Sustainable Supply Chain

Unleashing Potential: How Digital Innovation is Changing Commodity Supply Chains

November 27, 2023 Tom Raftery / Andrea Aranguren Season 1 Episode 370
Sustainable Supply Chain
Unleashing Potential: How Digital Innovation is Changing Commodity Supply Chains
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In this episode of the Digital Supply Chain podcast, I had the distinct pleasure of speaking with Andrea Aranguren, CEO of MineHub. Our conversation delved deep into the transformative journey of digitising the commodities supply chain, offering invaluable insights for industry professionals.

Andrea, with her rich experience in operations and logistics, co-founded Waybridge to digitise the physical commodities market. The recent merge with MineHub, positioning her as CEO, has set a new trajectory in the industry. Our discussion centred on the synergy of MineHub and Waybridge, emphasising the complementary nature of their platforms and their collective impact on streamlining trade management for refined copper and aluminium markets.

A pivotal theme of our chat was the evolving landscape of supply chains. Andrea's observations on the shift from traditional, paper-based operations to digital platforms highlighted a substantial change, primarily driven by the need for efficiency, transparency, and risk mitigation in today's dynamic business environment.

We also touched upon the challenges and strategies in overcoming resistance to change in the industry. Andrea shared success stories, like that of Codelco and Southwire, demonstrating the tangible benefits of digital integration in supply chain management. These stories are testaments to the potential savings in working capital and operational efficiencies achievable through digital platforms.

Moreover, we explored the critical role of sustainability in supply chain management. Andrea detailed how MineHub enables businesses to track their environmental footprint, aligning with the growing emphasis on ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) criteria in global trade.

As we wrapped up our conversation, Andrea offered her foresight into the future of digitisation in the commodities sector, pred

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Andrea Aranguren:

Covid in a lot of ways has been one of our be best selling points because it really highlighted the need, for digital platforms from a business continuity perspective. From a risk perspective. This need to increase transparency around data, centralize it, and consolidate it in a central platform where internal teams from all over the world can see it, whether they're in the office or at home. And also in terms of how companies collaborate and share data externally with all of their partners.

Tom Raftery:

Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, wherever you are in the world. This is the Digital Supply Chain Podcast, the number one podcast focusing on the digitization of supply chain, and I'm your host, Tom Raftery. Hi everyone and welcome to episode 370 of the Digital Supply Chain Podcast. My name is Tom Raftery and it's fantastic to have you join us today as we dive into the most current and exciting developments in the supply chain world. To all this podcast's wonderful supporters, I can't express my gratitude enough. Your involvement and backing are the lifelines that keep this podcast thriving. And for those who haven't yet joined our supporter community, Here's your chance to be part of something special. Supporting the Digital Supply Chain podcast is straightforward and budget friendly, with options starting from just 3 Euros or dollars a month, less than the cost of your latte. This modest contribution can significantly impact my ability to continue delivering top quality content. To join, simply click on the support link in the show notes, or head over to tinyurl. com slash dscpod. Now, without further ado, with me on the show today, I'd like to introduce my special guest, Andrea. Andrea, welcome to the podcast. Would you like to introduce yourself?

Andrea Aranguren:

Sure. Hi. Thank you. Thank you for having me. A little bit about myself. I've spent most of my career in physical commodities markets, mostly on the operations and logistics side. I've spent time at large companies like Goldman Sachs and IHS Market, and I've also worked with a variety of different startups, helping them primarily with supply chain optimization and digitization. Back in 2019, I co-founded a company called Waybridge, which set out with a mission to digitize the physical commodities market. And more and more we started, we found ourselves competing with a company called Minehub, and earlier this year we actually decided to combine the two companies. And now I've come on as CEO of MineHub.

Tom Raftery:

So CEO of MineHub, and that's the combined MineHub and Waybridge.

Andrea Aranguren:

That's right.

Tom Raftery:

it? What is it that you guys are now doing?

Andrea Aranguren:

Well, the nice thing is that MineHub also had the same mission to digitize the physical commodities market. And the reason why we're so excited about the combination is that the two teams, the two companies and even the two platforms are incredibly complimentary. Waybridge traditionally was more focused on North America. And also we started as a procurement platform. So many of our customers are manufacturers, or sort of buyers of raw materials, primarily copper and aluminum. And MineHub, actually started on what we call the sell side of the market, or primarily focused as a platform solving the problems for mining companies or sellers in the market. And there's also an aspect of which commodities we were focused on. So I mentioned Waybridge was focused on mostly refined copper and aluminum. MineHub focused on concentrates and bulk commodities. So therefore, the two systems and the two platforms were very complimentary, and there really wasn't that much overlap. And so in terms of what we're doing today, we provide holistic trade management, digital solutions for the concentrates and refined copper and aluminum markets.

Tom Raftery:

Okay. Interesting, interesting. And given your background in commodities, how have you seen the landscape of supply chain evolve over the last decade?

Andrea Aranguren:

I've seen a, a pretty big shift, not in the last decade, but I would say in the last few years. So when I was at Goldman Sachs, I was an operator. I, you know when, when we think about metals and the operational sort of requirements and burden required to actually manage these physical flows, it's incredibly inefficient. Everybody's using Excel, email, metals is notorious for being incredibly paper-based. And so we saw an industry that was, you know, reliant on paper, excel, email, and had been doing things the same way for many, many years. And honestly, pretty resistant to change. I think when we started Waybridge back in 2019 and we went in to talk to companies about solving their problems and they would talk about how it's incredibly manual and there's errors and there's all this risk, and, they realized that they could optimize their businesses if they had better access to data. And then we would say, okay, well we have this platform that can solve all your problems. Like, well, I, I mean, we have to think about it. So I think there was, even just in 2019, I think even if there was a recognition for a need, there was sort of a resistance, from a change management perspective. But now I really see that changing prim primarily in the last two years. I think covid in a lot of ways has been one of our be best selling points because it really highlighted the need, for digital platforms from a business continuity perspective. From a risk perspective. This need to increase transparency around data, centralize it, and consolidate it in a central platform where internal teams from all over the world can see it, whether they're in the office or at home. And also in terms of how companies collaborate and share data externally with all of their partners. And so we see certainly macro forces and tail winds, driving more openness towards digitization. And so I mentioned Covid and, and sort of the business continuity aspects. There's also, unfortunately, been consistent fraud in the market. So a recognition for the need for digital platforms to prevent fraud and mitigate risk. Supply chain disruptions also have highlighted an increasing need for increased visibility to see where shipments were. When I was in operations, you know, 15 years ago and we would send a schedule to a customer saying, deliver five trucks you know, every day this week, five trucks would show up, right? There was a certain predictability. Not always, but certainly more often than not, and now more often than not, five trucks are not gonna show up because there's issues with production, there's issues in freight markets, and there are a lot, there's a lot more on unpredictability, which also highlights a need for better access to data, improved visibility, and all centralized on a central platform.

Tom Raftery:

I am curious, why is there increased unpredictability over five, 10 years ago?

Andrea Aranguren:

There's two main aspects. One is on the supply side. So in terms of access to material, you know, mines are not producing as predictably as, as they were before. Some, there's a variety of different disruptions, labor shortages, just issues with technol, you know, with the actual mining process. And then there's disruptions in the freight market. So difficulty getting trucks or arranging for the actual delivery of the material, and inconsistency in, in the delivery. You know, you can find a carrier that will say, yeah, of course, I'll, you know, send five trucks to deliver on this day, and then only two show up. And it's just, part of it is the nature of the business but part of it is just with, you know, with Covid, we're still seeing continued supply chain disruptions on the production side and in the freight market.

Tom Raftery:

Okay. And the kind of resistance to change. How have you dealt with that

Andrea Aranguren:

That's a great question. So we have been very strategic in how we dealt with that. And so how we've dealt with that is we have found market leaders that are willing to take an innovative approach and do recognize the importance of digitization for their company and for the market overall. And we've partnered with those market leaders to really drive adoption of the platform. So one of our first customers is a customer called Southwire. They're a large, copper manufacturer based in the US. They have been incredibly supportive in helping to bring on their supply network and really promoting usage of the platform. That ultimately led us to sign Codelco, which is the largest producer of copper in the world. They're gonna be managing a hundred percent of all of their sales on the platform and really bringing their customers onto the platform. So we recognize that as a, you know, independent technology company, we're probably don't really have the power in the market to mandate the usage of the platform or to really ultimately drive change. We believe that market leaders in the market have the position to do that, and that's why we partnered with them.

Tom Raftery:

Okay, and with the shift to the electrification of everything that we're going to require in the next coming decades, the requirement for copper resources is going to be increasingly important, no?

Andrea Aranguren:

A hundred percent. And that's the other aspect that I should have mentioned in terms of helping in the momentum shift. So an increased focus on sustainability and the need for reporting around what we say, provenance or the origin of information of, raw materials like copper, as well as increased reporting around emissions, whether they're transportation emissions, production emissions, you know, scope 3, 1, 2, 1, 2 or three emissions, as well as compliance ESG reporting around compliance with certain regulations. They could be human rights regulations, they could be federal regulations, they could be internal company regulations or sort of commitments to shareholders. And so this increasing need for transparency and reporting around ESG data is also very much helping to drive commercial momentum and usage of the platform because that data relies on understanding the shipment flows. And ultimately that's what we do is we have full visibility into all of the shipment flows for our customers.

Tom Raftery:

Okay, and how can you guarantee the provenance of the data?

Andrea Aranguren:

That's another great question. So we . Well, a, a key differentiator, from MineHub is that we work very hard to automate data from the source. So we'll understand where material is coming from, whether it's from a warehouse or a port, or directly from the producer's mine, and we'll actually either connect to that system if possible, via API or EDI. Or we'll work on some automated, another automated, way of pulling in data, whether it's in automated email with an Excel report every day outlining all the shipment information. But the point is that it's system generated, it's automatic, and it's automatically entered to our platform. So it's not manipulated. It's, there's not, there's no, you know, not prone to manual error. And so that really helps to increase the accuracy and the timeliness of the data and sort of ensure that it's, it's true and accurate.

Tom Raftery:

Okay, because, if I remember correctly, you say on the website that the data, you ensure that the data remains usable, shareable, verifiable, and unforgeable. Is that , is that, is that, is that the only way you're doing it through, through automation or are there other technologies or processes that, that help with that as well?

Andrea Aranguren:

There's a, that's referring to our blockchain technology. There's an aspect of the platform, which has the most sensitive data, the most commercially sensitive data, which is related to a process called the assay exchange in the concentrates market. And we do utilize blockchain to sort of safeguard, and ensure the immutability of that most highly sensitive commercial data. So that's the other, the other way that we protect data on the platform is utilizing blockchain in certain aspects.

Tom Raftery:

Okay. And I mean, you, you talked about sustainability and transparency and they're becoming obviously increasingly important globally. How is that influencing The, the whole mining industry, I mean, there's a big push obviously for as, as you said, transparency, et cetera, but how is that day to day impacting the mining industry and therefore MineHub and your platform?

Andrea Aranguren:

We see in the market what I would describe, almost like a U curve, where you have some companies that are truly invested in understanding and trying to get ahead of what requirements will be around ESG. Because one of the key challenges in terms of what mining companies are doing is they don't know exactly what to do because there isn't a hundred percent clarity in terms of what the requirements are gonna be. Either from a shareholder or from a market, or from a regulator perspective. And so there are companies that invest in building out teams and dedicating considerable effort into understanding and trying to get ahead of what that may be, whether it's around calculating or managing sustainable sourcing, whether it's about traceability and or chain of custody, where you see material moving through the supply chain, and you keep track of it as it moves through and it's, and it's transformed or whether it's around carbon intensity and emissions calculations. And then on the other end of the U curve, there's a lot of companies that are just sort kind of taking a wait and see approach where they aggregate data. They have sort of high level, metrics. They try to do the best they can to make right decisions around the impact in the environment and ensuring that they're following all existing regulations, but they're, they're not exactly sure what they need to report. So they're just kind of continuing status quo until someone tells'em they have to do differently. So we're certainly seeing sort of that difference or that dichotomy in the market. Generally our clients are mostly focused on carbon intensity calculations, so understanding their scope one, and scope one, scope two and scope three emissions. Scope three emissions is really where we come in because we have visibility into all of the shipments so we can provide transportation emissions reporting for all the customers. And then because we're connected to every sort of ecosystem partner or counterparty for our customers, we can also pull in, you know, key production emissions data or other, scope three relevant data.

Tom Raftery:

Okay. And talk to me a little bit more about how you're connected to everyone in the, in the value chain, because that's not something we touched on just yet. And it's, I I think it's probably important to, to highlight,

Andrea Aranguren:

Absolutely. When we sign a customer like Codelco, we implement the platform with their entire supply chain. So when we implement for all of Codelcos refined copper sales, every customer that buys refined copper from from Codelco will receive an account on our platform. They'll be trained on how to use the platform, and they actually have access and they're connected, in what becomes a, a portal for them, a customer portal or, or a supplier portal, for them. So that's one of the key touch points is actually providing access to your counterparties and training and engaging them to, to have better access to better data via our portal. And then the other aspect is that I was sort of touching on it before, but we understand the entire sort of trajectory or journey of material, as part of a transaction. And then we'll connect to every node or sort of stop along the journey. Every warehouse, every trucking carrier, every rail line, every shipping line, will be connected to our platform, in order to send us data that we need, in service of our customer. Whether that's tracking data or digital documents, or ETAs in terms of when the shipment is gonna arrive, or information around schedules, when is something planning to ship, what has already shipped? Because this is really the difficulty in, in managing these orders is that you have material coming from all over the world and you have a huge. You know, usually you have many, many suppliers. One of our customers receives more than 500 trucks in one day at one location, and they have multiple locations. So to manage this volume of data across such a complex supply chain with so many suppliers and such a huge volume of shipments is almost impossible to do manually. And so that's why we connect to the source. We automate all that data, we reconcile it for our customers so they can log in and they have a picture of, these are all my orders. This is exactly the status of what's ship, what's delivered, what's left, and then this is all of the details in terms of the shipments.

Tom Raftery:

Sure, I can see the value for the likes of your customer, Codelco and, and other customers of having all of these touchpoints connected. But do you get any pushback from Codelco's customers, or the, the different data points throughout the ecosystem. You know, why should I connect to your system and, and do your work for you? Any, anything like that going on?

Andrea Aranguren:

We used to get more pushback, certainly around concerns around data security, which is why we've invested in a SOC 2 audit certification and we utilize blockchain for certain aspects and we're incredibly focused on data security and data privacy to help alleviate those concerns. I mean, that's even reflected in our terms of use. I mean, we've, we're very, very focused on providing comfort to the market that we will safeguard their data. But I think fortunately we've moved past that and because we have market leaders like Codelco, um, or Southwire or other major companies, they're really the ones encouraging the use of the platform. And so therefore we don't receive that much pushback. And also we take an approach of, we're not mandating the use of the platform because Codelco is saying that you have to, we're actually the, you're actually gonna get a lot of benefits from this as well for yourself, and you get them for free as a customer of Codelco. So we really try to highlight the benefits for the counterparties, and that also helps to eliminate the friction, from an onboarding process because they, they realize they're better off using it as well.

Tom Raftery:

In what way?

Andrea Aranguren:

They will have better access and more timely access to data that otherwise they wouldn't have. So in the absence of a digital platform, they also don't know when material's gonna ship. Has it shipped? Where is it? You know, they have to ask for the documents. And so there's just a plethora of emails going back and forth between operations teams saying, you know, have you shipped this? When are you gonna ship it? Please send me the certificate of analysis and the packing list and the bill of lading and all of that email back and forth gets completely eliminated and all of that waiting time before people getting a chance to respond and actually provide the data, gets eliminated as well because everything is automatically centralized in our platform. They can log in and see it in real time at any time. No, no need to email and kind of wait for a response.

Tom Raftery:

Okay. Interesting. can you give me, I mean you, you've mentioned Codelco, but can you give me details of a customer success story? You know, in terms of, I don't know, number of truck rolls reduced or in terms of number of spreadsheets reduced or in terms of, I don't know, what kind of metrics or KPIs you have for success in customers?

Andrea Aranguren:

Sure, absolutely. We've been talking a lot about Codelco, which is a, a producer, obviously a mining company. So I'll give you a case study from a manufacturer perspective, because we also have really robust inventory management tools and because we have visibility in all into all of the inventory that's in transit, we've created, this pretty cool predictive tooling where manufacturers can actually predict what their inventory is gonna be, throughout the month. And so let's go through an example from a manufacturing customer, but we have one customer which purchases, more than$2 billion worth of copper cathode every year, in order to feed their hungry plant. And prior to using the platform because of all these supply chain disruptions and because first and foremost they wanna ensure that their plant does is not shut down, that they do have enough copper to feed the plant, in its production process, what would end up happening is they end up overbuying material because they hold sort of excess inventory to ensure that if there are disruptions or there are delays in other material coming in, they'll at least have that buffer and the plant won't shut down.

Tom Raftery:

Sure.

Andrea Aranguren:

and so after utilizing the platform with all of the tooling and increased visibility that, we provide, they were able to reduce their inventory by 66%, which led to considerable working capital savings.

Tom Raftery:

Mm-Hmm.

Andrea Aranguren:

In excess of 200,000 in working capital savings. But almost more importantly, they were also able to prevent five plant shutdowns. So not only did they run leaner inventory, but they also prevented five plant shutdowns and also while driving significant operational efficiencies. So we talked about earlier how, you know, everyone's just putting all this data in Excel spreadsheets and sharing data back and forth, in disparate emails, this manufacturer was actually able to reduce their Excel usage by 90%, which is considerable as well as their excel, excuse me, any of their email usage by 60%. So, huge operational efficiency gains while also, recognizing sig significant dollar savings, and mitigating risk in the production of their, of their operations.

Tom Raftery:

Fantastic. Fantastic. For any supply chain professionals listening in, what would be your top advice, as they consider embarking on their own digitization journey?

Andrea Aranguren:

Use MineHub I would say . You set me up for that. I would say I. For anybody embarking on, on a journey is it's important to really be committed. I think that it's easy to go through the process and sort of analyze the pros and cons of digitizing and justify the cost of, you know, adopting a new technology. But after that's all said and done, it's very easy to kind of fall back into your status quo business as usual. And you actually have to be committed to really to that change management and to driving change at all levels of the organization, whether it's senior management, driving usage of the platform so they can get better reporting, operators really driving their customers to use the platform instead of emailing them for information. It's sort of small and big things that every person at the company, whether you know, they're the most, junior operator or the most senior, you know, the CFO. really need to stay committed, to the usage of whatever platform they choose.

Tom Raftery:

Fair enough. Fair enough. And are there any, let's say, common misconceptions about digitizing supply chains in the commodity sector, that you'd like to address.

Andrea Aranguren:

Yeah, there's still certainly hesitancy around data and data security. I think people get nervous about centralizing data. Obviously there's huge efficiencies and benefits to centralizing data on a digital platform, but then, you know, people do get worried about what that means and if what if somebody were to hack into the platform and then they would have access to all of my data, which is why we put in a lot of a lot of different controls and invest a lot of time and effort and dollars into ensuring that won't happen. As a lot of platforms do. I think most platforms are very focused on, on data security. That's definitely still a concern in the market. I think the other concern, which I've heard time and time again is even if the platform is secure, you know, from hackers or what or whatnot, is the data safe? Can I trust the organization to safeguard my data? Because I see highly confidential information about, you know, who trades with who and at what premiums and where materials shipping from and what the volumes are like, and how they've shifted over time. And I have a responsibility and obligation to not share that with anybody. But I think there's there's a trust element there of, if I can see all that data, you know, can you really trust that we'll safeguard that, not even just from a technology perspective, but from a human perspective. And so we do a lot also in terms of minimizing access to data in the platform and ensuring that really, the least number of humans can see this data as possible, because that is definitely a concern that I hear in the market as well.

Tom Raftery:

Sure, sure. Yep, I can. I can see that, and I mean. let, let, let's flip it on its head and, and talk talk about your customers and their access to data, because if they were working with spreadsheets in the past or paper worse, and suddenly they've got this platform, which has given them access to a lot of their data, which they might not have had access to easily before. Are they seeing any increased benefits from access to increased data that they didn't have before?

Andrea Aranguren:

Definitely one area is on the, is actually around sustainability. So they are able to calculate percentage of sustainable sourcing. They're able to sort of play around with different metrics and different ways to measure and assess their own ESG performance because they have access to this data. So understanding transportation emissions from one set of suppliers versus another, truck versus rail, and how that impacts the way that they procure material or, or sell material in the future. So that is definitely an aspect that we're seeing more and more, even though there's sort of a lack of clarity or certainty in terms of exactly what that reporting needs to look like. We see more and more sustainability offices incredibly excited about the analysis they can do on the platform because they now have access to that data in a digital way. We also see, huge benefits and efficiencies for even plant workers that now can actually see an estimated time of arrival for when material's gonna come. But more importantly, understand what kind of material it is. What is the brand, what is the chemistry so that they can optimize how they melt, and combine metal at the plant. So we've seen an optimization from a manufacturing perspective, as well as a major appreciation for the increased visibility because, we've heard many examples of manufacturers that have to pay workers overtime because, you know, they're, it's Friday and no rail cars have arrived and all of a sudden, you know, 15 rail cars arrive and workers need to stay to upload that material. And so if they have better visibility in terms of, oh, well, you know, 10 rail cars are gonna arrive on Friday, they can plan from sort of a work, labor perspective as well. So we've seen huge benefits there. We've also seen more engagement from sort of accounting officers or from financial areas within, companies that appreciate the ability to look at the supporting documents which are required for payments. So it's also a shared document repository that is being utilized sort of across the company for different purposes. You know, one example is by, you know, accounting teams, being very easily and readily able to pull whatever documents are required for any payments. they need to make or, or receive. And even to reconcile, you know, quantity information on, on, different invoices. So we see a huge improvement in operational efficiencies and improving the way that different areas within the organization can do their job, and saving the time that they need to do their functions, but also improving the insight that they have so that they can actually optimize what they're doing, whether it's at the plant with operations, whether it's sustainability officers, whether it's accounting teams being able to better reconcile, and validate data.

Tom Raftery:

Okay. And in terms of the sustainability, I mean, you've mentioned the reporting requirements that are either out there or are coming. Is there any, because this is something that in other industries is, is quite common, it's the Indu, companies being concerned about their customers, um, customers push for sustainability. Is that something that's in the commodity sector as well, or is it more about the regulations or a combination? I.

Andrea Aranguren:

It's a combination. It's definitely a combination. I think ultimately the regulations is what's gonna drive the market to really move and invest in, you know, robust ESG reporting. That being said, many of our customers sell to elec to the electric vehicle industry. So companies like Hyundai, Ford, Tesla, they're certainly concerned with validating the sourcing and sustainability of the, of the copper that they're sourcing for, you know, the production of their vehicles. Mmhmm, they wanna understand the transportation emissions associated with that and, and all the other, production emissions as well. So we are certainly seeing that, particularly in the automobile or sort of EV industry. we also see a lot of our customers, sell to the construction, industry. And so of course, you know, buildings that look for LEED certifications or a variety of different, sort of certifications also need to validate their sourcing and supply chain, data as well related to the raw materials. And so we are definitely seeing customer sort of interest around that. I would say it's pretty high level right now, but it, it is definitely helping to drive an increased focus on, on sustainability reporting.

Tom Raftery:

Okay, cool. And where to next? I mean, you've just joined forces, Uh, not so much you guys, but in terms of the commodities sector in general and sub digitization of supply chains in general, where do you see all that heading in the next 2, 3, 4, 5 years?

Andrea Aranguren:

I think there's two main probably movements that we'll see. One is hopefully an increasing focus on digitization, larger commitments from a budget and sort of c-level mandates a recognition that digitization is core to company strategy in the future. So an increased sort of willingness and adoption of digital tools. I think that one sort of issue I see in the market is that as a technology company, you're always trying to understand what your customer problems are and and solve customer problems. Unfortunately, in this market there are there's no, limit of problems, right? There are so many different problems here to solve. And so what we've seen is we've seen a lot of different technology companies, sort of show up, in the markets solving different aspects of the problem set. And so I expect that we'll probably see some further consolidation in the market where we'll see, more partnerships, or even more mergers and acquisitions between companies because ultimately you know, as, as a player in the market, a buyer, seller, financier in the market, I'm not gonna wanna have to log into, you know, a bunch of different platforms to solve all my problems. I'm gonna wanna feel like I have a holistic, integrated solution. And so I think the onus will probably be on, on the technology companies to really solve that problem for the market and, via strategic partnerships or even further consolidation.

Tom Raftery:

Cool. Cool. We're coming towards the end of the podcast now, Andrea, is there any question I haven't asked that you wish I had or any aspect of this we haven't touched on that you think it's important for people to think about?

Andrea Aranguren:

I think just from our company perspective, what we're most excited about for the future. So we are, and kind of what our strategy or focus is for the next, you know, one to two years. We are incredibly excited to be at this inflection point, through the merger or, you know, we, we call it a merger even though technically it was an acquisition. MineHub acquired Waybridge, but the two companies were incredibly comparable, which is why we call it a merger internally. But through the merger we've really evolved as, emerged as the predominant platform for the commodities market, but right now we're very, very focused on copper and aluminum. So right now we're, we wanna ensure that all our customers are happy that we implement with Codelco and really reach what we call critical mass in these markets. But looking forward. we hear so many similar problems across different commodities markets, whether it's in steel or chemicals or agriculture. And so from our perspective, we hope to expand all of the learnings and technology that we've built that addresses the problems in copper and aluminum to expand to additional, commodities markets in the future. And so we'll see this digi digitization movement really be broad across physical commodities markets, not just focused on mining and metals. So that's something that we're really excited about for the future. As well as we're seeing more and more opportunities to leverage digital platforms like ours to overlay additional services. So whether we can leverage the visibility that we provide into shipments to help banks, finance transactions. So I think now that we've gotten this commercial traction and, and we're really seeing market adoption. There's a lot of really exciting opportunities, to expand our offering to banks, insurers, and other sort of customer groups. So hopefully this digitization movement will expand behi beyond manufacturers, and producers into financiers, insurers, and beyond.

Tom Raftery:

Sure makes sense. Interesting. Wow. Cool. Andrea, that's been really interesting. If people would like to know more about yourself or any of the things we discussed on the podcast today, where would you have me direct them?

Andrea Aranguren:

MineHub.com, everything is there

Tom Raftery:

and sweet . Okay, great.

Andrea Aranguren:

and sweet.

Tom Raftery:

Fantastic. Andrea, that's been fascinating. Thanks a million for coming in the podcast today.

Andrea Aranguren:

Thank you so much.

Tom Raftery:

Okay, thank you all for tuning in to this episode of the Digital Supply Chain Podcast with me, Tom Raftery. Each week, over 3, 000 supply chain professionals listen to this show. If you or your organization want to connect with this dedicated audience, consider becoming a sponsor. You can opt for exclusive episode branding where you choose our guests or a personalized 30 second mid roll ad. It's a unique opportunity to reach industry experts and influencers. For more details, hit me up on Twitter or LinkedIn or drop me an email to tomraftery at outlook. com. Together, let's shape the future of the digital supply chain. Thanks. Catch you all next time.

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