CEO interview still has value and insights…… Transcript of Doug Dyment's last CEO interview. Good nuggets in here to pay attention to...... Cares Act money already flowing. Specific markets (Alaska).... etc.
Great reflection points:
"We wanna grow this company to the next level of revenue. If we are successful in executing on 3 or 4 or 5 things in our sales funnel, then that's gonna happen.
A key is to increase revenue per vehicle by finding new ways to monetize the data we are already collecting.
GSI has partnerd with Bytecurve. They have contracts with some large school bus contractors that GSI wasn't doing business with before. Bytecurve has a unique school bus operating cloud platform and GSI has integrated with that platform.
This partnership provides GSI with some potential new sticky (recurring) revenue, it give us a cloud based software (Bytecurve's) that we can sell to our existing clients at a higher margin than our overall margin including hardware, it gives us access to their clients when they want a video solution with Bytecurve's cloud based bus operating platform. That's an example of how GSI is scaling its revenue in the school bus market. We offer a uniqueness that other companies don't have.
I'll have more partnerships to announce. It'll give us more distribution avenues without having to build out sales forces. It'll give the company scalability moving forward.
We are offering new solutions in the school bus and transit markets relating to cloud based software applications. A goal is to create cloud based software which adds operational value to our clients and they are willing to pay for it. The software is at a higher gross margin. We plan to offer an end to end bundled solution.
For school bus & transit markets, we plan to give them a free software application to get them started, let them start collecting data, then sell them a bundled package at a higher overall margin.
Once you get integrated to a platform that's used every day, it becomes more difficult to kick you out of there and for competitors to move in.
We have enormous growth potential in the school bus & transit markets.
Our accounts in transit, they have already budgeted the money. It's only a matter of timing of when they're gonna pull the trigger.
For the transit market (vs school bus market), we're using a smaller engineering team. We're going after some of these larger projects where it can significantly move the dial on revenue and bottom line. We don't have a lot of customers in this particular market. I'm only talking about the next 6 or 12 months. As we more forward, you'll see more and more agencies coming on stream. The projects we have in our sales funnel is larger and take a different resource than the school bus market.
If GSI can get 10% of the money that's being allocated by the Feds, that creates well over $100 Million in revenue. Well over. We're optimistic and staying lazer focused. I've never seen these types of conditions before. The amount of money that the Fed is throwing at two of our niche markets that we're quite strong in. We've got 3,500 customers. We've got a pretty good foothold in that market. We're already starting to see contracts land using Cares Act money.
I got a lot of reasons to be optimistic. I'm pretty excited to be leading this company today. We're definitely in a good spot.
Every time I put a news release out, without attracting the attention of the competitors, I'm trying to state the obvious but there's usually something going on behind the scenes that I can't talk about. But, it's there if you read between the lines. If we're putting a press release out, there usually something going on, a potential seed planted in a particular geographic region.
If I put out a press release on Automated Lane Enforcement product/technology, there's probably some fire behind that smoke. I would pay attention to that if I was an investor.
A transit authority the size of SEPTA, we are a community partner in that area. The deal with the Philadelphia public schools, pay attention to that. That is an example of becoming a community partner and start to dominate........Transit, Schools, City. Some of the announcements we're not allowed to put out. We just don't have permission to do it. If you see news in certain communities, certain major cities, there's probably something happening on a strategy build up.
GSI is quite diversified company by way of its georgraphic modelling from a customer perspective. We've got 3,500 customers all over the States and Canada.
There's more business starting to heat up in Canada.
I would love to announce everything but I'm a tough nut when it comes to protecting our company as it relates to competitive. We need to keep it close to the vest at times and that's the best for the company given what's going on with some of these projects we are working on. Quite frankly it's time to stay quiet and investors don't necessarily like that. The alternative could be losing. If I were to announce and blow a deal, I wouldn't be happy with that.
The pullback on the stock from $1.30/$1.40 didn't have anything to do with fundamentals. One day you're just gonna wake up and some people are gonna say why didn't I invest in that.
We have a talented engineering team, a talented management team. Operationally, we're rock solid.
It's only a matter of time. We're gonna be a much larger company in the next few years. We're ready for significant growth and we don't need to dilute. We have financing.
Some of our competitors are bigger and perceived to be stronger but they don't have what we have. Just because you're big it doesn't mean you're good at executing in niche markets.
The sales funnel has grown immensely. The size and diversity of the contracts in our sales funnel is much larger than just 12 months ago. I believe the company is going to be a much larger company in the next several years.
I would like to issue more news releases about contracts but I don't for business reasons to prevent the competition from gaining information.
Using AI to analyze the data is an exciting opportunity. Without it, data just sits there. If you can't make decisions out at the edge, you need humans to make those decisions for you. An important initiative for us is to bring that data to life.
AI allows us to solve problems that we haven't even solved yet. Some of things we are about to do for some of our customers, because we're looking at that data all of the time in some of these cities, we're finding problems that they weren't even aware of. And, we're developing algorithms to solve those problems. We're so much more evolved than 6 or 12 months ago.
When I look at the company valuation and how we're building the company, the valuation is low. It's a great buying opportunity. It's gonna be a big, big number one day and we're heading in that direction. We're firing on all cylinders right now. It's only a matter of time before some of these projects in the sales funnel start to land. Our sales team has never been this optimistic about the probablity rate for the projects in the sales funnel.
Automated Lane Enforcement solution for transit is a new market. I've been keeping that really quiet. We have a lot of activity over the last year and a half that's been going on in and around this new category. There's not a lot of competition in there yet.
I'm really excited that the lane enforcement solutions allows transit operators to get more efficiency in their operations. Transits need to get their buses through the traffic. If anyone is parked illegally, our solution allows the transit authority to issue citations and create a revenue stream for them.
If we're successful in what we're doing inside our sales funnel, that application (lane enforcement) is going to help change the face of this company from where it is today.
There's a lot of activity going on in the video enforcement market and GSI is right smack in the middle of it.
Thanks to our relationship with SEPTA, we are now in the train market. The train business is a big business type of market. We're starting to get visibility in some of these contracts. I hope in the near term we are able to announce some of these things that we've been working on.
New director Colin Sutherland has capital markets experience and helps with the financing side. And, he's a strong strategist.
New director Corey Muirhead is executive vice president of Logan Bus. His connections up in the north east politically are fantastic. He's an operator. He could have sat on the Board of a number of companies. He chose GSI for a reason. He see's this vision we have to growth GSI into a data company. Corey is at the forefront of the contractors association in New York. He has his finger on the pulse as it relates to the north east and the market.
Charlie Bruce is with one of the largest tranportation contractors globally.
David Stumpo brings strong experience on the transit side.
As we move into the data side, we'll look for directors to support our growth.
There's more money coming into the school bus market, electric buses are growing. President Biden said he wants to replace all buses with electric vehicles over the next 10 years.
We don't go out promoting ourselves for the capital markets. We stay focused on landing contracts which is the reason our sales funnel is so thick and diversified.
We've done a good job executing over the past few years and we need to continue to do that."
end quote.