"It takes a lot to make a decision on which cartridges to pursue," Avi said, who said new products from HP and Lexmark automatically demand attention from the company's R&D department. "Other factors that come into play are component and empty availabilities. If we cross all of those bridges and there is margin for MSE, margin for the dealer and savings for consumers, we will continue with its development."

In 2003, MSE was recognized by Inc. Magazine as one of America's Fastest Growing Privately Held Companies for the third consecutive year. MSE has approximately 400 employees, about four times as many as it had five years ago. During the past few years, MSE has also opened sales and distribution facilities across North America including in Pennsylvania, Canada and Mexico. MSE now owns and operates more than 115,000 square feet in North America and are planning additional expansion in Pennsylvania late 2004. "We plan on doubling our facility in Pennsylvania to provide better service to our East Coast customers," Avi said.

After years of analyzing the inkjet market, MSE made the strategic decision to start manufacturing MSE-branded, print-head-based inkjets. The company currently produces up to 50,000 inkjets a month, with the capacity to produce more than 150,000 a month. The fact that MSE only produces a fraction of the inkjet cartridges of which it is capable illustrates the company's commitment to quality over quantity. MSE manufactures 12 print-head-based inkjet models with several more in development. "Even though we recognize the growth potential in the inkjet market, we are committed to increasing consumer confidence in remanufactured inkjets," Avi said. "We want to be the best and it takes time to do it correctly. The approach was that we are not going to go into the inkjet business unless we were going to do it right, not necessarily to do it fast or big. We are purposely releasing our models slowly. We have spent the money to do it right from the beginning. The potential of compromised quality can become corporate suicide. If you revert back to what MSE is all about, it's our commitment to quality in all areas and aspects of the organization."

A Big Family Company

Even with so much change and growth in such a short period of time, the company still sees itself as a family-owned business run by two brothers. MSE's priorities have always been with their employees, customers and vendors in that order. "Employees are No. 1 on the list because if you have happy employees, you are going to have happy customers," Avi said. "Over the years, our company has grown so much but dealers can still contact both of us. We are in the office every day and remain hands-on operators. We encourage visits to our facilities for tours and we love to educate our customers on what we're doing. It is important that our customers understand why we are different."

Yoel added, "The family feeling is still here and nothing has changed except that we now have 3,200 customers in our extended family."

Strategic Decisions Pay Off

In 1999, MSE was a different company than it is today. The company model was more what Avi calls a "mainstream producer." The company manufactured a high volume of approximately 35 different cartridges, most of which were HP models. When the requests came pouring in for quality-driven niche products, Avi and Yoel came to a crossroads.