Intro:   

What happens when workplace design, technology, and innovation collide? In today's episode, we're stepping into the future of the contract interiors industry by rethinking how organizations experience space, technology, and performance. If you've been wondering how innovation is actually being implemented, not just discussed, this conversation is for you.

Sponsor:

We'd like to thank our presenting sponsors, Avanto, services and software that streamline how you operate and the Collaborative Network, a platform where leaders in the contract interiors industry unite.

Avanto Ad:

Is your team overloaded? Avanto helps teams save time and money by using AI to handle daily work from order management and AP processing to task handling without adding headcount. It works inside the tools you already use, with no new dashboards to manage. Go to goavanto.com to see how we can run your daily operations.

Sid:

Welcome back or welcome to the Trend Report, your inside look at the people, products, and ideas shaping the future of workplace design. I'm your host, Sid Meadows, and I'm glad that you've joined me for today's conversation with my guest, Matt Danyliw, the President of Avanto, and Leonardo Vargas, the Chief Innovation Officer of Avanto. Welcome, Matt and Leo. How are you guys today?

Matt:

Doing great. Thanks for having us on, Sid.

Sid: 

Well, I'm glad to have you here. And before we dive into some of the topic, I would like for both of you to just take a moment and introduce yourself. So, Matt, tell us a little briefly who you are. You've been on the show before. We'll talk about that in a second, too. But who are you? And just tell us just a little bit about yourself.

Matt: 

Sounds good. By the way, I can't believe that was five years ago. But uh my name's Matt Danyliw. I'm the president and co-founder for Avanto. And I've been in the industry, the furniture industry for over 25 years. Started as a consultant as a CPA to a dealership, became the CFO, COO, and now the owner and president of Avanto. Focus mostly on operational solutioning around systems of record and culture regarding processes and implementing and operating successful high-performing processes within this industry.

Sid: 

Okay, that's great. We're gonna dive into some of that. So, Leo, tell us a little bit about yourself, please.

Leo: 

Thank you. Uh yeah, I've been in the IT industry for over 20 years. I started my career as a software engineer two decades ago. I created my own business uh almost 15 years ago. My previous business, Agile Dream Team, then we migrated to Agentic Dream. Recently we were acquired by Avanto, and now my position here is as uh Chief Innovation Officer.

From Buzzwords To Operational Execution

Sid: 

Well, I'm excited to have both of you here to dive into a little bit about what is Avanto, who are you guys, what are you doing today? But I'd also like to just take a moment and just say thank you because you guys are a presenting gold sponsor of the podcast. So I really appreciate you being here. I appreciate your support of what we're doing. You know, so this show would not be possible without the support of our sponsor. So we appreciate you being one of our two presenting gold sponsors. So, you know, we talk a lot in the industry about innovation, we talk about workplace transformation, we talk a lot about the future of work. Well, today we really want to move beyond some of those buzzwords into more execution and exploring what innovation looks like when it's operationalized inside of organizations. I know that Avanto has had great success with over 100 different customers in our industry, and I really want to unpack what it takes to integrate this technology and ways that it can help deliver measurable value and help to shift what manufacturers, dealers, and reps, how they're navigating kind of what's going on in our industry. So I want to dive in a little bit to go back to who is Avanto. Some of you might remember, if you've been a longtime listener of the show, that Matt was on the show way back in 2021, which would have been season two, because we started in 2020, and uh it was episode number 55. If you want to go listen to me and Matt Ramble from five years ago, we'll be sure to drop the link to that episode down in the show notes. But I'm sure a lot has changed in the past few years, Matt. Technology evolves on a daily basis, so do technology businesses. So let's start out with, in the simplest terms, who is Avanto?

Matt:

What do you do? A lot has changed and a lot has stayed the same. So really what Avanto's core objective stays the same. We started trying to move this industry forward in both process and technology, and we're still doing that. I think what has changed is that we're now in the intersection of the built workplace, technology, and data, all supporting action and getting things done. And with that, we are participating in moving the industry forward. And so one of the things that has obviously changed is we acquired Leo's company, and he is now a partner and our chief innovation officer for Avanto, and it changes our ability to take quicker, more meaningful partner position with our customers as well as the industry.

Sid: 

Okay, so I want to explore that just a minute, and Leo, I'll come to you. What is it that your company that you sold to Avanto, what did you bring into the mix that's going to help move the industry forward?

The Problems Avanto Solves

Leo: 

I mean, uh, other than experience, you know, as I mentioned before, we've been in business, personally been in business for over 20 years. I think we are uh forward thinkers. We are coming with uh with uh a new way of working, especially in in processes and and AI-driven tools and and experiences. I think we're trying to shift a a way of uh how Avanto was working and and bringing not just only the people, you know, people is important, but processes and mentality. This is this is uh one of the the things that we want to change for Avanto and in the industry in general.

Sid: 

Okay. So let's talk about what is it that the problems that you're solving for the manufacturers and the dealers you're working for. Because that I think will help everybody understand exactly what as a tech company that you do. So if you had to, Matt, say these are the three problems we solve for our manufacturers or our dealers, what would those problems be?

Matt: 

Absolutely. So I'm gonna start with, though, sort of broadening the ecosystem that we interact with. So, yes, we work with manufacturers and dealers very closely, and we're solving a lot of challenges that they have. But we also now work with end users. So enterprise level, global end users, connecting that to the industry. We work with manufacturer rep groups, and we work with installers and move partners with various stakeholders. So our ecosystem is growing in a meaningful way. High level, why does that matter? So we help all the stakeholders, so everybody I just mentioned, better manage risk based on faster and better collaboration, faster and better information, and then understanding the realities of the industry. So some of the most powerful things that I think Leo brings is his understanding of solutions that have been adopted by other industries. And that's very important. But the reality of the current state of the industry needs to be understood to be able to get to a future state. And so we're bringing enterprise-level, globally relevant solutions to an industry that has largely been stuck in the 1980s and 90s. And that transition and leapfrog from current state to a meaningful future state needs to be managed and road mapped in a meaningful way, understanding the current state, in my opinion. And so we're able to reduce risk, reduce cost, and increase efficiencies for our customers. So if I had to put three things out on the table of what we do generically across the industry, those would be those three things. When you dig into the detail at a stakeholder level, those solutions may look different.

Sid: 

Sure. So thank you for that explanation. And the three that you just said were reduce risk, reduce cost, and what was the third one?

Matt: 

And increase efficiencies.

Sid: 

Increase efficiency.

Matt: 

Okay.

End User Visibility And Asset Tracking

Sid: 

Well, I mean, I think everybody is always looking for ways to be more efficient in what they do. And when you're dealing with data and that transference of data from one system to another system, from the dealer to the manufacturer or the manufacturer back to the dealer, making sure nothing's lost in translation. Because in our world, one letter change of a part number changes the entire look and feel. You know, you might change an R to a G, and rather than get red leather, you just got green leather. I mean, it's that simplistic in our industry. So I know you're involved a little bit in that process. But I want to go backwards for a minute about the ecosystem of the people. So manufacturer, dealer, rep groups, installation, and end user. So let's start with the end user. What are the services that you're offering to the end users?

Matt: 

So this has been an interesting journey, said being relevant to end users. So we are a fully capable enterprise level solution for the interiors industry around facility management and asset tracking. So we can participate in simple things like developing a marketplace around a standard that can automate directly through to a manufacturer, through a dealer, or other stakeholders that can bring an immediate update and confidence that the product is correct, the pricing is correct, and that they know where the order is at all times, rather than having multiple people have to touch and communicate that. Now, that's a big deal for one location and one solution provider. But when you have multi-location, multi-continent global footprint, multiple stakeholders, it becomes even a bigger deal. And when you're dealing with ADA issues, with potential litigious situations where you're trying to get people back to work as fast as possible, it matters how fast you can get that order in and that you know it's happening and it's done correctly. And when there's a problem, why did that problem happen? Evaluate it, solution, and move forward. Does that make sense?

Sid: 

It does, absolutely. And so I want to just correlate it to experience in my career. So there was a time in my career I was a global account manager and a director of global accounts at Hayworth. And I dealt with this very thing with a particular end user where we were working on projects literally around the world, and real estate in the US would want to know what was happening with the project in Hong Kong. And sometimes gathering that information took days. And so now basically what I'm hearing you say is you take all that information, the end user I'm simplifying, has a dashboard, if you will. They can see where the product is, what's been ordered, when it was ordered, if the ship date's been applied, now a ship date's been applied. So basically, you're creating a ton of transparency and clarity around the project status, which is equally as important. And you honestly sound like to me simplifying the communication. Did I reframe that in the right way?

Matt: 

You absolutely Sid, while respecting the current stakeholders, right? So all the people I talked about, rep groups, dealerships, and the manufacturer, respecting the current business practices, right? We're not coming in to try and destroy and become a competitor with this ecosystem. Correct. We are becoming an enabler and a facilitator for that ecosystem.

Sid:

Yep.

Matt:

And it's been very interesting being relevant at the global stage and bumping up against some uh enterprise level systems and solutions where we are collaboratively working with them versus competing with them because this is a major pain point for our customers. And rather than trying to fight with current either stakeholders or other established solutions, based on what Leo has created, we're able to work with them, not against them.

AI-Run Workflows With Humans In Loop

Sid: 

That's great. And so, Leo, I want to come to you for a second because you come from outside of the industry, and there are a lot of thought leaders in our industry that talk about how our industry will be transformed by process, not by product, and that there is a lot for us to learn from outside of the industry. So I'm curious if somebody that's only been around this crazy ecosystem of furniture for a few months, what have you seen as some of the bigger challenges that Avanto can help address?

Leo: 

I mean, these challenges are very common in manufacturing. I've been dealing with manufacturing, the manufacturing industry before, not specifically in the interior design, but there are some similarities. You know, one of them is the resistance of change. I guess this is this is one of the big ones. But uh middle managers, they always have, you know, uh, this is where we see the friction, most of the friction they don't want to adapt into new tools, into new processes. But you know, the fragmentation of the of the ecosystem is also is also a big part of it. That's why I think what we're doing here in Avanto is is very meaningful because uh we are trying to create an end-to-end end-to-end solution from from clients uh from and and and users or or or and clients to manufacturers going through the whole channel, right? But in terms of of the hardest part, I guess is is the uh adoption of of new way of working and and the friction of adapting new technologies and not only new tools, but uh intelligent tools or intelligent systems such as AI and and such. So Matt, go ahead.

Matt: 

Wow, I did. Very perceptive. I've been very impressed with Leo's team in bringing the assessment process to our solutioning and the weight that they give to culture as being just as important as technology maturity within a client or lack thereof. And it's been a very impactful concept to me when I look back on things that we've been successful at and things that we haven't been successful at, and how much our lack of understanding of the current culture of the organization we're working with has impacted the result. And so Leo and his team, along with all the other enterprise level solutions they've brought to the to the table, have that which is almost as important to this. And that's where the human aspect doesn't go away when you start talking about technology.

Sid: 

Yep. So as an industry, we are somewhat resistant to change. Not in the workplace necessarily, but uh we also, yeah, we don't really adapt to new technologies very well either. We are fast innovators as an industry because we innovate new products for our customers to buy that are going to change the way that they work or change the workplace. But man, we are slow to adapting new things because it's kind of like that old comfortable shoe, right? It just fits really well the way we've been doing things over and over again. But there's always room for improvement. And I'm excited to learn more about the things you guys are looking to improve. Technology will certainly move our industry forward if we can adapt it, right? And get it out there. So, Matt, when you think about an area that you're really focused on earlier, you talked about process or operational. Like, is that the first area that you're trying to really focus on to help to grow or change? Or what area is it that you're trying to focus on?

Matt: 

Yeah, so our entire focus right now is on the outcome. Uh, it is the result of the technology being used. So as we go into a more futuristic state where AI becomes more of the pilot than the co-pilot in some of these processes, we are looking more at the process and the transaction that's being executed by the technology versus what platform or what system of record is being used. So it's less important to us regarding where the data is coming from. It's more important of what we're trying to accomplish with that data.

Sid: 

Understood. Yeah, absolutely it does. But can you give me like a either one of you give me an example of like a process that you've helped, operational process you've helped improve without violating any confidentiality? Like tell us something that you've done.

Matt:

I won't give you any, yeah, I won't give you any names, but we've connected the selection and procurement process at an employee and user level all the way through inventory and asset tracking and tracking performance. So everything from I want this chair to the caster just broke and I need a replacement is all through the entire chain now automatable and managed with humans in the loop where most of the action is being taken by an agent and not the human. So the human is observing it and triaging any pain points and any concerns based on you know parameters, guardrails of the process. And so we are able to take a facility management experience from human-heavy and burdensome and costly to a very efficient experience for all stakeholders. And what I didn't realize is how big of a pain point that is outside of our little, and I'm gonna call it that, little ecosystem of dealers, manufacturers, and installers is once you expand that out to the end user, you really understand where those disparate systems and processes start affecting people that are just trying to get a chair.

Sid: 

Sure.

Matt: 

And to them, it's just furniture. To us, it's not just furniture, right? It it is our livelihood, it is our passion, it is what we try to do every day. But there's that missing connectivity to the end user that we're we're solving for. Hopefully that gave you an example. I can give you many more.

Sid:

No, but I want to clarify what I heard. You say, so I'm a Fortune 100 customer. I'm working with you guys. I need three new chairs at my office in Miami. I can go into whether whether I'm a facility manager in Houston, Texas, or a facility manager in Miami, I can go into the system and say, I need three new chairs for accounting. That then alerts the dealer of record that says, Hey, we need three new chairs, which then the dealer would send work with their manufacturer to get the appropriate pricing, whatever, standards, all the standards are there. So the process becomes a lot shorter, faster. And then as the order gets processed, then the dealer gets a copy of the purchase order, the rep knows that the order has been placed, the factory's gotten their purchase order from the dealer. So you're really simplifying it regardless of where I am as a facility manager. And then once the product's installed, I know that it's been installed, and then I can track it from there. Is that a simplified version of what you said, Matt?

Helping Smaller Dealers And Rep Groups

Matt: 

It is. And then if there's a warranty, it can be additionally. The cast a break contract all their. Yep, and and it's it's a full end-to-end. So it was a good it was a good simplification. The way that that happens and the number of touches that are required, let's just say it was 50 before, it could be two now. Because as long as it's staged and fits that profile, and then the the people involved in that chain of operation can now focus on relationships, can focus on making sure it's correct. You know, other why didn't it get there? Why is it taking three weeks versus two weeks? So you can focus on more value-added tasks.

Sid: 

Yep. So I see the opportunity obviously from an enterprise perspective with a major Fortune 100, 500, with the major brands who have programs to support their global accounts worldwide and you have customers doing business worldwide. But how do some of these principles apply to the smaller office furniture dealers, the ones that are underlined, that are working more in a regional marketplace or the smaller manufacturers? How does Avanto benefit them? And that might be a loaded question, by the way.

Matt: 

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Size doesn't really matter in what we're Bring to the table. Really, at the end of the day, what can be frustrating as a starting point of this conversation is that often a lot of the same tasks and the same focus is required for one chair, just as much as for a floor of furniture. Now, that's obviously not 100% true. You have different people involved, but in general, you have order entry, you have pricing, you have all these different things that need to happen. So whether it's complex in a small scale or complex at a large scale, it's still complex. And so we can start the journey of stabilizing and normalizing some of the data that drives this. And so we can work with a very custom system of record, or we can work with an enterprise-level global system of record. And when I say system of record, I mean ERP, CRM, you know, those types of platforms. And so we've always, you know, these are some of the things that don't change. One of the things is this is a relatively small industry, and you have a lot of different players, different pocketbooks, and we're making this affordable and relevant to the whole spectrum.

Sid: 

Okay.

Matt: 

So we can, based on knowing that, right? We're not coming into this thinking that, you know, a steel case, an HI, and a Miller Knoll, Hayworth, I'll mention them all, Technion. Um, yeah, keep it. Yeah, exactly. You know, is the same as an open line, you know, that just started five years ago or is looking to start up. We're relevant to both or all of those situations, as well as to dealers are considered. In fact, sometimes we are more relevant to the smaller uh stakeholders than we are to the larger because larger stakeholders have bigger infrastructure and more resources and are already on this journey. We can partner with some of these smaller stakeholders, dealers, manufacturers, rep groups that are a good example. Rep groups are relatively simple compared to what a dealer does, yet we're very relevant to rep groups because there's still the same complexity, there's still the same silos, and there's still the same risk. You price something wrong or you spec something wrong, you have that risk. And wherever you are on that chain. So I think we're very relevant to all the different size and complexity of the industry.

The Action Layer Versus Status Tools

Sponsor: 

We'd like to thank our supporting silver sponsors, KISP, who helps furniture brands visualize and sell products before specification. Navitas Credit Corp. Navitas makes great workspaces affordable, turning furniture projects into easy monthly payments. Web Configurator Services, the leader in AI-powered online product configuration and quoting.

Sid: 

We have a lot of smaller dealers, unaligned dealers. We have a lot of independent reps that listen to the show. I'm curious, Leo, if I'm an independent rep, tell me a little bit about what it is that you do for my business. How can you help my business?

Leo: 

Yeah, I mean, uh I want to first clarify the layer where we exist. Oh, yeah, please. We live in the layer where the action is being taken. We don't live in the in the layer of statuses records. We live in the action in the action layer. And this is one of the main reasons why I joined Avanto because I think this is a perfect industry and a perfect sample to bring AI to bring and execute actions. Historically, we've been a service provider company where we are taking the same actions for rep groups, for dealers, for the whole ecosystem. And we were utilizing tools to help the actions being taken, right? Now we are going into the layer where the action is actually happened and enabling uh AI and human in the loop as a service. We can take different actions from the rep group perspective, right? We can help them, you know, with the normalization of the data sent to manufacturers. We can help them with the with the quotes, you know, especially in in the exceptions or the edge cases, right? Where the edge case needs needs to be analyzed by by AI, the edge case needs to be that typically today takes many, many uh human hours, and and that a tool cannot do it, right? A tool is just is just a glorified database, right? Or the glorified spreadsheet. So we are actually helping getting the results getting done, right? For for specific now for this example, for for the retrops, quotes, fields, and helping them with the you know communicating and and orchestrating between the whole ecosystem and also supporting and clients if if that's uh specific for dealers that they want, they have a program they want to support. So we can support with our uh actions uh at the end user layer, the rep book layer, the dealer layer, and and manufacturer layer.

Sid:

Okay, so I want to go just a little bit deeper to make sure I understand. I'm an independent rep. I get an email from a dealer that says, Hey, here's a bid package. I need your alternates and pricing, lead time, blah, blah, blah for this project. What is it that Avanto helps me do?

Matt: 

So when we're talking to rep groups or working with rep groups, we are doing a couple of primary things. So, in your example, we can evaluate the email coming in. And this is technology doing this, right? It can it can pull that email in and then it can stage the request and potential solutions for the rep or the designer at the rep or whoever else internally. It can even go out and find potential alternates and pricing within my ecosystem, right?

Sid: 

Within my ecosystem of what I offer as products. Okay, keep going.

Matt: 

Yep. Stage that for someone to review it versus having to create all of those things from scratch. And so if you look at that process as 100% end-to-end, we might be able to take over 80% of it and facilitate staging things for people to review. Yep. And that 80% could turn into 81%, 82% over time. But to give you a practical example at for at the rep group area, standard uh service that we do for them, which will only get better with the technology that Leo is working on, is capturing orders, acknowledgments, and orders, identifying the salesperson that's attributed to it, and calculating commissions.

A Rep Group Email Example

Sid: 

And verifying the commission that the factory assigned to it is the right commission based on your agreement and all that kind of stuff, right? Okay, so this is fantastic. So thank you for going so deep and practical with me because I know it helps me understand, and I certainly know that it's gonna help the listeners understand. So I'm an independent rep. I'm out on the road all day, which is what I do. I'm driving around eight hours. If you're in TFW, you know how I mean you can only make three appointments in an eight-hour day in Dallas. But my email box is filling up, and I got this request for this information. The example I gave you is a quote. I got the request for what are the COM requirements of this chair, what's the warranty of this chair, what's my discount. So utilizing an AI tool, it can read my emails, it can go gather the information based on the data that I put in there, which is the data from my manufacturers that I represent. It'll gather all that information, it'll draft a response, however, we you guys build it with that rep, and then it sits it in the out box, if you will, of the draft box of the email of that rep, who then can go in and review what was requested, review quickly what the response was, and then hit the send button.

Matt: 

That's accurate. It is. Where I like to caution throwing out specific examples like that is sometimes people get pigeonholed into that thought process of that's how it has to work, right? So one of what I consider to be part of the great things that Leo is creating is that we are headless from the perspective of there's a lot of competition out there now, which is exciting for everybody, meaning there are solutions that are being developed by many different different participants of either the industry or external people coming in the industry and whatnot. So when you say all the things that you just said, if a if a rep group is already using an AI solution to analyze outlook or whatever system you're using for email, we can work with that solution. So we are not, we don't have to own the whole footprint of that workflow. We can work with other solutions, we can work with multiple systems of record, i.e. CRM, ERP, and we and we can then facilitate the action that Leo is talking about. And part of I, you know, everything we're talking about today took me six months to wrap my head around, right? And so this is a paradigm shift of how you look at some of these solutions. And so it's worth another conversation if you're interested in understanding how we can play a part in that whole process.

Sid: 

Got it. And my objective is not to pigeonhole either one of you. My objective is to bring clarity to the conversation so that the people listening can go, oh, they could do that for me. What else can they do? Or I'm already, which I doubt anybody is actually using an AI to analyze their outlook, but that's another conversation. But oh, I'm doing that, but they can help me with this part of it. So, because I think the more that we can at a very basic level understand the power of technology, the more we will be open to a conversation about how can technology can benefit me and my business because we get scared of it. We get scared of technology.

Working With Existing Tools And Systems

Matt: 

So we recently had a webinar, which was our first webinar we ever had. We were very excited. Congratulations. And we'll have we'll have some more. And there was a question on that webinar where I thought it was a great question. And it was hey, our system already does an automation. Why would we need your platform? Right. And so what we we have a lot of conversation around well, I have a CRM that already does an automated notification, and why would I need to automate this process? Well, that's part of the journey of understanding what Leo's talking about when he says we're in the layer of action. He's not talking about automating an email so that you can go do something else. He's talking about resolving the issue and the question in that email so that you can review the result that they're asking for, so you don't have to do all of those actions. Yep. Right? So a CRM that bolted an automation workflow engine or an AI chatbot is not what we're talking about here. We are talking about taking actual action around pricing and other tasks and resolving them with a human in the loop to review it.

Leo: 

Yeah, I want to expand something here. This is this is more of uh uh what is happening in all of the industries, not only in the in the uh foreign share and and commercial interior industry. And this is why so many companies are hesitating about AI solutions as of right now. They are considering it, but they are uh uh still thinking about or wrapping up their heads into what exactly it is. And and this is the this is the uh the first thing that we need to understand here is the difference between intelligence and tools. And we've been for over hundreds and hundreds of years solving things with tools, but utilizing humans to do the action, right? And this is the the the the paradigm shift that we are seeing right now, where AI can take the action and it's not just a tool. I've seen a lot of uh AI SaaS enabled uh systems out there that they are and they claim to be AI enabled, but what they are shipping is is they're shipping just a two AI a yeah, AI wrapper or AI uh enabled tool, but not actually taking the action. And this is this is the hardest part that people are not understanding now what's the difference between a fully AI autonomous operation versus using AI tools to do the same operations, and and we are seated in the autonomous operations uh system rather than AI enabled tools.

Sid: 

Okay, I I understand that. And I think the thing that I like about what you have both said consistently is a human in the middle. So you're not advocating, hey, bring in an AI and they're gonna do everything for me, and I'm not gonna need to hire somebody or like that. You're saying, which is what every AI person I have talked to this season, which we've talked to a lot of them, and we've got a lot more coming, there needs to be a human in the middle to review the data, what's going out the door. But it does sound like whether I'm a dealer, we focused a lot on the independent rep, but whether I'm a dealer or an independent rep, you're gonna give me tools, action tools that are gonna help simplify, speed up the processes, use my data to make sure there's more accurate information out there. And you're giving me, honestly, it sounds like you're giving me an assistant to help me do a lot of things.

Matt: 

Yeah, what I'm mostly excited about is so everything you just said is accurate. We are creating something that can be used with your current tools that you use. So you're you're not looking at a rip and replace here. You're not looking at a six-month, eight-month training session and re-evaluation of your processes, right? We do an assessment, we understand the pain point, we work with your current tools, could be a competitor of ours, right? Like even. And we help you do more. And you can look at it as an assistant, you can look at it as a facilitator, however, you want to look at it. We customize because all these technologies that we're talking about allow us to bring better experiences to our end users in complex transactions.

Sid: 

So simplifying again, just again, do this for me, Matt. You know that I'm always asking, like trying to clarify this. So if I'm a rep and I'm using rep fabric and my dealer is a Steelcase dealer, and they're using Headberg, and then you've got a bridge that allows those things to talk together, right? So that there's no transference of data and that example of the missed missing letter at the end or the changing the letter at the end of the you know, the code of the product to change it. So you you're a bridge there between those software. So whatever I'm using, you can help bridge the two together in order to move things forward.

Matt: 

Yes, but I would I would just nuance uh a change to that is that we can help them talk together if that's the action you're looking for. Sure, right? So there could be scenarios where they're perfectly fine not talking and you're just looking to take action based on the combined information of the output of those two systems.

Sid: 

So this all starts literally with the assessment that Leo and his team will do about your business, where the pain points are in your business, then you guys review it and make, hey, these are the things that we feel like we can help you with. And then here's the structure of how we would do it. So you know, again, you don't have to layer in and oh, one of the options is not necessarily you got to replace all your software and come all the way over to Avanto, right?

Matt: 

Yeah, there's I've always said that the industry basically operates the same across all stakeholders, 85 to 80 to 90 percent, right? And there's that last 10 to 15 percent percentages, maybe off a bit, but you know, there's there's a commonality in the processes that happen. And so we're focusing on both. Before it was less on the whole thing, we were only focusing on either the the the special part or the or the standard part. Now we have the competence, the staff, the awareness, and the capabilities to focus on the whole piece. So we're building tools that are standard experiences that are just typical across the industry. And then we're we're able to bring enterprise level based on your direction, your secret sauce. And we're able to put that in action.

Strata Explained As A System Of Action

Sid: 

Love it. Okay. So you mentioned a webinar and you did a webinar recently, and you learned a lot from that webinar, which is great. We should be learning every day, right? So that webinar was about your new product called Strata. So, what is Strata? Leo, you want to give us your definition of Strata, and then we'll let Matt give his definition. See if you guys compare. We can compare notes.

Leo:

Yeah, Strata is an AI-driven system of action, as I previously said, that contains uh multiple layers. One of the main layers is the AI knowledge base. This is where your operations, your guardrails, your procedures, rubber chain uh live. Then we have the agentic skills. This is where, you know, like the specifics of of uh how an agent uh tackles a specific workflow. And then we have the agentic layer, which is the actual action taken by by our agents. Then we have the human expert in the loop, you know. We like to say that uh since AI is not 100% perfect, and and and and we call it experts because it's actually aunteers or or people's uh people in the company that uh with many, many years of experience in the in the industry that they they can they can leverage their existing expertise to uh accommodate these edge cases, right? Like when the AI is uh having a flow or or just doesn't know what to do in in certain really deep, hard to to tackle uh cases, so we we immediately automatically assign an expert. Because that's the thing, like uh strata is again is a system of action. So we we want to be able to to tackle the operational actions, regardless if it's with the agents or with humans. We want things to happen and put the manufacturer to keep doing what they're good at, the dealers doing what they are good at, and removing all of the complexity from from the ecosystem. Okay, that's great.

Sid: 

Matt, what would you would you add anything to that?

Matt: 

I really wouldn't. Nothing, nothing of uh intelligence, Leo's the man.

Where Leaders Should Start With AI

Sid: 

That's great. So, I mean, I talk to a lot of leaders, a lot of manufacturing leaders, specifically small businesses, so let talk to a lot of small business dealer leaders, and they're all asking questions of how do I use AI? Where does AI fit in my business, right? And what can I use AI for? And I know that's probably like opening a can of worms, but if you were talking to a small business leader outside of an assessment that you've mentioned, where would you tell them to start? Where would you tell them to look to use AI to help move their business forward?

Matt: 

So I would have two different messages. One is you're starting from the wrong place. You need to look at what are you trying to accomplish first. So rather than saying, where can I use AI? It's what are you trying to accomplish to make your strategy and your goal come to fruition? And if it's whatever that is, that's where your starting point of the answer, in my opinion. The second question I would ask, or the second thing I would say is, what are you doing now from the perspective of are you at square zero, square one, or have you done anything? Meaning, ask your employees, how do they use it? Are you being curious about what kind of tools are out there and just starting, just starting is the most important. Start using ChatGPT, start using Claude. Yep. And understand how your team's mates are using it, and start the conversation. Have a dedicated meeting, had a team meeting about what is what are you using AI for in your personal life and what are you using it in professional life. And if those things have started, then you're at least not a square zero and you're on that journey. But most importantly, no one can tell you how you can use AI if you don't know what you're trying to accomplish, right? And that's where you start.

Sid: 

Leo, would you add anything?

Leo: 

Yeah, I want to add here something. Again, same thing, operational clarity. That's that's that's the that's the main thing here. Operational clarity. We've seen reports that are scaring some of the tech leaders in the industry, like the MIT recent or recently a couple of months ago, saying that 80 or 90 percent of AI initiatives fail. And it's because of the same thing, you know. First, because you are thinking about tools versus operational autonomy, and you and you are trying to bring AI into the wrong place, right? You first you need to analyze uh where exactly, what's my pain point. And and if you don't have operational clarity into your existing manual workflow, AI is not gonna do anything for you.

The Next Three To Five Years

Sid: 

That's a great that's a great ad. It really is, because you just It's just like putting a band-aid on something, right? That doesn't even need a band-aid. So but as an industry, we have so much to explore. This is still new. This is only what three years old. And so our heads are still spinning about what this thing is, this thing AI, which is why we talk about it so much. I'm trying to bring different perspectives from different people, you know, what what their thoughts are on it, how can people use it? Because we have a lot to learn about it. But I do think that people need to be have open-minded to be willing to explore what AI tools can be used in my business and how can they benefit my business? How can they make us more efficient? How can they let us get our customer issues taken care of faster, get our quotes done faster, whatever it might be? But more importantly, how can it make us more profitable? I think there's so much to explore. Again, we're three years into this thing. And so if there's one thing that I have learned in my 30 plus years of selling office furniture where it relates to technology, what it is today, tomorrow is going to look a lot different. So we have to embrace technology and look at you know what's coming. So that's my last question for both of you. So Leah, we'll start with you and then we'll wrap up with Matt. What's one thing that you're most excited about from a tech AI perspective, maybe in the next three to five years?

Leo:

I'm really excited about the fact that the next generation of companies and and I think industries that were way behind, they'd even that they didn't even pass through digital transformation, they're gonna have a leap rock into an AI native operation. So where you know the full operation is gonna happen through agents and not just as a tool. I mean I I really don't like the word AI tools because it's it's actually a for operational autonomous layer. And this is the next generation, this is where I believe the next generation of companies, especially the ones that couldn't transform during digital transformation, they are gonna go all full to AI native operations and bring in AI to solve all of the complexity inside their their system. Okay, that's pretty exciting.

Sid: 

Matt, what would you say? How would you answer that question?

Matt: 

So I would say I'm most I'm gonna answer it from the perspective of where we're going and where we are. And so in the next, I I guess I'm most excited about the fact that I've never worked with a technologist like Leo who has the curiosity of the why and then getting to the how of creating a solution, which creates a relationship at our leadership level that is collaborative and objective driven versus contentious between operations and technology, which can often happen.

Sid: 

Yeah, you got to get everybody on the same page and everybody talking together, right? So, gentlemen, this has been a fascinating conversation. And honestly, I feel like we're just like scraping the surface here of all the different things that we could talk about because it is so important. And if our community would like to get in touch with you to continue this conversation with you directly, what's the best way for them to do that, Matt?

How To Connect And Closing

Matt: 

Just uh reach out to me uh on LinkedIn directly or send an email to sales at goavanto.com and we'll connect you with the right people.

Leo: 

Awesome. Leo, how can our community get in touch with you? Uh yeah, LinkedIn. Uh I like to post mostly posting daily on these new new things and and good uh operational autonomy and and and all of that. So LinkedIn is the best place.

Sid: 

We will be sure to drop all of that information, your LinkedIn profiles, email addresses, website addresses, into the show notes. So if you'd like to reach out to either one of them, that's the easiest way to find that information. Gentlemen, I can't thank you enough for being here today and sharing all of your insights with us.

Sponsor:

We'd like to thank our community bronze sponsors, Catalyst Consulting Group, RESEAT, and Staffing Plus.

Outro:

And to those of you listening, I hope that you got a lot of amazing value out of today's conversation. I appreciate you joining us on the Trin report. Your inside look at the people, products, and ideas shaping the future of workplace design. Go out there and make today great, and we will see you in the next episode. Take care, everyone.