About Us

S-One is considered a pass-through entity for U.S. tax purposes. As such, federal tax is not paid at the entity level. Earnings are reported to the owners and they are each taxed annually on their share of S-One’s taxable income.

S-One’s financial statements are audited annually at the U.S. consolidated level, as well as individual country audits in Spain, Singapore and the United Kingdom.

In the U.S., specifically as a result of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in South Dakota v. Wayfair, numerous states are implementing new or updated economic nexus rules requiring companies with no physical connection to the state to start collecting and remitting sales tax to that state. S-One’s sales tax team monitors this monthly to determine which of the selling business units has crossed the threshold. We’ve registered in each state where required and are able to set this up for any new states as sales thresholds are crossed, or as new rules are implemented by any given state.

S-One has been structured from the ground up as an acquisition platform. We have been content to reinvest tens of millions of dollars into the infrastructure and personnel at S-One as we watched and waited for the industry to consolidate and shift from a traditional distribution/dealer model to a direct to the end user model.

We have created an infrastructure that is optimized and scalable. S-One’s operational capabilities revolve around two areas: Information technology and supply chain. Within those disciplines, there are subcategories that include IT hardware and network administration, IT software, logistics and demand planning.

Information Technologies

IT: The mission of S-One IT is to be able to automate, integrate and scale virtually anything. This strategy begins with the infrastructure layer and extends through to the application layer.

Infrastructure: S-One uses top-of-the-line Cisco networking equipment for switch, route, wireless and firewall. The compute is all virtualized using VMware hypervisor on Nutanix hyperconverged servers. These Nutanix servers allow S-One to quickly scale as needed with very little systems administrator efforts. It also allows S-One to move operations to the warm site located in Wisconsin in the case of disaster recovery.

S-One has integrated more than 50 programs throughout the company in our global stack.

These programs include RingCentral (VoIP), nopCommerce (e-commerce and product management), HubSpot (Digital Marketing), Microsoft Dynamics (CRM), NetSuite (ERP), Titan (proprietary ordering system), Microsoft BI (Analytics) and DemandWorks (Demand Planning).

We are fully integrated with the United Parcel Service S-Plus shipping and warehouse system we are currently active in ten warehouses around the world (5 U.S., 1 CA, 1 UK, 1 NL, 1 DE, 1 AU, 1 SG). This integration makes S-One warehouse and shipping very scalable.

Amazon: S-One enjoys the best of both worlds and has integrated with Amazon on multiple platforms in four countries and two subsidiaries (U.S., IT, DE and UK through BMG and LexJet). At LexJet, products are sold by Amazon and fulfilled by LexJet. This is a typical commission relationship with Amazon. At BMG products are sold to and fulfilled by Amazon (Amazon stocks BMG products in their DCs in U.S., IT, DE and UK). This is not a typical relationship with Amazon as Amazon must want and sense a demand for branded products that it will purchase and market.

LexJet, BMG Americas and BMG United Kingdom have introduced an “Amazon Like” shopping experience on the internal websites. Our connections are fully integrated with supply chain, marketing and F&A resulting in another low-cost model.

The framework has been completed to add additional websites in additional countries using alternative currencies in as little as three weeks’ time depending on the amount of content S-One needs to populate. Today, S-One has completed development on an IT infrastructure capable of scaling to billions of dollars in revenue while adding minimal resources. The S-One IT team is in the process of building a data lake and data warehouse to maximize the use of 25 years worth of data S-One has collected. The data lake will be a central location in which all of S-One’s raw data from all 50 software programs in use are stored. The raw data will then be formatted and run through a master data management process to organize, define and manage the data into a single point of reference.

From here, the information moves to a data warehouse to be used for reporting, data analysis, machine learning and AI. With a continually increasing variety and volume of data in the S-One data bases, the data lake and data warehouse are critical to sales, marketing, supply chain and finance and accounting we are witnessing in every industry. This will be another first in our industry, allowing S-One to use and control big data.

Supply Chain

Logistics: The goal of S-One Supply Chain is to run the most efficient, best-in-class supply chain in the industry. S-One manages its supply chain through global agreements with UPS. UPS manages all warehousing and most outbound transportation for all divisions of S-One. Globally, we utilize the WMS of UPS’s S-Plus system, which is fully integrated into S-One’s ERP. Global integration allows S-One to easily track and roll-up all supply chain data by corporate, company, subsidiary and GL account.

This degree of integration allows S-One to manage a global supply chain moving over 140,000 orders per year, in and out of 11 warehouses to 84 countries around the world, with a team of only 12 people.

At S-One’s core, the global product team connects all departments and leads the company’s strategy and vision by bringing essential products to market that benefit manufacturers, customers and the industry at large.

Our diverse team, which is well versed in product differentiation across multiple business units, manages all aspects of product execution, including vendor relations, materials sourcing, costs, and pricing models, logistics, regulations, packaging, competitive research and marketing. We develop deep, long-term relationships with high-value materials suppliers and nurture the network of hardware and media sales teams to provide direct feedback from customers.

In essence, the product team identifies new markets and designs a product portfolio around current and new verticals (or sub-verticals) to then determine the best path to market. Our strong manufacturing knowledge allows us to create specifications and identify the proper partner to create a product based on what is needed in the industry, rather than simply accepting what a supplier is trying to sell. We work hand-in-hand with these manufacturers to customize solutions based on application or equipment capabilities.

Because we advocate for all sides of product development in the industry, we are a strong industry partner to OEM hardware teams, providing quick and important feedback when qualifying new products. Our ideas and input often find their way into hardware/printer development, for instance.

We possess excellent in-house product testing capabilities with access to equipment, tools and additional resources to streamline product introductions. Our product testing means include climate chambers, friction testing tools, durability testing tools, tensile/tear testing equipment, printer/ink engineers, FSC certification processes and ASTM test methods. The strong relationships we maintain with customers across the globe allow us to provide beta testing opportunities and feedback.

As we quickly and efficiently position new product introductions, we exceed the competition by translating product features into customer benefits. The product and marketing teams work side-by-side to optimize product launches and promotions by identifying the ideal customer persona, develop key messaging and set sales goals. We also provide after-sales support for a complete customer service experience.

Responsible for driving the successful execution of strategies that strengthen S-One’s competitive position in the market place, increase traffic to our sites, improve the customer journey and drive incremental revenue growth.

By combining the industry’s best marketing technologies, predictive data and innovative agency services we deliver greater impact and meet the needs of our subsidiaries, global brand partners and customers. We bring best-in-class creative including branding, digital marketing, physical marketing, content generation, web development and increased ecommerce penetration.

The S-One Marketing Team is a multi-disciplinary organization that establishes leads and grows our service offerings based around a simple mandate: Make S-One an indispensable partner to our vendors and customers through 4 focus areas: Digital Innovation, Content Marketing, Creative Services and Sales Development, specifically ecommerce.

Digital Innovation: Supports revenue goals by generating more qualified leads to pass on to the sales development team. This group focuses on many things, including web development, ux/ui design, full-funnel marketing programs, lead nurturing and analytics.

Content Marketing: An increasingly vital part of marketing as the buyer’s journey becomes more digitally oriented. This team creates compelling and educational content to help sales development during the sales cycle and provides materials for lead generation and nurturing.

Creative Services: Positions the S-One brands, products and services in a way that is unique within our industry. Supports sales and ecommerce through graphic design, video creation, collateral development and tradeshow execution.

Sales Development: Today’s customer experiences must align with business strategies — and the Marketing Team drives these programs across S-One. The best way to protect our brands and grow share is through a compelling customer interaction. Providing personalization to meet customers’ needs means more than having a cheaper product or service. To build that customer relationship and break through the noise, the Marketing Team uses data-driven insights and analysis to truly understand who is buying from us — what are their struggles, what are they looking for, what do they think about us, etc. — and then communicate with them in places where they are already talking, researching, or looking for new solutions.

The Marketing Team manages the inbound and outbound contacts, understanding customer needs, applying new technologies like AI and machine learning, and creating a cohesive customer experience across touchpoints. We work to have a 360-degree view of the customer, brand or product positioning, and be actively involved in all aspects of the business that impact the customer experience.

No matter if a customer is visiting our website or talking with a representative on the phone, they should have a consistent experience with every interaction they have with S-One. To make that happen, the Marketing Team crafts every touchpoint and how each company connects with customers. From identifying potential customers to analyzing post-purchase data, the team oversees, reviews the impact, and reports sales results and trends.

At the beginning of 2019, we created a new vision statement for S-One: Develop – Connect – Innovate. Those three simple words say so much about who we are as individuals, teams and companies. Each day we strive to develop strong relationships with team members, customers, partners and our communities; create strong connections between manufacturers, customers and the markets; and deliver innovation and opportunities that drive us forward individually and collectively.

That vision is the foundation on which we identify our six core values, which include selfless service, change, openness, customer first, respect and accountability. When we see team members living up to these values, we find ways to celebrate them, whether that is an internal portal post of thanks or quarterly MVP awards.

With vision and values comes a culture we’ve cultivated for the past 25 years in our three global offices and among our remote team members. We maintain open work spaces and a casual business environment to enable our teams to function to the best of their abilities. This has translated into a loyal workforce that defies current tenure trends.

For example, S-One employs more than a dozen Millennials who have worked with us for 10 years or more, which far outpaces the average American Millennial tenure of just four years. This is especially significant amongst our Sarasota headquarters team, where we employ one of the city’s highest numbers of 40-and-younger in a state known for its transient residents and more of a bent toward retirement opportunities than corporate ones. We provide the entry-level training needed to bring up these bright minds, and offer entrepreneurially spirited opportunities to inspire them to build their careers with us for years.

In recent years, we’ve embraced CliftonStrengths to help our teammates understand and optimize their top strengths while finding ideal working environments for each to thrive. Every new hire and our annual summer interns enroll in CliftonStrengths. We also create individual and team-by-team deep-dive studies to help engage each individual by learning to master their talents and strengths.

S-One University provides state-of-the-art, self-directed continued education, which the majority of employees participate with regularly, learning new skills or refining current ones with the very latest expertise available. We provide regular “drop everything and learn” sessions to ensure our teams are setting time aside to learn at S1U.

Our teams at each S-One location delve into community service, including hosting fundraising events, supporting marathons, cleaning roads, collecting for food banks, mentoring programs and many more. Our dedicated employee engagement team works to organize our participation in these events as well as coordinating regular internal celebrations for our teams.

These efforts have helped S-One to win multiple employment-related awards, including being named among the local, state-wide and national “Best Places to Work.”