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The Doing Business in Bentonville Podcast
To create an ecosystem that connects leaders of all kinds – industry, community, student, educational, civic, investment and entrepreneurial – to help overcome Omnichannel Retail barriers through exclusive, insight-rich content.
The Doing Business in Bentonville Podcast
Ep. 131 - AI That Works: Slalom’s Strategy in Action
AI doesn’t win because it’s shiny; it wins because it shortens the path from data to decision. We sit down with Slalom’s Andrew Fano, Jack Rudelic, Erika Pflueger, and Marco Kilongkilong to dig into how generative AI is transforming retail and consumer goods, from product roadmaps and software delivery to supply chain and customer experience. The conversation starts with culture and outcomes, then moves quickly into the real levels: where to inject AI in existing workflows, how to accelerate time to value, and what it takes to avoid the dreaded proof-of-concept graveyard.
Jack breaks down why tapping enterprise data with LLMs speeds answers to employees and customers, improving logistics, HR, and day-to-day operations. Erica shares how teams build higher-fidelity roadmaps and ship faster by using AI to draft requirements, test ideas, and keep priorities moving without adding headcount. Marco leads a candid look at ethics and governance: human accountability, principle-based guardrails, and practical controls for privacy, explainability, and legal risk. Together they outline a simple frame; people, tools, and processes, that turns AI from a demo into dependable, trusted production systems.
We also zoom out to the future of work. Expect more citizen developers as the barrier to building falls, and yes, a credible path toward shorter work weeks as drudge work disappears and creativity scales. The throughline is trust: companies that bake governance into AI from day one will move faster, protect customers and employees, and earn the right to scale. If you’re ready to turn AI into real outcomes, not just experiments, this conversation lays out the playbook.
Subscribe, share with a teammate who’s wrestling with AI adoption, and leave a review with your top use case you want us to unpack next.
Well, hello everyone, and welcome to Doing Business in Bentonville. My name is Andy Wilson, and I am your host this morning. And I tell you, I'm so excited. One, there's a huge group here today. It's just awesome. So uh this is Andrew Fano. Andrew, welcome. Thank you, sir. It's so good to have you. Uh and we've got just a great group here across the table from us, haven't we? Well, I would tell you, this was so large, I thought, well, I gotta get Andrew to help me uh facilitate this huge event. So you're with a great company. I've read so much about Slalom. So tell us about Slalom, then I want you to introduce our guests this morning, okay?
SPEAKER_04:Absolutely. Um So I guess a great place to start, and the way I like to when I tell people about my experience with Solomon and and what they do and what we do uh is why I I joined. So I had uh really I had a great boss and I have a rule. Like if you have a great boss, you can work at a horrible company and you can have a good life. And I and I had a pretty good life. But Solomon is uh they have a persistent individual that I think probably had a a play in everyone joining over here and uh Dan uh with our uh talent acquisition group, and he was very persistent. And uh they convinced me to go up to St. Louis. Um, and what really brought me on board is um they say culture kills strategy, but if you get culture and strategy together and right, it is unstoppable. And uh, I looked up on a wall and it was covered in bobbleheads. I was like, what is this? And at five years, you get a bobblehead made and put on the wall. And and I thought that's that's kind of nice, you know. They they look to two folks and there's some recognition there, and they're all personalized about what they're doing. And then I looked and there's this other one, a very small little shelf, but there's some bobbleheads there, and they're for people that left. And that's either retired or they found something that was more passion-filling for them. Um, but they still celebrate those individuals that spent that time with them. And I think that that's just it speaks to this fiercely human culture that Slalom has. And it, you know, you you look at it, um, it is a an organization that goes after solving problems for customers and not about um going in and being a managed service provider. It's about you know delivering outcomes. And it was something that uh sometimes in prior lives, we would come up with an incredible insight, um, and the the client would recognize it, but they didn't have the horsepower or the the will to get it done. And that's what slalom does, and that's what I'm really excited about this team, Sherry, today.
SPEAKER_00:Great. Well, okay, that that is amazing. And do you is there a is there a one of you now on the wall up there? I am not five years yet, but oh, so but okay, okay.
SPEAKER_04:So if five years you get that. Yeah, and there's gonna be a wall somewhere here in town because we're setting up an office in Southwest Arkansas. All right, okay. Introduce our guests this morning. Absolutely. So I'll I'll go left to right for us. We'll start out with Jack. Uh Jack, why did you join Slalom and tell us a little bit about yourself?
SPEAKER_05:Absolutely. Um, my name is Jack Rudelik. I leave the software engineering practice in Missouri Valley. Missouri Valley consists of St. Louis, Kansas City, um, Bentonville, Arkansas. Love Bentonville, Arkansas, and Southern Illinois. And so I've been with Slalom eight years, loved it ever since. That's why I stay here. Um and uh my focus is uh working with our clients, working on product strategy, um, software engineering strategy, more more recently in the past couple of years, AI strategy, AI road mapping, and AI systems. Um the reason I came to Slalom was before I was at Slalom, I was working as a software engineer at a company. And I woke up every day and I was doing the same thing, not learning a lot, getting really bored with uh with my career, and I was getting antsy. And I think that when people get antsy, they do certain things like travel, like learn new stuff. And I'd been a consultant before, but I decided like I gotta get back into it. I wanted to go to a new company. And I found Slalom. And since I've been at Slalom these past eight years, I worked uh all over the country. I've learned in I've worked in every industry, and I've learned so many unbelievable things about like the most unique stuff. Um corn, seat distribution on farms, um uh performance film, which is a wrap that you put on cars. I mean, just like so many things. Yesterday I got to learn about um outdoor cap, which was so cool. Another industry that I've never been a part of. And man, were those guys really fun to hang out with.
SPEAKER_00:It's a great company. Yeah. I know the founder, the president. I've had them here before. Uh Outdoor Cap is is is a phenomenal company. We'll come back to it though. All right, that's good. Great. And Erica.
SPEAKER_01:Hi, I'm Erica Fluger. Uh I am a client partner at Slalom, also supporting the Missouri Valley region. I support all of our clients that are in the retail and consumer package portfolio. Uh, my background is in product management. I've been with Slalom for almost five years. So close to that bobblehead. You are. Um let's see. I joined Slalom because I spent 10 years in industry working at various uh retailers, big box, small, um, B2B, B2C. And I got kind of bored. It was like I I couldn't take another season of just launching product. So I had some friends I worked in consulting and they said, come give it a chance. You can get breath of industry, breath of technology. Every day is vastly different, work on many different clients. So um I jumped into that and I loved it. I loved the challenge. I loved um being surrounded by individuals who were curious. I loved um going in and knowing that there was a problem that I could help my clients solve and we could leave them with better um outcomes for their customers. Um, but I joined Slalom from there because I knew that I loved consulting, but I needed a firm that aligned with my values and how I wanted to show up as a consultant. So Slalom offers a great culture, like Andrew mentioned, um, and they're really supportive of our careers and they always do right at their custom language.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Well, um, my name is Marco, and I'm part of uh our transformation practice at Slalom. So the work that we do there is really the intersection between people and emerging technologies and how that impacts organizations, whether that's workforce planning, um, organizational uh disruption or the oversight and governance of technology and how that impacts people. So um, you know, the reason why I joined Slalom, as my colleagues talk about the big problems that we we solve for our clients, is really exciting and it's different every single day. And it is really, you you bring us in for complex problems, right? Um what kind of brought me to Slalom is our our like local uh or local feel. Even though we're a global company, we have offices in Europe, in Japan, uh South America. Um we all we have this really strong local feel where uh you know sometimes when you bring professional services in, they may show up on Monday and leave on Thursday. We might say, Hey, will I see you in the Razorbacks game? Or will I see you in the uh neighborhood market, right? So those are things that that really matter because we invest in our clients and we want them to invest in our communities, and then and that really matters to us.
SPEAKER_00:So you know, uh Andrew, when I was doing my background on Swalum, first thing I first thing I read article when uh I I went to AI and checked you out, all of you. And uh, you know, the first thing that came up was what a wonderful company it was. And it talked about the things that all of you talked about. And so uh congratulations on that. Uh we're so proud that you're here. Submission. So let's just jump straight into this. Yesterday, uh uh doing business in Bentonville, we had our first live event in five years. We be we we actually ended it during COVID, and then we began, we we waited for a period of time to do do the things we needed to do to build um the podcast. But here's the thing that we we got into yesterday. We talked a lot about AI. And Jack, you represented us on the panel, so thank you for doing that. We really appreciate that. But let's get into this. Um you know, generative AI is really a powering virtual shopping uh assistance. And we talked a bit about that yesterday, about generative AI. So let's talk about that and then and talk about how Slalom has is integrating these tools uh with your clients. And because I I will tell you there was so much interest yesterday around AI, because because the Tyler was uh AI and retail, and we we and our experts talked a lot about it. I'd like to hear from you, uh, and because I know we get tons of questions about where is this going? What's the future of retail? What's the future? Well, generative AI is gonna play a big part of that. So talk to us about that.
SPEAKER_05:One of the things that's like almost true in every single company is there's a lot of data. There's a lot of domain knowledge that lives within that data, and there's a lot of answers that the people that work at those companies try to derive from that data. But with that data being so vast, it's hard to get those answers fast. And the business relies on constantly trying to get some of those answers to their customers. Um and what AI has been able to do is be able to tap into all of that data and being able to tap into all that data and utilize like LLMs, generative AI to not only like attach to those data sources, attached to those enterprise systems that you spend so much money on, but get the answers to the customers, to the employees faster. Now, when I talk about like how how why is that so important, like getting that data to the employees and customers faster, the the answers from that data to those employees faster. Because the business runs on so many other business processes. And the ability to get answers faster based on your data, that's gonna help supply chain, that's gonna help HR. Um what are my benefits? How is that affecting me? What happens if I make this decision in my work day? How can we uh logistics is another big thing. Um logistics, you have so much information, so many parameters on how can we optimize a route and being able to take that data and use generative AI to help you predict and give you those better routes. Um it's just the power of being able to consume uh data faster than any human has ever been able to at a speed that I is okay.
SPEAKER_00:Erica and Marco, you want to add to that?
SPEAKER_01:I think um just to add on to what Jack just said, um an example of how we're working at clients to really integrate AI into their everyday processes, not to only improve the lives of their employees, but also allow for better experiences for their customers too. Um I recently partnered with um Jack at a consumer packaged goods client that also has consumer-facing uh websites to take a look at the role of a software developer, the role of a product manager, and how they take an idea to an actual experience that the client uh customer can interact with and ultimately purchase a product and where we can thoughtfully inject AI. And that could be to speed up a software developer's role, to create a higher fidelity roadmap, to write better requirements. Um, and we're looking at the tools that they already have on the ground. How do we um take those and just leverage their capabilities? And we do things like training and testing and piloting those tools with them so that they can ultimately deliver more business outcomes for the air.
SPEAKER_00:Great. Excellent.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. And just doubling down with what Erica and Jack are saying, I think on the people side, it really is about adoption, right? So not only are you implementing these Gen AI tools, how do you make sure that the people that are using them are equipped and know how to use them well? Otherwise, you have very expensive technology that no one's using. So I think that's the uh the other thing that uh that we help um our clients with is here are the right tools for the for the right things you're doing, and then here's how we uh help implement that from a people perspective, which includes training change management and and um changing uh operational structures.
SPEAKER_00:Excellent, excellent. Andrew, I you know, I just I would should come in on this, but I would say that what you said about taking technology and getting the right technology in the right spot with the right people inside of organizations huge because that's productivity, it's cost containment, it's all of that. And so I I love how you're gonna adapt all of this in uh organizations.
SPEAKER_04:Well, one of the things I think that's also um interesting is you know, they talked about what we're doing, but I think how we do it, right? And so I think there's a lot of um, you know, MIT head uh of what's now becoming uh almost as famous as Doug saying every job's gonna be impacted by AI. MIT talks about how all of these failed AI projects. And I think that there's some keys to success that you touched on yesterday, Jack. But I think that as you look at the projects and as you know, Eric is implementing them and Marco is helping developing the strategy for him, you know, that uh not going to boil the ocean, but how you get quick wins and build it out. And so I'd like to tee that up as something for the group to talk about as well.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, I exactly. And I I would love to hear too, or we're teeing this up. Uh and I'm I'm glad you brought that up. Yesterday I'm I showed a slide uh from uh Doug McMillan, uh CEO of Walmart, and he said that AI is going to change everything, you know, and he said it I don't know what j if it's not, I don't know what job that hasn't gonna be affected by, basically. And um so let's do talk about that.
SPEAKER_02:Well um I'll actually I'll start first. So uh you know Andrew mentioned the MIT study of of like most um uh POCs don't go uh don't deploy, right? Um I'm working with a client right now that does have nine POCs that they have developed, so nine production ready um AI solutions that are not um going to uh uh production. And the reason for it is they they don't have uh governance and oversight. They're too nervous to deploy these things. They're they're concerned that when they do deploy, that there'll crash systems or they'll create um legal violations and all sorts of things. I think that uh that a lot of companies, as they're moving fast, uh they also need to build the infrastructure um to support the um the AI solutions that they do want to build. So that that does come with like oversight governance and then the people on training side behind that.
SPEAKER_05:So I I I think another thing about like those say like the failed um projects is uh when AI was originally brought to a bunch of companies, it was focused on bringing new tools with AI to these companies. And uh people are so used to doing their job that the way that they do it that uh they usually don't need another tool. What uh AI is so great at is uh taking the manual processes that already exist and uh removing those manual processes. Um somebody said yesterday, it might have been B V the it's gonna be great when we're not even talking about AI anymore because like when AI is not something that you're necessarily like an add-on to your business, but it's something that exists within your systems that removes additional work that you're doing every day. And then people feel more empowered to uh start doing like more creative, um, communicating more, speaking more with the clients. And so that's why I think a lot of those first projects, they're trying to create more tools as opposed to really understanding the business process, business operations that exist, and utilizing AI to make those make that manual work not there anymore.
SPEAKER_01:I would say one thing we do really well is temper expectations with our clients around AI and help them build out those initial use cases. Not everything is a good use of AI. Um we do a really great job of sniffing out what are the best use cases where they can get the most um return on their investment and then quickly iterating through that to show them results to say like this is okay, this is where it's something you should production.
SPEAKER_00:It's great. I think it's a great comment follow up.
SPEAKER_04:Amy follow up on that, Andrew. No, I think they covered it well. And then I think that it touched on some of the topics we want to hit on as well about just like ethics and how you how you really do successfully default things.
SPEAKER_00:I I think we do, and and um a bit uh set this question up just a bit because I do want to talk about ethics and the ethical uh implication that you know is is in the news. I I was mentioned as we were chatting before the podcast that I read an article in the Washington Post this morning, and and it was really a uh talking about you know this whole ethical implication around technology, AI, and you know, and so uh anyway, I think Marco, I think you'd like to lead off on that and talk about that. I think we all should, because we're talking about what you talked about, Jack, the implementation of it. And I like how you set that up, by the way. You know, and that would that was really powerful the way you said that. But there is an ethical thing, ethical implications around this. So lead us off from that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Um I I was talking to a chief legal officer and chief compliance officer uh earlier this week about um developing their AI governance uh program. And one of the things that I I highlighted in that conversation is you cannot blame AI when it goes wrong. You have to hold a human accountable, right? And so that's uh requires an understanding of oversight and governance behind that. And so when I when I think about ethics as it relates to governance and oversight, it really is principle-based. So what are what are the hard lines in the sand that you as an organization say we will not cross? Also um, think about principles of like transparency, explainability, and then not only just having those principles, but how do you operationalize that? How do you build the controls behind that? And then how do you stay compliant um uh legally as well? I will say that you know, the the right now the the legal framework for AI is really a patchwork. It's all over the place from the federal level, international level. And so when there's a a lot of like um ambiguity with law behind AI, that's where governance matters more than ever. So if you look well governed, um, regulators tend to not look into your business as much. Uh, the other thing I'll mention is there's still like really strong consumer protection laws, still really strong privacy laws, still really strong data laws that are are still well established that are very applicable to AI. So what I'm saying with ethics is you always have to think about what is the human accountability aspect of that, and then what are your North Stars to guide your controls, your processes to make sure you design um AI systems that are responsible and safe for your research. Okay. Excellent.
SPEAKER_00:Further comments on that.
SPEAKER_01:Resident expert on it. I will just say I delivered a project in healthcare probably three years ago at this point. And it was um not it was at a time where AI wasn't as buzzy as it is now. And we injected AI to automate the processing of appeal documents. And those are um it was sort of managed care organizations, so a very heavily regulated um industry. And uh I partnered with Marco during that time to establish some governance and explainability and really um manage the product from idea to production and make sure that we're we were launching responsible AI and our models didn't have bias. And that was um very early stages. I think Marco was really the first person that even got them thinking about governance. So good.
SPEAKER_05:Um I want to add like one thing that yes, I think this was from like a concept framework that Marco created. Um keep petting Marco on the back.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Um but when we think about governance and ethics within AI, um, and I recommend this, and maybe Marco can elaborate on this more, like the three things to think about that like partner together um within governance is people, the tools, and the processes. Right. And those are the three like check those things. Like who are the people that are using it? Yeah, who are the people that are gonna be responsible for it and gonna be like the ones that take on the risk, understanding all the processes that exist um within the way that you're using utilizing AI and really be um certain of every tool that it touches because the way that those tools process that information, the way that those tools store that information, and potentially if it's an LLM, the way that those tools create new information based off that data. Good.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I I think I'll I'll just add to that. Yeah. So the the uh when you think about the that structure, you gotta think about AI governance really as a team sport. Like who are the people, who who are the first line folks involved with uh oversight and the people whose hands are on the keyboard, then who are the due diligence folks, your legal folks, your compliance folks, your privacy folks, um, your IT security folks, and then who are the people that audit that to make sure you're you're in compliance with those things? And to Jack's point too, you know, the reason why there's an emphasis on this is we're talking about a technology that has a level of autonomy that can execute with uh with a little guidance. And if you don't put guardrails around that, you could expose information that you don't want exposed um uh throughout your company. Uh and we're talking about like privacy information, we're talking about HR information, we're talking about your customers' data. So these are things that without the right guardrails, without the right technology, could create a lot of issues. And that's why you need really strong oversight. As you as companies and organizations explore AI solutions, they need in parallel to think about what is the structures that will protect us as we do that exploration.
SPEAKER_00:You know, I Andrew uh and Kane, what one of the things I was thinking about, you know, I thought about this question and just thought for a bit. Um it um it made me stop and think about this. And as your clients or potential clients lean into this, um in my research, 80% of retailers are going to expend their AI. It you know, we've talked a lot about that. It makes sense to do it for a lot of a lot of reasons. But the number one thing here that I want to underline that you all are talking about from this ethical uh situation is trust. You know, we we we say all the time, you know, people will follow a leader as far as they trust them. And then when you lose trust, you sort of put the on there. You know, you need to anyway. You find yourself in that place. But I think it's the same thing here. If companies, organizations don't put those guardrails up as you talked about, especially in each of those areas you talked about, uh those companies, those organizations are gonna lose trust with people. When you lose trust, you're it's just about over. So I I don't I just want to underline, capitalize what we're talking about here. And to all of our viewers, this may be the most important thing we talk about today from the standpoint of getting your process right and all the things that you all do to help them and do that. But I think it's the number one issue facing uh in uh our country and uh this whole this whole thing around AI. I would hate to see something we would we would bump against the guardrails with something that could be phenomenal for this country and the businesses, you know. So any other thoughts on that, Andrew? We'll move to the next topic.
SPEAKER_04:No, I'm I think it it's it's a core principle. I I think it's important, right? If you look at there's a little retailer in town that wants to be the most trusted retailer, and they're also probably leading the way in AI. And keeping both of those things paramount are important, but it has to be foundational. Like from the start, you have to have your guardrails up. Then when you're building, you know, the Erica is very humbly talking about the things she did, but she took basically things that were written on the back of napkins, as you can put a claim in, right. Wildly unstructured to structured, trusted, high percentage of efficacy and now in in a regulated industry delivered. But if you do it foundationally as a retailer, as a logistics company, as a bank, you know, in in all the different industries, if you have that foundation right, you can maintain that trust because you don't allow access to the wrong data. You you govern how it's exposed, right? I think you know, one of the things that we talked a little bit about just in and seeing what might be interesting is is what do people see in the future? I I can tell you that I've I've sat in uh groups here locally, and some are holy cow, start bundling up cash and gold and get a bunker. And and then and there's others that are looking forward to a 20-hour work week. You know, and and so the the future, yeah, I think you got near uh midterm and long term. And we may not have enough time to go through it today, but I I would like to kind of from the group that they see.
SPEAKER_00:I want to hear it. Let's do that. And I know our viewers want to hear it. Go ahead. Who's starting out?
SPEAKER_01:I'm gonna pass it to you because I want you to tell them about your four-day work week.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, that's what I was gonna talk about. So um So Andrew, I'm on the camp here. So uh I think the future, in the United States at least, is heading toward a four-day work week. I think we're gonna have enough productivity that occurs um with uh AI systems and AI solutions that we're heading towards a four-day work week. So Jack, you told me you already did a four-day work.
SPEAKER_00:And and part of my reason, I think people like you, okay, after I'm just saying right now, this he's gonna get the most popular guy.
SPEAKER_02:Well, part of my reasoning is if you look all over the world, they are reducing their work weeks. So like you you look at countries like South Korea that has like really long hours. We're talking about like 60 plus hours of work uh uh per week, they're reducing that. And I think like this trend is happening because AI is being productive, uh, is increasing productivity efficiency, and uh, and I think that's um a positive trend.
SPEAKER_04:And then there's large hyperscalers that have tested and proven that you know, and with some of their workforce to do that. I won't name names, but there but there's documented studies where people have done that and seen productivity improve some enough.
SPEAKER_01:I I'm gonna speak from the product management um side. Imagine a world where your your roadmap is never late and you're you're delivering on time or early. That's what we've personally experienced this year by injecting AI into the product development life cycle is uh higher fidelity roadmaps that we're actually shifting left. And so we're able to do a lot more. Um, but we didn't have to increase headcount to do those sorts of outcomes. So um, if you think of the roadmap, that's one of the most important artifacts in the development life cycle, and being able to send that all the way up to the C-suite and share updates where we're we're on time, we're moving quicker, we're able to add in more features into the MVP. That's really the power of AI that I'm seeing our clients to that's wonderful.
SPEAKER_05:That's great feedback. One of the things that I think is going to catch on, I think has been catching on, is that um the power of these tools remove the barrier to entry so much in so many different things. Building apps, creating um designs, uh being able to just create things in general. So I think like the power of creativity that individuals are gonna have is just going to explode. And I think that the only thing that's holding that back right now is the adoption and people really understanding these tools. But these tools are gonna get easier, they're gonna get uh more available to uh the younger generation, the older generation's also gonna be more uh keen to use them. And I think that it's just gonna be so cool for people to be more innovative in the way that they are able to build stuff, be able to create stuff, less focused on okay, there's 400 steps to be able to release a feature or build one thing. They're gonna be less focused on the steps and more focused on what else can I do. And I just think that's gonna be so fun. And I mean I'm already on that. I think I'm building apps, I'm thinking about every day like what was holding me back and what can I start doing? And I challenge everybody to do that.
SPEAKER_02:I I think Jack's 100% right. I'm I'm seeing uh with a lot of my clients an an explosion of uh a citizen developer. So like um, you know, the concept of citizen developer is not new, it's been around for a while, but I think AI is actually making it possible and real. So I think Jack is spot on him. Excellent.
SPEAKER_00:You know, when when I did my research on the company, Osylan, the thing that just kept I kept reading over and over. And uh even uh I could tell was uh three things about this company. And I I'm hearing it coming out from all of you, and it's really exciting. First, it says company is known for its focus on modern technology, current. And you all are demonstrating that. So I say you've done great on the whole that whole space. The other thing is business transformation. We've talked about business transformation some today, and Erica, one of the things you said, I I love the roadmap you talked about. That's transformation. Yeah. You know, that's what that is. And you're and you've all have have talked about that. The other thing that came out, and you began with it, Andrew, was the strong culture in the company. You've all talked about that a bit. You know, I I will tell you, there's not I I get to sit with a lot of wonderful people in great companies. But for you coming in and quickly getting to those three things that shows the focus of this organization. And uh, I will tell you, it's um it's it's just wonderful talking about it. So as we wrap up, uh, and I I wish we had a long time. You know, I wish we could get, I do, I really do. Would you come back? Can we get these? Can we bring them back since they're so productive? Can we get them back? We can get the band back. Okay, because I want to go more. I've got like I've got like a whole nother page of questions. But anyway, uh, as we wrap up, Andrew, what do you want to wrap up on? What are some of the greatest points you want to end on? Or what would you uh you know, should your the potential clients, what would you share with them? Just how you want. I'm because I'm just so excited about what you've already said this morning. So you take it.
SPEAKER_04:Uh we're we're excited as well. And I and I think really that um on the topic where we're talking about AI, there's it's disruptive. And I think some some companies are are diving in without maybe necessarily putting some of the the things that that maintain trust and have the governance and everything in place. It's not complicated. And and frankly, I think you felt the passion. Like I I did it, I did it. Yeah, I do. And we already have like you know, just from the meetings we've had, people are excited and asking Marco to come back and say, and and he just wants to talk about it. Do you know what I mean? So we do workshops, we do things like that. You know, we sincerely want to see the right outcomes from clients. And we also know that sometimes we have to do some investment up front to earn that trust. And that's what this team is doing here, you know, this week. And I sincerely appreciate them coming through. Hopefully, you see, I mean, there's great love on that side of the table. Like it, you know, everybody that that culture is fantastic. It's collaborative. You know, they're all in different phases of you know, the you know, strategy build and delivery, you know, but it's a very symbiotic relationship. There are in a lot of companies you'll see angst, you know, between things. But when you get culture right, and when you get people working in harmony, what they deliver is fantastic. And so, you know, we're just excited about delivering that to the clients here with Wiston.
SPEAKER_00:Well, any last thoughts from these brilliant people sitting across from this? Benevolt's great place. Yeah, I really love it. Well, it's smooth again. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Well, yeah, I was just gonna say we got to meet with a lot of clients this weekend, but there's a lot more buildings that I see around here, and I'd love to keep meeting a bunch of the clients and talk.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Well, we we hope we can help you with that here with the podcast. We'll just keep talking about it beautifully. Yeah. Yeah. Any uh Erica, any thoughts?
SPEAKER_01:Um, I would I would just agree. I really love my time here. This is my third or fourth time here. Hope to keep coming back. And um would love to meet with anybody who's interested in the topics that we discussed today. And um obviously we're very focused on AI, but uh, we can meet you wherever we're gonna.
SPEAKER_02:I will say that um I think our um our geographic area here is really lucky to have three places with great barbecue. We've got Singhuz, Kansas City, uh here in Benville. So it's very important.
SPEAKER_04:I love it. I love it. When the wind's right, you can smell rates, right? Um any final thoughts, Andrew? No, I think they wrapped it up well. And Andy, thank you so much for having us.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, it's such a pleasure.
SPEAKER_04:It's a pleasure you again.
SPEAKER_00:It's yeah, my pleasure. Well, um, my final thought for our our viewers is this. Um you said it. AI is a disruption. It really can be. But instead of a disruption, you need to talk to the people here to help you navigate that disruption and turn it into productivity and into, you know, into uh doing great things for your people, great things for the company, creating better products, creating better flow, whatever it is. You know, and I would just tell tell anyone that's searching for the organization to help them navigate the disruption or the future. I I would say um talk to talk to this group, reach out to them, and you can find them on the website, right? What's your website? Slalom Duckin. That's right. So yeah, that's easy. Yeah, as simple as easy. Well, it's been uh a privilege to spend time with each of you uh this morning. Thank you for making time. Uh Jack, again, thank you for yesterday. Absolutely it was uh pleasure. It was it was really good. We we actually we have a uh to all of our viewers, uh we have another um live event coming up January 29th. So uh watch our you uh check us out at our website, doing business in Bentville, or uh subscribe better, subscribe to our newsletter, and you'll get all the latest. So to all of our viewers, thank you. Thank you for making 2025 a great year. We're looking forward to 2026. We're gonna have this group back someday, right? Soon. Okay. Thank you, everyone. Have a wonderful day. Goodbye.