Ep. 06 - Can Fast Fashion Be Responsible?

Justin: Welcome to the Responsible Supply Chain Show where we explore the world of responsible sourcing and resilient supply chains. I'm your host, Justin Dillon. And in each episode, we'll dive into real stories from some of the world's best business, government, and thought leaders protecting people, planet, and profits. Let's get in. Okay.

Today, I'm speaking with Simon Platz, former responsible sourcing director at ASOS, a British online fast fashion cosmetic retailer. Simon is a renaissance man, passionate and, and capable, and has done some amazing work and has a lot of great things to share about the fast fashion industry. He's done a lot of pioneering work around responsible sourcing in an industry that is it's not easy to do. It's a big industry. I didn't know this, but fast fashion is about a hundred and $50,000,000,000 industry.

And one company in particular, Shein, owns 50% of that business. 50%. Ninety four % of Gen z state that they want clothing made responsibly, ethically, sustainably. And about 90% of Gen z buy fast fashion and at least once a year. And those items are worn on average seven to 10 times.

Something else that's worth knowing is that the Trump administration has been playing with, de minimis tax exemption. That that is an exemption that allows goods valued at less than $800 to get into The United States duty free. And fast fashion brands like Shein are facing all kinds of issues. And a matter of fact, Shein's IPO is under is having some challenges. The the company was once valued at a hundred billion dollars, and now, estimates have it at 30,000,000,000.

So trade, tariff, supply chains, you name it, it's all in the news. We're going to talk about all of it. It's very timely and relevant show for you. So let's get into my conversation with responsible sourcing OG, Simon Pines. Simon, good to meet you.

Tell me where I'm finding you today.

Simon: I'm in UK. I'm in a little a little village in the middle of nowhere in a county called Leicestershire, so kinda right in the middle of the country. We're just battening down the hatches ready for this storm that's about to hit us, apparently.

Justin: Oh, did we send that to you here in

Simon: The US? It did come off the Atlantic, so it came over the pond, but I don't think it was specifically generated from from you guys.

Justin: I wanna hear a little bit more about is it Racom? Recom. Recom. Recom. Tell me more about tell tell the listeners more about what Recom does.

Simon: About Recom. Okay. So, about two years ago, I was chatting with a colleague, a friend, who was looking at founding this business called Recom, which ultimately to start with was a a white label sort of SaaS platform solution for a brand to be able to plug into their into their brand network, brand it their own, but enable them to contact and communicate with consumers around recovering products, old products, faulty product, any anything that that the customer didn't want, that that, you know, you were gonna go out to them and say, look. Hey. Hey.

You know, would you like to send us back any old products? We've developed new collections. There might be an incentive to to give them a a a credit towards a new a new item from a new collection, maybe even a more sustainable collection than than than has been. So a a lot of communication and and ability to to to tell customers that actually it's important that these clothes that you don't have, if you're not gonna sell them to your friends, put them on eBay, you know, it was kinda go through the processes. But if you don't wanna do any of that, we will take that back, and we will put that through the process of recon.

Justin: I grew up as a teenager. My favorite place to go to was the thrift store because that's all I could afford.

Simon: Yeah.

Justin: And, you know, it was kind of a way to be alternative, and it was was you know, we had a place in Berkeley called Odd Auerbach, and that was just, like, where I found myself as

Simon: a young a young teenager. I've been in it. I've been there. You've been

Justin: in Odd Auerbach?

Simon: I've been to a place. I'm sure it was called Odd Vox, but was it do they have one in LA? Or do they have one?

Justin: I'm sure they do. Yeah. This was on Telegraph. I don't even know it's there anymore in Berkeley. But the the concept of, like well, that was when, you know, there was cool thrift stores.

Simon: Yes.

Justin: And so and then there's, like, thrift stores. Right? But here but, like, the cool thrift stores were you were looking for brands. You were looking for something to kinda give you an edge. Is this something like is this like a digitized way of doing it?

Simon: Not not not not wholly. No. Because, obviously, it's a much broader problem that, you know, we've seen the the rise of of resale.

Justin: And we've

Simon: seen what eBay, Depop, Vinted, although the irony of Vinted, the biggest the biggest brand label that you'll find on Vinted today and just listen to that word, Vinted. Sounds like vintage. Yeah. Makes you think something. Yeah.

So great. But Shein is the biggest seller by a long way on Vinted, which is a little bit. Now I'm not gonna have a I'm not gonna go into the whole Shein rabbit hole because actually there's there's a lot, you know, there's a lot Go

Justin: out there.

Simon: Of of of information, a lot of misinformation. The model, only buy what you need when you need it, be accurate, don't be wasteful, is the model. Design it, sell it, make it is the model. And that's the game, that's the one that will win. Try and get that secondhand market going.

It's it's already becoming very, very, well, very big.

Justin: Does this create another bite at the the apple for brands to make more Yeah. To make money on something they've already they've already extracted the value by selling it at retail. Can they get another bite at the apple in this secondary market?

Simon: Yeah. But in a in a smart way rather than a a lazy way, if you like. So, really, it's about, yeah, creating value from products that in theory you've kind of sold and gone, thank you very much. You've got it. You love it.

Cheers. Bye. Come back and buy something else. That's not what the game is about now. Customers don't just you know, we don't consume like that.

We don't shop like that.

Justin: Right.

Simon: But if we can start to if we are going to have stuff out there and we can get more value from it and keep it alive and keep it in the ecosystem longer and use it, and and if we're gonna put new stuff out there, create it to be recovered and reused and recycled and put out there again. That's got to be a better way of using resource than constantly just growing and taking and and and without any you know, the linear model of take it, make it, throw it away.

Justin: Well, yeah. I mean, I've I've I've got, I've got a teenager's room full of basketball shoes, which apparently you have to buy basketball shoes for every game now. I mean, it almost feels like the the I I Wish I'd kept on. When I

Simon: was a kid. It's ridiculous. Yeah.

Justin: But these are, like, works of art. This generation, Gen z, is really understands circularity, but if if if it was if it was framed in a way that this is just what you do with your stuff

Simon: This this made sense.

Justin: You could really build a movement off of this.

Simon: Yeah. And that that's one of the things that's that's that's missing from our industry is the education or or lack of will to educate. And and part of the reason for that is because the industry hasn't hasn't got everything in place to really talk very, very well. It's kinda like, you know, when we talk about sustainability or, social, environmental ESG, whatever, everybody's kinda like, well, look, we're not, you know, brands wise, we may not say anything because we're not we're not good enough. We're actually you kinda need to swallow a bit and and say, you know what?

This is about progress, not perfection. We do need to educate. We need to we need to make things better, but we need to tell customers so that they come in and they buy into this. Like, we've had so much education around food and whether it be fat or cholesterol or protein or you know, we need to educate, but it doesn't need to sound like lecturing. We still need to give choice.

It needs to be affordable. There's so much inefficiency in the clothing industry. I can tell you that, you know what, if if people used the technology and the innovation that's available today to deal with the problems that they have around transparency and being visible and then doing better things and being smarter and creating creating almost a a different way of that that creating that profitability. With with with that kind of money coming in, you could change the industry. I mean, it's phenomenal.

That's an that's the opportunity. Yeah.

Justin: That's And it seems like we get so stuck. We talk about this a lot in the show. Right? Yeah. If if you start thinking about telling the story of, hey.

When you buy something, you get this opportunity, turn it into another life, and you might even be a consumer of that secondary market. And if that secondary market starts to become cooler than the primary market, now, you know, you you're you've just fixed a problem. All it took was changing the language and changing the story.

Simon: And it

Justin: seems like you've had such a deep, deep I mean, you've got a deep bench of experience around it because you've seen it all. Right? I mean, you were responsible sourcing director at ASOS. Maybe you can tell us a little bit about ASOS. I don't are you guys in in The US?

Simon: Yes. Yeah. Okay. We've been in The US.

Justin: So tell us a little bit about ASOS, and I wanna hear a little bit about your role because that was a big role at ASOS.

Simon: Yeah. So the the respond the the role I took on was we created the role called responsible sourcing director. Initially, I was asked to look to come in and look at sourcing. And I, having been a buyer for many years before, worked in the outdoor world. So I've had a passion for that kind of outdoor, you know, Patagonias and so on.

That's been my personal thing again, where I live. I could climb, I could camp, I could walk. But what was happening was almost the ecommerce world took the the bricks and mortar world, the horse and car a friend of mine used this analogy. The horse and car of the bricks and mortar world, and then used all that mentality and that methodology and tried to put that online, which was like sticking a jet engine on top of a horse and cart. So, you know, all that happens is the whole thing just falls apart.

The horse gets decapitated, and it's a car crash, which is kinda where we've got to. So it needed a new process. So I looked at sourcing, but I said, look, where are you buying from? Do you know who you're buying from? There's it's very inefficient not to know where you buy, but it's also very unethical because you don't know what problems.

If you don't know, you can't deal. So we must know. So I took on the what was called the ethical trade team, and I took on the sustainability team. We were doing some projects in Africa with Soko in Kenya. We were working on almost cottage industries.

We'd started buying what was known as BCI cotton. And and, you know, so I I pulled it together and said, if we're gonna do this, we're gonna do it. That's it's kinda when I talk about sustainability today, I talk about commercial sustainability. Sustainability that that brings purpose and product sorry, purpose and profit together. Doesn't see them as enemies, sees them as doing something that's smarter, that generates profit, that delivers your purpose.

And that's how I wanna talk about sustainability. So I pre pre precursor it with the word commercial. And that means you've got longevity as a business. So I sold that into the business, and that's what I did. Wherever we went, whatever we did, I wanted to know more.

I wanted more visibility. I opened up the supply chain tiers one, two, three, and four. Wow. We work with we we saw people that were out there, like, labor behind the label, clean clean cloth campaign, anti slavery international. I saw them as people we could work with to try and fix some of the problems.

We encouraged every brand that we sold on ASOS to to to sign up to at least five minimum requirements to ensure that they had visibility. They had an ethical trade policy. They have, they they declared their their supplier list and so on. Because any any any retailer today that says, oh, I'm not telling you my suppliers because that's private. And then that's just an excuse for either I don't know and I don't want you to know I don't know, or I do know and I don't want you to know what I know because it's crap.

So, you know, so it's 2025, not 1965. So, yeah, I came into ASOS and we started looking at regionality. We started digging further into the supply chain. We started trying to move to more sustainable materials. They're still on that journey.

We we relaunched our fashion what we call fashion with integrity, commitments, which was to people and planet, and how we were looking to improve and the steps we're gonna make, reducing carbon. And that and the team, you know, I've been gone two two years, but the team is still plowing on with that. The CEO that's there today, Jose, wonderful guys doing his doing the best he can. Yes.

Justin: Okay. So you had to embed if you're gonna sell this to the business, you had to embed some some KPIs for yourself. Like, what's what's this role gonna contribute to the business? What do you think are the top three contributions that a title like responsible sourcing director is gonna contribute to the to the business?

Simon: Well, the the the the sourcing director role would have been just contributing towards improved intake margin. I argued for profitability because if I'm gonna bring a sourcing strategy that brings you to regions where the intake margin is potentially gonna come down, but because we're gonna buy less tire, less inventory, have less markdown, and fewer returns and better quality because we know more, I was always trying to talk to the profit side of things and the and the longevity and the and the benefits of that side. So, yes, I was looking to to consolidate, to have a a real global strategy. Obviously, you understand your customer type. You understand where you put your basics.

You know, sourcing is not just about, okay, let's move all sourcing back to The USA, or let's move all sourcing if we're a UK company back to The UK or that that's not the right thing. It's having the right blend of sourcing. So, you know, there's certain things come from certain regions because that's the best place, and we're buying that kind of volume. We've got now traceability and visibility, and we can negotiate a really good price. I'm not talking about a phone call that says, hey.

Give it me for 50¢ cheaper, or I'll give it to someone else. That's not negotiation. That's just bull idle laziness. Yeah. And that's what does happen.

But so it was around listen. I I would look to consolidate our supply chain. I would look to have better, more preferential suppliers. I would work closer with them. We would work as a a partnership, a relationship.

And I know some people say partnerships are the worst ships that ever sailed. But I'm talking about honesty and and and and, you know, information sharing that allows an efficiency. Because if I can't give you 50,000 or something, but I can plan your capacity with you so you can plan your staff and your levels and your overheads, that's the next best thing. If I just keep coming saying I want 50, I want a hundred, I need 300, have you got that's not efficient. That ticks a box of getting stuff done, but it doesn't do it in a commercially or socially and environmentally conscious way.

So it was about improved systems and delivering profit. And, that I mean, that's the the main thing for me was about delivering profit through being better and efficient. And then you put the e or sorry. Put the responsible in front of sourcing director. That was about I wanted to ensure that ASOS could talk to shareholders, could talk to its staff, could talk to its consumers about how it was trying to do things better and actually knowing that not only did that need to be done.

I mean, I I was there twelve years ago. Needed to be done, and we needed to catch up, but I knew it was gonna become even more important. I I was hoping it would become more important. Unfortunately, if there's any young ones watching out there today, prove me wrong, please. Show me that you do care.

Because at the minute, me seeing the likes of a a certain Chinese company becoming a $60,000,000,000 business that has nothing to tell you and no real contribution in terms of quality and so on.

Justin: That's interesting because some of these companies you're talking about have responsible sourcing directors and managers. Mhmm.

Simon: Mhmm. I know it's become a it's weird because listen, I'm not saying I invented the term because you can two people can think of the same things

Justin: at the

Simon: same time. But I I when I took the role, it was like, do you want a sourcing we want a sourcing director. And I said, well, if it's gonna include social impact, let's call it responsible sourcing. And I just and that's the title. I said, okay.

That's your title. And that's what we did. Now it's funny now because I do see people jobs being out with a responsible source director. I don't think it came from me, at all.

Justin: I'm gonna go with that. I'm gonna say we're interviewing the OG of responsible sourcing. That's good for this podcast.

Simon: It would it would be nice to have that. It would be nice to have that as a legacy, but I don't I think it's just a coincidence.

Justin: At minimum, you were early, and you were still figuring this out. And even at that stage, your intention around this was this is a contributor to the business, not dilutive. Yeah. By knowing more and by being more responsible, we can bring more to the business other than just a sustainability story.

Simon: If you're really gonna be honest about what the title should be, it would be a director of an area that's trying to be better and more responsible. It's like when I say these fabrics are sustainable. They're not sustainable. They are more sustainable than something else. You've gotta have that word more, but you can't really be called the more responsible source of direct.

Justin: That's so good. I've got tons of things in my refrigerator that say organic. I have no guarantee that pesticides didn't go from one field to another accidentally. And and I think that I think that demanding that things be absolute is a way of avoiding the reality of the world.

Simon: It shuts it down because you can't.

Justin: Yeah. Yeah. It it does. If it's not perfect and and I I just think it's a way it's a place where we as humans go, but it seems like there's a gravity towards being authentic and being true to who you are. And it Yeah.

And the sustainability movement, it couldn't help itself to grab on words like conscious and green and

Simon: Yeah.

Justin: Sustainable. And and words wear out just like fashion. And you're saying be authentic by saying it's not perfect.

Simon: It's not perfect.

Justin: It's just better.

Simon: You know, this is not a consumer let's not make this a consumer problem. This is our industry problem. This is us. We've got to make you know, we've got to get better at this and and and and talk honestly, be authentic, be genuine, and and and and try and and ensure that you're you're doing things better and set goals and set targets and and comment on that. We did this with modern slavery.

We released when The UK introduced modern slavery statement. Most of the companies that legally had to do a statement, doesn't mean you have to do anything, but had to do a statement, wrote a a one pager, you know, a one pager. We we don't tolerate slavery in our industry. We haven't found it. If we do found it, we'll exit the supplier, which by We haven't found it.

If we do found it, we'll exit the supplier, which, by the way, you shouldn't just do overnight because that has consequences. Yep. Thank you very much. Good night. You know, ours was like a a a document on what modern slavery was, how it appeared in our industry, what we were doing to identify it, and what we were doing to remunerate or remedy.

And we did a whole project around Mauritius where where workers were being brought in and having to pay fees to agents. We got that shut down. We did work in in Sri Lanka, in Cambodia, you know, Turkey, you know. And and, actually, the Australian government used our statement as an exemplar of what they wanted, a modern slavery statement

Justin: to look up. Up a notch.

Simon: Yeah. They took it

Justin: up a notch at The UK.

Simon: And that was And

Justin: Canada took it up a notch too.

Simon: And and and we and again, now look at The UK and, you know, Lola Baroness, Lola Young, who's pushing now for more legislation. There's a there's a group called Anti Slavery Collective who I've been working with with a a wonderful lady who's, based in Washington called Jean Barterschneider. You should look

Justin: on Jean Barterschneider. She used to be my mentor.

Simon: Ah, so Jean was

Justin: on my board.

Simon: Was she?

Justin: Yeah. Yeah.

Simon: Wow. So I'm Jean

Justin: was a

Simon: she's phenomenal. She's

Justin: a she's, she's a phenom.

Simon: I know.

Justin: She's a phenom.

Simon: Well, she, she took me out to Washington. She invited me out to speak at Lincoln Cottage last year to stew to the students about, oh yeah, what we are talking about. And now, and that was fun. And as an another lady called Natalia Wallin, who works for or does work with with, with, with Jean. And we've been looking we've been looking at how we can move The UK.

We've got people together, to raise awareness. We're trying to move that needle around slavery and where it is and, you know, the naivety and the unawareness. I mean, most people when they buy something would assume the fact that they can buy it, that the governments and the the people that are in in, you know, in the government would make sure that if if I can buy it, then there's no kids. There's no slavery. There's no chemicals in this that's gonna harm me because I can buy it.

I wouldn't be allowed to buy it if that if if they if they were kids and they were slaves and so on. No. No. Really wake up because that's not how it works. You you need to be sure.

And if a brand is not telling you what they're doing in this space, it's as I said earlier, it's either they don't know or they do know, and they don't want you to know what they know.

Justin: We we have all the agreement, all the regulations we need. What do you feel like is missing? Not just at the at the apparel level, but at at any level. What's missing inside of companies to be able to operationalize supply chain transparency and responsibility?

Simon: If if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck. You know, if that's that cheap and you know that and you've seen and you've you've heard, yet you're still drawn in to to to get something that's that's real knowing that there will have been exploitative practices in that, and predominantly that will be around people. You know, would you would you let your kid work in a factory? Would you work seventy five, seventy eight hours? You know, would you let your family?

No. You wouldn't. So why would you support answer

Justin: is do you think the answer is paying more? And if that's true I think the lazy answer really go?

Simon: Yeah. I honestly, I think the lazy answer would be for brands to turn around and say, alright. If you want us to do things right, we charge you more. When you're so inefficient, when you haven't even found out where you're getting you you know, you'd when you've done what would be the most CFO's commercial deep dive into your supply chain and everything is uber efficient, and your returns are low, and your markdowns low, and your inventory, and your repeatability, and all these things are generating you an efficient profit. If you've done all that, and you then can't make it work, and you then put your prices up.

But I'm telling you, there's money just being burned in this in the industry

Justin: because it's

Simon: it's because it's and the lack of transparencies come through complexity, legacy, historical. Well, there's a lot of tech out there today that will support you and enable you to get that transparency and to join the dots and to to do much more efficient things. Some incredible tech that would support you in that.

Justin: We tend to pick on or the media tends to pick on and targets lower cost brands, but supply chains are somewhat indiscriminate. Mhmm. Once you get past tier one, tier two, it just becomes, all kinds of of of, of suppliers. Mhmm. From your perspective, do you think there is just as much challenges for, you know, higher price, higher retail price brands, apparel brands than there is for the lower ones?

Yeah. Or do you see a difference between the fast fashion next as I

Simon: certainly wouldn't assume that if it's a higher priced product don't don't make the correlation that well, because it's higher priced product or it's a well known designer brand, you know, little fairies are making it while we sleep at night, and everybody's all walking around it. You know? Don't don't be thinking any of that for a minute because the end I mean, you know, I've been in factories that are making for high end that are also making for volume and missing factories. You know? It's just a it's just brand and a label or what someone's prepared to pay.

Justin: Yeah. When we started Freedom, you know, our our belief was that if we can if we can, you know, get the data in in the right hands, change will happen. What we're seeing is in in this space, there's a lot of folks taking on data, and they get stuck in a paralysis of analysis. And it seems like when you look at something and you can see data, it feels like you've accomplished something. But there is a next step, which is within the mitigation and the removing of that risk.

All of all of the regulations, supply chain regulations require improvement year

Simon: Yeah.

Justin: Over year. The point is not just having data, but doing something with it. Yeah. What advice would you give to people that are in these roles that have enough data to start acting on that make it feel like they're stuck?

Simon: Start somewhere. I mean, honestly, just just make a start. Most people, they they feel like they're stuck, and then they kinda just sit back on the, well, I'm stuck. I've got no appetite from the business. I mean, you you do have to fight that, you know, if you're in this in this space within any business and I've I've come up you know, I've met loads of great people.

There's a guy called Noel Kintner who used to be the, CSO of Nike. He's retired now, but he's on the speaking circuit. And again, we've we chatted a lot. You have to fight. You you have to make businesses understand that this is gonna happen, and and it needs to be done.

So be resilient for sure. You gotta have a thick skin.

Justin: You know, this podcast is called the Responsible Supply Chain Show. Responsible is a word. But but compliance is also a word. And they seem like that sometimes that they're on two ends of the spectrum. Yeah.

How from your experience, your vast experience, how do you start to bring those together to where one doesn't dilute the other?

Simon: Yeah. So compliance, I think, has a place to help speed speed things up. And and actually, because it's gonna speed up certain things that the knock on of the other things that it's gonna drag up with it are gonna it's gonna be a good thing. So for me, regulation, the industry's had far too long to kinda tidy its bedroom, if you like. And it's been told every night, tidy your bedroom, put your cups in the sink, wash your pots.

Otherwise, everything in your bedroom's going in your bin. And And we're at that point now where the world is going, right. I'm going in the bedroom, and I'm chucking it all in the bin. And and there's a there's a there's a point now where I actually go, okay. I'm doing it now.

Alright? Leave me alone. I'm gonna tidy up now. I'm gonna do it. Because if we don't do it, then the lot's going in the bin.

And and and I I think we're gonna see, sadly, because this means people lose jobs. I think we're gonna see brands still fall and disappear. We've seen it on on on your side of the pond, on my side of the pond. We've seen brands falling off.

Justin: But you know what? If the brands because of what?

Simon: Because they've not they've not been able to stay with the program for whatever reason, whether that's because they they're now not profitable, because they're not compliant, or they didn't prepare themselves, or they've lost their customer. They're gonna become irrelevant brands. We're gonna get you know, we've seen big names that have disappeared. I think more is gonna come. And that's unfortunate.

However, I would say, you know what? If they do fall off and I don't wish anyone to lose their job, but if a brand disappears, maybe it was time for that brand. It's not, you know, god given right that just because you've been around for fifty years, you should stay around. I would argue if you're in that business, make sure that you are contributing to something that's gonna continue. But the way to do that is to understand what that future landscape looks like and be ready for it.

Justin: Well, you you you you bring hope with that it's backed up by pragmatism. Yeah. And and I think that is that is a that is a formidable cocktail to create change. There's a lot of folks out there crying hope, but just haven't done the work and hasn't seen what it takes to be able to produce a result. And you've you've done that.

I I appreciate, all of the work that you've done. You've inspired me from a distance. Can't believe it's taken us this long to meet. But I just thank you so much for coming on the show

Simon: you're welcome.

Justin: The show, Simon. Thank you so much for

Simon: being here.

Justin: This is The One Thing, the part of the show where we give you one thing to take away from the conversation we just had. As Simon mentioned, there is so much opportunity in supply chains, but so much of that is lost due to, laziness and neglect. And laziness meaning supply chains have been run pretty poorly for a long time. And now we have all kinds of technology to help them run better, more transparent. And we're seeing some real returns in this space for companies that are deploying technology to not only chase down challenges around ethics and sustainability, but also just gaps and holes and inefficiencies.

And if we wanna create change in the world today, you as we've said here on the podcast so many times, you can't just create costs for a company. You have to create savings. And the supply chain is just a greenfield of opportunities to drive operational and reputational excellence. When a company only focuses on its external factors like compliance or public sustainability goals, but ignores issues like human rights and climate issues in its supply chain, it puts its future and even its near future in danger. Issues in supply chains can surface at any time and can knock back any gains that the company has made.

I guess the same can be said of us humans. We tend to live pretty external lives, controlling a narrative of a well lived life, but unresolved issues or trauma can surface at any time. And when we turn to face what's really going on inside ourselves or by extension our supply chains, we can find a new power to stand with confidence, take risks, and thrive. I used to think that therapy would slow me down, and the truth is when I started, it did for a hot second. But after I was afterwards, I was able to run much faster because I found that I wasn't carrying as much.

And I think the same can be said of our supply chains. We are carrying a lot of things into our into our supply chains, into our businesses that we don't need to carry. We just need to turn and face them to get after it. I'm bullish on the future of supply chains because of voices like Simon and others who are helping companies learn how to buy better. Thanks for listening.

Please check out some of the other episodes, and don't forget to subscribe. Buttons right there. Look at it. It's right there. Just put your pink the you oh, was it you got it.

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