GP Strategies Sponsors Customer Forum Event

($GPX) GP Strategies held its 3^rd Annual 2012 Customer Forum Event on October 4 and 5, 2012, at the James L. Allen Center on the campus of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. This event, hosted by Kellogg School of Management, offered a group of select GP Strategies customers and Learning and Talent Management leaders the opportunity to learn about the latest trends affecting Learning and Development and to share their experiences and network with their peers.

Attendance included several Fortune 500 companies, including 4 of the Company’s Top 10 customers, representing the following industries:  Aerospace; Automotive; Financial, Banking, and Insurance; Food and Beverage; Government; Hospitality; and Information Technology.

The Forum kicked off with an engaging presentation by the respected industry thought leader Josh Bersin who spoke about new talent strategies that drive agility, global strength and employee engagement. Thought-provoking presentations on relevant topics such as innovation, creativity and social networking were facilitated by senior professors from the Kellogg School of Management and Northwestern University. Chris Rice, from the newly acquired BlessingWhite division, shared insights and proven strategies for building a culture of employee engagement. Additionally, participants received worthwhile information from both GP Strategies experts and client partners, including Hilton and Cigna who shared case studies and examples of experiences within their learning organizations.

Don Duquette, Executive Vice President for GP Strategies said, “It is critical for learning and development organizations to stay current with industry trends and best practices. The GP Strategies customer forum, now in its third year, provides learning and development leaders the opportunity to validate their learning practices, and to learn how others are addressing the challenges of managing their significant investment in employee development.”

GP Strategies Continues Trend of Strong Earnings and Sales Growth in Q3 2012 - $GPX

GP Strategies Corporation (GPX) is a global performance improvement solutions provider of sales and technical training, eLearning solutions, management consulting and engineering services. $GPX has offices located worldwide (2,800+ employees) and serves a wide variety of industries and sectors, including auto manufacturers, financial services, energy and life sciences, while capitalizing on the shift from traditional, in-person training to more efficient, flexible and convenient eLearning applications.

The Company is organized into five business segments:

Learning Solutions—Designing and developing eLearning, training and curriculum across a wide range of industries

Professional and Technical Services—Providing services such as engineering and technical training for manufacturing and petrochemical industries and government clients

Sandy—Designing, developing, and delivering custom product sales and technical training to the auto industry

Performance Readiness Group—Supplying IT consulting, including ERP system implementations, human capital management and other training and consulting services

Energy—Providing software and related engineering services, as well as training offerings to electric power utility companies

On November 1, 2012, $GPX reported that it continued the trend of strong sales and profit growth, including the following highlights for Q3 2012 (three months ending September 30, 2012):

$GPX reported 12% revenue growth to $99.7 million (M) vs. $88.9M during the year-ago period.

$GPX reported gross profit increased to $17.9M (18% of revenue) vs. $14.9M (16.7% of revenue) in the year-ago period.

$GPX reported diluted earnings per share (EPS) of $0.32, which increased 33% from $0.24 in the year-ago period.

As of September 30, 2012, $GPX reported a strong balance sheet that includes $12.6M of cash (vs. $4.2M at year-end 2011), no outstanding debt ($50M in borrowings available under line of credit) and 19.3M shares of common stock outstanding on a fully diluted basis. Cash provided by operating activities for the first nine months of 2012 increased to $17M compared to $10.6M in the year-ago period.

Revenue grew organically during Q3 2012 by 9%, which was primarily driven by growth in the Learning Solutions and Sandy segments due to increased training services for both new and existing customers. Near the end of the quarter, $GPX announced that an existing customer renewed a three-year contract valued at $45M over the period of the agreement.

The Company also highlighted its continued acquisition strategy as a key component of future growth, including the recent $10M acquisition of BlessingWhite for leadership and professional development services (including higher margin content component) that closed in early October and is expected to be accretive to earnings. In late September, $GPX acquired the operating assets ($700,000 purchase price) of Denmark-based Rovsing Dynamics, which is a provider of monitoring hardware and software solutions (vibration analysis) for heavy machinery to expand the Company’s global footprint in the energy and petrochemical industries.

The Company also noted a growing contract backlog in excess of $205M at the end of September 2012 compared to $185M at the end of September 2011.

The Company is uniquely positioned to capitalize on the domestic and global energy boom, including growth opportunities from shale/oil gas drilling, power plant construction and the construction of pipelines and refineries. Currently, $GPX derives about 15% of revenue from energy-related products and services, including 6% in the power generation industry and 9% from alternative fuel and petrochemical industries, and the Company recently received a contract award for power plant work in Hong Kong.

In addition, major auto industry customers continue to report strong operating results, indicating potential future growth from the Sandy sector, which includes sales consultant training and driver interface programs.

Last week, $GPX was named to the Forbes list of America’s 100 Best Small Companies (ranked #58), highlighting the growing recognition by investors, the financial media and industry-based research organizations of business, financial and stock price performance that has continued to exceed expectations.

Altitude Digital Partners Makes the ColoradoBiz Magazine Top 250 Private Companies List

Altitude Digital Partners, an online display and video advertising firm, recently ranked 149 in the annual Top 250 Private Companies List in ColoradoBiz Magazine. 

The list itself is comprised of young technology pioneers that have experienced significant revenue growth from year to year. Altitude Digital Partners, founded in 2009, had a 78 percent revenue growth in 2011, which made it a candidate for the list. The company had more than $6 million in gross revenue in 2011, which had doubled its 2010 gross revenue. 

CEO of Altitude Digital Partners and Colorado entrepreneur Jeremy Ostermiller stated, 

“We are honored to be recognized in Colorado Biz Magazine’s Top 250 Private Companies List. It’s a tribute to our vision, hard work and efforts of our entire team. Our culture, customized technology and superior service has kept us in the forefront of the industry, and allowed us to perform greatly during this shaky economic business climate. The listing provides us additional motivation as we continue to deliver publishers the best online display and video advertising services.”

Read more here. 

When It Comes to Mobile Technology, User Adoption Is Everything ($GPX)

In a new video by GP Strategies™, Mal Poulin discusses mobile technology and explains why user adoption is so critical to successful implementation.

In an earlier podcast on User Adoption, Poulin comments,

"By 2016, smartphones and tablets will put power in the pockets of a billion global consumers. Mobile is not simply another device for IT to support with a shrunken website or a screen-scraped SAP application. Rather, mobile is the manifestation of a much broader shift to new systems of engagement. [And] engagement is about people."

In this video, Poulin explains that since the mobile technologies in question are so new and innovative, traditional training methods won't be effective. Instead, management needs to employ inspiring methods to get employees motivated to use the new technology and excited to integrate it in their lives. Employees need to see how the new technology will add value to their lives, both personal and professional, if they are going to put in the required effort to make the shift.

Poulin provides an example to illustrate his point: Imagine how a 16-year-old high school student would react upon getting her first iPhone versus an 80-year-old senior citizen who uses a rotary phone and feels as if the iPhone were forced upon her. The technology is the same, but in the teenager's case, the excitement, motivation and value are there; for the senior citizen, they're not.

At work, Poulin explains, it's just as much about new ways of working as it is about the devices and technologies themselves. For example, consider a company that gives new tablets with strong connectivity to its sales representatives. The representatives are free to travel around, but thanks to the tablets, they still stay connected to information and people. To them, that equals more sales and fewer obstacles. Again, the excitement, motivation and value are there, and rapid adoption is extremely probable.

Poulin again stresses that when it comes to user adoption of mobile technology, everything starts (and ends) with excitement, motivation and value.

Altitude Digital Partners's Joe Salvador Weighs In On Video Advertising Announcement by Flurry mobile network

In a recent article on VentureBeat.com, contributor Dean Takahashi writes that mobile analytics and monetization platform Flurry now says that its video ad network is one of its most popular new services. In the month of August, video ad views across its Flurry AppCircle network soared past 100 million views.

Takahashi writes that Flurry hit the milestone "a year after making AppCircle Clips video ads available on Apple’s iOS (iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch) platform. And today, the company is also announcing that it has created AppCircle Clips on Android for both publishers and advertisers."

Flurry president and chief executive officer Simon Khalaf commented, 

"Video has established itself as an important format for mobile advertising. The unprecedented success we’re seeing for in-app video advertising demonstrates how smartphone and tablet consumer behavior closely mirrors that of television viewing, where consumers accept commercials in exchange for their content experience."

Altitude Digital Partners is a full service digital agency that empowers publishers to maximize their online revenue. Altitude works with hundreds of advertising demand partners and is able to offer publishers the industry's most competitive CPM rates. On average, AltitudeDP is able to increase a publisher's revenue by upto 300%. The company excels in advertising optimization and advertising yield management. 

The company recently launched Visualtising, its Digital Video division. At the forefront in yield management and video advertising technology, Visualtising empowers publishers to maximize their online revenue by optimizing their ad inventory and eliminating unnecessary ad operations costs. Visualtising partners with hundreds of the world's premier online publishers, providing a full scale Supply-Side-Platform. Visualtising closed the second quarter of 2012 with record growth and revenue. 

In response to the news, Altitude Digital Partners Vice President of Video Operations Joe Salvador stated, 

"Visualtising is focused on video advertising across all screens. Currently, traditional pre-roll [ie, video pre roll advertising] is where most of our clients exist.  We believe that video advertising is going to flourish on mobile devices as formats are becoming more standardized and SmartPhone usage is skyrockets. Its exciting for a buyer to know that their ad will be hyper targeted to users and their devices and it's rewarding for users to experience 'TV' quality performance across all their digital interactions."

Read the full article here.