Tractor Supply Co.’s Glenn Allison, VP of enterprise AI platforms, and Tom Henkel, director of enterprise cloud and infrastructure, join theCUBE at Nutanix .NEXT 2025 to share how the company’s bold AI and infrastructure strategy is fueling transformation. Hosted by John Furrier and Bob Laliberte, the conversation explores Tractor Supply’s evolving tech stack and partnership with Nutanix amid rapid growth.
Allison unpacks how AI is driving smarter operations, from the supply chain to customer interactions. With over 52,000 team members across 2,300+ stores, scalable AI is more than a luxury, it’s a necessity. The company’s internal platforms help maintain agility and deliver the company’s signature service, he explains.
Henkel details the backbone enabling it all: a resilient system of 200+ nodes and 4,000 VMs. He reflects on the operational benefits of Nutanix’s platform, underscoring performance, reliability and adaptability as key enablers of their digital future.
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Glenn Allison, Tractor Supply Company & Tom Henkel, Tractor Supply Co.
Tractor Supply Co.’s Glenn Allison, VP of enterprise AI platforms, and Tom Henkel, director of enterprise cloud and infrastructure, join theCUBE at Nutanix .NEXT 2025 to share how the company’s bold AI and infrastructure strategy is fueling transformation. Hosted by John Furrier and Bob Laliberte, the conversation explores Tractor Supply’s evolving tech stack and partnership with Nutanix amid rapid growth.
Allison unpacks how AI is driving smarter operations, from the supply chain to customer interactions. With over 52,000 team members across 2,300+ stores, scalable AI is more than a luxury, it’s a necessity. The company’s internal platforms help maintain agility and deliver the company’s signature service, he explains.
Henkel details the backbone enabling it all: a resilient system of 200+ nodes and 4,000 VMs. He reflects on the operational benefits of Nutanix’s platform, underscoring performance, reliability and adaptability as key enablers of their digital future.
Glenn Allison, Tractor Supply Company & Tom Henkel, Tractor Supply Co.
Glenn Allison
VP Enterprise AI Platforms & AI Solution EngineeringTractor Supply Company
Thomas Henkel
Director Enterprise Cloud and InfrastructureTractor Supply Company
Tractor Supply Co.’s Glenn Allison, VP of enterprise AI platforms, and Tom Henkel, director of enterprise cloud and infrastructure, join theCUBE at Nutanix .NEXT 2025 to share how the company’s bold AI and infrastructure strategy is fueling transformation. Hosted by John Furrier and Bob Laliberte, the conversation explores Tractor Supply’s evolving tech stack and partnership with Nutanix amid rapid growth.
Allison unpacks how AI is driving smarter operations, from the supply chain to customer interactions. With over 52,000 team members across 2,300+ ...Read more
exploreKeep Exploring
What were the three main takeaways highlighted by Glenn Allison and Tom Henkel at the Nutanix event?add
What technological capabilities does the store have in terms of its physical locations and digital consumer mobile app?add
What are some cool things happening with the AI?add
What are the reasons for Nutanix being a great partner and how have they demonstrated stability, resilience, and automation around the environments for a customer over a 10-year period?add
Glenn Allison, Tractor Supply Company & Tom Henkel, Tractor Supply Co.
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>> Welcome back, everyone, to
theCUBE's live coverage here in Washington, Nutanix NEXT. I'm John Furrier with my
co-host, Bob Laliberte, analyst at theCUBE Research. We've got a great Nutanix
story developing here on day one of their event. Platforms are the rage.
They're creating efficiencies. We got a great example of a
growing customer of Nutanix, at Tractor, Glenn Allison,
VP of enterprise AI platforms and AI solutions engineering,
Tom Henkel, director of enterprise cloud and infrastructure. The two guys who have the keys to the kingdom and the growth. Guys, thanks for coming on
theCUBE. Congratulations on the great stage performance, Glenn.
Glenn Allison
>> Thanks for having us.
It's great to be here and connecting with everyone. A lot of great conversations
with partners here and other customers, so it's
nice to be here in Washington. >> I loved your just stage one,
various set piece of those, limited time, but you gave the talk track. You talked about the
growth of the company. At the end though was the best, you were like one more thing. Only three things to remember. Platforms, platforms, and platforms.
Glenn Allison
>> There's three main takeaways here. >> Can you say it again?
- Platform.
Glenn Allison
>> Remind me again.
- Platform, platforms. >> This is, first of
all, not only on point.
Glenn Allison
>> Kidding aside, this is
the core theme right >> now in the industry. The folks who are thinking
like a systems mindset around platforms is
winning and the growth. >> That's where the
industry's heading right now.
Glenn Allison
>> Give us some color behind this >> because it's not just Johnny come lately, throw some AI at things or... There's work involved. Talk
about some of the nuances of what it takes to be platform
stable, platform scale, and what does it enable? You talked about a lot
of the growth. Take us through some of the nuances.
Glenn Allison
>> First, I would say thank you to the 52, 000 tractor supply team members that support the rural local communities that we live and serve. We appreciate the
partnership with Nutanix. We've been long-standing
partners for over 10 years and we've gone through
significant amount of growth. And from a platform standpoint, ensuring we support those
team members in our stores so they can take care of our customers, offer legendary service. Platforms that can scale. I mean the retail business, there's going to be seasonal peaks throughout the year. We were talking earlier,
you were in the stores, you were getting riding mower
and the spring selling season. Things are ramping up where we got to make sure the platforms
can scale for those periods with large amount of business demand. You got holiday, day after Thanksgiving, going into Christmas. The platforms have got
to be highly available, scalable, resilient. And then, from an AI
standpoint, ensuring we can scale AI where every team
member is AI connected. I know we'll get kind into... I mean, you personally
experienced it while you're in the stores, and so we'll go
into that in more detail. Tom, anything you would add? >> Not really, other than the fact that it's really an extension of what we've done in
infrastructure all along, but just taking it to the next level. It's being able to provide
those platforms in a secure, scalable and cost-effective manner.
Bob Laliberte
>> Yeah. I wonder if you
could share a little bit about your current environment. So, people, when we're
talking about scale, and you said was it 52,000 employees? But from an IT perspective,
what scale are you supporting? How many stores? What do
your data centers look like?
Glenn Allison
>> So from a store
standpoint, we have over 2, 300 tractor supply
stores, over 200 Pet Sense by Tractor Supply stores, over 10 distribution centers, and then a hybrid cloud
data center architecture with the ability to burst into the cloud. From a digital consumer
mobile app standpoint, we have a cloud partnership with Azure and it's fully AI connected with open AI. Every team member's
interconnected with AI. We'll go through some customer
kind use case examples, but the consumer mobile app
is fully integrated with AI. So, as you're coming to the
store to pick up your order, you can signal in app that your curbside. AI alert goes to a store team member. They come right out to assist the customer and bring the order. You need a propane refill on the side lot? You can signal in-app,
we'll do an AI alert to a store team member to
assist with the propane refill. They're entirely mobile connected. So from a point of sale
standpoint, being able to do transactions
anywhere inside the store or outside the store, take
care of that customer, give legendary service to the customer. And from a platform standpoint, Tom, why don't you talk about the
architecture nodes, resiliency, ensuring we can support
the transaction volumes?
Bob Laliberte
>> Sure, sure. So, we've
got over 200 nodes deployed and they're supporting over 4, 000 virtual machines in our
enterprise infrastructure. And then, we also have
deployed almost over 700 nodes to our stores already. So, in that environment,
the key is extensibility and to have a solid
architecture underneath that we can respond quickly as
the business needs change.
Bob Laliberte
>> And now is the plan
that you would implement equipment in every store? Or is there a certain size
that you're going to deploy to and where you're actually
leveraging it there? Is it all for the POS and some form of AI and things like that? >> Ultimately it will be
deployed in all of the stores. That's essentially our edge.
Bob Laliberte
>> Okay, got it. Makes sense. >> Yeah, we've been able to
cut it with the architecture,
Glenn Allison
>> virtualized point of sale,
the loss prevention cameras, the AI models that are running on the edge from an edge computing standpoint. >> Glenn, you mentioned
legendary a few times, must be the service. There's a meme out there that
says it's hard to be a legend. It's hard to stay a legend. And I want to ask you,
because you guys are doing essentially a digital extension of the physical footprint and almost... I won't say digital twin, it's
not exactly a digital twin, but you're essentially taking
the service, the product, the delivery, you're
vertically integrating all the capabilities, but also extending out with the digital AI side
of it to the customer. So you're essentially creating the point of sale outside the store. This is where the world
is now and going faster. As leaders, as legends yourself, this is actually a best practice. What's your thoughts on that and how you guys think about this? Am I off base? What do you-
Glenn Allison
>> First off, from a support standpoint, we don't
have a corporate headquarters. We have a store support center. We're there to support
the store team members. We know if we take good care
of the store team members, they're going to give legendary
service to our customers. We have a strong culture
focused on mission and values. And from a technology standpoint, everything that we do is to help empower our store
team members to give that legendary experience each time. And from an AI standpoint, enabling our team members
with the best technology, it's all centered around the customer. Like earlier today we were
talking about Heygura. We're fully deployed with
generative AI across the chain. Every team member has access to Heygura and they can get product information, product recommendations,
product inventory. If you're a new team member,
it can help you learn about where products are
located within the store. But that's all centered
around enabling our store team members to help customers
find what they need. It's very much a needs- based business. Tom,
anything you would add? >> Share some cool things that
are happening with the AI. >> What are the coolest things going on? What are people loving about the service? Was there things that jump out? What jumps off the page
if you had to go, oh, everyone loves this feature. >> Well, I think just the
knowledge base that Heygura brings to the store and the ability to have those questions
answered immediately and have that base of
knowledge for everyone, for all of the team members in the
store is a huge win for us. That, and what we're doing with Tractor Vision in the
stores is really all centered about providing better service. That personal touch that
Tractor is known for. >> Tractors have AI in them too.
Someday it's going to be... >> I mean, maybe self-driving tractors.
Glenn Allison
>> Well, it'll be interesting to watch. I mean, as you see, more and more people are using
digital assistants like OpenAI and ChatGPT, they're using
it in their personal lives to get product information or learn about projects and how to expertise. And it will be interesting to watch over the next several years, does that start changing retail
and how customers shop and interact with
retailers, whether that's through the consumer mobile app or the web or the in-store experience. And you've seen OpenAI
recently announce connectors and shopping assistants, but again, it's all coming
back to the customer and how do we provide legendary
service for that customer, make it easy for them to get
expertise, know-how expertise, get into a particular project, what are the things that I would need? >> Yeah, lifestyle too for appearance.
Glenn Allison
>> Project and how to expertise around it and just bringing together,
again, a legendary experience. >> We always saw on theCUBE
about Peloton back in the day >> when they were hot and they
went through a little bit of a issue, but they're back. They're now doubled down
on the trainers themselves. So there was a moment where
it was just a bicycle, but they built a user
experience around it. It sounds like that's what you guys are doing with the customer. Hey, Tractor and everything
that comes with it. We'll build services around it. >> And that's really the magic. It's how we apply the AI
technology to support our mission. And that is legendary service. It's not just exposing
technology to our customers, it's using that technology for us to support the team members
in doing a better job of supporting our customers.
Glenn Allison
>> And if you look into the future, we've got our life out
here, 2030 strategy. We're making strategic
investments for growth. Localization's very important where we have one store in over
2,300 local communities that we operate in rural America. And so, each community is
going to have unique needs of the types of products
services they need and being able to tailor that merchandising assortment for them. So, that's a big focus
for us strategically. So, as we're doing fusion remodels, we're updating the look
and feel of the store. We're adding new products, inventory. We also want to make sure we
have a localized inventory that really serves the unique
needs of that local community. You'll see investments we're making with delivery and enhancing
our delivery capabilities. I mean, you just recently went in through an experience on the Cub Cadet that we were talking about. >> Yeah, next day delivery.
Worked out great.
Bob Laliberte
>> Yeah, no, it was being part of there and looking at some of your
use cases, hearing about what you're doing, looking
at dwell time and so forth. And now it's like, I think
back in my shopping experience, it's like, oh yeah, I was out
there looking at the tractors and someone came out, can I help you? And then actually it was
two people helping me and just the experience was phenomenal. And then, again, it was
like buy it on Saturday. Got it on Sunday. Just a lot of just smooth, seamless experience that I've had. I'm wondering from your
perspective how all of these additions and AI use cases that you've built out has had
an impact on your business and the outcome and the bottom line as well. I was wondering if you- >> So I mean with the integration
with web, the mobile app,
Glenn Allison
>> the AI alerts, curbside
pickup, the propane refills, we've seen speed of service improvements. Likewise, just being able to do a register backup when
things are busy from a line standpoint at checkout. Also, just with Tractor Vision, being able to automatically sense, hey, there is a customer
looking at a riding mower that may need some assistance. Being able to trigger an AI alert, have a team member come out and assist. And from a metric standpoint, we used the point of sale data. So, we could see from
the time that we alerted that there's a potential sales opportunity and the team member using
things like Heygura, getting product information,
product comparisons. We could also see within a
time period did that translate to a sale and business
benefit for Tractor. But really from a customer
standpoint, again, it's centered around the experience and being able to save the
customer some time with that propane refill, that curbside pickup or they're looking at a riding mower. >> One of the things that come up, >> we had their chief AI officer
on Debo came on earlier and they talk about the
Nutanix's three principles. On Nutanix, customers running workloads on
Nutanix, which you're a customer. At Nutanix, where they could use AI for their employees and benefits. And then, inside Nutanix, the products. You mentioned some efficiencies around how you guys are using internally for people who are working. Are there other areas that
you're seeing on the roadmap where you say, hey, we see AI
helping us be more efficient operationally, because you got... The gold is the data,
you got customer data, you got documents, you
got physical locations, digital twins are hot right now. So there's all these new things
out there that are coming up that are being enabled. Are those jumping on your radar? Can you guys share your thoughts on how you guys are thinking
the next wave of the journey?
Glenn Allison
>> Yeah, I mean, it is really grown. So, from initially, we had Heygura several years ago fully
deployed generative AI. We saw a lot of the questions were
product information related, but there was also other types
of questions that people had. Some of them were just
HR related benefits. So we've added LLMs to be able to answer wider range of questions. And then, with our
collaboration with OpenAI and enterprise data platforms and being able to use some of the most advanced
AI models in the world and reasoning with our
data, being able to... For merchants, supply chain finance, the various departments across
the store support center, to be able to interact with the data and do advanced reasoning
with it, it's going to help us be able to navigate. We're in unprecedented times
with you look at tariffs and there could be potential bullwhips in supply chain that we may need to navigate in the coming
months related to that. And so being able to leverage data, AI, giving our team members some of the most advanced capabilities
will give us an advantage in being able to navigate and
take care of our customers. And there is periods of time where I look at Hurricane
Helene, Hurricane Milton, there are times that
there's local communities that count on us to be there. We're bringing in trucks of
generators, gas cans, tarps, other emergency supplies. At a time when many locations
were closed, we were open and making sure we take
care of the community. And we've worked with our
partners. Example, T-Mobile. We were working and we
used our parking lots to provide emergency cell service. Being able to provide even charging and wireless access for the community. That local community is really important. They're our neighbors and making sure we take care of our neighbors in the community. >> Guys, we love your mission. Congratulations on the great
success story on stage. My final question would be,
Nutanix obviously powering a lot of the capabilities. Just put a plug in for Nutanix. Talk about how you guys deploy, scale. They're talking on global
scale. Remember Nutanix, they nail HCI. We've been covering them
since they were founded. Okay. Infrastructure. Great. Check
the box. But there's new stuff. What's the new package look like? People that are learning about
the new Nutanix, it's not so new, but I mean, they're
seeing the platform. >> Yeah, it isn't really
one feature, it's all >> of the features combined and the way they continue
to evolve the platform. I started in infrastructure,
went into the cloud world and now I'm coming back into
the core infrastructure again and applying those cloud principles. That's exactly what Nutanix
is doing to be able to provide that agility and strategically positioning
themselves to be able to solve the problem before the
customer knows they have it. >> Got it.
- They've been a great partner
Glenn Allison
>> and stability, resilience, just automation around the environments and we've been a customer
for over 10 years and really appreciate all
the support from the team. >> And it flows right to
you guys. You're resilient >> to the communities when they need it. Always on, available. Good
mission. Guys, thanks so much. Appreciate you coming on
theCUBE. Great conversation. >> Absolutely.
- All right.
Glenn Allison
>> We'll see you in stores soon. >> We will be there. See, you're
wired in there. Don't move. >> Okay. Hey, I'm John Furrier
Glenn Allison
>> with Bob Laliberte here at
Nutanix NEXT here in Washington DC, for all the action
and all the experiences. Thanks for watching.
Bob Laliberte