Spring has not been kind to travel softball in my neck of the woods this season. As I write this, we have played exactly three games — two in 40-50-mile-per-hour wind gusts 40 miles from home and one less than two hours after it rained with temperatures in the 40s — only because two stubborn guys (one who may or may not be the author of this column) refused to say no and got a soaked field ready to play in record time on a dreary, cold Friday night.
With my daughter’s team, we like to look at statistics that might not leap off the page like batting averages, earned-run averages and fielding percentages do. For example, in one of those games we were called out on strikes six times! As we pointed out, that’s two free innings for the other team’s defense. In fact, I pointed to a house beyond the left field area and said the other team could have went to the front door, asked what’s for supper, stayed for two innings and come back to no damage being done.
We also like to keep track of bunting — successful bunts and bunts that result in base hits. As the pitches become faster (we found out in one of those games 56-58 miles per hour from 43 feet makes a unique sound when it smokes the catcher’s mitt in a 40-mile-per-hour wind), bunting becomes much more important.
Statistics also play a big role in the day-to-day existence of PHCP-PVF distributors whether that be in customer-service-centric areas such as on-time delivery rates, in-stock percentages and rate of product turns. On the financial ledger side, the fine print most certainly can make a difference on a company’s bottom line.
Here at ASA, we produce on a yearly basis what has become known as the gold-standard in benchmarking reports, the Operating Performance Report. In its fourth decade of being produced by ASA business intelligence partner Industry Insights, the OPR is a nearly 100-page book stuffed with data to compare your PHCP-PVF distributor company against other firms in the industry.