CEO, Jim Kerlin
2013 has proven to be a long year! However, we can now proudly welcome you to Beyond Vision, the new face of Wiscraft and AIB! Our staff worked hard and was stretched a bit thin while we restructured to support our new strategy. We continue to protect and grow our core government business lines while redeploying resources to focus on our number one priority: commercial growth. At the same time, we were able to restructure to create shared back office support, creating a stronger infrastructure to support our new growth initiatives.
I’m proud of the way our employees faced several challenges this past year. Many of our jobs derive from the distribution of blind-made office and building supplies to the government. Sequester and related military spending reductions, the government shut down, and several other factors combined to cause large decreases in government product demand through our BSCs (Base Supply Centers). The largest customer of our machined parts is in the mining industry which experienced a big downturn in 2013. Still another large Machine Shop customer went bankrupt. To top it off, the vitally needed installation of a new ERP system consumed resources like a virtual, “black hole”. Many of the salaried staff worked extended hours for many months and grew weary. However, we have committed people who worked tirelessly to support our mission. As a result, we’ve come into the New Year stronger than ever.
We’ve continued to place a major focus on marketing. We now operate both legal entities, AIB and Wiscraft, under the Beyond Vision moniker. Building on the brand launch in mid 2012, we enhanced the web site to include videos (www.beyondvision.com). They provide an overview of our mission and each of our core commercial service lines including; assembly, packaging, machining, call services, and supplies distribution.
Beyond Vision has provided office and building supplies to the federal government for many years. This year, we launched an initiative to market office and building supplies to commercial businesses. Our e-commerce capability was enhanced to allow commercial customers access to over 50,000 business supply products from their desk or mobile device. Each time they make a purchase our customers are offered the option of further supporting our mission by buying blind-made products that are equal or better in quality. We believe many people would prefer to buy supplies that employ Americans with disabilities rather than an overseas supplier. Wouldn’t you? Please click here to go to our commercial supplies web portal and check it out. Let us know if you would like to purchase our supplies and support the employment of Americans living with disabilities. Don’t forget there is a 5% tax credit toward these and all purchases from Beyond Vision to any business that files in Wisconsin.
Thank you to the many donors and financial supporters of our mission! In 2013, we fully funded our workforce development training programs, providing upward mobility to people who are blind. Grants and donations also supported necessary safety & mobility improvements in the plant, as well as provided additional employment opportunities via the expansion of our Call Center.
New Call Center
In October, we held a ribbon cutting for the start of our new Call Center expansion program. The expansion has allowed us to create 16 workstations fully equipped with the adaptive technology to necessary to employ professionals who are blind. In the past year the greatest growth of our mission has been in our Call Center. We’ve extended our contract with the State registering Wisconsin residents for Unclaimed Property. In partnership with National Industries for the Blind (NIB) and several sister agencies across the country, we earned a new contract with Fresh Revenues. This contract entails doing, “secret shopper”, calls and report cards as a customer service quality control program in the hospitality industry. The reason we are succeeding is simple. Our employees care more and as a result we provide better quality call services than anyone else. Here’s proof. Harley-Davidson, a company whose brand is recognized all over the world, is now a Call Center customer. The fact that Harley-Davidson trusts us to make calls on their behalf is the best testament I can cite as to the level of service we provide.
The future is bright. 9 of the 16 workstations in our new call center are already filled and we anticipate job openings for 5 more Customer Service Representatives who are blind in the next few months. We are steadily earning new sustaining machining jobs from GenMet, OTC, Kone Cranes, and others. Our Assembly and Packaging business unit is planning explosive growth via new work for Briggs, ECOLAB, Harley-Davidson, GE Power & Water, Custom Pack, and several others. We also believe there is great potential for our new initiative to distribute blind-made office and building supplies to commercial customers.
All in all, we are very proud to have not only survived 2013 relatively unscathed, but, we’ve even seen our mission thrive. I’m humbled to be able to work with all the Beyond Vision employees, sighted and blind. Their hard work and dedication in spite of these tough conditions has been impressive to say the least.
Helen Keller once said, “The only thing worse than being blind, is having sight but no vision.” Well said! That quote embodies and summarizes our new brand, Beyond Vision. We are driven by our vision… We provide employment opportunities to those with poor or no sight. Yet all of our employees, whether sighted or blind, have vision. Why? Because all people, including people who are blind, deserve the chance to prove, “they can do it”. They CAN have the pride of a job and be productive members of their family and society. That’s why it’s “Beyond Vision”, not Beyond Sight.