Narrator:
Welcome to the supply chain visibility stories, the podcast for supply chain managers, brought to you by ACSIS, the 100% supply chain visibility cloud solution provider. Supply Chain Visibility stories is hosted by Bill Wohl, a technology industry veteran and enterprise software professional.

Bill Wohl:
Thanks everyone for joining us. Today marks the next in a series of discussions exploring the intersection of technology and business. Our discussions are designed to be brief and focused and we're hoping this podcast format inspires our audience to think about how technology impacts their own organizations and to engage with us as the series continues. I'll have information about how to engage with this series and our guests at the end of today's discussion. My name is Bill Wohl and I'm honored to be the host of this series brought to you by ACSIS. I'm always fascinated by the business challenges faced by companies and how those challenges can be addressed by technology. As we started our series, we explored some of the big trends that are facing companies today, including the impact of the ongoing pandemic and how that's been driving a renewed focus on global supply chains. During various podcasts, one of the more interesting topics that keeps coming up is that of sustainability. For supply chain leaders, there's an increasing call to capture data that underpins company reporting on sustainability topics, and that varies by industry and by product segment. But more and more companies are focusing on sustainability and how it can highlight their unique value proposition for customers and partners. Today's guest sits square in the middle of this area of interest. Please welcome the vice president of sustainability for cloud experience software company Genesys, Bridgette McAdoo. Welcome to the program, Bridgette.

Bridgette McAdoo:
Thank you for having me, Bill.
It's great to have a sustainability expert on the program. This topic keeps coming up, but let's start for our audience on a little bit about who is Genesys, and what do you do for your customers? Oh no, absolutely. Happy to speak to that and again thank you for having me on. So at Genesys, we are a cloud contact center market leader where we like to say we pioneer the experience as a service in the software category. And we like to make sure that we combine efficiency and effectivity of of our contact centers with the ability to listen, understand, predict, act and learn from every single interaction so that we can build empathetic, trusted and long-term customer relationships.

Bill Wohl:
Super. So, you have an interesting background in a variety of industries. I I noted in your background that you spent some time in the food industry. And on this program, we've talked about supply chain and sustainability tracking at food companies. Yet, it's interesting that a cloud experience company has a vice president of sustainability. Why does a cloud software company need a sustainability expert?


Bridgette McAdoo:
That's a good question. I think at times people try to disconnect the need to look at social responsibility from technology or anything where you don't have a tangible product.
But you know, I push back always and say every single company needs to look at their license to operate. And for me, it's been a blessing to be at Genesys,. I'm their first ever U global sustainability officer. And coming in to lead sustainability for this organization has given me the opportunity to make sure that we embed sustainability into our strategic imperatives. And it's important because even though we might not have a tangible product, it's gives us our license to operate and our license to grow across the globe. So as we think about partnerships and strategic alliances, as we think about how do we provide value not only to our customers but to our employees and to society, sustainability is at the core of that.

Bill Wohl:
It seemed like when sustainability first became of fashion as a topic for most companies, it was okay, figure out how to issue a sustainability report, check the box.

Bridgette McAdoo:
Right.

Bill Wohl:
But increasingly, and you use the term licensed operate, which I think is kind of an interesting one because I think if I interpret that, it's people now expect you to be a sustainable business and for them to accept you as a vendor, as a partner, they want you to prove to them that it's more than simply checking the box, that you're actually serious about it, right?

Bridgette McAdoo:
Oh, absolutely. I mean, you could always get out there and just say a whole bunch of things about your company, but that could be seen as greenwashing, right? If I cannot prove, if I'm not transparent, if I don't show progress. If I don't have goals that are measurable and then show that I'm actually making progress on those goals, then yeah, companies can get called out for greenwashing. And that's the last thing you want. Sustainability for any company, regardless of whether you're technology or food and beverage. It's about how do you reduce risk, how do you optimize efficiency, and how do you maximize profitability. And all those things are part of sustainability strategy. So, if I don't tell my story and if I don't actually have intentionally behind that story. If I haven't embedded it into the culture or into the strategic imperatives of your business operations, then yeah, you will get called out for that. And that's the last thing you want is to be shown that you're not actually doing the work that you say you're doing because that reputational risk could be dire to the business.

Bill Wohl:
So for supply chain leaders, and that's typically the audience for this podcast series, we've talked a lot about track and trace. We've talked about waste reduction and sustainable sourcing. If we think about IT professionals and they also listen to this podcast, we think about IT organizations. What are some of the things that IT organizations think about when they look to measure and make progress in sustainability?

Bridgette McAdoo
Yeah, I think you know I sometimes I think about sustainability the same way I used to think about supply chain, right? Supply chain 30 years ago wasn't referred to specifically as supply chain and then it became like the core tenant. If you didn't have a strong supply chain, then your business would fail. And I think sustainability is kind of on that same cusp, right?  if you don't have a strong sustainability strategy, then the resiliency of your business will come to you know that it will come to bear. I look at it from whether it's supply chain, sustainable sourcing, the intersect of sustainability and supply chain is that sustainable sourcing and it's how do you integrate in those factors around the environmental, the social and the governance health of your value chain. And I say value chain to say it's not just what's happening within your four walls, but outside your four walls, your tier one, your tier two, your tier three. They're all part of your footprint, your collective footprint. So, you need to look into things like, you know, what are your partners and your suppliers doing around their carbon footprint or their water footprint? What are they doing around diversity?  and how are they impacting their local communities? What about the working conditions? Human rights and labor rights are a huge part of sustainability. And then on, you know, the economic and governance side is, you know, what are they doing around financial stability? Are they resilient? Will they be able to actually thrive and grow with us as we grow? But have there been any governance issues? Do they have a board that actually holds them accountable to the things that they say they're doing? Are there any violations around hazards or corruption? Those are all collectively sustainability issues. And so when you look across your value chain, whether it's your partners or your suppliers, you need you need to have full transparency because at the end of the day you might not be directly responsible but you're indirectly responsible and it can be attributed to your business and so collectively we want to make sure through a sustainable lens that we have line of sight to all of those different things.

Bill Wohl:
So for supply chain and IT leaders there are you know fairly tactical, they could be strategic, but you know fairly straightforward issues like recyclability, carbon-neutral goals, data center energy footprints. Those are traditional topics, but what you're suggesting is that companies not only have to look inside their own four walls, but they bear the responsibility for their extended supply chain and how all of the players in that supply chain manage their own sustainability. You have to sort of own it end to end. That makes this a much broader topic than what happens inside your own business.

Bridgette McAdoo:
When I think about my past life on the food and beverage side at that time, that company didn't technically manufacture anything but they were always attacked  from, you know, different conservation or activist groups because you have an indirect responsibility because you're purchasing from someone who does actually have that direct responsibility. So as someone who indirectly or is a receiver of those products, you're expected to have some type of responsibility. So you're never negated from a responsibility as long as you're part of that value chain. So yes, absolutely you do have to look outside of your four walls to ensure that all of your interactions are done in a responsible way. I can tell you that we're looking at  RFPs today from customers, new customers and existing customers who are asking us to explicitly state not only what we're doing but how we are controlling the people who we work with and the organizations that we work with to to make sure that they are just as responsible. So yeah, the buck does not stop at your back door.

Bill Wohl:
We always talk about specific examples, and it strikes me that early on when sustainability first became a topic that was discussed in the IT industry. We talked a lot about end of life and the fact that  companies  in the IT business could say look we we'll take your old hardware and we'll hand it off to a third party supplier who's responsible to get rid of it. But what was ultimely discovered is a lot of those end of life providers were just dping computer equipment in China or India. As an IT provider, realistically, you own the responsibility of end-of-life all the way to the final mile. It's no longer permissible if, I hear you correctly to say, well, I handed it off to somebody else. You own that somebody else because they're part of your offering and you're saying that you as a software company in the contact center customer experience business You're getting asked in RFPs now for detailed information on how you're managing your world from a sustainability perspective. That's what you mean by licensed to operate. It literally means you may not get chosen even if your software is best if you can't demonstrate a solid sustainability program.

Bridgette McAdoo:
Absolutely. And it extends beyond your four walls. Right. I think you know that I think table stakes at this point is just doing what what you're you need to do for your company. But really differentiating yourself and getting beyond table stakes is looking way beyond your four walls and that's getting to that scope three and that's where a lot of companies really struggle is understanding what's happening across their supply chain and also to your point I think recycling 10 years ago was the end all beall but now you you hear the pivot in conversation from recycling to upycling from upycling to circular so we need to figure out how to have like complete use of those goods. Can we reuse products versus just recycle products because they are not being disposed of in a way that's most sustainable? So we are you know, even as a software company, privacy and security is paramount, and I need to ensure that for our customers that we are intentional about ensuring that our data privacy and data security is intact. At the same time, I want to also look at how do we find ways to purposefully wipe those assets clean so that we can look at circularity or upcycling in a way versus destruction so that we can protect the environment and protect our valued customers at the same time. 

Bill Wohl:
Bridgette, I remember when the privacy issues first came up, we saw a lot of that being driven by workforces in Europe and then it sort of spread around the world. We looked at financial controls like Sarbain Oxley that sort of moved from the US Congress but became a global financial standard. Sustainability felt like it sort of came out of the green movement in Europe and feels fairly global. But as you look around the world, the responsibility for a business is to understand sustainability practices and meet those challenges. And they may be as diverse as every country that you do business in, right?

Bridgette McAdoo:
Yes, absolutely. I think  Europe has done a fantastic job when it comes to consumer behavior and education and infrastructure, helping to set up, you know, viable ways to have recovery of products so that you can look at your business in a more sustainable way. We have some work here to do in the US, of course, when it comes to education and behavior of our consumers. And then also infrastructure, the ability to actually recover products in a more meaningful way. We've always on the US said we don't want to be regulated, but if you look at one thing that the UK has is they are regulated. Whether it's the rap UK or how you look at what drives a lot of their behavior across their consers and especially across businesses, it is regulations. And as much as we would like to avoid that. Either we have to change our behavior or and you know, look at ways to really move the needle so that we can affect climate change. COP 26  and the latest reports clearly tell us that we are heating at a rapid pace and that we need to do everything we can as responsible stores to reduce our impact as much as possible.

Bill Wohl:
We talk on this supply chain series as we wrap up today's session about the vast tasks that supply chain leaders have to tackle to have a great working supply chain. But what you've described is a lot of work to be done in sustainability. So, for our audience, the general question we like to wrap up with is how do you get started? I assume the best way to do that is go find yourself a vice president of sustainability, but any advice for our audience about how to dip a toe in that water?

Bridgette McAdoo
I always tell people to start with what we call in a sustainability world a materiality assessment. It looks across all of your key stakeholders, your suppliers, the outside community, analysts, and investors. It benchmarks you against your industry and against and what it tells you is what's most material to your business. Where you at most risk, where do you lead, where do you lag? And I think that really gets it started because at the end of the day, if we all do our part, then we collectively start to move the needle in the right way. So always start with the materiality, any business should know exactly what's most material to their business.

Bill Wohl:
We know from our discussions on this podcast series that sustainability tracking is important to supply chain management. We've learned today it's a business imperative for a license to operate. Bridgette McAdoo of Genesys, thanks for being with us today.

Bridgette McAdoo:
Thank you for having me.


Bill Wohl:
That wraps up today's podcast. My thanks to ACSIS for making this series possible. We welcome your comments and questions about the discussions on these podcasts. You can engage with us at the official ACSIS Twitter and LinkedIn accounts. Be part of the discussion. I'm your host, Bill Wohl. And for everyone at ACSIS, Thanks for joining. We look forward to our next podcast. Talk soon. 

Narrator:
Thank you for listening to Supply Chain Visibility Stories brought to you by ACSIS, the 100% supply chain visibility cloud solution provider. Visit us on the web at ACSISinc.com. That's acsisinc.com. Or join the dialogue on social media. Look for ACSIS Inc. on LinkedIn and Twitter. Join us next time for Supply Chain Visibility stories brought to you by ACSIS.