For over 20 years, Erdos & Morgan has produced the Purchase Influence in American Business Study. It continues to be the definitive survey of purchasing power at headquarters and branch locations of Senior Executives. The study analyzes sales volume at six different levels with the upper end being $1 billion or more.

Dun & Bradstreet, the premier U.S. supplier of B2B databases, provided the survey sample from their Database of American Businesses. According to D&B, there are approximately one million companies that comprise the universe covered by the Purchase Influence in American Business Study.

A few of the interesting findings are:

• 10% have sales of $1 billion or more
• Average executive age is 48.8
• Over 25% of the executives are female
• Approximately 20% of the companies employ over 1,000 people
• Over 40% currently serve on any board of directors
• Approximately 60% of the companies have a "Green" procurement policy

The attribute ratings found to be "very important" when procuring products or services:

• Customer service (82.9%)
• Durability (75.8%)
• Price (74.9%)
• Meets regulatory requirements (55.9%)
• Brand reputation (54.3%)

Purchase influence information, both the nature of the influence and the dollar amounts influenced, is gathered for more than 50 products and services from the following categories:

• Communications Equipment & Services
• Computer Technology
• Financial/Corporate Services
• Human Resource Staffing
• Insurance
• Office Operations
• Procurement Site Operations
• Sales & Marketing
• Transportation
• Travel Services

Media Usage - Publication readership is measured by the use of a recent reading scale involving readership claims for the last four (or five for daily newspapers) issues published, following a screen for any issue readership within the past six months. A similar approach was applied to viewing of weekly and weekday television and cable programs.

More than 140 publications and broadcast/cable programs were measured; approximately 70 publications and 70 broadcast and cable programs are reported in the 2008-2009 study.

Released: May 21, 2009

For further information please contact David March at (201) 236-0469 or david@erdosmorgan.com.