TREVOSE, PA – January 3, 2009 - Advertising Specialty Institute^®, the largest media and marketing organization serving the advertising specialty industry, announced today a multimillion-dollar initiative to create a seamless order management system that links distributors, suppliers and industry service providers across the full ASI product suite. 

The initiative, which is designed to save industry participants time and money, will allow users of ASI’s products and services to order promotional products quickly and to better manage the flow of order information into nearly every type of financial system, custom application and QuickBooks program. 

The effort has been under way for about a year, and also includes products from ASI’s affiliate organization, ASI Computer Systems.  In the test phase, distributors placed over $10 million in orders with suppliers, resulting in consistent order structure, content integrity and order delivery.  The first commercial efforts are being previewed at the ASI Show Orlando as part of a phased rollout throughout 2009. 

“Based on continuing industry feedback, we’re creating the most efficient order management process in the industry, across our entire product suite,” said Timothy M. Andrews, president and chief executive officer of ASI.  “The member input is allowing us to tailor our products to what distributors, suppliers and service providers need most, especially addressing their key concerns of cleaning up mistakes on orders, getting invoice data from suppliers easier and improving the ability to send invoices to end-buyers faster.”

“Given the uncertainty of 2009, we are accelerating the effort because it is more important than ever that distributors and suppliers be as streamlined as possible,” said Andrews.  “Our order management initiative will eliminate errors, save money from mistakes and provide everyone with more time for selling and serving customers.”

The demonstrations at the ASI Show Orlando further explain how ESP Online’s content can be embedded into third-party applications.  Also being shown are features of ASI Computer Systems’ ProfitMaker and how distributors can use its powerful features to order directly through industry supplier websites and to accept payments online from end-buyers.

Additional elements of the order management initiative being demonstrated in Orlando include:

• ESP Online:  The CenterStage presentation creator now allows end-buyers to order directly from a client presentation, and integrates with the industry standard purchase order.  Also, PromoCafé is a new application that allows the 32,000 users of ESP Online to communicate about orders and a variety of topics using chat rooms and instant messaging. 

• ProfitMaker:  The 1,000 distributor firms that use ProfitMaker can now pull products and pricing directly from ESP Online into ProfitMaker.  There is also a new method that allows purchase orders to be sent by distributors and accepted into the supplier’s system electronically without rekeying information, making the order process faster and less error-prone.  In addition, reports can be generated from ProfitMaker using Microsoft Office programs that track year-over-year performance for number of orders, invoices and purchase orders.  ProfitMaker also integrates directly with the inventory and order management systems of top apparel suppliers, including SanMar, Alpha Shirt Company, Ash City, Bodek and Rhodes and Broder.   

• ASI Secure:  LogoMall customers can export their end-buyer orders, leads and catalog requests into ProfitMaker via ASI Secure.  ASI Secure is the system that helps the 10,000 subscribers to LogoMall easily customize their website copy, add products and track site statistics (including number of visitors and page views.)  

Andrews said that the order management initiative, which builds upon years of ASI’s experience in technology development for the advertising specialty industry, is projected to include the launch of additional key components throughout 2009 and into 2010. 

For more information about the industry order management initiative from ASI, contact Dale Denham, senior vice president, at ddenham@asicentral.com.  

About ASI
Advertising Specialty Institute is the largest media and marketing organization serving the advertising specialty industry, with a membership of over 26,000 distributor firms (sellers) and supplier firms (manufacturers) of advertising specialties.  Supplier firms use ASI print and electronic resources to market products to over 22,000 ASI distributor firms.  Distributor firms use ASI print and electronic resources, which contain nearly every product in the industry from more than 3,500 reputable suppliers, to locate supplier firms and to market services to buyers.  ASI provides catalogs, information directories, newsletters, magazines, websites and databases, and offers e-commerce, marketing and selling tools.  Visit www.asicentral.com.    

Contact

Dawn Marie,
Executive director of corporate communications

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