STAMFORD, Conn., December 19, 2007 - Pitney Bowes Management Services, Inc. (PBMS), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Pitney Bowes Inc. (NYSE:PBI) today launched Pitney Bowes Mailstream Consulting Services™, a new services offering designed to help customers manage rising postal costs.
Jeff Stangle, director, Solutions Development for PBMS, explained that Mailstream Consulting Services is a logical next step to Pitney Bowes MailWorks™ solution, a comprehensive, bundled offering of leading-edge technology and Six Sigma processes that the company launched in April, 2006.
“At PBMS we’ve been helping companies leverage their mailstream by taking a holistic view of the end-to-end mailing process. This allows us to identify areas of significant opportunity in controlling postage and carrier spend, increasing quality of customer data, increasing postage discounts, managing the mail processes more efficiently and effectively, and minimizing risk by assuring compliance with postal regulations,” Stangle said.
Through Pitney Bowes Mailstream Consulting Services, PBMS’s expert postal consultants work with many of the Fortune 1000, federal government agencies and the top 200 U.S. law firms to benchmark a customer’s mailstream processes, comparing them to proven best practices in the mailing industry. This helps organizations on several levels, including:
- Leveraging the Mailstream – PBMS conducts an in-depth review that maps data and mailing process to help capture and control postage spend and generate useful data and control mechanisms.
- Uncovering Potential Cost Savings – Using a variety of assessment tools to define, measure and analyze customer operations, PBMS reports back key findings on such areas as address quality, presort optimization with work share discounts, and return mail processing aimed at mitigating postage increases by reducing the overall cost of mailing.
- Mitigating Operational Risks – A profile of operations created from information gathered on-site and through discussions with key stakeholders enables the customer to prioritize areas of concern /opportunity, assuring compliance with USPS® requirements and preventing costly audits.
- Preparing for the Future – The USPS has announced that all mailers need to be using the Intelligent Mail® barcode (IMBC) by January 2009. PBMS can help migrate to the IMBC and identify the areas of opportunity from this technology change. PBMS can help translate postal requirements into the financial language needed to improve communication and ultimately impact the bottom line.
Stangle noted that today’s rapidly changing postal environment has created a definite need for Pitney Bowes Mailstream Consulting Services.
“With major shifts in the mailing industry, including postal reform, projected annual rate increases, and the implementation of the Intelligent Mail Barcode, many businesses are facing a new set of challenges just to keep up with the changing postal regulations. Many of these changes can cause an increase to their postage spend, either through a direct rate increase or through added costs caused by failing to comply with new mailing regulations. Companies can spend upward of $100 million annually on postage and carrier costs with little idea on how to control these costs.”
In early customer engagements, Pitney Bowes Mailstream Consulting Services has had a proven, positive impact on an organization’s bottom line. For example, a large U.S.-based bank was spending close to $500 million per year on postage at the time they began their partnership with PBMS. Through enterprise wide postal management intelligence, PBMS reduced their spend by over $12 million annually. A solutions provider to federal, state and local governments mitigated 49 percent of the 2007 rate increase in flat mail postage through effective mail piece design and mailstream management. Pitney Bowes established what the actual postage increase would be by looking at total postage spend by mail class, shape and weight and other document processes that affect total postage spending.
About Pitney Bowes
Pitney Bowes is a mailstream technology company that helps organizations manage the flow of information, mail, documents and packages. Our 35,000 employees deliver technology, service and innovation to more than two million customers worldwide. The company was founded in 1920 and annual revenues now total $6 billion. More information is available at www.pb.com.