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Concord Expo Connects with Audience
E
ighteen months ago, Concord EFS held its first Expo. The goal was to bring its senior executives and product planners together with its customers, vendors, ISOs and strategic partners to identify ways to work together. In mid-March, Concord held its second Expo in Dallas, bringing in 400 people to focus on the theme of "Connecting With the New Customer."
What this really means is finding new ways of connecting with the consumer - explained via concurrent sessions with product managers, a Vendor Booth area, and talks by Concord senior management and keynote speakers. CEO Ed Labry and his staff chose the Dallas Hyatt Regency as the venue. There were many things that I liked about this event, but let me mention just a few.
The 13-hour Day The main event started at 8 a.m. and went right through dinner, which ended around 9 p.m. This consisted of three keynote sessions and an afternoon full of concurrent sessions, followed by dinner. You could choose from nine concurrent sessions, all of which appealed to some segment of the audience; some were filled to capacity.
This gave the audience an overview of the many, many changes that are going on in the payment system today (practically a full-time job), and if you couldn't attend all of them, there were extra handouts covering the sessions you missed. Further, the event packet included a CD with all of the presentations.
Access to Senior Management Labry spoke candidly to the audience about his company, which has a market cap greater than its cross-town rival, FedEx, and an EPS compounded growth rate that has beaten just about every other company on the stock exchange in the last decade. My favorite comment of the show: "I stopped inviting the associations to this event when they stopped inviting me to the Olympics!" Too often such meetings can be Visa-centric; not the case here!
Later, Ron Congemi, the CEO of STAR network, talked about his perception of his marketplace, which, given his company's market share, was mandatory for anyone who wants to clear transactions on the ATM tracks. But it didn't degenerate into a PowerPoint marathon presented by senior managers - sometimes a deadly sin of such events.
To Get the Right Results, Invite the Right People Not only did they have a critical mass of people, they invited the right people. Not only that, they weren't afraid to charge the invitees $225 to attend. I know the cost of putting on an event like this and this doesn't even begin to cover their costs, but it said to the audience that they should pay for a worthwhile presentation. And why not? Keynote Speakers Stood Out There were four keynote speakers, all good, but two were superlative and made me question my own company's brand-management strategies. This was the equivalent of getting a $200-an-hour brand consultant to come to your office, and I have to admit that I had never even thought about how important this topic is (it is critical). Not Run-of-the-Mill Vendors The vendor area had 35 participants, but they were typically leading-edge companies that I wasn't familiar with.
Here are five examples:
Concord EFS www.concordefs.com End-to-end check services suite of products. Concord products run the gamut from payment initiation to risk management to settlement. It is able to couple the front-end conversion and RCK piece with the STAR CHEK and SAFE CHECK products, which can verify demand deposit account (DDA) information to the Primary Payments database or even directly to the financial institution. As we see dissent within the National Automated Clearing House Association (NACHA) about whether to charge interchange for conversion transactions, I predict that clearing transactions along the ATM tracks will become more and more viable, and it will emerge as the low-cost provider. Contact is Michael Enos, 719-633-7005.
The Logix Companies www.logixco.com. This company was recently acquired by Concord. It has six products: identity authentication at POS, data collection for database marketing, authenticating identity for access cards, enhanced credit card acceptance, ECC with imaging, and end-to-end ATM driving. Contact is Tony Sdao, 303-827-0200.
Euronet www.euronetworldwide.com This company enables prepaid phone users to recharge their time from an ATM or POS terminal. The number of these phones is expected to grow to 50 million in the U.S. in the next three years! They came to this conference because they are looking for ISOs to sell their product. Here is a real growth area that is virtually unknown in the ISO community. Contact is Ron Ferguson, 913-327-4220.
@pos www.atpos.com This company provides secure interactive transaction systems using high-level encryption and electronic signature capture. This enables retailers to streamline operations, reduce costs and limit fraud. Its products include Web-enabled payment platforms, smart card interfaces, encryption engines and software tools. Contact is Scott Allen, 408-468-5453.
Bluesuit www.bluesuit.com You wouldn't expect a company that sells a 401k plan to be at a payment-processing meeting. But guess what: Every small company needs one, and Bluesuit needs ISOs to sell them. This product positions the ISO as a true solution provider beyond just a commodity transaction processor, and it is profitable, too! Contact is Dan Phelan, 312-373-7012. If I were an ISO, this is the sort of opportunity I would be looking for!
This is really only a brief overview of the Concord show, but I think that you get the picture. All of the processors should be delivering an experience like this to their users, but how many really do? Thanks to Chris Reckert and his crew for delivering the goods. Brandes Elitch is National Accounts Manager for CrossCheck. E-mail him at brandese@cross-check.com
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