CHICAGO -- The National Food Brokers Association opened a big new chapter here last week when it formally unveiled its new logo and new name, the Association of Sales and Marketing Cos.
Marking a new direction for the 92-year-old, Reston, Va.-based trade group, the name change was a major focus at the association's annual convention last week.
The change is more than symbolic, said Robert Schwarze, ASMC president and chief executive officer. It reflects the much broader scope of services provided by "brokers," who today traffic in information as well as products, do marketing as well as selling and who merchandise food and nonfood products in various retail channels.
"We have made this name change to let the world know what our members are doing," said Schwarze, who met with reporters here at the NFBA/IFBA Business Forum & Expo.
"Our guys are so much more than just a field sales organization, with all their investments in information and data capabilities -- intellectual capital -- plus the ability to deliver the arms and legs to get it done at retail," he said.
The name change's significance was reflected in repeated references to retail merchandising services, a broker activity that's growing in importance as manufacturers seek to outsource shelf maintenance, reset work, information gathering and other in-store tasks.
"We are the quintessential outsourcing industry in the age of outsourcing," Fred Arnold, chairman of SalesMark, Dallas, said in an address marking the end of his one-year term as ASMC chairman. "We are just ahead of everybody else."
Separate workshop sessions on "Activity-Based Management" and "The Retail Merchandising Business" underscored the association membership's interest in the in-store service business.
Asked about the expected scope of the renamed association, Schwarze said, "Part of our plan is to reach out to retail merchandising organizations." ASMC executives held a meeting at the Business Forum with Gary Ebben, executive director of the 102-member National Association for Retail Merchandising Services, Stevens Point, Wis. Details were not released, but the discussion reportedly centered on possible cooperative activities between the two groups.
In other news at the Business Forum, Karen Ribler, ASMC executive vice president and chief operating officer of its Education and Training Foundation, announced the release of a new activity-based management primer for food-service brokers here. A companion software program, which includes a comprehensive "dictionary" of activities, will be ready for release in early 1997, she said.
Also imminent is publication of the long-anticipated Efficient Consumer Response Scorecards for brokers, said Mark Baum, ASMC senior vice president. The materials are now in print, and a CD-ROM version is expected by first-quarter 1997. The association also will establish a service bureau to support its members in using the tools.
