The History of Vocollect

Roger Byford, now Chairman of the Board and Chief Operating Officer of Vocollect, Inc., was pounding the trade show floor to make contacts when his ears perked up. Managers at a General Mills plant outside of Chicago wanted a new inventory control process and were interested in using Vocollect’s fledgling voice recognition system. Would Roger be willing to come to Illinois and work with the company to create the new system?

“I was practically in my car before the show ended,” Byford says. “Our company was 18 months old and we had yet to make any significant inroads into industry. This was just the toe-hold we needed to get started.”

For months, Byford routinely made the 10-hour drive – each way – to St. Charles and back because budgets were tight. “The clients at General Mills felt so sorry for me that they’d load up my trunk with their institutional food products, such as 10-pound cans of spaghetti sauce.”

But that client – and possibly the spaghetti sauce – helped Vocollect endure its first tenuous years in business. Today, on its 20th anniversary, Vocollect is a highly respected global company whose brand Vocollect Voice literally talks thousands of people with mobile jobs through their daily tasks, replacing traditional work lists and cumbersome data capture methods with personal voice dialogues.

With over 350 employees worldwide and over $100 million in annual revenues, Vocollect remains the world’s largest voice provider in industrial settings. How did the company grow into such a powerhouse? The same way most entrepreneurial companies do: by having a vision, making mistakes, continually refining its products and persevering.

From Humble Beginnings…

It was the early 1980s when Westinghouse Electric started up Westinghouse Voice Systems to commercially market voice applications and tapped a leader for that operation who brought in Byford. Byford recruited colleague Larry Sweeney, and marketer Bob Salicce was hired from outside the company.

The team created a desktop-sized device and piloted it with some automotive clients. Through this process it became increasingly clear that the product simply wasn’t practical enough to support people who moved around a lot to do their jobs. So some walkie-talkies were brought into the mix. The idea seemed ahead of its time.

Then one day, an engineer working at the company brought in a portable CD player, which was then new to the market. “We gathered around this small lightweight stereo and Larry and I thought to ourselves, ‘If that manufacturer can get all the necessary components inside this small box, surely we could do the same for voice’.”

By this point Westinghouse was rapidly losing interest in its fledgling business. But Byford, Sweeney and Salicce saw gold. “We recognized the incredible industry potential of voice recognition,” Byford explains, “and frankly, we didn’t want anyone to get there before we did.”

The three decided to strike out on their own. Over the next year, they talked to more than 100 potential investors about their vision. Only two chose to partner with the young company, but that was all they needed. Away the three went.

Motivated by the challenge, the founders crafted a new goal: to combine sophisticated voice recognition with lightweight portability. At the time, it was a lofty challenge.

Originally, it seemed like the best industrial market for voice would be in the manufacturing sector.  Indeed, Vocollect introduced voice into several automobile manufacturing plants, including Ford Motor Company in 1989.

Although there were early adopters like Ford and General Mills, Vocollect couldn’t crack the mainstream market, and sales remained flat. After all, voice applications in the workplace was a new concept in the early ‘90s and as such, businesspeople were hesitant to try it.

During an especially slow period, a five-year stretch when the founders wondered whether or not their vision would ever be realized, not a single employee left Vocollect to seek work elsewhere. “Because we were committed to our employees,” Byford says, “they were committed to us.”

Furthermore, the original investors continued to show their support. “In this sense, our experience, when compared to other entrepreneurial endeavors, was very atypical. Because our investors were not institutional, but private, they remained committed to our vision despite the slow growth.”

A Culture of “Jobs Without Ceilings”

One element that helped employees hang in there with the entrepreneur owners was a strong employee-focused corporate culture.

“Early on, we decided the company would offer what we called ‘jobs without ceilings,’ Byford says. “We wanted to build a business that would keep on growing and creating opportunities for everyone. The focus, in other words, has always been on the employee. We don’t come to work to make investors wealthier, although they certainly deserve, and have received, a good return on their investments. Instead, we’ve always focused on providing opportunities for employees to grow and excel.”

In the mid 1990s, two things happened to catapult the company forward: 1) Vocollect introduced the first one-piece, self-contained wearable computer, which brought the ability for workers to easily select products from distribution center (DC) shelves without having to continually handle a cumbersome device, and 2) a major hardware chain came to Vocollect seeking help with order selection in its distribution centers.

“The light bulb went on,” Byford explains. “It became immediately clear in working with that client that distribution – not manufacturing – was the function where voice would be most immediately valuable.” By late 1996, more than 100 wearable computers were being used at one global retail giant’s one-million square-foot food distribution facility.

The company’s strong and consistent performance continued in 2000 when the firm sold its 3,000th wearable computer and introduced the fourth generation of its software products. 

This new market focus, combined with the ability to provide lightweight voice units, caused business to snowball. More corporate heavyweights signed on. Smaller grocery chains began to follow their lead and sales began to mushroom. In 1996, the company recorded almost $1 million in annual sales. In 1997, that grew to $3 million; in ’98, to $6 million. By 2001, there were over 150 million Vocollect Voice transactions per day worldwide.

This evolution of the business called for organizational adjustments as well. Over time, co-founder Bob Salicce moved on to other ventures and the other co-founders, Byford and Sweeney, assumed new key leadership roles with the company, hiring Chief Executive Officer Jack LeVan and other seasoned managers. Vocollect was clearly on an upward trajectory.

And today, Vocollect has over $100 million in annual sales. The lion’s share of the food and grocery distribution industry worldwide uses Vocollect Voice, and sales have catapulted into other industries including retail, third party logistics and healthcare. Today, hundreds of thousands of workers on six continents use Vocollect Voice in more than 22 languages.

Instead of resting on its laurels, Vocollect continues to invest more than 15 percent of its annual revenues into research and development each year. The goal? To further expand the potential of voice and continue to create “ceiling-less” opportunities for its employees. Already, the company has entered the healthcare arena and provides voice applications to skilled nursing facilities through its wholly-owned subsidiary, Vocollect Healthcare Systems.

“Needless to say, we’ve come a long way from the spaghetti-sauce-in-the-trunk days,” Byford says. “Our 20th anniversary is a special one. Not only for me and the other founders, but for the employees and investors who persevered and kept the faith to make our vision a reality.”

About Vocollect

Since 1987, Vocollect, Inc. has delivered proven performance improvements in productivity, accuracy, cost reduction and job satisfaction for mobile employees. Vocollect Voice literally talks people through their daily tasks, replacing cumbersome lists and traditional data capture methods with hands-free, personal voice dialogs. Through a premier global network of certified resellers and supply chain performance experts, hundreds of thousands of people on six continents use Vocollect Voice to improve work every day. Vocollect is headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pa., U.S., and supports its clients and resellers through offices in Europe, the Americas and Asia. For more information, visit http://www.vocollect.com. Vocollect®, Vocollect Voice®, Talkman® and Voice-Directed Work® are registered trademarks of Vocollect, Inc. All rights reserved.