 Hi everyone. Welcome. Thank you for joining. My name is Kellen Betz. I'm honored to be your co-host for today. I'm a course lead in the MITx MicroMasters program in supply chain management. Also involved in Omnichannel and Sustainability Related Research here at MIT Center for Transportation Logistics. And I'm honored to have my co-host here, my colleague, Laura Lega. Hi Kellen. Hi everyone and welcome. I'm Laura J. I'm also course lead in the MicroMastering Supply Chain Management program. You probably have seen us already and I'm involved in Omnichannel Sustainability and Online Education Research at the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics. Today we're so fortunate to have here with us Mr. Amit Kulkami. Amit is the divisional vice president of supply chain, merchandising and co-op brands technology at REI. And he has over 20 years of experience in information technology. With that, he will share a recent insight from his work at the company. So we are very glad to have you join us today. So welcome, Amit. All right. Before we get started with the discussion, let's get out of the event with a quick poll. We'd like to learn more about what you're hoping to get out of this event. And so let me launch that poll number one now please. Awesome. So the poll question, why are you here today? Just a few different options. You know, I want to learn about supply chain technology and systems. I want to learn about maybe REI in the outdoor industry. And hopefully we have some MicroMasters and some SEM students here and you don't miss any live events. That's always awesome. And while we do that, I'll share a little bit about the agenda for today. And so for the next few minutes, we'll have Amit write a little background of what he does and how it relates to our topic today. We'll then ask some questions that we have prepared. And then the last 15 minutes will be saved for your questions. And so please use that webinar Q&A, that little button on the bottom, that webinar Q&A feature to ask your questions and be sure to be logged in with a name. And we won't be reading any anonymous questions. And we'll also share a few more polls during the event. So be prepared to participate. And let's check in on our results of that first poll. Okay, so I can see that most of you want to learn about supply chain technology and system and you want to see how it can improve your supply chains. So that's awesome. We will cover all the topics that are here. So we are very happy that you're interested on that. And with that in mind, I want Amit to get started. So I don't know if you're ready, Amit, to start. We would love to start by learning more about your background. Yeah, sure. I'll start a little bit about myself. I've been working in supply chain related technologies for over 20 years now. I have been with REI for a little over seven years. In my current role at REI, I support teams that work on supply chain order management merchandising, co-op brands, product design and development and our ERP system. These technologies are foundational for REI's transformation. It is an exciting space to be in for sure. So a little bit about REI. Many of you probably know REI already and I'm hoping some of you are even co-op members. A quick overview for those of you who may not be familiar. REI is a member owned cooperative retailer based in the United States. At REI, we believe time outside is fundamental to a life well lived. We exist to inspire and enable life outside for everyone. Today, the REI community has over 20 million lifetime members, nearly 15,000 employees and 168 locations. REI sells outdoor gear and apparel. We offer rental equipment, resupply, which is our circular commerce offering and also outdoor experiences like travel group activities and classes. Being a member owned cooperative or what we refer to as the co-op is fundamental to REI. It allows us to focus on shared values and not share value. This connects nicely to the theme for today's event about creating customer value. And I wanted to share a very short video about co-op membership. Can play the video, please. The more we get out there, the more we discover that there's a community with room for everyone and a membership that never expires. That goes wherever we go, that loves what we love. Always welcoming us outside. REI better is out there. Thank you. So one way to think about that video is that it shows the ideal customer experience. At REI, our customer is the co-op member who is engaged in outside activities. So as supply chain professionals, how do we create customer value for all of these members? How does the omnichannel experience fulfill on the vision that we just saw in that video? Awesome. Well, thank you, Amit. We're super happy to have you here today. Thank you again for sharing your time and your knowledge with us today. We're also super proud to have an SCM MicroMasters alumni here to share an experience today. It's very exciting for us. So let's dive into our main topic and connect me with that question that you left us with there. How does omnichannel experience bring value to customers or in your case co-op members? From my personal experience at REI, you can buy in REI stores, you can buy at REI.com and have it shipped to you. You can buy online and then go to the store and have it picked up and all these different types of channels. So what we would like to know first is what are some of the unique challenges this omnichannel strategy presents compared to a pure e-commerce or a pure brick and mortar retailer, maybe from a technology and systems perspective. It has this strategy to help create customer value. Yeah. Thanks Kalan. Sure. Let's dive in. The omnichannel strategy is a key enabler for driving the customer experience and customer value. The various fulfillment choices that you just described earlier online in store across all of the channels. Those used to be a differentiator in the past, but now as we are seeing digital and store experiences continue to blend together and digital is driving significant growth. So in that situation, these are almost becoming table stakes now. And with that, the complexity continues to grow and it's not just for technology, but it's for people, processes from all of those perspectives. The primary driver for this added complexity is the sheer number of additional choices and decisions that will be made both by the customers, but also by the retailer. You reference the pure e-commerce or brick and mortar models and retailers there. So in those models, the decisions are not easy, but relatively straightforward. You have a single pool of inventory that the customers can choose from. In both of those models, you have a single primary channel that is generating most of your demand and you have relatively limited options to fulfill this demand from. So enter the world of omnichannel and the number of the variables just expands in a non-linear fashion. I'll share some numbers from REI perspective. 20 million members, we have three soon to be four distribution centers. We have 168 stores. We have more than 1,000 vendors. So with all of these, the complexity just grows. And there are key themes that I would talk about. There are a few of them. The first one being inventory and availability. Second is the customer promise. And third is optimizing the total cost to serve while maximizing the customer experience. So in each of these three themes, there are a number of foundational decisions that you need to make, which is going to drive how your network and customer experience is going to be set up. So let's take the first theme of inventory and availability. Some of the key questions here are, how do you decide on available to promise inventory? Do you have dedicated and separate inventory pools by channel, one for e-commerce, one for stores? Or do you have a shared inventory pool? Also, when we have stores, the inventory picture in the stores is changing throughout the day as walk-in customers transact. And do you have any additional sources of inventory outside of your network? So for example, if you are partnering with your dropship partners, that creates additional complexity because they may not have the inventory pools dedicated to you. They may be serving multiple retailers. So getting the inventory and availability right is the foundational piece, which is going to drive all of the downstream customer experience. Then when you have made all of these decisions, it comes to the customer promise. As the customer is transacting, what are the different choices for the customer? That's going to be driven by if you have all of the stores, do you ship from all the stores like we do? What are the different options? Whether it is shipping to your home, shipping to store, picking up from a store, or even an off-site location? And then what are the different levels of service that you offer? You offer next day, two-day shipping. And then based on all of these combinations, what is the date that you're going to promise to the customer? That's the most important aspect here in terms of setting the right expectation for the customer to receive the product. And once you have both of these set up, it really comes down to optimization. Now you have so many of these foundational decisions that are going to lead you to a number of different constraints that you would need to optimize against. You have shipping costs from different locations. You have processing costs at the distribution centers and the stores. You have the capacity, both individual capacity at the location level. And then you have the aggregate capacity and throughput of your network. When you have stores, the product is selling through at the stored locations at different rates. And that's going to influence how you manage your inventory lifecycle in terms of the markdowns or stockouts and things like that. So I think I just rattled through a bunch of decisions there. So all of these decisions create a very interesting challenge for technology. We need to have systems in place that will have reliable, accurate and near real time information about all of this inventory. And then we need to have optimization engine and models in place that can dynamically respond to various situations. As we go through the year, we have different events. We have typical holiday season, you have any special events, or you can run into any of the external constraints that you did not even see. Pandemic was a great example, which I know we're going to talk a little bit more in details. So you need to have technologies and systems in place to also support the operations inside your buildings, whether it is distribution center, store operations, collection of systems that work together is a critical success factor in getting omnichannel right. It's ERP, warehouse management, order management system, points of sale. All of these are various building blocks. And eventually, your digital properties, whether it is your website or mobile app, those are going to consume this information and craft engaging customer experiences. It's really quite challenging to integrate all of these systems in near real time and make sure that you can deliver on a great customer experience. So as any retailer, when you start bringing this omnichannel strategy and experiences to live, the initial experiences may feel transactional. At times, they may also feel disjointed across the channel. So I go to a store, I see one thing, I go to your digital property, the inventory availability picture may not seem consistent, and it could be disjointed. That's the early stage of omnichannel. But as the capabilities mature, as you have more systems, technology and processes in place, and when you get it right, the end result that we're aspiring for is a seamless and frictionless customer journey. And the customer value that this entire model creates is in a wide selection of products and services, in flexibility for accessing those products when and how the customers want them, and hopefully they build a lifelong relationship with your brand. Thank you, Amit, for those great insights and very detailed one. I think our audience would love them on creating a seamless omnichannel customer experience. That's amazing. We also know that companies need to eventually redesign the distribution networks and this could be because of disruptions, capacity issues, or even to provide improved customer service as is or satisfy change in demand. So connecting with what you just said, recently the company announced that you're opening the new and fourth distribution center. So we wanted to know what role did the knowledge play in evaluating the network design and making decisions in terms of what's the new additional capacity we would need in the network, and also understanding that I think it's going to be located in Tennessee, correct me if I'm wrong? How did you make that choice? So we would love to learn more about that. Yeah, that's a great question. So as we said, companies need to be constantly reviewing their supply chain networks to ensure that they're set up to meet both the growth that is happening in the business, but also the ever-changing customer needs. And technology and data play a critical role in modeling the network and also helping inform with the decision such as the location selection, as we described, where do we open the distribution center, what is the product flow mix that is flowing through the existing network as well. And at REI, we use our distribution centers to serve both the stores as well as e-commerce and digital orders. So that adds even more complexity when we want to make sure that the right mix of product is flowing through these buildings. In addition, we're also a specialty retailer. So our number of days of supply in any given location is pretty low, especially when you compare it to a big box retailer. So in-stocks are super important for us. And the proximity has a huge impact in maintaining the healthy in-stock levels inside the stores. And then technology absolutely played a pivotal role in the evaluation of the network design. It all starts with customers first and utilizing the technology and data that we have to understand the key markets, the demographics, to strategically place a distribution center that is close, both to our stores as well as to our customers. So throughout all of our systems, we have a ton of data around where our customers and members live, where the demand originates, where it is actually fulfilled from, what's the product and the category mix that the customers are purchasing, what's the time taken to deliver the product after the order is placed to the customers, and what's the replenishment cycle and time frame to get the product to these stores. So we have this ton of data, but you obviously need tools on top of that. So this data coupled with network design and modeling software is critical in selecting the location and also designing the flow. And the other piece that I will add there is the technology doesn't stop when we select a location, but now that you have added a new note to the location, the complexity of the network grows even more. So you now have even more variables. So you need to have the end to end agility and flexibility in the supply chain to respond to any changes, whether it is demand, customer behavior, you name it. And then we need to have the technology in place to deliver operational efficiency, simplicity inside the DCs, all the way from material handling equipment to warehouse management software to the user experience that you're going to see. So answering the question about how did we decide to open this distribution center in Tennessee. This is the classic location selection optimization problem that I'm sure you're studying in the design and other courses in details. So there are a few considerations and constraints that I'll talk through. So we took all of these into consideration and optimized against those. The first one is the network capacity and throughput. So given our growing demand both in stores as well as in our digital channel, what's the total capacity that we need in terms of just the storage, as well as the throughput through the DCs and the stores? That was one of the key considerations. The second and really important point is around the speed to customer. So with now this expanded network, we can offer various levels of service faster shipping to our customers, such as today shipping. Just to put it in perspective in some numbers, the Tennessee distribution center is going to have about 5.6 million existing members that are residing in the area that would be served by the distribution center. Out of our 168 stores, 70 stores can receive the product from this distribution center. So this represents a significant increase in the coverage in number of members that we can reach with a two-day shipping range with just standard shipping. Then the third element there is around the cost to serve. So we want to optimize the overall cost across the network and also have the required agility. And I think the fourth and most important aspect for us from our impact agenda perspective is around sustainability. I know CTL is doing a lot of research specifically on that sustainability front. So we are looking to leverage industry-leading sustainability and technology features both inside the building as well as we are going to get closer to the customers. And with that, we will be able to support our goal of reducing our carbon emissions by 55% by 2030. So those were the four factors and constraints that we applied in our model and then that led us to the decision of opening the location in Tennessee. That's super fascinating, especially the concept of using a facility for both channels in some sense, a replacement of stores as well as the online, like a true army channel distribution center if you will. I want to kind of pick up on me two ideas that you mentioned. So one is the idea of like flexibility and agility. And then the other idea mentioned earlier is the pandemic obviously being a significant disruption. So these kind of come together in the sense where you have to use some of these concepts, some of these systems to adapt to this disruption, right? The disruption of the pandemic. And so kind of to this conversation to disruptions the past few years, especially with the pandemic, I've seen a lot of them. In our conversation before the event, you mentioned responding to the pandemic with already having to close its stores early on and then reopen them as restrictions ease was kind of a significant challenge. And so can you share a little bit about that experience and the role the technology played that flexibility that adaptability to this disruption? Yeah, definitely. I think pandemic as for everyone was a true test of how resilient our processes and technologies were. We had to assess the situation and utilize the tools that we had in our toolbox to respond to varying challenges that each of the different phases of the pandemic presented. And in some cases, we did not even have the tools available. So we had to really build them quickly. We had to advance some of the development because they were part of our roadmap or backlog that we were looking to go after. So before I talk about how we responded to the pandemic and how we made those adjustments, let's take a step back because I think it is very important to understand the context and the maturity of our supply chain processes as well as technologies to see where we were. In hindsight, we were fortunate to have a number of omnichannel building blocks in place prior to pandemic. And we were able to build or solve this jigsaw puzzle by utilizing them. So you could say that we were fortunate, but then it was not by accident. We have been working on our omnichannel fulfillment strategy for several years prior to pandemic. So we have the inventory visibility across all of our channels, whether it is distribution centers, stores, and dropship vendor partners. So we can use this expanded inventory pool to better service the customer needs. We also have the ability to use our stores as fulfillment nodes. I think, as you mentioned earlier, the customers can buy online, pick up in store, they can ship to store from our DCs. We have wide variety of these fulfillment options. And we are also able to offer a wide selection of products to our customers from our dropship partners. So when we implemented all of these different fulfillment options and choices for our customers, the key, the glue that held everything together was an optimization engine, which optimizes the number of countless choices this network and these methods create. So we want to be able to optimize the total cost to serve while exceeding the customer expectations. And we had the privilege of a really sophisticated omnichannel capability with so many optimization levers and this operation was coming even before pandemic. So when we were hit by the pandemic, obviously we had to take a number of different actions. So I'll walk you through three different scenarios. The first one is the omnichannel operations through various phases of pandemic. As you said, first phase, we had to close all the stores, then you could open them, but you obviously had to follow a lot of the health and safety guidelines. So I'll walk you through all of those operations. The second one was we had to create new offerings such as curbside to respond to the pandemic. And then the third one is, as you have heard in the news and media all the time, supply chain disruption, supply chain shortages that continues to be the theme as we are hopefully coming out of the pandemic. So how do we respond to that and what are the new capabilities or customer service adjustments that we have to do to respond to those supply chain disruptions? So let's talk about the first one, the different omnichannel operations. In the first phase, the stores had to be closed overnight. And we went from this omnichannel retailer, we had to become an online only retailer pretty much overnight. And while digital is growing, our stores still represent majority of our demand. So we have to now take the optimization models that were all set and tuned after a lot of analysis to optimize the total cost to serve and manage all of those constraints. We had to make the necessary changes now to balance the capacity and throughput of the distribution centers, because all of our demand was essentially being served out of those three distribution centers during that phase. So those constraints became really important in this phase. So now obviously with all of this demand going through the digital channel, we had to make the adjustments to make sure that the customer promised the date that we are promising to the customers, the options that we are promising to the customers are updated to reflect how the operations are keeping pace with this surge in the demand. And then obviously the stores were closed. So we had to make the necessary adjustments in our systems and processes to make sure that we are not reserving inventory for the store channel, which would impact the choices or availability for our customers who are transacting primarily in the digital channel now. So that was the first phase. And then as we entered the subsequent phases of the pandemic, now we had the ability to open our stores and utilize them for fulfillment. So then we were able to use them to provide some relief for our distribution centers, as well as productively utilize the inventory, which was within the four walls of the store. And more of that inventory was available across the channels because we had fewer number of walk-in customers given all of the restrictions. The other interesting aspect here is pandemic growth increases in demand in a lot of categories, right? Everybody wanted to get outside and try to do certain activities to maintain the health and all of that. So bike as an example, that was one category, the demand for which just took off exponentially during this phase. And now this presented a number of different challenges, because bike, along with just the inventory, there is assembly process that is required. And that assembly process takes place both partly in the DC and then the last set happens inside the stores. So now we had to optimize this fulfillment not only based on the inventory and the availability across the locations, but we also had to take into account the capacity and the bandwidth available for assembly and various services within those locations. So we had to tweak all of those optimization models and use different levels. Another interesting point with bikes is pre-pandemic. Most of our bikes used to be shipped to the store. We didn't have the ability to ship the bikes to home because they need assembly, servicing, and all of those things. So now you have fewer options. So the network that you have, which is replenishing the products to the stores, comes with its own constraints and own challenges. So that was another interesting pivot that we had to make during this phase. And then as we were living through that phase, obviously we had to meet all of the health and safety guidelines for our customers and also for our employees. So that led to creation of new fulfillment options. We have seen a number of retailers offer the curbside pickup for the health reasons during the pandemic. So we were able to stand this up relatively quickly. It was really just a matter of weeks before we were able to respond and create that offering. And all of this was possible because we had those buy online pickup in store and ship to store, both processes and technologies in place. It is very hard to imagine how we could have stood up something like curbside so quickly if we did not have those building blocks. And then I think the last element that I described earlier is around supply chain shortages, disruptions, shipping delays, backlog of the ports and all of that. So where are we seeing the impacts from all of those issues? It is certainly impacting the accuracy and timely delivery of our future supply and the inventory that is coming into our network. So if you are a retailer like us that promises back orders or pre-orders against this future inventory in anticipation that it is going to be available and manage all of the dates, well good luck with that. It's really been a hard problem to solve. So we had to take multiple measures. The first thing was to preserve that customer experience. So we took measures to scale back our back order capability to respond to these uncertainties and all of the variability that we are seeing. We wanted to make sure that we prioritized the seamless and frictionless customer experience that I talked about earlier. We wanted to prioritize that over and above capturing any additional demand. So we also accelerated the development of some new capabilities. So we now have a feature on our site which is called notify me when available. So if the product is not available, you can sign up for notifications when it will become on hand and you can purchase that. It effectively allows you to get on a virtual waiting list for all of the products. So in order to create this customer experience, you need all of the underlying data integration, whether it is the purchase order information, the advanced shipping notification, the dates, the traceability, and visibility through all of the supply chain so that we can look at those dates and create these types of customer experiences. So all of that was really critical in building and bringing this capability to life for our customers. Thank you, Amit. And as you say, it was definitely not about just being fortunate, but also about being prepared. And I found very interesting that even though you were very much prepared to deal with the change in landscape impacted by the disruption, you are also very resilient enough to develop new offerings and be always communicated with your members and you never lost the focus on the customer experience when you were describing this. So that's amazing. And I appreciate you sharing that with our audience. So we want to keep the event interactive and we want to hear from the audience. So I would love to launch the second poll. And this one is about returns, a topic we're very interested on. And I'm sure you're like you in the audience are also interested about that because I've seen some questions already in the Q&A feature about returns. So thank you for those. We want to know from your side, what are the main reasons that customers returns product at your company? Or if not at your company, what are the main reasons that you return products for? It could be wrong products, damaged products, or those probably didn't meet your expectation or you intentionally did it to just try them on and see what comes next. Okay. So thank you. I see this is populating already. So while you all respond, I would love to go back to Amit and we will touch upon this topic. You know that this is one of the areas where research and its returns and reverse logistic and most retail supply chains are designed and optimized for the forward flow of products from manufacturer to an end consumer. And at the same time accepting returns is we know not a new phenomenon, but we know that there are also a new dynamics of higher rate of returns and mainly driven by e-commerce growth. And we also know about the complexities of getting something back from a customer that has never visited the store before. So we would love to know from Amit, what has been your experience with circularity in retail with a reverse flow of products? And of course, how does technology fit into it? And as you always do, bring us the perspective of the customer value. Yeah, definitely. There are three aspects of returns. One is the customer experience, first and foremost, as you described. Then the second is the reverse logistics and then the reverse flow of the product throughout our network. And the last one is around the circular commerce. So we previously had talked about how omnichannel fulfillment, as you said, from a forward perspective shapes the customer experience and what are the various challenges and complexities within that. But the omnichannel returns experience is equally important. The ease of return transaction, regardless of where you had made the purchase, whether you had bought the product online, where you're bringing it back to the store, vice versa, all of that is a very big driver of the customer satisfaction. And from a technology perspective, it creates different challenges. So when we talk about omnichannel fulfillment, you need to have the unified view of inventory so that the customers can transact. Now you flip it on reverse and then you are looking at all of the purchases and orders and the interactions that the customer had made. So if you don't have the ability to have a single view into all of the customer interactions, it becomes really challenging if you have all of your point of sale and all of the transaction depository over there, you have all of the order history from your digital properties. So if you're not able to combine those, that definitely creates a lot of friction in that experience. And then the process needs to allow for flexibility. You should be able to start a return in any channel. I should be able to start the return on the digital channel, create the necessary documentation information that may be required, and then have the ability to send the product back and ship it to let's say your processing center, distribution center, whatever the case may be, or bring it back to the store or drop off at a different location. So developing that unified view of orders and allowing the customers to transact against that definitely creates a lot of challenge. And just to put it in perspective, majority of returns for our online orders were still brought back to our stores pre pandemic. So when we were hit by pandemic again, we had to respond to that. That was another area where we had to really stand up some capability really quickly was around the self service returns because the returns capability on our digital properties was fairly limited as the majority of the returns were going back to the stores anyway. So we had to pivot and create that self service return capability, which we are continuing to mature and eliminate the friction from that return journey as well. So once the customer has interacted and created that return, the reverse logistics and the flow of the product also leads to a number of different decision points. So I create the return, I drop off the product, when should the refund be issued to the customer? Is it when the product is dropped off for your with your carriers or when you receive and process the return? I think that's probably the biggest factor from a customer experience perspective that they're looking for. But then when you put your supply chain practitioner hat on, you need to figure out where you want this product, how do you want this product to be disposition? A lot of that product is available for resale because some of it is unopened new, some of it might be open box and all of that. So do you want to bring all of that product into a central location to process and disposition and then fulfill it from there? That's one model that we see in the industry. But the other interesting aspect is do you want to keep that product within that particular local market? Because there was definitely a need and demand for that product within that region. So if you keep it locally within the market, you might be able to get it to the other customers faster and also optimize your inventory management. So I think that's the other aspect. So how do you create the optimization on the fulfillment? There is a similar way to create the optimization on the reverse logistics side also. And then you talked about the overall circular commerce. That is a very important topic for us because as I said for REI, sustainability is one of our key impact agenda. So the circular commerce, the sale of the used gear definitely creates a great opportunity for us from a sustainability perspective. Based on the data that we have around preparing the used gear for the sale versus creating a similar comparable new product, we see about 50% reduction in the carbon emissions when you talk about the used gear sales. So that circular commerce from a sustainability perspective is a key strategic imperative for us. And returns are a big source of supply for all of that circular commerce. A lot of our used gear supply is coming back from the returns. But technology-wise, it is really challenging to support this end to end process by having the right technology support in place because there are a lot of different complexities and considerations that come in. So predominantly starting with the product information. How do you manage the different quality and the disposition of the product? Is it unopened? Is it open box? Is it lightly used, heavily used? How is that going to be presented to the customers so that they can make the right choice? And obviously based on the disposition and the quality of the product, the pricing has to be set accordingly. And then eventually it's the fulfillment. And then that is driven by some of the factors that I talked about earlier in terms of where you are bringing your returns back. Is it central? Is it through your distribution center? Is it through your dedicated stores that are for your used gears? Or in some cases, it could be well, a 3PL logistics provider or a third party service provider. So that fulfillment also creates a lot of complexity. And we are still in the infancy in terms of our business model for the circular commerce. So obviously we have a lot more opportunity in front of us for maturing the business processes and the models. But also from a technology perspective, it's really hard to create that support for the end to end process. So there is a lot of opportunity in this space to innovate for students, anybody else who is interested. Circular commerce and sustainability are probably the two biggest areas of opportunity for us. That's fascinating. There's so many fascinating ideas there to unpack. For me, the sustainability piece is very interesting in the result that you guys found or the research you guys did with finding 50% less for selling a used product versus a new product. It's very fascinating. So much of that upstream supply chain is so challenging to decarbonize or to reduce emissions from. This is one way to address that upfront right at that customer experience. That's fascinating. I'm going to have to dive into that for sure. Maybe we'll have some good questions on that at the end. But before we proceed, we want to take a look at our poll results. And so we could share that poll result number two. So this is a poll on what are the reasons your company or maybe you yourself return products. And it looks like the majority kind of picked two. It was a damaged and defective product or product did not meet expectations. I think that makes sense. I'm a little actually surprised to see the delivery expectations didn't meet that. We're all kind of accustomed to this new same day or high speed delivery in the e-commerce world. And that not being a reason to return is kind of interesting to see. So hopefully there's some good comments there in the chat. I think I saw a few pop up as well. Awesome. So I'm just doing a quick time check. I think we're going to jump into our final question before we get into some Q&A for the audience there. I see a number of questions in the Q&A. So that's awesome. But before we do so, I want to jump into our final question with Amit. And we mentioned previously that Amit is a credential holder or a master's alumni, which is super awesome to have him here. So we'd love to know what inspired you to take the program and how you've been able to use it, what you've learned in your career after completing it. Yeah. I'm really proud of being a member of the first ever cohort of the MicroMasters program. I think the structure of the program, which covers the end to end supply chain, the quality of the content and the research at MIT CTL, I think those were the key factors that attracted me to the program. And this has helped me in a number of ways, but I would share three quick highlights. First was it broadened my supply chain knowledge. So as I mentioned earlier, that I've been working in the technology field within supply chain for a really long time, but my scope was fairly limited. I was being focused mainly on the omnichannel as well as the distributed order management space. And this program helped me see the big picture of supply chain all the way from network design to analytics, technology, all of that. Second, and I think probably the most important one, was it helped me connect with my business partners and the supply chain practitioners using a common vocabulary? So it's not like as a technology stand talking about like requirements, capabilities just from systems perspective, but having the deep understanding of the theory of supply chain and its practical applications helped me partner with my stakeholders so that we could co-create and innovate versus trying to understand each other's terminology and language. And the omnichannel optimization solutions that we talked about earlier, those are directly based on some of the concepts that you learn in the supply chain design and the technology courses in the program. And lastly, it helped me build my network and create connection with respected experts in the field, whether it was as a role of my student, I participated as a CTA for some of the roles for some of the courses as well as through events like this. And even pre-pandemic, in Seattle area, we had meetups of all of or several of the MicroMasters students taking various courses to build those local connections and learn from each other. I think that's where it has been really helpful for me to apply the learnings that I had. So I definitely encourage the students to build such connections, build your networks and also take the next step and complete the master's program, which I wish I could do. Awesome. I mean, thank you for your encouraging words and for sharing your experience and your greatest takeaways of our courses. We are very excited and very proud to have you here with us, showing us what you have learned along your professional and educational journey. So that's amazing. We will run now a last poll before we go to the Q&A from the audience. So you all have seen that we asked you first, what were you looking for at this event? But now we want to know, what did you find most interesting out of our event? So was it probably expanding the knowledge of supply chain technology, learning about REI and the retail industry and maybe new ideas to improve your own companies or your own daily jobs? So while we give you a minute to complete that poll, maybe, Kelly, we can go to the first questions. Yeah, there's tons of awesome questions in here. Thank you, everyone, for participating. Maybe just picking our first one here from Louis Chong. I apologize if I pronounced your name wrong. But as the pandemic comes to an end, I admit the question is for you, will REI continue to offer services that started during the pandemic? So maybe like that curbside pickup, for example. And what are the considerations that you're taking into account when making those decisions as the kind of the pandemic? Hopefully at least we seem to be on the tail end of that experience. So yeah, I think that's a good question. And I think we've seen this pattern even earlier when a lot of these omnichannel capabilities are evolving that as you offer new customer experience, I think that just becomes the customer habit and that becomes the new trend that the customers are so used to all of these different offerings now. So some of those offerings will definitely continue, again, depending on the customer needs. So obviously, curbside pickup is a very convenient option. So we do see that customers opt for that particular option also. But as the restrictions are easing out, there is definitely the desire for the customers to come into these stores and then interact not just with the product that they had purchased, but with all of the other selection that we have. And I think one of the key strengths for REI is also the knowledge that we have inside our stores with our green vests, the employees as we call them, because they are really the experts in their field. So definitely the differentiator and key engagement lever for our customers is also to interact with those experts. So I think we will definitely see a mix. I'm sure there will be occasions or use cases where the convenience of the curbside pickup is helpful. So our customers will continue to opt for that. But when the customers or the stores are open, they would be able to come in the store as well. The similar stuff around the returns, I think the self-service returns and the digital experience, that is more than the pandemic, I think it's just the reflection of all of the growth within digital channel, whether it is purchase or return. So I think those pieces are definitely going to continue. The supply chain disruptions piece that I talked about with NotifyMe or some of the back orders, I think that is one area which hopefully will evolve and will ease as we see less of these disruptions, where there is more predictability in terms of the future supply coming in. And then hopefully we can offer a lot of the backorder pre-order functionality, which is fairly limited currently. So I think some of those trends are going to continue and I'm sure there will be new experiences that would evolve from that. Thank you, Amit. So we have a lot of questions in it, but you mentioned a lot of time sustainability and your amazing goals. And our audience is curious to know more about those sustainability goals you have. What are the actions that our AI is taking? And from the technology perspective and if that's possible, how are you quantifying or how do you measure or keep track of those sustainability goals and accomplishments? Yeah, yeah. I think this is a topic that is near and dear to our hearts. We have said we are going to reduce our carbon footprint by 55% by 2030. So there are a number of things that we are already doing. So most of our operations within the US is run on renewable energy. So whether it is the renewable energy or through the credits, it's all being run on the renewable energy side. Then also we have all of our distribution centers that are lead certified at the highest level, looking at all of the sustainability as well as zero waste and those programs. So we are already able to do a lot of good work in terms of reducing our carbon footprint. But I think Kellen mentioned this briefly earlier around decarbonizing the upstream supply chain. So I think that is where you have a ton of opportunity because majority of our carbon footprint is happening in the manufacture of the product as well as through the distribution network to get to the stores or the customers. So going all the way upstream to see how we can decarbonize that supply chain, look at renewable energy sources even during the manufacturing. And then as you go through the distribution and supply chain, looking at again that energy efficiency, clean energy as well as reducing any of the packaging and other areas is some of those things that we are looking at. But I think the question brings up a really interesting perspective in terms of how are we measuring, quantifying, reporting and most importantly keeping that option and giving that choice to the customers because we have talked or we have heard a lot about next day today but I think there is so much awareness now where customers are willing to wait maybe that extra day if you are able to get it to them in a more sustainable manner. So quantifying and tracking this is definitely a challenge. Again right now we are required to kind of collect all of these data, analyze, process it and there is a lot of manual work involved in pulling the data together from a number of these data sources. So we're looking at various options, partnerships and whatever the case may be to even develop some of the solutions to make sure that we are able to accurately track and report on all of those carbon emissions but then also reduce it and then give the choice for the customers so that they can interact with our brand in a more sustainable manner. That's fascinating to hear your thoughts on the idea of like tracking and quantifying the upstream emissions. The scope three if some might be familiar with the term scope three emissions. I know it's a significant challenge for a lot of companies just because there's so many depths you know so many tiers of suppliers and so much complexity upstream. So just then jumping back here into the Q&A there's another great question here which actually I think is on our extra question list so I wanted to want to be able to jump on this one. So this one is from Ndipun Minon. Again I apologize if I'm not pronouncing any of your names correctly but so the question is what is your strategy for the selection of supply chain systems? Is it best to breed or is it ERP expanded systems or obviously some kind of combination of two? So then the question goes on, what's the benefits of each of those strategies from your perspective? Yeah I think that's a great question and something that we grapple with with the technology teams pretty much constantly. I think both of those approaches are viable so you could look at the traditional ERP system which is providing all of those capabilities and then obviously you can look at all of these best of breed solutions that you will have to integrate and eventually provide all of the capabilities. So each of the approaches comes with its own set of advantages and also the challenges. If you look at the ERP solution providing all of these capabilities, the biggest advantage there is I think just the data because when you have all of the data across all of these different silos in different systems, integrating that is one of the biggest challenge and that hinders our ability to even aggregate all of the data if you want to apply any of the other tools, techniques on that, that becomes really bottleneck. So if you go with that ERP type approach, you're able to avoid a lot of those integrations. You have a more robust and integrated set of data but at the same time obviously given the breadth of the supply chain field and all of the new trends, new technologies that are evolving, it's harder for a single solution to be able to really superior in all of those capabilities. You are trying to get that integration but then you may not have the required level of maturity across all of those capabilities and that's where new technology trends whether it is cloud, the APIs, microservices, those are more nimble options where you can develop some of the best of the big solutions but then again that will come with the integration challenges. So the way we think about it and approach it is what are our standard processes and standard capabilities where we are not differentiating for our customers. How can we reuse and leverage as much as possible from a fewer set of solutions so that we were able to kind of take advantage of that integration also and again everything that we think about or do is from that customer perspective. So what are the areas where you need to differentiate for the customers as you get closer to the customer whether it is in terms of the omniscient fulfillment, other areas optimization is a great example where you really need that niche solution whether it is homegrown or you need to tap into any of the other best of breed providers to integrate that is how we look at it. So really try to keep it simple where it is standard and non-differentiating and then as you get closer to the customer where you can be really unique and differentiating look at that best of breed option only for that niche area is a good approach to kind of balance both worlds. Thank you Amit. So I guess in the interest of time we should be sharing our poll results now so Chan if you can help us with that. Awesome thank you. So we asked you what was the most interesting part of today's session and most of you say it was expanding your knowledge in supply chain technology and systems in general so that's awesome but you also highlighted understanding how technology can be used to respond disruptions and build resilience. So we are very happy that Amit brought so many details to the audience. I don't know if you want to add anything else on this poll results Amit? I think it's interesting yeah I think the technology and the knowledge expanding knowledge I think seems to be the theme which is great for the student as they can continue to go through the various four or five courses of the MicroMasters program yeah that's great. Awesome I don't know Kellan if we have time for one more questions or we can wrap it up. Yeah I think we can do one more brief question if you have one keyed up or I have one here too. What? So I have a question I think this ties into the you know discussion on Omni channel but maybe it extends it I'm not actually sure if you mentioned it or not but so it's Michael let has a question here on the idea of dropship I mean he's wondering if REI does dropship and then maybe if I just expand on his question a little bit what are the complexities that come in to play with dropship where you have that vendor you know the shipment coming straight from the vendor to the customer versus through the in your case REI network and where are some of the complexities that come into play with that particular channel. Yeah definitely yeah we do offer or rely on our dropship partners to provide that fulfillment so one of the key advantages is kind of the extended aisle and then offering a wider assortment to the customers than we can just based on our inventory investments within our own network so that definitely is an advantage and we do offer that to meet that customer demand. The complexity I would say is threefold so first if I just go back to our inventory availability concept getting that timely feed from all of these dropship partners is a challenge. They have different business models so not everyone is going to be able to have a dedicated pool of inventory reserved for you what they're trying to do is they have a pool of inventory and they're servicing several other retailers other brands and things like that so getting that timely feed and just the frequency is also a challenge I think the technology investments and the technology maturity of different partners is varying so not everybody will be able to do a near real-time integration and things like that so that's going to create latency which could affect the customer experience so I think the first and foremost challenge is in terms of the inventory. Second again I'll go back to the customer promise piece that I had mentioned each of these partners has different level of maturity in terms of even fulfillment or more than maturity when the options that they may have not everybody might be located where all of the carriers are serving right so based on the carriers what are the different service levels that the carriers are able to offer and that is going to have a direct impact on whether the customer gets the product in a timely manner and then to tie back to some of our earlier discussions around returns that creates a complexity now you had a dropship product so if the customers want to return it how is that going to be handled is it going back to the dropship partner is it coming to the store is it coming to your location so I think it is really that end-to-end value chain starting all the way from inventory the customer promise the fulfillment and returns I think each of the phases has its own unique challenges and then trying to do that with the same set of core systems that you have adds more complexity because you have different integrations different perspectives for your own network and own inventory versus the dropship inventory. Thank you thank you for that last one Kellen as well so all right we're coming up to the hour almost so I wanted to close this by thanking Amit for taking the time today we know you're super busy and you've been sharing your experience here and your knowledge and we truly appreciate it I know myself I learned a lot so I hope you in the audience did as well I mean I don't know if you won't have any final words you want to share with our audience we also have learners here from our micro master program any recommendation from someone jumping into supply chain technology or even jumping into supply chain you want to give us. I think thank you so much for having me today I really enjoyed the conversation hopefully it was helpful for our students and the audience members as well and I would love to stay connected with this community and participate in this program or other research wherever I can help so thank you so much all the best for all the students for their finals and the exams and thanks and have a wonderful day. Yeah thank you Amit I want to echo Lara's comments and say how much we appreciate you sharing your time and your knowledge with us today and I also want to thank our audience for participating in today's event in the polls and all the great questions in the Q&A there and we have way more than we had time to get to and we hope you enjoyed the discussion and have some great