One on One with North Highland and LogistiPoint

Moore: LogistiPoint is a small sort of specialist, boutique firm, and we really focus on logistics execution and supply chain execution—so the more tactical operations and engineering types of projects. And as a specialist, you're always looking to  expand your reach so we started the partnership with North Highland about two years ago to try to work on bigger projects with larger clients and it worked great. So, we both decided that this was the right time to make this move. And it makes perfect sense for both parties. As we all watched the issues with COVID unfold in March and April, we all looked at it and realized this is a perfect example of how supply chain strategy planning and execution needs to work together hand in hand. We sort of said this is really shining a light on the importance of supply chain, and it makes more sense to do it now than ever.

Billings: And what we have experienced over the last several months, really an uptick in demand from a lot of our retail and CPG clients specifically to include pharmaceutical companies, companies that are moving a large amount of physical goods, because the nature of moving products to meet consumer demand has changed drastically over just the last six months. So it actually has opened the window for us to deliver some very large meaningful, impactful engagements to our clients. So, I think from a timing standpoint it works very well because our collective capabilities and supply chain services align to the needs of the market that have spiked, frankly, because of COVID.

Consulting: Sounds like the emergence of COVID actually accelerated this process, or would you just say it followed a natural progression?

Moore: I think, in our view, it did somewhat accelerate it simply because it accelerated all the needs our clients had. The explosion of e-commerce in just the last six months has probably surpassed what most of our clients were expecting to achieve in the next five or six years. And so the acceleration of e-commerce really accelerates how a supply chain needs to adapt and react and adjust to such a dramatic shift in volume.

Ahdieh: I agree, Randy. Really stepping up to helping our clients achieve the supply chain resilience they have to achieve in a short period of time, created a nice catalyst effect. We knew that the shift that was going to happen would require a continuous evolution and improvement of how we do business, how we serve our clients, how we create opportunities for employees, how we design products; and while we were heading into that, it just seemed it was clearly the right time to integrate LogistiPoint and their expertise. While we already had different parts of the engine open, so to speak, why not make sure that we fold in the LogistiPoint areas of expertise so that we can more fully appreciate the value of it and embed it more deeply into the firm. This is something we're really passionate about—when we acquire the expertise of other firms, our objective is to integrate it deeply within the organization. We want to embed it within our fabric and do it in a way that gives it the sustainability it needs.

Consulting: In terms of bringing the firm into North Highland, what are we talking about in terms of resources? How many people are coming over? How will that work from a cultural perspective?

Moore: We're a small firm, we have 10 full-time employees that are coming over to North Highland. We always strove to be the best at what we were doing, and we never really worried about scale and size because we just don't think that's as important as being excellent. So we've pursued excellence, above all else, and now with this integration with North Highland we can also scale and grow, as well.

Consulting: What else was attractive to you about North Highland and this opportunity?  

Moore:  Having the pleasure of working side by side with each other in projects over the last two years, I think we all realized that there was a cultural fit—not only between our respective project teams—but also between our teams and our clients. It was like hand in glove. And we all realized that not only did this make sense from a skill and capability standpoint, but it really made sense from a cultural standpoint. That's when you know it's going to be successful.

Consulting: And from North Highland's perspective?

Ahdieh: Certainly, the areas of expertise around supply chain engineering, the skills capabilities, the refined way of working, the client relationships, the talent that LogistiPoint brings to bear is all very valuable and exciting. But I'd like to go back to something that Randy was saying: we're excited whenever we can we can bring together different teams in a way that not only feels seamless to us as an internal organization, but is also impactful when the client knows and has confidence that we're now collectively stronger together. And that the way we can serve them as a single firm is unique. It's one of those one plus one is definitely more than two scenarios. Clients are consistently wanting to simplify their ways of engaging with firms. It's not about getting everything from the same firm but when you can get end-to-end supply chain expertise capability that will take you from strategic planning to a very detailed highly specialized distribution center all the way to the implementation and execution of process changes and new technologies, that's a huge upside for our clients.

Consulting: Will this sit in one particular practice? How do you go to market with this new, expanded offering?

Ahdieh: To answer your question directly, this is going to sit within our Strategy practice, and this is a fundamental part of the way we serve our clients through the different lenses of transformation that we talk about quite a bit, and how that runs across the clients operational needs, their workforce needs and their customer-related needs. Our belief is that those three needs and those three lenses are always an area of focus for our clients, just in different measures. The team from LogistiPoint and our supply chain work efforts—and we've been aligned in this way already—are going to sit within Strategy within our transformation capabilities and, and more specifically within the areas of operational transformation that we're supporting our clients through. Our immediate plans are to ensure that we're caring for the existing client base, but we absolutely have our sights set on bringing this expanded capability to other clients, as well. First on that list would be the retail clients we have and being able to help them to run highly complex supply chain strategy engagements. But very much on the heels of that we have every intention of expanding this beyond retail. We know that, for example, the transportation industry is very much in need of support from supply chain excellence, so we are building out our strategic plans right now to extend into other industries. We are going to align organizationally in ways that allow us to drive growth in a very coordinated agile way without encumbering it with just a tremendous amount of weight and bureaucracy. LogistiPoint's clients are going to want to make sure that we're staying as nimble as they've experienced in the past.

Consulting: What opportunities do you see right now and as we—hopefully— begin to come out of this?  What are you looking at over the next six to 12 months in terms of projects and pipeline?

Moore: The learnings from COVID have certainly raised all of our awareness of where e-commerce is going. One of our colleagues said in the years ahead there's probably going to be a lot more distribution centers built and they're all going to be stores. So I think it's addressing that drastic shift in the marketplace of where consumers are, and how their buying patterns online have changed so much.

Billings: We've seen a lot of companies who have been adversely affected by COVID, and there's an urgent need to drive operational efficiency to right size their supply chain in order to keep their profitability margins. So, we're seeing a lot of demand in that area, as well.

Consulting: You've touched on culture a little bit, but anytime there's an acquisition in consulting, I think it's paramount to talk about culture. Why are you confident this one will work?

Billings: I actually first met Randy in 2007 and we worked together at a prior firm, along with several other members of the LogistiPoint team. We've been working together for a long time on and off, so I think from a cultural standpoint, I would say there's very little concern about a sort of cultural complex, our teams are extremely comfortable with another and have already been collaborating under common projects for the last two years.

Moore: I think these are your statistics, Andrew, but I think it's been a total of five different clients we've worked with and 12 projects we've undertaken together over the last two years, so it's its been a long trial marriage and it's been great!

Ahdieh: We are not bringing this team over to simply have them continue doing exactly what they've always done. Randy's agreement to become part of North Highland was based on the opportunity to continuously evolve. The organization that he started with a very loyal group of employees has been in a growth mode for many years now. Our commitment to each other is that we're going to help each other evolve: we've got ten new team members who are looking for us to chart a career journey for them. We want to make sure these team members feel like they are a truly embedded part of the organization as quickly as possible so that they can imagine—and then reimagine—their careers.

Moore: We always like to measure our success by what our clients say about us and Andrew and I've been working at this one client for a couple of years now and I remember not too long ago, one of their top executives said: 'You know, I had no idea when we started this project with North Highland and LogistiPoint that we'd be able to go to one firm and find this breadth and depth of talent.' And I think that's just what we experienced before we became partners, and I think we'll experience that and a lot more now that we're officially together as one entity.