Joe Pajer is CEO of Vocollect, a provider of communication systems that talk warehouse workers through their jobs. Every day Vocollect enables 300,000 workers worldwide to distribute $3 billion worth of goods from warehouses to customer locations.
What does Vocollect actually do?
We design, build, and sell voice-directed distribution systems, which means we convert the digital text from a warehouse order into a voice message and send it wirelessly to an employee wearing our Talkman computer and headset. When the employee retrieves the item from the shelf, he or she makes verbal confirmation through Talkman, and the system converts the speech into digital text that goes back to the warehouse system.
Wouldn’t a handheld scanner be faster?
No, because the person has to hold the gun. The Talkman leaves both hands free to pick things up. In comparison tests, a warehouse picker using the Vocollect system can be as much as 60 percent faster than someone using a scanner.
What obstacles did you face when you arrived at Vocollect in 2008?
When I came to Vocollect, we were struggling to move new product and market ideas forward. We broke the problem down into key strategic questions and formulated a strategy based on market and customer input. Today, just two years later, we have successfully expanded into Asia Pacific and our core regions are growing. Next year, we’ll be launching additional products with even greater innovations. We’ve thrown a left jab at our competitors. The right hook is coming.
How did your education at Carnegie Mellon help you in the world of business?
I learned there to solve problems by first taking time to really understand the question, then writing down my assumptions, and showing my work, not much different than what we did in developing the Vocollect strategy. If you don’t understand the question, you can’t get the right answer. CMU taught me to focus on getting the question right.
What’s the most unusual career move you’ve made?
About six years ago I left Fore Systems to raise my kids. I’m a divorced dad of three, and they were going through middle school and high school, so I took the time off to spend with them.
—Tom Imerito
