Sinohe Terrero still remembers the timing. He joined Envoy in January, only to see the workplace transformed just two months later as offices around the world shut down because of COVID. The company had been building products for offices, but suddenly, almost no one was going to the office, Terrero tells us.
That abrupt shift forced Envoy to rethink its future. The company quickly introduced a product called Protect to help organizations safely welcome employees and visitors back into their facilities. From there, it expanded into desk management, room scheduling, deliveries, analytics, and ultimately a broader suite of workplace security solutions.
Today, that evolution has reshaped the business. Envoy now helps organizations across industries such as aerospace, defense, biopharma, and manufacturing secure their physical workplaces. Emergency notifications, visitor management, identity verification, and real-time visibility into who is inside a facility have become central capabilities, Terrero tells us.
Looking back, Terrero sees a different challenge driving the company’s growth. During the pandemic and the inflationary period that followed, organizations struggled to determine whether they would operate remotely, in hybrid environments, or fully in person. Now that most companies have settled on their workplace strategies, the demand for operational data has increased significantly, he tells us.
That demand extends beyond simply managing office attendance. Organizations want software that can verify identities, monitor facility access, manage security risks, and provide real-time information rather than relying on manual logs or random sampling. For Terrero, Envoy’s journey reflects how quickly a company can evolve when changing customer needs require an entirely new way of thinking about the workplace.
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CFOTL: Tell us about Envoy. What is this company about today? What’s happening there?
Terrero: We’ve gone through quite an evolution over the last six years. When I joined Envoy, we were primarily known for our visitor management product. If you’ve ever signed into an office using an iPad, you’ve probably used our software. Then COVID happened. I joined in January, and by March we were sheltering in place. We suddenly found ourselves building products for offices when nobody was going into offices.
We had to pivot quickly. We introduced a product called Protect to help companies safely bring employees and visitors back into the workplace. We built desk management because organizations needed to manage spacing and hybrid work. We’ve always offered room scheduling and delivery management, and analytics became increasingly important.
Today, we’re really more of a security company. We help some of the world’s largest organizations secure their physical spaces across industries like aerospace, defense, biopharma, and manufacturing. Our customers need to manage risk, prevent theft, verify identities, comply with regulations such as ITAR, and understand exactly who is entering their facilities.
Our latest products focus on emergency notifications, tightly integrated with our broader platform. If there’s an emergency, we can take over digital displays, notify visitors and employees, and immediately identify everyone who is physically in the building. That’s critical information when every minute matters. Our visitor product is still the market leader, but today it’s part of a much broader workplace security suite.
CFOTL: Can you help us understand what is driving the growth of this business today?
Terrero: It’s really a combination of factors. I’ve been here six years, and for the first four we were navigating circumstances completely outside our control—first the pandemic, then inflation, which I like to call COVID’s ugly cousin. Companies didn’t know whether they’d be fully remote, hybrid, or back in the office full time. We were steering the business through an enormous amount of uncertainty.
Today, that uncertainty has largely disappeared. Most organizations have decided how they’re going to operate, and that has created a much greater need for data. Before COVID, companies could reasonably estimate how many people would be in the office on any given day. Today, that’s no longer possible. Organizations need real-time information to manage their workplaces effectively.
They’re also recognizing that software is the right way to solve these problems. No one wants to rely on pen-and-paper visitor logs anymore. Companies need to verify identities, maintain watchlists, manage security risks, and know exactly who’s entering their facilities. Whether it’s protecting against disgruntled former employees or meeting regulatory requirements, those capabilities have become essential.
The same is true in industries like manufacturing and freight, where companies now have far better visibility into inventory, theft, and operational losses. Instead of relying on estimates or random sampling, they have access to real-time information—and that requires knowing exactly who has been in their facilities.
Envoy | www.envoy.com | San Francisco, CA