Given how hard the recession hit in 2009 it would be easy to declare 2009 an ‘annus horribulus’ (bad year). But in spite of all the negative news this past year, there was also some positive news; perhaps a declaration of ‘annus mediocre’ would be more appropriate.

Transpromo and color continued to be a focus. Although not the giddy expansion we saw in 2008 and earlier, Transpromo is beginning to mature and is being forced into a more disciplined role with an emphasis on becoming a cost-effective marketing tool. The economy drove transaction document-based marketing programs to produce higher returns, reduce customer churn and make companies sticker, all while lowering costs. The economic downturn yielded the benefit of forcing the Transpromo discussion past ‘colors and speeds and feeds, oh my!’ and finally focused it on increasing ROIs for line-of-business applications. Following Gartner’s hype cycle model, hopefully the recession and 2009 accelerated the Transpromo movement past its Trough of Disillusionment and started it up its Slope of Enlightenment. Stay tuned for further developments in 2010.

One of the key drivers this year was the necessity for everyone to expand outside of their comfort zone. The recession forced companies into expanding into new markets and new offerings just to stay in business. As individuals, we were likewise frequently forced into functioning in new roles, learning new skills, and, for many of us (myself included), looking for new jobs. With this shift in mind, a Thomas Friedman article in the NY Times on how to become ‘untouchable’ said it well:

“[workers] who were used to just showing up and having work handed to them were the first to go because with the bursting of the credit bubble, that flow of work just isn’t there. But those who have the ability to imagine new services, new opportunities and new ways to recruit work were being retained. They are the new untouchables… Those who are waiting for this recession to end so someone can again hand them work could have a long wait. Those with the imagination to make themselves untouchables — to invent smarter ways to do old jobs, energy-saving ways to provide new services, new ways to attract old customers or new ways to combine existing technologies — will thrive.”

This statement applies equally to both individuals and to companies. How are you helping your company (and yourself) become ‘untouchable’?

It continued to be a good year for acquisitions. Canon acquired Oce, Xerox in a surprise move acquired ACS, and HP continued its acquisition streak with 3Com. Canon’s purchase of Oce kept both the acquisitions in the same industry, but Xerox reaching out to ACS demonstrated a broadening of its focus into business process outsourcing, and HP’s 3Com acquisition broadened its reach into the server market. The December announcement of the acquisition of Xenos Group by Actuate rounded out the year with the removal of another traditional transaction document ISV by, in this case, a business intelligence software firm. This was a theme all year. The traditional transaction document marketspace is being subsumed into larger marketspaces. As existing markets tightened or shrank, vendors looked to expand into new areas where they can see revenue growth potential. This was evident not only in acquisitions but also in product announcements. Although many of the larger organizations experienced layoffs, decreasing budgets, and forced unpaid vacations, many of the smaller vendors experienced growth years by aggressively pursuing customers and demonstrating a hard ROI for mission-critical projects that had to be implemented in spite of the recession.

Regulations came into play in 2009. The Credit Card Act of 2009 forced two deadlines on all companies who issued credit cards – one in August 2009 and one approaching in February 2010. The media mostly discussed issues such as changes in fees and penalties, but the impacts on the statement generation side were significant as well, including changed/mandated boilerplate, formats, tables, and potentially longer statements, along with a mandate to shorten the mail cycle on some communications. We’ll see how well credit card producers deal with the February 2010 deadline. Look to Washington for more potential regulatory changes in 2010.

Conferences and shows also took a hit as organizations zeroed out travel and conference budgets. But even with most conferences seeing attendance drops of 20-40%, there were still bright spots. Vendors were disappointed in the number of attendees, but also observated that the attendees who were there came with specific business problems they were looking for solutions for and were highly qualified leads,.

As we reach the end of 2009, in the 4th quarter most organizations create their 2010 budgets. At the same time we have started to see improvements in the economy, so it will be interesting to see what effect the economic growth has on 2010 budgets. But that’s for next year’s article. Have a Happy Holiday season and I’ll join you again with a 2010 preview early next year.

Stephen D. Poe, EDP, is a principal and CEO of Nautilus Solutions and is a respected expert in enterprise software product development and management, especially within the transaction document and Transpromo communities. Contact him at sdpoe@nautilussolutions.com or visit him at www.nautilussolutions.com or linkedin.com/in/sdpoe  for more information.