By Cillea Houghton
COLUMBUS, OH — Pamela Springer has a gift for building success from the ground up. As an entrepreneur in the technology field for more than two decades, Springer founded Manta in 2005, a LinkedIn style website for small businesses that better connects them with customers, an idea she turned into one of the 50 largest websites in the country. She pivoted these skills into her current role as president and CEO of ORIS Intelligence, an online monitoring service that enforces minimum advertised prices across the web. The company was launched in 2012 by founder Lisa Stein, who developed a piece of code that inhibited online retailers from violating pricing policies and overcharging customers online.
“When you get inconsistent pricing because retailers are playing games, that really hurts the brand image. For businesses, it enables them to protect their brand. It enables them to have consistent pricing. It removes the potential commoditization of the brand,” Springer said of ORIS’ mission.
With Springer at the helm, ORIS currently works with nearly 800 brands including Finish Line and Traveler Guitar. While other companies monitor only major online retailers such as Amazon, ORIS tracks the entire web for unauthorized sellers every three hours seven days a week.
“The problem is if you just monitor a slice of the web or one or two marketplaces, you never get to see the whole picture,” Springer said. “Our perspective is you have to be comprehensive in your monitoring so you can identify the move first, so you can identify who these unauthorized sellers are. So our solution set is much more comprehensive than anybody out there.”
While working in the current technological landscape, ORIS also has its foot in the future. Springer said online shopping is still in the early stages, with only 15 percent of all retail transactions taking place online. ORIS is working to help brands establish longevity online as much as they do in store. “It’s just exciting, our position and the ability to help these world class brands be able to clean up their channels so that they have a sustainable online presence so that when you and I go buy something, we know we’re buying from an authorized seller. The brands can have a premium brand footprint out there for as long as they want,” Springer said.
With her extensive background in technology, Springer has been a leader in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) since she began working in the field. With the launch of the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements, Springer is hopeful that more opportunities will become available for women to enter the tech world, especially among the younger generation.
“It’s really encouraging to be a female CEO nowadays. There’s been a lot of movement around STEM and I am a big proponent that little girls now are being encouraged to think about engineering, math, science,” she said. “I think there’s going to be more and more of this in the future. It’s really, I think, very much early days, but there’s been significant progress that I don’t think is going to stop.”
