Hotel phones provide convenient, reliable guest voice communications inside the guest room. Whether your guest is celebrating the closing of the big deal, or ordering room service, room-to-room, local, domestic, and international calling is uniquely part of a positive  guest experience. Let us help you deliver a best-in-class guest room telephone experience. Click here to request a consultation.

Welcome to Life Series, which explores the life story of Cetis Founder & CEO, Dr. Bing N. Sun. Click on the chapter links below to follow this remarkable life story in sequence. Click here to submit your comments directly to Dr. Sun. Also, stay tuned for information and availability of expanded ebook and printed book versions of Dr. Sun's life story in the coming months. Click here to opt-in for updates.

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11| Chapter 12 | Chapter 13 | Chapter 14 | Chapter 15 | Chapter 16 | Chapter 17 | Chapter 18

Q: As we conclude our Life Series blog, can you share some of your personal insights about the hospitality industry?
A: Hospitality is a niche market that sets very high standards for suppliers. For a new product or technology to be adopted by hoteliers, it must help enhance guest satisfaction, positively impact occupancy rates, and increase management efficiencies. In our case, a guest who spends a couple of hundred dollar or more per night for a room expects to find a clean, reliable and easy-to-use room phone, regardless of what personal mobile device they may be carrying.
Q: What drives you?
A: Actually, in early 1990s when I first started the company, I used to tell my staff that my greatest hope was for each of them to drive a black Mercedes sedan, and I still feel that way. I've had great personal success, but have never forgotten how poverty feels, so my overarching desire is for my staff, and the people with whom I interact, to be financially successful. That's what makes me happy, and makes me feel that I am living my life meaningfully.
Q: What are your plans for the future, and does it include hospitality?
A: Yes it does. Based on my estimates of 10+ million hotel rooms globally where our phones have been installed, my goal is to develop a way to capture a minimum $1 per room revenue per night.
Q: That's interesting, because it's known among your management team that you often say Nothing is impossible!. Do you truly believe that statement as it relates to business?
A: Yes, I do, because I'm living proof that the American dream is still achievable to the extent that I've been able to overcome some very difficult life challenges, as well as business challenges over the past 23 years in the hospitality industry, and expect to do so in the future.
Q: Your life story is certainly different, but perhaps still somewhat reminiscent of The Pursuit of Happyness movie with Will Smith. Do you see a connection?
A: Yes, to some extent, and I did enjoy the movie and could certainly relate to Will Smith's ordeals. In fact, because I have received so many encouraging reader comments from the Life Series blog, and have many more details to share, I am expecting to authorize expanded ebook and printed book versions of my life story in the coming months. As Paul Harvey, the famous radio-era commentator, used to say, "Stay tuned for the rest of the story."!

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11| Chapter 12 | Chapter 13 | Chapter 14 | Chapter 15 | Chapter 16 | Chapter 17 | Chapter 18

Q: The acquisition of the global leader Teledex must have made you proud, and given you a great sense of achievement? 
A: No. Actually I was very upset, because the Teledex transition didn't work out as I had planned.
Q: What happened?
A: I was pretty much sidelined. When we closed on the acquisition, I had just been released from a hospital stay and was unable to  physically fly to San Jose, California to oversee the transition personally. Also, for quite a few months after the Teledex acquisition we suffered the worst financial crisis in our company history!
Q: But you had just received funding from your financial partner, so what was the problem?
A: Due to a contractural oversight, our financial partner informed us a couple of months after signing the funding papers that we were in default on the new loan.
Q: What did you do about it?
A: I couldn't change what had already happened, but moved to an apartment near our headquarters in Colorado Springs, and worked there non-stop for 5 month. Less than a year later in December 2010, we again became debt-free, while at the same time investing in the resources necessary to support Teledex customers worldwide.

Q: You mentioned in Chapter 15 that you acquired a Scitec competitor. How did that take place?
A: Our success as a startup had begun to impact the market significantly. Not so much at first, because we were initially selling directly to hotels, and did not yet have a distribution channel, or endorsements with major hotel franchise corporations.
Q: But that changed?
A: Yes, in June 1998 we shifted from direct sales to channel distribution, and over time began to be recognized as a viable supplier to the hotel industry. Maintenance Warehouse, now known as HD Supply, a major multi-billion dollar hotel supply company based in San Diego, California with distribution centers throughout the U.S., began to distribute our products that year. During that same period, we received our first major hotel brand endorsement from Choice Hotels International, and our sales continued to grow exponentially.
Q: But if things were going well, why did you shift to an acquisition strategy?
A: Actually, I've asked myself that same question, because at the time we were exceeding our sales goals every quarter, had no corporate debt, and our products were growing in acceptance in the industry. However, in 2005 when I discovered that TeleMatrix of Colorado Springs, Colorado, the #2 hotel phone supplier globally, might be for sale, I investigated the report and found it to be true.
Q: How did that work out?
A: We began meeting and negotiating with their executives, and in 2006 finalized our offer, which was accepted. The acquisition was financed by a bank, and we were able to retire the debt within 18 months! From 2006 to until 2009, when we acquired Teledex, we maintained Scitec and TeleMatrix as 2 legal entities, operated as Scitec, Inc. and TeleMatrix, Inc.
Q: You acquired Teledex?
A: Yes, at that time Teledex, LLC. of San Jose, California, was the global leader in hotel phones, and the inventor of the first hotel phone with pre-programmable guest service keys and a full-length instructional faceplate. We acquired Teledex in December 2009, merged it with TeleMatrix and Scitec, and formed a new Cetis, Inc. corporate entity in 2010 to assimilate the 3 hotel phone brands.

Q: Staff turnover can be a challenge at any growth stage, but it certainly didn't seem to hinder your progress.
A: No, it didn't. In fact, in the summer of 2003 we were awarded a manufacturing contract from a multi-billion dollar Fortune 500 telecom company. Our revenues grew exponentially, and I was again reminded that there was a bright future ahead.
Q: How did the contract requirements impact you personally?
A: From a personal standpoint, I decided to move from Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, a university community, to the greater Los Angeles area to position myself to help manage the contract, but to also pursue additional new business  opportunities.
Q: As a hands-on CEO, how did you adjust to working remotely?
A: Operating remotely had its challenges, but in Southern California I was positioned to engage more industry leaders, and it also helped facilitate my business travel via LAX. I remained active and hands-on, however, my focus changed from day-to-day tactical decision-making, to strategic planning, and relationship-building.
Q: You were now managing yet another transition?
A: Yes. But although we had successfully navigated the transition from a small startup to an established business, the Fortune 500 contract and my move to LA helped me realize that I was still thinking too small. I began to look for alternative growth patterns that were not limited to increasing hotel phone sales, but toward sustaining exponential growth.

Q: It's been said that relationships make or break the success of leaders. In fact, business relationships can be the proverbial elephant-in-the-room for rapid-growth startups that many leaders don't talk about.
A: Certainly, in our early days we did experience some staff turnover. People left for a variety of reasons, perhaps partially due to sales growth expectations and limited resources, but realistically, staff turnover can occur at any growth stage. Over the years, I've sought to maintain an open-door policy with staff, customers, and partners, which helps serve to anticipate and resolve change or conflict. 
Q: But success can also usher in new challenges. As you continued to gain market share, did competitors begin to recruit your salespeople?
A: Yes, because we had a well-trained, and effective sales team, some members were recruited by our competitors and left. I remember an occasion in our early years when one of our top salesmen submitted his resignation on a Friday. During a 3-hour meeting on Sunday, he told me that he was leaving to join a humanitarian organization, but on Monday morning I discovered that he was already employed by one of our competitors.
Q: How did you react?
A: I was so angry at the time that I vowed to myself to find a way to acquire the competitor that hired him, and then fire him!
Q: Did that ever happen?
A: Yes. And no. I did acquire the competitor a few years later, but chose to retain him as a trusted member of our new sales team.
Q: How did that work out?
A: Actually, several years later he left again to join another competitor, however, today, many of our other original sales, marketing, and support team members are still with the company serving in management roles.

Q: Throughout your life it seems as if you've been on an urgent mission. You enrolled in college when you were still a teenager, earned your Ph.D. at 24, and it appears have carried this same sense of urgency into the development of your business.
A: During my undergraduate and graduate school years, I wanted to hurry up and complete my studies and begin scientific work in my field, and I did carry that same expectancy into business.
Q: People say that you are a very patient man, but that you have an urgency to get things done.
A: My drive to succeed is born out of a childhood decision to study hard to be the best, not only so I could succeed in life, but also avoid the challenges that I faced growing up in poverty.
Q: What is the meaning of the term Scitec Speed?
A: Scitec Speed was a term that we coined to help communicate a sense of urgency to get things done at a high rate of speed. Early one morning in the 1990s, I was sitting in my office at the then Scitec headquarters at University Avenue in Urbana, Illinois, and realized that by 6:30 a.m. I had already replied to all my emails, returned all my voice mails from different regions around the world, drank 2 cups of coffee, and read several news articles! Suddenly the term Scitec Speed came into my mind, so I immediately sent an email on effectiveness and efficiency to the entire staff. We were the new hotel phone manufacturer in the market, had limited resources, and needed to compete for and win every hotel phone sales opportunity.
Q: Looking back, it's remarkable how you were able to quickly accomplish so much with so little as a startup business venture.
A: To me, my early success is an example of the American dream. As Americans, each of us with a drive to excel and a willingness to work, are able to see our dreams come to life.

Q: So 46 credit cards later, you had established Scitec as a viable hotel phone manufacturer, but didn't you encounter yet another challenge during that period?
A: Yes. In 1997, Teledex, LLC., the largest provider of hotel phones globally, filed a federal lawsuit against my company, claiming that our new Aegis Series products infringed upon their established phone designs. We had awakened a sleeping lion. 
Q: Awakend a lion?
A: Yes, because of our early success, it seemed as if all the resources of the then industry leader had been raised up against us.
Q: For a new business funded with 46 personal credit cards, it must have been a big financial burden to defend yourself in a U.S. Federal court.
A: Yes! I was forced to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees, airfares, and hotel expenses to travel back and forth from Champaign, Illinois to San Jose, California to defend our position in court.
Q: What was the outcome?
A: After spending 6 months in court and away from running my start-up company, I couldn't afford spending more money and time defending myself. Finally, I decided to settle the case.
Q: So you settled the case in court, but how did you fare in the hospitality marketplace.
A: Because hoteliers embraced our new products, sales continued to grow exponentially, and we were able to survive the challenge.
Q: What did you learn from this experience?
A: I learned the value of perseverance and thinking positive. Also, being sued by the largest player in our industry dramatically increased my self-confidence. It proved that I was doing something right and successful! And 11 years later, we successfully acquired the assets of Teledex, LLC. Today we manufacture, market, and support Teledex brand hotel phones globally.