Carmit Glik Podcast Transcript
Carmit Glik joins host Brian Thomas on The Digital Executive Podcast.
Brian Thomas: Welcome to the Coruzant Technologies, home of The Digital Executive podcast.
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Welcome to The Digital Executive. Today’s guest is Carmit Glick as the CEO of Shift4wd, Carmit Glick stands at the vanguard of digital transformation within the global freight industry.
With over 22 years of multifaceted experience, she has dedicated her career to simplifying the complexities of international trade, helping businesses mitigate risk and seize global opportunities through a digital first best in class freight solution. Carmit is a visionary leader known for spearheading high profile projects in digital freight marketplaces, and delivering end-to-end transportation solutions that prioritize both customer centricity and long-term sustainability.
Well, good afternoon, Carmit. Welcome to the show.
Carmit Glik: Thank you. Happy to be here.
Brian Thomas: Absolutely my friend. I appreciate it. Today I’m in Kansas City, so we’ve got about an eight hour difference at least anyway, and I know that it’s hard to traverse the globe and make times and calendars, so I really appreciate you. Carmit, I’m gonna jump into your first question as CEO of Ship4wd. You are leading a digital first approach to global freight. What are the biggest pain points in international trade that technology is finally ready to solve?
Carmit Glik: I think what happened in the last five days are really a good example to the pain point that you’re raising.
We’re looking at the US and all the tariff situations, Supreme Court and just or at least made a ruling that the tariffs are illegal. Few minutes after Trump raised the tariff in a different way by a different ruling. This type of sudden changes that have never experienced before. It’s kind of situation that if you don’t have digital tools, you’re probably in a really, really, really difficult situation as, as a company, as a SMB, or even as a corporate for those type of changes that comes rapidly and make a significant impact on your balance sheet, on your cash flow.
It’s in parallel that you will have the right tools to manage it and to be able to calculate immediately those type of impacts. So, I think today, or even since COVID time, we must use digital tools. The kind of irrational environment that we are living in as businesses really force us to be on top of things, immediate online.
Have access to all information at the point of time. That could be, we can or could be of ours. We cannot be any more dependent on traditional way of working in the logistics world.
Brian Thomas: Thank you. I appreciate that. You did talk a little bit about the recent changes in tariffs. Obviously tariffs have always ebbed and flowed.
It just depends on where you’re at. But if you are a company especially that does international shipping or business, you need to be prepared. Now, COVID showed us that we need to be prepared and we had to do some major pivoting during that time, and I think we’ve learned a lot from that. Again, to your point, having that the right tools or the right technology to be able to manage quick changes in the market is most important today in the way the global economy works.
So, I appreciate your insights, Carmit. Digital freight, marketplaces promise, speed, transparency, and efficiency, but adoption can be slow. What cultural or operational barriers still hold the industry back from full digital transformation?
Carmit Glik: It’s definitely a mindset certain behaviors that, we don’t change if it’s not broken type of thinking.
I think it’s related to every avenue in our world and the way we are doing things, especially where very risk diverse in everything related to logistics and trade. And, and I think that’s mindset, even though. Reality showing us how awful these type of tools are into our businesses, that’s not an easy thing to change.
Saying that, I think today we advance so far to really talk to any risk on the small businesses side, and I will talk specifically about what we are doing, that we are enabling them. To access the platform 24/7 to reach out and do their sourcing via our platform to secure their payments, secure their communication, and building the trust element that is required with every logistics partner, but especially also with a digital one, having 24/7 support, human support and really, really wrap all types of concern that they might have with the interaction with the logistics company. And in this way, I believe that we are able to change that mindset because you’re clearly giving something that is better than what is out there.
Brian Thomas: Thank you. I appreciate it. There’s a lot that goes into it.
Obviously culturally, it’s hard. A lot of change management, a lot of messaging, a lot of putting that message behind the why. We generally, as humans, business owners generally risk adverse, as you mentioned. And if things aren’t broken, don’t fix it. Right. In order to improve and transform, we do need to take risks.
And I think that’s important, and I love your messaging on that, so thank you. And Carmit, risk mitigation is a recurring theme in global trade today. How can digital freight platforms help businesses navigate volatility from supply chain disruptions to geopolitical uncertainty?
Carmit Glik: I think first of all, it gives you all the transparency.
So, in essence, when you understand as a business owner that you need to be prepared, for example, in the case of China will not be anymore a strong partner for trade, then you must know the cost related to such shifts. So, I think having transparency on pricing, on services, on route, on transit time.
Everything is open to you. You don’t need to ask for, by email like three other, uh, freight forwarders. You don’t need to, to try to collaborate information online. You log in, you have free access. You search for various option out there. For you to diversify your supplier portfolio. In the case of shift forward, you can log in and also look for product and source and have a very, very secure pattern to source with wholesale rates directly from China as well.
If that’s the case you would like to. So I think what’s digital platform give in our space in that imit ability to research and to look very broadly. To find the answer that otherwise you would need various partner and not all of them have the access for the full information. And in that aspect, I think that’s your first step to working with a digital partner in a logistics space.
So that’s very, very important. Then you have the accessibility to asset, logistics, asset and services. Like consolidation at origin and various origin and shipping, and maybe starting with samples or starting with less than full containers or even sent by air freight and everything is accessible within seconds.
You don’t need to look for various partners for that. On top of it, if you decided that you go with a certain product that you would like to source through us, for example, and ship it, you see everything online. You see the full operational flow you can pay online as well. You don’t need to start complicated onboarding or, uh, requesting a wire transfer that takes days you can even pay with your credit card.
So, all of those, little by little, those type of changes that the digital world give you, you cannot find anywhere else. And that’s a little bit imitating the way we operate in our personal life that we got used to very fast and it saves us time. The same. It is within the business environment at least achieved forward.
And I think this is critical today. I think it’s critical that somebody has access. To those services 24 7 that it can be heard of, ask question 24 7. That is not dependent between nine to five when most likely as business owners, you’re very busy with your customers, with your suppliers, and with your ongoing businesses.
The fact that today, SMBs are very lean companies. They have lots of various digital tools around them that support them in a way. Five years ago, 10 years ago, they wouldn’t have the same thing within the logistics space.
Brian Thomas: Thank you. I really appreciate that. You talked a little bit about being prepared, right?
For these shifts in the market and when you need to find things to support the business and the changes, transparency basically, and the prices, transit time, routes, and you talked about your platform shift forward and having that full capability be able to search and find everything. To be more efficient, especially around those available services, to be able to adapt quickly within this volatile global market that we work in on a daily basis.
So, I appreciate your insights, Carmit. The last question of the day, as we look ahead, how do you see the future of freight evolving over the next decade? And what capabilities will businesses need to compete confidently in an increasingly digital supply chain ecosystem?
Carmit Glik: I think that when I was asked that question four years ago, it was, let’s say mid of COVID people mindset was that, okay, we’ll be past COVID and everything will go back to normal pre COVID time when situation were more or less stable.
Then, we are four year ahead and nothing went back to normal, at least not in the terms of supply chain and global trade. And I think that will continue to be the case. Unfortunately, that we have so many issue on our geopolitical side where so many issues that impact us within government themself and areas themself.
That prevent us to go to kind of a steady route, and that’s mean that a global trade, logistic company, freight forwarders, we need to adapt very fast and we need to make sure that we are providing our customers the ability to move as fast as the world is moving. Because otherwise you will not be competitive in the market.
And I think that is critical. We are seeing shifts of supply chain moving around the world that we have never seen before. That we require quite a lot. And from a small businesses point of view, that’s even worse because they don’t have the backbone to support them on that. So, they need to be really, really thorough in choosing the right partner that can provide them that global scenario overview and that they will be able to access those type of logistics assets everywhere they need at any time, and that will keep them.
In the competitive world safer than the rest.
Brian Thomas: Thank you. I appreciate that. And you did highlight, again, COVID was a great example of how we need to shift quickly and adapt to the changes. Global business is very volatile and we need to move as quickly as the world supply chain moves, especially if you’re in that international trade and choosing the right strategic partner you highlighted that is very important.
Someone that can actually help, be two steps ahead of the market as we know, things change very rapidly, so thank you. Carmit, it was such a pleasure having you on today and I look forward to speaking with you real soon.
Carmit Glik: Thank you. Same here. It was true. Pleasure and appreciate your time and looking forward for our next time.
Brian Thomas: Bye for now.
Carmit Glik Podcast Transcript. Listen to the audio on the guest’s Podcast Page.
