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Today's postings in the BLOG
included commentary on BPTR and ZAPZ. Both companies are
doing extremely well. ZAPZ is turning back up on news they have
$200 million in orders for the Smart Car, and the chart is looking much
better. BPTR delivered outstanding year end results on Friday. On
Monday, the stock traded the highest volume in its post turned around history.
Despite the high volume, the stock did not make a lot of upside progress
on the price. With numbers akin to what they reported, I am comfortable
waiting indefinately for higher levels.
To use the BLOG, simply go
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Check back frequently for updates particularly when stocks are moving to
overbought or oversold levels or in volatile markets.
Today's edition contains a new idea
which I believe is the next BPTR at an earlier stage. The company
has a long history of increasing revenues and profits. In the past six
months they have ejected some old baggage, cleaned up their debt, and are
poised to deliver substantial earnings growth. For anyone who jumped into
BPTR
in the $.65 to $.70 range, DSEN is for you.
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DataScension
(OTC BB: DSEN); An Undiscovered Gem |
|
The estimate for world wide spending
on market research in 2005 is $19 billion. Of that $19
billion, about $12 billion will be used to fund scientific surveys.
One of the global leaders in the
business of conducting surveys is JD Power & Associates. Have
you ever wondered who they are? They're mentioned in many TV commercials.
Advertisers often claim JD Power and Associates rank their product
or service as Number 1.
JD Power and Associates is
probably the premier independent market research company in the world.
They have over 550 consultants in offices all over the world. When advertisers
make claims, it's because JD Power and Associates did the market
research.
Demand for services at JD Power
has grown over the last two decades as companies become more dependent
on market research for making critical decisions. For example, before Jack
in the Box introduces a new sandwich, they do extensive market research
on whether the product will be accepted. Car manufacturers take surveys
before they decide what colors to offer in new models. Nearly every consumer
product introduced on a large scale has some preliminary market survey
data acquired before final decisions are made. These are multi million
dollar decisions. In this lean and mean highly competitive environment,
marketing executives cannot afford to be wrong.
The technology used to compile marketing
surveys is highly scientific. Data is gathered through multiple channels.
Focus groups are used where consumers get to experience the actual product
and provide feedback. Internet surveys are growing in popularity.
However, the largest single component
in marketing surveys remains telephone interviews. Most of the $12 billion
expected to be spent in 2005 on market research will go directly to telephone
surveys.
When JD Power is retained
to design and conduct a survey they outsource to other companies to gather
the raw data. One of their go to organizations is today's idea: DataScension,
symbol DSEN on the OTC BB.
DSEN is relatively unknown
to stock market investors, which is one of the reasons I like the company.
They are based in Southern California, but most of their surveys are conducted
from a the state-of-the-art facility in Costa Rica where they have over
600 employees. They should deliver about $9 million '04 revenues
(when
we see the final numbers), and are on track to deliver about
$12
million in '05. Their growth has been 100% organic.
The company has about 400 work stations
at its facility in Costa Rica you see in the picture alongside. They conduct
outbound marketing surveys, and handle incoming customer service issues.
They don't try to sell anything. They just conduct surveys.
Over the past 10 years much of this
business has flowed to India based companies. The tide is turning back.
Companies like JD Power are becoming concerned about the quality
of research and customer service coming from the Far East. The time zone
difference problematic, but the language barrier is much worse. A full
30% who have outsourced survey services to India have left. Have you ever
called tech support for your Dell Computer and had a hard time communicating
with the person on the other end of the line? If so, you understand the
problem.
Business is flowing back to this
side of the globe, and DSEN is capturing that business. DSEN
offers some of the best paying employment in Costa Rica, and therefore
is attracting highly educated personnel. Their staff includes many with
professional training.
In addition and perhaps even more
importantly, DSEN can offer survey services covering the growing
Latin Population in the US in their native language. Marketing experts
will tell you the Latin market is the fastest growing consumer segment
in America. A Spanish survey is considered a special service, which allows
DSEN
to charge 20% higher fees with no additional cost. India based companies
cannot compete with them.
Their customer base reads like a
Who's Who of Fortune 500 companies and the best market research firms on
the planet. A short list is shown alongside. Their facilities are state-of-the-art
and impressive.
During the course of 2004, 50 potential
clients took the time to visit their facility in Costa Rico to watch them
in action. Of the 50 visitors, 49 subsequently signed contracts.
Over the course of 2005 DSEN
will benefit from the migration of outsourced surveys from India back to
our half of the globe. The data on which hundred million dollar decisions
are based has to be the best it can be. DSEN delivers the best at
a reasonable cost.
Furthermore, DSEN will benefit
from the growing Latin Population in the US, the hottest growth demographic
for marketers today.
Six months ago DSEN was a
subsidiary of a public company with several other entities. The capital
structure was cleaned up, and the other unsuccessful entities have all
been ejected.
As it exists today, DSEN is
a newly reborn lean and mean company. They did a small financing in December
which allowed them to eradicate some old debt. For you dilution hawks,
the small financing they did will result in a maximum 200,000 shares being
sold into the market monthly for the foreseeable future. The market should
be able to easily absorb this supply.
'04 year end numbers will come in
at about $9 million in sales. The company will report substantial non-cash
losses from write downs, clearing the way for future profitable quarters.
They will be cash flow positive from operations.
Since turning the corner to '05,
the company has eliminated about $50,000 in monthly overhead. This means
an additional $150,000 should flow directly to the bottom line each quarter.
You are looking at a weekly chart.
As you can see, the price has improved somewhat since the September low.
The stock has been trading sideways between $.40 and $.60 since October.
The higher price levels shown in yellow ($.94 and $1.20) are technical
"logical
profit objectives", or LPOs. These represent longer term upside targets
to aim for. More on LPOs in future editions.
After the market closed today, DSEN
announced March was on track to be the highest billable monthly hours in
company history. In addition, the company disclosed it was starting to
see revenues from diversified product offerings. The company is now offering
web based surveys and is employing its massive infrastructure to handle
incoming customer service calls.
There are only 16 million shares
I&O. This equates to a market value of 9.1 million. This profitable
company is trading at 1x annual sales with a 33% organic growth rate.
I expect '05 to be a breakout year
for the company. This company will benefit dramatically from the flow of
business back from India, its unique positioning for services to the Latin
American demographic, providing services directly to Latin American countries
in the Southern Hemisphere, and diversifying their services to more fully
benefit from their impressive infrastructure.
Where else can you find a $9
million market cap profitable company with 600 employees? DSEN
is it. In my opinion, this one has a shot at being the next BPTR.
Here is the complete text of yesterday's
news release for your review:
| Press Release Source:
Datascension Inc.
Datascension Achieves
Record Billable Production Hours for March
Tuesday March 22, 4:05
pm ET
LAS VEGAS--(BUSINESS
WIRE)--March 22, 2005--Datascension Inc. (OTCBB:DSEN - News), subsidiary
of Datascension International, today announced that March 2005 will be
a record month for billable production hours.
"We are on track to complete
our highest number of monthly billable hours this March," stated Scott
Kincer, president of Datascension International. "Our goal has never been
to focus on quantity rather than quality, however, with the continued growth
and training of our personnel, we are now able to achieve record monthly
production hours, while still maintaining the quality clients have come
to expect. We are on track to exceed the previous record month of 46,792
billable hours. Additionally, this record month is expected to exceed March
2004's billable hours by more than 10 percent."
In response to this news,
Joey Harmon, vice president stated, "We have achieved great success in
focusing and training our research staff. An increase in our billable hours
indicates both the amount of work we are doing and our success rates are
increasing. Our methods and strategies are paying off and we are looking
to continue achieving further record months as we progress further with
our business model."
"In 2005 we continue
to focus on the two primary goals that we believe will allow us to continue
our growth," stated Kincer. "First, we believe that as one of the industry's
leading Hispanic call centers, we can continue to achieve year-over-year
growth in net revenue. To this end, we also will continue to explore further
outsourced research opportunities that could leverage the capacity of our
current operations.
"Second, we continue
to make steady progress on our initiatives to diversify our sources of
revenue. To this end, we recently began the implementation of an expanded
in-house programming department to be able to offer clients the programming
services for online market research," said Kincer.
"In addition, we continue
to target not only additional outbound market research interviewing, but
are actively pursuing opportunities in inbound data collection and services,"
stated Harmon.
"We expect that throughout
2005 we will make progress on these growth initiatives thereby enhancing
long-term shareholder value. Thus far in 2005 we have gotten off to a strong
start," concluded Kincer.
About Datascension International
Datascension International,
a premier data solutions company with operations in California, Costa Rica
and the Dominican Republic, embodies a unique expertise in the collection,
storage, processing and interpretation of marketing data. Employing hundreds
of bilingual professionals, the company is rapidly becoming one of the
largest Spanish-speaking call centers. The company's commitment to customer
service, quality and on-time project management has fostered its world-class
reputation among major market research firms and corporate market research
departments.
Safe Harbor Statement
under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: Certain statements
made in this press release contain certain forward-looking statements that
involve a number of risks and uncertainties. In addition to the matters
described above, the company's ability to initiate and complete the contemplated
transactions described above will depend upon a number of factors including
overall economic conditions, general stock market conditions and the continuing
results of the company, as well as the risk factors listed from time to
time in the SEC filings of Datascension Inc.
For further information:
www.datascension.com.
Contact:
Stock Enterprises
Jim Stock, 866-242-2405 (Investor Relations)
stockenter@aol.com
Source: Datascension
Inc. |
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