B03-12
B
O A R D D O C U M E N T
TO: Board of Directors
FROM: Scott M. Smiley
Finance Director
DATE: December 16, 2002
RE: Trend Report
Background Information: Attached for your review is the January 2003 Trend Report. The trend report is a narrative report of past activity, current activity, and projected activity as stated in financial terms. This report assists the leadership and staff in the planning process.
Prepared by: Program Directors
Produced by: Scott Smiley
Reviewed by: Lynn Smith
Special Libraries Association
Trend Report
January 2003
General Financial Outlook: submitted by Scott Smiley
The US economy grew by 3% for the twelve
months ending 11/30/02. When results
for the 4th quarter are available, it is anticipated that they will
show that this growth rate slowed during the quarter. While growth may slow, inflation is expected to remain relatively
stable at its current rate of 1.1%.
The international outlook is improving as the
US outlook improves. The US is
currently the largest percentage of global gross domestic product (GDP). Consequently, the international outlook
moves in direct correlation to the US outlook. That trend may be changing. China and other Asian companies are making
rapid advances and are anticipated to make up a much larger percentage of
global GDP in the coming decade as free trade agreements and a well educated
and inexpensive work force break down current economic hindrances.
It is currently believed that the October 2002 lows of the stock market were the bottom of this cycle. Recent analysis of the stock market for the past 70 years, by Charles Blood, has shown a recurring four-year cycle of lows in stock movements. Based on this research, and other indicators, it would appear we have finally hit bottom and are on the way back up. The price of stocks has advanced nearly 15% since these October lows.
The value of SLA’s total holdings was $4,779,491 as of November 30, 2002. The trend in value for our portfolio has been a downward one since December of 2000 due to drops in market value and withdrawals of principal. October and November of this year showed a reversal of this trend as the value of our holdings increased in each of these months. Increases are totally based on market value as no additional principal has been added to any of our funds. Should this trend continue through the end of the year, we may not have as significant a cost-to-market adjustment as we have had in the last two years.
Administrative Services: submitted by Michelle Shands
The total salaries and wages expense is currently under budget. This is due primarily to the reorganization of staff that we did at the end of the year. We are operating at much slimmer staff. However, our productivity is up. This is a result of concentrating on what is important to our members and adopting a “doing more with less” mindset.
The unemployment rate is at 6 percent, which is a small increase from last month’s 5.7 percent. There is still a large quantity of available administrative and professional workers. This recent trend will cause a decrease in the amount of money we will spend in training especially for new employees. We will no longer need to rely on employment agencies as a recruiting tool for our administrative employees.
In order to attract skilled staff and to compete with other associations, SLA offers a competitive benefits package. The overall expense for employee benefits is currently below the budgeted expense. This is due to the number of unutilized positions. As reported in previous trend reports staff annually reviews means by which to maintain staff benefits while containing the costs to the Association. Staff has re-negotiated the benefits plans several times as a means to control costs. For the 2002/2003 health insurance renewal period, we were faced with an increase of over 20% even after increasing the amount of deductibles paid by staff. Staff has been able to negotiate with the plan provider to ensure continued benefits without exorbitant rate increases, based on a commitment to educating the staff on how to control the costs of the plan. Staff added flexible spending accounts to the benefits package in July 1997.
In 1998, a flexible work schedule was added to the benefits package. In January 1999, staff added pre-tax commuting costs to the benefits package. This program allows employees to use pre-tax dollars for commuter costs. These benefits continue to help retain competent staff in lieu of our ability to offer top dollar.
The office services expenses have remained
under budget due to staff utilizing technology for communicating with the
membership. We continue to charge back
to programs for duplication, supplies, and postage. Due to the recent events in
the telecommunications industry staff has been unable to continue with deep
discounted long-distance rates. We have
elected the services of a carrier that can provide us with reliable and
consistent service. Stationery costs
have increased by 25% to 50% over the past few years, as the paper industry has
increased the costs of paper across the board.
While overall office services are currently within budgeted amounts,
staff recognizes that the expenses within this area can be volatile. We are experiencing a 3%-4% increase in our
express mail services. Staff will
continue to shop around for competitive bids and select vendors that are able
to maintain quality at reasonable rates.
As has been the trend, the overall occupancy
costs have remained within budgeted amounts.
We are in process of negotiating with several window contractors to
install new windows for the second and third floors and restore the windows on
the fourth floor. Staff has hired a historical
architectural firm to help negotiate with the contractors and the Washington DC
Historical Society. Due to size of the
windows and the overall specifications of the historical society, our projected
costs of installing these window has increased by 20%.
Technology Services: submitted by Brian Weisman
The Technology Services Department has been focused on streamlining and improving customer service, expanding e-commerce capabilities, and investigating new collaboration tools and the next generation of membership management systems. Since our last trend report, we have released the virtual help desk http://www.sla.org/helpdesk, a web based system for entering and tracking both internal and external requests for technical support. The system has been well received and has automated the process of tracking, solving and communicating technical issues between Technology Services and our staff and members. We have also recently released the online Member Marketplace. This virtual store enables our members to purchase SLA logo merchandise, publications and electronic downloads securely on line with their credit cards. The system allows customers to choose UPS shipping options and gives them the ability to track their order. Electronic downloads are immediately filled upon verification of the customers credit card. With the help of one of the former TSCentral programmers, Technology Services in conjunction with the Conference Department, continued to enhance the on line conference planner. The enhancements made this year greatly improved the ease of use of this system by our program planners and will also provide a more integrated system for the attendees at this New York Conference.
We have also been looking at new collaborative platforms which we feel would be of great benefit to our units and the membership as a whole. Products like SharePoint and Fusion Productions Communities would provide a good platform for the creation of virtual communities within our organization. These collaboration platforms would provide an integrated environment for our members to truly collaborate by engaging the entire unit to participate in the content of the community. These systems offer file sharing, group calendaring, message boards and chat in one integrated web site. We are planning on setting up a few test communities to obtain feedback from our membership.
Due to economic factors, and our budget freeze, we must still complete some outstanding migration projects to fully complete our migration plan. In addition, we will continue to focus on improving customer service, streamlining internal and external processes, evaluating new products for our membership and monitoring and upgrading our infrastructure.
The Technology Services department has accomplished a great deal in a short period of time and is operating within budget.
Membership Development—submitted by Linda Broussard
Membership recruitment through November is up 23% as compared to the first eleven months of last year and 41% over two years ago. Through November 2002, 2,167 members have been recruited. Membership at this report writing is 12,031. Retention is on par with last year. We continue to struggle with the economic environment as downsizing and mergers continue to adversely affect SLA’s members.
Only one direct mail campaign had been conducted prior to the budget freeze. E-mail campaigns have been conducted, utilizing members to refer prospects. 428 members participated in the first member referral campaign. We are actively marketing to 615 prospects via e-mail. A second campaign is in progress and 290 members have submitted names so far. E-mail lists have not been secured for lease as most organizations lease only labels. Creative strategies for collecting e-mails for marketing are being developed.
The online renewal option has been successfully launched and has been well received. As of mid-December, 2002, 539 members have renewed membership via the web since June’s launch. At the same time, the option to join via the web was launched. As of mid-December, 2002, 614 members have joined via the website. At present, this is a merely an option for renewal and will not replace mailed dues renewal notices.
Dues revenue is eleven percent below budget and is not
expected to meet budgeted revenues for the year. To offset this loss of revenue, extreme measures were taken to
reduce expenses, which are currently 55% below budgeted expenditures prior to
personnel costs. Personnel costs are
also 32% below budget yielding a net of almost 10% positive variance. The membership budget is expected to be on
target at year-end.
Student group expenses are under budget. Neither the Spring nor Fall issues of The Student Union were published which accounts for this significant reduction in expense. The Student Union is being re-developed with the assistance of the Student and Academic Affairs Committee for possible publication in a web format.
In summary, trends that are affecting the information profession as a whole affect the Association as well. Although virtualization and the emergence of the field of information science represent excellent opportunities for SLA to expand its membership, staff must remain aware of factors within the profession, such as mergers and lack of employer financial support, which may negatively impact member counts. In addition, potential new markets need to be explored and the services and benefits offered need to be continually evaluated to ensure that our members are getting what they want and need. The planned marketing research had to be cancelled due to budgetary freezes. A member needs assessment is under way and results will be utilized to further develop the membership experience.
The production expenses to date for Information Outlook have been slightly higher this year due to the decision to fold the Preliminary Conference Program into the February issue of the magazine. This slight overage is more than offset by the cost savings of not producing a separate preliminary conference program. Additionally, a revised pricing agreement with the printer should lower production costs during the last couple of months of the year.
Our Web initiatives continue. The Who's Who in Special Libraries and Conference Papers went online before conference. We will continue to seek ways to generate revenue through these Web publications.
SLA also published How Do Workers Use Intranets and it is available in PDF form over the web and in hardback. This publication produced quite well for the Association and exceeded budgeted expectations by nearly 50%. The Association will continue to produce a certain number of key publications, but these will be absorbed into other programs as appropriate.
Advertising: submitted by Doug Newcomb
Conference & Exhibits: submitted by Alicia Dimaio and DeVonne Henry
Staff started planning for the 2003 New York on a cautionary note, anticipating greater costs due the past year falling below budgeted projections, as well as the event being held in an expensive location. Due to these factors, staff was forced to practice tight financial control over all aspects of the planning process – this included a very realistic projection of revenue and attendance. The Board did approve a budget for the 2003 New York that reflects a realistic, while modest, income and realistic expense projections. It is too early in the current registration process to ascertain any level of success.
For the 2003 planning year, staff has continued to improve upon existing projects for the New York Conference. Staff has refined the virtual conference planner to be more intuitive and easier to use for both the program planner and the attendee. The newest version of the virtual program allows the planners to simultaneously submit complete program information to staff by taking them through a series of pages automatically. This step-by-step process has cut down staff time in tracking down incomplete information. With the attendee version of the planner, staff believes changes in sorting session information and the personal conference calendar will continue to increase the popularity of this product to where the planner becomes the main vehicle for conference information and promotion.
Staff has also made strides in communication with the program planners and other conference related groups. For the New York conference, a monthly email newsletter has been dedicated to the program planners, giving them tips on conference planning, as well as informing them about upcoming deadlines and new announcements. This newsletter has become an important tool for the distribution of information, and has streamlined the planning process for both the staff and planners.
Communication is also being extended through staff’s marketing efforts. Marketing has increased for the 2003 conference. Once a month a marketing piece is being sent to the full membership as well as other solicited groups. The promotional pieces are being balanced between print (postcards and brochures) and electronic (email broadcasts). Marketing is also being increased in Information Outlook with a promotional article on New York City being included in every issue until June.
Both online conference registration and housing information will be available to potential attendees and exhibitors via the Web, beginning January 2, 2003. Increasing use of these online registration tools is making it increasingly difficult to track patterns in reservation behavior, since a historical pattern no longer exists – especially in relation to hotel reservations. Staff is observing that many attendees will book hotel room reservations through alternative hotel websites that cannot be tracked by the designated conference hotels. This can cause a short fall in the number of rooms committed to in the hotel contracts, putting SLA at financial risk. Staff is re-examining current and future hotel contracts to attempt to limit this risk, as well as working with the current housing company to create incentives for conference goers - such as rewarding exhibitors priority points – if they register through the official housing site.
There is still $7,650 in outstanding exhibitor payments from the Los Angeles conference. Staff is working toward getting these balances paid-in-full. For New York, we currently have 160 exhibitors who have signed up for a total of $649,315 received to date. In order to sell out at the New York Hilton hotel, approximately 125 booths need to be sold. This goal should be easily accomplished. The bulk of exhibitor applications are received in January when their 2003 budgets become available.
Many 2002 exhibitors have re-signed for 2003, but requested a smaller booth size than last year. With the east coast location, we are expecting several new exhibit companies. We have approximately 15 new exhibitors so far. There are three floors to the exhibit hall in New York. The first and second floors are almost completely full at this time. The bulk of staff efforts will now go into selling the remaining booths on the third floor. From the exhibitor’s point of view, this is the least desirable floor and will be more difficult to sell than the first and second floors. Staff are making plans to ensure that there is adequate traffic on all floors of the exhibit hall to ensure the exhibitors remain happy with the show and return in future years.
Staff remains optimistic for the New York Conference. With a large base of SLA members and interested parties in the New York area, staff believes there will be increased attendance in New York. With that said, staff is also realistic and is very conscientious of the risks associated with overestimating attendance and revenue.
As stated above, planning for the 2003 New York Conference began on a cautionary note practicing tight financial control on all anticipated expenditures. Staff will continue to operate under these constraints. While fund raising and sponsorship have been obtained and will add to the festivities planned, there remain a large number of activities that are or should be covered by registration fees – therefore staff is approaching planning all events cautiously and keeping costs in mind.
Professional Development—submitted by Shelva Suggs.
The trends identified in the December 2001 and June 2002 Trend Reports continue to have a major impact on the professional development fiscal position. SLA faces strong competition for our members’ learning and development dollars from other professional associations and for-profit conference and seminar organizations alike. Moreover, we are aware of significant increases in audio/visual, food and beverage, hotel and distance learning technology expenses. A third consideration is the difficulty in generating attendees for residence learning activities. This issue is due in part to travel limitations, budget cuts, and organization-wide down sizing. These trends and factors combine to create a challenging context in which SLA’s learning and development offerings are situated. The 2003 budget has been realigned accordingly.
In January 2002, the Innovating Information
Services (IIS) program was held in conjunction with SLA’s Winter Meeting. Attended by over 40 participants, IIS failed
to meet budget or registration expectations.
Due to the estimated penalty due to attrition, a decision was made to
move forward with the program. The
program fell short of meeting the anticipated income figures, but did exceed
the expectations of the attendees by achieving a participant satisfaction
rating of 4 (on a scale of 5) overall.
As a result of this trend, the 2003 Winter Education component of the
professional development program has been eliminated. In its place, we are working with the Louisiana/Southern
Mississippi Chapter to offer a co-sponsored course on Friday during the Winter
Meeting. This program is intended to
deliver a service to the leadership and to showcase the ease in which to
deliver a virtual seminar to the units.
It is hoped that the income for 2003 will increase accordingly.
Also witnessed during the first part of 2002 was the cancellation of the MLS Renewal 2002 program. Introduced in the Spring of 2001, the program was well-received but failed to meet the anticipated registrations figures. Due to the positive feedback received from the 2001 alumni and the buzz surrounding the experience, staff planned for a successful repeat of the session in 2002. Although strongly promoted, the program failed to meet the attendance figures needed to breakeven. As a result, the program was cancelled. Due to the efforts of staff, a minimal penalty was paid to the hotel.
With this context in mind, the staff is working to better assess the needs of the industry. Staff has worked in collaboration with internal colleagues as well as the Professional Development Committee to determine the needs and skill gaps of those within the industry. Moreover, staff has begun to work with like organizations and a professional consultant to re-purpose content.
The registrations for both SLA sponsored and Division sponsored Continuous Education (CE) sessions were significantly down from the same period last year for many of the reasons highlighted above. As a result, we decided to offer two Virtual Seminars in conjunction with the LA annual conference. By doing this, three objectives were met: 1) to provide all members with access to the SLA conference experience, 2) to demonstrate the distance learning products and services offered through SLA’s Professional Development department and 3) to increase SLA’s revenue stream. This positively impacted our revenue stream and allowed onsite registrants a glimpse at a virtual seminar.
Our regular distance learning efforts continue. Staff continues to work with KRM Information Services, Inc., an outsource technology partner, to produce the 2002 Virtual Seminar Series. KRM provides dedicated technology and other key services that are substantially superior to what SLA alone can offer. We believe that our relationship with KRM will continue to significantly increase the quality and value of these learning experiences. This is the one area of our program that consistently meets or exceeds budget expectations. The December offering has twice as many sites as was budgeted and we expect this positive trend to continue into 2003.
The program for 2003 has been totally re-vamped to be more
realistic and in line with members desires.
After polling the membership and course participants, we are: increasing
the number of virtual learning opportunities, delivering educational offerings
to the chapters, and changing the structure of the conference CE’s to offer a
greater number of half day workshops.
Marketing continues its work promoting the products and services of the Association. We have worked with each department to find out their needs and plans for the year and beyond, to get an early start on all projects.
With the New York conference fast approaching, the majority of Marketing’s efforts will be in promoting conference. We have begun and will continue to produce a conference Marketing piece each month. In an effort to keep costs down, our plan involves alternating printed materials with electronic communications to the membership. This has proven to be effective both in terms of marketing and costs. All electronic communications are produced within the Marketing department.
With each project, marketing has attempted to work with outside vendors that are flexible to the needs of an association where costs are a significant influence in determining vendors. The printing industry has faced a slight slow down in work because of the slowing economy and the fact that many customers are using the Internet more for marketing their products and services. This has allowed Marketing to gain a slight advantage in negotiating pricing for many print jobs. Marketing has stayed within or below each department’s budget parameters for each project.
Expenses for Learning’s marketing have been reduced, as there are a limited number of events planned for 2003. Much of the efforts have gone into promoting the Virtual Seminars, which are done through electronic formats costing a minimal amount for fax broadcasts and staff time for e-mail broadcasts.
Most of the expenses that marketing initiates occur between January and June of each year. This trend will continue, however Marketing will continue to carefully watch costs and keep expenses down.
Marketing anticipates bringing in a small amount of revenue through the sale of logo merchandise and publications over the Internet. Members are now able to purchase items securely online, and Marketing will continue to promote the e-commerce through Information Outlook and email communications.
The fiscal year 2003 looks to be very active year for SLA’s Public Policy program. Ongoing and forthcoming issues include:
Staff will continue to keep expenses to a minimum by producing products electronically and participating with the Shared Legal Capabilities, which consists five major library associations in response to a growing focus on copyright and intellectual property issues in the national and international arenas.
No solicitation has been done for the 2003 Annual Campaign to save
money in the 2002 budget. Staff
currently expects to receive contributions form Dialog, Factiva, H.W. Wilson
and Standard and Poor’s totaling $55,000.
Staff have $310,000
in pledges for conference thus far. The 2003 budgeted goal for conference
is $360,000, so it is likely that the budget will be achieved without
LexisNexis as a major partner. We still have three major partners for New
York.
Staff will continue to work on sponsorships through broadcast faxes and additional mailings to the vendors from now until April 1. And LexisNexis is not a lost cause. After the recent reorganization at L-N, staff has requested the new LexisNexis liaison to consider reinstatement of their major partnership for conference. It is a subject that staff will follow up on in the next thirty days. Mergent is considering a $20,000 sponsorship of the Message Center, and NStein is considering renewal of their sponsorship of the exhibitor lounge so that is in play, too. In addition, there are always sponsorships that come in after the first of the year that were not anticipated.
On the exhibit side,
there is $25,000 in committed sponsorship, with a goal of $100,000. At
this point, staff will be surprised if this goal is attained, which is mostly
to fund the exhibit hall food events that staff has planned. The $25,000
already pledged is not for any food events. Thomson companies just
turned down a proposal to cover the costs of a $50,000 breakfast on Monday, and
they were our best prospect. The trend
continues to be that corporations are no longer willing to fund food events as
it is viewed as frivolous.
Factiva will replace LexisNexis Products in the Knowledge Exchange. Staff have talked with Factiva about putting their product in the Knowledge Exchange to replace the loss of LexisNexis Universe and web service. Staff met with Factiva representatives to finalize the details and to get the installation of Factiva as soon as the LexisNexis contract expires in April 2003.
Factiva has
requested a proposal for sponsorship of SLA’s home page, to begin as soon as
the LexisNexis contract runs out on June 30, 2003. This is great news for 2004, but since Factiva is already
committed to $100,000 in non-conference sponsorships for 2003, it is hard to
say what the “net” will be. Following
is a list of budgeted sponsorships. TBD
indicates that sponsorship has not yet been finalized for this item.
Virtual Seminars Sponsorship
21st Century $12,000
TBD
Career Services On-Line
Knowledge Age $25,000
TBD
CE Courses/Annual Conference $15,000 TBD
Web Site Sponsorship $52,500 TBD
ISLD Sponsorship (Factiva) $7,500
Competencies Award $11,500 TBD
Information On-Line Sponsorship (S&P) $14,000
New Member Orientation $7,000 TBD
(unlikely to be funded at this time)
IRC Sponsorship $7,000 TBD
Diversity Leadership Development Program $6,000
Web Site Sponsorship (Dialog) $63,000
(Some of this will be replaced with in-kind contributions of chapter courses and conference sessions)
In Kind or Other Value:
Advertising Revenue from S&P Marketing Contract $17,000
LexisNexis Universe and Tell Me More Credits $50,000
(Will be replaced by Factiva)
Conference Tote Bags (CAS) $25,000
Conference Cyber Café $75,000
Leadership: submitted by Stephanie Russell and Linda Broussard
In October of 2002,
board documents were made available to the complete Board on a secure web
site. This new tool allows staff (along
with the Board) to post relevant details regarding upcoming Board
activities. It also serves as a common
place to share documents prior to discussion.
This effort has saved staff time, printing fees as well as postal
fees.
The cost associated with the bylaws revision was an unbudgeted item which cost the Association nearly $10,000. The 2002 Fall Board of Directors meeting was over budget by more than $12,000 with the cost of facilitation.
Communication between the Board members will increase as the Board schedules more conference calls to discuss relevant matters regarding the Association.
There has been no change for leadership development since
the October trend report. Chapter and
Division communications remains below budgeted expenditures due to educating
unit officers of the availability of receiving reports/labels via e-mail.
Knowledge Exchange: submitted by John Latham
This trend report covers the Knowledge Exchange (KEx) and Research. It also includes the sales of the few SLA publications still available for sale.
LexisNexis has said that they will not renew the sponsorship agreement of the KEx in April 2003. We are in negotiations with another content aggregator and are confident that a deal will be struck to replace LexisNexis. Sponsorship of the KEx online products is significant in the KEx budget as it reduces the total expenditure in 2003 by $56,000 from $79,000 to $23,000. We are in the process of preparing the online products for the new e-commerce capability, which will increase the KEx income in the New Year. We will be looking into ways of making saleable products out of research projects carried out in the future. Serials subscriptions are not being renewed where the serials are indexed and available on Nexis.com. We have checked that these serials will be available from the anticipated new sponsor. KEx staff will continue to monitor the serials subscriptions for 2002 and 2003.
The sales of the 2002 Salary Survey since publication in October have been roughly the same as for 2001. The sales of the Corporate Intranets publication, launched in April, which have exceeded $40,000 and its break even, are slowing down. No other publications are planned for 2002.