Epicomm Launches Leading Indicators

Epicomm, the association for leaders in print, mail, fulfillment and marketing services, Alexandria, Va., has teamed with sponsor Konica Minolta to launch Leading Indicators, a new free benchmarking program for companies in every sector of the graphic communications industry, regardless of their size, region or specialty.

"For years, Epicomm Chief Economist Andy Paparozzi has been writing that the changing nature of today's industry creates historic opportunities for the prepared, and profound threats for the unprepared," said Epicomm President and CEO Ken Garner. "Our new Leading Indicators program has been designed to help keep participating companies among the most prepared in the industry.

"This innovative program will enable them to identify internal trends that could affect the health of their business," he continued, "providing critical financial information in time for them to act to offset any possible threats to their business or capitalize on any opportunities the data may reveal."

To participate in the program, companies first complete a detailed profile that includes company type, location, size, products offered, services offered and revenue composition (percent of revenue from offset, digital printing, mailing, fulfillment, etc.). As participation in the program grows, these profiles will enable companies to benchmark their data against comparable businesses, such as providers of mailing services in a particular region or printing companies of a particular size.

Participants then submit some basic monthly financial and employment data, including gross sales, cost of goods sold, payroll, gross margin, EBITDA, accounts receivable, number of employees and number of sales personnel. Data entry takes less than five minutes, but companies must submit data monthly to participate in the program.

"From the data submitted, the Leading Indicators program instantly calculates 13 vital metrics, including sales growth, payroll as a percent of sales, gross margin, EBITDA as a percent of sales, days of receivables outstanding, and sales per employee," said Paparozzi. "There are dozens of financial indicators the program could track, but it focuses solely on those vital few metrics that will tell company leaders what they most need to know about their businesses."