Building Digital Solutions for 12 Different Brands in Manufacturing with Kevin Creese at Wastequip

And then we offer a part solution, which has recently been branded through our wastebuilt.com website. So we got started in this space based on the overall need for trying to help our customers figure out where they find parts. Overall, whenever you are looking at parts in the waste industry, it was very difficult to find where parts exist.

In fact, I remember the first time I started asking questions like how is it that people actually identify replacement parts for our products, I was handed a book with over 1000 pages, so I had to look through this. And when a person dropped it on the counter, my water flipped over. And I had to grab it real quick and try to keep it from getting damaged because it’s their lifeblood. And I'm like, man, these guys are working so hard to try to find these types of parts.

But then, as we started looking at our competitors and different websites, it became pretty clear to us that there's just a lot of opportunity where we can make this overall experience for how you do business in the waste industry better.

Daphna Andrews: Awesome. I'm sure that person's daily job got probably a lot better.

Kevin Creese: Well, of course. Today, we've got tools that make finding parts easier across the board. No matter if they're experts in the field and know exactly what they're looking for, or maybe they're on an Easter egg hunt, like, “hey, I have this one little piece that's broken”, and a person has to look through blown apart assembly drawing to figure out exactly what that widget is called, so then they can order another placement piece. And those are some of the types of solutions we put in place just to make the overall experience better.

Daphna Andrews: Right. I imagine that's actually especially impactful if you have a large truck that is going through neighborhoods, with safety being a big concern, the ability to find a part quickly and replace it effectively and safely is a huge part of your business.

Kevin Creese: Oh, yeah, Wastebuilt takes pride in ensuring that we get parts to our customers as quickly as possible. We can go nationwide within three days. Our customers can't afford downtime, they've got trucks that need to be on the road, they need to be collecting weights from all of our different types of customers and keeping our streets clean.

So we try to make sure that we've got parts available across the US to get to our customers quickly, and that they can search for our parts where they need to, rather than just eight to five. Our website offers a 24/7 sales channel where they can do the research that they need, when they need it, and on whatever platform they want. With the Oro platform, we can build wonderful mobile, tablet, and desktop experiences. And they're all bundled into the tools that we use.

Daphna Andrews: Awesome. Since you've implemented that digital channel, have you seen any additional benefits or challenges that came up? As you digitalize, you're uncovering a lot of processes that maybe weren't the most efficient, so I'm curious to hear what other benefits you experienced.

Kevin Creese: There have been all kinds of opportunities for both internal and external growth.

Internally, we go through a process of trying to get a website rebranded onto a different web platform, so you have to go through the pain points of what they currently have. We had gone through the process of actually merging our parts business with Wastebuilt, taking those two businesses together and then using our product information system Salsify to help us with that.

Having an information management tool has made this process a lot easier. It's helped us get over a lot of the internal hurdles that we've had, it allowed us to establish workflows where we can collect images, go through and get product dimensions, and packaging dimensions, we can identify or even outsource the creation of marketing copy, and manage it all through one centralized tool. Having tools, like Salsify, in place, has been extremely helpful for us to overcome some of our internal battles.

I just remembered the other story, where we had 24 different item numbers that said “Spring.” That's all, just “Spring.”

So I had to hire different people to pull products off the shelves and work with the purchasing team and our suppliers to identify what are the selling features around this “Spring” product are and how do I differentiate this “Spring” from that “Spring”, and make sure that we're telling a really concise story that helps our customers make informed and accurate decisions.

Our overall goal for our customers is to make sure that they're empowered to work with us quickly and easily. We don't want them to have to return a product, we know they have no time for that. So we're making every effort from an ecommerce perspective to give them not only just the product specifications, but images, and even blown-apart drawings of complex assemblies to make sure they get the right parts, so they can move forward with their business.

Daphna Andrews: And as you mentioned, that's all available also on mobile. So if you have somebody out in the field, they're able to pull that up and see that on their phone as well, correct?

Kevin Creese: You bet. Our mobile experience is just as good as our desktop experience. In fact, we've taken a lot of time to ensure that no matter what device they're on, even if they're underneath the truck on a tablet, trying to pull different parts out, they can look up this model number and order.

The only way we can start doing that is starting from the bottom up–to have images of every part. And then you can start building that into little sub-assemblies and join other assemblies. And so we're continuously working to try to build out almost like a reverse bill of materials for the products that we're going to sell on our website. And through that reverse engineering, if you will, give our customers interactive experiences that help them find the products.

Daphna Andrews: You're talking about people that are creating these product descriptions, or creating different specifications, do you see a real opportunity for generative AI to be a facilitator or a time saver for your organization to help with that?

Kevin Creese: It’s something that I've seen. And there are certain pieces of AI that we're currently using to help tell our story. We have different internal models that we use to help us figure out how to get some of our metadata populated for our different product lines of product categories and things of that nature.

Augmented technology helps us even with the identification of different images. We're making the effort to invest in the infrastructure to say, Hey, I've got that foundation to where I can start mapping out these images and help people with recognition of images as they submit them. So down the road, that's one of those 5-year plans. I think everyone really wants it.

Daphna Andrews: That would be an amazing opportunity where you have somebody who's under his or her truck, and they're taking a picture. And then they could even do image searches right there in the tool. There's just so much excitement out there in the technology. And that's really what transformation is about, right?

It's about harnessing that technology so that you can transform your business, and get into different markets. Can you tell me a little bit about how the transformation happened at Wastequip?

Kevin Creese: We’ve gotten from a company that was used to taking an additional headcount to do things manually to where we can actually go through and look at automating different processes.

Today our website gets nightly feeds of our product pricing, and our inventory levels, and then we do follow-up checks at the time of checkout to make sure that people are getting exactly what they want, when they need it. So I do an inventory, check at checkout time, to make sure we still have it on hand, it hasn't been sold to the person right before them. And they're also getting the most accurate pricing.

From there, it's just the creation of customer records, the creation of the orders, and all those things that, if you do take the time to set it up, and you take the time to map it correctly, and you're thorough with that, then you're gonna get more accurate records than you do by having people collecting this data.

The more you can automate those things, the higher the quality of records that you can actually introduce into your ERP system, and the more likely you are to actually ship out those products on time to the right places.

It’s not only just interaction with our ERP system. From our ERP system, we're also taking feeds of products that are added every day, and inserting them into our PIM system, into Salsify. So they can kick off additional workflows to get further enhanced.

For example, you take a description that is really hard to understand and make it simple. That’s the enhancement process that we do through Salsify. It helps us ensure that our images are readable, and they’re exactly what you're getting.

The other thing that we do is ensure that we can help with cross references. So being in this space, we've got years and years worth of experience looking for these parts. And that years of experience have led us to build quite a catalog of what the items were and what they are now. And we make all those old items searchable so that people can find the new item that's currently being sold today from us.

Daphna Andrews: So you think about a lot of these companies, many of which are more rural. So it’s really exciting to hear about ways to help them save time in the entire supply chain process.

Kevin Creese: You bet. Then those companies that have chosen to partner with us also can pay with different terms or have different types of discounts, like maybe dealer-related level pricing. And dealer-level pricing is something that all of our customers can experience as well. So once we establish that relationship with people that want to do business with us, we set them up on custom price plans, to make it cost-effective for everyone involved.

Daphna Andrews: You have this great perspective of the challenges you've overcome. If you're talking to any manufacturers and distributors out there considering a digital sales channel, what advice would you give them about best practices and how to start off? Obviously, data is a huge piece. And then starting off with discovery, there's a lot to do before you pick a platform.

Kevin Creese: It's definitely a journey. To start, you need a scope. The process involves having conversations with every aspect of the business.

So when I think about ecommerce, I see it in the center of the wheel. You can't do ecommerce unless you're talking to your Product Line Manager and your marketing team, your external channels, your operations team, and your shipping department.

All of those pieces play a role in how you do ecommerce business. So the person helping to coordinate that needs to take the time to make a discovery and understand how they're going to impact that segment of business with your ecommerce channels.

We spent a lot of time talking to every different segment of our business and working with our legal team. And everyone was involved in the process of helping us to properly scope our project. The more of questions that you ask, the better you'll be able to scope out the project. And as you do those things, you'll hit the 80% that's required to get the business done.

Then there's always that 20% looming in the background that comes up as you go through the development process. You're like, ‘Oh, wait a minute, we're gonna have to pivot here a little bit.’ So you still have to plan for a pivot.

Daphna Andrews: Well said! One thing I'd love to get your take on is how you overcome resistance to change in the company?

Kevin Creese: The first thing that I really tried to focus on is whenever I have a conversation with segment business, I want to know what their pain points are, what is difficult about the job you're being asked to do today, explore that and say so and then let them be part of the solution.

As you approach the situation, being an active listener is something that you have to practice, you have to be good at, in order to make sure that you understand when even their requirements aren't right.

As we're building the platform out, we're communicating with folks that this platform will help solve some of the issues they have and make the overall day-to-day better. So take the time to personalize each different segment of business, making sure that what they tell you actually ends up being on a list. It helps to validate that you do care, that you are listening, and that you're really working on trying to make the overall experience better for everybody.

Daphna Andrews: In my experience, everyone needs to be part of this entire project along the way and not feel that it's just forced on them. Would you agree?

Kevin Creese: I couldn't agree more. I think one of the things that I really take a lot of pride in is I over-communicate. I communicate to the point that people probably delete my emails :)

So as I go through this, I’d like to give people an opportunity to speak up and be vocal about their feedback and needs, and beyond that, as we're doing enhancements and come across problems.

We use Teams a lot just to make sure that we are communicating it to everybody, whenever we say hey, I'm looking for feedback on this, I'm gonna call out a couple of different individuals and ask you specifically to get back to me.

But you still have to keep in mind this always feels so difficult is that all these people that you tried to enlist to help you with the Special Projects still have a day-to-day job, they still have that job making us money every day or whatever their function is. Carving out that time for you at testing is difficult. So set your expectations low for how many hours you're gonna get from those people that have day jobs. They don't expect any more than an hour a day.

Daphna Andrews: You just touched on such an important point: leadership. You have to have that crisp leadership message from the top down to make the transformation happen.

Kevin Creese: Yeah, I'm lucky that the Wastequip family understands that ecommerce is the wave of the future. There are so many opportunities for where we can take this segment of business if we have a strong ecommerce channel now.

They've looked to me to be the leader behind that, identifying how we can set up an infrastructure, and make it scalable, dynamic, and responsive to whatever our needs are. So with the tools that we've implemented between the integration with the ERP system that help us stay on top of any item changes, or pricing changes, or customer changes, all that stuff is automated, so I don't have to touch it.

That's the first thing I automate as much as possible. I took the time to go through and make sure that we have the right tools in place that can do the functions that we need. So a good workflow tool, good project management tool for automating some of our internal processes needed, and then setting up the standard for how it is that you're going to market.

Working with partners like OroCommerce, they gave us platforms that not only work for one website, but it’s a multi-tenant solution. I use OroCommerce for both mountaintarp.com and waistbuilt.com. And I'm able to feed it with my same infrastructure.

So all that being said, is that OroCommerce has allowed me to build an infrastructure that can scale. Since we launched in May, we have onboarded an additional 12,000 SKUs. We started out with 24,000 SKUs. Now we're at 36,000. It's been an overall feat that we wouldn't be able to achieve without a scalable ecommerce platform.

Daphna Andrews: Indeed, you can use one OroCommerce instance for all the sites, so it means your ROI already goes up. Many companies that I’ve consulted say their business is too complex. But really, no business is too complex. It can be solved with some technology or process changes, or something along the line around the entire value stream going across in your company. How would you inspire those people resistant to ecommerce because they think their business is too complex?

Kevin Creese: The first thing I have to fall back on is all businesses, unless your nonprofit, are in business to make money. So the first step is you have to define the overall process and how you make money. It's kind of interesting working at Wastequip because we are in the manufacturing space. And I can tell you that my approach for how I want to actually sell products in my manufacturing space is a lot different than the distribution space that we have built. It's two completely different approaches for how we go to market. So it's just a matter of where ecommerce fits into the overall strategy for your business. Is it going to be a primary source of income, or is it an additional channel?

So your approaches for how much you invest or how much infrastructure you build forward are going to be based upon where ecommerce fits into your overall strategy for your company.

Daphna Andrews: What I love about ecommerce and a project around creating a digital sales channel, it exposes every part of the business. So if you don't know your business today, you're going to know it after you get through this project, or even a part of it.

That's something that a lot of people fear. They think they know their business, but they're not sure because so and so has all their client information on paper notes, and they don't want to disturb them.

But you have to think about this day and age, you have to build resilience for the future. And you can't be afraid of not digitizing and transforming. That's just not an option anymore. So it's exciting to hear how much Wastequip understands the importance of resilience.

Kevin Creese: You hit upon an important point too. The way you see your business today may change once you actually go live with your website. One of the things that we hadn't really planned on was the way that our customers were structured.

As you introduce new segments of business and new revenue streams, you find opportunities to make improvements to your internal onboarding processes. We know from a customer service perspective, how to get funds from all of our customers to contact within the finance department. But we didn't have a really good understanding of who our buyers are. And those are the people actually using a website. So we've had to go through and change our overall structure and reallocate some of our resources to collect that information and prepare them for success on our website.

Now, if you're expecting your customers to 100% adopt this new website that you're building, then you have to do an even more thorough job of reviewing your current state, so that you can you get accelerate adoption with the information that you have today. If not, then you have to kick off other projects to better know your customers.

Daphna Andrews: Excellent point. That's where I'd like to go into this final section of where do you see Wastequip’s digital journey going. I’d love to hear what's next.

Kevin Creese: There are opportunities for us to continue to use what we have as an infrastructure. So trying to build up our overall assembly drawings and get more of those out there to support our customers’ needs.

We even look to our customers and give them opportunities to provide us feedback and contact requests of what other drawings they'd like to see available.

Beyond that, we're going to continue to build out the Wastequip brand, which is an all-in-one solution for anybody in the refuse business. I have a goal to get a full truck online that you can customize within five years. The only way I'm ever going to do that is if I can build these assembly drawings go all the way up.

Then there's that continued growth of streamlining customer experiences, whether that be through configurators, where we have direct connections to configurators, that ask for questions to help identify the right parts or the right offering for our customers. That might be a solution. Or maybe it is this image recognition technology where we can get in front of our customers and say, ‘Hey, take a picture of that and send it to me, and I can help you find it.’ So the goal is to invest in infrastructure to make it easier for our customers to do business with us.

Daphna Andrews: That's awesome. Everyone has garbage service. So if somebody can't get their garbage picked up, and it's piling up, that person's day is worse. So just this small piece of technology or small change or tweak or something that you're doing to improve operations just trickles down and makes somebody’s life easier. It's exciting that you don't even know sometimes, and then you go somewhere, and somebody makes a comment, you're like, ‘Yeah, I worked for that company. We made their life better.’ People don't take into account about how much technology improves people's lives. And they don't necessarily see it, but it's there.

Kevin Creese: Yeah, for sure. We did our initial launch at WasteExpo this year, down in New Orleans. While we were down there, I had more salespeople coming out from our internal teams who were excited about the website. Our website is making it easier for our salespeople to help find the parts so they can sell them, and at the same time, our customers are gonna be able to experience fast and easy ordering with our search engine and ordering tools. It just decreased the amount of time to do business with us. All of these things show our customers that we care. We try to help them to save time and buy the right parts when they need them.

Daphna Andrews: That's awesome. Thank you so much for your time today, Kevin! I look forward to chatting with you in the future.

Kevin Creese: I appreciate you guys giving me this opportunity to participate. It’s great doing business and being partners with you.