Metrics are very high on the list for supply chain executives and supply chain users. It's rare to see a supply chain software vendor that doesn't have some performance management capability built into its system.

The global food supply chain is a multitrillion-dollar industry. That's the market we're thinking about disrupting.

The 'adaptive supply chain' has been the buzz over the last few years.

CDC is made up of Pivotal, IMI, which is a supply chain player, and Ross, which is an ERP player. CDC has integrated none of these into a suite. This new entity was going to be made up of all these new pieces, plus Onyx. Our shareholders were going to walk away being a small, minority owner in CDC, as opposed to being 100 percent owners in Onyx, a company that is doing very well right now.

With Illum, we're able to start to customize that supply chain in a very deep way... to rethink the entire imaging pipeline.

I'm still in awe about it. I look at the list and see the names on it. I have all the respect in the world for all the former major league players. Nowadays I think the art of the double is kind of gone, because everybody counts on the home run. But for me it's an exclusive club I can be a part of.