Last week, many members of the Cortera team headed to Miami. No, we were not migrating south for the winter (tempting as it may be when the mercury is once again falling below 40 in New England). Even better, we hosted our annual Cortera Global Customer Conference. The event is an opportunity for our clients to come together from around the world to network, train, and learn from industry experts and each other.

As I reflect somewhat on the annual conference over the years, it is easy to get lost in the logistical details of organizing a wide array of training classes, keynotes, interactive sessions and networking events.

However one thing always shines through and that’s the community itself. This year was no exception. With a tough economy, write-offs and bankruptcy on the rise the group was as united as ever. Having just completed our sixth conference I wanted to step back and look at our goals when we first set out to create an annual global customer gathering:

1. Enable the community to provide unified product direction and consensus;
2. Facilitate the community of customers, partners, industry experts and employees to network and interact to form long-lasting business relationships;
3. Provide an environment dedicated to learning and peer sharing.

Six years ago the annual event started in modest form with product and company update presentations and a few round table sessions spread over a day and a half. In contrast, this past conference evolved into over 30 sessions with six unique tracks, featuring experts and customers often sharing the same stage and in-depth breakouts taking sharing to the next level. What is amazing to me is the genuine enthusiasm and ownership that our customers have shown toward this event.

What is also apparent is how this community and the credit and collections profession has evolved over this time. Here are a few of my observations from the conference. Feel free to comment and leave your thoughts below.

• Companies are leveraging new techniques, strategies and information to speed the collections process and improve cash flow. It was clear that in many cases through better models they were able to head off issues ahead of time as customer payment patterns deteriorated.
• Companies are increasingly looking at their entire organization holistically across product lines and geographic boundaries. Credit professionals are now at the forefront of owning customer exposure globally and linking business through various information sources. The concept of Master Data Management (MDM) has emerged as a catch phrase as organization struggle to gain a single source of the “the truth” when it comes to customer information that is often spread across many technology platforms.
• The changing economic climate continues to move the credit function into a more strategic role in the front office as write-offs and customer bankruptcies challenge the entire organization, not just the credit department. Businesses with strong balance sheets are now consulting with the credit leadership to use this crisis to potentially take market share as weaker competitors are forced to tighten credit line standards.
• Similarly as the economy pushes closer to an official recession, business fraud is on the rise and the credit function is on the front line of protecting the business. Throughout the conference this theme was consistent in many circles.
• Businesses are employing a more sophisticated approach to analyzing customers through multiple information sources and complex scoring models, much like financial institutions have leveraged for consumers over the last several decades.

These are just a sampling of what I heard through the many round tables and breakouts; feel free to voice your own comments on the conference.