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Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, Welcome to the Restless Ones. I'm Jonathan Strickland.

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Speaker 1: As always, my focus is on exploring the intersection of

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Speaker 1: technology and business by having conversations with the most forward

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Speaker 1: thinking leaders. Throughout my career, I've covered everything from massive

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Speaker 1: parallel processing to advanced robotics, but what truly inspires me

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Speaker 1: are the stories of innovation and transformation. Today, our guest

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Speaker 1: is Rob Mills, executive vice president, chief Technology, Digital Commerce,

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Speaker 1: and Strategy Officer of Tractor Supply Company. Tractor Supply is

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Speaker 1: a retail chain of stores that caters primarily to rural

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Speaker 1: and farming communities. Rob's approach to technology is a practical one,

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Speaker 1: as is his approach to leadership. How can technology enable

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Speaker 1: Tractor Supply to meet customer needs and expectations, How can

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Speaker 1: Tractor Supply create a smooth experience both in stores and

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Speaker 1: behind the scenes, and how can the company contribute to

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Speaker 1: those rural communities that it serves. But before we get

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Speaker 1: into all of that, I first wanted to learn more

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Speaker 1: about Rob's background. Rob, I want to welcome you to

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Speaker 1: the Restless Ones. I'm really excited to have this conversation today.

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Speaker 2: Good morning, Jonathan, I'm very excited to be here, Thank

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Speaker 2: you very much.

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Speaker 1: I always like to get to know my guests before

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Speaker 1: we start diving into all the leadership decisions, technology decisions,

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Speaker 1: things of that nature. And when we were looking at

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Speaker 1: your background, I saw that you have a Bachelor of

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Speaker 1: Arts and a Masters of Arts. And when I think

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Speaker 1: of things like Masters of Arts, I don't necessarily think of, oh,

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Speaker 1: this is going to be a person who's the head

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Speaker 1: of technology for a massive company.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. So I've always had a passion for technology, and

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Speaker 2: when you look at my background, both from an academic

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Speaker 2: as well as just my career, I've always tried to

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Speaker 2: the line between business and tech. The focus of my

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Speaker 2: degree was really around mobility and mobility solutions and more

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Speaker 2: of the user interface and really making sure that we're

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Speaker 2: designing for the complexities that kind of go into a

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Speaker 2: mobile interaction. So one of the reasons I focus on

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Speaker 2: an M because I wanted that arts to kind of

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Speaker 2: the UX design, but also very much supporting it on

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Speaker 2: the tech side. For me, it's so much more than

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Speaker 2: just being a techie. It's always wanting to be about

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Speaker 2: how we're solving business problems with technologies and bringing solutions

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Speaker 2: to the business that makes us more efficient, drive new businesses,

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Speaker 2: new insights, and my schooling my background really focused on

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Speaker 2: both of these areas. It's about the experiences that we've

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Speaker 2: landed over the years that got me to my role

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Speaker 2: today and working for some of major companies that invested

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Speaker 2: in their team members and their employees and just really

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Speaker 2: had being the opportunity to work with some great mentors

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Speaker 2: along my career.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, we're going to be touching on so much of

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Speaker 1: what you just talked about, and obviously the entire premise

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Speaker 1: of the show is to talk about leaders who are

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Speaker 1: at that intersection of business and technology. And I love

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Speaker 1: that answer. Also props to you because that's incredible foresight

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Speaker 1: to be looking into specifically mobility and mobile solutions.

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Speaker 2: Well, and I'll rewrite into my early days in retail,

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Speaker 2: focusing on at the time I was sitting in our

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Speaker 2: CIO office talking about how mobile and geo fencing was

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Speaker 2: going to be a game changer to drive a level

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Speaker 2: of personalization and leveraging content to really influencing how consumer

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Speaker 2: shops not just in the store, but using the mobile

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Speaker 2: device anywhere. From pricing to drive a level of personalization

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Speaker 2: around promotions or even specifications around products.

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Speaker 1: Can you kind of walk us through some of the

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Speaker 1: big transformational changes you've seen in tech throughout your career.

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Speaker 2: Boy, there are so many from when you think about

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Speaker 2: the Internet to automation to mobile technologies that we've already

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Speaker 2: talked about and the use and really showing an appreciation

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Speaker 2: of the value of data and the integrity of data.

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Speaker 2: But let's go back to mobile, because I absolutely believe

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Speaker 2: fundamentally mobile was at the crux of a lot of things,

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Speaker 2: especially around the consumer shopping experience. It's a combination of

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Speaker 2: kind of the devices, the availability of information, the Internet

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Speaker 2: speed so it's readily available, and how do we integrate

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Speaker 2: this from a business perspective. And so when I think

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Speaker 2: about just the access to information on demand is dramatically

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Speaker 2: change how we live our life on a daily basis.

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Speaker 2: And it just continues to rapidly change with new technologies

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Speaker 2: being introduced, which I'm really excited about.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and to your point, the ineration of technologies like

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Speaker 1: five G and advanced Wi Fi, where we're getting these

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Speaker 1: incredible throughput and extreme low latency. It's opened up so

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Speaker 1: many different opportunities across multiple industries. Obviously, we love to

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Speaker 1: talk about that here on the show. So it sounds

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Speaker 1: like that's sort of one of the foundational elements for

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Speaker 1: your strategy, is this access to untethered, high speed Internet

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Speaker 1: connectivity and that that in turn can power multiple implementations

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Speaker 1: of technology.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, when you think about trector supply mission

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Speaker 2: and to really focusing on that end to end customer

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Speaker 2: experience from an omni channel perspective, the advances and wireless

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Speaker 2: and broadbag technologies has been a huge enabler for us

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Speaker 2: and what this has done, It's opened up customer access

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Speaker 2: to our digital channels, especially in rural America. It's allowed

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Speaker 2: us the ability to move data much more efficiently between

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Speaker 2: our stores, our cloud, our data centers to to be

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Speaker 2: able to make more of those real time insights and decisions.

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Speaker 2: I think back five years ago, it was far more

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Speaker 2: difficult to move data through these connections, and when we

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Speaker 2: think about where we're at today, it is very robust,

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Speaker 2: especially when you think about images, video, deep product content,

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Speaker 2: and even customer data to really drive a level of

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Speaker 2: personalization when you're in this store. The advancement of connectivity,

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Speaker 2: especially in rural America, has been significant over the past

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Speaker 2: couple of years.

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Speaker 1: One thing that really struck me as I was researching

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Speaker 1: tractor supply, is how the philosophy around this connectivity extends

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Speaker 1: beyond how does it benefit the business or even how

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Speaker 1: does it benefit the customer? Because I was reading up

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Speaker 1: on incidents where you had community dependent upon tractor supply

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Speaker 1: for that connectivity, especially during the pandemic where you had

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Speaker 1: students who were dependent upon being able to connect into

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Speaker 1: tractor supplies systems. To me, that speaks of a phenomenal

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Speaker 1: business approach to community that goes beyond serving the customer

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Speaker 1: and is looking at a broader picture. And I just

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Speaker 1: wanted to say that really impressed me.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. So in general at Trector Supply, our core focus

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Speaker 2: is our team members, and we fundamentally believe do right

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Speaker 2: by the team member the community, good stuff will occur

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Speaker 2: for our business. A great example was through COVID when

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Speaker 2: a lot of schools were going remote. You know, some

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Speaker 2: of these communities just didn't have infrastructure of high speed bandwidth,

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Speaker 2: and we were able to move fairly quick and leverage

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Speaker 2: our infrastructure so people could come in to do their homework, assignments,

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Speaker 2: or get product information. Once again, if they needed something

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Speaker 2: to handle on their property or with their animals and

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Speaker 2: then in addition to that, we actually donated and gave

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Speaker 2: our team members devices for their children at home to

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Speaker 2: do their schoolwork. So we thought much more broad not

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Speaker 2: just about the core infrastructure and how we brought that

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Speaker 2: to the community, but also for our team members to

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Speaker 2: make their stress levels at home hopefully a little easier

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Speaker 2: through the pandemic. I'll feed onto that though, is our

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Speaker 2: omni channel strategy is really built about our team members

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Speaker 2: and our customer experience, and one of our key strategy

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Speaker 2: is to connect that customer and that team member digitally,

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Speaker 2: bridging kind of what you would see a lot of

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Speaker 2: retailers from a traditional separation between online and in store.

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Speaker 2: Our goals to bridge that, and we want to drive

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Speaker 2: ease and efficiency for both and really think about removing

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Speaker 2: the frictions on all sides of the transactions. We also

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Speaker 2: know our customers really depend on products to take care

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Speaker 2: of their pets, their large animals, their property, and this

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Speaker 2: means that they need to understand when products are available,

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Speaker 2: so when they make the commitment to go to a store,

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Speaker 2: they want to have the knowledgeable team members that can

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Speaker 2: help them answer questions that sometimes could be technical at nature.

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Speaker 2: Big picture, this is what gets me so excited about

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Speaker 2: tech is this is where technology was really able to

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Speaker 2: facilitate kind of that online and in store experience by

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Speaker 2: making it easier for our customers to pick up goods

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Speaker 2: in store, transact with the customers anywhere where they want,

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Speaker 2: and then more importantly, ensuring that our team members had

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Speaker 2: the rich product knowledge and training that they needed to

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Speaker 2: enable kind of meeting that customer need. So it all

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Speaker 2: ties back to our mission, our purpose, our values, and

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Speaker 2: technology as the enabler for that.

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Speaker 1: Well, Rob, I have to say that was probably one

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Speaker 1: of the best explanations I've heard for the omnichannel strategy.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and I'll just add when you look at Tractors Supply,

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Speaker 2: one of the things that makes us very unique is

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Speaker 2: you know, consider us as a one stop shop for

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Speaker 2: that real customer. And so when you walk in our store,

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Speaker 2: you have anywhere from insulated outerwear to everyday t shirts,

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Speaker 2: to pet food for your companion or household animal to

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Speaker 2: that farm dog to large animal, down to items to

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Speaker 2: repair items on your property like fencing, etc. And then

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Speaker 2: going all the way around being able to service your

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Speaker 2: land through writers, other type of three point equipment, etc.

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Speaker 2: So it's this one stop shop. And this is where

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Speaker 2: bringing technology both to the customer but also to the

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Speaker 2: team members to allow them rapid information to product content

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Speaker 2: and knowledge is so critical.

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Speaker 1: I'm curious also, I remember reading up about this concept

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Speaker 1: of connectivity playing a role in fostering customer loyalty at

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Speaker 1: Tractor Supply. Can you talk a little more about how

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Speaker 1: that plays a part.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, So we've talked quite a bit about some of

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Speaker 2: the technology changes and things that we've implemented over the years.

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Speaker 2: On demand information is another example. It's about setting the

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Speaker 2: expectations for all of us that we could get answers

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Speaker 2: quickly and easily, and that's what the joy of the

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Speaker 2: Internet has brought us. If you consistently provide the answers

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Speaker 2: and responsiveness that you expect, the customers build trust. And

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Speaker 2: that's something our customers have told us over and over.

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Speaker 2: They're loyal to us. They come to us as a

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Speaker 2: knowledgeable retailer that ultimately helps influence what products they either

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Speaker 2: feed to their animals or products they need to service

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Speaker 2: or care for their land, and ultimately that builds loyalty.

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Speaker 2: We think of ourselves very much as a relationship retailer

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Speaker 2: and not necessarily a transactional retailer.

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Speaker 1: I love that idea of being able to tap into

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Speaker 1: that connectivity to immediately while I'm in the store, look

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Speaker 1: at perhaps a video showing someone installing or repairing something,

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Speaker 1: so that I can have an idea of what I'm

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Speaker 1: in for before I move forward with a purchase. I

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Speaker 1: grew up in rural Georgia. There are a lot of

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Speaker 1: places in rural Georgia where connectivity is not something that

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Speaker 1: you encounter unless you happen to be at a place

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Speaker 1: that is acting almost like a nexus point. That's again

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Speaker 1: a transformative experience. It is the sort of thing that

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Speaker 1: builds customer loyalty because a lot of the things that

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Speaker 1: people in cities, you know, I live in the city now,

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Speaker 1: A lot of the things that we take for granted

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Speaker 1: aren't necessarily as easily accessible when you start getting into

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Speaker 1: some of those rural communities.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely, and some of these purchases are big tickets. There's

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Speaker 2: a level of complexity, and that's what Tractor supplies about.

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Speaker 2: It's about being a dependable supplier to our customers that

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Speaker 2: offer that knowledge and legendary service. And that comes with

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Speaker 2: not just how we're greeting and interacting and caring for

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Speaker 2: the customer, but the expertise and the knowledge about the

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Speaker 2: products and the services that the customers need.

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Speaker 1: Let's talk a bit about the actual infrastructure. So we're

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Speaker 1: looking at these stores, what are the sort of things

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Speaker 1: that you're actually installing to make this technology work within

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Speaker 1: those locations?

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Speaker 2: Great call out. So first thing, we have some great

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Speaker 2: partners that have really come together with us to help

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Speaker 2: to improve just the bandwidth, an availability of speed or

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Speaker 2: why five access as you can imagine, connectivity to our

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Speaker 2: stores can be challenging, especially in some of the locations

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Speaker 2: we are but by using or partnering with these major

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Speaker 2: service providers, they're able to bring us new capabilities, new

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Speaker 2: technologies like five G or well looking to six G

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Speaker 2: as well, and then combining kind of the five G

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Speaker 2: technology with sd WAN technology out there. And now we're

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Speaker 2: really thinking about edge computing and what data that we

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Speaker 2: want to have local or right at the edge from

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Speaker 2: a cloud perspective, and think about the potential possibilities that

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Speaker 2: could even be for as we go in the future

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Speaker 2: with Genai, thinking about on demand training, product information that

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Speaker 2: will just increase the knowledge of our team members through

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Speaker 2: additional training, as well as just how we could share

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Speaker 2: even more content rich with our customers. You know, I

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Speaker 2: will just say one more last thing related to this.

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Speaker 2: Since a lot of our stores are both indoors and outdoors,

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Speaker 2: we don't focus just on the wireless connectivity within our stores,

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Speaker 2: but our outside the walls of the four stores, but

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Speaker 2: going outside to our parking lots, our side lots, our

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Speaker 2: front lots, our garden centers, our big scenarios that we

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Speaker 2: want to solve for when you think about infrastructure and connectivity.

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Speaker 2: And a great example that we deployed last year a

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Speaker 2: mobile app or integrated a capability in our mobile app

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Speaker 2: where you could do actually propane refills where a team

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Speaker 2: member of course would refill the pro pain take, but

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Speaker 2: the transaction would all be completed on a mobile device.

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Speaker 2: So it saves productivity with the team member and time

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Speaker 2: with the customer, but also at the same time leveraging

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Speaker 2: that network inside and outside of the store to really

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Speaker 2: drive efficiency to the customer experience.

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Speaker 1: And I imagine that significantly reduced the amount of time

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Speaker 1: that it takes to refill a pro Paine tank.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, we've taken that transaction time historically seven

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Speaker 2: to fifteen minutes down to a minute, less than a minute,

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Speaker 2: a couple of minutes, depending on demand. Now they can

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Speaker 2: interact and complete their transaction on a mobile device, which

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Speaker 2: has been a huge win. They can even notify us

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Speaker 2: when they're there through geofencing to say hey, I'm pulling

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Speaker 2: in to actually get their propane tank refilled, and a

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Speaker 2: team member will meet them at the propane station.

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Speaker 1: Fantastic. Yeah, anything that clears away those pain points, I

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Speaker 1: am completely in favor of. Well. And you mentioned also

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Speaker 1: that Tractor Supply is already kind of looking ahead and

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Speaker 1: considering what the impact of six G might be further

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Speaker 1: down the road. Are there things on your checklist that

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Speaker 1: perhaps are things that in a few years time you're

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Speaker 1: going to expect to be commonplace throughout the tractor supply locations.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely so. One of the things that we pride ourselves

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Speaker 2: on at Tractor Supplies. We're always testing and learning new

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Speaker 2: products for the customer, but we take that philosophy to

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Speaker 2: our technologies as well. In fact, we have a program

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Speaker 2: here within the tech area that we call the Hatchery,

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Speaker 2: and it's about how do we catch and form new

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Speaker 2: points of view related to new emerging technologies. We're putting

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Speaker 2: a lot of focus on six G technology, and where

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Speaker 2: we're looking to use this is in a couple of areas.

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Speaker 2: One more around computer vision, so being able to proactively

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Speaker 2: identify and detect when a customer needs some type of assistance,

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Speaker 2: so we're making that shopping experience easier. And then lastly,

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Speaker 2: how do you take some of this real time data

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Speaker 2: that we have a lot of access to around Neighbors

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Speaker 2: Club to really drive a level of personalized experiences in

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Speaker 2: the store. And to do that, that's going to require

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Speaker 2: pushing a lot of data down to the store as

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Speaker 2: well as bringing a lot of real time data up

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Speaker 2: to the cloud or to our data center. And this

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Speaker 2: is where we're leveraging six G to test, looking at

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Speaker 2: that capacity and that speed to say in how do

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Speaker 2: we change and improve the customer experience and a team

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Speaker 2: member experience by being able to deliver more richness, especially

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Speaker 2: when you think about IoT and some of the new

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Speaker 2: technologies that are e merging within our four walls of

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Speaker 2: our store.

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Speaker 1: I've talked to a lot of engineers on this show,

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Speaker 1: and it sounds very much like the engineering perspective of

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Speaker 1: making sure that you're making choices that ultimately drive a

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Speaker 1: positive outcome and not just chasing after technology for the

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Speaker 1: sake of incorporating it and for the sake of saying, oh,

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Speaker 1: we also have this that doesn't do you any good

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Speaker 1: unless it drives business outcomes. And so I love hearing

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Speaker 1: that as well.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, when we think about trector Supply, we call it

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Speaker 2: internally as well externally Life out Here strategy. It is

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Speaker 2: really focusing about how data delivers true business value and

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Speaker 2: technologies an enabler for this organization to think differently. And

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Speaker 2: I could say as much as we put a lot

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Speaker 2: of focus on technology, emerging technologies, et cetera, every use case,

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Speaker 2: every discussion that we have, it always starts with what

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Speaker 2: is the outcome that we're looking to improve or what

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Speaker 2: are we expecting this, either technology or enhancements to the

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Speaker 2: data to do for our customers and our team members.

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Speaker 1: Excellent. You mentioned also Internet of Things Briefly, I'm curious

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Speaker 1: if Tractor Supply has any Internet of Things implementations in

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Speaker 1: their strategy or if there's plans for that in the future,

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Speaker 1: and if so, how would that manifest.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so IoT is something that we have tested along

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Speaker 2: the way, not so much integrating it fully into products,

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Speaker 2: but working with our partner from a product perspective where

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Speaker 2: it makes sense, but more from an internal perspective as

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Speaker 2: well as an efficiency looking at new ways to test

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Speaker 2: capabilities drive a level of innovations. And when I think about,

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Speaker 2: for example, our distribution centers or mixing centers, We're currently

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Speaker 2: building out a new DC in Arkansas and this will

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Speaker 2: be a facility that's going to be leveraging more robotic automation.

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Speaker 2: For think around the fulfillments of small parcel packages with

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Speaker 2: e commerce, looking at technology around computer vision and then

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Speaker 2: integrating it where it makes sense with IoT devices, and

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Speaker 2: so we don't take a single thread approach. We kind

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Speaker 2: of look at once again going back to what's the

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Speaker 2: outcomes that we're looking at, and then leveraging it anywhere

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Speaker 2: from IoT to infrastructure, innovation to user experience and the

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Speaker 2: digital connectivity to pull together a more holistic experience.

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Speaker 1: I had a couple of questions I wanted to ask

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Speaker 1: Rob before I could let them go. What is the

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Speaker 1: best piece of advice you have ever received?

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Speaker 2: Listen, Listen, listen, And I take this to heart as

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Speaker 2: a leader, I truly feel that you're far better off

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Speaker 2: serving and listening and learning versus just putting a directive

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Speaker 2: out there. Understand the business, understand the pain points, understand

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Speaker 2: the thought processes. Educate yourself on new technologies and capabilities,

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Speaker 2: but spend equal time to learn about your team and

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Speaker 2: those around you and how they're embracing these technologies or

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Speaker 2: the challenges that they're facing with these technologies. This knowledge,

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Speaker 2: in my opinion, just allows you to help them drive

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Speaker 2: and embrace change and more importantly, drive the empowerment to

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Speaker 2: move the business forward. So it's very simple. Listen, listen, listen.

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Speaker 1: I love it. That's advice I wish I had followed

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Speaker 1: years and years ago. I think I've only relatively recently

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Speaker 1: started taking to heart. All right, rob, what keeps you up.

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Speaker 2: At night when I think about it from a work

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Speaker 2: perspective or three components? One are we developing our team

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Speaker 2: members and growing that team? The second thing is how

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Speaker 2: are we protecting our data, both our customers and our

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Speaker 2: team members, the critical assets that is so precious to

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Speaker 2: our business? So are we doing all the right things?

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Speaker 2: How are we one step ahead thinking about the bad

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Speaker 2: things that could occur and being proactive? And then lastly,

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Speaker 2: are we driving the business value to the organization. It

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Speaker 2: is absolutely critical that we just don't introduce technology to

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Speaker 2: introduce technology, but we're introducing it to improve that experience,

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Speaker 2: drive business value, and have a broader impact on the organization.

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Speaker 2: So those are the three buckets that I think about

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Speaker 2: pretty regularly.

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Speaker 1: I could see how that could keep you up at night.

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Speaker 1: There are significant things to think about. And finally, our show,

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Speaker 1: of course, is called The Restless Ones. I am curious, Rob,

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Speaker 1: what is your definition of a restless one?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? I think about this as well, and for me,

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Speaker 2: it's someone who just never stops learning. They have a

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Speaker 2: relentless appetite to just grow themselves and people around them.

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Speaker 2: They never just accept how something was done in the

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Speaker 2: past is how it has to be done in the future.

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Speaker 2: And so it's always about listen, continuous learning, and then

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Speaker 2: really simply how can we just improve upon our work

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Speaker 2: and take it to the next level. That is the

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Speaker 2: benefit of the speed of the technology is changing that

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Speaker 2: we're able to make rapid changes and just continuously kind

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Speaker 2: of up the game. So to me, it's very simple, learn, learn,

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Speaker 2: and listen.

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Speaker 1: Listen, Rob, this has been a phenomenal conversation. Thank you

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Speaker 1: so much for joining us on The Restless Ones.

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Speaker 2: Well, thank you. It is a pleasure, and I appreciate

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Speaker 2: the support and also being a champion to lead technology

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Speaker 2: into the next generation and to think differently about it

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Speaker 2: as a business leader.

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Speaker 1: Thanks again to Rob Mills of Tractor Supply Company. It's

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Speaker 1: easy for a lot of us to lean on stereotypical

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Speaker 1: ideas regarding rural communities and technology. Much of the time,

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Speaker 1: we might assume the two don't even intersect. But that's

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Speaker 1: an outdated mode of thinking, and Rob really underscored that today.

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Speaker 1: I always enjoy speaking with leaders in the retail space.

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Speaker 1: It's easy for me to understand tech strategies from a

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Speaker 1: consumer perspective, but even with that advantage, the things Rob

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Speaker 1: shared surprised me. Using high speed connectivity with low latency

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Speaker 1: to provide meaningful experiences for team members and customers is

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Speaker 1: a game changer. It smooths out potential points of frustration

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Speaker 1: before they could even form, and serving as a connection

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Speaker 1: point for communities is that's an inspiring thing. Make sure

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Speaker 1: to look over our back catalog of episodes for more

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Speaker 1: the Restless Ones, and stay tuned for future episodes where

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Speaker 1: we speak with the leaders at the intersection of business

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Speaker 1: and technology. Until next time, I'm Jonathan Strickland,