Acquisition will drive the convergence of 35 years of domain expertise in category management with world class AI and IOT technologies to disrupt how CPG brands and retailers conduct traditional retail
Chantilly, VA, Sept. 15, 2021 — Vision Group, a leading multinational conglomerate of technology companies specializing in retail, announced today the acquisition of SMSB Consulting Group, a U.S. based company with expertise on visual category management. Vision Group has integrated several companies that leverage cutting edge technologies to automate retail audits, connect dispersed retail assets and enable frictionless retail.
SMSB Consulting Group is a privately-owned company managed by its founding partner, Al Lozito for over 35 years. SMSB has an excellent track record of serving 100+ CPG and Retail customers with the highest level of customer service.
“I have been running SMSB since 1990,” said Alfred Lozito, founding partner of SMSB. “My primary goal has always been customer satisfaction and delivering a compelling value proposition for our clients. I’m particularly pleased with our employee retention rates as a majority of SMSB’s associates and leadership team have been with the company for over 20 years. As I approached retirement, I wanted to hand over my business to someone who would share the same goals and values as me. I feel fortunate to sell SMSB to Vision Group under the management of Karan Bakshi, who runs multiple innovative solution-based businesses in this area and has a proven track record of achieving superior results with a high level of customer focus.”
“SMSB acquisition adds an important strategic element to our current portfolio, as it reinforces our position as the world’s only technology provider covering digitization for all aspects of brick-and-mortar retail,” said Karan Bakshi, President of Vision Group. “SMSB was the missing piece of the puzzle to deliver on our promise of enabling the end-to-end transformation of traditional retail.”
“SMSB has been partnering with Vision Group over the past few years,” said Jason DeRienzo, CEO of SMSB. “It quickly became apparent that our companies shared very similar cultures and a strong focus on customer success. The ability to enhance our product offerings with AI and image recognition will bring new capabilities and game-changing solutions to the consumer goods industry. We understand it’s our job every day to make every aspect of our customer’s experience better. This union will help us achieve that goal, and we are genuinely excited about this acquisition. We are expecting great things to come.”
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About Vision Group (visiongroup.info)About Vision Group
Vision Group is a privately owned American multinational conglomerate holding company headquartered in Chantilly, Virginia, USA. All Vision Group companies are focused on digitizing brick and motor retail leveraging advanced artificial intelligence, augmented reality and IoT technologies. Vision Group operates in more than a dozen countries around the world. Maxerience (maxerience.com), Vision IoT (visioniot.com), and InstaGnG (instagng.com), are a part of Vision Group.
About SMSB
Founded in 1986, and based in Hauppauge, NY SMSB Consulting is a recognized g leader providing CPG industry leading solutions including: Digital Content, Category Management Services, Planogram Development, and Business Intelligence & Commerce Reporting. SMSB solutions assist both retailers and suppliers drive incremental sales by optimizing assortments and improving the overall shopping experiences through improved retail execution.