Dan Sanker founded CaseStack Inc. in 1999 in Santa Monica, California, after spending seven years as an executive for retail companies such as Nabisco, Kashi and Procter & Gamble. Sanker, 51, is CEO and works out of the company’s Fayetteville office.
Sanker earned a bachelor’s in economics from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, and his MBA from the University of California, Los Angeles.
CaseStack provides logistical and supply chain management support for consumer packaged goods companies and other retailers. The company, which has won national recognition for its sustainability practices, employs approximately 300 in the United States and expects to generate more than $200 million in revenue this year.
What does logistics mean in today’s business world?
Logistics isn’t even the right word anymore. The new supply chain needs to be nimble. Everyone needs the immediate access to accurate information about the big picture and the details — products, people, service providers, retailer requirements, new opportunities. We need data that speaks to us, so we can step on the gas when things are working and change course whenever they’re not. There’s a new supply chain professional who needs to break the old supply chain’s linear constraints. They need to orchestrate everything to get products from manufacturing to retail. If you’re one of the new supply chain pros, you’re involved in sourcing, production, forecasting, planning, product development, retail management, sales, transportation or warehousing, compliance, appointment setting or transforming all of the data into action. You are not in a cost center; you are a business builder.
What is the biggest challenge or opportunity in the next five years?
The tools of the trade were designed for a linear supply chain, like a relay race where sourcing and production passed the baton to sales and retail management, which passed it to transportation and warehousing. As the data piled up, more and more resources went into technology that professed to make sense of it all. Everyone is running hard and fast, but they’re in silos with different reporting, technology tools and goals. We are going to fix that.
How has supply chain logistics changed — and changed the shopping experience?
Finally, the industry is starting to focus on what matters: the consumer. Consumers are supposed to get what they want. They are not supposed to pay for inadequacies in a supply chain. For the most part, the consumers are forcing the supply chain to change.
How does supply chain logistics need to adapt to handle e-commerce and niche products, also known as “long tail” inventory?
Slow-moving products with uncertain demand create challenges that the supply chain must solve to give consumers what they want. There must be collaboration and better communication to accurately predict demand and manage inventory while providing a dependable service level. The gatekeepers are gone; the long tail is in the hands of “the crowd” now. Your people, process and technology need to be ready for whatever the crowd wants when it wants it.
You started CaseStack in California. Why is it important that you work out of Fayetteville?
Northwest Arkansas is the only place where there is a business cluster that revolves around supply chain, retail and sustainability. We have great, talented people in all of our offices. But being embedded in northwest Arkansas means I live it every day and every night.
Why is making the supply chain green and sustainable so important to you?
The concept of sustainability goes far beyond the concept of green practices. They are intertwined. Statistically, businesses that follow sustainable practices perform better in the long term. Ultimately, it comes down to waste. In the supply chain, consumers end up paying for waste when companies don’t follow quality practices. Consumers should not have to pay for waste.
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