October 21, 2019
To our valued clients, colleagues and partners,
For the past 10 years, both Movista and Natural Insight (NI) have been working diligently to empower brick-and-mortar to thrive in an evolving retail landscape. As two mission-focused companies with similar values, advanced technology and dedicated teams, we’ve each achieved tremendous success as well as a rapidly growing client base.
Yet, as we embark on our next phase of growth, we recognize that Movista and Natural Insight are better together and joining forces will enable us to accelerate the delivery of innovative solutions that solve retail’s most complex business challenges. Therefore, after months of diligent consideration, Movista has acquired Natural Insight.
We are ecstatic about this deal and think both our client bases should be as well. We jointly commit to never allow any client to suffer feature degradation. This deal is all about “more”. The transaction will deliver you more technology, the broadest international coverage and strongest leadership team in our space. We could not be more excited about the potential of the merged teams to deliver simply the best client experience.
Stefan Midford, NI’s founder and CEO, will join Movista immediately as chief customer officer, ensuring that legacy clients for both companies have stability in their top-to-top relationships and adding depth and breadth to Movista’s C-suite. Aside from Stefan’s role change, both teams will remain intact and will continue business as usual. Over the next twelve months we will explore areas of opportunity to deliver more value, and certainly we will look for ways to drive operational efficiency.
This is an exciting and momentous day for both organizations, and we thank our teams tremendously for the hard work and relentless commitment to customer success that got us to this place. #letsgo
Why Merge the Two Companies?
Movista and Natural Insight are simply better together. While many of our offerings overlap, NI brings key differences to the table, specifically a strong international presence and an investment in ancillary technologies such as Capango. These set us up for differentiated opportunities to serve.
We also have closely aligned corporate cultures. Founded by retail veterans, both firms are insanely customer-centric and believe that creating products that connect all stakeholders within retail is essential. We have taken great care to ensure this merger of forces can be successful and additive.
What does this mean for existing customers of both companies?
For the time being, both companies are operating business as usual. Customers should only notice things getting more awesome. Current customers will benefit from ever-refined products and services, shaped by an expanded leadership team of seasoned experts overseeing the development of the software.
What does the Movista executive team look like going forward?
Stan Zylowski will remain CEO. Movista’s co-founder, April Seggebruch, will remain COO. Stefan Midford, CEO and founder of Natural Insight, joins Movista as chief customer officer. We are actively seeking a dynamite CFO and expect to make a hire by year-end.
Beyond the C-level we have an extraordinary VP layer to lead our initiatives. No changes are expected on this level for either team.
Where will the head office be located?
Our global headquarters reside in the historic Icehouse in Bentonville, Arkansas. With the addition of Natural Insight, we will also have offices in Virginia, Kansas, Michigan and London, UK.
What’s next?
We will continue our united mission to help global retail companies, consumer brands and service providers improve in-store experiences, grow sales and increase the ROI of their workforces. This means collapsing the walls that separate retailers from those who serve them and creating more opportunities for technical connectivity invisible to the end user and valuable to the customer experience.
You should expect to see more international capabilities, greater out-of-the-box features with ancillary technologies, rapid advancements in the analytics and reporting realm and more.
This has been an exciting journey, and we look forward to the next chapter of growth and innovation together. April, Stefan and I have recorded a podcast which goes far deeper than this letter ever could. When you have a moment, we hope you will listen.
Thank you for being a part of our journey and #letsgo.
Stan Zylowski
CEO & Co-Founder, Movista
Stefan Midford
Founder and CEO, Natural Insight and Chief Customer Officer, Movista
If you'd like to learn more about this merger, please read our press release.