ISV Talks
ISV Talks
Streamline Your Supply Chain and Boost Profitability: NetStock and Ace Micro's Unique Approach to ERP Migrations and Inventory Management
On this episode of ISV Talks, Don Martin and Alayne "Laynie" Itzen Kohlman from Netstock, along with Mark Munson from ACE Micro, LLC, discuss their companies, ERP products, industry specializations, and the value Netstock brings to distribution customers. They also cover the migration from GP to BC/Cloud, current trends impacting distributors, and how ACE Micro, LLC leverages Microsoft AIM funded activities for free assessments and deployment services.
Unveil the competitive edge offered by NetStock's advanced features and predictive capabilities, especially in unpredictable situations like natural disasters. This episode highlights strategic approaches for maintaining supply chain resilience and customer satisfaction, such as the importance of safety stock and having multiple suppliers. Delve into practical steps for a seamless ERP migration, including data cleanup and tackling prerequisites, and learn about Microsoft's transitional licensing promotions that ease the financial burden of transitioning to Business Central. With transparent solutions and timely distribution, NetStock ensures businesses are prepared to meet customer demands with agility and precision.
COMPANY WEBSITE: www.netstock.com
Well, welcome to this episode of ISV Talks. I'm Carol Livingston, the owner of Dynamics Connections and your host of ISV Talks. On this episode, I have a team from Nutstock and also a partner with us from Ace Micro. So welcome guys. Hey Carol, hey Carol.
Speaker 2:Hey everyone.
Speaker 1:Thanks friends for joining. Could you go around, and let's just start with Don here. Introduce yourself. Tell us a little bit about how long you've been with the company, maybe how long you've been in the Dynamics space.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely, don Martin, senior Vice President of Partnerships and Channel here with NetStock. I joined NetStock around two years ago now and have been in the Dynamics channel off and on, but mostly on, for about 12 years. So excited to be here. Thanks for having us, carol.
Speaker 4:I'm Elaine or Lainey Coleman and I'm a channel account manager and I've been with NETSGOSH a little over a year and a half just about two years, and I have been in the Dynamics space since 1993. So a long time. I'll let you all do the math on that one I know right.
Speaker 1:It's been a while, All right and Mark.
Speaker 2:Yes, Mark Munson, president of Ace Micro. I've been with Ace for 14 years now and in the dynamic space for a little over 16 years. So happy to be on with you today, Carol.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thanks everyone for introducing yourselves, and let's start with just first of all. I know we've got actually kind of a unique format today because we have both an ISV and a partner, and we're going to talk about your relationship and your partnership, but can you each talk about how the company started? A little bit about the company history, Don. Why don't we start talking with you to talk about NetStock?
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely so. Netstock was founded about 14 years ago, based in South Africa. So our founders there were four main founders that started the organization and they all came from a very heavy logistics and supply chain background, worked for a few other organizations, sort of off and on together, but these four amigos sort of joined up forces and launched the NetStock product back in 2010. And all kind of I don't want to say divided and conquered, but they ran the company remotely. We're a fully remote organization, which is great, and one of our founders launched our Australian market. One of our founders is in the UK and supported our EMEA. The other one came to support our US operations as well. So what? Their main mission, if you were to really boil down what they were really trying to accomplish as founders and owners of this company was to allow small and medium-sized businesses to have the tools, the supply chain planning tools that the big guys had. So they formed NetStock and we've been off to the races ever since.
Speaker 1:Nice. Thank you for sharing that history of NetStock. Mark. Thanks for joining today. I know I work with you on the partner side, so I know you're one of our partners that I share about ISVs. So tell us a little bit about Ace Micro and your company history.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so Ace Micro in and of itself has been. We've been around for two years, but we acquired Ace Micro Technology around since 2002. And so as Ace Micro Technology, we were actually a Great Plains. This is where we date ourselves a little bit. We were Great Plains resellers back when Great Plains was still an independent company and Microsoft was not involved, and so once Microsoft bought Great Plains and brought it into the Microsoft fold, we became a again dating myself a Microsoft business solutions provider, an MBS partner, and have been such ever since. We've grown our presence in the Microsoft channel to include CRM, to include Business Central, getting into the Power Platform and Power Automate and Power BI and those types of things. So been around for a while and continue to grow and learn and to better support our clients.
Speaker 1:Awesome, so a longtime Microsoft Dynamics partner, so thank you, oh yeah. So I guess kind of the obvious question is what industries do you specialize in? I guess you already said John Dynamics is, or NetStock is, a specialist in distribution and supply chain.
Speaker 3:Distribution, manufacturing and supply chain Yep.
Speaker 1:Yep, yeah, mark, and what specialties do you have at ACE?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we, you know, back in the Great Plains days, great Plains was a very, very horizontal solution, so we supported a lot of different industries over the years. But when we looked at it a couple years ago when we really wanted to put a stake in the ground as far as an industry verticalization, we looked at our client base and it was probably a third distribution, a third light manufacturing and a third specialty retail. And so we looked at the market and said, okay, distribution is what we know, distribution is what we're passionate about. There's a lot of opportunity for us to come in and help distribution firms. So about two years ago we really really took a deep dive into distribution and some sub-verticals within that. We continue to support our other clients legacy clients on GP, but all kind of new business is VC and distribution specific.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I'd say that's pretty typical of the Dynamics Partners, the SMB space. Right it's a lot of distributors, small manufacturers, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:So yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:So tell us a little bit more about why is micros working with Nutstock Mark, and tell us a little bit about the relationship with Nutstock.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you know. So we had a couple of goals with the desire to kind of really focus in on distribution and to really provide transparency to clients and prospects when it came to our pricing and deployment timelines. We feel like that's kind of where the market's moving is. They're looking for partners that have, you know, strong, strong industry focus and I think they're looking for solutions providers that are very transparent as far as here's what my costs are going to be and here are my timelines. So when we started that journey a couple of years ago, we were also looking for partners to add on to core business central. You know, we obviously have our own IP, but we need additional IP to round out the solution.
Speaker 2:When it comes to distribution and when it came to demand planning and forecasting and the ability to kind of go above and beyond what Business Central offers, netstock was an obvious choice for us. So not only was it a great addition to our suite of solutions, as we call them, kind of the offerings above and beyond BC, netstock met that need from an industry perspective and then I worked with the team there to come up with some nice options where we could be fully transparent about what a, you know, adding NetStock to your VC solution would look like from a cost and timeline standpoint, and they they worked with us very, very closely. We have them listed on our website and promote them on our website, and so it's been a it's been a very, very nice partnership.
Speaker 1:And maybe you can all tell me a little bit about the synergies that you're finding between your organizations. So what are you working on together right now? Don do you want to start?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So again to Mark's point, when he and Ace Micro made that decision be full-blown BC and distribution focused, again there was real synergy, you know, with us and Mark, I don't know how many times I called you several times I'm sure to say, hey, we work together more because what you're doing is what we're doing, sort of the baseline of our ability to work on it Continue to again offer services and a solution to his SMB customers that are distribution customers, that just need better forecasting tools, that just need better supply and demand planning opportunities. A lot of our customers that we work with are trying to do what we do with Excel, which, when I joined NetStock several years ago, I thought how in the world is anybody doing this on an Excel spreadsheet? You got to be some sort of a wizard to be able to try to figure that out. So you know, there was just obvious, an obvious partnership there Mark and I have known each other for a long time as well so that there's an opportunity for him and his customers to take their supply chain planning totally to the next level.
Speaker 3:It doesn't cost a lot of money, it's easy to deploy and our two organizations working really well together kind of fit that needed as well, and I believe there's two projects on the books right now that we're working on, so early one in super early stages. But so we've got several customers right now that we're working through to. Unless you've got more Mark, that would be great.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I wanted to add to it because one of the things that I'm excited about is that, historically, as a Microsoft partner, the events that we go through are the typical Microsoft events.
Speaker 2:And one of the things that Don and I have been working on and I know they do and we're getting more and more involved in is really, you know, we still want to be involved in the Microsoft community, but we want to be involved in the distribution community, the distribution community, so joining organizations like WORM, joining organizations like the National Association of Wholesale Distributors, attending their conferences and looking at ways we can help them, but do it in the meetings that they go to. And so it was actually an event here in Atlanta, based out of Atlanta, don, and I'm walking through the floor just kind of seeing what's going on, because this is a new event for me, and I look around the corner and there's NetStock on the floor and I'm like, wow, hey, buddy. And so, yeah, it is so going to those types of events and getting the Microsoft message out there, getting the ACE message, the NetStock message out at their events not our events their events.
Speaker 2:I think is something I'm extremely excited about as well. I think is something I'm extremely excited about as well.
Speaker 4:From a relationship point of view, mark has just, you know, jumped in and worked with us and immediately, you know, did a webinar to make sure that our offering was shared with his customers. He's always willing to listen to what are, what are some other initiatives that we're doing, and so great partner to work with as well. Well, thank you.
Speaker 1:You're doing and so great partner to work with as well. Well, thank you, You're welcome. And how long has this relationship kind of? It sounds like it was more recent than the last year or so, or how long?
Speaker 3:you've been working together, yeah, I would say about a year. I think we've done three or four sort of joint initiatives, but the partnership is relatively new and that's one of the things that we really look like from an ISV perspective is engaging partners, partners that want to say, hey, that solution provides value to my customers, let's work together. And Mark's definitely taken the bull by the horns on that and has been open and available for several different initiatives. But yeah, it's still a relatively new net stock ACE relationship but growing fast and moving in the right direction for sure.
Speaker 4:And I think what helps too is Mark understands being focused in the same industry that we are. Mark really understands that net stock can take a company that is using an ERP for inventory control but take them to the next level with net stock, to more of the inventory optimization and inventory management. So it's one thing to know how many widgets you have and be able to say, yep, we've got that many, but be able to take that even further to say how many should we have, how do we forecast this, how do we order properly, et cetera, et cetera. So he understands the importance of that for his customers.
Speaker 1:Well, I guess you already covered this question, but do you want to answer it, Marcus? What does the value of net stock bring to distribution customers?
Speaker 2:Well, I talked about the value of net stock to ACE but to our customers specifically, you know, in distribution a lot of people don't realize that distribution runs on very, very tight margins. Okay, there's just not a lot of margin in their business. So being extremely efficient in what they do can mean the difference between profits and loss. Carrying too much inventory, carrying inventory too long, all of those things come into play. And so having total control of your inventory I mean inventory is cash play. And so having total control of your inventory, I mean inventory, is cash Okay. And if you've got total control of that inventory and you can increase, say, your turns of inventory on a regular basis, you're releasing cash back into the organization and you're increasing profitability.
Speaker 2:So having a complete and total understanding of existing inventory, as well as the demand planning and forecasting, you know, capabilities that NetStock brings to bear, allows my organizations, I think, to really have total control of that aspect of their business and increase the likelihood of having what the client needs when, but not too much, but not too much, and so it drives that success for them, it drives that profitability, and so for my clients it's an easy story for me to tell of the value that NetStock brings to bear when it comes to. You know all the things related to inventory, which is the circle of their. You know their world, you know it's important to us and support our clients.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so just a little change of direction here. I know Microsoft just recently announced the end of support for Dynamics GP.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is news, carol, Breaking news.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so what kind of reaction or feedback are you hearing from your customer base, mark?
Speaker 2:Well, it was expected, carol. I mean, the writing's been on the wall for a couple of years and we all kind of thought it was coming. We nobody really knew a date. We kind of we thought we knew a date. Microsoft, you know, always surprises us.
Speaker 2:So you know, I can speak for Ace Micro and say that we've been very, very transparent with our clients and we've been talking about this for several years and some clients have taken a little bit more seriously than others, like all clients do, and have made the move. Others are in the planning phases, others have done nothing, so we have the whole gambit out there. But I think the recent announcement that says September 2029 is end of life for GP, if it's done anything, it's again put that stake in the ground and said I have to do something, and so again, it's not a shock, I don't think, to the community. It may be a shot, a little bit of a shock to some clients out there on GP, but I think it's a positive thing because it's now going to and we'll talk about this a little bit more, I think is you know the resources and tools that are available to us to help these clients move along, and tools that are available to us to help these clients move along.
Speaker 1:It's part of the software lifecycle and we just have to kind of embrace it and plan for it and move forward. Yeah, so can you maybe discuss kind of what does that migration look like If I want to move from GP to the cloud or to Business Central, kind of what does that look like and what's kind of the right time to make that change? Do you think?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we use that. I'm going to put air quotes around migration, okay, because I want to set the tone here that this is not GP in the cloud, by any means. This is moving from GP to a new ERP system, a better ERP system. In my mind, nothing wrong with GP. Gp was wonderful in the 80s and the 90s and the 2000s. But technology has progressed tremendously and Microsoft's done a great job with rolling out Business Central.
Speaker 2:But there are things that you need to plan for in this migration and it's not something that just kind of happens overnight. So discussions need to be had with your partner as to what's involved in it, because there are a lot of happens overnight. So discussions need to be had with your partner as to what's involved in it, because there are a lot of things involved. It's an opportunity to not only replicate what you have in GP, in BC, but also look at this as an opportunity for some process improvement. And what are the things that we can do now? Quicker, better, faster, because the technology looking at something like a net stock is a logical discussion. What are you doing on inventory? Well, we have Excel spreadsheets and sticky notes. Okay, let's get rid of those. Great opportunity to do that. So it's really kind of a re-envisioning of the business and what you need and how can we handle that within BC and within some of the wonderful third parties that we have out there and available to us. But there is a very, very systematic process that we go through with our clients to kind of get them prepared so that they know at the end, you know, this is what it's going to look like and they can plan as to when it makes sense for them.
Speaker 2:As far as timing, carol, I like to say that and I did a presentation Don was actually at it a couple of weeks ago at the Directions North America Roadshow here in Atlanta I like to kind of tie it to what I call a spend event and a spend event being I'm on GP and I need to upgrade to a more current version because I can, and I'm paying my annual renewals because third-party ISVs are not supporting those older versions, because maybe I need also, maybe I need to do a software and infrastructure upgrade.
Speaker 2:So I got to spend money on hardware, I got to spend money on Windows server licensing, sql server licensing. So rather than spend money on that stuff, okay, why don't you save that money and spend it on the migration. Take those funds and apply it towards your future, versus putting Band-Aids and I see the Band-Aid in the back on Lainey's wall there. But stop putting Band-Aids on the past and let's take those dollars and apply it towards your future. And so that's what I mean by spend of it. Try to time it with that and the return on investment is much quicker, is what we've seen, carol.
Speaker 1:Yeah and Lainey. How about on the NetStock side? How has NetStock helped customers? Kind of make that move to Business Central.
Speaker 4:Yeah, carol, that's a. It's a great question and the good thing is, if you start, if you're already using NetStock and you're on GP, you can move to BC. It's you know change is scary. You can move to BC. It's you know change is scary. We don't want it to be scary. So you can move from the GP to BC. The information is taken, the historical information is taken along with it, so you can work with Mark, get everything in BC going and we still have that historical information within NetStock. So I mean, there are probably a lot of people that are like okay, I got to take a deep breath because this change is coming. There is a hard date that I'm looking at. We do not want it to be scary. It's an easy path. We'll have that information within our system.
Speaker 2:One lady makes a great point in that there's what we call prerequisite items that can be addressed, traditional implementations.
Speaker 2:A lot of times you can't do it. It's like, okay, I got to eat the whole elephant in one bite, but we know what's coming, and our ability to sit there and say, okay, we have solutions that work with both. If they work with both, why don't we? Whether it's your reporting solution, your inventory, your advanced forecasting solutions, whether it's data data cleanup because the data that you have in GP is not going to migrate over to BC or it's everybody has dirty data, there are three requisite items you can do. So the more you can do prior to the migration, the easier it's going to be during the migration and the easier it's going to be on your staff and the end users when we do that. So we're really recommending hey, you know if the more we can do up front, the easier this is going to be, and you're going to love me in the end and I think adoption plays into a next step on that Right, when that process is smooth and seamless.
Speaker 3:That BC adoption I would imagine would be much, much more advanced and much quicker and you know you start having evangelists internally. That start, you know, spreading the good word Right.
Speaker 4:Yep.
Speaker 1:Right, so yeah, so you could just start with GP. And if that's your pain point is inventory and just getting better inventory control, kind of maximizing your inventory.
Speaker 4:You don't need to wait until you're on BC. You can start resolving that solution or, you know, make those improvements as you're moving forward.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, yeah, I like how you said it's like eating an elephant, but if you can do it one bite at a time, it's a lot easier. So talk about the licensing side. Is there anything that they need to know about that move from GP and migrating to Business Central later on? Can they take their license with them? Do they get a credit? How does that work?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so Microsoft has been pretty good about working with existing clients that are current on their annual support. So you have to be current on your annual support and they have what are called transitional promos so you can actually take those dollars that you're paying, that you've been paying for your annual support for GP, and you go in, you buy into one of these transitional promos that gives you dual licensing rights. So for literally the same cost that you've always paid, you still have your GP over here, your GP licenses over here, your GP support from Microsoft if you need to escalate, but you've got BC licenses as well. And so it gives you the ability to, you know, set up an instance, spin up a sandbox, get in there and play a little bit allows us to, you know, and we leverage that.
Speaker 2:When we start, really start the migration processes, we do that in the sandbox. You continue to operate in GP, we build everything out and replicate the environment in the sandbox, we go through testing and validation and then we just switch. So the licensing is all there and there's a nice transitional path so that clients aren't sitting there going okay, well, I've got to cut this one off on this date and start this one up on that date. You don't have to worry about those things. Microsoft's got a good place and your partner should be able to guide you through that, how about the NetStock side?
Speaker 1:How does that work?
Speaker 3:on the licensing there's no difference between the GP license and the BC license when it comes to NetStock. Take the previous historical data and we can move it over to Business Central. We don't really charge by user for NetStock, so it's more based off of inventory value versus just number of users. We do have a more manufacturing-based integrated business planning product that is more on the user side of it, but our core product of inventory advisor is so that license just moves from the GP over to the BC tool set.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that sounds easy. Easy transition over to the BC tool set. Yeah, yep, that sounds easy, easy transition.
Speaker 2:Yeah, running the entire system, my technical team is going to watch this and be like it's not that easy. It's not that easy. It is you know?
Speaker 1:How does the client know that BC is not enough and now you need a nut stock solution to add on, because Central has some great features out of the box, I'm sure. And how do you know when that's not enough?
Speaker 2:Well, we go through a fair amount of discovery as we're going through this process, and whether it's a migration from GP to BC or whether it's a new client and that new prospect, there's a lot of discovery that we do prior. So I call it my playing 20 questions, but I'm really going to ask you 40 questions in our conversations to get an understanding of exactly what their needs are and where their pain points are. So we are fortunately pretty well versed in having those conversations. But at the same time, you know, we're firm believers in getting our partners in early and often.
Speaker 2:And so if we feel like, oh, okay, the client's right there at the cusp, you know and there's a couple of things that you know we need to clear up, you know, reaching out to Don and his team and Lani and her team and say, okay, let's have another call, another discovery call, dive into this a little bit deeper. You know we're all honest, we're all transparent. If it makes sense for them to step up to to net stock, we're going to make that recommendation. If it doesn't, we're not going to make that recommendation. Because clients are building trust with these, with these organizations, and we're we're trying to be trusted advisors. So we go through our due diligence before we make those recommendations and we make, I think, smart recommendations that when they see the dollars, the dollars make sense because the value is there dawn maybe you can talk about.
Speaker 1:you know what are some of the things you're seeing that kind of prompt people to say, oh, business Central's not enough, I need nut stock. What do you see as far as features and things that you can offer?
Speaker 3:Yeah, the disclaimer before this talk, because this topic comes up a lot. Obviously you know where does the ERP end and where does net stock begin and where's the value push from one the cost. What bin are they in? All of the sort of the core ERP or Business Central functionality doesn't really. It's way more rear view mirror facing than it is windshield facing, if that makes sense. That's probably the best way to analyze it and look at it when Business Central typically doesn't have.
Speaker 3:Now I know people are going to again watch this and be like, well, business Central can do this if you do. I understand all that right, but the 80-20 rule is inventory control versus inventory management and optimization are two very different things. Now we use all of the inventory control data to power NetStock, so we look at things like sales order history and purchase order history and stocking availability and things like that. But one of the other things that NetStock really prides itself with with our system is taking the risk analysis of suppliers too much inventory, not enough inventory and forecasting accurately. Mark mentioned that if you have too much or too little, that's usually not good either way, right.
Speaker 3:So, things like our excess redistribution module, which allows customers to sort of move product from one inventory warehouse to the other. Things like an opportunity engine, which is our round one, and we've got a round two release coming at the end of the month of our AI engine. That is sort of recommended actions for our customers. Hey, you're going to step into your. Hey, you're going to step into your office, you're going to sit down and look at net stock. What did I do today.
Speaker 3:There's probably a thousand things I could do, but what's the most top priority things that I should do? And that AI engine gives you the top four, five, 10 things that you say, hey, you've got too much here and you need to move it over here, or you've got a problem with this supplier and we need to find a new supplier. So it's all of the different intricacies, that when and it's funny because when Mark refers us a lead and they actually sit down with our team and look at the product, they go oh yeah, business Central does not do this right. So there's when you really start diving into the needs and requirements of customers. To Mark's point about discovery, that's when that glaring line of differences between inventory control and inventory management really, or inventory optimization, really come to light.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and I like to see the reactions when we show our classifications and how we approach the inventory items. Each item has a classification based on the value and the velocity of movement, and so we do that for every single item. It's refreshed daily per item so that you can see just where things are at and what can affect your company the most. So it's really interesting seeing that and having people's eyes open up to how many of their high cost items but slow movers are really tying up their cash. That's really interesting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and those things too also have impacts in other parts of the organization. So if you have a high velocity item that you're sticking in the back of the warehouse every time you do a pickpocket ship, you're running all the way to the back of the warehouse. Well, no, no, no, bring it to the front shelves. So now information coming out of a solution line next stock is going to have implications on your warehouse management solutions and where you actually put things and place things to expedite the whole pickpackship process. So all these systems feed each other and just drive. You know, I say an ERP system plus this, it's not one plus one is two, it's one plus one is three. You know, one plus one plus one is five. You get exponential benefit from putting these systems in place when they're so keyed in and so in tune with your industry. So that's the thing that we like about it as well.
Speaker 4:That's such a good point, mark. We tie in all of the different areas within a company so that they can have visibility on what each other is looking at and thinking about. Sales can understand what purchasing and what the inventory team is thinking about and they can just talk better and communicate better with their goals and achieving success all around.
Speaker 1:So you know, if they start with a GP system and then use net stock, how can they leverage, I guess, net stock to help pay for that migration or that implementation? Dawn, you know like, is there saving and production costs? Are they going to gain more efficiency? Can they saving and production costs? Are they going to gain more efficiency? Can they move around their staff to more value-added positions or just even free up?
Speaker 2:some capital. I want to hear this because I want Don and them to pay for my implementation. So this is perfect. Go Don.
Speaker 3:The answer to all of that is yes, carol, that's exactly right. So one of the biggest things that we see out of our customers at the end of their implementation and when they go live and they really start adopting and implementing NetStock to make their business decisions around their inventory is that reduction in inventory cost. Typically we see 10 to 20% year one. We have a business central customer of ours, av Aquatics. They've been a longstanding customer of ours. They were actually a NAV to BC move client of ours from years ago and they do like underwater electronic components for like big manufacturing facilities but waterproof components, tons of SKUs.
Speaker 3:They were managing all of this on spreadsheets and they had two major cost-saving benefits. One was the reduction of inventory, which I believe they reduced it by about a million dollars in the first year. So if you had an inventory cost cut of a million dollars, that well pays for any migration migration as Mark calls it, not a migration. But also they also saw a major improvement in fill rate. I think they went from about a 79% fill rate, which is the ability to take the order and be able to process it, to about a 99%. So they had a 20% increase in a million dollar reduction. So you've got better.
Speaker 3:You know Lainey mentioned the multi-department touches that NetStock has. You know CFO wants to spend less sales, wants to sell more and you got to have product to sell more but you don't want to overstock your warehouse, right? So you've got this sort of connected ecosystem inside of these organizations that we work with. So you've got a 20% fill rate increase. You've got a million dollar in reductions. There's a lot of things organizations can do when that's click and write yeah, that's a good story, yeah.
Speaker 1:I know so just to kind of change gears here, but can you talk about how NetStock could help in those scenarios where there's maybe, you know natural disasters or there's a strike going on the dock workers Like? Can you talk about some of those current trends and how NetStock has?
Speaker 4:helped. I can take that one so we can look at things like using the excess redistribution feature, where it will look at your different warehouses and see where there might be stock that isn't moving in one warehouse but another one is already stocked out or coming upon that, and, using our AI tool, it'll identify that and it will let you know. We saw there's either an order that you're about to place or that you need to place, or we see that there's inventory that needs to be moved, and you can use that for one example. The other thing is, with our, we have a pretty hefty algorithm to figure out safety stock and making sure that you're ordering at the right time and you know being able to calculate some of that. So you have that safety stock that can at least help you in those times of whether there's a strike or there's a weather issue, where that it affects your shipping. So that's just a couple of examples, don. Are there any others?
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, I think one of the overarching messages that we really are trying to inflict inside of our channel and with our partners and with our Microsoft customers is and I talked about the windshield versus the rear view but it's really the ability to be as predictive as possible in this supply chain mess. I don't want to use the word hurricane because that's probably too close to what's going on right now, but that supply chain mess that it can be right, whether it's weather or tankers hitting bridges or longshoremen going on strike, whatever it is right and there's always going to be something. It's never a seamless chain, unfortunately, but it's the ability to be predictive in what's going on and being able to be adaptable enough to make changes very, very quickly with that supply chain as things get disrupted.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I'll add real quick, if I can, that we preach and I think a lot of companies learn very, very valuable lessons during COVID. Need for supply chain redundancy? Okay, I need to have. I can't just have one vendor that provides my widgets. I may need to have three, based on all kinds of different variables that come up.
Speaker 2:So the ability to sit there and establish multiple suppliers for, maybe single products, multiple products, whatever the case may be, and then to accurately manage them, order from them when it's appropriate, stop orders and order from the second one when it's appropriate, these are all things that come into play for distribution companies well, all companies, but specifically distribution companies and the ability to manage that inventory and plan for that inventory, and not just plan what I'm ordering, but who am I ordering it from? I mean, sometimes it's just as important because I can order it from vendor A and I won't get it for six months. Well, that doesn't help me right now. So we've got to be. And these are all the types of things that we try to address for our clients. I think we bring a competitive advantage to our clients because they have that intelligence and that flexibility.
Speaker 1:Yep, okay. So I guess, just in conclusion, is there kind of one trend overall that you're seeing that's driving customers to come talk to you. So maybe Mark, I'll start with you, and then maybe Don or Lainey you could also answer that for Nutstock.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think some of these I touched on. I think for us, the industry focus, I mean we've always been a very, very customer-centric type organization, no matter who our clients are. But the fact that we have the industry focus that we bring to bear these days, I think, drives customers to us. The known cost OK. And to me the bigger thing is accelerated time to value, ok. So they're signing up for these, these systems. They're signing up for these, these services and these solutions. And you know, gone are the days where two years later, you might see something. You know that those days are gone and people don't have the patience for it, so they need so our ability to provide real, really quick time to value. I spend money with you but a few months later, guess what? I already have things that I'm using and that are bettering our organization, and I think that's something that both organizations strive for is being able to provide that time, that accelerated time to value.
Speaker 3:Yep and Mark, you mentioned this earlier too, but your transparency as well, I think, is another big difference with who we are and what we do and what we do best, and this is where you're going to get the value from us as a partner, right.
Speaker 4:Right. You know it's interesting when Mark was talking about the customer service that he provides. I think what I'm hearing from a lot of our customers that are coming to us is they're realizing more and more that their customers have choices and if they're not able to fulfill an order, if they're not able to provide them with what they need, they're going to move on to someone who can. So, having something like this system to be able to say my fill rates are high, I can provide that highest customer service to my customers, so they're not looking out for someone else who they can buy from. That's driving a lot of people to really look at how they're doing their inventory and fulfilling orders, right.
Speaker 1:So well. Thank you for joining today's episode of ISV Talks. I appreciate the partnership with both Ace Micro and Nutstock, so that was really fun. Thank you for that today's episode of ISV Talks. I appreciate the partnership with both Ace Micro and NetStock, so that was really fun. Thank you for that, guys.
Speaker 4:Thanks for having us, Carol yes.
Speaker 1:So if you want to reach out and contact NetStock, how do they do that?
Speaker 4:Well, you can send me an email. This is Elaine and my email address is Elaineainecolman at netstockco. So A-L-A-Y-N-E dot K-O-H-L-M-A-N at N-E-T-S-T-O-C-K dot C-O. You can also reach out to me by phone, 701-371-4222. And certainly look up more information about NetStock on our website, netstockcom. So any of those ways you can get a hold of us. I'm happy to help.
Speaker 1:All right. Well, thank you guys for joining today our episode of ISV Talks, and we'll see you guys next time, on the next episode of ISV Talks. Bye friends.
Speaker 3:Thanks Carol, thanks Mark, thanks everyone.