Multi-Channel Reinvention - Pitney Bowes

This is not your father's Oldsmobile, the mid-90's ad campaign rings true for other firms as well. One of those is Pitney Bowes, and its chairman Murray Martin used the derivative "this is not your father's Pitney Bowes" last week at the tech analyst and innovation days held at their world headquarters in Stamford. That introduction, in addition to a personalized video welcome which included references to up coming vacation destinations and recent industry awards, told me that I was in for something new and different this visit.

Pitney's traditional businesses have been under siege by Internet based alternatives, like so many others. This will continue, however their response has been to seek out strategic acquisitions, and then carefully combine those capabilities into robust solutions to address current and future business needs. Firms such as MapInfo, Digital Cement, and Group 1 Software are just a few of the dozens of firms acquired by Pitney since 2000. Combining those unique capabilities to offer greater value to the market was the goal, and today we are seeing the first glimpses of these offerings, such as its Small Business Portal, Crime Stopper, and PBSend.

That said, Pitney is still firmly grounded in the physical mail delivery business, but it is encouraging to see their push into alternative, multi-channel strategies and solutions. Customer communications management (CCM) is a key strategic plank, and their Hybrid Mail solutions look to strike that balance between the physical and electronic delivery models. Their managed mail/print services remains the lion's share of revenue, but business, and margins, in those markets is flat to declining. The transformation clock is ticking!

After listening to the senior leadership team, we are convinced that executing on the "new" PB strategy is well underway, with noticeable dividends. However much work remains to be completed. Other solution providers in the space should be put "on alert" to the reinvention taking place at PB.