PBMS offers mailstream consulting services

Pitney Bowes Management Services Inc. (PBMS), a wholly owned subsidiary of Pitney Bowes Inc., has launched Pitney Bowes Mailstream Consulting Services, a new services offering designed to help customers manage rising postal costs. Through Pitney Bowes Mailstream Consulting Services, PBMS' postal consultants work with many of the Fortune 1000 companies, federal government agencies, and the top 200 U.S. law firms to benchmark a customer's mailstream processes, comparing them to proven best practices in the mailing industry. This helps organizations on several levels, to include:

* leveraging the mailstream-PBMS conducts an in-depth review that maps data and mailing processes to help capture and control postage spending and generate useful control mechanisms.

* uncovering potential cost savingsUsing a variety of assessment tools to define, measure, and analyze customer operations, PBMS reports back key findings on such areas as address quality, presort optimization with work share discounts, and return-mail processing aimed at mitigating postage increases by reducing the overall cost of mailing.

* mitigating operational risks-A profile of operations created from information gathered on-site and through discussions with key stakeholders enables the customer to prioritize areas of concern/opportunity, assuring compliance with U.S. Postal Service (USPS) requirements and preventing costly audits.

* preparing for the future-The USPS has announced that all mailers need to be using the Intelligent Mail Bar Code (IMBC) by January 2009. PBMS can help organizations migrate to the IMBC and identify the areas of opportunity from this technology change. PBMS can help translate postal requirements into the financial language needed to improve communication and, ultimately, impact the bottom line.

In early customer engagements, Pitney Bowes Mailstream Consulting Services has proved to have a positive impact on an organization's bottom line. For example, a large U.S.-based bank was spending close to $500 million per year on postage at the time it began its partnership with PBMS. Through enterprise-wide postal management intelligence, PBMS reduced its spending by over $12 million annually.