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Our travels for The CEO Collection have introduced us to firms of all sizes and scopes, and for this episode, we went to at least one that’s simply huge. Zebra Applied sciences is among the most dynamic B2B expertise firms on the earth. They digitize and automate workflows for firms, have roughly 10, 000 workers and do about $5 billion in income. I had the possibility to take a seat down with CEO Invoice Burns to learn how he leads such an enormous operation.
Under are some highlights of our insightful dialog, which have been edited for size and readability. Watch the complete video above.
International attain
“You see our firm Zebra in on a regular basis life. We’re a digital answer supplier that allows companies to intelligently join knowledge, belongings, and folks. You see us in a point-of-sale checkout at a grocery store, when a postal employee is delivering a parcel to your home, and in so many different locations. Corporations use our cell units to scan the bundle, get signatures, and issues like that. All the most important retailers around the globe — 86 p.c of the Fortune 500 firms — are our prospects right now. We consider it as retail, transportation, logistics, manufacturing and warehousing, well being care and authorities.”
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The NFL Connection
“As an organization, we assist the NFL. We use the identical varieties of tags that might be utilized in retail or transportation logistics to trace parcels or stock to trace each cleat, each shoulder pad, each helmet worn by a participant. The NFL’s preliminary use case was for fan engagement and to boost the printed. After which the most recent use circumstances are actually round defending the well being and security of the gamers.”
The CEO’s Journey
“I began my profession in gross sales, in a big telco gross sales into people like Verizon and others. After which I took a task main Europe, the Center East, and Africa from a gross sales facet and expanded into advertising and marketing and companies and different areas. After which I joined Zebra about 9 years in the past to steer the acquisition piece. Zebra was a billion-dollar specialty printing enterprise. They purchased two and a half billion {dollars} in income from Motorola to the enterprise enterprise and so sort of in a single day a $1 billion enterprise grew to become a $3.5 billion enterprise.”
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Management accountability
“There’s three legs of the stool, proper? That is how I view the enterprise: our prospects, our workers and our buyers. In the end we’re in enterprise to proceed to develop and to generate profits. However you have to do the fitting issues first. You have acquired to have the ability to reward and appeal to and retain the perfect workers around the globe. If you happen to try this, you then’ll serve your prospects greatest. If you happen to serve your prospects greatest, you may develop your topline income and your profitability and your inventory will go up and you will deal with your buyers.”
Main by way of robust occasions
“I believe that demand for our companies skyrocketed throughout COVID, after which in 2023, demand reset again to 2019 ranges. So we have been put ready the place we needed to do the conventional issues that almost all companies would do. Have a look at your actual property and your journey prices and all these issues internally. We additionally did issues like voluntary retirement packages. We thought of creating new alternatives for individuals inside the group. It labored out nice, but it surely’s at all times laborious to get smaller. It is at all times much more enjoyable to develop. However you have to make these robust enterprise choices at occasions.”
Profession recommendation to future leaders
“Nobody else cares as a lot about your profession as you do, but in addition be affected person as a result of it would not occur in a single day. And if you happen to’re at a fantastic firm and you’ve got alternatives there, there’s nowhere else that you just’re extra revered than inside that firm. They know you’re prepared, so be affected person.”
Take a look at extra profiles of modern and impactful leaders by visiting The CEO Collection archives.
