Vincenzo Marino lavorava per un'azienda che utilizzava robot in una catena di montaggio dell'industria automobilistica. Lì, osservò gli operai seduti inattivi mentre lo stabilimento aspettava un pezzo cruciale che qualcuno si era dimenticato di ordinare. "Ogni volta che si commette un errore, l'azienda perde tempo e denaro", osserva Marino.
Nel 1989 Marino lascia l'azienda per unirsi a unitec">Unitec, un fornitore in outsourcing specializzato nella gestione della catena di fornitura e nella logistica.
The company has two offices in Europe, one in Augsburg, Germany, the other in Sabaudia, Italy. Marino, the CEO, was determined to improve the process. Marino says his goal was to offer his customers the ability to consolidate their buying and make Unitec their sole purchasing office. The outsourcing provider would help its buyers avoid costly purchasing errors, consolidate purchasing to save money and simplify billing. Marino started his outsourcing venture with the auto industry, because that's where his expertise lay. Now Unitec has added the printing, rubber and chemical industries to its client roster. Its typical customer has 10,000 or more suppliers. In 1995, to avoid the growing mountain of paper, Unitec began to use an enterprise resource planning (ERP) application for its procurement activities. Marino, who is also a programmer, wrote the ERP program himself. Unitec was paperless in 24 months. Going paperless eliminated the need to store old receipts or archive the information on microfilm, saving the customers money.