Interview Jan 14, 2019 · GetSwift

Before joining GetSwift, Dennis Noto Jr.'s career spanned nearly every facet of the technology industry. Most recently, as Executive Architect/CTO of IBM Watson for Business, he advised Fortune 500 companies on harnessing AI. Before that, he spent much of his career as a financial-services CIO, helping institutions clear billions of Wall Street trades instantly. In 2012, he won the CIO 100 Award for his work as CIO of Trust Company of America, where he developed a trading application that financial advisors could use across any browser or device.

At GetSwift, his task: improve, evolve, and build the most advanced logistics platform in the industry.

Why delivery management?

"I've spent most of my career in fintech and was looking to apply everything I'd learned — high-transaction volumes, real-time systems, innovative product, great UX, solving problems with simplicity — to a brand new industry. Everything today is delivery, competition was open, and the technology in logistics was, frankly, old. It begged for SaaS. I saw a green field."

The big opportunity

"Logistics is so much more than dispatch, routing, and tracking. We're building a holistic platform that fuels your whole business — BI you can feed back into delivery, seamless cash management, driver scheduling, an online customer marketplace. We're already offering more of these slices thanks to acquisitions like Delivery Biz Pro and Scheduling+ — and a lot more is coming."

What does "wowing customers" mean?

"It's not enough that a product helps customers increase revenue, cut expenses, automate, upsell, or cross-sell — it has to wow them with UX that knocks them off their seat. You wow the dispatcher with how easy it is to automate tens of thousands of deliveries, you wow drivers with a seamless mobile app, you wow the CEO by hitting their revenue metrics, and you wow the end customer because they get a better product, sooner, well-informed at every step."

Product and UX go together. As a user, you need both. If you can't be intuitive about what you do, you shouldn't be bringing it to your customers.

"At Trust Company of America we let CPAs run trading applications right from their tablets. There was pushback — how would they train CPAs? I put the iPad app in the COO's hands and said, 'Give it to all your people. If they can't run this app without a user's manual, I failed at my job.' They all loved it."

Innovation, technology, and people

"We can all be on a level playing field with technology. The question isn't about technology — it's about the people that make the decisions, build the product, and create the experience. You can have the best tech in the world, but if you're not solving the right problem and don't have people to create that awesome experience, you won't succeed."

How much time do you spend on culture?

"A lot. It's about how engaged you are with your people. When we opened the Denver office (GetSwift's global tech HQ), we set up mobile sit-and-stand desks. I told everyone: 'Let me know what you think.' Some people wanted cubicles back, so we built that out. It's about listening, engaging, and empowering people to be their best."

Most setup and building gets done by the team because we've fostered a collaborative culture. New bar stools arrive in the kitchen and the team is already setting them up — everybody pitches in. People also need to know their purpose in the greater good of the organization. That's why we hold monthly town halls, department "campfires," and group teach-backs.

How's it going at GetSwift?

"We're releasing code to production every three weeks. We probably did 1,000 stories in the first quarter. We're producing functionality that causes our business team in New York to say, 'Wow! We've been waiting for this!' Customers see a recurring stream of new features, sub-system improvements, and service-availability enhancements. That kind of productive environment fuels a great culture — and great culture fuels even more productivity. Virtuous cycle."

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