CSG Incorporated is a market development and network services company working in the packaging industry. This father-daughter business brings over 65 years of combined experience to their client.

CSG’s client base is broad. Dawn describes them as "people and companies who either sell packaging equipment, supplies, engineering services, systems integration services."

"Our client can be anyone who is selling to the disposable finished goods world. The packaging industry is a wonderful, close-knit family of companies, many of which are multi-generational companies, but not every company we do business with is a family-owned company. Our clients are the people who support the Lever brothers, the Proctor and Gambles, and the Tyson Foods so that they can get their product to the consumer."

For example, if your company makes deodorant, CSG can search their client database to provide you with a company that makes temperature control and flow systems to deliver the deodorant product, or a company who can provide the injection-molded containers which hold the deodorant, all the way down to the company that creates the case packer to hold the finished, boxed product.

"A lot of our training is done at the grocery store, where we just go and look at the products and ask ourselves how it gets there, and what is the process it has to go through, from the capping, to the labeling, to the cartons, to the case packing."

When the company was started 13 years ago, it sought to provide marketing development to the packaging industry. The key to success for them meant structure and organization. As their customer base—and the industry itself-- grew, a wider variety of very specific needs evolved.

The only way to successfully manage these needs was to create a state-of-the art database that could control and organize vast amount of detailed information with ease.

Successful companies have to engage in "good practice." They don’t have to be on the bleeding edge of technology.

Sometimes it is more practical to let others blaze the trail while you learn from their mistakes. On the other hand, selling technology-based services requires a dedicated effort to stay aware of what is state of the art at any given time.

Individual family businesses have to decide if it makes more sense to have someone inside take responsibility for staying on top of developments or if such an effort needs to be outsourced.

"Everything is managed through contact management systems. The life of our company is having very organized database structures, but having so many years of experience in the industry, and with all the things my dad has done in the past, we had a very qualified database to start with.

We’ve built on that base over 13 years, making sure we can service our clients with the right end-users who are looking for what they sell, and doing some very strategic database marketing in the process."

Implicit in Dawn’s comments is the message that whether they come from bricks and mortar or virtual resources, how a company acts on its strategic intent is vital.

Often, this means taking the time to ensure that all employees understand how they have to act to deliver on their piece of the equation under different conditions.

"The value that we can bring to the table, and the reason that our clients do business with us is the contact databases that we have available to communicate their message."

With the growth of Internet technology, CSG soon saw the value of putting all of these incredibly complex services online. We asked Dawn how she felt this decision had changed the face of the business.

"I think it has changed things for the better. Now that we are able to store our clients´ online database, including the people who have actually come to the site and registered their own products, you’re no longer in that fuzzy area where you’re wondering if a market rep has possibly falsified or embellished information, because you can see the actual remarks of the end user.

There’s no longer a question in their mind, because now the end users are coming to the site and we’re merely validating their information."

"Everything we do is an intangible service. We’ve always been a proactive company, a lead-generation resource. The parent company comes to us as a resource to support their field reps and find them more opportunities within their niche areas, and then an end user can come to our site and look for local representation in their territory.

"But it’s really up to the OEM to decide whether they’re going to list them or not. As the OEM company comes to us for support, we have a team of market researchers who can tap into this very targeted marketing database that we’ve built over the course of many years. The database helps us find the right decision makers who represent and buy those products, and they can let our clients in on that information via fax or email."

Again, Dawn’s comment implies there is the expectation that CSG’s people need to be involved in an on-going conversation with their clients. The staff cannot afford to sit back and assume they have the answers in today’s rapidly changing environment:

• They have to understand the clients´ strategies

• They have to listen to the perceived needs of the client for this engagement

• They have to be able to translate CSG’s capabilities within the client’s context

In short, the Internet has provided a way to reach out better, faster, cheaper, and more accurately. It’s helping them do what they’ve always done—but with greater efficiency.

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