An article titled Clients: Kable Would Maintain EDS's Colorado Facility in the January 2003 issue of Circulation Management quotes me on my thoughts about the upcoming acquisition of EDS by Kable:

"Many of my clients who are at Kable are nervous. This would be a major undertaking, and no one knows how it will pan out. Then again, it seems that the whole industry is worried about the fulfillment situation in general, these days."

While it's always great to get a little ink in Circulation Management, the main point to take away from all the speculation about what the merged organization will be like is in Karlene Lukovitz's Editor's Note:

"It's becoming increasingly imperative that publishers take a long, hard look at their business realtionships with their service bureaus. With the volumes of busines now changing hands, there is opportunity for publishers and suppliers to forge more realistic win/win partnerships."

I've been thinking about that a lot lately. I have forward-thinking clients who work hard at their relationships with their fulfillment companies. They share their plans for growth, new strategic directions, changes in staff, their wish lists, and so on with their account reps and the upper management of their fulfillment bureau. They visit at least once a year to give them updates, and send frequent communication the rest of the year. Kudos to those organizations.

But hard as it is to believe, I still run into situations where publishers just don't do their parts (yeah, yeah, we can all give examples of where fulfillment companies don't do their bit, but let's save that for a different day).

Here are real live "lose/lose" examples of publisher failures that I encountered within the last month:

1. One publisher was searching for a new fulfillment supplier. Their current supplier could not perform several functions they needed, and there was no promise these services would be provided in the future. After months of preparing RFPs, visiting suppliers, negotiating, etc., they decided to stay with their current bureau. WHY? Their costs were lower than the companies who could provide all the services they needed. So the supplier they kept continues to be brow-beat about services they can't provide, and the publisher keeps applying unrealistic cost pressures on them, and everyone is unhappy -- including the publisher's former, disgusted customers, I expect.
   
   
2. Another client switched to a new fulfillment supplier. I manage the direct mail projects for this client. The old supplier was used to my way of doing things, and was very good about questioning anything I did that didn't seem right (I admit it, I make mistakes!). I made a minor mistake in my directions to the new supplier. They didn't question me. But later, I asked why they hadn't questioned me about what I did -- didn't it seem like a mistake? The rep told me they don't question mistakes. The reason? Because over the years, they learned that to question a client meant they were challenging the publisher's way of doing things and would be rebuked for it. I, for one, have always appreciated an account executive saving my bacon. I think we should encourage our fulfillment suppliers to suggest better ways of doing things. Who are we hurting if they're afraid of our wrath as the powerful, all-knowing -- and unpleasant -- client?
   
   
3. A third client has had a long. trouble-free relationship with their current fulfillment bureau. However, they needed help figuring out some banking issues, so they hired me to help out. I needed the help of their fulfillment company to fill in a few blanks. While doing my research, I asked the publisher for the name of their account executive. When I called that person, I discovered that she wasn't the account rep at all, and got the proper name. When I finally did talk to the account executive, I discovered that the client never called him. The client did not actually know who the account rep was at all. As you can imagine, this is not a fulfilling or creative relationship!

The surprising thing is not that these things happen, but that they happen with such frequency. It's vital that both publishers and fulfillment companies work hard at better relationships -- the survivability of our businesses will depend on it.

Posted by Rebecca Sterner at 2:44 PM | Link