the worldwide leader in providing electronic news and information to the accounts receivable management industry, announced today that it will partner with the Best Companies Group to determine the Best Places to Work in Collections. insideARM’s Best Places to Work program recognizes employers that have the most engaged and satisfied employees.
Applications are now being accepted from U.S. collection agencies, collection law firms, and vendors that provide technology and services to these groups. Companies must have at least 15 U.S.-based employees, and nominations must be received by August 15. Learn more about the program and nominate your company at www.bestplacestoworkcollections.com.
The top companies will be determined through employer reports and comprehensive employee surveys and will be selected from three categories: small companies of 15-25 employees, medium-sized companies of between 25 and 249 employees, and large-sized companies consisting of 250 or more employees.
The Best Companies Group, which has overseen similar programs in other industries, as well as many states, is responsible for the selection process. The basis for this initiative is Fortune magazine’s noted “100 Best Companies to Work for in America.”
“Numerous studies show a strong correlation between profitability and creating a good place to work,” says Peter B. Burke, President of Best Companies Group. “In addition to the positive effect the award has on their employee relations and recruitment, the driving force for companies to join in this program is the remarkable effect that workplace improvements can have on their bottom line.”
“Given our long history of involvement in this industry, we know that the collections community has many first-rate employers. The Best Places to Work in Collections program is one way we can recognize them for their important efforts,” states insideARM.com Publisher Stephanie Eidelman.
All companies participating in the program receive a free overview report, and have the opportunity to purchase an evaluation identifying strengths and weaknesses according to their employees. In turn, this report can be used in developing or enhancing employee retention and recruitment programs.
The winning companies will be announced online and in insideARM.com newsletters in January 2009.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Friday, July 25, 2008
Stalled projects hamper flood recovery
Two years after the floods of 2006 devastated the Tier, a number of items designed to reduce the chance of a similar catastrophe sit unfinished -- and in some cases, not started.
In most cases, officials blame a lack of money. In another case: timing. In a third, a bad computer set a project back months.
Any way you slice it, several projects have yet to come to fruition, despite having been touted shortly after the region began digging out from the catastrophe that killed four people, destroyed 1,100 homes and caused at least $175 million in damage.
In Broome County alone:
* Residents of Union's Fairmont Park neighborhood have known for years that one of the levees standing between them and the next flood is shorter than it needs to be. But the town has been unable to get $350,000 or so to fix the problem.
* More than a dozen low-income families in Vestal, Conklin and two other towns still need buyouts of their flood-ravaged homes. But it's unclear if the money in a new state program will meet the need.
* People to the north and south of the Susquehanna River near Washington and State streets in Binghamton are no better protected by their floodwalls than they were in 2006. The sealing of cracked concrete, delayed last year while officials waited for answers on a grant application, hasn't started.
* A floodwall that needs raising near Binghamton's Crowley Foods remains untouched. An Army Corps of Engineers study conducted in 2006 recommended the work.
"Some of this should be a no-brainer," Union Town Supervisor John Bernardo said. "To the people who've been affected by the floods, protection is priceless."
Sunday, July 20, 2008
HMV recovery on track thanks to games
HMV has told investors that its recovery in on track as Britain's biggest music retailer reported a jump in pre-tax profits.
The company, which also owns book chain Waterstones, said this morning that strong demand for video games helped drive pre-tax profits up about 25pc to £56.6m for the 12 months to April 26. Sales climbed to £1.87bn from £1.68bn.
Analysts at Panmure Gordon welcomed the results, saying "the second year of recovery starts from a good place, with a debt-free balance sheet and strong market share growth.It's going to be difficult, given the challenging markets that it operates in, but we do believe that there is substantial self help opportunity here."
HMV UK and Ireland saw like-for-like sales up 11.4pc while Waterstones' sales increased by 3.3pc.
Games and technology sales soaerd 21pc as the British appetite for computer games showed no sign of abating, with Grand Theft Auto and the Nintendo Wii proving popular amongst gamers.
Despite the group facing stiff competition from music downloads online sales from HMV.com increased by 42pc.
Last year, HMV launched a three-year turnaround plan which it hoped would allow it to successfully compete against Internet retailers and supermarkets.
Simon Fox, Chief Executive, said: "One year into our transformation plan group profits are up by 25pc and we are ahead of where we expected to be.
"We still have much to do, and whilst we are mindful of the challenging economic outlook, the current financial year has started in line with our expectations and I remain confident that we are building a better and stronger business that can prosper in a rapidly changing market."
The group also said its debt had virtually been eliminated by the sale of its Japanese business.
A final dividend of 5.6p will be paid on 10 October making a total dividend of 7.4p and is unchanged from the previous year.
Monday, July 14, 2008
Credit crunch yet to bite, says consumer debt industry
Research sponsored by Firstsource, a global business process outsourcing company, indicates that the credit crunch has not yet had a major impact on the consumer debt management industry. More than a quarter of respondents (26 per cent) said they had not been affected by the declining economic environment, and over half (53 per cent) reported that they had monitored only minimal impact.
The poll covered nearly 1,000 consumer debt managers of companies in the financial services, telecommunications, retail, and utility industries.
However, although debt managers say they have not yet been significantly affected by the credit crunch, the research showed signs that consumers are starting to take longer to pay their bills, and that write-offs of consumer debt are increasing. Twenty seven per cent of respondents said that some consumers are delaying payment of bills by up to three months, and twenty two per cent of debt managers reported that they had increased their write offs of customer debt in the last 12 months.
In response to the uncertain economic outlook, debt managers expect to outsource more work to specialist collections and recovery agencies to increase their collections levels, reduce defaults, and lower their costs. Sixty eight per cent of debt managers said they planned to increase their use of outsourcing within the next year; 27 per cent said they would outsource more within the UK, 18 per cent reported they would collect more from offshore, and 23 per cent expect to outsource more both within the UK and offshore.
Matthew Vallance, Firstsource’s President, said: “Although most consumer debt managers report that they haven’t been rocked by the credit crisis, the trend amongst consumers is towards later payments which will consequently affect cash flow. Therefore debt managers are looking to specialist consumer debt collections and recoveries outsourcers in the UK and offshore that have the expertise and resources to collect more debt, in faster time frames and at lower cost than is possible in-house.”
Debt managers said that the main benefits of an offshore strategy are further cost reduction, the ability to recover more debt, and increased access to talent.
Most of the collections work that has been outsourced to date is debt collection (35 per cent of respondents), tracing (identifying and prioritising debtors to contact, 25 per cent) and legal collections (24 per cent). The majority of outsourced collections relates to early stage work (debt that is one to 60 days old, 42 per cent of respondents), followed by recoveries (six months, 26 per cent), late stage (90 to 180 days, 21 per cent), then mid stage (60 to 90 days, 10 per cent).
Respondents said that there were many areas where they could see obvious rooms for improvement in their collections strategies. The main failings relate to poor use of technology. Over half of debt managers said greater use of online payment systems would improve their collections levels. Many managers also felt that they should make more use of interactive messaging and interactive voice recognition systems. Better analysis of customers’ debt levels and internal training were two other key areas identified for improvement.
About Firstsource
Firstsource (www.firstsource.com) is a global BPO (business process outsourcing) service provider headquartered in India with operations in India, US, UK, Argentina and Philippines. Firstsource provides customised business process management to the world's leading companies in Banking & Financial Services, Telecom & Media and Healthcare sectors. Its clients include Fortune 500 banks, telecommunications companies and healthcare companies. Firstsource is listed on India's leading exchanges, the NSE (NSE:FSL) and the BSE (BSE: 532809).
Firstsource has an established collections and recoveries practice, providing the full life cycle of collections and recoveries services from early stage collections to third party recoveries, to a wide range of financial services, telecommunications and utilities companies.
Amongst Firstsource’s client list is the credit card operation of a leading UK retail bank. Firstsource collects more than £2.5m per month, with Firstsource agents making between 34-40 calls per hour, collecting on average £550 per hour, with a promises kept rate of around 70 per cent. Average kept value of each call is £260.
For a major UK telecoms company, Firstsource makes 6-7,000 outbound calls every day and has radically improved collections rates, achieving the highest collections per day compared with the in-house operations.
Survey methodology
956 senior professionals from the consumer credit industry took part in the online survey which tool place in April 2008. The types of businesses polled included banks, mortgage lenders, finance companies, utilities companies, credit card operators, insurers, retailers and telecommunications companies.
The poll covered nearly 1,000 consumer debt managers of companies in the financial services, telecommunications, retail, and utility industries.
However, although debt managers say they have not yet been significantly affected by the credit crunch, the research showed signs that consumers are starting to take longer to pay their bills, and that write-offs of consumer debt are increasing. Twenty seven per cent of respondents said that some consumers are delaying payment of bills by up to three months, and twenty two per cent of debt managers reported that they had increased their write offs of customer debt in the last 12 months.
In response to the uncertain economic outlook, debt managers expect to outsource more work to specialist collections and recovery agencies to increase their collections levels, reduce defaults, and lower their costs. Sixty eight per cent of debt managers said they planned to increase their use of outsourcing within the next year; 27 per cent said they would outsource more within the UK, 18 per cent reported they would collect more from offshore, and 23 per cent expect to outsource more both within the UK and offshore.
Matthew Vallance, Firstsource’s President, said: “Although most consumer debt managers report that they haven’t been rocked by the credit crisis, the trend amongst consumers is towards later payments which will consequently affect cash flow. Therefore debt managers are looking to specialist consumer debt collections and recoveries outsourcers in the UK and offshore that have the expertise and resources to collect more debt, in faster time frames and at lower cost than is possible in-house.”
Debt managers said that the main benefits of an offshore strategy are further cost reduction, the ability to recover more debt, and increased access to talent.
Most of the collections work that has been outsourced to date is debt collection (35 per cent of respondents), tracing (identifying and prioritising debtors to contact, 25 per cent) and legal collections (24 per cent). The majority of outsourced collections relates to early stage work (debt that is one to 60 days old, 42 per cent of respondents), followed by recoveries (six months, 26 per cent), late stage (90 to 180 days, 21 per cent), then mid stage (60 to 90 days, 10 per cent).
Respondents said that there were many areas where they could see obvious rooms for improvement in their collections strategies. The main failings relate to poor use of technology. Over half of debt managers said greater use of online payment systems would improve their collections levels. Many managers also felt that they should make more use of interactive messaging and interactive voice recognition systems. Better analysis of customers’ debt levels and internal training were two other key areas identified for improvement.
About Firstsource
Firstsource (www.firstsource.com) is a global BPO (business process outsourcing) service provider headquartered in India with operations in India, US, UK, Argentina and Philippines. Firstsource provides customised business process management to the world's leading companies in Banking & Financial Services, Telecom & Media and Healthcare sectors. Its clients include Fortune 500 banks, telecommunications companies and healthcare companies. Firstsource is listed on India's leading exchanges, the NSE (NSE:FSL) and the BSE (BSE: 532809).
Firstsource has an established collections and recoveries practice, providing the full life cycle of collections and recoveries services from early stage collections to third party recoveries, to a wide range of financial services, telecommunications and utilities companies.
Amongst Firstsource’s client list is the credit card operation of a leading UK retail bank. Firstsource collects more than £2.5m per month, with Firstsource agents making between 34-40 calls per hour, collecting on average £550 per hour, with a promises kept rate of around 70 per cent. Average kept value of each call is £260.
For a major UK telecoms company, Firstsource makes 6-7,000 outbound calls every day and has radically improved collections rates, achieving the highest collections per day compared with the in-house operations.
Survey methodology
956 senior professionals from the consumer credit industry took part in the online survey which tool place in April 2008. The types of businesses polled included banks, mortgage lenders, finance companies, utilities companies, credit card operators, insurers, retailers and telecommunications companies.
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