In August, Chuck Furedy officially joined Socket Mobile as Sr. VP of Worldwide Sales. In this article, you can learn more about Chuck, his business philosophy, and plans for Socket Mobile.

Chuck Furedy

Having been associated with the Auto ID industry for close to 35 years, I know the history of the market first-hand as well as most of the people and technology components that contributed to the expansion of the business for over 25 years.

This past year’s economic climate, coupled with a few years of minimal growth in innovation and research, has left many AIDC companies' revenues well below prior years, and many are struggling to just remain flat year over year. In addition, RFID technology came to the forefront expecting to be the next big winner and replace historical barcode solutions. The technology received many of the investment dollars in the last few years yet provided little return, let alone the expected “pot of gold.”

In addition, many companies developed and delivered products and solutions that mirrored those of their competitors. With the lack of market expansion and few new vertical segments providing a broad need, a number of companies are now searching for their place and position in the market. This said, I believe we will see some consolidation in the AIDC space through the balance of this year and early 2010.

With close to 60 days behind me, I have had the opportunity to meet the associates here in California as well as our sales and distributor teams in Europe. I have also had a chance to learn our product line and meet a number of our U.S.-based resellers and distributors. As a company that sells only indirect through distribution, it is imperative that we make our products and services known to the leading providers of both hospitality and healthcare solutions.

The need for long term growth and channel focus sets the tone for my short-term objectives:

• Geographic Coverage — Because we have reduced the size of the global sales team and also lost a few people in the field to attrition this past year, I am focusing on replacing and re-aligning those “sales hunters” in the areas while also establishing a strong Inside Sales and Support group that can manage our existing customers. We must develop a set of knowledgeable and stable field sales teams in order to win our channels' confidence and trust.



• Product Alignment and Refresh — With the help of the leadership team and members of product marketing, we are reducing our SKU count and also taking the necessary short- and long-term steps to add specific accessories and stands that will help us expand our product offering to both new and existing resellers. The development of an innovative and longer-term roadmap is a “must have” to assure the channel that we are the right and profitable investment.



• VIP Program and Vertical Resellers — For years, Socket Mobile has relied on the large Direct Marketing and large horizontal distributors to grow and expand their peripheral business. Along with sales management here in the U.S. and in Europe, we will be reducing the number of VIP partners to a manageable number of companies that are financially sound, focused on our products, and leaders in the Health and Hospitality markets. These resellers are supported in the market by the two leading AIDC distributors — BlueStar and ScanSource.

These initial first steps will set the stage for our growth and allow us to begin to build a market foundation that becomes more of a growth business rather than just a business that is deal by deal and not necessarily predictable quarter over quarter.

I have known the Socket team for close to 10 years and have always been impressed with their creativity and innovation while developing unique, ergonomic scanners and mobile solutions. Socket has an excellent reputation in the market and a family of products that is ready for the expanding healthcare and hospitality markets, along with specialty retail where cordless scanning and small, durable mobile computing is a growing opportunity. As we narrow our focus on those resellers that target our verticals, I am confident we will begin to develop our brand and increase our market share.

The key to success in any business is developing innovative products that meet the requirements of a focused set of end user customers. We must be laser focused on delivering world-class quality and provide both pre- and post-sales services that truly differentiate us from our competition. Making customer service part of every Socket associate's DNA is at the top of my list.

Spare time is quite sparse these days since joining Socket. With two 87-year-old parents in Columbus Ohio, three grown children, a dog, and a wife of 37 years here in Atlanta, I do my best to stay in touch with their lives. With the time I have left, I try and get in a round of golf every now and then, and I am in the process of bringing my pilot’s license back to current.

Tough question! Guest appearance versus host is difficult. I miss the old, early evening TV shows that were produced to make you laugh and take your mind off the day-to-day events of the world. Shows in the '70s, '80s and '90s like Flip Wilson, Seinfeld, MASH, and Cheers where all good entertainment, and it would be fun to meet the creative people who produced these shows and participate in the mechanics of the production.

There was one great show on in the '60s called The Millionaire. An ultra-rich benefactor would provide perfect strangers a check for $1 million tax free. If I were to make just a guest appearance I guess I would like to be on the receiving end of one of the checks or, even better, be the benefactor who had the wherewithal to hand out the $1 million.

Joining Socket Mobile after 35 years in the barcode business affords me the opportunity to “do it again,” so to speak. Symbol’s founder, Jerry Swartz, had a passion to build a large multi-national company by providing the world a product that had not yet been invented. Handheld laser scanning has gone from a good idea to a product that is now mainstream. It has altered numerous markets and is a commodity in the eyes of most economists.

I believe we are coming close to the end of the first round of handheld barcode reading. With the evolution of CMOS imagers/cameras along with the growth and acceptance of two-dimensional barcodes, I believe we are poised to see another significant growth spurt in this supposedly “old commodity” market. From my point of view, cordless scanning and imaging will play a sizeable role in adding value and differentiation as more and more applications come to use barcodes and even RFID as the means to accurately input a file or execute an application.