It would be an understatement to say that JCM Global has stood the test of time. Fact is, whereas many companies come and go, JCM Global goes on and on, this year celebrating the platinum 70th anniversary of its founding.
The most fascinating aspect of the relevancy and longevity of JCM Global is that, according to Dave Kubajak, Senior Vice President of Sales, Marketing, and Operations, “this could not have happened without the strength and support of many people over the last 70 years. The people of JCM are the magic behind this story.”
“JCM Global was started in 1955 by a handful of partners working together in an abandoned aircraft hangar in pursuit of a dream,” he continued. “The founders talked about a spirit of innovation that drove them to create the company and create new products. That spirit is alive and well today and drives everything JCM does.”
Statistics reveal that over 33,000 companies in Japan are 70-plus years old, but in the United States 36 percent of companies last ten years or less. Only 21 percent last up to 20 years and just 12 percent endure up to 26 years. It is estimated less than half of one percent make it to 70 years or more. Only forty-nine of the public companies founded in the US have made the 70-year club.
“The company started in the pre-electronics era doing repair on mechanical cash registers,” continued Kubajak, who started in the casino industry as a technician and has since garnered in his more than 30 years of experience in gaming thirty-one granted patents and more pending.
The time is post-World War II, the beginning of an era of prosperity for Japan. Kubajak’s keen perspective of history revealed to him JCM’s spirit of innovation, watching the world evolve around them and aggressively pursuing what is new, what is exciting, and they could become a part of it.
“The founders realized that they did not just have to service mechanical cash registers, they could manufacture them,” Kubajak said. “In the 1970’s they began making mechanical and electronic cash registers and vending machines.”
Kubajak’s pivotal role with JCM Global includes leading sales strategy, marketing, communications, manufacturing, quality, product development, engineering, and customer support for JCM.
In JCM’s position as a stakeholder of treasury departments worldwide, the company consults with them on new currency development. Kubajak also manages JCM’s strategic relationships with various central banks and federal regulatory and enforcement agencies worldwide.
It was JCM that introduced the idea of bill validators to the gaming industry. It worked with IGT to embed the first bill validator into a slot machine, technology that completely changed the industry.
Prior to bill validators, table games accounted for approximately 80 percent of casino revenue. Bill validators led the charge for slot machines to account for 80 percent of revenue, yet not at the expense of table games revenue. Bill validators were the driving force behind increasing overall revenues.
“JCM partnered with Steve Wynn at The Mirage in 1990 to introduce the first embedded bill acceptors to the gaming industry,” Kubajak said. “The numbers that were generated for the operator were massive. It changed the entire industry. By the mid-1990’s bill validators were in every slot machine that sold in the market. They were retrofitted into machines that were already in the market. It became standard for slot machines to have a JCM bill validator.”
Longtime employment with JCM is a badge of honor worn proudly by employees. Kubajak stated that, internationally at the Japan headquarters, the average employee tenure is estimated to be between 25 and 30 years.
“That is normal in Japanese culture,” he noted. “Many employees graduate from college or university, start with JCM, and work until retirement. Some senior leaders have been with the company for 40 to 45 years. Some employees are being recognized for 25 years with JCM here in the United States as well.”
Leadership that encourages positive culture and environment where everyone works as a team is the key Kubajak insists. The opportunity to constantly work on new projects and innovative technologies really makes a difference.
“Because we work with so many different cash handling and transaction management industries, be it the casino side, retail, point of sale, banking, ATM’s, kiosks,” he explained, “we always have a new project or new technology that we are introducing.
“Working on innovative technologies for a lot of industries requires us to file a lot of patents. There is much recognition for our various engineers, product managers, and other members of the team who are part of creating innovative technologies.”
At the dawn of the new millennium, JCM was one of four companies that designed and created the first Ticket-In-Ticket-Out specifications for thermal printers for the gaming industry in partnership with other companies, among them IGT and MGM.
Kubajak recalled JCM’s response to the problem of the infeasibility of using camera-based technology to read barcode tickets.
“JCM introduced the barcode reader inside of a bill acceptor which led to a change in the entire industry,” he said. “It came at the right time, in the right place, with the right innovation and technology.”
Kubajak takes pride in the JCM culture that welcomes ideas from every level of the company, saying “I think it makes a big difference to be open to communicate, open to listen, giving employees at all levels a conduit to get their ideas to the development and engineering teams to make it happen”.
He also takes considerable pride in JCM recognizing the contributions of its customers and acknowledging that the company “is here today because of their loyalty and because of the partnerships and connections with them.”
“Without their support, feedback, and ideas we would not be successful, and we certainly would not be here 70 years later,” he explained. “We know that they make a difference for us, and it is the partnerships between us and them that makes this company successful.
“We go out and visit our customers every day, every week, all year long in different markets. By engaging directly and understanding their challenges, we can respond with solutions from our current technologies. How we can adapt them, modify them, update them, or create something new to solve that challenge.”
Being unafraid to embrace change and innovation, JCM was the first company to introduce recycling technology into the vending market in the United States and global arena, and the first company to develop recycling technology for ATMs in Europe.
“Better-Faster-Smarter is a tag line that we have used for a long time, but it is absolutely true,” Kubajak emphasized. “We make changes and innovations to improve the customer’s experience, not only for them, but also for their end users, the players.
“That is what you are going to see coming. Things that work better, things that work faster, and things that are a lot smarter. The ability to connect directly to systems is going to be a big player in this space, to allow us to expand the capability of the technology that is already there in the hardware but needs a path to make it usable data for the casino operator.”
