F. Curtis Barry & Company’s Multichannel Operations & Fulfillment Blog

ProfitCenter Software Inc. (PCS) is ramping up, with three new senior executives on board since April this year and plans to hire more employees. The most recent executive hire, announced this week, is John Marrah, who takes the position of president and CEO. Marrah has nine years of experience managing the largest direct systems provider to moderate-sized to large direct businesses—he was formerly president of Escalate Retail (formed in August 2006 when Ecometry merged with GERS Retail), and before that served as president and CEO of Ecometry.

PCS is one of relatively few vendors of direct order management systems offered in the on-demand, or software as a service SaaS (others include OrderMotion, Demandware, Venda, and Vcommerce). On-demand e-commerce platforms offer a less-costly alternative to purchasing licensed software (for a more detailed, description, see our article on e-commerce solutions). Because up-front installation costs tend to be lower, software as a service tends to appeal to small to mid-sized companies that don’t want to invest in the set-up fees for licensed software, and related hardware and IT personnel. PCS, a subsidiary of Systemax Inc., began selling its system just two years ago, and its first sales have been to a wide range of customers, from small to one of the very largest in the direct-to-customer industry.

We believe that Marrah’s becoming CEO at PCS marks a significant development for both Escalate Retail and ProfitCenter Software. Overall, we think it’s good for the direct marketing systems community because it creates another competitor—another order management choice.

It will be interesting to see how this all plays out in a couple of years. F. Curtis Barry & Company will have a front-row seat, as we are currently working with two of PCS’ clients.