Perspective on the Future....

We seem to still be surrounded by doom and gloom. We are trying to get away from these people and the negativity they preach.

For example, our machinery group is experiencing many new inquiries for machinery and looking forward to implication of these future orders.

Our FlexSource USA flexible pouch group is expanding with new products like BarrelPaQ™ for the paint industry to replace metal cans, VinoPaQ™ elegant shaped StandUp wine pouches to replace glass bottles made overseas and "The pouch without a box" development for wine and any liquid needing a new concept, all of these are brilliant eco-friendly opportunities.

Then throughout all this uncertainty our ShotPak® brands have continued to grow and are now available in 12 states [CA, NV, AZ, IN, KY, OH, TN, TX, OK, AL, FL, GA].

So we see opportunities all over and are chasing these where we can.

To quote Wolfgang Grulke of Future World, "The future's so bright, you've got to wear shades."

Our approach in this bright sunny environment is to manage our way out of the 'current mess' in the financial world by concentrating on our customers and our brands. Keep the customer satisfied and they will support and continue to buy.

As the CEO of the group it has become the perfect time for me to build optimism in the management team running the PPi Technologies Global GROUP as we move forward.

We immediately started to study the three types of customers our three divisions are exposed to, we found our biggest challenge today as brand managers is that we now have several categories of market segments and all require different approaches.

First we found Boomers who are due to retire in the next five years from strong companies and looking for the message that this product works for you.

Civics who are very conservative and have been around for a lifetime like brand names and support them.

Gen X don't put a premium on formal dress code and prefer informal approach at business and in stores and have zero brand loyalty. They believe clearly that they can use new technology in their lives and you have to market brands in a way that they have contact with them in order to sell to them. They ignore traditional products especially if their parents use them!

Not to be outdone in difficulty is the Gen Y someone from 25 to mid 30s, where traditional marketing is about controlling the message and Gen Y utilizes the internet for most decisions misses the message all together. They use blogging and social networks for their news. The Gen Y also likes products that create praise and how wonderful they are when using them. They love technology and text messages allow them to be in touch with a huge group all day.

So armed with all of this customer knowledge we then had to decide how we were going to get a simple message across to our three types of customers?

Our machine group decided to invite engineers and project managers to visit other customer plants running our machines for on the line touch and feel. Message here is tried proven and trustworthy machinery.

Our pouch materials group decided to make samples up with all the logo printing and let the customers do market tests before buying the final product. Message here is let all groups in the market try the product before making the final choice. Let the customer choose.

For Shotpak® brands the decision was to make the brands available in happy relaxing venues like nightclubs, swimming pool or beach bars, golf clubs and of course the biggest market the celebrity events where the internet is doing the marketing for example www.rockontherange.com where the customer can touch, smell and taste the product while enjoying themselves.

In 90 days I will let you know the success or not of these three approaches.

Enjoy spring as summer is just around the corner.

Shotsational regards,
R. Charles Murray
PPi Technologies Global