Castro's Predictive Procurement: Adapting Supply Chains Efficiently

Neal Lustig emphasizes that adaptability and speed are crucial for supply chain success during disruptions.

### Adapting Supply Chains: The Role of Predictive Procurement in Crisis Management
* 📦 Neal Lustig, CEO of Castro's, emphasizes the importance of **predictive procurement platforms** that utilize **game theory** to help companies **proactively manage supply chain disruptions**.
* 🚚 In challenging times, supply chain executives are focusing on **finding new routes and alternative suppliers**, making it crucial to **adapt quickly to avoid falling behind competitors**.
* ⚡ Castro's software enables customers to reach out to a **vast network of contractors and suppliers much faster**, enhancing their **adaptability during crises**.
* 📉 However, the current economic climate is expected to have a **significant negative impact**, with a **shortage of alternative suppliers and channels** exacerbating the situation.
* 🏃 Lustig compares the urgency of adapting to supply chain issues to "**outrunning your buddy**" in a bear chase, highlighting that **speed is essential for success**.
* 🛠 The use of machine learning and automation allows companies to sift through large data sets efficiently, **drastically reducing the time needed to find alternative shipping options**.
* 📊 For instance, a customer recently managed to secure **4,000 trucking lanes in just three weeks**, a task that would have previously taken **nine months and a large team**.
* ☁ Castro's cloud-based infrastructure allows for **dynamic scaling**, turning potential crises into **opportunities for growth and improvement** in service delivery.

Neal Lustig joins us. He's the CEO of Castro's, a predictive procurement platform powered by game theory, which helps companies proactively reroute those shipments and secure alternative suppliers before, well, perhaps these disruptions are going to be felt. I have a feeling you're getting a few calls. It's a tough time to be a supply chain executive this week. And I think most of our customers right now are focused on alternatives like their where are you going to find new routes? How are we going to move things through air? This is something they would have been focused on for a few days already. At this point, if you haven't figured this out, you're a bit late. And longer term, your job is to figure out how to make yourself more resilient. Software like our Castro can't predict black swan events like this, but they can help you become more adaptable, respond much faster so our customers can

reach out to hundreds and thousands of contractors and suppliers in an order of magnitude faster. And that really this is what this is about is from our customer's perspective, is adapting to the issue. Our customers aren't going to be involved in the labor discussions. But how do you adapt and adjust quicker than you did in the past and more importantly, quicker than your competitors? Will they likely, though, be feeling money lost? We're expecting a big economic impact from this. Oh, absolutely. There's no question this is going to be damaging to everyone. There isn't enough alternative. There aren't enough alternative suppliers or alternative channels. There's just not the capacity. So this makes it twice as important for you to be the first one to move. Yes. And if you move, as I said, this is kind of like the joke with the bear in the woods. You don't have to outrun the bear.

You have to outrun your buddy. And if you can adapt faster than your competitors, you can find those alternative routes. You can arrange air shipping for critical imports. It's a short-term bit, but speed matters. Well, let's talk about the speed and the how machine learning or how game theory or reading your clients, what puts them able to front-run here? Right. So air is good at a few things in the enterprise market. Air is good at sifting through large amounts of data and is good at automating things that otherwise a human being would have had to do, like reaching out and managing a code process for finding alternative ship or finding alternative supplier. And so being able to take that and shrink that time to 20% of what it was before means you can now do this just more five times as much as you could before. Our customers are finding, for example,

We had a customer who, a few months ago, went out to the entire North American trucking market and won 4000 lanes, 350 carriers. Wow. A job that would have taken nine months and a dozen people was collapsed into three people, three weeks. And so, this is the kind of nimbleness that I guess you broadly and what our customers are delivering for our customers in supply chain. How do you respond to a sudden wave of demand on your end? Does anything get stressed or stretched? Do you have to think about investing in your own platform? So, we're lucky. We use a set of cloud-based platforms that do what's called auto-scaling, so our infrastructure is able to expand and contract dynamically. So, for us, this is actually not a crisis. It's an opportunity.

US Eastern Ports Prepare to Close as Labor Talks Stall

Welcome to the Bloomberg Technology YouTube channel. Subscribe for original series and mini-docs on game-changing technologies, profiles on innovators, live conversations with experts, and breaking technology news & analysis from Bloomberg TV.

Bloomberg Technology

Neal Lustig, CEO of Castro's, discusses the challenges supply chain executives are facing due to recent disruptions.

The company's predictive procurement platform aims to help businesses proactively secure alternative suppliers and reroute shipments.

Lustig emphasizes the importance of adaptability and quick response in overcoming these challenges, as well as the significant economic impact of the disruptions.

The Importance of Speed in Business Adaptation

Outrunning competitors is crucial, and adapting quickly can lead to finding alternative routes and critical imports.

Air shipping plays a key role in this short-term strategy, offering speed in data sifting and automation of tasks.

By reducing process time to 20%, businesses can significantly increase their efficiency and handle more tasks.

Nimble Response to Sudden Demand in Trucking

A customer recently won 4000 lanes and 350 carriers in the North American trucking market in just three weeks with a team of three.

The company's use of cloud-based platforms with auto-scaling allows for dynamic expansion and contraction of infrastructure.

This sudden wave of demand is seen as an opportunity rather than a crisis for the business.