In our industry spotlight series, MJ Platform connects with cannabis experts to discuss what real world pain points they have experienced in this expanding industry.
Cannabis may be in different levels of regulation and acceptance by state, but one unifying quality all cannabis operators are facing is the lack of technological advancements in cannabis operations. MJ Platform’s Product Manager, Jeff Sozio, has been in regulated cannabis since 2014 and that nearly decade long experience has brought him to one conclusion, “technology in cannabis is far from perfect.”
Jeff continues:
I was drawn to the cannabis industry because I learned very early in my college career, studying architecture, that most things have been done before. I saw the cannabis industry as an opportunity to experience an industry in its early stages of development. Creating something new was exciting for me.
I started in regulated cannabis in March 2014. In 2017, I switched from the wholesale market to retail. We started purchasing dispensaries and I lead the retail team through the transitions. Inventory cleanup was the biggest project during the transition of stores. We created our own system for reconciling inventory across systems since no software had the capability to complete this task.
Since his time in wholesale and retail, Jeff has transitioned to developing software focused on helping the cannabis industry grow while tying in real processes to strict regulations applied by each region.
There is a large gap between real life operations and regulations set up by each state. This is where technology needs to improve the most. At MJ Platform, we are working on bridging that gap by updating our software to meet the needs of daily operations while still complying with regulations. Flexibility in this industry is paramount due to the ever-changing regulations. We are making a more flexible inventory management system to tackle the challenge of regulation changes. Inventory is where most headaches lie within an operation and therefore a flexible and accurate inventory management system is key to any business’s success. Inventory audits, inventory management between POS and state systems (inventory SYNC), reporting for finance departments, sales trends/sales history/sales velocity, all of these are areas in which technology should assist operators.
Jeff’s passion for innovation and particularly for improving inventory systems has led to MJ Platform’s launch of an inventory reconciliation sync feature for METRC states. This feature, highlighted here, connects the state system to the internal software to audit inventory discrepancies with ease. The user can then view all discrepancies and adjust based on actual on-hand inventory with simple clicks. No more back and forth, no tedious tasking to manually adjust- one simple view that makes inventory adjustments easy and compliant.
From regulations to customers, and from new products to new methods of extraction, there is always something on the horizon that we have yet to encounter. The ever-changing regulations make it a challenge to operate and design systems for operators, however, this is what has always made my roles in this industry exciting.
The industry is certainly exciting, especially with talented contributors like Jeff. For more industry updates and reflection, stay tuned to the MJ Platform blog.
