Behind SCLogic: A Discussion of Our Past, Present, and Future with CEO, Michael Saldi
Twenty-five years ago, Michael “Mike” Saldi sat in his car in downtown Baltimore, ready to file a stack of papers to incorporate his new company, Supply Chain Logic. After majoring in Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering in college, Mike’s areas of interest included factories, distribution centers, and plants. He built a career in an industry centered around manufacturing and retailing, then cutting-edge technology like barcode scanners and mobile computers. But to hear him tell it, this was all in preparation to confront the problems that Intra solves.
Though SCLogic was initially envisioned as a reseller of products that Mike had sold for a previous employer, he eventually turned his attention to his entrepreneurial endeavor to service medium and small businesses that needed to be led through the logistical process.
The ultimate success of SCLogic has resulted from a long history of listening to customers’ needs and delivering custom-built software to address them. Mike hired knowledgeable people to join the team, learn the logistical space, and write software that would help sell the hardware components. However, their most important task was to discover the common challenges of clients they took on; from those discoveries, the team would craft customizable solutions specifically designed to meet each customer’s needs.
About a year in, after listening to customers and learning how to write software, Intra was born. Spawning from a client request in 1997 for a UPS package tracking system that they could own, the team would go on to develop and ship the first version of Intra in 1998.
Over the next two decades, the company would evolve dramatically, taking on hundreds and eventually thousands of new customers, building even more complex operations. Yet, the mission remained the same at its core: listen to the customer and deliver what they need. And upon that edict, they perfected the Intra platform, adding new features and ways to track accountability in operations.
However, the company’s rise in the logistical space did not come without hardship. Mike vividly recalls four major economic cycles and the effects they had on the company. The earliest one revolved around the Y2K dilemma, while the most recent encompassed the global pandemic of 2020. Even though it is still fresh in our minds and the effects will likely continue for years to come, Mike recounts this specific cycle as perhaps the most challenging. Yet with each challenge, the company was able to respond appropriately, navigate the problem at hand, and continue to provide uninterrupted service to their clients.
Having survived these challenges, what comes next for SCLogic?
When asked what the next 25 years look like for the company, Mike immediately laughs, responding with “I’m pushing 60!” In turn, he would instead view the future in five-year buckets. For the first bucket, he hopes that Intra becomes the gold standard for the in-building logistics space. He envisions all of the buckets contain the essential core of the company: listening to clients.
Even in the future, the journey still centers around fulfilling the needs of our customers. Thoughts on how we can use customer feedback to perfect our platform and deliver better value on our software are brought up less as questions and more as targets, or perhaps even mantras.
In our final moments together, Mike reflected on the talent that made these past 25 years possible. Mike credits the team he has built, noting that “the brainpower here far exceeds the 65 people we have in the office.” Pursuing his passion and running SCLogic is made more accessible by the “people creating the environment of caring about our customers.” While his aspirations may have been singularly inspired, the accomplishments of SCLogic are credited to the collective team. You can genuinely tell that he is grateful for this journey and still so excited to see what comes next. Mike’s closing words sum up his sentiment about this stage of his professional life: “it’s a great place to work, and I like coming to work each day.”
Neither Mike nor SCLogic as a company are slowing down anytime soon.