So, I’ve been at this new gig for about a month now, and, man, I forgot how much goes into switching companies. New benefits to sign up for, new policies have to be read and signed off on, new products and processes to learn, and then trying to remember the names of exactly who does what.
I feel very sorry for that one person that reached out to me on day 1 as I have been hammering them with every question imaginable. (It just so happens to be the CEO, and I think he’s about had enough and has pawned me off on to someone else now).
Anyway, as part of my “orientation”, I’ve been making really good progress on learning the ins and outs of Kodaris’s product offering by watching videos, sitting in on demos, etc. This might seem like pretty standard stuff, BUT there’s a twist—and it’s one that I’m not sure I should be discussing, but it’s too good not to share.
Day 1: I was asked to come down to the corporate office in Atlanta my first week. I spent a good part of the week meeting with various folks, but then something happened on the first day that I don’t think they knew about. They gave me system access to all environments and drives. On the surface, sure, no big deal, you are now an employee and should have access to those things you will need as part of your job.
However, this is where it gets really interesting. Up until now, Kodaris has been an enigma in the distribution software space. Seems to do a lot, lots of water cooler talk and conjecture, but no one could say for certain all of what they had or where they were going. When doing the research on the company, all of my industry contacts, including analysts, friends and past colleagues at a couple of leading ERP companies out there could NOT give me a high degree of confidence that they knew who they were or what they had. I knew they were smaller, start-up (ish), and needed what I had—so I shot my shot.
Now, back to them granting me system access. Curiosity piqued, I started snooping around. After all, what are they going to do? Fire me after 1 week? I’ll just claim ignorance and move on.
After I got my bearings, I stumbled across some docs that I am sure were not meant for a newbie like me to see. Strategy, growth plans, A ROADMAP!, etc. Wow—the mother lode! Found the Keurig and pods, but not going to lie, got lost finding water AND finding my way back to where I was sitting. However, I was committed - I was going in, no turning back, I was in too deep.
After a quick scan of the hallway, I turned the light off in the office (OK huddle room next to the bathroom) they gave me, moved the white board to cover the peephole on the door and settled in. When you’ve been in the same industry your entire career and worked with so many distributors and software companies, you begin to formulate your own list of “why can’t somebody just build something that does this…” Well, guess what? I think Kodaris used some Jedi mind tricks on me to pull that list out of my head because I was floored by what they either had already or were planning.
It’s no secret that every ERP has limitations, and to get around some of those limitations usually results in 1 of 5 outcomes.
But what I found once I pulled the covers back is that is EXACTLY how and why Kodaris was built. With a massive anchor client, this client outlined a laundry list of business challenges and needs of which the team of engineers at Kodaris went to work to solve. The end result was the creation of an entire Platform comprised of a series of modules such as:
All of this in one solution? No way! Yes, way! But it gets better and more (way more) interesting...
Ready for this…? The platform runs on a complete set of all the major master and transactional files that exist within your ERP! Shut the front door! How the hell do they do that?
The platform is running on AWS, and they have built a series of processes that gets all of those files in near real time (we are talking seconds or minutes here) and puts them into a separate, customer specific (yes, the highest degree of protection, as it is isolated by customer) repository that allows them to extend just about EVERY facet of what the ERP can do.
Let me restate that in case you missed it—the platform can extend just about every facet of what the ERP can do without ANY mods or customs needed on the ERP itself!
Think about that for a minute—what if you could change your OE to do this or capture that, or maybe you want to utilize some pricing structure that the ERP can not support? Well, guess what? You can!
It took me a while, and trust me, I am still learning, but I can tell you for sure, that nothing like this is even close in terms of being commercially available in the market today.
The question I keep going back to is, why would a customer/distributor ever need to replatform only to pick up marginal operational and productivity improvements when they can just extend what they have already and GET EXACTLY what they need?
Kodaris did a great job operating with the cloak of darkness as to not reveal what they were working on, and now that I know, it’s for good reason. Since inception, they have been 100% focused on developing product—not selling hopes and dreams. This sh*t is legit, and now that I know, I am going to tell the world.
This all brings me back to one of my personal goals of leaving distribution in a better place than when I started. I can certainly say that the folks at Kodaris have already achieved this! But to continue my pursuit of this goal, one of the initiatives I’m taking on is to share more tips and insight with the distribution community by starting a blog series called “Brian-spiration” (OK, I know the name might sound cheesy, but the Marketing team suggested it, and I couldn’t pass it up.) The series will focus on innovation in the distribution space and how distributors can enhance their businesses via process and operational enhancements. All of the upcoming articles will focus on topics straight from my desk, ones that I believe will start conversation, spark ideas, and lead to innovation in the distribution industry. Here’s to new beginnings and a future of limitless possibilities!
