A CEO is a go-getter, a motivated professional, and someone willing to push for what they want. If someone possesses these qualities of a CEO, the first step is hard work. Kevin Hoyle, CEO of B2BGateway, made hard work his personal weapon since childhood, overcoming all the obstacles he faced and leading at the top today.
Kevin’s background is not exactly what people would expect of a software company CEO. Although he did obtain substantial formal education, it was obtained through a complicated process. As a kid, he lacked the financial resources to be able to complete a college education in a regular manner.
Kevin started college on his personal savings, and although he worked full time while commuting to school, there was just never enough money to cover the tuition, books, and commuting expenses. As such, he decided to “take a semester off,” which lasted eight years. During that time, Kevin worked an assortment of menial jobs (several at a time), in retail sales, carpentry, restaurants, bars, hotels, and grocery stores. Eventually, Kevin found a job, which was the worst paying of all menial jobs, but it was a fortunate stroke of serendipity as it involved working with computers and they offered educational benefits. Kevin took the computer job and was eventually able to continue his education. Kevin pursued a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science. Once it was done, he decided to continue towards a Master’s Degree in Information Systems Science. After finishing his Masters, he said, “What the heck, I should get an MBA,” and he obtained a Master’s in Business Administration as well.
B2BGateway: Fully Integrated EDI Network Provider
B2BGateway is a global Cloud/SaaS based Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and automated supply chain solution provider, providing cloud-based EDI solutions which fully integrate with backend office systems. B2BGateway is a GS1 Accredited solution provider and partners with many leading ERP and Accounting Software platforms, including NetSuite, QuickBooks, Sage, Acumatica, Brightpearl, Xero, Financial Force, Aptean Ross, and SAP, to name a few. As technology evolves, so does the B2BGateway product offering. Over the years, the company has embraced different means of transporting data and supported new and improved formats of data. In the past 12 months, B2BGateway has developed new channels of connectivity to support the move to APIs and developed the B2BGateway EDI Connect App for both iOS and Android Mobile users. Most of the other new product development pipeline is designed to increase productivity in the ever evolving technological environment that we live in.
B2BGateway is a ‘Modern EDI’ provider. The acronym EDI can conjure visions of old school computers and outdated formats. However, for lack of a more modern name, the world continues to use the expression EDI to define all electronic data connectivity. The company does not just provide clients with one to one connections for Walmart or Target, but rather B2BGateway becomes an organization’s complete Supply Chain Communication Hub. B2BGateway will integrate your organization with not only your box store customers but also your 3PL, shopping cart, manufacturer, financial institution or any other organization you wish to exchange electronic business data with. Using B2BGateway, you can also add a great deal of time-saving logic to your data processing. A simple example is having inbound orders imported automatically into your ERP system. Then, based upon rules that you set up, part of the order is automatically sent to your 3PL for shipping while another part of the order is sent out as a purchase order so that you can purchase the goods included in the sale. This automation tightens your supply chain, reduces your inventory, reduces labor hours, and substantially improves accuracy.
Unique Strategies Benefiting Clients
B2BGateway’s key strategies have always been to give their clients the best possible solutions and customer service, at the best possible price. As a software development company, they are excited to put new solutions on the market, but they learned to balance the release of new products with the actual needs of their clients. “We would hate to release a new product that may introduce confusion or a need for training if the benefits to the client do not outweigh the impacts. Our goal at B2BGateway, is to eradicate the need for many manual, mundane tasks of our clients so that they can do what they do best, increase sales and grow revenue,” says Kevin.
More Success Awaits Ahead
B2BGateway sees growth coming from many sectors, especially the SMB marketplace. Up until several years ago, EDI was very expensive and could only be implemented by the Fortune 500. However, with the advent of cloud technology, EDI is now affordable and open to anyone or any organization with an Internet-connected device. Since the need for EDI has been mostly driven by the desire to drive down labor costs, there was never a big demand in the emerging markets. However, in this global economy that B2BGateway currently exists in, the emerging markets are being pushed by the First World markets to embrace EDI technology to improve business accuracies. To support these new, emerging and international markets, the company has recently opened offices in Sydney, Australia and Jinan, China.
B2BGateway will be 18 years old this April. Each year the company has changed significantly, and it will continue to do so. Kevin said that several years ago an employee came to him and said, “I’ve been doing this task for the past year this way, why is it going to change?” He explained that everything changes, and it always will, if there is a better way to do it. As a company, the B2BGateway staff understands that they will always looking for a better way, whether it is for their internal processing, or to improve the lives of their clients.