Report of ASIS National Convention-2005

Bruce Berg
9-16-2005

I attended the ASIS show on Wednesday, but attended the Annual Meeting for First Advantage on Tuesday. Some highlights at FADV

  • The acquisition of the Credit Information Group (CIG) by FADV from parent First American was approved. Anand Nallathambi, president of First American's Credit Information Group, has assumed the responsibility of president of First Advantage Corporation and reports to John Long, CEO. Parker Kennedy (Chairman of First American), John Long and Anand Nallathambi all spoke quite eloquently about how well Anand had run the operations at CIG and that his application of these talents will be a great asset to First Advantage operations.
  • Buy the stock!! was their recommendation.
  • Look for sales to be 5 times the current level.
  • FADV has 260 of the Fortune 1000 as background check clients, is now the 3rd largest in background checks, the largest in resident screening, the 3rd largest in work comp claims investigations.
  • The US Search business has stopped bleeding and has turned quite profitable. Rumor has it that this is the result of the continued good work of Akshaya Mehta, the guru that came to FADV when they acquired ADR.
  • Their entrée into the Asian market to sell background checks in ASIA continues to look very promising and they plan to expand into other countries.
  • Goals for the future:
    o ATS
    o Psychological Profiles
    o Payroll
    o Benefits Admin.

The ASIS show was sold out again in the Orlando Convention Center. Due to other commitments, I was only able to spend one day, Wednesday, on the exhibit floor. I was unable to visit all the background check exhibiters in 8 hours. I apologize to those I didn’t get to see.

There were about two dozen background checking companies at ASIS and they all thought that the traffic was down a little from last year, but even the one who told me they only just over 100 leads thought they were did well because of the quality of the leads. Others had as many as 400 leads.

BackTrack, an Ohio based company did their first ASIS and called it a great experience.

Wackenhut says they have an expanded commitment to background checks and they will be announcing a new service late in 2005 that will be quite different. They called it a major paradigm shift.

GiS is growing like crazy and offering more sophisticated services. They feel they are the industry leaders right now and can beat out anyone on service, services and technology. I sensed a lot of (well-deserved) pride in this group including one sales rep that recently decided to make a company change to GiS. They also have developed a private theft experience database similar to USMA or Esteem (which they are not now reselling).

Backgroundchecks.com has continued to add to their strength of what may be the industry’s most comprehensive “national database” including more pictures. Recognizing that the data in the “national database” will be as much as 30 days old, they offer the ability to easily get an up-to-the-date county criminal search to supplement the “national search” or when the “national search” comes up with no disposition information. Their web interface is pretty.

Hilson Research, specializing in human assessments, did their first ASIS in five years. They generated a good deal of interest in their now web-capable assessments. This interest was both from end-users and from the other background checking companies looking for a joint venture partner with a recognized expert in the assessment arena.

Fingerprint checks are becoming a growing item. First Advantage recently bought a company with the technology, GiS has developed their own and others are doing joint ventures with companies that specialize in electronic fingerprinting. Someone else did a deal with Crosscheck to have this capability (all this despite the analysis by NAPBS that the NCIC is severely lacking) http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/050826/phf001.html?.v=20 ).

International searches. This was the very hot topic. The one question end users were asking the most: “Do you do international searches?” If your company doesn’t have this now, add it to your list of services. Both Owens Online and Global Screening Solutions were working the booths. Steve Brownstein from Straightline may have been there also, but I didn’t see him.

NBD will announce shortly that they will be offering tenant eviction data wholesale at $5.00 each (from First Advantage’s Registry-the biggest database in the country). A little pricey, but at least it will be obtainable.

There exists a proprietary database of insurance agents who have proved to be unacceptable to their past employer.

Saw a few old faces with new companies on their name badges. Even after nine years of being perfectly happy with their old employer one person sought and made a change. As I said in my last newsletter, everyone is looking for good salespeople and I recommend you pay attention to your good sales people lest they get tempted. Ask yours how happy they are with their current status and make sure they have no reason to be recruited away.


Exhibitors
1. A-Check America
2. Absolute Hire
3. Acxiom
4. Applicant Insight
5. Backgroundchecks.com
6. BackTrack
7. ChoicePoint
8. First Advantage
9. GiS
10. Hilson Research
11. HireRight
12. HRPlus
13. InfoLink
14. InfoMart
15. IntelliCorp
16. LexisNexis
17. LocatePlus
18. OPENonline
19. PreScreen America
20. Sterling Testing
21. Truescreen
22. USIS
23. Verifications
24. Wackenhut


Notably absent
1. ADP (Avert)
2. AccuFacts
3. American Backgrounds
4. CARCO
5. Edge
6. eScreen (was at 2004 ASIS)
7. Kroll
8. Merlin
9. Pearson Assessments (was at 2004 ASIS)
10. US DataLink
11. Van Ella
12. Verified Credentials

561-712-1277
Consulting only to the screening Industry.
· Broad based consulting (sales, marketing, operations, productivity, costs, criminal search acquisition costs, competitive analysis, etc.)
· Mergers and Acquisitions intermediary.

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