Partner with The Avengers

Dave Rudd

I recently saw The Avengers and loved it! How can you not like action, laughter, drama and a fight against an evil alien race intent on conquering not only our world, but the galaxy?!

As a summary, Nick Fury, Director of the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division (S.H.I.E.L.D.), recognizes the imminent threat posed by the appearance of Loki (an exiled Norse god) and the Chitauri race. They want to conquer and enslave the world. Fury quickly re-activates the Avengers initiative and joins together the super heroes: Black Widow, Hulk, Iron Man, Captain America and Thor to overcome this new threat.

Despite facing a foe superior in weaponry and number of forces, The Avengers won, BUT not until they came together as a team, split-up duties, relied upon everyone’s strengths and built trust.

This sounds like a formula for success in our businesses.

What makes a company hero? I see this type of combined result every day at IAT. Every team member works hard to accomplish their own set of duties and job requirements, and when a big project comes up, they combine forces—just like The Avengers—to help each other and the entire team succeed.

Specializing gives industry heroes an increased chance for success. Our company has chosen to focus on dialing technology and services, which has helped us be successful and maintain a competitive edge. We’ve witnessed similar decisions to specialize in our industry. There are companies focused on collection software, payment processing, mail delivery, skip tracing, call recording, cell scrubbing, web-based client access tools, data security, legal, security and compliance, insurance and many more services and products.

While some larger organizations within our industry have created several collection products or services, no one has developed them all. Instead ARM Industry vendors have chosen to specialize and then form partnerships with other companies that compliment their own services. These combined collaborative efforts have been a key to our business (and your collection) success.

Individually, The Avengers would not have succeeded against Loki and the Chitauri invaders. Once they united their efforts, they succeeded. The same story is true in our industry: Individually, each vendor provides excellent services and products, but only together can we provide collection agencies the complete tool set needed for regulatory compliance and success. I thank the many vendors that provide great services to the ARM Industry. If it has been a while since you thanked your vendor partners for the great services they provide, do it today!

Dave Rudd is DialerFan, a champion of the collection industry, focused on improving collection capabilities through technology and political action. He energetically participates in lobbying efforts for the industry through donations, writing letters, making phone calls, participating in seminars and attending events in Washington D.C., including the most recent ACA International Fly-In. Well acquainted with debt collection, Dave spent two years debt collecting before joining IAT in 1990. He has held a variety of positions at IAT — a provider of collection-specific dialing technology — including President/CEO and most recently Senior VP of Finance & Administration.