Multichannel Retailer USI Inc. Chooses Manage Metrix – Co-Developed By Taurus Software and F. Curtis Barry & Company – For Proactive Business Performance Management

Redwood City, CA. and Richmond, VA; June 24, 2010 –  Taurus Software and F. Curtis Barry & Company, announced back on February 22, 2010 that USI Inc., a leading supplier of lamination equipment and office accessories, has selected to implement the Manage Metrix solution. As an Ecometry client, USI is excited about the combination of Taurus’ leadership in data warehousing, analytics and business intelligence and F. Curtis Barry & Company’s knowledge of the multichannel industry, benchmarking and best business practices coming together in a unique business intelligence and performance management solution. USI and the Manage Metrix co-developers will be working on streamlining business efficiencies in the Inventory department, where USI’s goals are to balance inventory, reduce backorders, and maximize customer satisfaction.

USI chose Manage Metrix because of several factors, including the dynamic Taurus/FCBCO partnership, the solution’s valuable functionality, and the long-standing relationship that USI and Taurus have enjoyed throughout the years of Taurus developing specialized solutions for Ecometry customers.

“Over the years, we have been working with multiple Taurus Software solutions,” states Peter Frega, Director of Operations at USI.  “We have been completely satisfied with their valuable products, ease of use, and superb functionality.  Even still, we are more excited about implementing Manage Metrix since we have never seen anything quite like this.”

USI will be monitoring their inventory pulse using the Manage Metrix Inventory Analytics through the corporate dashboard, which yield insight on how to free up dollars in unproductive inventory, minimize backorder occurrences, processing costs and lost customers, balance rate of sales and purchases for active inventory, and automatically identifying the most productive and valuable tasks.  In addition, the consultants at F. Curtis Barry & Company will be working closely with USI to establish best business practices and interpret the key performance indicators (KPIs). The KPIs illustrate what areas in inventory are excelling and proactively alert executives and managers to possible areas of concern.

“Managing inventory is so important because it’s one of the largest assets we have,” says Peter Frega. “Inventory impacts our other departments as well as our customers, and managing inventory is a challenge since inventory levels change hourly. We used to spend 80% of our time generating reports, and 20% of our time strategizing. With Manage Metrix, we expect to spend 20% of our time generating reports, and 80% of our time strategizing.”

Manage Metrix also has two additional modules, Merchandising and Marketing; which are ready for beta testing.

If you are interested in learning more about how you could use Manage Metrix in your business, or would like a detailed demo to see how Manage Metrix works – please contact Jeff Barry at jbarry@fcbco.com or call 804-264-8040.

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In a recent phone conversation with Tyce McIntosh, President of Natural Solutions, a multichannel order management system provider, we had a chance to discuss and focus in on a number of accomplishments they had in 2009.

From a Natural Solutions’ viewpoint they have viewed the economic time that we experienced in 2009 as an opportunity to do general housekeeping within their application for enhancements that may not necessarily generate new business but make the application better for their customers. Tyce sited the following examples of some of the initiatives they completed in order to enhance the Natural Order application:

• Updated the user and technical document
• Modifications to the daily procedures to improve the throughput
• Performance tuning
• Internal staff training
• Customer visits to review operational procedures
• Taking on new vendor alliances that don’t necessarily have end user contracts.

Tyce also sited that this economic slow down allowed for some of their customers to take on new projects that, under normal busy times, they would not have had the time nor staff to engage in. One customer Tyce sited is Dinn Brothers Trophy, that with the economic slow down it allowed them to be able to devote the time and personnel to the implementation project. He stated that in busier times the resources would not have been as easily accessible. This allowed the implementation of Natural Order at Dinn Brothers to be completed within the time frame that they had established.

Additionally, Tyce said their existing customers look for alternate methods of generating new business; an example of this is Natural Solution’s new partner Taurus Software. Taurus’s business intelligence tool, Manage Metrix, will allow Tyce’s customers to better understand their business metrics and improve upon them.

I asked Tyce what some of the enhancements to Natural Order are planned for 2010.  Tyce was kind enough to share the following examples:

• Completion of the Credit Card Compliancy to the latest standards
• Expanded personalization module
• Expanded continuity module
• New vendor interfaces
  • Taurus Software, Manage Metrix, data integration project
  • Mid size ecommerce supplier
  • Expansion on Midco’s interface

In a time when our economy was severely down, positive things can still emerge!

Paul Sobota is vice president of F. Curtis Barry & Company, a multichannel operations and fulfillment consulting firm with expertise in multichannel systems, warehouse, call center, inventory, and benchmarking; Learn more online at: http://www.fcbco.com

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The inventory module and merchandising module are now ready for implementation and we are really excited.  The marketing module is being developed based on feedback and guidance from the industries best multi channel businesses and industry experts.  When complete we will have modules for inventory, merchandising, marketing, call center, fulfillment and finance – covering all sales channels including catalog, ecommerce, retail, wholesale, outbound telemarketing and more.

Check out our press release below and don’t hesitate to reach out to us to learn more about this unique product and or to learn more about Taurus Software and their capabilities.

Click below to read the Press Release for Manage Metrix

Manage Metrix: Inventory & Merchandising Modules Announcement

July 27th, 2009

NEW PRODUCT RELEASE

Executives gain actionable business intelligence with new Manage Metrix Inventory and Merchandising Modules from Taurus Software

Redwood City, Calif. – Multichannel executives and managers now have the business intelligence solution they need to identify business issues that impact the performance of their Inventory and Merchandising departments – and take action quickly and effectively. Taurus Software and F. Curtis Barry & Company announce the completion and availability of the Inventory and Merchandising modules of Manage Metrix - a robust business performance management solution. The anticipated modules allow executives to increase efficiency, decrease costs, and maximize profitability in the area that represents a company’s largest asset.

Manage Metrix: Inventory Module

Company leaders cannot improve that which they don’t measure. Through an executive dashboard of key performance indicators (kpis), Manage Metrix Inventory gives companies the ability to analyze inventory aging, inventory turns, fill rates, carrying costs, backorders, and GMROI (gross margin return on investment) in-detail. By measuring these metrics, companies can take actionable next steps such as reducing the number and cost of backorders and carrying the least amount of inventory possible while still satisfying demand. Manage Metrix allows inventory carrying costs and warehouse space reserved for excessive inventory to be reduced by providing the tools to support a liquidation strategy for active items that are not selling – as well as old, inactive and unprofitable inventory. In addition, executives and managers recognize when items can be returned to vendor, reducing money spent on unnecessary inventory.

Manage Metrix also provides industry best practices built by multichannel industry experts F. Curtis Barry & Company, enabling companies to monitor performance against goals and maximize efficiency over the long-term. The goal of the Inventory module revolves around optimal performance management: to help companies properly balance inventory levels while meeting customer service objectives and the financial plan – and giving them the tools to stay successful in the future.

Manage Metrix: Merchandising Module

Picking winners, replacing under-performing items, and building the brand from the product mix perspective – executing these crucial tasks effectively can be a demanding challenge for any Merchandising department. These tasks are complex because of obstacles which are present, including having data in different places, not knowing what the true profitability of an item is, and difficulty understanding which products are demand winners and which are profitability winners. The Manage Metrix Merchandising module gathers disparate data into a centralized environment, providing a single source of truth and highlighting problem areas. The Merchandising module analyzes each product’s net contribution to profit and allows you to view the net contribution by various attributes such as new vs. repeat, drop-ship vs. stock, etc. This module also enables executives to understand how item categories are contributing to profitability. In addition, users can analyze performance by buyer, by channel, and by stores and regions.

With a third or less of the products making money, a third or more breaking even and a third or more losing money – Manage Metrix helps executives and managers identify their best products, determine pricing for a liquidation strategy for certain items, and understand optimal price ranges for their products. In an evolving multichannel environment, Manage Metrix Merchandising provides executives with effective strategies and the business performance management that will help them make the right moves at the right time with their product mix.

Built by multichannel experts Taurus Software and F. Curtis Barry & Company, Manage Metrix Inventory and Manage Metrix Merchandising are two modules of the Manage Metrix business performance management solution. These modules are currently available for purchase. For more information, please contact Taurus Software: call 650.482.2022 x1 or email sales@taurus.com.

About Taurus Software

At Taurus Software, making data liquid means helping turn data into business intelligence, smart decisions, and competitive advantages – the lifeblood of your company. Taurus products include a variety of applications developed to help clients get more from their data by allowing them to Move, Map, Measure, and Manage data regardless of where it resides within business systems. Taurus is a member of the HP e3000 Transition Partners Program and has technology partnerships with Direct Tech, Quest Software, F. Curtis Barry & Company, Lund Performance Solutions, Managed Business Solutions, Escalate Retail, Orbit Software, Pathway Pacific, DST Health Solutions, and Acumium. To learn more about Taurus Software or products designed for other data platforms and applications, call 650-482-2022, ext. 1 or visit www.taurus.com.

About F. Curtis Barry & Company

F. Curtis Barry & Company is a consultancy specializing in multichannel operations and fulfillment for catalog, e-commerce, and retail businesses. F. Curtis Barry & Company offer clients expertise in direct commerce systems (order management, warehouse management, and inventory management systems); warehousing and distribution; call center; inventory management and forecasting; and strategic, financial, and operational planning for all business channels. To learn more about F. Curtis Barry & Company, visit our web site at www.fcbco.com.

For more information

Zaki Hussain, Taurus Software Media Contact

Phone: 650-482-2022, ext. 407 Fax: 650-482-2010

zaki@taurus.com

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Best-in-Class Performance

Aberdeen used three key performance criteria to distinguish Best-in-Class companies.  That performance relative to their peers was as follows:

• A 24% average year-over-year increase in operating profit, compared with a 3% increase for the Industry Average and a 27% decrease for Laggards
• An 8.3% average year-over-year improvement in customer service, compared with a 2.3% improvement for the Industry Average and a 1.0% increase for Laggards
• An 8.4% average year-over-year improvement in sales performance, compared with a 2.3% improvement for the Industry Average and a 0.6% decline for Laggards.

Competitive Maturity Assessment

Survey results show that the firms enjoying Best-in-Class performance are:

• 2.8-times more likely than Laggards to have clearly defined business unit performance metrics
• 1.7-times more likely than the Industry Average to have a process for prioritizing data for user access
• 60% more likely than all other companies to leverage performance reporting dashboards

Required Actions

In addition to the specific recommendations in Chapter Three if this report, to achieve Best-in-Class performance, companies must:

• Create a training program to educate end-users on dashboards
• Develop the ability to track the utilization of dashboard tools
• Examine the use of outward-facing customer dashboards

The key to unlocking double digit profit to us is the missing piece from the study and one of the most critical in order for companies to recognize the benefits listed above.  So what’s missing – it’s what to do with the all the data, metrics and results.  Corporate dashboards, KPI’s and BI tools can tell you so much about your business, but if you don’t know what to do with the data or how to develop a strategy to improve the business, then you can never benefit from the investment.

The difficulty is that many of these software vendors are very good at developing best in class software but traditionally fall short in being able to assist companies with how to analyze the results, understand what the numbers are saying, and in assisting you with what to do next.

This is a significant reason why we decided to partner with Taurus Software – it’s about bringing together not only best in class dashboard, KPI’s and business intelligence but also to deliver world class consulting to assist you with not only how to utilize the application but what to do with the results.  This unique approach we feel will benefit each implementation and allow companies to maximize the investment and realize all the benefits.

We encourage you to register and read the full Aberdeen Study http://www.aberdeen.com

Brian Barry is a Senior Consultant with F. Curtis Barry & Company, a multichannel operations and fulfillment consulting firm with expertise in multichannel systems, warehouse, call center, inventory, and benchmarking; Learn more online at: http://www.fcbco.com.

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• Analyzing Your Company’s Marketing ROI – 5 Problems Revealed (0)

1.       We found a sheer number of companies that do not accurately use source codes and offers in a consistent and disciplined manner for all electronic media types including banner ads, natural search, paid search, shopping comparison sites etc.  Without this, a meaningful ROI cannot be performed.

2.       Companies did not accurately measure the true cost of the marketing initiatives by media type and since most didn’t use unique source codes they weren’t able to measure which media type and source code out performed others.

3.       Marketing initiatives often compared gross margin earned to the marketing expenses, but very few allocated the cost of acquiring and processing those transactions to truly look at the net contribution to profit.  One example of this is the percentages paid to affiliate marketing initiatives and not taking in to account the operation or general and administrative expenses to understand at what point an initiative is not profitable.

4.       Most companies did not set goals for determining how individual media types should be measured to determine which was a success and which were failures.  The stronger companies set goals for gross dollars generated per marketing dollar spent and aimed for at least a 3.5 to 1 for instance.  If this type of goal wasn’t met the initiative was cut and the dollars were funneled towards other tests or successful initiatives.

5.       Companies did not often accurately analyze what initiatives drove new customer acquisition versus customer loyalty and retention.  We found that numerous companies could not truly say what initiatives drove these customers, and whether or not these new customers would become long term profitable customers based on the source of the transaction.

Can you relate to any of the five problems above – are they still problems for your company?  In order to accurately measure the effectiveness and ROI of your marketing initiatives, both printed and electronic, it is imperative that you develop a well disciplined, consistent approach to setting up and measuring your company’s marketing initiatives.

If you are in need of revamping your marketing strategies and understanding how to be more efficient and profitable with your marketing spend, then call us and let us give you a hand.  We would be pleased to assist you with this process.

Brian Barry is a Senior Consultant with F. Curtis Barry & Company, a multichannel operations and fulfillment consulting firm with expertise in multichannel systems, warehouse, call center, inventory, and benchmarking; Learn more online at: http://www.fcbco.com.

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1.        Agree to a single version of the truth.  Executives should convey the strategies and objectives to top level managers and then agree on what will be measured and how it will be measured.  Agree to this and agree to the exact data and calculations so that once implemented, there is a single version of the truth that everyone is working from.

2.       Start with the areas that provide the low hanging fruit.  By starting in a single area of the business you can develop an application that will provide a high ROI without spending years developing an application without recognizing any of the benefits.

3.       The application must be user friendly.  This seems overly obvious, but you must remember that executives are typically not user of the various transactional systems – you need to bring them back in to the fold with regards to the data.  Develop quick snapshots and visual representations for the KPI’s and measurements so that executives can quickly see the status or health of the business.  Develop drill down capabilities and pivot tables for managers so that they can learn even more when things go awry.

4.       Develop KPI alerts and notifications for when problems arise.  Stronger applications allow for highlighting or spotlighting problems in the KPI’s and pivot tables, as well as notifications via emails etc. that can be sent to assigned people or a group of people.

5.       For each of the metrics and KPI’s be sure that you can set a goal or a standard so the actual performance can be measured against these.  For instance, if you are not achieving your inventory turns goal you would be notified of the problems.  In the warehouse if your total throughput falls below a user defined variance you would be alerted to a potential problem.  By measuring actual against goals and standards your company will know where to improve processes.

6.       Be sure to include your plans.  You have plans in multiple systems, maybe your order management system, inventory systems, spreadsheets etc.  And you have them for multiple areas – inventory plans, merchandising plans, sales plans, and financial plans.  Be sure to bring all of these in to the application so that you can measure plan to actual.  The same is true with budgets – all of this will make the financial analysis of your business intelligence application more intuitive as well as the other areas.

7.       Agree on the source data.  Critical pieces of data can be found in numerous systems and in multiples places within the same system.  For example, the retail price for an item and its gross sales can often be found multiples times in multiple locations within most order management systems.  Once you have agreed on what will be measured and how it will be calculated, agree to which source application is best to multiple the required data from.

8.       Develop personal pages.  Instead of forcing executives and users to wade through dozens of screens or modules to see the full health of the business, allow them to pick and choose what metrics are important to them and create a personal page with those metrics on them.  For instance, a vice president who overseas both the call center and fulfillment center may only want to see 3-4 metrics from each area at a high level, allow them to create their own page and change it as necessary.  They should still have access to the full blown application with drill down capabilities if they want to know more.

9.       Include all functional areas of the business.  The long term goal should be to develop an application that supports all areas of the business, from merchandising to finance and from the call center to the warehouse.  All areas can benefit from a business intelligence application and KPI measurement.   In doing this, all levels of management will be able to see the overall health of the business and all are on board with the goals and objectives of the management team.

10.    Begin today, these types of applications can have a huge ROI if done right but they do take resources, time and capital to complete.  The longer you wait the longer it could be before you realize what secrets are locked in your data.

Brian Barry is a Senior Consultant with F. Curtis Barry & Company, a multichannel operations and fulfillment consulting firm with expertise in multichannel systems, warehouse, call center, inventory, and benchmarking; Learn more online at: http://www.fcbco.com.

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This company is now working to develop a strategic merchandise plan to improve the average price points over time.  Something that cannot be done overnight or you will alienate the existing customer base.  In addition they have opted to avoid taking backorders on low dollar and low margin products to avoid the additional costs.  You could also decide if the items are essential to customer service to order larger quantities.

It is extremely important for companies to analyze merchandising results, taking in to account not only whether or not an item covered the marketing expense, but also the cost to take and process orders and the general and administrative expenses.  By doing this you essentially create a P&L at the item level as well as the sub-category and category level.  This allows you to truly understand what your best sellers are and whether or not they are delivering positive dollars to the bottom line.  Use this same model of analyzing profitability and sort the products by price ranges and I am sure you will find some interesting trends.  Review this on a regular basis and make changes accordingly.

Need help reviewing your inventory strategy, if so we offer inventory assessments for typically $6,500 – designed to be performed quickly with a high ROI and actionable recommendations – click here to learn more.

Brian Barry is a Senior Consultant with F. Curtis Barry & Company, a multichannel operations and fulfillment consulting firm with expertise in multichannel systems, warehouse, call center, inventory, and benchmarking; Learn more online at: http://www.fcbco.com.

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This is a classic example of where most small to mid-size companies are from an inventory management perspective and using KPI’s.  In the above case, by choosing to focus in on inventory as it hits 20 weeks on the average and older you are really aiming to only do 2.6 turns annually.  Take 52 weeks in a year and divide it by the age in weeks that you deem “aged”, in this case 20 weeks and you get 2.6 turns annually.

In order for this client to be hitting 4 turns annually, they need to be concerned with inventory as it hits 11-13 weeks in age and develop a strategy to move the inventory to achieve their goals.  It is important for companies to develop the long term strategies followed up by the actions or tactics to achieve those goals.  It is also important to understand the goals, agree to how they will be measured and report on them regularly.

Need help reviewing your inventory strategy, if so we offer inventory assessments for typically $6,500 – designed to be performed quickly with a high ROI and actionable recommendations – click here to learn more.

Brian Barry is a Senior Consultant with F. Curtis Barry & Company, a multichannel operations and fulfillment consulting firm with expertise in multichannel systems, warehouse, call center, inventory, and benchmarking; Learn more online at: http://www.fcbco.com.

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Yet no one vendor in the marketplace today can provide more than two of the best-of-breed components needed. Even most ERP systems available to direct marketers don’t provide specialized direct, retail or warehouse management functions that are as good as best-of-breed.

Such systems have given companies access to the best system functionally for end users. But even when they are integrated with one another, you still have numerous – and differing – occurrences of key data and metrics.

The result of all these silos of information is that no one system provides more than 30% of the data needed by senior management; for larger companies it may be only 10% to 15%.

Top managers have to request that department heads pull data with spreadsheets, use access databases, or ask business analysts to come up with reporting. These manual efforts mean management’s reporting depends on delay-riddled, error-prone processes.

What’s more, valuable productivity and service data exist in systems to which management may not have access or of which they may not be end users, such as telephone switches (ACDs) and e-commerce analytic systems. And with database structures and languages that can span 25 years of systems development, data often doesn’t reconcile from one information system to another.

Simply put, these systems and data flows can’t deliver the single version of the truth you need. Management faces the question: On which version of the data should we base our decisions?

Dashboards, metrics, alerts

Business intelligence (BI) solutions with dashboards and executive analytics can, potentially, solve this problem. By creating standardized and normalized databases that sit on top of your best-of-breed systems across the enterprise, those databases open up huge possibilities for management to sharpen critical decision-making.

You must also select a single, common version of data that is available in each best-of-breed system. Executives will, ideally, be able to select key metrics that can then be set up on a desktop, laptop or PDA for real-time monitoring of areas for which they are accountable.

In fulfillment, this may include orders shipped, orders carried over, productivity by department, or labor costs. Merchandising may want to see performance against the sales plan, top-50 selling products, products that are running low on inventory, or slow sellers that are potential candidates for liquidation. And marketing is likely to want all the current promotions and their sales and percent completion to plan, results from e-commerce analytics, and so on.

More than simply extracting data, such solutions allow management at various levels to set up actionable key performance indicator (KPI) alerts that proactively notify the executive when “dials” indicate a variance from an acceptable range or, conversely, extremely high performance.

Another feature of such BI systems is the ability for executives to drill down into the details that are the basis for their dashboard dials and alerts. So for an inventory control manager who has a dial for excess aged inventory, the drill-down would show all the key item-level inventory statistics for slow selling products with excess inventory.

Think for a minute: What data do you want to gain access to across your business? What information do you need, as a member of senior management, to run the business?

The key results and metrics a company president may want to be able to view regularly on a personal dashboard would include demand to net sales; call center, fulfillment, marketing, inventory and finance. Much of this is not found in any single information system. A number of the analyses and KPIs are created by including data mixed and matched between information systems.

The personal dashboard shown on page 54 represents a drill-down into each of the six core areas. The chart “Source data across the enterprise,” shown above, shows the best-of-breed system, independent system or spreadsheet from which the source data is drawn and in which the drill-down occurs.

One of the key benefits is that management can align the analysis and reporting with their short- and long-term strategy. It’s not just about reporting, but about achieving improved performance management and profitability of your business.

Many views, one set of data

Whether you are analyzing inventory levels or fill rates, demand or sales, the new BI tools ensure all departments are using a standardized view of the same data. Such BI systems also allow users to take cuts of the data and compare them in multiple ways, including this year to last year or actual to plan, as well as to reassemble the data and analyze it from one department to another.

Each department needs to maintain its own way of analyzing data, but also be able to bring its plans and results together in a consistent, uniform way.

Here’s an example of an advantage provided by the access to uniform data that these BI solutions allow. Merchandising, marketing and inventory control may have different information needs during the product and promotion life cycle, but they all revolve around gross demand planning and results.

Merchandising wants to know the sales trends and the quantity of each product that is needed across all promotions and channels – print, e-commerce and store. Marketing arrives at the catalog gross demand plan based on their circulation plans by drop, by house file, and by outside list segment.

Merchandising’s catalog preseason plans are built top-down by merchandise category, and bottom-up by product – but they should come close to tying together with marketing’s demand plans at the demand level.

It’s inventory control’s job to interpret the plans and selling results and purchase product far enough in advance to be in stock when customers order. But management allows inventory control to purchase more product than the demand plans indicate, based on vendor lead time, vendor discounts offered, etc. – so they aren’t going to tie back to the others’ plans exactly.

Week-for-week, it’s hard to read selling trends and interpret them in a way that allows you to make the right decisions across the enterprise. The key departments above, along with the call center and fulfillment center, all benefit by sharing the latest sales plans and selling trends. BI solutions that can bring about the single version of the truth help keep everyone on the same page.

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ACCM Attendance: The show had about 500-700 attendees from what I could tell.  Like many of the shows we have attended this year the number of attendance looked to be down 50% to 80% from prior years.  Penton took a bath on both NCOF and ACCM this year.  There is a question in my mind about the viability of two independent shows; I know they are two different audiences.

I will say that those who attended appeared to be decision makers.  In my speech on dashboards and KPIs more than 75% of the attendees were new to ACCM. Interesting mix of e-commerce and multichannel managers.  If you would like a copy of my PowerPoints, e-mail me at cbarry@fcbco.com.

Companies’ Results: As someone said to me, “The new standard is to be only 10% off plan.”  I met many where sales were off more than that even when plan wasn’t very aggressive.  Companies with unique product offerings are doing far better than companies with stock or open market product.  Jack Rosenfeld, Chairman, Potpourri Collection and Sheryl Clark, President, Boston Proper, during the Monday luncheon panel both emphasized the importance of this.  And they cited that their apparel businesses were doing well because they were tuned into the customer.

I did meet a number of niche businesses that seemed to be doing better than the average.  They struck me as having unique product niche’s and unique marketing approaches.  One of them has grown to $200 million in sales in 2008 from being a start up in 2000!  What’s interesting to me is that they aren’t catalog or category merchants.  They opportunistically market products that they think will sell – they don’t try to fit it under an existing title. They also test product and don’t buy product initially.  We can be critical of the customer service/inventory approach but it’s interesting in terms of sales growth and profitability.

Leisure and hobby product companies seemed to be holding their own.

While there are many companies which are losing money, there were comments about people being surprised that more haven’t shut down already.

Many people expressed increased optimism with the improved stock market of the last 5 weeks.  I think it’s really important for the leadership of this industry to remain optimistic.  Without hope we don’t have anything.  Some days I know it’s tough.

One of the largest business to business list brokers told me that many of their clients were doing OK (meaning flat to down 5%) until this past month when business declined further.  No idea why last month was out of the norm with the trend.

Prospecting: Many companies are excited about the possibilities of the USPS “summer sale” on postage.  My hat’s off to American Catalog Mailer’s Association (ACMA) for the work they have done with the USPS to help them understand the effects the postage increases have negatively had on our industry. Since July 2007 the ACMA estimates catalog mail volume is down 35%. The year-to-date net loss is $2.5 billion for the USPS compared to LY’s $35 million loss. To learn more about what the ACMA is doing for catalog businesses or to join this great association, please visit ACMA’s website, www.catalogmailers.org

Holiday 2009: Companies seem to be delaying Holiday mailing plans to see a few more “economic tea leaves”.  Paper and printing seems to be available.  It’ll be interesting to see how circulation plans pan up.

Measuring E-commerce promotional response: As we work with clients on our co-developed dashboard and analytical software product (with Taurus Software, Manage Metrix, managemetrix.com), we don’t see companies being very analytical about measuring E-commerce promotional breakeven.  Companies are not measuring the profitability of the promotions.  I asked this question in a number of ACCM sessions.  No one seems to have been motivated to doing this.  In my opinion, this should be a priority given that e-commerce marketing is 2% to 15% in our client companies on top of the catalog marketing costs of 25% to 35% of net sales.

That’s my take on ACCM 2009.  Did you go?  What’s happening in your world?

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