Katana Cloud Inventory powers inventory and manufacturing workflows for 1500+ small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and routinely tracks over $300 million in monthly procurement data. That gives Katana a unique near-real-time window on the shifting interplay between unit costs, inventory and market demand in sectors like manufacturing. 

In this episode of “Manufacturing Matters,” TECH B2B Marketing’s Aaron Hand and Dan McCarthy invite Katana co-CEO Ben Hussey to share what trends Katana is currently watching, what those trends might tell for SMB leaders, and how brands are rethinking their sourcing strategies and cash flows to stay nimble in uncertain times. Join us for a special live session by registering at the link below.

Dan McCarthy: [00:00:00] Welcome to another episode of the “Manufacturing Matters” podcast, where we talk about the trends and technology shaping industry, logistics, and other sectors of the global economy. I’m Dan McCarthy of Tech B2B Marketing, and joining me today are my colleague Aaron Hand and Ben Hussey, Co-CEO of Katana Cloud Inventory. Hello, guys. Welcome to the podcast. And thanks for joining us today, Ben. I want to kick off the way we usually kick off by letting you introduce yourself a little bit. Could you tell us a little bit more about what Katana Cloud Inventory does ?

 

Ben Hussey: [00:00:34] Yeah. Well, actually, you know, if it’s okay, I’ll actually start with explaining why we do what we do, because it, it does actually help answer the what. So, one of our founders, about eight years ago, was working with a medium-sized manufacturer. And when they were working with them, what they realized was that the manufacturers were really struggling to grow their business because they had no access to real-time information. Even the information they got was inaccurate. And what that meant is they really didn’t know what they had to sell, how much to make of anything, and they didn’t even know if they made any money on it. And so, they found Katana to solve these problems. And fundamentally, what we’re trying to do is help companies and entrepreneurs grow their business. And in that, we believe that running a business doesn’t have to be too complicated. And so, our mission as a software provider is to make lovable software that’s easy to use, makes complex tasks easy. And so kind of, in I suppose, more non-marketing speak, our software helps small, medium-sized companies to buy, make, sell the right raw materials and finished products at the right time to the right people.

 

Dan McCarthy: [00:01:43] So, it’s not just inventory. It’s also logistics and everything involved with that. Does it go beyond?

 

Ben Hussey: [00:01:49] Companies use Katana from purchase order all the way through to sale to . . . It’s like a mini ERP, right? It’s an ERP for a small, medium-sized business. Some obviously manufacturers use us, some nonmanufacturers use us as well to be able to do the same thing to manage their inventory.

 

Dan McCarthy: [00:02:03] That’s an interesting business model. It sort of sits at the intersection of of traditional and digital operations, sort of in a business . . . Is there any advice for SMEs who might find it difficult to switch over from their operational mindset when, sorry, change their operational mindset when moving to spreadsheet-based planning to an MRP system like this, or semi-MRP system like this?

 

Ben Hussey: [00:02:26] Yeah, it’s a really good call out. I think we, so we support hundreds of companies. We have about 1500 companies worldwide, but hundreds of them make their own product, has their own brand, and they sell it through multiple channels. So, direct to consumer online, perhaps B2B distribution. And so, we we kind of think of that as a modern hybrid business model. So, for those companies but then also for those more traditional businesses, the challenge is really the same. Once you get to a certain size or complexity of your operations, then spreadsheets just don’t cut it anymore. A spreadsheet can’t think for you. It can do the math really well, but it can’t think. It can’t automate process, can’t make decisions. It’s not intuitive. And so, ultimately what that means is they can’t really collect the information they need automatically in Excel. And even other systems can become a real time sink for a, for a business owner or an operator. So, what we find is we generally are working with companies who are growing.  Actually companies that use Katana grow about twice the rate of the market average. And basically they’ve grown out of what they have today, right? Spreadsheets or another piece of maybe data software just isn’t working for them anymore. And so, the successful companies think about their operations more in terms of how they can achieve more efficiency, more growth, better savings, revenue, whatever that thing is, if the work is being done for you by an intelligent system like Katana, then their time is freed up to make the decisions, to make the plans, to focus on running the business, kind of not the other way around.

 

Dan McCarthy: [00:04:05] And just a quick follow up, does it require a lot of additional training, different skill sets to adopt that or is that something that they can integrate into their business fairly . . .?

 

Ben Hussey: [00:04:15] You know why it’s such a great question is because oftentimes you kind of hear ERP or  manufacturing software and people get scared because it seems like . . .

 

Dan McCarthy: [00:04:25] I know I do.

 

Ben Hussey: [00:04:25] Right? It’s the kind of the source of truth for your business ultimately. And so, people kind of sometimes, that can instill fear. But we’ve really focused what we do on making it easy. So, a majority of our customers will sign up to Katana, and they’ll set it all up themselves without help from us. We do offer help. So people are very, you know, onboarding help. But a large number of customers actually just do it all themselves. It’s all self-serve, and that’s how we designed it.

 

Dan McCarthy: [00:04:52] Excellent.

 

Aaron Hand: [00:04:54] I’d really like to get into some of the trends that you’re seeing with all of these SMBs that you’re taking a look at. You’ve got more than $300 million a month in procurement data that you’re tracking. So, tell us about some of the trends you’re seeing from that data.

 

Ben Hussey: [00:05:10] Yeah, it’s kind of wild right now. It has been for a few months. So, like you said, people use katana to issue purchase orders, to interact with their suppliers. And so, we have the ability to have this kind of anonymized data. And, it’s industry agnostic. So, we work across lots of different industries. But, and by the way, for anyone who’s listening, who wants to get access to some of our kind of thought leadership or tools or any of that, if they go to Katana, MRP, resources, section under reports, all of that kind of stuff is in there. So, people can follow up. But actually, you know what? Maybe let me ask you. Let’s take something like cost of goods sold. It’s really important for a manufacturer. So Q4 2024, what do you think the percentage increased in cost of goods sold was across the board.

 

Aaron Hand: [00:05:58] Oh, sure. Put me on the spot. My assumption is that it went up significantly just in preparation. You know, while people knew what was still going on in preparation for not really knowing what was coming. I don’t know, maybe, 40%?

 

Ben Hussey: [00:06:16] Yeah, you know, it’s a really good guess. And if you think about it, if you take your mind back 12 months, for anyone listening, if we said, oh, your cost of goods sold would go up by 40%, you’d freak out, right? I mean, that’s a pretty big number. The answer is 103%.

 

Aaron Hand: [00:06:30] Wow.

 

Ben Hussey: [00:06:31] And so, you’re right, that’s kind of the hypothesis. But what we could see was that there’s a clear indication of pressure on, small, medium sized businesses, manufacturers, that they were feeling post-election ahead of the new year, as you said, new tariffs were kind of expected. And so what we saw was, yes, price increases on on materials. But what we saw was a ton of industries buying up stock. So, late last year, automotive, for example, bought 12 months worth of inventory at a time. So, they went out, and they bought all of their 2025 inventory in Q4 last year. And, you know, I think we can have a pretty good understanding as to why they did that, right? They were looking to make sure they were locking in their costs. But even if we look more global, what we see is picture of volatility. So, there’s lots of US suppliers obviously being able to hold their prices steady. But many SMEs and many manufacturers depend on overseas procurement of some kind. And what our data showed is that the average unit price of purchases increased 30% in 2025 when compared to ’24. And we can break it down even further. So, if we look at procurement from Canada and Mexico, we could see that purchase prices really start inching upwards month over month.

 

Ben Hussey: [00:07:48] So, you go January to February, they went up 20%. You go to March, and they’ve gone up 50% since the beginning of the year. This is obviously due to the ongoing tariff talks. So, you know, is it because suppliers were increasing prices because demand went down? Big question. Obviously, we can’t really tell that answer, although we have some guesses. But, you know, it’s wildly different if we look at the UK. So, I get really excited about this. It’s a really interesting thing. So, if we if we look at the UK, what our data shows is that that wasn’t the problem in the UK. What they struggled with was . . . companies were struggling with delivery dates. And so, in April 2025, late delivery shipments grew by 18% when compared to Q1. And that trend is continuing. And so that tells us that they’re supply chain issues. There’s some delays in the supply chain. So, if you’re a manufacturer and you’re  knowing this, that should kind of probably set off a couple of alarm bells or at least some things you want to think about in terms of your supply chain and, you know, managing to some of those challenges. The other worrying sign, although some of the macroeconomic data that came out recently contradicts this a bit. In April, we saw customer demand drop by 20% in the US from March.

 

Ben Hussey: [00:09:04] Now, you know, is that a consumer kind of confidence issue? Yeah, a bit hard for us to tell. But, we saw that demand really kind of start to drop off. And the other thing we did see was that the average orders were much smaller. And that makes it a bit tougher for a business, really, to kind of take advantage of tariff reprieves and keep stock levels steady, right? You know, if demand drops, they’re then dealing with an overstock problem. And if you’ve got overstock, obviously that’s impacting your bottom line. And actually kind of to go back to your original question, what does Katana do? That’s actually one of the big things that you want an inventory management system for, right? You want to make sure that you don’t have too much stock, and you’re leaving it on the shelf with all your money. And if you’re understocked, then obviously you’re leaving money on the table. And so that’s really what you’re trying to balance and avoid. But these are the types of insights customers can get from our platform. And obviously the hope is they’re using that to make good business decisions.

 

Aaron Hand: [00:10:03] There’s so much going on that’s huge. I think, you know, from a consumer perspective, we have some idea that something’s coming, but it’s really hard to know how everything is going to be affected, whether it’s more affected by price or demand or delay in shipments like you’re talking about. You gave us a little peek into the automotive sector in terms of them buying 12 months worth of their goods. Can you give us another, any other looks into other sectors like food and beverage or anything?

 

Ben Hussey: [00:10:38] The industries are actually so different. They’re behaving so differently under this situation. Like it’s not . . . there’s not a blanket answer. So, food and beverage is actually a really good one because of what they make, what they produce, right? So, a lot of our customers are . . . Think of high-end chocolate bars, protein powders, organic energy bars, teas, coffees. And the one thing they all have in common is that there’s some form of perishable nature to their inventory, right? What they can’t do is just buy a year’s worth of supply and leave it on the shelf because there’ll be a ton of wastage. So, what that industry is really looking to try and do is keep a pretty steady level of inventory. In April, though, we saw a sales order volume hit a record high for this industry, so, higher than the peaks around the holiday season late last year. Compared to Q1, we saw a 46% increase in sales orders for food and beverage. That indicates obviously customers really eager to buy. And we know this industry is growing, particularly the speciality part of it. May’s trending the same way. And what was really interesting to see is lots of these companies had stocked up in early April. So, in early April, there was actually a lot of back and forth with tariff announcements being expected. They saw the demand, or they expected the demand, and they actually ordered before the tariff announcements. And there was a record amount of purchase orders during the last two weeks of April specifically. There was obviously a smart procurement strategy where they were getting their delivery dates closer to when they would have to ship.

 

Ben Hussey: [00:12:12] But they were doing the order much sooner to get advantage of that locked-in pricing. And it is unusual for this industry because these companies typically don’t bet on intentional overstocking because of that wastage problem that they can run into. Now, obviously we would expect to see these elevated levels as long as the demand holds. And so far in May it is. But this contrasts so differently to someone like cosmetics. Cosmetics–it’s been the opposite. It’s been a steady decline since the start of the year. Lots of cosmetics companies, particularly in the US, they rely on raw materials from Mexico. And in Q4 they were pretty hard hit, their cost of goods sold. They were in that over 100% kind of category. What we think is that that pressure combined with their limited ability to raise prices, you know, perhaps there’s a warning sign there, right? They’ve bought all this inventory, but demand is dropping off. They can’t really change prices. So, is that an industry that’s going to have some challenge later this year? Don’t know, but there’s certainly some things that are really . . . And we saw this . . . and wood and timber is another one, right? We saw big increases in COGS, you know, construction industry buying up. They were able to pass on price hikes, though, so there’s obviously some kind of elasticity questions depending on what business you’re in.

 

Dan McCarthy: [00:13:32] Quick follow up on that too, Ben. I’m curious because I know that, you know, obviously no one can predict the future. So, they’re overordering or understocking or whatever. It’s all guesswork to some degree. Does volatility breed volatility at some point? I mean, do these effects tend to amplify over time as volatility continues?

 

Ben Hussey: [00:13:53] Yeah, for sure it does. And, you know, I suppose it also in part depends on whether the volatility,  as you say, continues and compounds and that does make it kind of, I suppose particularly difficult if you’ve, if you’ve locked in your bets and you’ve kind of got a rhythm of how you’re thinking about things and approaching things. Then, yeah. I mean, I suppose I’d probably caution against any kind of locked-in type of decision making at this point.

 

Dan McCarthy: [00:14:22] When we were sort of talking around this, let’s address the white elephant in the room. But tariffs have been rapidly announced, delayed, withdrawn over the past month and month-and-a-half. Has that specifically affected Katana or how it generates its real-time data? I mean, I’m curious about the actual working of the platform. Are you geared for that as well? That sort of . . .

 

Ben Hussey: [00:14:46] Yeah, I’m kind of laughing to myself because I remember, last week at that court ruling that was announced that [00:14:52] parents need to stop it, [00:14:53] but then it was overridden a day later.

 

Ben Hussey: [00:14:57] Right. And then we’ll see . . . So, yeah, that uncertainty is still there. Obviously businesses generally prefer certainty, but it is clear this kind of patterns continue. For us, what it’s meant actually, is that for our customers, it’s become kind of more important to have that right inventory level at the right time because it can kind of make or break a business. What we’ve found is that the customers who are doing really well are using the information they have. And so, when costs are rising, for example, using a platform like ours, that they can get the real-time information and make decisions based on it because, you know, if you’re a unique, particular manufacturing, making unique product, right, you might have a couple of different suppliers, but their prices might be changing at different times. So, which is the one I should use and why? With the increase in volatility and what’s become more important is the end-to-end visibility so that business owners really can make the right procurement order fulfillment. There may even be orders that they don’t want to take and that they shouldn’t actually accept because of the volatility, right? Because a big order could sink or swim a smaller company. But shifting suppliers and I guess, you know, whether it’s us or someone else, but technology that kind of allows for that holistic oversight really is essential.

 

Ben Hussey: [00:16:17] And like I said, what we’ve seen the successful companies doing is in managing that stock level with insight around customer demand. The volatility obviously is a bit more on the supply side where on the demand side, in terms of data, one of the things we have seen is, we have a kind of a demand-planning capability in demand forecasting. So, one of the things we’ve seen is that companies who are doing really well and growing and all of that good stuff are using the demand forecasting. And so, the ones that are using demand forecasting, what we’ve seen is that they’ve decreased their inventory levels by about 12%, increasing their stock adjustments by 45%. They’re getting a 1.2x increase in inventory turnover. What that just tells us is they’re being much more laser focused on how they manage their inventory to solve that kind of problem of making sure they have the right stuff at the right time, even if they don’t know what the actual pricing of that raw material is going to be. And so for us, it’s that kind of, I guess, sell more with less and maximize the efficiency of the resources. And regardless of volatility, that’s how I think the successful businesses are really doing. They’re managing to the volatility.

 

Dan McCarthy: [00:17:31] Interesting.

 

Aaron Hand: [00:17:31] I guess I’m just trying to get my head all around this too because they’re all different types of volatility. I think about somebody I was talking with just at the the recent Automate show, and he was talking about tariffs hitting while his equipment was on the ocean, basically. It had left Europe and hadn’t made it to the US yet. Is there any way to plan for that sort of uncertainty?

 

Ben Hussey: [00:17:59] Yeah, it’s a really tough one. I feel, yeah, it’s really tough. So, that exact scenario is pretty challenging because of course mid-delivery is a difficult one. But the way I would hope people look at it is you think of landed cost, right, is effectively what we’re kind of getting to here. And so, you’ve got your shipping costs and you’ve obviously got the tariffs. Having a way to ensure that your core product, material, whatever it is you’re buying, that you can associate the right tariff to the right piece of that good because the tariff doesn’t come all the way in the supply chain, to your point there. The shipping and everything is in there so that you get the full landed cost because your worst-case scenario is you order something and it shows up being twice the price, twice the cost. And if you know in real time what’s changing and can just quickly look it up and go, oh, you know what? I’m gonna not accept that good when it comes in because you know that that’s happened to it. That might be the thing that makes a big difference for you.

 

Ben Hussey: [00:18:58] For us, what we’ve seen in people using, you know, purchase orders is they’re really able to put it at a really fine level to see the impact on inventory value and adding tariff costs in at the right kind of applicable parts of the supply chain. They can then get their margin calculations. And this is really how businesses can stay agile. And I think that’s the key thing that you have to do. And this example is kind of an extreme one but very real, right? Staying agile is ultimately the best approach because that real-time visibility to the cost, to the stock levels, to where your shipments are . . . Forecasting demand accurately is how you can prepare for those kind of potential disruptions. And doing it in that granular detail, I think, is what’s really important. But of course, going back to the earlier question about spreadsheets, there’s really good examples, something you can’t do efficiently in a spreadsheet or pen and paper, right? Like you need a tool that can do the work for you and give you that answer, rather than you trying to have to figure it out because that’s obviously the challenge.

 

Aaron Hand: [00:20:02] I’m also trying to figure out, you know, if, if the stockpiling of machinery in Q4 was the right move or not the right move. We did hear about some stockpiling and you talked about all the goods sold in Q4. If you’re a manufacturer who didn’t stockpile, are you in a worse position now to to handle what’s going on?

 

Ben Hussey: [00:20:27] Yeah, I guess . . . So, i guess it depends, right? One of the things, you know, obviously we would hope business is doing is really managing their supplier data to make sure they know and have visibility into what suppliers are going to be impacted by tariffs, tracking the raw materials and the component suppliers, make the right adjustments as needed. And part of that could be stockpiling. If you didn’t stockpile that’s tough. Obviously, I feel for manufacturers right now because, easy to say, but hard to do, right? I mean, that’s that’s part of the challenge. But sure, you might be increasing, you know, you might be in a situation where you’ve got these increased import tariffs. We’ve seen a couple of things and some of them are things that you, I guess, might expect, like reevaluate your investment plans, right? I mean, just delaying purchases on things for as long as you can and hope it kind of goes the other way. New suppliers. We see lots of people changing suppliers, right? They have shifted to more local or regional suppliers or other countries. We have seen a lot of people kind of get more into their efficiency, right? If I can’t change the cost of something, than the only other way I can save money is to be better at what I do, be more efficient, reduce waste. One of our customers actually last week that we were talking to, being [00:21:44] a customer [00:21:45] for not that long, a couple of months, they told us they found $40,000 worth of inventory they didn’t know they had.

 

Dan McCarthy: [00:21:51] Hmm.

 

Ben Hussey: [00:21:52] And like, for me, that makes me really happy because that means someone’s got value out of the system, right?

 

Dan McCarthy: [00:21:57] This is a new customer?

 

Ben Hussey: [00:21:59] Yeah, but you know, how cool is that, right? I mean, they obviously had a need, but that’s a good way of kind of what other areas can we look at to be more efficient and effective if I can’t control my material cost? And so, those are things where we’re seeing there’s obviously, you know, we see co-ops, right, buying purchase power, bring co-ops together, to increase your purchase power, get shared access to machinery or equipment, perhaps. You know, lease schemes, leaseback, or that kind of thing. Definitely resilience in your supply chain, flexibility, automation, how you do things is something we’re seeing, you know, even if you did stockpile, we’re seeing people do it. And the other thing I think is staying informed on things like trade policy, right? Associations like yours and podcasts like this. Right. I mean, like a business owner investing your time in trying to understand and know what’s going on, even if you can’t predict the future. Hopefully, you know, this podcast is something that helps someone. So, that’s the goal.

 

Dan McCarthy: [00:23:02] We certainly hope so. You talked a little bit about people shifting and pivoting based on their suppliers. If they change the origin of their materials or goods . . . You know, the optionality premium of maintaining multiple suppliers. Is that come under pressure where you see that people are changing their partnership or cross structures?

 

Ben Hussey: [00:23:27] This is an interesting one. I actually have lots of views on this. So, it’s, you know, optionality premium. I think it’s just less of a premium than people think. And actually, I would argue that in today’s world, it’s an optionality advantage. I think optionality is that valuable strategy that’s going to help you rather than be a . . . Well, you know, sure, you might pay 5% more on your overall cost because you’ve got several different suppliers, but you also might save 40% because of it, because you have the optionality to switch quickly. So, what we’re really advising our customers to think about is, and what we’re seeing is kind of several sort of smart, proactive approaches. So yes, absolutely. We’re seeing businesses diversify their supplier base, not just relying on one region. They are managing suppliers in real time. So, they’ll store supplier data in Katana. And then that way what they can do is they can quickly adapt to those real-time supply and price changes and then they can optimize for efficiency. As I mentioned earlier, we can apply tariffs across products and different units and components. And so, that does allow a business to kind of look at their existing inventory and incoming inventory. And they might want to mix and match which they pull from, right, from your P&L. Because if one cost based on one set of inventory is lower and the other one is higher, perhaps you don’t want to, you know, depending on how your accounting treatment works, right, you might want to blend the inventory.

 

Ben Hussey: [00:24:55] You might want to do FIFO or LIFO. There’s a there’s a bunch of different kind of treatments that you can apply if you have the right data to allow you to do it and figure out the margins. That’s another trick. We’ve kind of seen some people use demand forecasting, as I mentioned earlier, is another one. Just really aligning your supply needs to the consumer behavior and the demand that’s out there. And, you know, just try and predict future demand through having, I won’t go into detail, but I guess, you know, in Katana, people put all the different kind of sales channels, like online and B2B and all the different places where they’re getting orders. That gives them that central source of truth where they can say, I know that I’ve got 1000 units that I need next month versus kind of trying to have to piece it all together from different places. What we found is that’s really helpful for companies to really be able to figure out, okay, I can balance across my reserve stock, reserve inventory, all that kind of stuff. Ultimately, like I said, from the optionality, I do see that as an advantage because if you’ve got a real-time view of your business performance and what’s going on, then I think it gives you the ability to have the options and kind of make the best bets and choices as you’re going. And I think the reality of that is, you know, that’s the world we’re living in right now.

 

Dan McCarthy: [00:26:22] You listed several common strategies you could apply here. I’m curious specific to the SMB subset. I mean volatility is always going to be with us. Are there specific strategies that are particularly suited for companies of that size? Because not everybody can can pivot and apply some of the strategies you’re describing, either because they don’t have the inventory space or they don’t have access to a number of suppliers. I’m just curious, does that size of business face unique challenges in your perspective?

 

Ben Hussey: [00:26:54] Yeah, and I would say in kind of the old days, and in the old days might be 5 to 10 years ago, that would maybe be true. You know, it’s the old adage, if you fail to plan, you’re planning to fail. I think the question for an SME . . . So, SMEs today have access to technology and information in a way that they didn’t have 5 or 10 years ago, right? Like the cost of our platform versus, you know, 5, 10 years ago, platforms like ours weren’t available, not at a cost or, you know, a price that an SME could afford. And today they do exist. And so, what are you planning for? Are you planning for predictability? I would hope not. You know, are you planning for things always being this way. Again I would hope not. I think the last few months have shown that’s not the case. And actually, COVID showed us this, right? I was working in retail and e-commerce at the time, and so we got the same lesson there. A retailer that could adapt quickly and shift their customer experience from in-store to online and ship to home did really well. If someone could do that and pivot within 2 or 3 weeks, they won. Those that couldn’t because they didn’t know what inventory they had and where they had it, they failed because they just couldn’t get their product out of stock and into their customers’ hands.

 

Ben Hussey: [00:28:10] We don’t know what the future holds. But your question, I think, almost answered itself, really. I think the strategy now is being nimble and being able to adapt. And I think SMBs can do that today. It is a globalized world regardless of the trade situation. The globalization is still there. I think the technology is there to be able to help. And there are areas of predictability. Again, as I mentioned earlier, I think the demand side is kind of one of them. If you do some demand forecasting, then I think you can better understand how much you need of something, and you’re not kind of guessing so much or having to err on the side of caution and have very large amounts of safety stock, or buying a product that people want. Again, in the old days, we called it just in time. I think we’re a bit more sophisticated than that now. But again, making sure you’re not understocked/overstocked is ultimately, I think, what the SMB needs to try and achieve. And, and I say, I think in today’s world, you can absolutely do that.

 

Dan McCarthy: [00:29:10] Great.

 

Aaron Hand: [00:29:12] We’ve tried to really focus in, since we are “Manufacturing Matters,” we try to focus in on what’s going to matter most to manufacturers. But is there something, anything we missed? Anything you want to make sure to, to get out there?

 

Ben Hussey: [00:29:29] One of the things we, regardless of what business you’re in and regardless of how difficult things are for you, I would suppose I’d encourage any business owner to take a few minutes and to kind of take a step back, as it were, from the possible madness and, invest the time to do a little bit of research and thinking and kind of understand where the problems really are. And then ultimately make decisions on what you can do about them. Like I said, I think there’s more . . . There is a great deal of opportunity in the efficiency, effectiveness process of how you do things, as there is in the, I need to find a new supplier that’s 5% cheaper. Yes, that’s a thing. But down to the other question you just asked, right? It’s not just about how much does something cost. It’s about your efficiency and effectiveness of taking that and then putting it through your machine and getting it out the door. And I think, again, using technology can help you with that. There’s lots of things that can help. But doing that kind of homework to figure out those things, I think people would be very surprised at just how much of a difference that can make.

 

Dan McCarthy: [00:30:50] Excellent. Way to end up on a positive note. Well, Ben, thank you. I know your time is precious. We don’t want to keep you much longer, but a big thank-you to you, Katana Cloud Inventory, for joining us today. If you have any questions for Ben, feel free to post them to the Manufacturing Matters, to our LinkedIn or to Manufacturing Matters website, which is manufacturing-matters.com. You’ll be able to see this at demand once it’s posted. And for anyone wishing to be in the loop on upcoming conversations about automation, please follow us on LinkedIn. And thanks for joining us today.

 

Ben Hussey: [00:31:28] Thanks, Dan. Thanks, Aaron.

 

Aaron Hand: [00:31:29] Thank you.