are valuable in the work you do today.
So there are lots of moving parts in the device journey from a device's first life to its second life. And there is a whole network of partners that are involved in that process.
John or Steven, can you give us some background on that device journey as it moves from its first life to its second life?
[00:02:05] Speaker C: There's a lot of different moving parts that come into play when you're talking about devices being returned from a customer. A number of different reasons why customers return devices. Maybe they're doing it for a warranty exchange because they have an issue with their device. Maybe they're training it in. All those devices get sent back to a central return center and at that return center they're going to decide what they're going to do with the device. Right. There's a number of different avenues or paths that it can go through, be it repair, that's for in warranty or out of warranty repair. It could be scrapped because of the condition of the device or it could even be sold at auction potentially.
[00:02:37] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, I would just add that as part of that device journey, really the pieces that we're dealing with primarily is all the product that's flowing between the return center and out to the OEM for repair, which usually typically is a in warranty repair or if it's out of warranty repair, it's going to flow typically from the return center out to a third party repair center that the carriers sign up for. Some of that product can also go back to the OEM based on, you know, what the business needs are. Even if it is out of warranty, if they want to send it to the OEM, some of the OEMs will repair for them at a cost.
[00:03:11] Speaker A: So it sounds like the warranty situation is a big part of what's going to direct the path of a device where it stands in terms of its warranty situation. Is that true?
[00:03:22] Speaker B: Yeah, that is correct. And that's why a lot of carriers will see extending all of these warranty plans for customers. Right. Because they want to have those repairs being done by the OEMs where they can. So they always try to bolt on those additional services for in warranty to extend that through the life of your phone.
[00:03:39] Speaker A: That makes sense. So they have a little more control over the destiny of that device when it's within warranty. Because they can control how it's managed in those repair processes.
[00:03:51] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:03:52] Speaker A: So who is managing all these activities on behalf of a carrier when it's the carrier that's facilitating this?
[00:03:59] Speaker C: One of the main roles that plays a really big part in managing these activities is a vendor manager. They have to make sure that all the return product that requires repair is processed through an appropriate repair vendor. Right. So it could be the oem. It may be another repair facility that they would send that to. And they have to make sure that's done within sla. Right. So they have time commitments that they need to get product returned in. They're also responsible for managing the relationships with that repair vendor. They have to ensure purchase orders are fulfilled. And really if that doesn't happen, then they don't have devices that they can use for warranty exchange.
[00:04:32] Speaker A: Steven, you mentioned that this has to be done within sla. Can you define SLA for us?
[00:04:38] Speaker C: So service level agreement. So they have contract agreement with the different repair vendors in terms of how quickly they need product to come back. So let's say they set a five day turnaround time. I think some of that depends on logistics. Right. But the point being, they need to be able to get that product back through so that they can extend the life of that product through that entire lifecycle for that device. They need that product in that channel for support.
[00:05:02] Speaker A: That makes sense. Sort of sets the expectations for what they have to their performance essentially during that process. So what makes the job of a vendor manager so challenging?
[00:05:13] Speaker B: Well, I think the. One of the biggest things that we found when we kind of first got into this space was many of the processes they were using were using spreadsheets by email, trying to manage significant inventory levels through spreadsheets, going back and forth with, you know, the OEMs, the repair centers, understanding their WIP, their work in progress. So where those devices are at each stage of their life cycle. And like, are they in repair, are they in triage, understanding that by spreadsheets, very tough to track, monitoring the repair of quality. You know, how many devices are coming back, what is the quality, how many go back out for repair again for the same issue, calculating like the turnaround time, how fast, you know, Stephen alluded to how fast a device gets out to an OEM for repair and gets shipped back so that it can make it back into the hands of the customers. All of those things very tough to do when you're trying to manage it through Excel spreadsheet. So one of the things they realized was they needed to automate their processes so they had better visibility into their data and more accurate data so that they had a single source of truth where they could log into a platform and look at and work with their vendors on tracking all of these things so that they could work with the vendor metrics. How well are they doing, how bad as they're doing their QBRs and their MBRS, they have more data to actually work with their vendors with.
[00:06:35] Speaker A: I can imagine a scenario where you have devices coming in, devices going out, devices in various stages of the process, and how dynamic that situation is every day, every moment of every day, and the amount of data points that generates and being able to organize and manage it. Spreadsheets seem like not the most effective way to do that.
[00:06:59] Speaker B: And then when you're trying to track lost devices, very hard to do for a spreadsheet when suddenly your inventory is off. How are you going to try to backtrack where it was, where it was really lost, who last touched it and so forth that.
[00:07:11] Speaker C: And trying to track that down to the individual device level. Right. I mean, you can do it at, hey, I sent you 5,000.
I got 5,000 back. But you have really no meaningful way of saying I got the 5,000 back that I expected. Right. Because there's just significant amount of volume going out and a significant number of partners that they're working with that they need to manage.
[00:07:30] Speaker A: So how did we solve this problem? Sounds like I'm going to guess we took away spreadsheets and introduced a better tool. So how did we solve the problem?
[00:07:40] Speaker C: One of the ways that we solved the problem was we basically streamlined their device reverse life cycle. We established an automated platform that allowed seamless collaboration across the return centers, repair vendors and OEMs through each stage. This gave the vendor manager the ability to see what product down to a specific device level where it was within that process flow at any given time. So they're able to more effectively manage having that automated system in place and automating the transmission of information back and forth between the vendors and the OEMs and the return centers.
[00:08:12] Speaker A: Yeah, that's huge. And preventing an individual person or probably multiple people from having to go into a spreadsheet and constantly be trying to make updates as to where every device is at any moment. Was this facilitated through the use of like barcode scanning? What was the, how was this automation? What did it look like in the facility?
[00:08:33] Speaker C: Within the facility we're consuming data when product was being prepared for shipment. Right. So they would send us all of the records in a specific format so we would know what purchase orders they were being processed against, we would know where they needed to go out to actually be repaired and we would use that and we're able to send that information out ahead of time. So that the repair vendors are also aware that they have product incoming or in the case, in some cases they need to know that they need to come and pick product up depending on where they are located. So it's not really around the barcodes. A lot of that's already built into the return center. It's really just consuming that information and having all of that lot information in the system so that they can search and look it up and retrieve records based on that information.
[00:09:18] Speaker A: So how are they doing this type of validation of, you know, where devices were in the process before working with.
[00:09:26] Speaker B: AppCudo for a great deal, they weren't doing it. So you couldn't right through spreadsheets. Next to impossible to really track, you know, work in progress, turnaround time. Some of those things you just can't do through spreadsheets.
So what they were trying to do wasn't really solving it. So now as Steven had said now they're actually getting all of the events for a device. So when a device is received at an oem, we get a receipt event. That receipt event is then posted and is tied through all the different applications that they look at. So whether it's received, whether it's in triage, whether it's being repaired, that when it's shipped out, all of those events now show up in the modules that the client is using, which allows them to jump back and forth between the different modules and really understand for every single device, where it is, at what stage of the repair, if it shipped, what date it shipped and then when it was received.
So all the different OEMs, all the different repair centers and the DCs or return centers all integrated with app Kudo. So all that data circulates with us and allows us to tie it all together for the client.
[00:10:33] Speaker A: Wow. So that sounds like a next level transparency of information that they can basically see down into the process at the, at the very micro level down to the individual device, but then also glean some insights at the macro level in terms of, you know, if there was a shipment of 5,000 devices received and then a shipment sent back out of 5,000 devices, what time period it took for those that completed lot to be shipped back out again. Is that a fair assessment as well?
[00:11:08] Speaker B: Yeah, that is, I mean, so they can also, you know, PO level, SKU level, they can see the, you know, just your point, I mean they can see at the top level and all the way down to the macro level. So depending on what their need is, all the data is there and it allows them to do different views and slice the data however they need to based on their business needs.
[00:11:26] Speaker A: So what downstream impacts did this have on carriers?
[00:11:31] Speaker C: The downstream impacts in terms of the manual workflows. You know, I think any business, most businesses out there, they would tend to struggle with kind of manual processes, right? Carriers, vendors, it's the same I think for any organization out there. I think some of those things that that causes though is a lack of data accuracy. I think that John alluded to earlier, this would result in potential write offs of inventory. You know, that's going to be a cost to the business for lost devices, lost product.
There's significant man hours that are required to manage the business when you do these manual workflows. So definitely an impact there. And automating that definitely reduces that manual workflow and the man time required to be able to support that. You also have a lack of real time visibility which is I think what really that manual kind of shift and move in a spreadsheet is not the same as having those transactions happen and having that data updated automatically.
[00:12:23] Speaker A: I can imagine anytime a person is having to input into a spreadsheet about what just happened to a device, it's time that they are not spending moving the device through the process and therefore increasing the speed of the total processing.
[00:12:39] Speaker C: Time or even looking for opportunities for working with the vendor and helping to improve on their quality, their performance and things like that. They're spending time just chasing smaller minutia manually. It's definitely not a good use of, of their time.
[00:12:54] Speaker A: So sounds like this is making life easier for a vendor manager. Are there other ways that this process is making life easier for a vendor manager?
[00:13:03] Speaker B: I would say just as we talk about modules, we continue to add on new. So we touched on the device journey. So being able to see from the time the device was first activated, as long as it's been through several different customer hands, we know that exact journey.
We provide them the SKU reports, the wip, the work in progress, the business metrics. So they use the business metrics to sit down and be able to. It's almost like a scorecard, if you will, to gauge how well an OEM or how well a repair center is doing so that when they sit down and they meet with them, they can show them real time. Like, here's the score, here's how well you're doing. Here are the areas that you're really doing really well in. Here are the areas that we want to see improvements in. It provides them that the tool and the data to really work with them and actually drive change and hold both sides accountable. Because it's real time, it's accurate, and it provides them that ability to really set the business rules the way they need to.
[00:14:01] Speaker A: Yeah, I can imagine that facilitates that conversation of, okay, you're struggling over here. What can we do? How can we work together to help make improvements in the places where you're struggling?
[00:14:15] Speaker C: Yeah, definitely. I think some other areas where we've supported, I think I alluded to earlier, we call it the asn, which is an advanced shipping notification that goes out really making sure that they know that's coming, they can plan, they can prepare for that product in advance of the product hitting their docks so that maybe they need to increase staffing levels. Also, even in the reverse, that product is coming back, the return center needs to know that it's coming back. And they also need to make sure they have room to put it into storage. All those different things that need to happen when product is returned, additionally triggering off other quality processes that do happen within the return center. Scorecards. I think John, you alluded to that. I think that's a very important part. You know, being able to automate the metrics and get them into a dashboard that you can see in real time how they're performing or how, how that product, you know, turnaround time, all the different metrics that they need to track.
Another key area is kind of around invoice validation. So the repair vendors are repairing product. In the case of outer warranty, they're charging a fee back. So being able to validate that those repairs are in fact appropriate and validate the invoice has been key I think for the business to be able to manage that repair process.
[00:15:23] Speaker A: So it sounds like this is making a vendor manager's life easier. What other things can vendor managers do when they're experiencing a scenario of all of this? Automation, validation and scorecards and efficiency. What is this? How does this make expand their role or the possibilities of things they can take on? Now that they're not manually knee deep.
[00:15:47] Speaker B: In spreadsheets, I think they can be more forward looking and really making well informed decisions. So it drives them as they have more data, doing more data analytics on how to make their processes more efficient to be able to get product back quickly, better quality, as Steven said, out to the customers, really making sure that, you know, as product is coming back and it gets sent back to a customer that it is repaired quality, it's going to not come back for a, as we call bounce. So a device that you know, went out for repair gets back to a customer. The customer says the speaker is still not working, it has to go back out for repair. Obviously that's a very poor customer experience.
So it provides the vendor managers the ability to really work with the vendors to really tighten down the processes to make sure they're run much more efficiently and effectively.
[00:16:37] Speaker A: That sounds like it impacts the circularity of the device, right? If your efficiency and speed and ability to get that device out repaired and lot of confidence in that repairs success and get it back to the customer right away, that just keeps it in use as opposed to needing a new device. So I can hear an opportunity for some circularity improvements in this process.
[00:17:08] Speaker C: I think, you know, from a circularity perspective, you know, you look at the repair processes and, and having those be as efficient and effective as possible, make sure that devices are able to be repaired and are able to go back out into the population for as long as possible. Not all devices stay in warranty. The device devices can last for many, many years and doing everything you can to keep those out in the market does a great service to keeping things out of landfills and kind of supporting that circular device economy.
[00:17:34] Speaker B: You know, just to add to that, I mean, obviously from a customer perspective, if you send your device out for repair multiple times, eventually your frustration goes up and you're just going to say, I'm just going to go get a new phone.
So the less times you have to deal with that customer sending it back in, the better and the better chances that device will stay in that customer's hands versus going to a landfill because it's been fixed 12 times.
[00:17:56] Speaker A: And there's some brand loyalty wrapped into that too. Right. If you're having a good experience as a customer because it only took one turn to get it repaired and fully back to full functionality, that's a good customer experience for you and you all, you know, that'll instill some brand loyalty and customer loyalty, both for the OEM and for the carrier.
[00:18:18] Speaker C: Yeah, correct.
[00:18:19] Speaker A: So what is next for how app Kudo can be helping vendor managers?
[00:18:25] Speaker B: Well, one of the things that we realized in the early stages is the applications that we've built for our client were really one way. It was for them to use to, for them to have the access to the data view, the different, you know, the WIP reports, the PO reports, SKU reports. But as we've progressed, we realized in working with our client that they really want more of a two way communication with their partners. So being able to notify an OEM that hey, we're having this, this issue and we need a corrective action on it. Being able to log that within what we call the partner portal and then they can communicate out to the oem, the OEM can add the response, they'll get a notification, hey, there's a ticket for you to go work the, you know, the OEM goes, works the ticket, then the client gets notified. They can work back and forth until they can resolve the issues. So building more of those modules that are more interactive versus have our client download a scorecard and send it out to the oem. Now the OEM is going to have real time access to the exact same view that the carrier does so that they can start making corrective actions early if they see their scores are going down before they're ever even contacted by the carrier.
[00:19:39] Speaker A: I can see that's huge because if everybody knows that your scorecard is Visible, you have a little bit more investment in keeping those scores high. That helps manage that relationship in a positive direction. So I can see that that's, that's like next level collaboration. Not just AB Kudo collaborating with its customers, but its customers collaborating with their vendors, their customers, their relationships. And that's a different, that's a whole different dynamic of collaboration.
[00:20:09] Speaker C: Definitely. I think that was also a very manual process for them where they had to take data out of the system and try to present it in email. Right. It's the same kind of use case we had in a way at the beginning of this process from an automation perspective for this client. So it's definitely kind of next level for them to be able to interact and be able to have that real time access to the same information so that they can be informed and not miss an opportunity to improve.
[00:20:33] Speaker A: Yeah, automation always wins out over manual. And all of the conversations I have on this podcast that is almost the constant theme throughout is if we can automate something that was once manual, it's always going to be a better experience for not only our customers, but for all of the partners that they're dealing with.
[00:20:52] Speaker B: Agreed. And it also provides not only just that visibility, but if you think about the oem, they were only seeing one side of the data, only their side. Now they get to see the big picture of everything and it also provides them additional insights.
[00:21:04] Speaker A: Well, thank you, John and Steven, for joining the podcast today and sharing your perspective on the ways that you know vendor, the challenges that vendor managers have and how we're helping increase the visibility, enriching the data, ensuring that that data is validated, and just essentially making their day to day easier and more accessible for solving the challenges that come up in the process with their customers and their partners.
Your perspective on this has been really valuable to kind of understand the work that we do at AppCudo, how it really lands in the everyday lives of the people that we work with. And I can tell that a vendor manager that maybe had had that role before working with App Kudo feels better about the work they're doing and sees that in the day to day. So it's very cool to see how that also lands in circularity and makes an improvement for sustainability. So thank you again for joining the podcast. You guys have any other insights you want to share?
[00:22:09] Speaker B: No, but thanks for having us. This has been great.
[00:22:12] Speaker C: This has been fun. Thank you.
[00:22:13] Speaker A: Awesome. Well, thanks again and we will catch you all at the next podcast episode.
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