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Letter to the Editor

This article originally appeared in the July 2009 Issue of INSIGHT

Hopeful Signs

by Karen Kilbane

Our feature this month offers some creative business ideas that auto body facility owners and managers have devised to improve their operations. Their personal testimony about figuring out a worthwhile plan and implementing it makes for some valuable reading.

The debate between the Collision Industry Conference (CIC) Database Committee and CCC Information Systems, the estimating system provider concerning the bumper prompt, appears to be nearing the boiling point. An open letter to INSIGHT from Jack Rozint, CCC’s vice president, product management, is printed, in its entirety, on page 12. I am sure we will be hearing more from both sides for several months.

Despite the economic turmoil in the U.S. and throughout the world, there are some hopeful signs that the worst may be over. First, our TrendLine regional repair order figures, for the first time in many months, show only one region with a decline in repair orders in the month of May, 2009 compared to May of last year. Secondly, according to six of the eight markets surveyed for this month’s Market Watch, business was even or up from a year ago, and all eight markets anticipate that next month will see more business at their doors. Finally, our stock chart looks better than it has for each month of this year.

Well, it may be mid-Summer, but we could not resist giving you a heads-up story about NACE 2009, scheduled for November in Las Vegas. The Hero of the Hudson himself, Captain Sully Sullenberger, has agreed to give the event’s keynote address. Read more on page 8.

Start planning ahead, even on a shoestring budget, to attend NACE 2009. Anyone who has attended will promise you that you will leave Las Vegas with valuable ideas.

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