Meet The BRAINTRUST | Brian Cluster

Welcome to another episode of The RetailWire Podcast! In this installment of our series "Meet the BRAINTRUST," our host sits down with Brian Cluster, a valued member of the BRAINTRUST in the retail industry.

During the interview, Brian Cluster shares his expertise in category analytics and promotional analytics, shedding light on the importance of understanding the origins of data as an analyst. He emphasizes the need for newcomers to the industry to acquire cross-functional knowledge within their company, enabling them to have a broader perspective on the retail landscape.

Continuing the discussion, Brian highlights the significance of maintaining a student mindset and constantly seeking opportunities for learning and growth. Drawing from his own experiences, he also shares his passion for fishing and underscores the power of storytelling in marketing.

As the episode concludes, our host encourages listeners to subscribe to the podcast and leave their comments and feedback. Your engagement is vital to shaping future discussions and ensuring that we continue to provide valuable content to our audience.

Thank you for joining us on this episode of The RetailWire Podcast, and stay tuned for more insightful conversations with industry experts like Brian Cluster.

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Learn about Stibo Systems in Retail:  https://www.stibosystems.com/industries/retail

Connect with Brian Cluster:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/briancluster/

Interested in Toastmasters?  Be a guest at San Diego’s Leadership Builders Club:  https://www.toastmasters.org/Find-a-Club/00009550-leadership-builders

RetailWire is the retail industry's premier source for news, analysis, and discussion. With a focus on the latest trends, technology, and consumer behavior, RetailWire provides a platform for industry experts and thought leaders to share their insights and perspectives. Whether you're a retailer, supplier, or service provider, RetailWire is your go-to destination for staying informed and ahead of the curve.

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Transcript

Announcer: 0:01

Welcome to the retail Wire podcast. The show bringing you the very best in expert analysis, insights and discussions straight from some of the retail industry's leading experts. Whether you're a retailer looking to stay ahead of the curve, a supplier navigating the ever changing retail landscape, or someone who just really loves retail, we've got you covered. Get ready. It's time for another great episode here on the Retail Wire podcast.

Brian Crum: 0:36

Hey, everybody, welcome back to the next episode here on the Retail Wire podcast. We are doing another part of our series, meet the Brain Trust. I'm excited for this episode because I've got in the studio with me one of our Brain Trust members who he and I share a little something in common, and that's the proper spelling of Brian. I've got Brian Cluster in the studio with me here. He's the director of industry strategy, CPG and retail at SIBO Systems. They're a leader in the SaaS Master data management industry, if you didn't know that. He's also an adjunct professor of business analytics and digitization. See, I'm going to mess this up before we even get going, Brian. Don't worry. He's out at the University of San Diego School of Business and he's also, of course, a brain trust member here at Retail Wire. Welcome to the show, Brian.

Brian Cluster: 1:28

Thank you. I'm so excited. I really enjoy being a Brain Trust, so it's just great to be here with you.

Brian Crum: 1:34

Yeah, absolutely, man. It's been really cool to do this series and kind of get to know some more of our people and just what makes you guys tick and what's exciting to you. So like I said, welcome to the show. This is your time, man. Have some fun with it. We're going to have some good conversation and just let the people know a little bit about who you are. So speaking of that, who are you, man? Tell us a little bit about your background. Where did you grow up? What did you do? And I think you're in San Diego now, right?

Brian Cluster: 2:04

Yeah. If you'd really describe me, my number one thing is being trying to be a great dad. I have three daughters ranging in college age, senior in high school, about to get graduated in three weeks here. And then I have a third grader. So all various levels, all various interesting challenges of being that. I love education, I do a lot of reading, I love to share insights with others that's really core. I like to help my children and then I think about it the same way as helping others learn about different things. And I guess if you really want to know me, I'm from Chicago. I'm a diehard Cubs fan even in the line years. And even though I'm in San Diego now, I have not transferred over to being a Padres fan. And other things I like to do is like just being outside, enjoying the beautiful weather of San Diego going on hikes, mountain biking, doing all those great things. So that's a little bit about me as Brian with an eye.

Brian Crum: 3:09

Yeah, absolutely, man. Well, hey, you mentioned you like to be outdoors and everything there. I know. What's your favorite area of San Diego to kind of go hiking in?

Brian Cluster: 3:21

Well, there's a number of mountain ranges. If you go about 20 miles east of the coast, there's Iron Mountain. There's a trail where you go onto five peaks in one day. It's a 17 miles hike. I've never done it, but it's on my bucket list. But anything along the beach is a nice, casual ten to 20 miles walk or into the mountains where you can just hit specific trails. And maybe in these days, you can actually see some waterfalls because of our heavy rains this spring.

Brian Crum: 3:57

Yeah, no, absolutely. It's a gorgeous area out there. San Diego is definitely one of my favorite areas to visit anytime I get a chance to. Plus, it has a little special place in my heart. That's where I got to meet Stan Lee one day at Comic Con. So that was fun.

Brian Cluster: 4:11

Oh, amazing. Yes.

Brian Crum: 4:13

I'm a bit of a nerd, but yeah, man, I'll tell you what, the dad life is a great life, that's for sure. So congrats on that. And great to hear that, man. So your education, man, you love to teach people, you love to share insights and everything, which would assume kind of led you to your role in retail industry now, right? You're with Stebo. So what kind of was your journey coming into retail?

Brian Cluster: 4:46

Yeah, I mean, I had a great start. If anyone knows, Jewel Oscar, I think they're legendary in the Chicago area. I think they're still the number one grocery retail out of Chicago. And I started in the management program at Damon Associates, which is the food broker now called Damon Worldwide. And they make private brands for many of our retailers out there. And I started off going I had my own little territory. So I had 40 stores in the Chicago area. I would make sure that all the private brands were there. There are merchandise. Well, we'd have marketing programs with the store manager check and make sure there's no out of stocks, all these type of fundamentals that you need to know in retail. And then you get to rotate. You can do category management for a while. You can work with the vendors that make the products. So that whole management program, I was very fortunate to come out of school and then go into that right away because then it just kind of extended my training and knowledge to be able to have a full view of the industry early on.

Brian Crum: 5:59

Yeah. What time period was that around?

Brian Cluster: 6:02

That is many years ago. So this was 97, and it was before the merger or acquisition of Albertson Stores. And there's a number of mergers, and we're about to have another one soon with Albertsons, but it was one of those mergers along the way back in 97, 2000 period.

Brian Crum: 6:27

That was definitely an intense period for retail, I think, with everything that was shifting and growing and like you're saying mergers and all that. So it goes through phases, right?

Brian Cluster: 6:38

Yeah, exactly. And that period was great just because when you're in a program, I don't know how many programs like that or management programs are for younger junior people are anymore, but I was able to quickly find where's my strengths I don't like doing sales with vendors, so okay, I'm going to pass on that. I delved into the data and did category analytics, work with the buyer on various promotional analytics. And then I just kind of settled into that role and within two or three different roles, sub roles within that management program, I really knew right away, okay, this is my sweet spot. It didn't take me very long.

Brian Crum: 7:24

Okay, so then how did you end up over at Stebo? What brought you there?

Brian Cluster: 7:30

A couple years later, many years later, I spent ten years with Nielsen as well as working for a retailer out in Hagen grocery chain out of Washington, as well as working for an automotive aftermarket company with all those background in market research, category management, analytics, digital transformation. It allowed me to stop doing the work of our clients, but to talk about it in a thought leadership approach. So when you have I had a mentor that brought me into Stevo, and that what really got me and trying something new. Getting into the software business for a leading company like Stevo Systems was really attractive to me. And having this role to build out the thought leadership, write white papers, be on exciting shows like this was right up my alley at that point in my career.

Brian Crum: 8:33

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I'm sure they're very fortunate to have you there, and that's really good, I guess. In all of your roles, maybe across the industry, has there been one thing that's kind of stood out within that data management or analytics or anything that was just like, you see it happening time and time again and you're just like, guys, why can you not grasp this? Or, hey, you guys are really hitting it right here. Is there some certain area that tends to be more problematic when it comes to data management in that industry?

Brian Cluster: 9:11

Yeah, just like you said, you could geek out, I could geek out on this topic. And I think the one thing is that in the analyst role, you're taking all the data from upstream down to you. You're at the end of the road, you're going to make decisions on this data, you're going to do stuff with this data. But many analysts are just blind. They don't know where that data came from. How was it created? Is it legitimately accurate? Is it current? How did this get formulated? The thing is, every analyst needs to really work to understand and go beyond the cubicle of the analyst world, to work with the It teams, to work with business leaders, to work with maybe data governance teams, to really bond with them, understand them, understand this data, and get into the origins of the data. Because there could be some things that they're doing that they don't even know that's doing wrong, that could be tainting their data, which affects you and your ability to do your job as analyst.

Brian Crum: 10:27

Yeah, absolutely. We mentioned just a little bit before we jumped on camera that I've got a small history in data analytics, and it's amazing to see the little things that can have such a big impact on data collection and kind of that interpretation side. So, yeah, I can imagine that's a place that tends to be a pitfall for most companies or individuals, even across the board.

Brian Cluster: 10:55

Yeah. And the other piece of this, I'll just add on to it. So you bring the data in, there's duplicates, there's holes in the data. And as analyst, you just take it and fix it yourself and you're done. And you finish your project, you show it to your manager, you're done. But you never go back to tell the David Governance, hey, you got all these problems here. And so when you get the data, the next round, it's the same poor not complete data, and you haven't really contributed to improving it. So it's also the confidence to give feedback to the It team or management, whatever, that, hey, we have a data problem here, we need to address it. Otherwise you're stuck suffering in silence and just doing those same cleanups for the next five years. If you really are into that, go ahead. But it's better to have the confidence to give feedback and be part of the solution for the company.

Brian Crum: 11:53

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think that's vital not only for analytics, but yeah, really any role, because if you're not able to provide feedback and be heard in such a way that you're trying to build the entire company organization better, then you should probably look elsewhere because you're being undervalued. And so that's a good thing. Again, I'm just fascinated by all this stuff, so I got to rein myself in here. I could talk nerdy stuff here the entire day. But man, let's talk just really quick about kind of what's something you see as a lesson you've learned. And I think this plays partially to just what you just said there of be willing to give feedback or accept feedback too. But would you say that's probably one of the biggest things you've learned about yourself through this process of retail, or has there been something else for you?

Brian Cluster: 12:52

For this question? I would just basically think about it as I would like to give some advice to some people, maybe just starting off from college because I had the college perspective, and then I kind of know what the MBA perspective is. And my recommendation is to get out of your own little dominion, your own little department, and actually be in cross functional groups. Learn from others, go to the accounting department, go to the finance. And you don't have to do it a physical way, but try to make your rounds physically or virtually with everyone that's really key in the company. Because if you really understand all of it, you have a leg up in making sure that whatever you do is aligned to the strategy of the company. And then you can also show leadership and initiative to say, hey, you're really invested in learning about the company instead of just doing what you normally do every single day. And then there's just tremendous opportunities. If you put your hand up and you raise your hand up to volunteer for one of these committees, it gets noticed by senior leaders that, hey, Brian is interested in improving themselves. He's actually really vested in this company, he's engaged, and we should look for maybe other opportunities for him to advance or something like that. So I see that as a direct output of getting involved with things outside of your core role.

Brian Crum: 14:28

That's really good. Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of people tend to think, hey, I got hired for this one role or this one area, and I need to stick to that lane. And to a degree, there is definitely some credibility to that because you want to make sure you're doing your job with excellence. But then that's crucial to be able to understand that big picture of why you're doing your role and kind of how it plays into everybody else's role. Because ultimately, if one team is doing excellence, creating excellence, and the other team is also creating excellence, but they're not talking about why or how, then I could see, yeah, that doesn't play the best for everybody. Well, let's move into what's current right now. We touched a little bit on this before we jumped into the conversation. What are you most excited for in the space of whether it's retail or data analytics or any of that? What are you excited for? Because there's a lot of stuff, obvious tech answers that I won't say out loud. I'll let you be the one if you want to go there, but there's like a lot of stuff happening, I think, in the world, specifically of retail right now, that we could go down a lot of rabbit trails.

Brian Cluster: 15:46

Yeah, I have two rabbit trails, but I'll just start with the first one because I think it's more generic and more current right now. And we've all heard about the supply chain, basically, how do products get from the origins through the airports, through the railroads, to the warehouses, to the store, to the consumer shelves at home? But I don't think maybe this audience is aware of the data supply chain, and that is about how does data move from various points in the organization, who touches it, how does it get there, how long does it take, and maybe is it going to the right audience and is there a shelf life to this data? And this is something that we talk about all the time because there's so much data. Big data can be a problem, but if you get a wrestle it and you wrangle it to the way it's supposed to go and float through your organization, it doesn't have to be a problem. But the whole data supply chain, reducing the handoffs, reducing errors along the way. And I've just seen so many crazy companies out there through our work with stevo systems on some of the things that people do with data, how people take it from the system, put in Excel, then transform it, drop it up to another system without having a direct linkage. It's really scary. And it's interesting because when you're doing a lot of things, if you don't really improve your data supply chain, you're really not getting the best value out of your data. You're not enabling your people to do their best job because it's all this extra work that people are doing along the way instead of doing the good work that everyone has the talent to do.

Brian Crum: 17:44

Yeah, that makes sense, because I think it sounds to me like you're saying it would be like one of those do you ever play the game telephone where you whisper a sentence to the person next to you and that person has to go down the line and share the same sentence? But you're probably going to misinterpret something at some point, and by the time you get 20 people away, you have a whole different story. And I think that happens a lot with data as well, because even just going between Mac and PC or Google Sheets and Excel, there can be those little things that jump out and change that you might not catch until it's farther down the line, and that would skew an entire story.

Brian Cluster: 18:23

Right, exactly. And too many horror stories to tell, but we can move on to the next topic, but I think everyone knows what we're talking about here.

Brian Crum: 18:35

Yeah, we'll grab some coffee sometime and you can share more about that. We'll tell you what. We already talked about some characteristics that might be important for newcomers to the scene. You said just being able to jump in and really learn a lot of the areas for you when you're not talking about data, when you're not on for work or teaching, what do you like to do? Man let's get into a little personal life for you.

Brian Cluster: 19:06

Yeah, two of my most favorite things is just getting out there in nature. Going for long walks, long hikes, exploring some new mountains in San Diego. And probably the favorite thing I like to do is hang out with my daughters and just find a new ice cream shop, find a new hot spot, hang out. Whether it's drink coffee and they could drink hot chocolate or whatever it is, it's just to spend quality time with the family is really up my alley. And if I have extra time, I'll also pick a book up, read various books and just keep educated. But that's kind of my favorite things to do out there in San Diego.

Brian Crum: 19:51

What's the most recent book you've read?

Brian Cluster: 19:54

The most recent book I've read is I'm reading a whole bunch of Seth Gooden books. Now, this is marketing or the liars that marketers tell. So we have such great talent in our marketing team here at Stebo System. So I like to share some of the stories from some of these books because they're outstanding. I like Seth and some of the other authors. Any of the storytelling books are awesome, too. To just be able to there's so much data out there, but you need to tell a story where people can latch onto it and understand it, and storytelling is a key.

Brian Crum: 20:36

Absolutely. Now, I also heard you mentioned you like to fish, right?

Brian Cluster: 20:41

Absolutely. I just don't have much time out here. I don't have many opportunities out here in California, but if we happen to have an invitation to northern Arkansas, I could see myself kind of getting down there and figuring it out and maybe had to get some coaching for the local bait, what's required. But I'm definitely up for that.

Brian Crum: 21:04

We can get you out here maybe next spring, especially. Springtime is the best for trout fishing over here on the White River. So we can get you out there. There's a group of guys that I go with every single year, and we go out and we have a blast all weekend. But then there's also what's funny is I talk about the trout fishing. I'm actually more of a bass guy. So is there a certain kind of fish that you like going after? Is it more like your panfish or bass or what is your thought?

Brian Cluster: 21:32

I have so many great memories with my father and my grandfather, and it's going to be a trout, and it's either going to be a brown trout or a rainbow trout. I think those are really common in southern Missouri, southwest Missouri. And I'm going to stick to my roots on this one and not go the bass route, but stick with trout at this point.

Brian Crum: 21:51

That's okay. I caught my very first brown trout actually this year, and it was about 20 inches long, and it put up a really good fight. Man, that was nice.

Brian Cluster: 22:03

Awesome.

Brian Crum: 22:05

But yeah. So if there was one piece of advice, we'll kind of wind it down here. If there was one piece of advice that you wish you could have told yourself or you could go back in time and tell yourself, say, 20 years ago, what would you tell yourself.

Brian Cluster: 22:23

20 years ago? I've been fortunate in my career. It's to always have a student mindset, always be curious and continuously learn, even though I'm in the over 50 set now, but I feel like every time, every year, there's always something new to learn. Even though I've been in the industry, been in the CPG industry, in the retail industry, there's a lot to learn. So always have that student mindset and that will set you up for success for the long term of your career.

Brian Crum: 22:59

Yeah, I think that's extremely vital. It doesn't matter how old you are, because just being teachable is a great thing. Absolutely. Well, Brian, thank you again, man, for taking time to be with us here today. If anybody wants to get to know you better, what's the best route for them to connect with you? Is that LinkedIn or is there a different method that they should contact you or what would you say?

Brian Cluster: 23:24

Yeah, follow some of my statements and thoughts in the Brain Trust on Retail Wire and then connect with me on LinkedIn. So it's been a great pleasure to be with you today, Brian. Thank you so much.

Brian Crum: 23:40

Yeah, absolutely. And like you said, if follow along on RetailWire.com, you can check out all of Brian's discussions and all of the other Brain Trust members on there. We've got over 150 Brain Trust members now, which is insanely cool, and we post our articles out there every day for you guys to comment on and to really get that better human element of the retail industry right back into it. So follow along. If you're not subscribed already here to our podcast or our YouTube channel, be sure and do that because we've got more great episodes coming up here on the Retail Wire podcast. We'll see you all next time.

Announcer: 24:18

Thanks for tuning in to the Retail Wire podcast. We hope you enjoyed the episode. Be sure to subscribe to us on your favorite podcasting platform and leave us a comment for a chance to hear it read on the next show. See you next time here on the Retail Wire podcast.