How Cody Fisher & Team Built Surgence Platform to Transform Healthcare Supply Chain

Anthony Codispoti (00:00)
Welcome to another edition of the inspired stories podcast where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired by how they’ve overcome adversity. My name is Anthony Cotus Bodie and today’s guest is Cody Fisher, president at Concordance innovations. They are part of a thriving ecosystem called Surgence dedicated to strengthening the healthcare supply chain. The mission of Surgence is to fully connect providers

distributors, and suppliers through advanced technology, ensuring medical supplies get where they’re needed most. Surgence, the digital platform built by the supply chain for the supply chain, delivers real-time visibility into supply and demand, driving better patient care. Cody is an accomplished professional with a strong background in accounting and finance. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Ohio Northern University in 2012.

and became a CPA the following year. His experience at Concordance Healthcare Solutions combined with his current leadership with Surgence shows his expertise in strategy and operations and pushes healthcare supply chain innovation forward. Now, before we get into all that good stuff, today’s episode is brought to you by my company, Adback Benefits Agency, where we offer very specific and unique employee benefits that are both great for your team and fiscally optimized for your bottom line.

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All right, back to our guest today, the president of Concordance Innovations and the Surgence platform, Cody Fischer. Thanks for making the time to share your story today.

Cody Fisher (02:07)
Absolutely, I look forward to it. I’m excited for the conversation.

Anthony Codispoti (02:12)
All right. So Cody, every inspiring story has a beginning. What sparked your journey in this industry? And were there moments along the way that made you realize this was your calling?

Cody Fisher (02:25)
It’s a really fair question to start off. ⁓ I’ll kick off probably by ⁓ sharing. I’ll be transparent and honest as much as I can be throughout the entire conversation. When I started ⁓ my career and even from academia, I would not say healthcare was my calling necessarily or healthcare supply chain to be more specific. ⁓ What…

probably added up from academia then through a couple of my first phases of professional life was delivering value either to internal customers or to that of external customers. ⁓ And that is ultimately, I think what was the magnetic force or pull, which got me into my current role today, ⁓ not through a linear path.

as all can probably imagine starting in accounting and finance and then saying, hey, you’re going to lead a technology organization that’s vision is to transform an industry, not a linear path there, but ultimately the magnetic force was where are the big challenges and how can we deliver value against those challenges? And ⁓ that ended up in my current role and responsibility, which I’m excited to have. ⁓ But hopefully that’s a weave in and out of

You know, not necessarily a direct answer, but ⁓ a journey and a little story.

Anthony Codispoti (03:50)
So, and I want to talk, obviously we’re going to talk mostly about Surgence and what you guys are doing there today, but maybe first explain what a concordance does.

Cody Fisher (04:01)
Yeah, absolutely. So Concordance Healthcare Solutions is a distributor within the healthcare supply chain. So imagine moving anything from Band-Aids and GALAs to, you know, higher-end medical products and devices ⁓ from the manufacturers to the providers. And that can be hospitals, that can be non-acute, you know, assisted living, long-term care facilities, physician offices, et cetera. ⁓ So that was my calling card before Surgence.

Surgence is a part of that organization today ⁓ within the technology space, is within the innovation subsidiary. ⁓ But thereby responsibility was finance and I got to do a whole lot of finance leadership internally, but also have the opportunity to represent finance in the organization within the industry in front of customers and suppliers, ⁓ which led to a lot of strategic relationships, strategic initiatives. ⁓

And again, kind of transition from that experience and nicely led into what is now Surgence.

Anthony Codispoti (05:06)
So to help our listeners better understand the problem that ⁓ Surgence is addressing, I think it might be good if you walked us through the problems with the N95 masks during COVID. Because I think that was sort of what kicked all this off.

Cody Fisher (05:22)
Sure.

Yeah, yeah, it did. ⁓ And maybe it was the analogy, which probably doesn’t exactly hold true, but it was probably the cherry on top or the icing on the cake type of thing where enough’s enough. ⁓ So, you know, at the core vision of Surgence it’s really to bring organizations in the healthcare supply chain space together.

on one shared platform so they can better understand themselves and each other in terms of predicting supply of product and the demand of that product. So Anthony, to your point, know, referencing N95s or think of any PPE during COVID, whether we’re in healthcare or not, we’re impacted by it. During COVID, during the pandemic, the manufacturers or the suppliers of N95s were

I’ll say in my opinion, doing the very best they could ⁓ and making as much as they could. The challenge is where do I send it? Who needs it most? Who’s using it the most? Who has enough inventory? Who doesn’t have enough inventory? The suppliers were really running blind and ⁓ in terms of data and they, for the most part, had to respond to the emotion of the providers and clinicians and patients.

which is incredibly difficult and vice versa. The providers were ultimately running blind themselves a bit of how much product do I have and how much am I using? ⁓ How long will that last? But definitely running blind to when am I getting more? How much am I getting? Where is it coming from? When is it coming? ⁓ So at the core, that is what Surgence is embarking on doing or is doing already. And we’re embarking on enhancing what we’re already doing.

And for context, it’s not just doing it for one or a few products called M95s. It’s the millions of products that are spread across the healthcare supply chain that impact our clinicians and patients every day. Hopefully that helps in terms of ⁓ equating it to the M95s.

Anthony Codispoti (07:35)
It does, but

yeah, right. right. Everybody, unfortunately we all remember, ⁓ 2020 and beyond and what was going on with COVID and everybody was trying to get PPE and it was hard to come by. guess the part that surprises me is that these, you know, large manufacturers didn’t understand where, ⁓ they had their inventory. Surely they manufacture it and

Then they send it to their, you know, call it five distribution centers and they would have like a count of the number of units that are each of their DCs, right?

Cody Fisher (08:14)
Yep. It’s a really good question. within the manufacturer suppliers network, I would say they probably had a pretty good idea of what they’re producing and what they had in stock, but go outside of their walls. That is where the visibility to what existed essentially shut off. ⁓ So they knew what they’re making. They knew what they had in their walls, but their customers, their distribution partners, et cetera.

⁓ That is where the visibility to how much inventory exists, how much is being used, how long is that inventory going to last, who needs it most in terms of the thousands of providers across the United States. ⁓ That is where their challenge really started.

Anthony Codispoti (09:02)
Okay, so, but let me ask this then. ⁓ Let’s say, yeah, I’ve made these N95 masks and I ship some to ABC Hospital. ⁓ Once I’ve shipped them to ABC Hospital, they belong to ABC Hospital. Like it’s not sort of like within my benefits or even,

Cody Fisher (09:14)
for

Anthony Codispoti (09:27)
Like it’s not my data to know like how many of those units that they’ve consumed, right? Am I thinking about this correctly or no?

Cody Fisher (09:33)
That’s right.

You are, you are. ⁓ Once the product crosses that ownership line, for the most part, it disappears. Now, as partners, even pre-pandemic, pre-COVID, organizations that were very, very aligned, and I’ll use the word strategic, although it gets thrown around in industry a lot, the organizations that were strategic in their relationship,

you know, they might have been sharing some data, right? Like, okay, that provider, as an example, may send snapshots of data to the supplier to say, is how much I have, or how long it’s gonna last, et cetera.

It wasn’t, ⁓ if it was happening, it wasn’t scalable. And it surely wasn’t happening enough across the supplier and provider community. But you’re spot on. mean, once an organization buys product, ⁓ it is theirs, not just the physical product itself, but the data that correlates to that product. ⁓ And that is, ⁓ again, it’s.

Anthony Codispoti (10:40)
And so as maybe the administrator

of the ABC hospital where I now have 10,000 of your N95 masks, what would be the advantage for me, the ABC hospital, to share that data back to you?

Cody Fisher (10:53)
Yeah, it’s a good question. ⁓ during the pandemic, the perception was not much of an advantage, right? If I share that data, it’s going to be used against me. ⁓ If I have 10,000, I’m not getting my next order until I have zero because somebody else in the country has zero. ⁓ Fast forward to post pandemic or current state, the value of sharing data is incredibly high.

because as much as almost every organization, not just providers, we’re trying to buy an inventory as much, not only of N95s, but of PPE in general, as they could in order to protect if you’re a provider, your clinicians and patients, if you’re a distributor, protect your providers so you can support them in what they need and kind of build up the supply chain from there. Almost every organization ended up with too much as well.

⁓ And a lot of that too much was rooted in, it was really difficult to know how much an organization was using, how much they needed, how much they were going to forecast that they needed. ⁓ So fast forward to kind of current state, our position is by sharing data organizations now are not operating in operational silos. They’re operating together, which is actually how the supply chain works to start with.

Product isn’t just made out of thin air and set somewhere. It’s made for demand. It’s made to move to the organizations that have demand and all the way down to the clinician and patient, the demand still exists. Hospitals are buying product because there’s demand to protect clinicians or to protect ⁓ and provide care. ⁓ So our, again, vision or statement that although…

The industry is not necessarily rooted in high trust and confidence of sharing data. The value on the other side of that bridge of being a bit more visible, not only internally to organizations, but also with your partners ⁓ is incredibly valuable. And that use case isn’t just, do we know supply and demand? It’s how do you manage inventory? How do you order product? Do you even have my items set up correctly? Is pricing set up correctly? The list can go on and on of where visibility can

STEM or ⁓ advanced too, but it really is rooted in trust and are we aligned in our goals and are we aligned in our joint mission, if you will, when we just talk about partnering organizations.

Anthony Codispoti (13:31)
So as the administrator at ABC hospital, ⁓ sharing that inventory data might have the following advantages. Tell me if I’m right or wrong. ⁓ it helps the manufacturers I’m buying from know if I’m going to need inventory soon, right? So that they, as the manufacturer, they can forecast, ⁓ you know, their manufacturing planning operation. ⁓ it can let my.

suppliers know if I’ve got pricing set up incorrectly, or maybe, ⁓ I’ve got it somehow coded wrong. If I’ve got product descriptions in there wrong and they can flag that and come back to me and say, Hey, ⁓ we need to provide you with some updates there. ⁓ yes. And what else?

Cody Fisher (14:20)
Yes, and the general term I would put on top of that is not only does providing visibility help organizations start on a strong foundation, it allows organizations to operate their supply chains most efficiently together as well. So how they order, when they order, when we’re replenishing, what the right level of inventory is, when to be more resilient and.

Increase stock and when to be less resilient and optimized to decrease stock ⁓ and ultimately Where we see organizations end up is not only are they better operating their supply chains together? But they’re predicting their supply chains together. So they’re more advanced and looking forward of Where is their risk whether that be on the sorry outside of pain here whether that be on the upstream side of raw materials and manufacturing and production and shipping ⁓

or the downstream side of hospitals standing up a new facility or they’re launching a new type of surgery or domain and they expect to see a 20 % increase in patients, right? That’s not a conversation that should be had, that should be transformed from a conversation to data. ⁓ So we see organizations being able to be proactive.

Anthony Codispoti (15:38)
So I don’t have to get on the phone. I don’t have to shoot

out an email. The system is sort of proactively communicating that information to my supply chain.

Cody Fisher (15:47)
It is

the conduit in which it’s communicated, yes.

Anthony Codispoti (15:50)
It’s the conduit. So it sounds like you guys have sort of taken everybody’s inventory ⁓ tracking systems, gotten them to talk to each other, created these centralized dashboards where the right people can look at the right data at the right time. But I think you guys have taken it a step further and maybe this is what you were just sort of touching on.

Because I think it also helps with decision-making. Like it guides you through the process. It’s not just giving you the data so that you can look at it and say, okay, I think we need a hundred units this month instead of 125 like we had last month. It’s getting more involved. Can you describe that?

Cody Fisher (16:22)
does.

It is. Yes. Yes. You are correct in that it’s helping organizations even within their own network, bring disparate technologies together, call it through the single pane of glass. It’s doing the same, ⁓ then for providers and their partners or suppliers and their partners and providers. And yes, it brings that to visibility, call it the dashboard, right? But ultimately we’re also translating that dashboard then into decisions.

based on the rules and the strategy set by a single organization and their partners. So imagine a world where, just say ABC, that ABC Hospital is an example, ⁓ has an inventory strategy in which they share how many days on hand they want to carry in a certain area. That can come from a myriad of different technologies at a source level, but we will integrate those sources of data.

⁓ We will bring that to not only the provider but also their supplier partner if they would like it to be visible to them and now collaboratively those two organizations are ensuring that they’re executing on the strategy they set and if they’re not they’re given the insights and alerts so they wrote Actually do not have to go to a dashboard. They’re looking at an alert that’s telling them You’re not executing based on the rules and strategy you put in place. Here’s what you need to do to get back to the rule

If you don’t want to get back to the rule, there’s also then incremental workflows and approvals to go off the rule. ⁓ What we’re really enabling organizations, I would argue, not only to execute more effectively and efficiently, we’re ultimately tying their strategy to execution, which is really, really difficult when you’re running an organization on numerous technologies, let alone then how do you share that data and information with your supply chain partners as well?

Anthony Codispoti (18:36)
Yeah. Interesting. And is this focused exclusively on healthcare supply chain?

Cody Fisher (18:43)
Today it is healthcare supply chain and call them channels or segments or markets. It is consumables, ⁓ is devices, implants. We have the ability to go into lab, pharma, et cetera. So we’re not ⁓ limited on what types of products, ⁓ but our focus is healthcare supply chain. There is plenty of work to do.

in the space and I don’t mean that to say that work’s not being done collectively by the industry, but the opportunity is there and truthfully, and this is my opinion, the industry has never needed to innovate more than today. Given financial pressures, given the changing dynamics and how ⁓ patient care and funding works in general, but then that ripple effect all the way back upstream in the supply chain and manufacturing and product production.

⁓ The industry, I believe, is going to experience the need and necessity for a lot of change. ⁓ And we’re happy to be on the ride. ⁓ Where there’s change and where there’s challenge, there’s a lot of opportunity. ⁓ I think it’s two pieces. ⁓ One, it will pull from my background and thread of I believe there’s going to be more financial pressure than the industry’s ever felt.

Anthony Codispoti (19:53)
What’s going to drive that need, Cody? What do you think is going to drive that need?

Cody Fisher (20:10)
⁓ given how ⁓ care is reimbursed and the funding mechanisms of patient care. I think that’s one thread. The other thread ⁓ is also the industry cannot over ⁓ deliver on value because I think it can become too optimized and in our industry we cannot bring undue risk.

given the patient is at the end of the product delivery. ⁓ We aren’t, if the healthcare supply chain overall doesn’t deliver, it doesn’t mean we didn’t deliver vehicles. It doesn’t mean we didn’t deliver iPhones or something we use in our personal life. It means we didn’t deliver care to a patient that has a much higher magnitude of risk on the other end of not delivering that product. ⁓ So, the two main pillars for me,

that Surgeon for myself and that Surgence is really pushing to address is that of bring value, but also bring resiliency and that management of how do we help organizations balance both of those levers, whatever the risk profile is, all organizations are a bit different, but we wanna be the mechanism in which they can balance that financial driver and the resiliency risk driver simultaneously.

Anthony Codispoti (21:31)
Cody, I’ve been through a lot of different tech implementations in the past. And in my experience, the tools only work ⁓ if people use them and if you get the data into them. What have you found are the biggest hurdles in getting people to adopt Surgence technology?

Cody Fisher (21:53)
It’s a good question. ⁓

I think the easiest hurdle, there’s a couple. I’ll start with the easiest maybe to talk about. The easiest hurdle is simply that of change. ⁓ think as people, typically we don’t like change. ⁓ Some folks really gravitate to it, but I think the common theme is ⁓ as people, as humans, we kind of hit our stride and we get comfortable, right, with this is my day, this is my work.

This is how I do it. I do it really, really well. It’s what I’m paid to do. And even personally, same thing, right? We hit our stride as families and friends and, it’s the Sunday dinners or it’s every once a month I meet so and so like we kind of hit our stride in our routine. So change at its core is one of the challenges, but to take it even maybe a step or two further.

New technology is a challenge, ⁓ generally speaking, and we have to find the balance of how far can the technology go versus to your point, Anthony, like how far is the user today willing to go? We try to find that balance. So my example is our technology can automate an entire process and not have a human make a decision. The adoption of that is

incredibly unlikely because the human’s making every decision in hand holding a piece of data through the process today. So to go from, I control every step as a person, literally probably in Excel files to I may not even have to click a button and something’s happening. That’s too big a gap. Right? So we find that kind of what is that magic like bridge to bring automation.

Anthony Codispoti (23:44)
how can you sort of

get them to take incremental steps?

Cody Fisher (23:48)
Yeah, yep, exactly. So that’s part of it, ⁓ or part of the next step. The other part is ⁓ ultimately ensuring that we are solving the problems that are most valued by the industry or an individual customer. So one of those challenges of delivering that value or solving that challenge and the problem is even within an organization, the persona,

of let’s say the challenge a leader may have is not the challenge that a person buying product has. They may be connected, but they may also not be the same. So our challenge in delivering technology is depending on the application or the workflow or the very specific thing we’re solving. We have to determine, are we solving it for the person doing the work? Are we solving it for the person leading the work or building the strategy? And

we have to be flexible enough that those things may be different. They might be two different applications. They might be two different views of the same application. And they definitely could be two different workflows.

Anthony Codispoti (24:57)
So this strikes me as a platform where the more people that are using it, the more useful it is, right? If you’ve got one factory, but none of their distribution partners and none of their, and customers using it, it’s not quite as effective. What, what have you guys tried and found success with when it comes to

Cody Fisher (25:06)
Hmm.

Anthony Codispoti (25:25)
sort of reaching a scale. Like what’s been good for you guys in terms of growth?

Cody Fisher (25:30)
Yep. We’re absolutely on that journey today. The most effective way that we are scaling or finding that, that how do we help organizations maximize the value beyond their own walls is to really address the challenges that not only impact a provider or a distributor or supplier. So to find those challenges that have multifaceted values and

While a provider may say, yes, this is a huge challenge for me, so does a supplier. So go back to the N95 example. It is a challenge for both the provider and the supplier community to say what’s happening with X product and N95 as an example. Those values are a bit different. A provider wants to know where it’s at so it ensures it doesn’t run out. The supplier wants to know where it’s at so it can ensure it delivers it on time.

and where it’s needed the most, but both rooted in the challenge of where is the product, right? So that’s just an easy, kind of an easy general example. So we find those challenges that exist ⁓ that may have different lenses, different personas, different ways to address the challenge based on what segment or what hat you wear, but there’s value in the multi-segment approach. ⁓ And that ultimately, where there’s…

finance hat here for me. Where there’s value, there’s priority and where there’s priority, there’s capacity. ⁓

Anthony Codispoti (27:02)
Let’s talk about the value piece. mean, I’m wrapping my head around this and I can see how this would be incredibly helpful. But I think it would be useful if we just kind of like bullet pointed, like here are the ⁓ top outcomes that we expect the surgeon platform to do.

Cody Fisher (27:22)
Yeah, it’s really fair. I’ll hit a couple. ⁓ There’s too many probably just to list off. ⁓ let’s say it is to ensure product is where it’s needed the most to deliver patient care. That is a mutual value prop that every segment of the supply chain, it is their number one priority. If it’s not their priority, they’re not in business, essentially. ⁓ The second piece of that is how do I

ensure that product is there, but in the most optimal fashion, meaning the combination of how do I help either myself manage inventory or my partners manage inventory and how do I ensure we’re doing optimal quarter quarter and strategies. So the product is it needs to be there to take care of patients. Secondarily, how much needs to be there and when does it need to be there and how do we order and or ship against that demand? And then we start breaking it down into the spokes of

Are organizations buying or selling the right product at the right time? Are they buying alternative product? Do they need to buy alternative product? So it starts to spoke out into this multifaceted value statement in which suppliers wanna make sure their product is known to be available, regardless if it’s a primary or a substitute, and the providers have to know.

if the primary product is available and if not, are there substitutes available to, again, reinforce bullet one and bullet two? Do I have enough product and is it where it needs to be to take care of my patients?

Anthony Codispoti (28:59)
So the patient impact is obviously a huge part of this, right? You don’t want to risk people’s healths or their lives by not having the right products in the right place at the right time. The business case seems to me like this is all about giant cost savings, right? I mean, that’s what inventory management comes down to. If I am carrying too many of the wrong things, that is cash,

Cody Fisher (29:20)
Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (29:29)
sitting on the shelves, not doing anybody any good, not doing my business any good. And if I need something and I don’t have enough of it, that’s also money being lost, right? There’s a lost sale opportunity there. That’s really what this distills down into. Yeah.

Cody Fisher (29:42)
Right. There is. Yes, it is

point one would be to ensure providers are enabled to take care of their clinicians and patients. And point two would be in the most financially optimal way possible. Where today the industry is doing point one. Like frankly, kudos to the industry because I don’t know how the industry doesn’t.

not do what happens in other industries where it’s like, oops, we don’t have enough chips or a raw material or whatever it is. And we go months without seeing a product. That product in healthcare is care. ⁓ The industry moves heaven and earth to ensure it doesn’t impact clinicians and patients. Moving heaven and earth takes a lot of money to your point, Anthony, right? So it is don’t lose sight of point one, but do point two way better is ultimately the goal.

Anthony Codispoti (30:36)
Yep. Yeah.

Well, and you know, like you said, there, you know, what’s going to drive a lot of this need is the cost of care. Just keep going up. ⁓ everything is becoming more expensive and your solutions, the Surgence platform is a way to help reduce costs. And it’s something we never hear about when it comes to healthcare now, right? Everything is going up. This is a way to help brain in some of those expenses.

Cody Fisher (31:01)
Yeah.

Yes, everything’s going up except how much…

providers charge for care, which is going down. So it’s the ultimate like.

Anthony Codispoti (31:19)
imbalance. It’s an imbalance that’s getting worse.

Cody Fisher (31:21)
Yes, it’s incredibly tricky. Expenses

are increasing more than ever and call it revenue is being pressured more than ever.

Anthony Codispoti (31:35)
What’s the ultimate goal for Surgence? Where do you see this going in the next few years?

Cody Fisher (31:43)
The ultimate goal is to enable the industry to truly operate and almost think of it as the industry operating system or the industry platform. That’s the ultimate goal. If you want to scale, you can integrate your data and all of a sudden, if your provider partners agree as a supplier, you should see the product. A light switch goes on, you get to see all your product inside your end user customers, vice versa. Your provider that integrates to Surgence and now all of a sudden you get to see

What’s my supply forecast look like? Do I have any risk in the product I buy? You can see it by light switch, not a hundred custom APIs to individual partners that are taking massive use from an IT team or sophisticated engineers. ⁓

I mean, that’s ultimately the vision. I would put a vision in front of that. In the next three years, if we can show the industry that change isn’t that scary and there’s a lot of value on the other side of change, I would call that a win. ⁓ Even before we say, the whole industry is on one platform or a few platforms. I think there’s some really big win steps for the industry in front of that, and for Surgence in front of that vision.

Anthony Codispoti (32:46)
Mm.

Cody Fisher (33:01)
⁓ And they start with the incrementals.

Anthony Codispoti (33:01)
Is, is Surgence the first one to think

about solving the problem in this way? Like, is this the first sort of centralized platform?

Cody Fisher (33:10)
⁓ I don’t think we’re the first one to think about a centralized platform. I think we are the. Yeah, I think we’re the first organization to think about the centralized platform. In the operational sense of the supply chain. I mean, there’s a lot of incredible platforms out there that help organizations order and transact digitally things of that nature. ⁓

Anthony Codispoti (33:17)
What are you guys doing differently or better then?

Cody Fisher (33:40)
But there’s not a lot of platforms or any platforms that help organizations come together and say, how do you manage product? How do you manage your inventory? Together, not as an organization, but together. ⁓ How do you manage how you order and optimize, how you order and deliver product together? ⁓ So the operational lens for us, and in the intro, Anthony, you had mentioned built by the supply chain for the supply chain.

When you’re from the supply chain, you know how it works and you know where the ghosts are at and the skeletons are at in the closet. You know what is difficult day to day and it shouldn’t be that difficult. know where organizations can easily get out of a line, get out of alignment on simple stuff. And, you know, although our vision is big and yes, we have some really sophisticated algorithms on some of our ⁓ applications and workflows.

Anthony Codispoti (34:09)
and you know what doesn’t work.

Cody Fisher (34:34)
Most of our stuff is really about digitizing and optimizing the most simple processes in the supply chain and bringing organizations together to be more simple versus more complex. ⁓ So some extra color there on the vision. The vision is big, our vision is big, but there’s some milestones in front of that that are very much attainable and they will be incredibly valuable to the industry.

Anthony Codispoti (34:58)
You know, and we hit upon this a couple of times, like that change management process seems like it’s probably one of your biggest hurdles to overcome. ⁓ how do you think about sort of building those incremental movements to, know, so people are comfortable. Like you said, they’re, they’re accustomed to holding onto every step of the process. You can’t take them from there to absolutely no involvement. So how do you sort of think about.

Cody Fisher (35:06)
It is. Yeah. Yep.

Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (35:27)
walking them through this before they run.

Cody Fisher (35:30)
I’ll start by being a bit audacious and then I’ll be a bit more practical. So the audacious answer is develop use cases and value by showing it and proving it that organizations can’t deny. So the value of not changing or the value of changing far surpasses the pain of not changing. I’ll put it that way. That’s the audacious answer is show off what organizations are doing to the industry. And it’s a

my gosh, this is a no-brainer, it really doesn’t matter how painful it is. The pain of not doing something is far surpassing the pain of change. ⁓ And I can extend on that comment a little bit that I’ve made a few times in public settings within the industry, but the practical side ⁓ maybe isn’t too much different, just different words, is really leveraging those use cases that organizations are executing today and helping.

the industry understand how that use case pertains to them. ⁓ It is not easy to be an organization, probably in general, but in healthcare supply chain today. ⁓ I mean, even leading a technology company, I probably get a hundred emails a day about how another technology company can help my technology company. you know, call it automation, AI, et cetera. Individually, we are being…

exposed and marketed to in general in such a high level that I think part of the challenge is it’s really hard for people, let alone organizations to sift through like which of these solutions, which of these innovative things matter to me the most. So if I go full circle back to be, you know, we’re very practical within our organization. We try to simplify where we can instead of

be incredibly complex and high tech. So the practical side of our approach is be operational in nature, prove the value, show that value, share the value, allow organizations to understand why integrating and kind of building across that bridge, if you will, of I should share more data and more data will be shared with me and what’s on the other side of that. ⁓ Again, I made the comment earlier.

By starting with value, helps organizations understand how it relates to them. It helps them prioritize that they need to do something in a given space. And if the priority is high enough, they will figure out, or we can help them figure out how to address the capacity. Because that is also a challenge for change. Do you have capacity to change? Do you have resources? Do you have extra time to devote to innovate?

Anthony Codispoti (38:08)
Mm-hmm.

Cody Fisher (38:14)
versus just figure out how operate your supply chain.

Anthony Codispoti (38:18)
So you were on the finance side of things before with Concordance. ⁓ You got tapped on the shoulder to lead this new venture with Surgence. Obviously you’ve got a team there at Surgence. You had a team at Concordance that you were leading. What are some core beliefs that have guided your leadership style and the way that you make decisions?

Cody Fisher (38:22)
Thank you.

fair. ⁓

one of my beliefs.

⁓ Not that I say this a lot of words, but it’s probably core. Regardless of title, we’re all in it for the same reason. ⁓ That’s what I want to believe. That’s what I hope is echoed through my leadership style. ⁓ You know, we can throw, there’s meetings where we throw titles out the door, but really how we operate day to day in Surgence, we throw titles out the door. ⁓ That doesn’t mean we throw the responsibilities out the door necessarily, but when we’re in a room, figuring out a problem.

You may not be able to tell the difference between an engineer and a finance person or the leader and customer success. We’re all in it for the same reason to figure out the problem, to develop a solution, to bring value. So, you know, so kind of building that team approach where yes, there are seats on a bus. Yes, there’s people in those seats, but ultimately the bus has headed in a direction. And if the bus doesn’t get there, none of us get there. That’s one part of probably core to me. The other part is to be.

Anthony Codispoti (39:52)
So everybody has a voice.

Cody Fisher (39:54)
Everyone has a voice. Yep. And everybody has an expertise and everybody has a perspective. And the more perspective we can get, ideally the better solution and value we can present and deliver. The other piece that is probably core to who I am is to be vulnerable. At the end of the day, we’re all humans. We’re all people. We all have lives. We all have family. We all have friends. We have a lot going on.

and not all the time is that all work, even though when we’re behind our current day laptop screens on Teams meetings or else, it feels like it’s the only thing ⁓ at times. But I think it’s important to really get to know and understand who we are as a team. A team is made up of people that have individual lives and they are people and individuals themselves. And ultimately I would say the last thing that

you know, maybe I try to show and embody is attracting people and teams that also want to solve the hardest problems and challenges to deliver the most difficult value. I feel like when teams are grounded in a centralized cause and they’re passionate about that cause, ⁓

It’s really hard to get put to, to get moved too far off track. Like yes, we hit hurdles. Yes, we hit roadblocks, but collectively when we’re aligned on the goal, the team figures out a way to get around or over or through whatever hurdle comes up. ⁓ so those are a few things. Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (41:40)
How do you think about constructing that team? How do you put that team together? How do you identify

those traits in people?

Cody Fisher (41:47)
Yeah, it’s a good question. ⁓ For me, it’s probably less technical in nature. ⁓ I probably have a pretty firm belief that we can teach a lot of technical skills, interpersonal skills, et cetera. But what makes a person tick is not necessarily teachable. ⁓

So that combination of just find people with the aligned passion, pull it out of them to really understand who they are and what they’re passionate about. It doesn’t have to necessarily be healthcare supply chain, but it may be, I want to position organizations or help position organizations to save a lot of money. It may be the other end, I want to position organizations to take care of my family. So it doesn’t have to be like word for word the same.

but people that are aligned on addressing big problems, big challenges and delivering big value ⁓ is part of it. The other part of that for me in terms of like, how do we build the team? And this is absolutely in flight for Surgence as we continue to grow, it is ⁓ to organically attract people. will say roughly speaking, half of our team has come to us. We didn’t go to them. ⁓

Anthony Codispoti (43:11)
half of the

surgeon’s team, which is a relatively newer company.

Cody Fisher (43:15)
Yeah, newer company. Yep. We are getting asked by the industry or people within the industry. Can I come work for you? And I think that is representative of kind of us walking in our beliefs, right? Walking in our mission, being proud of what we’re doing, but also being incredibly mindful of just how significant it is for the industry. And, ⁓ you know, it’s kind of hard not to want to play for a really awesome and cool team that’s solving big problems. So.

You know, again, it’s not an exact answer, but I think when you have a team that represents what you want your team to be and what you want to represent in an organization, you kind of attract the talent you want. And in some ways you deflect the talent you don’t want. mean, people probably also see us and like, I don’t want to, that’s hard. That’s complex. Yeah, they seem like they’re, ⁓ you know, there’s nights where they’re up late, they’re kind of weird and quirky.

Anthony Codispoti (44:04)
That’s a big lift.

Cody Fisher (44:13)
⁓ They don’t fit the mold of like healthcare or supply chain. ⁓ So, and that’s okay. Like, hey, I appreciate that. We’re proud that we’re a bit different and we address things a different way, but hopefully that helps a little bit.

Anthony Codispoti (44:26)
How are you different? How are

you guys quirky?

Cody Fisher (44:30)
you know, personally, you know, I would say, ⁓

You know, we’re probably more open than most companies probably share things at a personal level, right? I mean, there’s probably meetings where you’re like, wait, are you guys coworkers or friends? don’t, don’t, I don’t know which is this Saturday at a football game or is this Wednesday at work? ⁓ you know, the, the quirkiness is, is maybe a bit extended, but you know, I think the culture that we are building, ⁓ is unique in nature. ⁓ it’s.

frankly, like at times a bit chaotic. And I think that kind of fits the mold a bit for a startup, but startup mentality does not fit the mold for healthcare supply chain. That is kind of two ends of the spectrum a little bit, right? And when we’re bringing a little bit of that mold into the supply chain, there’s a lot of friends and there’s a lot of like, oh, like, let me see how that works. yeah, and we come from a lot of different walks of life, right?

Anthony Codispoti (45:28)
Okay.

Cody Fisher (45:33)
We have people from an engineering background that are pretty fresh and new and they’re coming in chomping at the bit trying to solve the biggest problems, to build the next best thing, to leverage AI, to do crazy stuff. We have folks that are rooted in the supply chain and they’re like, we need to fix it this way. This is how it works. And when you blend those things together and kind of throw them in the proverbial blender, it’s pretty cool to see what spits out.

Anthony Codispoti (45:59)
Hmm. You know, you talk about how you guys are maybe a bit more open than a lot of employment environments. And I guess in that spirit of openness, I’d like to ask you, Cody, to share a serious challenge that you’ve overcome in your life, how you got through it, what you learned.

Cody Fisher (46:17)
Yeah, that’s a good question. ⁓ And I was almost ready to say I’m a little bit sorry that I don’t have a massive challenge to share, as much like, actually, I think I should be thankful. I don’t have that massive life challenge experience to share, but what I will share that’s a current natural challenge for me is not only do I have the honor of leading a

you know, technology startup in the healthcare supply chain that has this massive vision and is looking to deliver this incredible value. But in personal life, I’m also leading a growing family, got a nine month old and probably a growing family coming behind it, I’m sure. ⁓ And really, you know, personally, I’ve always struggled with finding quote unquote that work life balance. I have for sure, laying heavy in the professional space. ⁓

you know, as I got married, that softened a little bit and then probably softened a little bit more. ⁓ Or at minimum is something I’d be a lot more mindful of as my personal family has grown. ⁓ So those sacrifices of, you know, the ⁓ jump on a plane and go to a customer tomorrow on a whim, that sacrifice was not that big a handful of years ago. And today it’s big. ⁓ You know, that extra time matters.

Whether, you know, at conferences, I probably pinch the last night to go home versus, oh, let’s stay an extra day to do a hike. Right? So like the mindset shift for me is still something, you know, transparently I’m working on. I’m not sure. I’ve heard some other leaders say this, that we’re in startups and are not startups anymore. They’re massive organizations, but I’ve heard them talk about the work-life balance where it’s not necessarily a balance.

I think ⁓ Jeff Bezos said it a little bit. That was one reference point. Like it’s not a balance as a teeter totter, like while you’re working or you’re not, or you’re professional or you’re not, it’s more like a circle and the circle has to somehow stay aligned. And it’s more of if professionals going well and you feel comfortable in whatever effort and time and capacity you’re putting toward professional, it’s more likely that personal also is going well. So it’s more of finding the…

kind of the circle and making sure it’s not too misaligned. ⁓ You know, and where I’m focused today is

this is a strength I’m building, a muscle I’m building is if I have the professional hat on, it’s all the way on. ⁓ And if I have the personal hat on, it’s all the way on. ⁓ That’s my new focus. It may not be the time that I want in either space. It may not be the sacrifice I want to make in either space, but when I’m in the space, I’m in the space, whether that’s personal or professional. So hopefully that gives a little bit of color.

Anthony Codispoti (49:16)
And I think that one, I think that one’s critical.

Yeah. I’m glad that you gave voice to that. Cause it’s exactly where my head was going as I hear you sort of wrestling and talking about the teeter totter. ⁓ sometimes your life needs to go very heavily in one direction or the other, right? You’ve got a new launch. have to, know, sit to your wife, listen, I’m sorry, I’m going to be relatively unavailable for X number of days or weeks. and then when you’re with your family, right, you want to be fully locked in there too.

You know, it may not be like a critical event. may not be somebody’s ill, but you’re with your kids, you’re with your wife. You know, don’t want to be clanking away on the keyboard like, ⁓ huh. Yes, dear. Yeah. You know, you’re not doing, yeah, you’re, you’re not, you’re not going to be as effective answering those emails and coming up with work strategy when, you’ve got one ear over here and you’re certainly not giving your family the best either.

Cody Fisher (49:56)
Yeah. Answering the emails at the, at the kitchen table.

Yep. Yep. Yep. So, so again, I mean, I, again, from mentors, friends, acquaintances in the industry, I know of many of those, my gosh, life moments and my gosh, how did somebody pull out of that moment? I’m fortunate not to have at least top of mind any of those. ⁓ but I think we can all relate to hopefully a little bit of

Kind of what I shared, mean, it’s absolutely what I’m going through now. And it’s not easy to sacrifice either time, right? The highly momentous, highly valuable, highly driven organization or the highly valuable personal family and time. So that’s where I’m at.

Anthony Codispoti (51:04)
I

think you, you and I are probably wired pretty similarly, Cody. And, ⁓ you know, we’re really driven by this desire to create, to solve hard problems, to do the next big thing. ⁓ and it, it can be really tough to balance that with. I love my wife. I love my kids. I love my family. I want to be there for them. and how do I kind of keep a foot in both of those worlds? And, know, and I’m sure you’ve heard this before. I’m sure most listeners have heard this before.

⁓ you know, something I keep playing over in my head is, you know, this idea that, know, nobody lays on their deathbed and says, man, I wish I would have worked a little bit longer. Right. And, know, the, the regrets typically come down to, man, I wish I was there for more of my kids’ games or my grandkids or, whatever it is, it’s more of that, that personal stuff. And so as I, and I see you nodding your head, I think you get it. You agree.

Cody Fisher (52:01)
Thank

Anthony Codispoti (52:02)
You’re, you’re haveling that, that argument in your head all the time of, ⁓ you know, how, do I, how do I keep reaching, striving, building, creating, solving, doing hard things, without creating that regret that I’m going to have eventually that I might have eventually some.

Cody Fisher (52:19)
Yeah.

Yep. All I’ll say in response to that is not only am I blessed to lead the organization, to have an incredible family, but I’m blessed to have a team around me professionally that pushes me to do exactly what you just said. ⁓ So when I can’t hold myself accountable, I have a team around me that holds myself accountable, not just professionally, but say, hey, get out of here and go focus on family for the next hour, the next day, tonight.

Anthony Codispoti (52:35)
Mmm.

Cody Fisher (52:46)
whatever it may be. So I am blessed to have that team surrounding me professionally that kind of urges me to go that way and simultaneously ensures the trajectory of the business, what we’re doing for our customers lives on with AutoBlook.

Anthony Codispoti (53:02)
Cody, I’m gonna ask you to set aside all your humility and I want you to explain to the listeners what your superpower is.

Cody Fisher (53:10)
Hmm.

superpower for me.

I think my superpower would be, I’m not sure what to name it, but I’ll give an example maybe, is to be able to sit in a conversation one-on-one or in a meeting, several, several people, and to hear a conversation around a problem, a challenge ⁓ of what might this look like.

type of conversation and to be able to visualize what that solution is and then articulate the value to it. So if I repeat that back, I guess in a simple non-example term, it’s to be able to creatively design solutions essentially on the fly. And then I’ll say to leverage both sides of my brain.

the finance side articulate the value of said solution and the kind of the relationship side to articulate it in a way in which somebody else can relate to. ⁓ Call it connecting the dots ⁓ in short. ⁓ I think that’s one of my superpowers and maybe my other superpower, I’ve had a couple of customers tell me this before that you think like finance but talk like sales. ⁓

So maybe that’s another analogy or another way to describe it, but yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (54:54)
That’s a good combo of skills to have. You can talk to both sides of the world. Yeah, I like that.

Cody Fisher (54:56)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, we actually had someone on our team lead a superpower session where we named our superpowers for all our team. And mine was something like.

Anthony Codispoti (55:01)
Any ⁓

And did most people

describe your superpower in the same way that you did for yourself just now?

Cody Fisher (55:17)
Yeah,

it was under the guise, I think, as I was talking, I’m like, hmm, there’s something, it was called something. was visionary virtuoso was the way the superpower is described. I gave more words to it, articulating the value and connecting the dots to create a solution out of a problem. But yeah, was for all the listeners. And I know we’ll probably get to this later, but.

It was a great exercise. will tell you almost to a T, the superpower exercise absolutely described everyone’s superpower on our team. Like we were shocked. as we did leverage AI, of course, in some way, shape or form, but ⁓ the superhuman or superpower character that was describing each person on our team, everyone’s basically, yep, that’s great. That’s what you do.

It’s what you do really well. So it was a great exercise for anybody that’s interested.

Anthony Codispoti (56:19)
So I think you want to say more about that because you said, I think we’ll probably get to this later. Let’s not do it later. Let’s do it now. What more do you want to say about that process?

Cody Fisher (56:25)
Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, as far as reaching out to me, again, I’m not the expert that came up with that activity, but, you know, reach out to me on LinkedIn. I’m happy to connect the dots. was a great team building exercise. It was unique in nature. And to this day.

Anthony Codispoti (56:42)
Is it something that you guys did

that you created this internally or did you use somebody else’s framework?

Cody Fisher (56:48)
No, it was all internal. ⁓ We leveraged the powers of some AI and just put in simple inputs about some of our leadership team and some of our team in general, and asked it to do some prompts and basically asked us to deliver it back, ⁓ what our superpower is and build a character for us. ⁓ It’s wild. And to this day, and this was the better part of a year or so ago,

To this day, there are times where we refer to each other as like the super, the superhuman or Superman or superwoman character, or, and, the actual like superpower that they’re a given person’s using like in day to day. So it’s, ⁓ again, it’s, it’s, it’s good for team building.

Anthony Codispoti (57:36)
Was this a helpful process

just because it was interesting? Was it helpful because it helps to boost each individual’s confidence about what they’re really good at? Was it helpful because it helped to tell all the other team members where that person’s strengths and values lie?

Cody Fisher (57:40)
Mm.

Good question.

⁓

Anthony Codispoti (57:58)
or something

else.

Cody Fisher (58:00)
It was, it was several of those. was meant to be a team building exercise, an icebreaker, if you will, ⁓ that turned then into what makes us as individuals tick to then the team getting to know more about us as individuals beyond what we would say about ourselves because typically

Like you asked me my superpower, typically people don’t answer because it’s really uncomfortable to brag about yourself. Right? So ⁓ it kind of ended up taking this like next layer down where it’s like, wow, this is the superpower for that person. And we also just confirmed it’s really what they’re passionate about. So when we have this type of situation, like we now collectively know this person is the person that needs to address that situation. That is their superpower. ⁓

Or we can see people using their superpower and then we can call it out and reconfirm, like, look how great you’re doing. So it ⁓ literally went from an icebreaker exercise to now it is rooted in some of our culture as a team of how we talk to each other, how we communicate, what we know about each other, and when to invoke or to incite the superpower from some of the people. ⁓

So it just was interesting. And I guess that’s probably why it popped in my head of, know, many use case, icebreaker. How many icebreakers are we a part of when we’re sitting around tables and new meetings, et cetera? How many of those do we remember is my general question. ⁓ This one was not only remembered, it was used and leveraged continuously throughout our team.

Anthony Codispoti (59:40)
Mmm.

It’s like it’s a bit

more effective than asking if you were a fruit, what kind of fruit would you be? Right? This is a much more informative and constructive. ⁓ Cody, I’ve just got one more question for. Yeah, I liked that. just one more question for you, but before I ask it, I want to knock out a few things and you touched on this already for the first one, ⁓ to get in touch with Cody Fisher, you can find him on LinkedIn. We’ll include a link in the show notes, but.

Cody Fisher (59:52)
Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. So it’s nothing more than something small, but go ahead.

Anthony Codispoti (1:00:17)
You can also ⁓ search for Cody Fisher ⁓ insurgents or concordance and you’ll find his profile come up. And as a reminder, if you want to get more employees access to benefits that won’t hurt them financially and carries a financial upside for the company, reach out to addbackbenefits.com. And finally, if you take just a moment to leave us a comment or review on your favorite podcast app, we’ll be forever grateful to you.

So last question for you, Cody, you and I reconnect a year from now and you’re super excited. Your fist pumping in the air, you’re celebrating something big. What’s that big thing you hope to be celebrating one year from today?

Cody Fisher (1:01:00)
⁓ I’ll answer both two ways professionally.

Success to me would not only be to say, here’s the five easy examples of how Surgence has delivered value to the industry and how the industry is changing. You know, we have some of those today. Maybe not that simple. Mine’s probably a bit more generic, which would be to show the growth of a surgeon’s organization, which ultimately would mean that the growth of innovation in the supply chain is happening.

So instead of 20 people say it’s 40, 50 people to double our organization means inevitably the industry is innovating at a much faster pace. So the number of use cases, ⁓ the number of value statements is very important to me from a tactical perspective, but from a strategic perspective, it’s more about building the momentum and increasing that momentum in the industry. ⁓ Personally, in a year I would.

⁓ love to say, you know, have a thriving family. ⁓ but maybe to take it tactical is to say, figured out that balance thing to figure it out. I, you know, I figured it out. I, I cracked the code. Anybody that wants to figure this out, come talk to me. ⁓ no, but, but truthfully just, just being in a, probably a little bit more of a kind of finding that routine as much as I’m against the routine and always pushing for change.

Anthony Codispoti (1:02:14)
You cracked the code, huh? Yeah.

Cody Fisher (1:02:33)
but to finding that kind of harmony, if you will, between what is the growing organization and the time I devote to that and what is the growing family and the time I try to find that better harmony between those.

Anthony Codispoti (1:02:51)
I like that, good goals. Cody Fisher from Surgence, I wanna be the first to thank you for sharing both your time and your story with us today. I really appreciate it.

Cody Fisher (1:03:00)
Absolutely. Thank you, Anthony. That was great.

Anthony Codispoti (1:03:03)
Folks, that’s a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories podcast. Thanks for learning with us today.