Healthcare Tracking with Kevin Allart of SATO Healthcare

Transcript

• Steve Statler 00:00

  Welcome to the Mr. Beacon podcast. This week I am talking to Kevin Allard, who heads up healthcare at Sato. Sato are one of the major players in auto identification. They make tags and readers and printers. But this is an incredible opportunity to get into the healthcare business. It's a huge opportunity for IoT, for auto ID. And Kevin has been working on this for years and has an incredible understanding. So I learned a huge amount from him in this discussion. And I also had a great conversation about his, how he ended up as a Frenchman working in Japan and his music tastes, which are really aligned with mine. So one of my most enjoyable discussions, I've had many over the years and this is our 200th episode. So that is quite a body of interviews. We have spoken to an incredible range of people from many large companies and many small companies, startups. We've probably spoken to over 100 CEOs of startups in the IoT space. We've spoken to Cisco at least three times, Aruba a couple of times, the Bluetooth SIG three or four times, GS1, many other standards bodies. And we've covered all kinds of technologies in this amazing IoT space. I guess the big themes about digital physical convergence and we've tried to span the technology, the use cases. I do urge you, if you are getting into this area or you're a veteran and you're looking at another technology or another set of use cases, do look at our back catalogue. It's all audio. Most of the episodes were captured on video. If you want to see what the people that are leading these parts of the business look like, that's always something that's kind of given me a kick to actually meet and see leaders in this industry and understand a bit about them.and their history. So I do want to thank them. I want to thank the interviewees. I want to thank all the people that have supported us, the folks at AIM, and all the people that have recommended us. But most of all, I want to thank you for being at the other end of this. And I love meeting people that have listened to or seen a few of our episodes.
  

  02:50

  It gives me a kick and I really value any input feedback requests that you provide us. I have to say that the pace of our episodes has slowed down a little bit in recent weeks. Things have been super busy at Williott and a few of the guests that I really wanted to get on have been reticent to come out and speak publicly about what they're doing. There's a company that is launching Bluetooth beacons into space. So you can actually have a Bluetooth connection from a satellite directly to the home. We want to get them on. And they've agreed to do it, but it's tough to get them to do it. There's some great companies working in circularity at Eon. We want to get them on. So anyone that feels strongly about wanting to learn about something as a company that they think interviewing, let me know.

  03:48

  We're always open to that input. So that's enough navel gazing. Thank you again and now on to the interview with Kevin. I hope you enjoy. Mr. Beacon ambient IoT podcast is sponsored by Williott, bringing intelligence to every single thing. So, Kevin, welcome to the Mr. Beacon podcast. It's a great pleasure to have you on. Thank you for having me. Appreciate it. Yeah, Sato, this is the 200th episode of the Mr. Beacon podcast. I can't believe we've been going for so long. And it's great to have someone from Sato on your company was very special to me personally. I had started at Williott back in 2017 and Sata was one of the very first companies to really believe in what we were doing. You're one of our first customers and also a great partner. You make all sorts of things to do with auto ID. And I think I first met your company at a Cooper conference company that does Angle of Arrival. But I think you're more famous for the printers and the tags and obviously you work in the healthcare business. So, and I've just scratched the surface here. So maybe we should start this conversation off with you just giving a brief introduction to Sato the company as a whole. And then you're a leader in the healthcare business. So we'll focus on that later on, but who are Sato?
  

  Kevin Allart 05:27

  Okay, so Sato is a global auto AI DC company, headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. We are more than 80 years old. We started as a company using bamboo to actually do packaging, to package using bamboo to make sure that the parcels would be securely tight, fastened. Then we made hand labelers for supermarkets.

  05:55

  And then we invented the first thermal printer in the 60s. Okay. So we do have a long history of making things. In Japanese, we say monozokuri, which means making things, actually, it really is the translation. So we are printer-vendor, but as you said, we also make tags. So we make standard labels, we make Aerofadi tags, we make Bluetooth tags, and we are becoming more than, I would say,

  06:22

  We started as a vendor making printers and tags. And in those recent days, we are more of a global vendor of integrated AI DC solutions. So you're doing software, hardware, tags, the whole thing. Yeah, so I suppose when it comes to software, obviously we do work with partners. So software is not our core business. We do have some capacity to make some middlewares. So we are...

  06:49

  we have the ability to facilitate the integration of our solutions with the end user WMS ERP, but we are not a software vendor. Right. So you do middleware, not applications. That would have been a more accurate way of introducing you. So how big is the company? So the company right now has 5,600 employees worldwide. It's a 1.3, 1.4 billion USD company worldwide.

  07:18

  We've been growing a lot over the last years. We are, we have a physical presence in 26 countries and we are doing business in more than 90, you know, through our network of distributors and resellers. And what are the, what are the main drivers? If, uh, what, what, what's kind of the main driver of revenue for the company? If you look at the revenue breakdown, it's, um, you know,

  07:44

  roughly 30 to 35% is coming from the hardware, meaning from the sales of printers. Around 50% is coming from the labels, and the rest would be coming either from software or from support and maintenance services. Yeah, that's interesting. And I mean, you have a significant presence here in the States, don't you? You have some very large customers taking your labels and other products.

  08:09

  Yes, the US is one of the biggest markets for Sato. If you look at the different regions, obviously Japan, we are number one, especially in healthcare, when it comes to hospitals, we have 70% market share in Japanese hospitals. So everywhere you go, if you are injured, you will see a Sato printer and a Sato wristband. And then the second biggest market would be Southeast Asia, since we started internationally in Singapore more than 20 years ago.

  08:39

  but the US is also very big. And so full disclosure, I mean, this podcast, we cover things that are nothing to do with Williott. Sato is connected with Williott, so it's probably worth at least me talking about that. You and I don't work too closely together on this, but feel free to correct or add anything. But one of the things that your company is known for is printers for RFID, and you've developed a printer that works with our battery-free

  09:09

  Bluetooth tags, which is super, is really important for certain use cases where you wanna do association between a tag and some metadata that might be printed on a label. I think generally your printers encode data on the tag when it's RFID, but that's not how it works in the ambient IoT world, the Bluetooth world, your printers will...

  09:35

  read our tags and do association in the cloud with data that then gets printed on the tags. And it basically comes to the same thing. You have a label that's got an auto ID tag and it's printed and there's a link in the cloud between the digital product passport and there. But you're working with us with some very large customers in that space and that's super exciting. And I've worked with some of your colleagues here on

  10:02

  solutions mainly in the Japanese market with a whole range of different early customers in the retail and logistics space. And then there's some other really interesting R&D stuff which we won't talk about because it's super secret but it's pretty cool. So that's kind of the, I don't know if there's anything you want to add or correct in that but that's the, I don't know whether there's an advert but for anyone that's interested in Williott and Sata that's how we come together. But we're not.

  10:31

  really going to delve into that for the rest of the call, unless there's anything you want to add. I know that's correct. We have a team who is really working on the WiDiOT 100% of their time. We are demonstrating WiDiOT technologies in our showroom here in Tokyo. So we have a nice showroom where we have a booth where WiDiOT and Sato integrated solutions are displayed. Wonderful.

  10:56

  So let's move on to healthcare, which is your main focus. And Kevin, what's your role in the healthcare business? So I'm the vice president of Sato Healthcare, and I'm also in charge of Sato Healthcare overseas business unit. Okay, so what's the difference between those two things? So Sato Healthcare is a company working autonomously inside Sato, within Sato Holdings. So we belong 100% to Sato Holdings.

  11:23

  But we have our own P&L, we have our own strategy, and we basically have more freedom. We have roughly 74 employees. There are roughly 65, 66 people taking care of the Japanese domestic market, which is roughly for us, 105 million USD in terms of revenue for healthcare.

  11:51

  And there's a team of a little bit less than 10 people doing overseas. So I'm the head of this team. Overseas in healthcare, we make roughly 30 million USD. Okay. And we really started doing overseas healthcare seriously, I would say six to eight years ago, before it was something we would be leaving to the Sato local subsidiaries. Now we try to drive.

  12:19

  We try to coordinate a global strategy from Tokyo. And so can you describe the product offering that's specific to healthcare and does it overlap with the products that your colleagues in the main part of the business are developing? Sure. So in a nutshell, in healthcare, right now as of 2024, 70% of the solutions we are pushing are RFID based.

  12:48

  It can be UHF, it can be HF, can be using NFC. We do use a lot of NFC, I would say much more than the other verticals of Sato, much more than in food, much more than in retail or manufacturing. And the reason for doing that is because I believe we have some unique value in very specific segments, niches of the market.

  13:12

  And I would like to use AirFed technologies to push even stronger into specific segments to become number one. So what do we sell? Obviously, we have printers, we have tags, we have labels. When it comes to hospitals, as I said, we have patient ID respends, which are, I would say, quite a big piece of our business, if you look at it globally. But we also sell a lot of consulting services. We do a lot of pre-sales.

  13:42

  We do a lot of, we do more and more software and that's something which is different compared to the standard Sato. And the reason I can explain later is we have acquired one company called Magellan Technology in 2013, which has invented a technology called PJM RFID. And this company had software, okay, for very specific segments of the market. So we ended up setting their software, which is now Sato software.

  14:10

  and we keep on developing and improving the software over the years. Very interesting. So you are a modest sized team focused on healthcare, but you are leveraging a much larger team, a bigger portion of the 5,000 odd people who are creating these big portfolio products and tags, but you're basically adding some healthcare specifics and...

  14:39

  And also acting as a channel for that, I guess, that main product into healthcare. Is that fair to say? Yes, that's correct. So we are both a product management team, a strategic team, but also a key account team. So it means we are working on some midterm strategy right now. We just finished our midterm strategy. So until, for the period starting in 2024 and 2028.

  15:07

  And now we are deploying this midterm strategy over what we call the group member companies, the Sato subsidiaries on site. So in Europe, in the States, in Asia, in Oceania. So we are not alone. We have 10 people here in Tokyo, but in each country normally we have at least one person doing healthcare. So belonging to the local Sato. So in Sato, France, we may have one person in charge of healthcare. In the US, we may have two persons. In Singapore, we may have three. So we do have local contacts.

  15:37

  local relays and actually we need those guys to be able to execute the strategy. So we work hand in hand, you know, we work on the strategy here, we work on the weapons on the product solutions we need. And then we work with our colleagues on site to actually execute and find the right business partners to build the ecosystem we need region by region. It's just a great topic. I think, you know, healthcare is obviously a massive market for all sorts of things.

  16:07

  But for IoT, Auto ID, RFID, I think it's a really lucrative market. So I think there's a lot we can learn from just observing what you're doing and how you're doing it. What are some of the biggest drivers of your business? What are some of the biggest opportunities, problems, use cases that are exciting you? Yeah. So we have chosen to focus our strengths.

  16:36

  to put strengths and efforts in three specific segments. The first one is medical device. So the track and trace traceability of medical device, maybe you are aware there's something called the medical device regulation connected with the UDI, unique device identifier, where you need to apply a serialized GTIN on every single medical device to ensure a full track and trace. So if something happens,

  17:05

  during a surgery with some implant, you need to be able to tell who, when and where that implant was produced. What country is this in place? It's already on. It's already on in the States. It's on in Europe for medical device class three. It's in China. It's in Singapore. In most of countries in the world, it's on already. Now it depends based on the class of the medical device. When it comes to class three.

  17:34

  which is the most advanced typically would be implantable devices. When you have a knee, when you have a hip surgery, the stuff which the surgeon would put inside your body, this is highly regulated. When it comes to class two or one, depending on the country, it's not on yet. So we try to basically use the regulation and provide something our customer needs to be compliant with the MDR, with the medical device regulation, with UDI.

  18:03

  while allowing our customer to save time and money. And we do that very often using RFID. So we have a lot of RFID solutions for the medical device traceability. And what are examples of class one and class two devices? Class one can be something like a surgery sponge, you know, like a sponge that you would use during a surgery to absorb the blood of a patient. Something as simple as that. It really depends.

  18:31

  Normally, this is regulated by the FDA in the States, by the European Commission in Europe. You do have equivalence also if you go to China, if you go to India, you also have local equivalence. I guess the most important thing is when it comes to medical device, everything you do, everything you put on the label, everything you encode onto the type memory needs to answer to some specific rules. And customers very often do not know

  19:01

  So let's say that if they need to encode a full serialized global trade item number, they need quite a big memory. And sometimes they don't know that. So they're asking us, OK, should I do a full encoding using the user memory? Do I need a lot of bits to do the encoding? Could I just use the UID, the TID of the tag, and do a lockup?

  19:26

  putting the rest of the data in some online cloud database. So we have a lot of those in Kraviz and Sato. Very interesting. So I have a GS1 serial GTN, this digital passport number, which is allocated to each of these. And then you can use that as a lookup. What are the cloud systems that you typically store the more detailed information, the historic information?

  19:55

  Presumably, you want to know when the thing was manufactured and how it got to where it got to. Where's that stored? So it really depends on each business case. When it comes to, so when you have a project with a medical device vendor, normally everything is stored at the ERP of our customer. So let's say we have a big project with a medical device implants vendor. You have some big names out there using our solutions.

  20:22

  They would just choose to encode the minimum on the tag, or sometimes not even encoding anything. Could be just using, as I said, as UID, and then do a lookup, and then they would put all the product code, lot number, expiration dates onto the cloud, which would be the ERP. We also have the possibility to facilitate this. So we have our own middleware. So being able to.

  20:50

  let's say, control all the flows of data coming from our readers and export them in a clean way to the ERP of the customer. We just give them the data they need to see in a format that the ERP, so JD Edwards or SAP will be able to understand. I would call what you just described a serialization platform. Is that how you would describe it? Yes. Yes, that's what we are seeing here.

  21:18

  So yeah, I think that's very interesting to hear about. And then I was going to ask you, so who are the main ERP systems that you find being used in the healthcare market? So normally there are three. When it comes to medical device, you have JD Edwards, Oracle, that's number one, SAP, S4HANA, SAP. And the last one would be Microsoft Dynamics.

  21:45

  Those are the three I've seen in my career. I would say 90% of the time when you have a new project, especially in Europe or even in the States, are not going to be either JD or SAP. So we started to gain some experience, interfacing with those ERPs. And it depends. If it's SAP or JD, we are normally able to interface in-house.

  22:11

  We have a team in Australia who is able to interface with those standard ERPs in two, three weeks. It's totally possible. If it's something a little bit more exotic, we may ask a local system integrator to work with us and to work on these integration parts. To what degree are these ERP systems designed to support the serialization inventory? Do they have all the data structures there naturally?

  22:40

  Yes. So when it comes to serialization, yes, it's down, it's in already. What they don't have is RFID. So the ability to import a batch of serialized item codes in a very quick way. There's no native support for RFID in JD, in SAP or in Microsoft Dynamics. So we have a few ways of doing it. If you don't want to spend money, you can use a keyboard wedge application.

  23:10

  and you would just be able to convert those RFID data into a language that, like if you were sending a barcode, except you are sending maybe dozens of barcodes at the same time, but the most efficient way of doing it is to add a layer, as I said, to convert the information the ERP need in a language they can understand. Because yeah, as I said, if you try to ask, I mean,

  23:38

  Very often we have customers asking us, okay, I want to do stock taking. I'm using SAP S4HANA. Am I able to connect to S4HANA, sending Aerofab data? Even if it's UHF or HF, they're not able to do it. And the ERP vendor is not able to offer it either, or maybe they would post with cost millions. So normally we offer middleware another way.

  24:07

  is to use dedicated software. Also, we are partnering also with other companies like Chainline, who are also specializing in this kind of stock-taking. They have their own software, and they also have expertise interfacing with ERPs or WMS. So it's another way of doing it. And so you highlighted this as the first of one of the main use cases. Where are we in the evolution of adoption of this? So there's the regulation.

  24:36

  And it sounds like you're selling kind of a bond beyond compliance solution. Yes, you comply, but then whilst you're doing it, then here's all the other business benefits. Has everyone kind of rolled this out? Has everyone ticked, complied, ready, or is this just the beginning? Everybody normally should be compliant now with the MDR and UDI in the States and in Europe. A clock is really ticking, so...

  25:03

  If they are not compliant, they should really hurry. What we are trying to do is to tell them, okay, you need to be compliant, but in some specific parts of your business, there could be some improvement in your workflow in terms of time and cost savings. Why don't you use this opportunity of the MDR, Medical Device Regulation, to move to RFID? And you know, there are some very specific parts of their workflow, processes where RFID can shine.

  25:32

  So we try to identify those, you know, as I call them touch points and to provide RFID, not for the whole supply chain, sometimes it does not make sense, but from very specific parts, like in the reverse logistics, you know, in this medical device world for the implants, it's a reverse logistics, meaning they are shipping implants from the warehouse to hospitals for surgery. The surgeon typically would use maybe 20, 25% of the implants he's receiving from the vendor.

  26:02

  Why? Because the vendor is always sending multiple sizes. Let's say you have a hip surgery on the left side. The vendor would send three different sizes, small, medium, large. He would send both the left and the right side just in case. So you have this big kit coming to the hospital. The surgeon would just use maybe 20% of the implants coming and the rest would be shipped back to the warehouse. So meaning in the warehouse when the kit is coming back.

  26:31

  they will need to scan those items and they would invoice what is missing, what has been consumed. And to do that, they used to do this with barcode, scanning one implant at a time, one by one. Now, as you can imagine with Aerofadi tunnels, they just push the tab through the tunnel in five or six seconds. So in terms of time savings, it's quite fascinating. You move from a 40 minutes intensive scanning process

  27:01

  to one minute process automatic scanning with automation. That's just one example. And what does one of those tunnels look like? Is it... So we can do it both. It depends on the items you are scanning. It depends where you do the tagging. We have customers tagging at source before sterilization. Meaning they would apply the tag before the implants.

  27:29

  is sterilized using gamma rays or E-beam. And in that case, we have a technology we call PGMRFID, which is sterilization hardened. So it would be HF. If they tag after the sterilization in the warehouse, in the distribution center, you don't need to be sterilization hardened. You can just use UHF. Okay, so depending on the tagging scenario, we would use different tags and different tunnels.

  27:59

  And so how big is a tunnel? A standard tunnel for orthopedic implant kit is 64 centimeters by 64 centimeters. Okay. So it can be integrated on the conveyor belt. It's just like, you know, I think it's around one meter long. And as I said, 64 by 64 in terms of the width and height. And how much do they cost? If I want to buy one of these tunnels.

  28:26

  If we talk about UHF tunnel, it's normally between 10 and 20k, 10 and 20,000 euros USD. If it's PGM, it's a little bit more advanced in terms of technology. It's between 30 and 40,000 euros. Okay. And so that tells us a little bit about what the benefits must be to offset that. It's significant. Basically it's the value of the time and...

  28:55

  Presumably better accuracy as well. You're just going to get more compliance with one of these tools. That's correct. A better accuracy. And again, it comes to that technology with UHF, you know, there's a claim. It's always 99.9, 99.8, which is really true. When you look at it in practice, you can, you barely achieve 100%. With the tech we have with PGM RFID, we guarantee 100%.

  29:21

  Meaning you can reliably, with a full peace of mind, scan items, you know you're going to reach 100%. It's not only about accuracy, it's also about stock rotation. The faster you do it, the faster the kits you have received will be able to be shipped back again to hospitals. Meaning the stock you have does not sleep on the shelves. As soon as it is returned to the warehouse, it can be shipped back again to the customer.

  29:49

  So this is how normally our customers save money. So how do you quantify the economics? So there's a personnel, there's the velocity of the supply chain, which translates to lower capital requirements in the supply chain. Sounds like it can get pretty complex. How active are you in helping your prospective customers figure out the ROI?

  30:19

  Yeah, so normally what we would do before doing anything, we would go on site. At Sato in Japanese, we say Genbaryoku. It means literally the power to be on site in Japanese. And it's something we are told as soon as we enter the company, okay, you need to be on site. Don't stay in the office. You need to be in the warehouse. You need to be at your customer. So this is kind of a lesson I heard from my early days in Sato.

  30:46

  So before any project, we would do a POC, a pilot, which is quite standard in the industry. Right. This pilot can be between one month to three months, even sometimes six months. We just give the time to the customer if he needs to understand where are the touch points, where he can save money, where he can not. And then we decide together where our RFID can really shine, can bring benefits, both in terms of accuracy, but also...

  31:14

  for later in the process where it can help them to do a faster reconciliation, faster stock rotation, higher customer satisfaction, and so on. So as you said, it's about allocating resources. So maybe before RFID, they had three guys. Also, they had night shift with a handy scanner doing the scanning of the items. With the tunnel, you just need one maximum. Sometimes if you have a conveyor belt pushing the tabs, you don't need anyone.

  31:44

  can be done in an automatic way. And same in the hospitals. If the hospitals has the same technology, it means that when you are shipping out the kit to hospitals, the vendor would send some advanced shipping notice to the hospital. Hospital will know what to expect. And if the hospital, again, has RFID, and it does not have to be a tunnel, could be a handy reader, we just could do just with the inbound and the receiving of the kit in just a few seconds.

  32:14

  And then it would avoid having any discrepancies or any claims. Yeah. You said, you know, I made a booking supposed to be 50 items. I just had 48. What happened to those two items? You know, it very often happens. And with Arrphide disease is basically when you have Arrphide at both points of the chain, these kind of issues, challenges basically disappears.

  32:36

  So you have kind of automated shipping, automated receiving, and you can spot the discrepancies very quickly. How is the data transmitted between the shipper and the receiver, the distributor or the vendor and the hospital? Is it generally using EDI or what is the mechanism? It's something even easier. So what we have in Australia is we have, so we offer solutions for both

  33:07

  the vendor and to the hospital. So we have a solution for the vendor in the warehouse. So it's like a WMS. It's like RFID enhanced WMS that we use for booking of those long kits. And we have something very similar for hospitals to be able to receive the kits and send them back to the hospitals. Both softwares are connected.

  33:34

  Meaning every time you, so let's say if the vendor is shipping something with our software from the warehouse at the other side of the chain, the hospital would get some, as I said, advanced shipping notice. Okay. It can be done by email, can be done using the cloud, can be HTTP, it doesn't matter. Right. But you would get this advanced shipping notice and then automatically once he receives a kit, some confirmation would be sent to the vendor.

  34:03

  So it's a loop. There's no leak of information basically. But these are two different companies. Do they both have to use your software? Because, you know, one, maybe the distributor has their own warehouse management system. So how does that work? So you're basically providing the glue between the shipper and the receiver. And they're happy with that? They don't want to use their own...

  34:33

  EPCIS or EDI or whatever? So, you know, the software we are providing can basically work hand in hand with the customer, with the vendor WMS. So it means they don't need to replace their WMS by SATOs to be able to use RFID. If they want, it can really work only in the background, just pushing data to their WMS, okay? If you want, again, if you want to have that loop,

  35:00

  indeed the hospital needs to use the SATO software. Okay. If they don't use the SATO software, we are still able to send this kind of advanced shipping notice by email. It's totally possible, but it wouldn't be the same. What we are being requested also right now, as you said, is since each hospital has a different hospital information system, it would take ages to make sure each hospital system is aerophagy ready.

  35:29

  So we are being asked to use this keyboard wedge system I mentioned a few minutes ago. So the idea is they would just use their existing workflow and they would do like if they are receiving our shipping items with just a barcode, with an SGT. Okay? That's the GS1 code, right? Yes, except they would just be using RFID, but this keyboard wedge would be converting the RFID information into the proper format.

  35:58

  the hospital, the software at the hospital understands. So if they do that, we just need to install like a small middleware, even a script on our readers. And then the software on their end can basically understand RFID. So it's not a solution allowing you to unleash the full benefits of RFID, but it's allowing you to be able to understand codes in a batch format. So it's not a one by one.

  36:27

  You can just put a whole box containing codes, item codes, and this would be uploaded onto the hospital system. The hospital system, you mentioned HIS, Hospital Information System. Is that the same as the ERP system, or is this a different variety of software package? No, it's a different variety of software.

  36:52

  You do have many in the hospital. That's one of the challenges we have. When it comes to wristbands, you have patient administration system. Yeah, when it comes to x-ray radio, you have the packs. All of the software normally use the HL7 protocol to be interconnected in the hospital. So if it's happening in the hospital, it's okay. If it's a third party doing business with the hospital, it's a different story.

  37:22

  So right now, as of today, there's no interconnection between, let's say, the hospital will be getting implants. There's no connection between the, at least no electronic connection between the SGT number on the implants to the patient electronic medical record. This needs to be associated locally by the hospital.

  37:52

  So when we tag at Sato, orthopedic implants for those vendors, we just put information related to the implant itself. There's no interconnection to the patient medical recall yet. And then the other big software block in this architecture diagram I'm building in my head is the warehouse management system, which the distributor might have. Typically what are those?

  38:20

  Who are the main vendors for those systems? It depends. If it's a really big company, they may be using, actually, they may have a module in the ERP. So they may be using SAP or JD in the warehouse. They may have also local WMS, or local warehouse management system, if it's a small company. So it's really a case-by-case, case-by-case topic. There's no one single model fits it all.

  38:46

  It needs to be defined as a scope during the PINOT, during the POC. Well, I mean, even for our conversation, I've already seen why you need a dedicated healthcare business unit within a company like Sato. There's a lot of legislative custom software, very specific use cases, ROI. So that's, I can see why you have the job you have in it.

  39:15

  It seems like there's a lot that you have to do. What are the other major use cases that are driving your business? We've really focused on this, you know, the tracking and tracing of devices, but you mentioned people, the wristbands is that big as well? Yes. So we have two other segments on top of my legal device. The first one is blood, blood components, traceability.

  39:44

  And the third one is people indeed. And by people, I mean patient with bed and patient sample and specimen. So yeah, I mean, starting with blood, blood is kind of a niche market. RFID is barely used by any blood centers worldwide, by any blood banks. You just have a hand, really just have a few global players able to

  40:12

  able to offer traceability for blood components worldwide. Sato is one of those. You know, the trickiest thing with blood is obviously it's liquids, so you cannot use a good old UHF. That's why we have, you know, we use this technology called PGM RFID working very nicely around liquids. And this is the high frequency as opposed to Yes, that's high frequency, correct. Yeah. Okay, so that kind of propagates

  40:41

  better in those environments? That's correct. Yes. Okay. It's also actually the standard, which is recommended by the ICCBBA. The ICCBBA is like GS1 when it comes to blood. It's emitting standards and giving recommendations, guidelines on the whole blood should be, should be traced. And why is it that it's such a niche market then? Is it just because it's technically very difficult or is

  41:09

  Is adoption fundamentally just very low? I guess, you know, so far there was not, nobody satisfying solutions, Aerofadi solutions offered to blood centers. Meaning, you know, they were always told, okay, Aerofadi is working, but you have this guy, you have guideline A, B, C, D, E. You need to do it in a specific way. Otherwise, it won't work. Liquids, when you have pockets of blood stacked, you know, tags facing each other.

  41:38

  I think you can understand very quickly, it's kind of a very tricky environment, low temperature, frozen plasma being kept at minus 30, minus 35, challenging topics for AeroFagi, right? We are just starting actually, we had our first success in the blood with AeroFagi with HF four years ago, 2020, kind of a new story for us. But now we are seeing some good momentum.

  42:06

  We have more and more blood centers and blood banks in the hospital asking us, okay, I have this inventory of blood components, I have a lot of wastage. You know, if you keep a blood unit out of the fridge for more than 20 units, you need to trash it, right? At least you are supposed to, but it's quite some money. And obviously, if you talk about plasma platelets, it's even more expensive, it's a very scarce resource. So you need to make sure you don't waste it.

  42:34

  And because of this wastage topic, more and more companies are thinking, okay, how can I make my inventory smarter? How can I avoid sending people in my cold rooms, counting one blood unit one by one? Can I have smart shelves? Can I do batch reading when I ship the blood, when I receive blood? Can I have smart fridges? Can I have smart freezers? Can I have smart agitators for platelets? All those topics are really coming more and more. Very interesting.

  43:04

  And so lastly, the tracking of patients, there's got to be some sensitivity to that, right? To privacy and all that? Yes, that's a question we are often asked. So, you know, when it comes to RFID in the risk-bending world, I think the shares right now of the technology are very low. I would estimate maybe less than 5% of risk-bending projects worldwide are using RFID.

  43:31

  95% using UHF, maybe 5% with HF. I suppose one of the reasons is, you know, again, it all comes to liquids, right? A human body is made of liquids, of blood. So just putting a standard wristband with a UHF inlay is not going to cut it. You need to have something special. These are going to have a flag. So you need to keep some distance between the UHF inlay and the skin and the body of the

  44:00

  or you need to have a specific shielding material to create against some kind of a barrier between your skin and the inlay. 10 years ago, it was quite tricky to do that at an acceptable price. Like in the blood world, we are seeing more and more solutions able to get a job done for a low cost. When it comes to the privacy of patients, it vastly depends on the market.

  44:30

  If you're talking about Europe, yes. Europe is a very sensitive market when it comes to patient information. It's, let's say, when you have a project, the IT team of the hospital is involved, the procurement team, and very often, they have a compliance team, who is also making sure that, let's say, if the wristband is going to be cut, is going to be picked by someone, is there any chance that the patient information could be leaked?

  45:00

  You know, now, very often, as you can imagine, people just encode the minimum onto the patient's wristband. You know, they are mostly using it as a beacon just to be able to track and trace the patient location in the hospital. And this is where it shines, you know, with UHF, with a high range, we have two to three meters, you are able to see where the patients are standing in the hospital near real time.

  45:27

  And then since you see the locations, you can basically allocate resources in real time. So let's say I have 10 patients in this waiting room. I can see that maybe I need to send one more nurse to attend those patients in the waiting room. And let's say, okay, I'm in the restroom now. I just had surgery. You can see on your screen that I'm starting to walk around. Or maybe I'm not moving at all. Maybe something is happening, right? You send someone to the room to check.

  45:55

  So more and more hospitals are not using UHF Aerofibris bands just to scan, but to do flow management, patients flow management, to optimize their resources and allocate their personal resources in real time. This is how they use Aerofibris bands more and more. And the, so what kind of readers are able to do that kind of tracking? This is not a handheld reader we're talking about. No. I mean, so.

  46:23

  It depends on the use case. Let's say if you have babies in the maternity incubators, they need to spend maybe a few weeks in the incubators, you may use, so the nurse may have a handy RFID reader and may just go inside and wave it around and capture all the baby's IDs in just a few seconds. That's quite common, right? That being said, normally what we do is we place RFID UHF readers antenna at strategic locations

  46:53

  through the walls, can be on top of the door, to monitor what's in, what's out in real time on top of the door, can be in the, as I said, in the restroom, can be at the entrance of the surgery ward. And that normally is done with a hospital and with a system integrator. And to answer your questions, we are agnostic, so we work with any vendors on the market. We did a lot of projects with Impinj, but it could be with...

  47:22

  any other vendor, it does not need to be, it's just using standard UHF protocols. So the brand you are using does not really matter. And what are the, we talked about the markets where there's a lot of sensitivity, but what are the markets where this is taking off, where presumably there's less sensitivity to the privacy issue? Well, I guess, you know, in Asia, that's maybe say,

  47:50

  they are a little bit less sensitive when it comes to these topics. So for me, markets like India, like Southeast Asia, where they have a growing population, are very promising in terms of penetration. We are just starting. But that being said, even in Europe, even in the old Europe, with the aging population, less and less nurses, right? You know how it is, less and less nurses.

  48:17

  less and less staff able to attend to people who need it. So, you know, being able to track and trace patients needing care, old patients, or maybe, you know, patients from the geriatrics world, from the psychiatry world in real time is not a bad idea, especially when you are struggling to get people working for your clinic. So, yeah, I said India and Southeast Asia, but honestly, you know, we have projects also in Europe.

  48:46

  We had requests from India, from the South East Asia, even in Japan, it's starting to take off. So I think for me, if we do it well, and if the price, if we manage to get the price down even lower in the coming months and years, we could just be replacing what we know, what we now have with the barcode we spent. Yes. So what is the sensitivity to privacy in Japan relative to, say, the European Union?

  49:17

  So actually when it comes to Japan, I was a bit surprised myself, that was one of the first countries using Arafat-il-Rizbent more than 10 years ago. We are working with a few universities here and we had some university professors, doctors working with us hand in hand. It was HF back in the day to have the first case study in Japan using a Sato HF-Rizbent. And that was, I guess, 12 years ago

  49:46

  Niigata University, not in Tokyo, in Niigata University. So, I guess even in Japan, it's a very pragmatic market. If something is working, they will definitely go for it. That being said, in Japan, it's a bit different. In most of the world, the average time a patient is staying in hospital is less than three to four days.

  50:15

  Very quick you need to get out, right? In Japan, it can be up to one week. It's not unusual to stay one week, meaning since you stay longer, the type of frisbee you wear is also different. We have more, I would say, premium products for the Japanese market, just because issues like skin sensitivity, comfort are more important than price in some ways. So in the rest of the world, price, price.

  50:43

  is very important. There's a big competition when it comes to wristbands. In Japan, it's the only market in the world where price is important, yes, for sure, but the comfort of the patient and the ability to say that, yes, with our products, it has been ISO tested for skin irritation, cytotoxicity, you won't get any issues. Saying that is even more important.

  51:13

  The length of stay in Japan is longer. And why is that? Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, honestly, I was quite surprised when I came here myself coming from Europe, you know, where we have huge queues in front of the emergency department in France, in Germany, in the UK, it's happening everywhere, right? More and more people are going to the hospitals waiting hours. Terrible. In Japan, obviously, you do wait.

  51:43

  You do wait, you know, it's not instant, but I feel I've seen many more nurses in a Japanese hospital. So I feel I'm being attended, I'm being taken care of. I think they just allocate more money in people. So, and you know, you see that everywhere. You see that in a hospital, you see that in a restaurant, you see that when you go shopping, you have just more staff able to serve you and to give you a service.

  52:12

  And it's the same in a hospital. I think it's just a mindset difference. It's a culture change, something we don't have overseas. Or maybe in some countries in Asia, like South Korea, where it's quite similar. But is this the only country in the world where, you know, going to hospital in Japan, I feel totally safe. And the reason is I know there's always a nurse nearby. I'm never left unattended like I could be in France or in Germany.

  52:38

  for more than 30 minutes. People check on me, asking how I'm doing, actually scanning my wristband. Many countries in Europe have had wristbands without even being scanned a single time. In Japan, it does not happen. You have a wristband, you are being scanned every hour at least. So, yeah, mindset difference, I guess. Very impressive. So I guess we should...

  53:07

  wrap up soon. I had just a couple of questions in my mind. One is, what you've described, there's a lot there that you and your team have to build. How long has it taken you to get to where you've got to? This is not an overnight thing. You've kind of described an evolution of the market, but I'm assuming...

  53:36

  there's an evolution within Sato to build everything that you've described. Yeah, well, I suppose when you do healthcare, you are dealing with topics which are not common in the IDC world. And obviously, myself, I feel it more exciting because in everything we do, there's a patient safety at stake. So, you know, it's not like if selling a box of selling a can of carrots and beans. It's

  54:04

  Even when you are in the warehouse, you know that if you screw up at the end of the line, at the end of the chain, you have a patient, right? So if you screw up on the label for the medical device, if you screw up on the label for the blood bag, for the drug, for the pharmaceutical, somebody at the end of the line is going to suffer. So for me, that's a big motivation. So even if it takes longer, it's true. And when you look at a medical device project, the lead time we have can be, you know,

  54:34

  between six months to two to three years. Same for our blood center. You have many public tenders. It can take years to get where you want to be. So we really started selling wristbands overseas 20 years ago. We are getting there now, doing more UHF, maybe doing some Bluetooth in the future.

  55:00

  doing some more smart resends for the patients, able to monitor the vitals of the patient in real time. This is where I wanna go. And in the medical device, but we just started, as I said, six to eight years ago. And now we are just starting to have finally large accounts trusting us. And those accounts trust is allowing us to do more, to improve what we do, but also to try to do untapped business, unexplored business as Sato.

  55:30

  I find this very exciting. And where's the biggest, what's the thing that excites you most about the future? I think we're going to have major challenges, you know, as a French guy myself, major challenges in our countries when it comes to the aging population. As I said, being able to provide a remote care, so being able to treat patients at home, nursing, you know, nursing.
  

  55:58

  critique patients at home while ensuring full traceability. Meaning, you know, if you get a prescription for medication, our job, I believe, is to make sure that you as a patient is taking your medication and this, you give some automatic feedback to the pharmacy, to the hospital. So we need to ensure a proper.

  56:26

  bidirectional communication between the patient and the care provider. So there's a lot of things to do when it comes to remote nursing, remote care. And I believe, you know, AI, this is solutions, Bluetooth, NFC, UHF can really shine, but we need to make it more user-friendly. Right now it's very much industrial. You know, you need to be in the world. You need to understand, okay, RFID, how does it work? Data coding, how does it work? It's too complicated.

  56:55

  Yes. You cannot ask a 65, 70 years patient to understand it needs to be plug and play. And I believe this is where we need to make the effort. We need to be easier to use. And only then we really have something we can benefit to the whole society. It's not the case yet. Wouldn't you know, I just, there was one question I was meaning to ask you. I've got to ask you. It doesn't fit neatly, but it's, so.

  57:19

  Obviously, I'm interested in beyond RFID and I was really pleased to hear you talk about Bluetooth. But you said that NFC in particular is finding a place and NFC in payments, massive in the United States. NFC as an auto ID technology really has never taken off in the United States and more so in Europe. But what is it that you're seeing in healthcare with that technology?

  57:50

  So we do a lot of hybrid tags. So the HF tags we sell for blood bags and automatic implants are also NFC ready. Meaning that in a hospital, even if you are not equipped with an RFID reader, you'd be able to check on the fly an implant, a blood bag with your smartphone. And then most people will know this, but when we say NFC, we mean near field communications.

  58:19

  basically taking any smartphone and being able to tap and having that tap experience. And sometimes we look at that as a limitation. Oh, I have to tap in order to see the information that's associated with this bottle of champagne. You know, in the early days of NFC, there was a lot of let's put NFC on booze. And I don't know whether that's taken off. It always seemed a bit of a stretch to me. But there are times when you want that positive,

  58:49

  selection and then the electronic data to be passed to your phone. So this is interesting. So blood bags, I can see that. You've got a dense set of items. You maybe do a scan and you can see, oh, I've got 50 blood bags, but what about this particular one? That's where you want the tap experience, I'm assuming. You know,

  59:16

  You can even imagine in the future, where I would like to go is, imagine with just a smartphone, you have a blood bag laying around. It has been on somewhere. You don't know where it's coming from. You don't know how long it has been out of the fridge. Imagine if you just tap it with your smartphone. You tap it and then you get, OK, I've been out from the fridge for 18 minutes. This is my current temperature. OK, and you wouldn't use a QR code.

  59:44

  You wouldn't use a QR code or a barcode because it might get iced over or something like that. That might be presumably that would be the obvious alternative. Yes, correct. Very good. And you know, again, if you start to talk about pharmaceuticals, about drugs, obviously having NFC ready product is an obvious benefit as a patient. Being able to check if the medicine you are taking is genuine, is counterfeited.

  01:00:12

  in some countries like India, like Southeast Asia, in some countries, being able to do that and making sure that you are taking the right stuff is kind of a nice, I believe. So for all those reasons, I see NFC as a plus. Now for me, it's just a plus. It's something which is coming on top. Doing NFC for NFC like you, obviously there are obvious limitations.

  01:00:41

  But when it's coming on top of something we do already, providing even more value, yeah, I guess we would be stupid not to use it. Very good. And then what does it add to the cost of a tag if you have that type of experience? With the HF tags we are producing, it doesn't add anything. It's really part of the, it was designed that way with the HF PGM tags we are producing. It was designed that way. It's not something we are, we don't have a specific process. It was, the chip was designed that way.

  01:01:11

  Okay. And that's what you meant by dual mode. I was thinking you would have UHF, where I have the benefit of the range of the scanning and I could tap. Are you seeing that combination as well? We are talking about it. Right now, we are not pushing any products UHF plus NFC. Okay. Yes. I mean, we do have some discussions I'm exploring also, but you know,

  01:01:38

  Again, as you said, before launching anything, I want to make sure we have a business case behind. Yes. It's not about saying, yeah, we have this, let's sell it. It's this box moving approach. We try to have a business case first having a customer, okay, I could use the R tags in this application. Let's do it together. Then I would go for it. Right now we don't have anyone asking us for the specific needs of UHF plus NFC, maybe in the future. Got it. Well, that was a little bit of a detailed rabbit hole, but

  01:02:05

  I want to thank you, Kevin, for sharing so much information about what you are doing. There's a lot of interesting applications you shared with us, some of the business drivers that are impacting healthcare, something we, is a part of everyone's life. So I guess you're doing something that impacts the whole world in a very meaningful way. And I think...

  01:02:32

  This future where more and more of this healthcare gets administered in the home is a really interesting thing. So thank you for that. So Kevin, you're in Tokyo at the moment, is that true? That's correct. Yes, I'm in Tokyo. You're in Sato HQ. I've got to ask you how you got there. Obviously not how you got to the office, although I actually am interested in how you got to the office and what it's like to commute in Japan and...

  01:03:00

  I'm a bit of an expatriate myself in a mixed up kind of way. I grew up in England working in the States and I'm constantly, every day there's some kind of cultural thing that strikes me as odd or peculiar. I can only imagine for you it's like two, three, four times as much because the Japanese and the French culture are quite far apart.

  01:03:27

  How did you end up working in Japan and why did you decide to do that? Starting in 2003, I was still a student in France doing my business school and I had the option to spend one semester abroad. All of my mates in France went to the States, I went to the UK, and I was the only one choosing to go to Japan. I went to Tokyo University for four months. I really liked it.

  01:03:56

  And I just wanted to be back. So after I graduated from my school, I started my career in Paris as a software product manager for two years and a half. And then I just had the opportunity to fly to Japan again, but it's time to work, not to be a student anymore. So I started as a business consultant for French small and medium-sized companies willing to invest in Japan. I used to be based in Yokohama.

  01:04:26

  for four years and a half. And then I was basically headhunted by Sato. Sato came to me and said, okay, we are looking for foreigners able to speak both English and Japanese. Would you be interested? I had no idea what Sato was at that time. You know, there are two Satos in Japan. There's one Sato in auto ID and one Sato in pharmaceuticals. And most of Japanese people know the pharmaceuticals Sato because it's a big elephant.

  01:04:56

  always appearing on TV, but it was not that, it was the other one, right? So I tried, I really liked it. And that's how I ended up working in Tokyo. So back in from 2010. So it's been my, now it's my 15th year in the company. So what was it that appealed to you about Japanese culture and being in Japan so much? Well, obviously I could tell you the...

  01:05:25

  I could give you the serious answer saying it was a culture and it was a history, but no, it was actually the manga and the games when I was young, when I was 16, 17. Really? Okay. But then that being said, when I was really here, when I took some time to explore the country to meet people, I just discovered a culture which was the opposite of the one I was used to in France, as you said. So it was kind of a culture shock.

  01:05:55

  know, be myself and I could bring some value. And I believe, you know, this country needs to have people acting as a bridge between Japan. She's, you know, like, you have this kind of Galapagos culture in this country because it's an island and it's not that easy to fly from Japan to another country rather than France or even in the UK, you know, you take the Eurostar, you're in Paris in one hour. It's not really the case here.

  01:06:23

  So for us as foreigners, I see a real value to help and contribute to the Japanese society by working in a Japanese company. That makes sense. I mean, I've come from England where I grew up to America, but my kind of utility as a translator is somewhat limited. We grew up, you know, English people are kind of experts in America. You could argue that Americans aren't experts in English people, but...

  01:06:51

  But it makes sense how you would bridge that gap. So what's it like living and working in Tokyo? Do you live in Tokyo or, because it's an incredible city. Yokohama is a pretty incredible city as well, on the sea and- Yokohama is nice. Both are beautiful. Honestly, if I could choose, I would rather live in Yokohama. Because it's, as you said, it's near the sea. It's just, you know, less people.

  01:07:18

  Tokyo is a very busy, busy city. It starts, as you know, with the commuting hours. Early morning can be kind of a nightmare. It was today. We have heavy rains today in Japan, so the trains were packed, running late. And do they have the guys with the white gloves pushing you in the trains still? Is that a thing? Not in every station, but you have at least four or six attendants on each platform ready to push.

  01:07:47

  should you take too much time to get on board. So you need to be wary of your surroundings and quickly hop onto the train. That's amazing. And how long did it take you to become fluent in Japanese? I wouldn't say, you can always improve, right? But let's say to reach a comfortable business level, it took me approximately five years. I used to go to the Japanese school every morning. When I started here, my business consultant career in 2006,

  01:08:17

  So between 2006, 2010, I was studying nearly every day. And then my chance, I don't need to have a chance, but my boss did not speak any English. So if I wanted to make my voice heard in the company, I needed to use Japanese. And I guess, you know, when you report in Japanese every day, when you are in meetings again and again, you just need to, you just have to do it, right? Otherwise you cannot survive. So yeah, four to five years to be comfortable in Sato.

  01:08:45

  And you've been there 15 years. Do you still find to what degree is there a gap between you and the rest of the people in Sato who are native speakers? When it's about in company meetings, it's totally fine. We are on the same level. When we meet a local customer, let's say we meet a customer from Kansai area, which is from Osaka or Kobe, they use a different dialect.

  01:09:10

  I may miss a few words or I may not be able to get some nuance they have in specific sentences and then my colleague went to explain to me, no, no, actually she meant that. So even if he said yes, it was no. So sometimes I need to ask my colleagues to make sure I really understand when it's out of Tokyo. And so there's more than just an accent then? There's actually a different vocabulary? Yes, they do use a few different words. So it depends on people. You have many people who were born in Tokyo and who work in Osaka now.

  01:09:41

  But yes, sometimes you use some kind of dialect. So if you are not used to it, it can be a bit surprising first. Well, amazing. I feel like I could talk to you all day about this. It's I've always been fascinated by Japan. I first time I went was on my dime. My wife and I, we one of the first things we did as a couple was we kind of toured around the country and it was awesome, but expensive.

  01:10:07

  So let's go to our regular warm-up questions. I feel like I've already got to know you a bit, but let's talk about what three songs or what's the first of your three songs that are memorable to you and why. Okay, so the first one was easy. My favorite band is from the UK. It's an old band called Electric Light Orchestra. Oh, amazing. I'm sure you know that one. Oh yeah, I could...

  01:10:35

  I've got a Peter Frampton behind me, but it could easily have been out of the blue, electro light orchestra. So yes, since you're saying out of the blue, my favorite song is Mr. Blue Sky from Hello. Yeah, what can I say? Obviously, I'm too young to have known that band when they were at the top. My dad was a huge fan of Hello. He saw them in concert multiple times in France.

  01:11:04

  And she used to listen to them really very, very loud when I was eight or 10. So I have these memories of the French summers filled with hello songs from morning to the evening. So I guess it was only natural that I would like the band. So yeah, that's one of my favorite bands. And Mr. Blue Sky is a very, it's a lovely song. It's...

  01:11:30

  I like the beat, I like the lyrics, I like the melody with Jeff Lee, it's obviously always nice. So yeah, one of my favorite songs of all times, definitely. That's beautiful, yeah, great that it has those family associations. And actually it does for me as well. I grew up in England and I had a close relationship with my grandmother, she was born at the turn of the century, so 1900, and I used to go around and I ended up redecorating her kitchen, building cabinets, putting them up.

  01:11:59

  And she rewarded me with donuts and some money to buy a record. And I bought yellow out of the blue. So, two for one, my memory and your memory. What's number two? What's your second song? Number two is from the US. It's quite kind of oldies as well, because I'm going to give you the Beach Boys. And I've picked Good Vibrations, which is according to me.

  01:12:27

  one of the best songs ever written, Brian Wilson, Genius. Yes. Good Vibrations is something which I had never heard before. So yes, again, the lyrics, the harmony, the way all the Beach Boys voices are joining together and raising again and again, it's something I had never heard before.

  01:12:51

  And it was used in the 80s in many commercials across Europe and France. So this is how I knew the song. I think it was, yeah, it was used for some commercial for some Chrysler car. So I kept hearing it again and again, and I asked my dad and obviously he knew it. And she had all the CDs, all the records of the Beach Boys. And so this is how I found out about them. And I saw them in concert in Paris in 1995 or 96.

  01:13:21

  When I was 15 or 16, I believe. Yeah. Amazing. Well, I, I, this is supposed to be about you, but not about me, but I always find this so fun when there's an affinity. So I saw them during COVID, not the full band, obviously they've somewhat diminished. Brian Wilson wasn't part of it, but it was still an, I mean, I remember dancing, everyone basically listening from their cars because it was a car concert. And that was so cool. But.

  01:13:51

  The thing that really struck me was how much this kind of competition and respect between them and the Beatles and how Brian Wilson and Paul McCartney and John Lennon, they were aware of each other and they were competing and you know, Pet Sounds, which I think good vibrations is on Pet Sounds was kind of like that and Sergeant Pepper were in competition. So, so cool. I love your taste in music. I can't wait to hear what number three is. What is it?

  01:14:18

  So number three, I had to pick one French artist, right? And I chose Charles Aznavour. It's a song he wrote in the 70s called She. So it was written in English. It was reused many times. It was a song by Elvis Costello. Maybe you remember in the movie Notting Hill. It was, I think, the ending song for the credits. And the reason I chose it is because I used that song for my wedding. So it has kind of...

  01:14:46

  personal connection to my own life. And I just found, again, it's a beautiful song. It's beautifully sang by Charles Aznavour. Yeah, what can I say? It's again a lovely song. And the Elvis Costello version is great as well. He's an amazing artist. Yeah, that was, I have to say, the ELO and the she, I remember that being...

  01:15:15

  in the top of the British charts when it came out and I was a kid at the time. Very good. Well, Kevin, I really enjoyed that. Thank you so much for sharing a bit about your career and your musical memories and for coming on the show. Thanks a lot. Sure. Thank you. Thank you so much.

  01:15:35

  So that's it, another episode. I hope you enjoyed the interview with Kevin. I cannot restrain myself when there's a connection between the music that I guess love and my own musical tastes. But the best thing about this show from my perspective is just being able to be schooled in an industry by someone that's living it. And this information is tremendously useful for any of us that are.

  01:16:04

  in the business development world, or just talking to customers and wanting to get smarter about either their business or their technology. So I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do. Again, 200th episode. Thank you very much for listening and until next time, be safe.