In what might be one of the more ambitious projects ever undertaken within the custom electronics industry, consulting company VITAL — led by industry veterans Matt Bernath, Paul Starkey, Steve Firzst and Jeremy Burkhardt — has put out a request to have 1,000 custom integration companies spend 20 minutes of time each discussing their current profit situation.

The resulting information gathered might provide some of the most insightful information the industry has ever gathered related to where profits come from, how they can be increased, and where the biggest problems.

Starkey personally issued the industry-wide challenge, noting, “Every insight in how the model can be optimized is now known and catalogued. And we want you to know about it. If you have 6 employees or more, the model should be part of your core belief system. We are asking 1000 custom integrators to take the challenge.”

Starkey says the discussions will help “reveal the essence of the CI business.”

In the conversations, VITAL will share with dealers some of the benchmark data it has gathered over the years related to the average percentages for payroll, margin, operating expenses and profit.

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According to Starkey, integrators can set the stage for their business to add 10 points of bottom-line profit, reduce their accounts receivables by half, and achieve 20% profit by having the brief analysis completed. For some companies, that is a minimum of $100,000 more in profits and for others the resulting profit increase could be 10 times that, according to Starkey. To participate in the 20-minute challenge, integrators can reach out to Starkey at [email protected] or call or text 859-492-9801.

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