In an industry dominated by super-sized competitors, we often hear concerns about whether MSI Automate is a large enough company to provide the kind of fulfillment solutions that will adequately address our clients’ distribution challenges. Concerned prospects, weighing the choice between industry giants and a comparatively smaller competitor, often wonder if we can handle their business and/or even begin to offer the same level of service, support, resources, and solutions our corporate competitors can.
We welcome these discussions because such legitimate concerns not only allow us to articulate what differentiates MSI Automate from the competition, but to also ironically lead many MSI Automate clients to the conclusion that, when it comes to fulfillment solutions and the companies providing them, smaller is actually better.
One of the hallmarks of MSI Automate fulfillment solutions is the relatively small footprint of our automation systems in comparison to those of our competition. This is a purposeful outcome that we have striven for since our inception, because we know that the key to our client’s profitability lies in our ability to enable them to do more with less. Sure, selling more equipment would be more profitable for us in the short term, but our bet is on the long term success of our customers’ growth. To that end, we design multi-functional, multi-tasking fulfillment systems that maximize equipment and resource usage, minimize infrastructure, labor, and energy requirements, and execute multitudes of transactions in mere milliseconds. When it comes to fulfillment solutions, smaller is better.
And just as our outcomes are purposeful, so too is our company size. Simply put, MSI Automate is comparatively small when measured against industry giants by design, for therein lies the secret to our ability to consistently deliver promised outcomes.
MSI Automate was born in 2010 of a frustration that its founders heard from clients time and time again over outcomes that did not deliver what had been so confidently promised by the industry giants of the time. Recognizing the need for a far greater level of accountability and a more comprehensive approach to fulfillment automation than had been seen before, MSI Automate’s founders brought together disciplines that had typically been siloed in separate companies and built from them cross-functional teams that shared both collective knowledge and common purpose. Charged with the goal of finding and delivering the best possible solution to any given challenge, those original teams formed the model for the company MSI Automate has become today.
In many industries, companies can dominate by the sheer size of their resources and might of their messaging. Capitalizing on replication of process, standardization of product application, and simplification of expectations, they can achieve a level of brand recognition that perpetuates momentum, whether or not they deliver on promises. The fulfillment industry has certainly not been immune to this, but as the need for increasingly sophisticated fulfillment solutions has intensified and customer savvy has increased, dominance by name recognition has become increasingly difficult. This is good for the fulfillment solution consumer, because in this industry, results matter — more so now than ever before. And in today’s competitive market, if we fail to deliver on promises, our customers fail. It’s that simple.
Fulfillment today is a hugely complex discipline that demands highly nuanced, tightly integrated, intelligent solutions, meticulously delivered and uncompromisingly supported by teams of thoughtful, uniquely qualified individuals generally not found in large corporate environments.
The skill set of the typical MSI Automate employee is one that demands a culture of ownership, inquiry, and innovation. It is one in which neither employee ambitions nor employer expectations are satisfied with the idea of a singular role with standardized deliverables. And it is one that prides itself on agility and adaptability over might and market saturation.
At MSI Automate, our teams are comprised of self-aware, self-competitive, self-starters, who thrive on challenge, learn fast from failure, and don’t know what it is to quit. They are individuals who can operate with equal proficiency either independently or as members of a team. They adapt quickly to shifting demands and expectations, are comfortable with ambiguity, and use tenacity, intelligence, methodical process, and science and mathematics to solve problems others won’t — and in ways others can’t.
Most importantly, MSI Automate employees have the ability to optimize whatever resources they may or may not have in order to get a job done. And they translate that talent into creating fulfillment systems that optimize client resources in ways that enable our clients to achieve their growth initiatives, often years ahead of schedule.
MSI Automate is smaller by design, because bureaucracy breeds complacency, thwarts creativity, and hinders the critical communication and teamwork needed to tackle the challenges we need to solve to give our clients the edge they need to not just survive, but to thrive in their respective fields.
When our clients win, we win. It’s that simple.
Walter High is VP Marketing at MSI Automate, where he has worked since 2012.