BRITAIN'S direct marketing industry is ripe for acquisitions in 2003, predicts Ashford-based Aspect Marketing Services.

Phillip Moore, head of corporate development at Aspect, said many smaller operations in the industry were struggling to compete with the economies of scale larger companies can bring to bear for clients.

“Market conditions are very challenging at the moment and are unlikely to improve in the coming months. It's the survival of the fittest and I would not be surprised to see a clutch of takeovers and maybe some failures in the year ahead,” he added.

Aspect -- which provides a range of fully-integrated mailing, response handling, fulfilment and data processing services to more than 200 clients in the music industry, charities and retail customers -- has itself been busy on the acquisition front.

In October Aspect acquired the rights from Shelwing Limited to provide specialist library mailing services for UK publishers, while in January 2003, Aspect's parent company, the Ashford-based Orbital Marketing Services Group Ltd, bought out Pharmaceutical Marketing Direct, a specialist healthcare direct mail company based in Hampshire.

Aspect is also teaming up with three of the biggest providers of direct marketing support services in France, Germany and Italy to launch CRM-Link, a new concept in delivering high-quality marketing support services on a pan-European basis.

Mr Moore said the Orbital Group now has specialist teams operating in travel and tourism, education, healthcare, library & bookseller mailings as well as Aspect's general direct marketing and fulfilment activities.

“Our future focus is to release the specialist knowledge and synergies within all these markets in order to bring additional benefits to our clients,” he added.