Shownotes
The Fall retail conference season is officially underway, with NRF Paris having just wrapped and Groceryshop, Shoptalk Fall, NACS, and many others just weeks away. Omni Talk figured what better way to get ready for the upcoming season than to put together our primer of the must-see tech that has caught our attention this year.
This episode features Portager’s section of our Fall Conference Season “Must-See” Tech Preview, where Daniel Duty, Conlego, CEO & Founder of Portager, and Alex Kopplin, Conlego, Principal and Architect of Portager, explore how technology can streamline merchant negotiations and joint business planning.
With merchandising teams managing hundreds or even thousands of vendor relationships, spreadsheets, emails and disconnected data can make negotiations unnecessarily difficult. Daniel and Alex explain how Portager creates a centralized view of retailer and supplier data, incorporates built-in data checks and can be deployed quickly without complex internal integrations, helping merchandising teams spend less time managing information and more time on vendor negotiations.
Be sure to check out the rest of our podcasts this past week and the next few to catch exclusive content from some of the biggest retail conferences!
We can’t think of a better way to get a bird's eye view into the tech shaping the retail of tomorrow, today!
P.S. To explore more conversations from the Omni Talk Ask an Expert Series, head here.
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Transcripts
Foreigning us to discuss all of this, we've got the CEO and founder of Conlego who are the creators of Portager.
Speaker A:That's Daniel Duty and Alex Coplin, principal at Con Lego and the architect of Portuga.
Speaker A:Welcome to the podcast, Daniel and Alex.
Speaker B:Thank you.
Speaker B:It's great to be here.
Speaker C:Thank you both.
Speaker A:Alex Gorn, you are the man who's the architect of this.
Speaker A:I'm going to start with you really basically to level set for everybody.
Speaker A:What please is Portager?
Speaker C:You know, Ben, Portager is a SaaS platform that we built for retailers and it really entails two separate products that we'll talk about.
Speaker C:So there is Portager category and Portager joint business planning with Portager category.
Speaker C:Best way to think about it is it is your category reset organization machine.
Speaker C:It runs the category reset process from vendor proposals, analysis, negotiations all the way through deal sheets.
Speaker C:And it helps merchants make more efficient use of the process.
Speaker A:Alex, that's really interesting.
Speaker A:Just, just help us understand when he says the guide for that process, how much is your tool automating and how much is the merchant still involved to make those practical decisions?
Speaker C:So what our tool really facilitates is the opportunity for the merchants to negotiate effectively with the vendors.
Speaker C:The merchants are still in charge of picking their assortment.
Speaker C:They're still in charge.
Speaker C:They know their product best, they know their category the best.
Speaker C:So they are still making those decisions.
Speaker C:What we're helping them do is negotiate their best assortment.
Speaker C:And that's what Portager category facilitates.
Speaker D:So Daniel, I got to ask you because I think I've known you now, I don't want to date either one of us, but I should did the math in my head.
Speaker D:I've known you for 21 years.
Speaker D:You know, 21 years almost to the date, probably potentially, but 21 years.
Speaker D:So.
Speaker D:And you've been, you've been in, you've been, you've got a lot of experience in negotiations, particularly with retailers.
Speaker D:But why did you think and you've been a consultant with Con Lego for a while, why did you think this opportunity was so big that you went and created a SaaS solution around it?
Speaker B:Thanks, Chris.
Speaker B:I remember when you were 12 and we first started working together.
Speaker B:But you know, I've been negotiating in the retail ecosystem for 35 years.
Speaker B:Maybe what I've seen over those years is that the process of negotiating for vendors and merchants is particularly just hard and burdensome.
Speaker B:There's a lot of analysis that that's done and you think about a merchant at a retailer, they are negotiating with hundreds, if not thousands vendors on an annual basis.
Speaker B:It's just a lot to keep track of.
Speaker B:It's a lot of discussions to have.
Speaker B:It's a lot of analysis that gets lost back and forth in emails.
Speaker B:And we said to ourselves, there's got to be a solution to just make this easier, more efficient, more effective.
Speaker B:And that was the birth of Portager to say, how do we make the process of negotiating between merchant and vendor effective and quite frankly, more powerful with more insights?
Speaker B:And that's where AI has come into the tool as an opportunity to use that technology to enhance outcomes in the negotiation process.
Speaker A:Daniel, I haven't had the privilege of knowing you for a couple of decades like Chris has.
Speaker A:So for anyone watching, unlike myself, can you just give a bit more on the background of your organization and why you're the right team to bring this particular, particular product to market?
Speaker B:Yeah, we, we basically started our philosophy of, of negotiation at Target Corporation many years ago, where I was asked to come in and build what we called the Business Partnerships and Negotiations team.
Speaker B:And that team acted as consultants and coaches to the merchants in their negotiations.
Speaker B:So helping them develop the right process, the right messaging, the right storytelling, the right analysis.
Speaker B:And through those efforts, what we were able to do is upskill merchants tremendously in the art and science of negotiation and produce, quite frankly, billions of dollars in new savings, value and new partnerships.
Speaker B:The team at Con Lego is made up of many of those same types of merchants that were on the team at Target.
Speaker B:So we are not traditional consultants by, we are industry experts.
Speaker B:We have worked in companies.
Speaker B:I actually started at General Mills on the vendor side.
Speaker B:And so we have a unique insight into what merchants, and quite frankly, sales teams at CPG companies need and require to be successful.
Speaker B:We have worked and seen other consulting companies in this space, but I think the difference is, is we just understand retail in a different way.
Speaker B:We have been in the shoes of, of merchants.
Speaker B:We understand their pain, and so we can provide solutions that actually work for them.
Speaker B:So that's one piece.
Speaker B:The second piece is that we're not the big PowerPoint guys from consulting.
Speaker B:We are the ones that say we're going to roll up our sleeves and get in the trenches with you.
Speaker B:And so we're sitting with you in the negotiation, we're coaching you, we're mentoring you.
Speaker B:And so it's a different type of approach that has allowed our clients to be successful because we take that time to be that personal coach, to be in the trenches with them, so to speak.
Speaker D:Okay, amen to that.
Speaker D:And I can tell you I Can tell you firsthand, having been, you know, having worked with you for a number of years at Target and then followed you closely, you know, since you founded.
Speaker D:How long.
Speaker D:How long you been doing con Lego too?
Speaker D:The consulting side of it, Daniel?
Speaker B:Yeah, we're almost approaching 12 years now.
Speaker B:So we've had a good run.
Speaker D:Yeah, 12 years.
Speaker D:12 Years of doing this.
Speaker D:Then, you know, as a consultant, you know, and understanding the process by which you go through, you know, it's something I would wholeheartedly endorse.
Speaker D:So now I gotta ask the question, you know, with that.
Speaker D:With that said, Alex, I want to know, I want to dive into this thing, like, how does it really work?
Speaker D:What is all entailed?
Speaker D:What can you convey to our webinar audience and our podcast listeners who are listening later on how this idea actually works and how easy it is to implement?
Speaker C:Yeah, for implementation, it's easier than any of our clients are going to believe, and they've heard it all with SaaS platforms on implementation.
Speaker C:But the fastest that we've been set up at a client is two weeks from zero to go.
Speaker C:So it really is an implementation that we've built based on our consulting practices.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:When Daniel talks about our experience, we have thousands of negotiations under our experience across the country that we've done with retailers all over the US and so we distilled that into one of the most important pieces to be an effective negotiation.
Speaker C:So when we start Portager, we get proposals from vendors.
Speaker C:Portager makes a baseline out of all those proposals.
Speaker C:So it's really easy for the merchants to compare apples to apples.
Speaker C:If you think about spreadsheet proposals.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:It really depends on the skill of the merchant.
Speaker C:If they're able to successfully analyze those, we take that discretion away and that work away, put it into Portager to create that really simple baseline comparison.
Speaker C:The tool allows merchants to interact with the proposals through AI, ask questions, get insight and analysis to it.
Speaker C:If the merchant then has a meeting with the supplier and says, hey, we're going to increase our funding because of X, Y or Z, the vendor then submits another proposal through Portager.
Speaker C:Portager validates.
Speaker C:Yep, they increased their funding.
Speaker C:This is exactly what happened.
Speaker C:It's what you needed.
Speaker C:And it goes all the way through to deal sheet.
Speaker C:So merchant can finalize their assortment, send out the deal sheets, and we're off to the races.
Speaker A:Alex, I think when we spoken before, you've talked about.
Speaker A:Also, it's one thing getting the deal over the line.
Speaker A:You then kick into JBP.
Speaker A:And I've been involved in so many JBPs.
Speaker A:So the hardest thing is making sure that both sides do what they've committed to doing.
Speaker A:So how does Portuger help solve that problem in retail?
Speaker C:Yeah, you know, the problem that we see with jbp, and we say this all the time, is that both sides have a plan.
Speaker C:But the problem is, is that it's a different plan.
Speaker C:And so what we do in Portager JBP is we build that plan together collaboratively.
Speaker C:Once we have that plan, Portager JBP flips the switch and goes into in season management.
Speaker C:And so it helps both teams understand how are we tracking against the plan?
Speaker C:Are we meeting the marks that we wanted to hit?
Speaker C:Are we hitting the sales building blocks that we built to get to the plan?
Speaker C:Are we ahead behind?
Speaker C:What adjustments do we need to make?
Speaker C:Because what we see is that if a JBP is just a plan that gets shoved in a drawer and then pulled out once a year and renegotiated, it doesn't actually provide any value.
Speaker C:So with Portager jbp, we are in the plan all the time with vendors and retailers ensuring that we're tracking against what we thought we were going to do in the plan.
Speaker A:So Alex, I'm going to ask you.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Let's get into a little bit of the detail.
Speaker A:If you're tracking the progress of JBPs and investment from both sides, then the system is going to be exposed, or need to be exposed to some pretty sensitive commercial details.
Speaker A:How, how does the system protect that and protect all the different parties in a negotiation?
Speaker C:Yeah, and it's a really important part of how we built Fortager to ensure that we're protecting our clients safety and security.
Speaker C:So we have a number of checks and balances within the system without going into technical detail.
Speaker C:You know, we have a tenancy program that allows us to ensure that only one client can see that client's information and only the vendors allowed by the client can see that client's information.
Speaker C:So it's a lot of permissioning that makes sure that only the right people see the right things.
Speaker C:But one of the great things about the platform is that once a retailer and a vendor are in it, they see the same things for jvp.
Speaker C:And that transparency is amazing.
Speaker C:I mean, vendors love the transparency that we have in Portager JBP because they're not guessing anymore.
Speaker C:They're actually seeing what the retailer is seeing.
Speaker D:And it's a lot safer way, when you think about it, than just transmitting spreadsheets back and forth via email, which is how this is traditionally gets done.
Speaker D:Done, you know, having done.
Speaker C:Absolutely.
Speaker D:And, and probably sent more than one incorrect JVP to the wrong veteran in my career.
Speaker D:I have no idea if I did, but chances are it probably happened.
Speaker D:So, Daniel, you know, to those, to those points and those questions Ben was asking, can you share us a client case study of someone that went through this process with you and, and talk our audience through that, what that looks like?
Speaker B:Yeah, we.
Speaker B:So we've been using Portager at a number of retailers across the country, both pretty small regional retailers as well as national retailers.
Speaker B:But the story or the that I'll share with you is about one of our clients, our current client named Sprouts.
Speaker B:And many of you may know Sprouts as a large growing grocery chain in the natural sector.
Speaker B:They came to us because as they were growing, as more and more vendors were coming to them, but as pressure started to mount on profitability and cost, they needed a solution that could allow a fairly small merchandising team to negotiate effectively and efficiently with so many vendors.
Speaker B:And we thought Portager was the answer to that because, you know, Portager really cuts down the amount of time that a merchant has to spend analyzing and negotiating because the AI piece of it in particular does a lot of the work for them.
Speaker B:In the analysis, it actually would tell a merchant if they asked it where they should push back with a particular vendor in what areas of funding.
Speaker B:So the, the merchant gets a very quick, within seconds picture of what they need to do.
Speaker B:Unlike the big retailers that you and I came from, Chris, like Target, where there was a merchant on every desk or every category had a merchant, at most retailers, a single merchant has several categories.
Speaker B:And so with that amount of responsibility, they have decided in many cases just not to negotiate at all.
Speaker B:And so they just take whatever proposals come in.
Speaker B:Sprouts needed a different way to do that.
Speaker B:What they were afraid of was that their history with technology systems meant it was going to take months, if not years to connect Portager to their in house systems.
Speaker B:And when we told them that actually there was no connection that was required at all, they kind of jumped for joy and that we could actually implement this within the two weeks that Alex talked about.
Speaker B:So as you know, when, when retailers make a decision to do something, they want to go and they want to go fast.
Speaker B:And so Portager, by the way we built that allows us to just implement really fast.
Speaker B:The second piece though was it's one thing to have a SaaS platform at your desk, but can you use it effectively and so what we've done at Sprouts is to say for the first year of using Portager, let's say we're going to still work with you side by side and kind of teach you how to use it in the most effective way so that a buyer can stand on their own sustainably for the long term and do it on their own.
Speaker B:And that has played out for us at Sprouts in particular.
Speaker B:The impact of Portager has been.
Speaker B:Obviously, I can't share the confidential savings numbers, but let's just say it's been very large and they are very happy with the results that they are getting, not just in the dollar savings, but in the number of categories they can actually touch and have meaningful conversations with people.
Speaker B:Because before so much of it just went untouched.
Speaker B:And so the tool has just brought about a new capability, a new ability to engage and quite frankly collaborate with their vendors on better outcomes because they're all sharing the same information.
Speaker B:It's an easy to use tool.
Speaker B:There's not this back and forth of what we calculated as 150 emails per transition and hours and hours and hours of analytics.
Speaker B:And so it's a game changer for them and they're very excited about where it's going.
Speaker D:Yeah, that's a, that was really interesting to me because actually, as we were talking beforehand too, I didn't even realize that this can live exogenously outside of the existing systems.
Speaker D:That's how you guys have set it up and built it.
Speaker D:So it is really easy to use, knowing what I know about it and have seen it.
Speaker D:So that's a really key point.
Speaker D:The other thing I want to ask you, Daniel, before we let you go, is the point you made about the small, the smaller retailers not having the time and just having to accept the negotiated deals that get put on there, put on, you know, put across their desk.
Speaker D:Yeah, that same thing happens with the bigger retailers too.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker D: Because of the: Speaker D:Right, that's happening as well.
Speaker D:So there's a lot of leakage, so to speak, that's happening from, you know, the, the big guys just not being able to look at every item that they want to look at.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And that, that provides vendors with a real power advantage in negotiation.
Speaker B:Because if you think about it, a single vendor is calling on a single retailer, but that merchant is, is also talking to hundreds, if not thousands of other vendors.
Speaker B:So the vendor has the, the time advantage of preparing for that one negotiation with a retailer to, while the buyer has to prepare for hundreds of Negotiations.
Speaker B:What Portager does is it starts to rebalance the power between vendor and retailer.
Speaker B:Not in a way that is to be used to say, you know, I'm going to crush the vendor in this negotiation because I have a lot more information.
Speaker B:But it's to say like, hey, now we're on an equal footing as it comes to information and analysis.
Speaker B:And so we can have a more robust discussion and try to create more value versus one side just trying to take more value from the other side.
Speaker D:And correct me if I'm wrong, too, Daniel, but the way I understood the solution, too, is it'll also help call, for lack of a better word, BS on some of the things that the merchants see that come across the negotiating table that you don't have time to dig into or you have no idea if the rationale is right, like, oh, the price of resin went up 15% this year or something.
Speaker D:That's part of this too, right?
Speaker B:Yeah, in a couple of ways.
Speaker B:First of all, there's the AI component where you could check on things like has the price of resin actually gone up in the way that you said?
Speaker B:But before a vendor can submit the proposal through Portager, they get to see exactly what the buyer is going to see.
Speaker B:And so I kind of asked them in a second check, are you sure you're going to grow sales by 200% next year?
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Because that doesn't seem to be logical.
Speaker B:And so there's that automatic check before they can even send the proposal.
Speaker B:And then the buyer, when they get the proposal, will have a very simple graph that says vendor A believes they're going to grow their sales by 100%.
Speaker B:And here's how they think they're going to do that.
Speaker B:And a lot of it is because they're going to introduce 20 new items, which you know you're never going to take.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And so is just a really easy, instant way to see what's going on here.
Speaker A:So, Daniel, let's.
Speaker A:Let's wrap this up.
Speaker A:But before we, before you go, when you add all of this together and everything that you've seen for the average retailer, how big do you think the opportunity to better negotiate using AI is?
Speaker B:I think it's a very, very large opportunity.
Speaker B:If I think about the number of negotiations that happen across retail in a given year, we are probably talking tens of thousands, if not more actual negotiations.
Speaker B:If you have a tool that allows you to run those negotiations much more effectively or do your joint business planning much more effectively, the opportunity in either value creation for the vendor or for the retailer, I should say, and even the vendor is huge.
Speaker B:And we're talking hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions of dollars in opportunity that could be gained if we're to bring much more effective negotiations, process tools, joint business planning to the table.
Speaker B:And in a time where inflation is high, costs are rising, the ability to do that becomes even just much more important.
Speaker A:Yeah, it's never been so critical to do that.
Speaker A:Daniel.
Speaker A:Thank you.
Speaker A:Alex, if anybody watching or listening wants to get in touch with you and the team, how do they go about doing that?
Speaker C:Easy.
Speaker C:It's alexandlego.com we answer all questions that come our way about Forger, and we're happy to jump in with anyone about those discussions.
Speaker A:Alex, Daniel, thank you so much.
Speaker D:Great stuff.
Speaker B:Thank you guys for the opportunity.
Speaker C:Thank you both.
Speaker A:All right.
Speaker A:And Chris, you are the ex merchant in the team.
Speaker A:You spent a lot more time on the trading floor than I did.
Speaker A:What are you.
Speaker A:Were you listening to that?
Speaker A:Thinking, I would love that.
Speaker A:Were you buying that?
Speaker A:Would that have made your life better?
Speaker D:Oh, dude, I was loving that you were, too.
Speaker D:I know you were.
Speaker D:I know you were.
Speaker D:Based on your question of being across the JVP table.
Speaker D:No, I mean, I don't do this very often because, in fact, I try not to say.
Speaker D:I try not to endorse, you know, different technologies or different solutions providers, but these guys know their stuff, and I can say that personally.
Speaker D:And like, the best testament I can give you is when all of the X, all the X Target employees go and they find their roots at another company, they're the first person they call because they know what they're doing and the idea works that well.
Speaker D:It's just so smart.
Speaker D:They've been around the block and it's, it's a great example, Ben, of, you know, why I created omnitalk, which was to put people that really know what they're talking about front and center and to have the operators who have been in the trenches be the ones that get talked about and, and, and get shined upon.
Speaker D:And so that's, that's what I think the value is here.
Speaker D:Because the value, if you, if you take their steps that they're talking about to improve your negotiations, you will undoubtedly find money that just floats to the bottom line.
Speaker A:And that's one of the things I love, built on the conversation that we just had with Corso, which is how do you use AI to look at, process things that are repeated to simplify and then save tens of millions of dollars?
Speaker A:And I think that's fascinating.
Speaker A:Look, I've spent a lot of time with CPGs, and tracking JBPs is really hard.
Speaker A:So coming to the table with a common view of the truth, I think will add a lot of value into those conversations.
Speaker A:Fascinating stuff.