Letter from the Desk of Robert A. Chiti, CEO
In 2003 we purchased a patent for a self-service system that rented self storage units and processed customer payments. We established OpenTech, working out of my garage to launch the full-service INSOMNIAC® kiosk. During our 20-year history we have expanded into call center services, security, and access control, online auctions, and remote management innovations all driven by discussions with self storage operators looking for solutions to business problems.
As we embark on our 20th year in business, I feel the self storage has become our home and the people in it our friends. We are grateful to all the industry veterans that have taken us under their wing. We would not be here without their support, guidance, and most of all friendship.
From day one we have relied on a few basic principles to operate our business:
Doing it Right — our founders had worked at companies in our past that did things that we felt were not right. We witnessed what happens when companies take short cuts, bend the truth, get greedy, probably the thing we see the most is business that care more about their business than their customer’s business. We feel by being committed to our customers’ success more than ours, we will make better decisions and ultimately be more successful ourselves. OpenTech is not a “get rich quick” plan and we like it that way. Our goal is to build a company we are proud of and one that attracts quality employees, partners, and customers. We decided that “Doing it Right” was a perfect guiding principal for our business.
Being Open — it is kind of ironic we started the business by purchasing a patent, which typically is used as a tool to lock others out of new technologies. We believe that owners and operators should be able to choose different solutions from vendors and have it all work together seamlessly, which is why we have always invested heavily to integrate with all the major facility management software platforms in our industry. We want our customers to have the freedom to choose the systems that they feel are the best fit for the business. Hopefully the industry sees that this is not a new idea for us, it is why “Open” is part of our company name.
Kaizen – we are continuously improving our people, processes, and solutions.
WWDWBW – We have developed a commitment culture at OpenTech, and you will often hear our team members say, “who will do what, and by when?”. Our commitment to you is that we will make and keep our commitments.
Going forward, we will continue to listen to our customers and partners to help us develop new innovative solutions to help self storage operators run their businesses. We are committed to be a company you can trust and want to do business with. We will also continue to make mistakes, we are human, but will we proactively admit when we do and work to resolve the issue immediately.
We thank you for your trust and partnership over the last 20 years and look forward to what’s to come. Thank you for taking the time to learn more about our company.
CEO
OpenTech Alliance, Inc.
Corporate Headquarters:
Suite 100
Phoenix, AZ 85029
