Episode Transcript
[00:00:13] Speaker A: Welcome to Appcodo's new podcast, a series where we talk to players up and down the connected device supply chain. My name is Alison Mitchell. I'm the VP of Sustainability at Appcodo and the proud host of this new live podcast program covering industry trends, customer journeys, sustainability topics, and more. If you have ideas for topics or guests that you would like to hear from, email me at allyson dot mitchellappcoudo.com dot. We'll start today's discussion by diving in with our guest speaker, and then we'll answer questions during the Q and A at the end of the session, so questions arise during the discussion. Please type them into the chat as we go so we can answer them at the end. Today's podcast will explore a customer story of transformation, particularly the transformation this customer experienced in their operations as a result of implementing our solutions. Our guest speaker today is Manoj Sabnani, chief operating officer at Apkudo. Welcome to the podcast, Manoj.
[00:01:09] Speaker B: Thank you, Alison. I'm glad to be here and share my experience.
[00:01:14] Speaker A: Well, Manoj, you play a key role at Appcudo. So to kick this off, I'd love to hear a little bit about your background.
[00:01:20] Speaker B: Sure. So from an education perspective, I have a degree in engineering and then ambient marketing. And then with my work side of things, I have 25 years of experience in this mobility industry. I started my career back with the wireless carrier operator in India, Vodafone. Then I got an opportunity to come to us with Ericsson on the infrastructure, wireless infrastructure side. Was there for a few years, then got an opportunity to go work with Nokia for many years, led many operations, customer operations, global operations for that team. And then I had opportunity to move actually on the logistics side with Ingram Micro, which is one of the big three pls, and then from there to Apto. So, yeah, it's been, yeah, as I said, 25 years, almost coming to three decades now of being in the wireless industry.
[00:02:11] Speaker A: Wow. So you definitely are an expert in this space. So how did you make the transition over to Apkudo?
[00:02:18] Speaker B: It's an interesting story. So, as I said, before Apkudu, I was with Ingram Micro. So in one of the conferences, I was representing Ingrow Micro, and Josh was there also presenting. So we both kind of connected at the conference. And Josh had all these nice, innovative things that he was doing in the wireless industry, really changing the way with the smartphone things. And I had experience with the wireless industry, so felt like it was an exciting time to kind of go and work with Josh. So Josh is the CEO of Upcodo. He's co founder and CEO of Upcodo. So that's where then I came in to Upcodo.
[00:02:58] Speaker A: Well, it sounds like you landed at the right place, because all of your unique skills and extensive experience are exactly what Apkudo needs in the way it's expanded. So can you talk about the role you started at Apkudo when you started, and how your role has transitioned over the years?
[00:03:15] Speaker B: I think it's been actually an opportunity for me also to come to epcot at that time as a. From all the innovation we're doing. So I started as the vp of wireless technology, and I had a lot of experience working, coming from that side of the industry. And then as Appcodo, as a company grew with new product solutions, my role changed. After wearing different hats within the startup organization, as we all know, I took over as vp of customer operations. And then over a period of time, as we evolved as a, you know, from testing to a cloud solutions company, to the robotics kind of having a, you know, a full platform helping the industry, my role has evolved, and I'm currently chief operating officer for Apto.
[00:04:01] Speaker A: So you have seen Appcodo through a variety of perspectives and phases, which I think makes you such a great candidate to talk about this topic today. From the expansion of our solutions to the markets that we're able to serve, Apkudo has really transformed over the years. And that just aligns with the theme of today's podcast, which is transformation. I'm excited for you to share a story about how Apkudo's initial collaboration with a customer expanded into a multifaceted partnership that really transformed their entire connected devices operations. So, can you tell us about that relationship and how it started?
[00:04:43] Speaker B: Yeah, no, absolutely. So this is the customer that I'm going to talk about, is a leading us based carrier. And then the relationship started almost ten years ago between Apkdo and this customer. At that time. If you go back ten years ago, the smart devices were relatively new to the industry. I think it was evolving. There was even the technology was evolving into the LTE side of things, and industry was just beginning to adapt to how to test these devices prior to the launch of the devices at the marketplace. And that's where, because the traditionally devices were only like text and phone calls and some basic things. But now you had this whole apps which were pre loaded on your device, but then as you had your device, you could go to the app store and download more apps, and each user, each device suddenly will become a different device with a different user experience. And then because of the, you know, the devices were new and as they were released, the user experience changed. And that did bring in a lot of issues that were not seen out of the box, but, you know, it was there later on and the market kind of needed, like the testing had to be evolved and was not evolved at that time. So it was changing a lot at that time.
[00:06:01] Speaker A: So that was a really rapidly changing moment for the industry that going from the basic cell phones to smartphones. And so with that limited pre launch testing you mentioned through this evolving smartphone era, what happened?
[00:06:20] Speaker B: So I was saying, I think as each user device, it was the same device, all of the users would get the same device, but their experience would change because of the apps they were using. So over months of usage of those devices, there would be issues that were seen and that would cause returns and dissatisfaction. Even with all the focus on the prelaunch testing the carriers were doing. So there was a challenge in their hands that they were trying to solve and see how they can launch a little bit better quality devices and reduce some of the challenges they were having.
[00:06:55] Speaker A: So how did Apkudo address this challenge?
[00:06:58] Speaker B: What we had was our automated device testing technology and we could catch those issues or identify those issues prior to launch by running through this automated testing. And the beauty of the automation was that we could get the device into a scenario of three to six months of usage just in with two or three to five days of testing. And I think that testing analytics was what allowed our carrier customers to catch those issues reported to the OEM, so that oems can address those issues and before they were being launched, and obviously focus being reduce device returns and improve customer satisfaction. So that was the main focus and that was the main benefit we were trying to bring to them.
[00:07:44] Speaker A: Got it. So tell me more about how our device testing technology and how it's innovative, what sets it apart, makes it so effective.
[00:07:54] Speaker B: Yeah, I think the main thing what makes our device technology or our testing technology innovative is it's able to simulate real world usage. It can create gaming profile, it can create social profile, it can create all sort of different profiles, all the major profiles that different users would use. And we are able to then within two to three days, through our automation flat testing platform, identify issues like over a period of time when you're using a device, you start using more memory, you start putting pressure on your cpu or your processors and you won't see that out of the box, but then with that shows up into a few months. So with our technology.
Within just two to three days, we were able to catch those issues, whether it could be responsiveness, crashes of the apps, any of that, we could find those issues. We could simulate those experiences, get all the logs information, and provide it to the oems and carriers with the valuable, not only just the issues, but also the recommendations and how to make that device better before prelaunch.
[00:09:04] Speaker A: Well, it's really interesting to see that what we're doing for a customer actually improves the process for other key players in the connected device supply chain, such as oems and carriers. As you mentioned, that kind of speaks to the overlap that exists in this industry and how they relate to customers and the critical need for this collaboration. It sounds like working with us made a big difference for this customer because it had impacts that went beyond just that customer. Can you describe that a little bit?
[00:09:35] Speaker B: Basically, our testing solution did help oems and carriers launch a quality device, prevent these issues, because we all know fixing issues in the field is much more costly. So if you are able to find these issues pre launch and you can address them, you're reducing the returns with dissatisfaction, people going to stores or sending their devices. So it's a huge impact overall from a cost savings and a customer experience perspective.
[00:10:05] Speaker A: So this customer needed to improve the testing of devices before they were issued to customers, but they also had a significant number of device returns to address, is that correct?
[00:10:16] Speaker B: Yep, yep.
[00:10:17] Speaker A: Yeah. Is this where our relationship to them expanded to the next level, to helping them with those device returns when we.
[00:10:23] Speaker B: Started working and then they saw the impact that we were able to make on their pre launch testing and that they were able to launch devices with confidence. They did want to extend that relationship because they still had these returns coming into their space and they wanted to address those issues. They were interested in what kind of technology we can bring into and help with the triaging of the devices and just make it better throughout for them. And this is where then from the pre debauch or the device testing engineering team introduced us to the post launch quality team, and so they can start utilizing our technology over there as well, because as we were only testing the launch side of the device, but now they were also interested as the new software releases are done. We all are used to having multiple software releases after the device is launched, so they could apply our technology into that space to catch issues. Moreover, that also they were having a lot of challenges with devices being returned. And when they were going to the oems to fix the issues, they were deemed as no trouble found or no fault found. It's a very common industry term of NTF and NFFD because the first thing they would do is the devices. When they come back on the reverse side, you just clean the device, the software is reset, all the data is removed. And what that does is that any data that you even needed or any instant of the, because all these are software related issues. So once your software is clean, your device is back to the factory set. And the issue which was caused by user usage of downloading apps or using it, it's suddenly gone. So they were having a lot of challenges. So our technology over there, we were able to help reproduce those issues, provide those valuable insights, information, data to the oems to go address the issues and reduce those ntfs and all which had again has a huge, huge cost implications and customers for both stakeholders, both carrier customer over here and the OEM partners.
[00:12:27] Speaker A: That's interesting. So they were able to simulate the issues that these return devices had in order to pinpoint a solution. So again, thats where your broad experience and industry perspective came into play here with apkudos kind of customer focused approach to solve the problems and evolve the business as well as the broader industry.
[00:12:50] Speaker B: No, absolutely. My experience in the industry, ive seen you cant just solve one, one fixed problem. You have to take it beyond, you have to look at the device lifecycle. How do we make sure it's a foolproof solution to our customer?
And that's where we work with refining the overall process. We get understanding, okay, what happens to this next and what are your challenges, the next challenges and how can we help come and solve those problems? That's our mindset for myself and even our teams over here at Kudo is to work with customers and identifying those challenges and help address those things.
[00:13:32] Speaker A: Yeah, well, I mean, just kind of zooming back to look at the bigger picture here. You know, pre launch is one stage of a device lifecycle, post launch is another. And in this situation, we were delivering results to this customer initially pre launch and then later post launch. And this is all due to that sort of one initial success, which is, which is pretty impressive. I can imagine that this expanding on our ability to meet their needs, increased trust between us and this customer. Can you explain what happened there?
[00:14:07] Speaker B: Good point. I think as we started with the prelaunch, which is more of a forward logistics getting that thing, and then suddenly as now the device returns, we were making a big impact for them, both from a cost perspective, from efficiency, from consumer experiences, and suddenly they were generally interested in how else we could collaborate with them. So that became every meeting, every discussion was kind of heading into the discussion, okay, what can we do together, and what are the challenges we can solve together?
[00:14:39] Speaker A: So what were the next challenges? I mean, at that point, they're starting to come up with more problems as this is evolving space and looking to Apkudo to help them solve that. What, where did it go next?
[00:14:50] Speaker B: It went into, basically we were already engaged with the post launch quality team and that quality team, we only solved a very small piece of the challenges or problem they're having. When we started exploring things, the first thing we realized was that a lot of their processes were still manual, we're still relying on the spreadsheets. So where it involved for us was to giving them the tools, the visibility. First thing was the visibility into their processes and even help them execute some of those quality processes, because in a more automated way, versus relying on a very manual way of tracking information and solving the problem, which was very time consuming and costly and obviously hard to scale. So what we did over there was we were able to introduce to them our cloud based analytics platform, which was powered by AIH. So that could replace their manual spreadsheets and all these manual work they were doing. And this kind of provider started providing them with a little bit more automated dashboards, with recommendations, with some predictive analysis, and then they started to have a really real time visibility into their operations, which was really good.
[00:16:06] Speaker A: Wow, that's incredible. So, I mean, automation by itself is pretty impressive, but then to increase that visibility, they are able to see this data in real time. That has to also have a pretty big impact on their relationship with us.
[00:16:22] Speaker B: There was a huge, huge impact on their work operations. Suddenly they had this real time data with insights, they could easily identify the trends, they could see something when something was wrong, needs to be improved, addressed in whether it was in the process, whether it was in operations. And they have not tools to work through automation, rather than things which would take them days, they were now able to do it in minutes and with the visibility. So it was definitely had a huge impact on their operations.
[00:16:58] Speaker A: Sounds like a game changer.
[00:17:00] Speaker B: That's actually the right word. Yeah, it would definitely a game changer for them, because it allowed them to make database decisions fast while improving their overall visibility and overall the process. But this also allowed them to scale the operations, and they have been the fastest growing carriers. So for them, it was not just about managing their day to day, but how do they actually scale so that this kind of give them that view of, okay, they can really scale things without adding to their cost and without sacrificing the efficiency. So, as I said, I think our relationships were just kept growing. And once we started having visibility into their operations and things, they wanted to explore more areas, and they started introducing us to the more different teams within the organization. And one of the teams was this was managing all the return operations, all the logistics around the return operations, and that's the three Pl, which is the third party logistics provider.
[00:18:03] Speaker A: Well, that's interesting. And especially when you improve automation and you improve efficiency in one area, what that often does is it sort of illuminates inefficiencies in other places. So you mentioned third party logistics. Where do these folks come into play in this story, and how were they impacted as a result of this sort of increased automation and efficiency for this one customer?
[00:18:30] Speaker B: Most of the carriers, they don't manage their own three pls. They rely on a different three PL partner or carrier who would provide that. And so that they wanted to start partnering with getting us and see how our technology, how our innovation in that space could help, because again, we help them reduce a lot of manual work on the quality side of things, on the processes side of things. And three Pl traditionally is heavily dependent on the manual labor. You go to any warehouse, you'll see a lot of people working and doing things very manually, and it's very hard. It's always hard to have when you have people involved, it's not only just managing the people, training them, retaining them, but it's also the whole thing about subjectivity kind of comes into play. So there is a, by having that, they really wanted to explore that option, that how can they actually scale operations over there? As I said, they were the fastest growing carrier companies, so they really wanted to scale things and improve quality of their operations end to end.
[00:19:41] Speaker A: Yeah, I can understand. The labor force side is often a barrier to scaling for folks.
Do you have access to an additional workforce and just the inherent limitations that exist when you have manual processes in place? So how did Apkudo's technology help the third party logistics provider in this situation?
[00:20:04] Speaker B: Our platform is backed by AI, automation and robotics, which produce trusted data. Integrating our technology into the three pls operation enabled them to improve accuracy, ensure a consistent device processing experience, and ultimately meet our customers expectations. Because at the end of the day, it was their operations and they wanted to make sure they can scale the operations in a quality way. In fact, in this case, we were able to improve the quality also. So it was basically higher volume of devices, they could plan the growth, they could bring in higher volume, they could still trust that this will be done in a more accuracy manner and this actually with operations will be handled in a higher velocity. And that was big for them in terms of as they were growing both organically and through the M and A's.
[00:21:05] Speaker A: So this all started with us working with one customer, helping them, expanding on that, and then going beyond the customer to help one of their three PL service providers as well. That's pretty impressive.
[00:21:23] Speaker B: It absolutely is. We starting from that one device lifecycle stage of pre launch testing, getting into the whole side of the other side of operations post launch and other third party operation. That's why I associate this story with the transformation know it did transform what it was started as a very customer vendor relationship into a partner and we are continuously helping collaborating them on how to improve business processes and operations. And it's been a strong relationship for over ten years now.
[00:21:59] Speaker A: That's cool. Sounds like it really set a new precedent and encouraged our growth in an organic way that met the needs of customers, but way beyond just working with that initial customer and really probably with the beginning of Apkudos decision to sort of go beyond this one relationship and to think about that larger connected device supply chain and all of the players in this industry. Would you say that's a fair assessment of what happened?
[00:22:28] Speaker B: That's actually a very, very good assessment. And I think instead of seeking to one solve one problem, I think once we partnered and we were able to empower and deliver on a multifaceted solutions and services on a much larger scale, instead of having a smaller impact on the business and processes, having a much more bigger impact.
And we also have transformed through those years from a device testing analytics company into an overall circular industry platform, leveraging our in a continuous evolution into the data, AI and robotic space, and we have grown significantly to offer a variety of solutions to the industry, starting from testing in the pre launch space or post launch space, trade in platforms, enterprise device recovery platforms, device processing through our platform, responsible device disposition, smart decision making throughout the device cycle. So we're just not trying to, to solve one problem, he's trying to solve all these different challenges or even helping business get into different things and be successful in whatever that area they are in that device lifecycle. And that's where this customer led to a broader interest within our customers organization. We started from one and they just had a go on and on. This is a really very impressive story from my perspective because I've kind of lived through it to see how it's really transformed not us as a company, but also transformed the business and scaled from that perspective.
[00:24:17] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, I'm so appreciative, Manoj, for you sharing the story today. I'm certain that your background from very, you know, from around the connected devices, lifecycle and supply chain helped you anticipate and deliver on those solutions as the customers were coming up with challenges. So I really appreciate you sharing your story with us and your perspective as it has changed and evolved over the course of your time at Apkudo. I think it's pretty rare for businesses to be able to share a story like this where they can say that they not only were they meeting their customers needs, but it really informed the evolution of the company itself.
Thank you again for taking your time to share that with us today. And we're coming up on time, so I want to take a moment to encourage the audience to put their questions in the chat. If they have them, we can answer those. Manoj, we talked a lot about the problems we solve for customers and how solving one problem opened the door to tackle other areas which truly transformed their overall operations. But to close out our podcast, I want to get your perspective on customer relationships, because at the end of the day, this is really all about customer relationships. So in your experience, what has been the key to building strong long term relationships and even partnerships with our customers?
[00:25:35] Speaker B: The most important thing is being adaptable to their needs. I think having making sure your technology innovation that the assets you have can be adaptable, and they're not just fixed. So we are solving and providing solutions and then being proactive with them. One thing that's this whole key thing with this transformation story is that we were very proactive in understanding what their challenges were, what their, what their future goals were. Not just the day to day challenges, but where do you want to take your company? That kind of helps build that trust, build that relationship. Every company wants to grow. They all. We live in this technology and dynamic space.
Things are dynamic, changing, and you have to find the right partners that can help you grow and scale operations.
[00:26:25] Speaker A: That's awesome. Those are some really great insights. And I'm. Again, it's, you know, I think Josh was really smart to nab you and make you part of the Avcudo team at this really important phase in the industry's transformation to be able to, you know, see it from all sides and anticipate what a customer needs and be able to deliver for them. So I'm really thrilled that you're part of the team.
[00:26:48] Speaker B: I think it goes both ways. I think I'm really grateful for the opportunity that I got and was able to make the impact and also grow and learn through this process. Also, I think it's all about, as I said, creating partnerships and building that thing. And it's always the world we live with. It's always learning is going on with all the innovation in our. So it's been good journey and good transformation story to be shared with all of people over here.
[00:27:14] Speaker A: Awesome. Okay, well, let's get into the Q and A. It looks like we have a question that we've received here from Michelle. Question is, you've talked a lot about smartphones during this podcast, and it's probably the nature of the customer we were talking about. Do you only have services for smartphones?
[00:27:33] Speaker B: No, we actually, it's employed these services for all smart devices. Smartwatches, tablets, iPads, laptops. Even our laptops are getting smart with the chipset and all, with all the technology.
And it's also technology agnostic, you know, LTE, you know, about more and more on the 5G side. So. Yeah, no, we. We work with all sort of different wireless technologies as well as all sorts of smart devices, even IoT devices, for that matter.
[00:28:03] Speaker A: Awesome. Yeah. So we're all over the industry and we're all over the connected devices. So more of these transformation stories happening every day because of our technology. Very cool. Well, thank you again, Manoj, for being part of today's podcast, and thank you for tuning in to today's podcast session. If you have any feedback or ideas for future topics or guests, please again, shoot me an email at allison dot mitchellappacuto.com and hopefully we will see you at the next one. Thanks.
