Diversity Recognition

DiversityBusiness.com, recently named FFP Global to their Top 100 Woman Owned Business in Massachusetts (#6) and Top 50 Diversity Owned Business in Massachusetts (#11)

Client Exposure

Today’s Wall Street Journal highlighted a product offering from TheGreenOffice.com, a new client of ours.  The product featured is biodegradable Spudware made from potato starch.

FFP Global provides fulfillment and inventory management services for TheGreenOffice.com.  In addition, we just started running outbound marketing programs for them.

It’s always great to see our clients get recognized for their innovations.

World Worth

Over the past year, the world economy has shifted gears, going from robust growth to one of economic turmoil.  Prospersous countries like Iceland suddenly faced bankruptcy.  Companies that were instituions for decades, literally lost tens of billions of market value overnight and some went out of business. Currently, many other big companies are seeking government help in order to survive. 

During a 2-3 week period, the  average person saw their savings evaporate by 30-50%. Phrases like “financial crisis” now populate the news on a nightly basis. 

On the front page of today’s Wall Street Journal, an article details the challenges that Sheldon Adelson, who is Chairman of the Sands Corp faces. Over the past year the value of his ownership stake (70%) in the company has fallen from $36.4 billion in October 2007 to about $1.3 billion now. Even when the very wealthy have financial problems, it can be a cause of concern among the general populous.

As these events take place, it can be quite depressing. But at the same time, life still goes on. The growing population of the world has a long list of basic unmet needs – from healthcare, to energy, to education. People are still shoping, going to the doctor, and meeting up with friends. Many businesses although they could be a bit busier, are doing just fine.  We need to keep perspective that we haven’t lost everything.

When there are problems, there are enormous opportunities to set new priorities that can make a world’s worth of difference.

Our Green Initiatives

Energy Conservation, precious resources, water quality and air pollution.  Not a typical agenda  list for an outsourced provider of business services, but every workday each of our staff makes countless decisions that relate to these issues.

Many of these choices are small – whether to print that email or simply read it and save it.  Others are more substantial – whether to install energy-efficient lighting at one of our facilities.  In many cases as we carry out our daily activities, we are making an environmental statement if not impact - for better or worse.

With this in mind, FFP Global has been implementing a variety of environmentally responsible initiatives in an effort to make a positive impact on the environment.

FFP Global has already taken the following steps toward this initiative:

• Office paper recycling bins have been placed throughout the facilities and will be collected either by custodial staff or by FFP employees themselves and those recyclable paper items maintained separate from refuse for pickup.
• Bins for beverage bottles and cans are conveniently located at all FFP Global facilities for recyclable plastic, glass and returnable bottles. Returnable bottles in our Westborough location are donated to the local fire department youth auxillary for their ongoing fundraising efforts
• Corrugated cardboard in all of our fulfillment centers is collected and recycled.
• Office, breakroom, and cleaning supply purchases are made with “green” vendors and/or green manufacturers whenever possible.
• Warehouse lighting in our Westborough fulfillment center has been replaced with energy efficient light fixtures that have motion sensors which eliminate wasted energy.
• We are in the process of replacing all florescent lighting with more energy efficient compact florescent tubes in Call Centers and offices on both coasts.

FFP Global is encouraging all of our employees to actively engage in these and future efforts to show the community that FFP Global is environmentally responsible. Not only will this program reduce the amount of trash going to landfills, but it will also help preserve natural resources.

Short Messages

Much has been made of Barack Obama using text messaging to announce his Vice President selection. It was estimated that 2.9 million text messages went out – representing one of the largest mobile marketing events to date.

The Obama campaign has been aggressively using emerging communication technologies and applications such as SMS, Social Networks and Email. For many young people (a key Obama target), who don’t have landline phones, being connected means having a mobile device on them at all time. Accordingly, Obama’s technology push is very much a necessity.

Text Messaging or Short Message Service (abbreviated as SMS) means the transmission of short text messages to and from a mobile phone, fax machine and/or IP address. Messages must be no longer than 160 alpha-numeric characters and contain no images or graphics.

The reason SMS was late to takeoff in the United States was the incompatibility between carriers, so if you wanted to sent a text to an AT&T subscriber if you were a T Mobile subscriber, it wouldn’t work.

Gas Prices and Ecommerce

Over one-half of respondents to an April 2008 Piper Jaffray study selected rising gas prices as an incentive to increase online buying, while slightly less than one-half (48%) cited lower prices as a reason for making Web purchases.

Internet Retailer Show 2008

We exhibited at the Internet Retailer Show (June 9-12) in Chicago for the first time.  There were about 5,000 attendees. Our team was very pleased with the contacts we met, ranging from growing companies to Fortune 200 companies. The need to outsource seems to keep on increasing.

Next year the show is in Boston – where are our corporate headquarters is based.

The Internet enables every conceivable vertical market to be born. We met a woman who runs Toiletpaperworld.com.

The most popular words used by exhibitors were; analytics, engage, conversations and optimize.

Chicago is a great walking city. There are many public places, enticing restaurants and beautiful buildings all around. Although there’s much happening, it all feels very orderly. One of the restaurants we enjoyed was the Atwood Cafe.

Recognition

(Picture: Elise Chow, President & CEO of FFP Global
with Massachusetts Lt. Governor Timothy Murray.)

Yesterday, in a morning ceremony at our Fairhaven Contact Center, FFP Global had the honor of being recognized by Massachusetts Lt Governor Tim Murray and various local political leaders for creating over 100 jobs in an economically depressed area of Massachusetts. The event was covered by several newspapers and a Rhode Island tv station.

The FFP Global Fairhaven Contact Center is in the plannng stages for a physical expansion to support FFP Global’s client needs.

Call Center Recognition

Customer Interaction Solutions magazine has ranked FFP Global as a Top 50 Teleservice Agency in their twenty-third Annual Top 50 Inbound Teleservices Agencies Ranking. FFP Global was recognized in both the domestic and international categories. The ranking appears in the Customer Interaction Solutions April 2008 issue.  FFP Global has call centers in California and Massachusetts, with over 500 agent stations.

Metrics of Success

From bringing home grade school report cards, to receiving job evaluations, throughout life, people are used to getting feedback on how they are measuring up to what’s expected of them. Likewise, at FFP Global, we routinely receive feedback, whether from business partners, employees or clients. 

However, we wanted to formally, objectively and proactively measure our performance in a wide range of dimensional ways by creating a comprehensive set of business metrics.  

As a result, over the last couple of months, a small team at FFP Global, representing all operating areas, has been working on such a project. The goal of these metrics is to provide FFP Global a foundation for making continuous improvements in the ways in which we serve our current and prospective clients along with all stakeholders we touch.

In a sense, it’s knowing how we are doing, long before somebody is going to tell us. In some cases, it can be a hard truth.  However, ultimately, based on this understanding, we can rapidly address areas that are not up to our standards.  And just as importantly, by setting metric goals, we can be true innovators.

In formulating our metrics, we learned a few interesting things: For one, many companies only use financial results as their business metrics. In addition, while much has been written about business metrics, too often it is presented in theoretical terms rather than specific recommendations. A technique we at FFP Global employed to develop our metric sets was to use our business processes as a starting point.