July 9, 2013
Fresh from its corporate re-branding and the highly publicized purchase of electronics recycling startup ecoATM, Outerwall's CEO Scott Di Valerio is confident in the company's new direction.
During a recent interview with Motley Fool senior analyst Eric Bleeker, Di Valerio talked about Outerwall's long-term corporate strategy — one that leads the 22-year-old company away from its coin-counting roots.
You know, companies always evolve. About four years ago, we set a strategy around the automated retail space, and really focusing the company in that area.
The company had done a number of acquisitions over the four years — some which made good sense, like Redbox — some that were kind of outside of the automated retail space and stretched the company out where it wasn't really strong.
What we went about was a process of divesting those businesses and then really getting innovation energy around, an engine around, bringing new automated retail solutions to the marketplace; not just for what retailers are doing today, but we're really trying to look out five and 10 years as to, "Where are retailers going and how can we then help them in that regard?"
That's what we'll stay focused on. That's why we think the best is yet to come.
Read more about self-service retail.