This week on the Be Epic podcast we are kicking off a short series of conversations with the 2023 Arkansas Business Hall of Fame Inductees. We begin the series with Judy McReynolds, Chairman, President and CEO at ArcBest. ArcBest is an integrated logistics provider based in Fort Smith, Arkansas. They are celebrating their 100 year anniversary of being in business in 2023. We begin the episode with Judy providing an overview of ArcBest, where they are today and their growth strategy along with how they approach acquisitions, challenges in the market and innovation. Judy then goes into more detail about the innovations that are currently taking place at ArcBest to better serve their customers. They finish the conversation with a look at how ArcBest has continued to grow and plan for the future.
Episode Transcript
Judy McReynolds 0:00
What we did was we put ourselves in their shoes. And we, we approach these conversations
in a way that was mode agnostic is what I'd say.
Matt Waller 0:12
Excellence, professionalism, innovation, and collegiality. These are the values. The
Sam M. Walton College of Business explores an education business, and the lives of
people we meet every day, I'm Matt Waller, Dean of the Walton College, and welcome
to the be epic podcast. I have with me today, Judy McReynolds, who is chairman, president
and CEO of ArcBest, which is headquartered in Fort Smith, Arkansas. Thank you, Judy,
so much for for joining me today. I really appreciate it.
Judy McReynolds 0:48
Oh, it's a pleasure to be with you today, Matt. It really is.
Matt Waller 0:52
Well, Judy, during your career at ArcBest, you've, you've been in a lot of different
positions. But a lot of your experience in life, professionally, and at ArcBest earlier
was in the area of accounting and finance. But, you know, you've transitioned and
I want to talk about the journey a little bit in a moment. But one of the things that
is really stood out to me and I want to make sure we get to this in the moment, at
some point in our talk is innovation, because I think that's been a theme of your
leadership. And it's really clearly paid off. But, but before we really get into any
of that, I want to mention to all the listeners that we have something called the
Arkansas Business Hall of Fame. And Walton College established this back in 1999,
to really recognize Arkansans, whether they're Arkansans by birth or by choice, who've
been really successful leaders. And so the Arkansas Business Hall of Fame is designed
to honor, preserve and perpetuate the names and the outstanding accomplishments of
these business leaders. It's a way of celebrating the people who are behind the achievements
and business. And we pick people, the committee picks people who are, you know of
significant not only achievement, but also significant integrity. And, and so, Judy,
is being inducted in February at the so it'll be set for Friday, February 17 at the
Statehouse Convention Center in Little Rock. And if you can come you can go to if
you if you Google Arkansas Business Hall of Fame there's you can buy tickets on our
website. But congratulations, Judy, on this honor. Well deserved,
Judy McReynolds 3:14
Thank you so much. I mean, I just I just feel so blessed and honored to be recognized.
It's It really is amazing and exciting. You know, I've I've actually served on the
selection committee years ago, so I know the process and and then being in attendance
at some of the the events, just really very special. And just the association with
the University of Arkansas business school, Walton College, is also an honor in itself.
Matt Waller 3:44
You know, I love I'm ex officio on the committee. But I really love reading through
all of the nominations. I've learned so much over the years about business in Arkansas,
and people by reading them. And it's tough because every nomination is held for five
years. And you know, we've got so many now, just want lots of nominations of people
that are worthy, it does get challenging. But usually the people that are selected
came up real early in the conversation, as you know, from your experience, but for
the listeners who might not be as familiar with it. On our website, we also have videos
of every person who's been inducted since 1999. And I actually taught a course a while
back called Arkansas business where we we looked through some of these and studied
some of the people and actually had them as guests. It was a fun course to teach.
But if you look back at the very, very first cohort was William T. Dillard, the founder
of Dillards, Charles Murphy, of Murphy Oil, Jack Stephens of Stephens, Inc. Sam Walton,
of course of Walmart. And but each year we've inducted pretty amazing people. And,
and the other thing is kind of interesting, Judy, and you'll appreciate this. Joe
Ford was in the second cohort.
Judy McReynolds 5:24
Oh Wow.
Matt Waller 5:26
Many of the people are not alive now going way up in the cohorts, many years, Joe
is still alive and strong. In fact, I heard him speak recently, and it was pretty
amazing. But at any rate, if you if you go and you look at the website, you'll see
it's an amazing list of people. And I think Judy, well deserves to be on this list.
And we're proud of you.
Judy McReynolds 5:56
Well, I wanted to add one thing, which is really exciting, I think for for me and
for our company is in 2023, when this event will occur, it's our 100th year of being
in business as a company. So that's, that is just really special.
Matt Waller 6:15
It is it's it's exciting. 100 years, for those of you listening that don't know the
history of transfer of you know, trucking, it's worth looking into this. But back
in about 1980, there was something passed called the motor carrier act of 1980. And
it deregulated the trucking industry and 1000s of companies went out of business,
only the strong survive, but to be around for 100 years, that was certainly a key
milestone in transportation for our country. Actually a miracle that that was passed
and it was so good for our country, that you all made it through that.
Judy McReynolds 6:59
We did. And that was a significant point in history for the company. And, you know,
I have the benefit of getting to hear you know about that transition from previous
leaders that, you know, I had the the experience of working with, but yes, very unusual
time. And if you operate it in a regulated environment, just thinking about the transition
to, you know, that world of deregulation, there were some pretty significant leadership
changes at our company that helped enable our ability to navigate through that and
navigate well through it. And many of those principles around pricing that we use
today, were key to our ability to successfully endure that time and, you know, come
out in the place that we are so interesting.
Matt Waller 7:53
Well, you know, you think about it. I mean, the company's been around through the
Great Depression. You know, World War Two, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the oil
crisis in the early 70s, runaway inflation and interest rates in the late 70s. The
9/11, the great recession and many, many other big challenges,
Judy McReynolds 8:23
and most recently, the pandemic, right,
Matt Waller 8:25
Yeah. Yeah.
Judy McReynolds 8:27
Yes. Yeah, when we get sometimes we'll be asked questions about different changes
in the economy, major shifts, you know, things that are we're faced with, or our industry
is faced with. And we can almost always say, we've been through that. We've been through
something like that. That's, that's amazing.
Matt Waller 8:51
Yeah. It's reassuring too for employees, I think
Judy McReynolds 8:51
It is.
Matt Waller 8:56
So Judy, I'd love for you to take a moment to talk about who is ArcBest? And then
also make sure in the process to talk about your role and your background, some of
the challenges you've faced, you know, when you started as CEO, and where ArcBest
is today, just some of those topics. And then I've got some other questions as well.
Judy McReynolds 9:20
Sure. Well, today ArcBest is is an integrated logistics provider. And we're based
right here in Arkansas. In the Fort Smith area, we have close to 2000 people, and
our company has 15,000 overall. So that gives you some perspective about what we have
here in Arkansas, and then how that impacts the rest of what we do. But, you know,
we really see ourselves as keeping the global supply chain moving. And, you know,
we have an integrated and full suite of solutions that really work well for our customers,
especially whenever they're faced with supply chain challenges, it just comes across
so well for them. But you know, what is remarkable in that 100 years that I mentioned
is really our people. We have endured a lot of different circumstances, but that really
has been a constant you know throughout. I remember, you know, when I first took my
role, just recognizing that after going out and shaking hands and being with people
across our company, just the longevity of people, and the care and concern that our
people have for our customers, we also have great customer relationships, and, you
know, many of those have been around for a long time, 80% of our customers have done
business with us for 10 years or so. And, you know, so that's, that's a really good
solid, what I like to think of as foundation, you know, for success. And, you know,
the the interesting thing for me coming into my role as CEO in 2010, as you mentioned,
you know, some of the challenges that that that we have faced. Well, one specific
one was the Great Recession, as I was taking my role. So, in 2009, the year before
I was asked to be CEO, or actually the year, I was asked to be CEO of the company,
we lost $100 million as a company, and there were just certain circumstances that,
that arose that cause that, you know, we were facing the great recession, the impact
of the 2008 financial crisis. And then also, there was a bit of a price war in our
in our competitive group. And the reason for that was, you know, there was one company
that was close to being out of business, which is still in business today. So whatever
they were trying to do didn't work. But it put us a company that really had those
solid relationships and wanted to defend them, you know, in a difficult spot. But,
you know, when I was looking at the situation, thinking about what was good, and what
needed to continue, and then what needed to adapt and change, you know, I really was
able to stand on those people and relationships. And you know, what, what's interesting
was the knowledge that we gained through that, just looking at ourselves, trying to
look at ourselves through the lens of a customer thinking about those green shoots,
those things that we saw that were going well, you know, we really had a lot to think
about. But it centered around our customers and our opportunity that honestly, we
had already invested in. So we just pursued, change in the company that really was
to position ourselves to better address the opportunities that we had in those customers
we knew well, and that we knew we could execute with the people that we have at the
company. And we find ourselves today a $5 billion integrated company with many logistics
solutions. When I first took my role. We were 93% an LTL, a less than truckload carrier.
And so there's really been great transformation in the company. You know, since I've
been in my role, which is now it's kind of hard to believe, but 13 years.
Matt Waller 13:30
So it is. It's been an amazing journey, indeed. And congratulations on that. Yeah.
And I have to say, even though I know you're an integrated logistics company, I have
known, ABF Freight for so long.
Judy McReynolds 13:49
Yeah,
Matt Waller 13:50
that still sticks in my mind.
Judy McReynolds 13:52
Sure.
Matt Waller 13:52
Right.
Judy McReynolds 13:53
And it should, it's good.
Matt Waller 13:54
Yeah. And I, I'm aware of your acquisitions and the new things you've you've done,
which is pretty amazing. But as you said, ArcBest looks like a different company today
than when you took your role and as CEO, would you tell me a little bit about the
journey and what this growth growth strategy entails?
Judy McReynolds 14:19
Well, when I look at us now, you know, it really is somewhat satisfying, although
we still have so much more to go. But, you know, we, we really looked at, through
market research, data gathering insights that we had from our customers at what they
were spending their dollars on how they were approaching, you know, success in their
own business. We looked at ourselves, and we said, we want to better match what our
customers are spending their dollars, on what matters to them. And one of the more
significant decisions I'd say, was to say, okay, if I'm the shipper, I'm the customer
and I'm trying to develop a successful strategy for my business. I might not necessarily
choose just LTL as my solution. So, you know, what we did was we put ourselves in
their shoes. And we, we approach these conversations in a way that was mode agnostic,
is what I'd say. And, and that was really, really important. Because if you think
about the risk involved in that, it might not result in you having the same business
that you had before. And we had to get to a place where that was okay with us that
that was our path forward. And customers really appreciated it. And, and so that another
thing that we did that really was it synchronized well, with some training that we
had been doing for years, was an approach that was really more about the solutions
that a customer needed, rather than it being just a service conversation about one
solution. So, you know, we were we were training our people to understand a customer's
business, know what was important to them, understand where their challenges were,
and what could make them successful. And, and we saw we had very experienced people
doing that. And as a result, you know, we learned that that close to 80% of our accounts
were comfortable buying logistics services. In many cases, they were spending a lot
of their dollars on truckload solutions or some consolidation of shipments into truckload.
We learned that we had some specific expertise that was valuable in premium logistics
and time definite type solutions. And so one of the things that we did in 2012 was
we bought a company in Ohio called Panther Premium Logistics. And it folded in really
well with those interests and needs that customers had at the time. You know, sometimes
they want a shipment moved exclusively on a vehicle. And it's not to be combined with
other shipments like you do in an LTL operation. And so that worked out well, was
successful. And then a more recent acquisition we made was MoLo. And that stands for
Modern Logistics. It's, it's a company that's based in Chicago, a true truckload broker.
The great thing about Molo was, you know, that just the success that they had already
had, you know, with their customers, larger customers, but that that gave us even
a more solid truckload solution. So we had our LTL network, ground expedite and premium
logistics through this Panther acquisition, and then we in a more fulsome way, we're
able to offer, you know, truckload based solutions, as well. So, put that together,
and we're facing the customer as of 2017, you know, as ArcBest with this set of solutions.
And it really has worked well for our customers. And, you know, today, we have solutions
that are unique to each customer, it might be a supply chain optimization, they might
want us to manage their order fulfillment, they might want us to find carriers for
them to do business with. And so it is truly a logistics company that works on behalf
of that customer. And, you know, that's very different than just executing in one
solution. But, you know, I mentioned all of that because it really did take courage
and great listening skills, willingness to look at ourselves and be disrupted or transformed.
And I think the pandemic has shown us the agility that's really necessary in the business.
You know, there are many customers that might have approached their business very
differently pre pandemic than they do today, for instance, and we have to be willing
to be adaptable with them so that we're doing the right thing.
Matt Waller 19:51
You know, I I've really enjoyed watching your strategy change over that timeframe
since you've been CEO, and I remember, I don't remember what year it was, when it
was really clear to me you were making a big change strategically, you invited me
to your rebranding event called,
Judy McReynolds 20:13
yeah,
Matt Waller 20:14
I don't even remember what year it was,
Judy McReynolds 20:15
well, 2014, we rebranded the company ArcBest. But in 2017, we did that what I would
call a an enhanced market approach where we were facing customers, you know, with
ArcBest as the company with the solutions that we've been talking about.
Matt Waller 20:33
Yeah, that's the event I was thinking of. And I thank you for allowing me to participate
in that because it really gave me clear insights into you, as I was watching the news
and seeing press releases that helped me understand what you were doing. But and so
it's clearly been an effective strategy. But one challenge you always have when you
create new strategies like this is putting a structure in
Oh, yeah,
to manage that strategy. How have you done that?
Judy McReynolds 21:07
Well, first, it starts with the the knowledge or the idea that you have to be collaborative,
as a group of leaders. There are many cross functional efforts, or teams that just
have conversations constantly in this in this approach that we use, it actually is
harder to execute inside the company, then, because you're trying to make it easier
for the customer, if that makes sense to you. And so when we did this enhanced market
approach, we combined our customer facing groups into one. So Field Sales, for instance,
you had before you had LTL salespeople, or you might have you know, truckload salespeople,
but we put that together, and we're approaching, you know, sales in a combined way,
and then marketing, our training and development, which is a huge part of who we are,
and what we do is a combined effort. And our pricing philosophies, you know, had to
come together as one. And so whenever you do that, you're you've got leaders, in my
direct reports that really work across solutions. You know, for instance, you know,
the person that's the chief yield officer has responsibility for pricing, in ABF,
the LTL network, but also, you know, with our, our truckload offerings, and then when
those kind of work across for instance, as a customer might utilize both, or even,
you know, in those managed solutions that I was talking about, so, you know, I've
my direct reports, have to work across the organization, they're in a functional areas.
So, you know, customer, I have a chief customer officer, that has responsibility for
those customers that we've been talking about, and, but you know, has to really not
look at the business just through one silo of a service offering. And, you know, we
have a training and development team that has to be nimble across that, we might have
some initiative or something going on, and one of those solutions to better serve
our customers that has to be addressed. And our people need to really embrace the
thought or the idea, which I believe most of them do, that we're doing the best thing,
you know, for the future success of the company, as we're executing the business.
But, you know, I never underestimate the difficulty that we can have in some instances,
because these decisions, you know, have to be reviewed, as, you know, what maybe is
good in the short term or long term, for instance, for, you know, a specific account
or a decision. And, you know, so so there are those difficulties, you know, that that
we have at times, but you know, when we when we're doing an integration of a of a
new company, like we bought MoLo, when, basically a year ago, when you bring that
together, you have accounts that were their accounts, you have accounts that are ArcBest
accounts, how are you going to deal with that? You know, so we've had to navigate
through that and do the best thing for the customer. But, you know, it takes people
with integrity, character, willingness to both listen and share, raise their hand
when there is a challenge. And we have to kind of come together and address these
things, we don't always agree. And that's healthy. I, you know, my leadership style
is one where, you know, I feel like it's not all about something I want to do just
one person, but you know, we have to listen, collaborate, develop those best thoughts
and strategies and action plans and, and go execute. But we have different ways we
do that our strategy team meets once a quarter. And then we develop what those initiatives
or action plans are to achieve that strategy. And we meet on those monthly and behind
them is an allocation of resources, that has to match up, it has to make sense. And
as you know, the world changes so quickly, those priorities can change. So we really
have to stay in sync and, and not get too far from, you know, the issues because you'll
look up and you won't be in the right place.
Matt Waller 26:06
Well, I mean, of course, I'm very familiar with ArcBest. And I'm aware of some really
cool things that are going on at ArcBest. And but I'd like to hear how you think about
innovation?
Judy McReynolds 26:25
Well, we have the benefit of this history that we were talking about earlier, you
know, being a business 100 years. And just being able to say that is is just pretty
exciting. When you think about the word innovation, it's like, well, you wouldn't
be here today, if you weren't willing to disrupt yourself, be innovative and transform
your business. So we really do believe in the power of that. And we believe that we
have a lot of expertise and experience with it. But we we spend about $150 million
dollars annually that's dedicated really to innovation, it can it can be spent in
running the business, which, you know, is good and necessary, but can also be spent
on doing something transformative for the business. And I think, you know, Michael
Newcity, who was he graduated from the Walton College, the MBA program, I think, too,
and he, he is the leader, he's our Chief Innovation Officer at the company, and very,
very capable. And just always, he's a lifelong learner. And that, you know, that's
something that's really important in this area, but something he reminds us of, is
that we need to spend more of our dollars transforming than we do on running the business
if we can do that. And that's what he tries to achieve. And I've thoroughly embraced
that.
Matt Waller 28:01
Well, I I have a question about that. Because I know Michael Newcity well, he he graduated
undergraduate with information Information Systems degree from the Walton College
Judy McReynolds 28:14
He did, uh huh
Matt Waller 28:14
And he was summa cum laude, which is not easy to accomplish, but also in his MBA.
He was summa cum laude. But the other thing that's noteworthy, especially given what
you're talking about here, is he received the Donald W. Reynolds Governor Cup Award,
which is for entrepreneurship. And I know that when he first started with you all
he started as something to do with emerging technologies. I think it was emerging
technology, something along those lines, which I remember, you know, I didn't know
him very well, then. But I thought that's kind of a neat title.
Judy McReynolds 28:56
Yeah. Well, as you you know, Michael, so this won't surprise you, but I'm gonna say
is, you know, whatever role Michael has, is develops around him, you know, because
he just has such a unique skill set. But, you know, when, what's interesting about
Michael's area, as we are looking at the history of time, or the period of time, I
guess is a way to say that is, since I've been in my role, you know, I'll share some
things with you about that. In 2015, so kind of midway in my time in my role, you
know, we restructured our best, some areas, our technology team, what we call economic
analysis, which is one of the areas that Michael worked in, in addition to what we've
mentioned already, and our innovations team into what we call today ArcBest Technologies.
We did that kind of in sync with the rest of what we talked about to better align
our business initiatives. And we wanted to just, you know, just disrupt ourselves
because we could see that we would be disrupted if we didn't do it ourselves. And
we wanted to generate those thoughts and ideas. And it was very helpful to do this
reorganization. So we introduced also in 2015, advanced analytics as a discipline.
And we began doing a work with predictive and prescriptive analytics. The next year,
we launched the the project and portfolio management office. And that was really to
help us advance these initiatives, make sure that we were prioritizing well and optimizing
our resources, because we knew we had to get a return on these dollars that we were
spending so that PMO, that project management office was just a very important thing,
as well as what we did in 2015. And, and then, since then, we've, we've launched an
innovations accelerator, that you're also familiar with. And in 2019, we put in a
cognitive engagement team. And so all of that is kind of working, you know, again,
to help us invest well, get a return, but also in throughout all of that, you know,
you're disrupting yourself. And that's been really critically important to us, we,
you know, one of the risks that we faced as a company, when I first took my role was,
if you just stood still, if you just kind of cut costs, and just stayed in the same
place, there's no way that we would be the company that we are today, we might, you
know, might not have had success at all. And so you're actually taking a risk by not
doing anything, the way I see it. And so you need, you need to take calculated risk,
and really put yourself in the best position. And these changes that I described in
the, the we call it AB Tech, it's really ArcBest Technologies, but in that group,
really helped us in the business accelerate our success, the visibility that we have
of emerging, you know, either opportunities or technologies that can be used in the
business. And I'm just really proud of what we've done there. Because it helps us
to, again, you know, see ourselves in a different way, perhaps more outside in is
a way to think about it than just, you know, working with the existing business the
existing way.
Matt Waller 32:40
I'm gonna mention this, I don't, you don't need to comment on it necessarily. You're
welcome to, but I have to say, you know, coming from your accounting and finance background,
the strategies you've rolled out, surprised me a little bit. Now not to say, I mean,
you know, accounting and finance are extremely valuable. And there are lots of innovative
people that go into it. But the degree to which you've emphasized this was noteworthy,
and I agree with you, you know, there's a risk of not doing anything. And you mentioned
calculated risks. I think that's where the financial kind of perspective does help
a lot when it comes to innovation, because you don't want to take uncalculated risks,
Judy McReynolds 33:30
Right.
Matt Waller 33:32
And, of course, as I've been, you know, there's, there's some risks that, you know,
it's hard to see where the IOA ROI is gonna come from. They're more like an option,
you know, value, but there's some that you've got to have more of them that have clear
ROIs, or at least you're thinking through the ROIs. And I think that's where understanding
or thinking from a micro economic and financial kind of perspective really can help.
You know, one thing Thomas Sol is famous for saying was, you know, there, there aren't
any solutions. There's just trade offs. And, you know, when you were talking about
this, this function that you created with the ArcBest to prioritize all of these things,
the portfolio of innovations. I've not seen that a lot.
Judy McReynolds 34:29
It is fairly unique, it is. You know, what's interesting about what you just said,
is, you know, the, the ROI, I think what where you were you were going with that is
that the ROI can sometimes be something that is in an Excel spreadsheet, or it's on
paper, but is it real? And I think that's one of the things that I learned from doing
those calculations on the one hand for people when I was CFO, for instance, and then
being in my role, now, there's a discipline, in some ways, it's a change management
discipline that you have to put your energy into, and the people that are executing
these strategies have to get behind, because you've got to be able to track it and
look back. And people have to be enabled to to execute, whatever the change was, that
was going to result in the return. Okay, so maybe it's the technology that you're
making more visible, the pipeline of customer opportunities, and you're creating leads,
and you're allowing them to, you know, see that lead and then go execute, well you've
got to track whether, you know, they actually produced revenue from that, right? You
know, or if it's a cost efficiency you gave, you know, you put together a system that
enabled, you know, a a change. One of the things I was thinking about just this morning
was city route optimization, you know, as, as an efficiency example, so you're trying
to optimize the route that a truck is going on to either pick up or deliver freight.
Well, you know, if you've got a city route driver, that stays on course, and does
that, even though maybe their institutional knowledge tells them to do something different,
you know, you're you're going to have success, if the if the return model told you
to do it, based on the optimized route, right. But if that person chooses not to,
then you, you know, then then perhaps you don't ever get the benefit of that investment
that you've just made, we understand that you in addition to having the model, or
again, the calculation, you have to go and execute and you have to track, you know,
what was any a part of that calculation, a key metric, so that you can test yourself
to see whether you're getting the benefit or not. And that's that, that's, that's
one of the things that I come back to with our people, I started talking about our
people when we began our discussion. And if you don't have good people that are willing
to embrace change, and opportunity, and really get involved in understanding what
you're trying to accomplish, is very, very difficult to transform the company to gain
either growth or efficiency without it.
Matt Waller 37:44
We, you know, in our conversation this morning, you've mentioned growth several times
in the current environment over the last two plus years, this isn't an easy feat.
Can you talk about how you've been able to continue to grow at ArcBest?
Judy McReynolds 38:06
Well, I think it starts with positioning ourselves in large markets, you know, we
operate in markets that are $500 billion dollars, where if we were just in the LTL
market, it would be about 50. And so what we've done is positioned ourselves where
we've had, you know, real ability to grow based on the markets that we're in. And
then, because we've done this work to understand the opportunity that's in our customers,
we know that we have customer opportunity that could allow us to double the size of
the company, we're a $5 billion company, but we can see 5 billion more of opportunity
within our loyal customer base. And you know, so like I was saying, if you create
visibility for people to understand whether it's in a territory, you know, what those
best accounts are, that they can go pursue, or it's just additional solutions that
could be of interest to a customer that you're already doing business with in one
area. That's what we want to do. And that's what we've we've done is to try to, you
know, make visible these opportunities that we know are there. And then of course,
be willing to invest in the solutions that allow you to go and be successful, you
know, with that business, but you know, it really is exciting when I think about the
business and the information that we have today versus what we had, you know, 10 or
12 years ago, it is amazing. But it could just be a lot of information. You got to
make it live. You have to put it in front of people. And you know, that's what many
of our investments are around But you know, and customers continuously have challenges
that are new. It always amazes me, you know what we can help with. And so being in
those conversations, visiting their sides, having them visit here, taking them over
to the innovations lab, letting them see some of the things that we're working on.
It just really is a successful formula, you know, for growth, when you can see the
opportunity, you know where it is, you got great resources to go get it, and you're
willing to put dollars behind enabling those people to be successful.
Matt Waller 40:42
This is such a great case study in innovation in general, and strategy and structure.
And it's clear from talking to you that you have very well structured thoughts about
how to achieve and succeed with an innovation strategy. So congratulations on that.
And it's awesome that, you know, you have been able to really transform the company
in so many ways. And congratulations, once again, on your induction into the Arkansas
Business Hall of Fame coming up in February. That'll be a wonderful event. Well deserved.
And thank you for taking time to visit with me today, Judy.
Judy McReynolds 41:34
Oh, thank you. And again, it's a blessing and an honor to be in inducted into the
Hall of Fame. I'm just very excited about that. I'm excited for all of our employees
as well. It's an honor.
Matt Waller 41:50
On behalf of the Sam M. Walton College of Business I want to thank everyone for spending
time with us for another engaging conversation. You can subscribe by going to your
favorite podcast service and searching. Be epic B E EP IC
Matthew A. Waller is dean emeritus of the Sam M. Walton College of Business and professor of supply
chain management. His work as a professor, researcher, and consultant is synergistic,
blending academic research with practical insights from industry experience. This
continuous cycle of learning and application makes his work more effective, relevant,
and impactful.His goals include contributing to academia through high-quality research and publications,
cultivating the next generation of professionals through excellent teaching, and creating
value for the organizations he consults by optimizing their strategy and investments.
