Boring Tech Is Better Sometimes Due to Predictability and Scalability — Total Quality Logistics CIO

(US & Canada) Ryan Kean, Chief Information Officer at Total Quality Logistics (TQL), speaks with Michael Sutter, CEO of Enlivened Tech, in a video interview about the changing scope of the supply chain industry, the importance of visibility and communication, levers that drive digital transformation initiatives, strategies to leverage emerging technologies, and measuring and communicating the ROI of IT initiatives to stakeholders.

As a logistics data leader, Kean has witnessed the changes in the supply chain industry over the years, and he states that TQL ensures that the changes do not affect the clients. Mentioning the impact of COVID-19 on the shipper community, he states that there have been many other disruptions, including geopolitical shifts.

Everything boils down to customer service, and ensuring customers feel lesser impact, says Kean. With the 24/7, 365-day customer service promise, it becomes critical to provide high-tech facilities to the shippers.

TQL ensures that the shippers get someone on the line to respond to their calls 24/7, and proactively inform them about their loads, and issues, and maintain visibility. Kean states that TQL has 84% of over 3 million loads a year, to facilitate the shippers, which are digitally tracked.

He further mentions receiving a couple of industry awards for excelling in visibility. Kean notes that apart from tracking, TQL has mechanisms in place to address the adverse situations. Also, the company maintains constant communication with the carriers to make shippers comfortable, and build trust.

Adding on, Kean says that TQL also emphasizes the availability of a human correspondent on the other end of the line. He believes that in such anxious situations, shippers need to speak to a human who can express and address the concern better, and not a chatbot.

Shedding light on digital transformation initiatives, Kean opines that with the rapidly growing technology, there are three levers of transformation to be focused upon. First, it is critical to understand the end-to-end process of a new technology, its impact, and the data availability and quality.

The second lever involves having an understanding of the digital capabilities in place, which requires expanding on, maturing, or investing in the key technologies, says Kean. The third one is to assess what the initiative or investment means for the overall ecosystem, in the form of impacts, and opportunities created for associates, providers, and customers.

TQL measures the success of digital transformation initiatives, after carefully evaluating the three levers, and ensures that the KPIs and OKRs are in alignment with the strategic business vision.

When asked about the strategies for leveraging emerging technologies, Kean states that TQL combines emerging tech and existing tech in different use cases, bringing a different experience to customers. Reiterating the technology evolution, he adds that often the technology team gets excited about a new technology that does not align with the business needs.

Addressing this aspect, Kean recalls a former peer who spoke about the merits of boring (stable and established) technology. Appreciating the idea, he says that sometimes, boring technology is the best solution, based on predictability and scalability, and then organizations can combine it with emerging tech if that accelerates business.

To measure and communicate the ROI of IT initiatives to stakeholders, TQL has a light governance model, wherein, an initial estimation of the work is done and an ROI model is created. Then, for medium and large initiatives, the company carries out deeper scrutiny of the investment, to assess if it clears the internal financial hurdle rate and needs to be prioritized.

However, Kean affirms that there are some great investments that will not deliver quantitative returns, hence they do not hit a financial hurdle rate. Nevertheless, such investments have solid experiential benefits.

For instance, he explains the investment in a mobile application for internal associates. While there could be productivity or efficiency gains associated with it, those are not purely quantitative, but rather add to experience and enhance loyalty.

Therefore, at TQL, the majority of investments are focused on things of a quantitative nature, but the company also creates space for qualitative investments.

In conclusion, Kean asserts that qualitative or experiential investments bring back customers and drive easier change management. Thus, TQL delves into both qualitative and quantitative buckets, when it comes to communicating ROI and its value to stakeholders.

CDO Magazine appreciates Ryan Kean for sharing his insights with our global community.