SEC Filings Section 16 Filings Only
 
PFSWEB INC filed this 8-K on 03/31/2006.
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LANG GERHARD: OK. One more question, if I could. With regard to eCOST, let’s you batten down the hatches, create the platform and have an OK ‘06 and a good look into ‘07. What do you do next? Do you take it to Europe or do you just — you do another deal with another online retailer? Or what’s the next step so to speak or the — how do you parlay that?
MARK LAYTON: Well, if — assuming your facts or your stated assumptions are true, then, you know, I would — I would expect that we would have a growth in the shareholder value that we have that would give us access to additional capital, and the acquisition marketplace would be an area where we would certainly consider doing this again. I think that because of the scalability of our platform and how good an application it is, we believe, into the Web commerce area, that we can plunk other companies on top of this, given them scale, drive costs out and do the same thing again. Then international expansion is also very likely. You know, I think that, you know, we’re not completely decided on it, but certainly we have an eye on Canada and Europe for eCOST because we’ve already got investments in those markets that we can — we can launch on.
LANG GERHARD: OK, thanks.
MARK LAYTON: Thank you.
OPERATOR: Your next question comes from Jack Andrews, of Inflexion Partners.
JACK ANDREWS, INFLEXION PARTNERS: Hi, good morning. I want to drill down on the services business a little bit if I could. You talked about, you know, peaks and valleys in the past. And it seems that 2004 was certainly a peak in terms of new business signings. And it seems that you’ve been in a bit of a valley here over the last several months and you talked about kind of re-focusing maybe more on your core verticals. I was just wondering what else you think is kind of necessary or — to really drive this business. I mean, is there something that you’re seeing in the marketplace that might lend you to change your sales process, perhaps, or just — you know, besides kind of narrowing your focus, is there something that you think might re-ignite the signings on the side of the business?
MARK LAYTON: Well, I think — you know, one of the things I think that has impact in the domestic outsourcing area in the last couple of years has been a lot of companies’ interest in the attractiveness and cost in the offshore outsourcers, you know, particularly in the — what we would call the silo areas of the outsourcing business, particularly customer service, call center, e-mail response, credit and collections activity. A lot of those activities were offshored by companies. You know, we’ve seen some social dissatisfaction, I guess, in words I would use in terms of the consumers in the U.S.’s responsiveness to that, challenges in terms of actually achieving the cost benefits that companies thought they were going to gain out of that. And I think that one of the trends that we’re beginning to see is a movement back of a lot of these functions or the deployment of hybrid models where, you know, you only offshore very — under-sophisticated transactions and try to keep them, you know — the more sophisticated ones here where there’s a greater understanding and sensitivity to the transaction. So I think that’s one trend that we’ve been battling and I think it’s turning from there.

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