The Attivo Blog

I think I figured out the solution to our economic problems...here's how I think it can work: It is a slow day in a small town and streets are deserted. Times are tough, everybody is in debt, and everybody is living on credit. A rich tourist drives through town, stops at the motel, and lays a $100 bill on the desk saying he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs to pick one for the night. As soon as he walks upstairs, the motel owner grabs the bill and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher. The butcher takes the $100 and runs down the street to retire his debt to the pig farmer. The pig farmer takes the $100 and heads off to pay his bill to his supplier, .the Farmer's Co-op. The guy at the Farmer's Co-op takes the $100 and runs to pay his debt to the local prostitute, who has also been facing hard times and has had to offer her "services" on credit. The hooker rushes to the hotel and pays off her room bill with the hotel owner. The hotel proprietor then places the $100 back on the counter so the rich traveler will not suspect anything. At that moment the traveler comes down the stairs, states that the rooms are not satisfactory, picks up the $100 bill and leaves town. The whole town is now out of debt and now looks to the future with a lot more optimism. Now, I didn't pay much attention in economics class, but it worked for them...

I’m coming across more and more articles talking about economic recovery. Three in the last couple of weeks: Wall Street Journal, NY Times and LA Times. These articles are talking about what type of rebound to expect. In the WSJ article, Dean Maki, chief U.S. economist at Barclays Capital is quoted, "You can't find a single deep recession that has been followed by a moderate recovery." The article also states: Some forecasters expect the economy to grow at a 3-5% annual rate through the end of this year. I’m in the big rebound camp; I’m taking steps to position our company to maximize the recovery. We’ve focused on improving our processes so that we can serve our current customers better and win more new business. We’ve overhauled our sales process, developed a new SEO strategy for our web site and are re-working the marketing plan. In addition, we’ve streamlined our operational processes. These changes have made us more effective, as well as more efficient. Not only are we in a good position to take full advantage of the recovery, we’ve also been able to cut costs and improve profits. In coming posts, I’ll share the details of the steps that we’ve taken at Attivo. We’re actually planning an upcoming webinar to showcase a “Look Inside Attivo” so you can actually see these best practices in action. I would welcome any comments on the subject. Here’s an interesting case study on how we’ve helped one of our clients, Danchuk Manufacturing, to streamline their operations, position them for growth, and reduce their operating costs. “We achieved an 80% reduction in labor cost and administrative overhead related to our growing eCommerce sales. We’re truly positioned for substantial growth and cost containment.” -Steve Brown, General Manager, Danchuk Manufacturing Download the Danchuk Case Study and learn more about Cost Cutting with ERP System Integration.