What's Your Edge?

How Leveraging Ecosystems Improve Customer Experience and Drives Growth
Victor Gichun, Vice President of Business Development at Excess Logic, a nationwide leader in surplus equipment and electronics liquidation, offers businesses a seamless way to manage excess and obsolete inventory. What sets Excess Logic apart is its ability to create value through a robust ecosystem of providers and a laser focus on customer experience and competitive differentiation. In this episode, Victor shares how Excess Logic has engineered its customer-centric processes and ecosystem strategy to create value and growth, differentiated itself in a crowded market, and aligned its operations to deliver measurable results.
Victor, I’m looking forward to your insights and hearing how Excess Logic’s ecosystem and differentiation strategies have enabled it to create value and drive growth. Your story highlights the importance of aligning resources, fostering collaboration, and standing out in a crowded market.
High-Impact Ecosystem Takes Customer Experience to a New LevelVictor, let’s start by discussing the challenges your customers face. Managing surplus and obsolete equipment is a complex and often overlooked part of business operations. What are the most common challenges your customers encounter, and how does Excess Logic help them overcome these hurdles?
Hi Laura, thanks for having me here. One of the most common challenges our customers encounter is what to do with the excess equipment and electronics they no longer need. In the US, companies can’t just throw it into a garbage bin; they need to dispose of any electronic equipment properly to make sure it doesn’t end up in a landfill and doesn’t pollute the environment.
Excess Logic solves this problem.
It sounds like Excess Logic provides a lifeline for businesses struggling with these issues. Given your commitment to creating customer value, how do you ensure your solutions are tailored to meet the diverse needs of customers across industries?
To ensure that our solutions are tailored to meet the diverse needs of customers across industries, Excess Logic established a surplus equipment remarketing and disposal ecosystem across the nation. This is something that differentiates us from the competition.
Competing on a Differentiated Customer Experience Facilitated GrowthExcess Logic operates in a very competitive and cluttered market, making growth challenging. Yet the company is growing by focusing on customer experience. How do you differentiate your company from competitors, and how do you embed these qualities into your operations and service delivery?
To differentiate Excess Logic from competitors, we provide a one-stop solution. Any company has different departments with different types of equipment and electronics. The IT department has laptops and computers, the research department has analytical and R&D instruments, the production department has manufacturing equipment, and so on and so forth. A one-stop solution covers all departments and all types of surplus equipment anywhere in the US at once. A lot of our current clients, and we have over 500 clients now, used two or more different vendors for each location before they started working with Excess Logic, because each vendor they used before helped them dispose of a particular type of excess equipment. If the company has 15 locations, it works with 30-45 different vendors. As a result of our extensive provider network and streamlined logistics. This makes for a better customer experience and major cost savings, which drastically improves our customers’ bottom line.
We believe firmly in understanding and mapping the ecosystem and using the ecosystem to identify prospects and better serve customers. It’s a powerful growth strategy. Your nationwide reach and extensive network of providers are impressive. How does this ecosystem enhance your ability to serve customers efficiently and effectively?
This is a very good question. Since 2018, when we started working with Google Excess Logic has developed a true nationwide network. This ecosystem allows us to provide same-day excess equipment removal services anywhere in the US, except Alaska and Hawaii.
This flexibility allows our customers to feel confident that the excess equipment sitting in the way of the new equipment will be removed on time and disposed of properly or resold for the maximum value.
Achieve Better Customer Experience with Data-Driven InsightsWe have found in our work that customer experience is often the linchpin of long-term success. Where does customer experience fit into your company’s strategy, and how do you ensure it remains a top priority?
Over 50% of our business is repeat customers. This is because our clients, once they receive our services, prefer to use Excess Logic again and again because it’s easy, dependable, and valuable.
Besides the value of removing and disposing of excess equipment, Excess Logic remarkets excess equipment to recoup the investments our clients made into equipment. Our ability to sell it via online marketplaces to end users and recover the maximum value makes our service invaluable.
In our experience, customer experience plays a critical role in customer retention and lifetime value. Data is critical to making sure you deliver what customers want. Without good data products and services, especially new ones, can end up being a market flop. While data is no guarantee you’ll have a hit, it can go a long way toward improving your odds of success. What data do you use to stay ahead of trends and continuously deliver value to your customers?
This is another very good question. Since we sell surplus equipment via online marketplaces, we need to make sure that the asking price is right. Excess Logic uses one of the most advanced data sources that shows how much surplus equipment has been sold for the last 90 days anywhere in the world. This data allows us to put surplus equipment on the market at the right price and therefore recover the maximum value for our clients.
Data is a powerful tool for identifying opportunities and driving innovation. What are some examples of data-driven insights that have enabled you to be more customer-centric?
We use a unique system that provides us with the actual prices the equipment we are selling has been sold for. This system integrates all major online marketplaces such as Amazon, eBay, Alibaba, Rakuten, and many more. Based on this information, we set the asking price, which is the highest price the market can pay. This insight allows Excess Logic to sell surplus equipment for much hire prices than traditional auctions or competitors that don’t have access to this system.
Operational Excellence with Analytics Improves Customer Experience and GrowthOperational excellence is at the heart of delivering consistent value. McKinsey’s article on analytics and asset management highlighted the importance of analytics and insights in the asset management space to improve distribution effectiveness, investment performance, and productivity. What steps has Excess Logic taken to leverage analytics and insights to improve the efficiency of the ecosystem and enhance the customer experience?
Automation, combined with our nationwide ecosystem, enables us to scale efficiently while maintaining high service quality. For example, this allows us to schedule 5 pickups a day from five different locations and provide unified reports within one week.
It’s clear that your focus on process and operational excellence has positioned Excess Logic as a trusted partner for businesses nationwide and accelerated your growth.
Boost Growth with Analytics, Operational Excellence, and a Dynamic EcosystemAs we wrap up, is there any advice you have for other companies looking to reengineer their processes for growth or create an ecosystem?
My advice to the listeners. If you run a business or want to start one, here are three things to consider:
Find an edge, meaning, what would make your company stand out from your competitors. This is crucial for success. Hire only top performers. The first five people you hire will define the future of your company. If you hire underperformers, they will hire underperformers too. If you hire top performers, they will hire people alike, and every new hire will make your company stronger. Implement a compensation system that depends on the results. Average, not high salary and bonuses, and commissions for meeting KPIs. Such a system is a good filter for underperformers.Victor, thank you for sharing your insights and giving us a closer look at how Excess Logic leverages analytics, automation, and a powerful nationwide ecosystem to deliver operational excellence and enhance the customer experience. Your story highlights the powerful role of aligning processes, outsourcing, and leveraging data to scale efficiently while maintaining high service quality.
We welcome a conversation with you if you are looking to drive growth, focus on operational excellence, and/or create a seamless customer experience through data-driven decision-making.