Kursverdoppelung bei Actua Corporation (vorm. Internet Capital)
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Wenn es gelingt, bei Beteiligungen wie Starcite im Vorfeld von IPO's noch relativ preiswert die Beteiligung aufzustocken, halte ich das sogar u.U: für die bessere Alternative zu dem von mir sonst immer propagierten Rückkauf von Aktien. Neben Starcite würde meines Erachtens eine Aufstockung der 32% bei Freeborders eine gute Sache sein, aber die anderen Inkubatoren wissen natürlich auch, welchen Edelstein in der Hand halten und wollen vermutlich eine Verwässerung ihrer Anteil vermeiden.
Jetzt aber zu Starcite, über deren Marktplatz jetzt schon 7,5 Milliarden Dollar laufen. Allerdings ist das nicht ganz vergleichbar mit den Buchungsportalen für Einzelreisen, denn die Einzelabschlüsse sind natürlich um ein Vielfaches höher als bei Einzelreisen und entsprechend niedriger sind auch die Provisionen.
7.5 billion trough the market-place of Starcite 5 minutes ago StarCite's New Group Rate Advisor Report Gives a "Glimpse of the Future" to Planners and Analytical Tools to SuppliersJuly 28, 2008 12:00 PM ET advertisement
All Business Wire news
StarCite Inc., the leading provider of Web-based solutions to strategically manage and automate every element of corporate meetings and events, today unveiled its first business intelligence offering called the StarCite Group Rate Advisor report. The StarCite Group Rate Advisor equips meeting planners and meeting suppliers with forward-looking hotel rate forecasts using meeting planning data from RFPs flowing through its meetings platform.
StarCite’s new offering paves the way for more effective meeting management by allowing planners to analyze hotel options and make cost-efficient decisions based on pricing trends as well as historical information. Using data collected from StarCite’s marketplace, StarCite can produce reports for any city or geographical region that will provide sleeping room rate ranges and trends as far as twelve months in advance. The StarCite tool will also provide in-depth benchmarking information derived from years’ worth of historical booking data from the StarCite marketplace.
“Meeting planners have never before had the ability to analyze hotel rates using forward-looking data,” said Keith Forshew, chief operating officer of StarCite. “This look into the future, based on specific aggregate pricing information derived from the $7.5 billion in corporate meeting business flowing through our online marketplace, will provide immense value and insight for our customers. It will bring a new degree of pricing transparency to the meeting planning process and allow companies to make more cost-efficient decisions based on better knowledge of how their rates compare with average rates within the StarCite community.”
How It Works: Both StarCite’s forward-looking data and historical averages are based on electronic RFPs (requests-for-proposal) that have been processed through the StarCite marketplace, which contains over 93,000 suppliers and has more than $7.5 billion of corporate meeting opportunities moving through the system each year.
Once compiled, the data generated by these customer-hotel interactions allows StarCite to provide reports on the aggregated rates being offered in metro regions, by type of property and by industry vertical of the company requesting the meetings. Reports will only be available if there are a minimum of five properties to include in the data set. Pricing information on individual properties will not be available.
Beginning today, planners can purchase specific reports individually or become a subscriber to receive regular reports. For a free demonstration of the StarCite Group Rate Advisor, please visit StarCite at Booth #913 at the NBTA Conference in Los Angeles, CA.
Sentiment : Strong Buy
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Re: 7.5 billion trough the market-place of Starcite 5 second(s) ago Revenues of Starcite in 2008 will be 65-70 million and I am sure, we will see an ipo in 2009. My estimate of the ipo-market-cap in 2009 is about 500 millon by revenus near 100 million in 2009.
Internet Capital had increased the ownership in Starcite in the first and second quarter of 2008 from 26% to 34%.
• Leading provider of online home services transactions
• Increased revenue by 50% and increased new customer signings by more than
35% year over year
• Product and service offerings continued to expand, including the addition of
new phone, VOIP, cable and home security providers
• New channel partner initiatives were launched with Texas Power, DMV. org,
Movers. com and HBN Interactive, resulting in a significant new flow of
customers and revenue
• Increased commission rates received from a number of providers, including
new terms with major telephone and cable providers
• Launched Movaroo. com, a joint venture platform established by a consortium
of leading communications companies, including AT& T, Qwest and Horizon,
and developed and managed by WhiteFence
Hier das Interview aus dem Juni 2007, aus dem ich die oben verwendeten Zahlen entnommen habe.
Hot PropertyWhiteFence Is Looking Over the Fence
Posted by: Peter Coy on June 11
CEO Eric Danziger of comparison-shopping site WhiteFence visited BusinessWeek recently as part of his company’s first push to get some media coverage. Seeking publicity is a slightly risky move for him. As Danziger likes to say, “It’s the spouting whale that gets harpooned.”
Danziger told me that he is rotten at coming up with ideas for Web commerce, but actually pretty good at scaling up other people’s good ideas. That’s what he’s trying to do at WhiteFence.
WhiteFence, founded in 2000, runs a website that makes it easy for people to shop and sign up for phone service, cable TV, etc., when they move to a new home. Last year it did about $10 million in revenue. Danziger is aiming for $100 million in revenue by 2010, and he has a countdown clock in WhiteFence’s Houston offices to make sure everybody remembers the goal. Seems ambitious but Danziger has a good track record. ZipRealty Inc., the online real estate brokerage where he was CEO from 2001 until last August, hit $95 million in revenue last year, up from $4 million in 2001, the year he joined
WhiteFence Acquires GetConnected Technology and Intellectual Property Assets
Leading e-commerce engine for local and digital services continues to expand scope
HOUSTON, TX, November 14, 2007 - WhiteFence, the nation's leading one-stop online comparison-shopping marketplace for residential home services, announced today that it has purchased the technology software, intellectual property rights and domain name of GetConnected, Inc. (www.GetConnected.com). GetConnected, Inc., a Boston-based company, developed and managed an e-commerce and integration platform service for merchants such as Best Buy, AOL, Circuit City and Radio Shack.
"WhiteFence's technology has been the best in this industry for many years - from front-end to back-end," said Eric Danziger, WhiteFence CEO. "This acquisition will expand the scope of our integration capabilities and enable us to immediately serve a broader range of business partners."
Through WhiteFence, consumers across the United States are able to compare and order a wide array of home essential services from multiple service providers. WhiteFence has implemented hundreds of back-end order processing integrations with major phone, TV, energy, and other service provider partners.
"With back-end integrations being a key value component of what we offer to our partners, expanding our capabilities with GetConnected's technology is valuable to WhiteFence's growth," said WhiteFence CTO Ken Myers. "Our real-time server-to-server integrations provide tremendous cost efficiencies and better customer service, creating significant value for all constituencies working with WhiteFence in gaining new customers."
In June 2007, WhiteFence also acquired competitor ConnectUtilities, LLC, a Louisiana-based company that provided online and offline utility connection services.
About WhiteFence
WhiteFence is the leading one-stop online comparison-shopping marketplace that helps consumers compare and order home services such as electricity, natural gas, phone, cable and satellite TV, high-speed Internet, banking and more. Its proprietary transaction engine makes it easy for all 110 million U.S. households to find the best deals and conveniently set up their home services in minutes. WhiteFence is a 2007 finalist for the Platt's Global Energy Rising Star Award. The privately held company is based in Houston, Texas, and is backed by Adams Street Partners and Internet Capital Group.
Danach kann man nur schnellstens zuschlagen.
Man kann zu diesen 92 MIllionen auch die anteiligen Umsätze der 15 Beteiligungen in Höhe von 140 Millionen in Beziehung setzen und kommt auf eine geradezu lächerlich geringe Zahl von 0,65. Der Durchschnitt der Technikfirmen im S+P500 ist achmal so hoch.
Hier die Datenquelle aus der gestern veröffentlichen Mitschrift der Pressekonferenz zu den Quartalszahlen.
Let me next review our core company results on Slide 12. The information I’m about to share with you relates to ICG’s eight core companies in which we had an average ownership interest of 47% as of June 30, 2008. Aggregate revenue of our eight core companies increased 31% to $64.5 million during the second quarter of 2008, up from $49.4 million in last year’s second quarter. The companies experiencing strong revenue growth during the quarter were ICG Commerce, Freeboarders, Channel Intelligence and WhiteFence. The current economic environment, specifically companies delaying purchasing decisions is negatively impacting the revenue growth of some of our companies, in particular Metastorm and StarCite. If we look at those companies that have more predictable recurring revenue models essentially seven of our eight core companies are growth for the quarter in the first half would be closer to 24% on both a GAAP and apples-to-apples basis which we find very encouraging in this environment.
ICG Commerce continued to lead the way with solid positive EBITDA for the quarter. Year-over-year we saw significant EBITDA improvement in ICG Commerce, solid EBITDA improvement at Freeboarders, Channel Intelligence and Investor Force and essentially flat EBITDA performance at WhiteFence and Vcommerce. These improvements were more than offset by the performance of StarCite and Metastorm. StarCite accelerated spending in the quarter related to the continued integration of the StarCite [on vantage] platforms and some other non-recurring expenses. Metastorm’s performance was negatively impacted by some delays in signings and increased expenses related to non-recurring legal and some IPO expenses. We continue to believe the investments all of our core companies are making in their businesses will lead to long term stockholder value creation.
Valuation of 15 private hold companies is only about 100 million after the increase of today, but only the ownership in the most valuable of the 15 companies, ICGcommerce, has a worth of about 200 million.
ICGCommerce will have revneus of about 60 million in 2008. By the same valuation like of revenues like the competitor Ariba, the worth of Internet Capital is about 300 million. The 65% of Internet Capital = near 200 million,
And additional free of charge are:
34% of Starcite
www.starcite.com
32% of Freeborders
www.freeborders.com
32% of Metastorm
www.metastorm.com
46% of Channelintelligence
www.channelintelligence.com
53% of VCommerce
www.vcommerce.com
35% of Whitenfence
www.whitefence.com
9% of Anthem Venture
www.anthemvp.com
5% of Emptoris
www.emptoris.com
30% of Commerce360
www.commerce360.com
80% of Investorforce
www.investorforce.com
Sentiment : Strong Buy
http://www.londonstockexchange.com/LSECWS/...px?id=1958777&source=RNS
However operating results improved and as a result the combined entity was profitable in the second quarter
Channel Intelligence Announces New Hires as Company Expands its Marketing Services for Manufacturers
Product data and marketing technology company Channel Intelligence welcomes new employees, seeks to fill further openings
ORLANDO, Fla. (September 8, 2008) – Channel Intelligence, Inc. (CI), a leader of innovative marketing technology solutions for manufacturers and retailers, today announced the increase in staff as it further expands the services it offers to its customer base. Through its product suites, the company has successfully enjoyed steady growth as manufacturers and retailers continue to seek out new ways to build their brands and influence sales on the Web.
“We’ve seen our marketing services continue to expand and exhibit strong performance throughout 2008,” says Rob Wight, co-founder, President and CEO of CI. “The implementation of several new initiatives this year has enabled us to meet the evolving needs of the marketplace. This year has already been an exciting one for us, and we anticipate further growth throughout the remainder of 2008.”
Welcomed onboard are Mark Wax, CI Ad Network Sales and Carlos Sanchez, Program Manager for SellPath® Manufacturer Solutions. New hires are in response to the company’s expanding demand for its manufacturer-oriented marketing services. SellPath® Manufacturer Solutions drives sales and strengthens dealer relationships through the exchange of manufacturer-authorized content The CI Ad Network provides an efficient and cost-effective advertising network for manufacturers to pass leads directly from their product pages to the product pages of their retail partners.
“Our customer base represents the best of the best in eCommerce as we manage programs for 85 percent of the global 500 consumer electronics manufacturers and 55 percent of the Internet Retailer Top 500 retailers,” adds Lanny Tucker, Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing for CI. “We’ve seen the growth in our customer base due to the breadth of data we manage across key industry verticals such as home improvement, apparel, toys, consumer electronics, consumer packaged goods and more. Our growth has enabled us to continue to recruit additional talent for our organization.
CI estimates it will be adding 420 new positions as it expands its Osceola County facilities over the next several years. The company currently employs a staff of over 150 and is actively recruiting for talented new hires across all departments to help fuel its continued growth.
Candidates are encouraged to view current positions and apply at www.channelintelligence.com/corporate/jobs.asp.
About Channel Intelligence, Inc. (CI)
CI is a product data technology and marketing company focused on helping retailers and manufacturers make their products easier for consumers to find and buy on the Internet and in local retail stores. The CI product database is capable of storing, managing, optimizing and analyzing hundreds of millions of products every day. This database powers product data for leading manufacturers and retailers in Computing, Hardware, Tools, Appliances, Consumer Electronics, Toys and other Consumer Product industries such as Apparel, Cosmetics and Jewelry. CI offers innovative suites of services for hundreds of the world’s best known manufacturers, retailers and publishers and provides distribution of product data to over 50 destination websites, including the proprietary CI Ad Network. Cultivating partnerships with some of the best solution providers in the eCommerce arena, CI is a partner company of Internet Capital Group (Nasdaq: ICGE) and Aweida Capital Management. CI was founded in 1999 by CEO Robert Wight and EVP Alan Fulmer and is headquartered in Orlando, Fla., with offices in Geneva, Switzerland and London, England. Learn more at www.channelintelligence.com.
Mice: China offers unique product for conferencing industry
By Jill James
Published: September 14 2008 17:37 | Last updated: September 14 2008 17:37
Vast. Huge. On a scale not seen before. We are talking mice here: the potential for China’s Mice market, the meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions sector of the travel industry.
Full-scale attempts to measure the market accurately are few and far between. But with hungry investors eagerly eyeing the country’s prospects, companies such as American Express and Starcite, are putting more resource into research.
Pieter Rieder, senior vice-president of Starcite, the online provider of global meetings solutions, says meeting space requests for China sourced through its online marketplace have increased more than 1,400 per cent in the past year, albeit from a low base. The company expects this trend to continue and is braced for growth measured by thousands of per cent in this market for the next few years.
That said, the months running up to the Olympics were relatively quiet. James Ramage who is in charge of sales and marketing for the China region of Starwood, the global hotel and leisure company, explains: “We actually started the year strongly. Tibet, visa issues and the earthquake have meant a decrease in business. On the positive side the last quarter for Starwood brands is very encouraging although the first two weeks in September are normally very soft both from a Chinese and international perspective.”
He points to the increasing popularity of second cities such as Yangshao, Nanjing and Zhuzhou.
Stephen Ho, Starwood’s senior vice-president for development in the region, agrees there has been a slowdown but says: “In the long-term we are still bullish.” He believes domestic growth will help to stimulate the market. “After all there are 666 cities in China.”
Mr Rieder says there are two distinct splits − the internal Chinese market and the western market that is now operating in China. A lot of business from the west is German and American. Cities such as Shanghai are proving extremely popular for product launches, for example.
Mr Rieder says: “We are now noticing that large Chinese companies are getting in to meetings in a big way. They are generating a lot of business for banqueting halls but they are not overnighters. The purpose of their meetings differs from US companies in that the Chinese use them largely to share information.”
He adds that the high level of Chinese technical expertise means that they have no problem running RFPs. (An RFP or Request for Proposal is an invitation from companies to hotels to submit a proposal for pricing a certain meeting or event).
As China’s Mice market grows, so, interestingly, do the parallels between China and the US.
In a report by Research International, commissioned by American Express, over a four-month period last year, 230 Chinese and foreign companies, with 100 and more employees in six key industries in Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou, were interviewed.
It found that the Chinese business travel market mimicked the US market in its self-sufficiency with the majority of spending taking place domestically – 69 per cent in mainland China.
Some 46 per cent of companies experienced increases in their travel and entertainment (T&E) budgets, compared with the previous year. The percentage of employees going on business trips rose from 28 per cent in 2006 to 33 per cent in 2007. Some 60 per cent of employees were generating T&E expenditure compared to 56 per cent in 2006. Meals and entertainment continued to be the largest portion of business travel expenses, followed by air travel and accommodation.
Unsurprisingly, the research shows that companies in China have been paying greater attention to controlling T&E expenses, indicating a more mature and structured business travel market.
More companies now have policies for controlling T&E expenditure – 81 per cent of those surveyed say they now have a T&E policy, up from 70 per cent on the previous year. Cash remains the most common method of payment for companies operating in China and use of corporate cards had declined, all indicating a need for further education on the advantages of modern payment methods that enable companies to have a central billing system for all expenditure carried out by their employees.
Jeanette Neudert, marketing director of travel company TUI China, says her company differentiates between the domestic and the incoming Mice market. She says that in the Chinese company segment in the mid- to long-term, even more growth is expected. This is especially so in areas such as incentives for the financial industry, insurance companies, and trade show delegations.
Ms Neudert says: “In the incoming Mice segment there is already a great demand for all types of Mice services including incentives, meetings, trade show visits and investment interest tours, however, in the coming years, the international congress and conference market will become another large growth market.
She adds that China offers very good value for money. “Accommodation and services in the high-end and luxury segments only cost a fraction of what they would cost in other popular Mice destinations in Europe and North America.”
In terms of venues Ms Neudert says that congress centres and congress facilities as part of exhibition halls are becoming more popular but, she adds: “According to our experience, hotels clearly offer the best quality conference and congress services at the current stage.”
Hilton Hotels says China’s diversity makes it ideal for the Mice market because it can offer such a wide range of experiences. “For meetings planners who want to offer a new or unusual experience the country has a great offerings, from events in Hong Kong and Beijing to a tropical resort backdrop in South China.”
Hilton says that where as Hong Kong was once the key Mice venue, now cities such as Beijing and Shanghai have started to offer first class infrastructure set against a fascinating backdrop of development and culture. Hilton adds: “With Macau developing as a gaming and Mice hub this is expected to be able to provide a new scale of facilities and accommodation for large-scale events.”
Anthem Venture ist ein Inkubator wie Internet Capital auch, aber nicht börsennotiert. An diesem Inkubator, dessen Wert durchaus den von Internet Captal (nicht den Börsenwert, sondern den wesentlich höheren Inventarwert) erreichen dürfte, ist Internet Capital mit 9% beteiligt.
Vcommerce Corporation Announces Launch of Hancock Fabrics New End-to-End eCommerce Web Site
SCOTTSDALE, AZ – SEPTEMBER 15, 2008 - Vcommerce Corporation (www.vcommerce.com), the leader in SaaS end-to-end eCommerce services announced today that www.hancockfabrics.com, the new eCommerce site of Hancock Fabrics, Inc (OTC symbol: HKFI), has gone live. In response to increasing need to find a broad and deep enterprise class eCommerce platform that would improve their order capture, order management and order fulfillment solutions, Hancock Fabrics conducted an extensive search for a partner with true end-to-end platform capabilities able to support Hancock Fabric’s ongoing innovation and drive for competitive advantage. Hancock Fabrics selected Vcommerce based on their proven ability to execute, the completeness of the eCommerce solution, their robust, scalable platform, and their team’s knowledge, expertise, and willingness to understand and execute on Hancock Fabrics eCommerce strategy. "When we were starting our search for an eCommerce platform, we knew we needed someone with robust end-to-end capabilities to help us reach our long term revenue goals," said Chris Elledge, Chief Technology Officer of Hancock Fabrics, Inc. "We needed a partner to dive in and understand our business. That required more than technology. Vcommerce not only had the platform and client base to prove to us that they could execute, they also have the team in place, constantly providing us with feedback and assistance to make our eCommerce plans come to fruition."
With the goal of world class execution in mind, Vcommerce reached out to Prithvi Information Solutions (www.prithvisolutions.com ), the global leader in application integration services, to assist in the implementation of the Hancock Fabrics eCommerce solution. Vcommerce chose Prithvi as a partner because of the breadth of their Retail Technology Services and their understanding of the Retail Industry as well as their proven ability to provide solutions that combine the rigor of corporate and project quality requirements with the real-world needs to reduce total cost of ownership and time-to-market.
Hancock Fabrics, Inc. is a specialty retailer of fabric and related home sewing and decorating accessories with over 250 million dollars in annual revenue. The company operates retail fabric stores in 37 states. Vcommerce and Prithvi Solutions worked together closely during the implementation to create a site with complete end-to-end eCommerce experience for Hancock Fabrics. Vcommerce Enterprise™ seamlessly integrates with Hancock Fabrics business systems for order capture, order management, order fulfillment and online marketing. The site is also seamlessly integrated with best of class third-party components from FAST, Omniture and RichFX.
"We are excited to have successfully launched the new Hancock Fabrics eCommerce site, and are grateful to Prithvi for the huge part they played in that success," said Bob Tuttle, President and CEO. "Hancock came to us with complex requirements that needed a true end-to-end platform – one with order capture, order management and order fulfillment capabilities that were flexible enough to meet the demands of their specific business model. We had the platform and team to answer the challenge and together we have launched a fantastic end-to-end eCommerce solution."
Vcommerce Enterprise is delivered as Software as a Service (SaaS) which enables Hancock Fabrics to leverage the configurability and security of a "behind the firewall" software implementation while enjoying ease of deployment, continuously updated feature sets, and availability of best-in-class partner components to provide for a truly "future-proof" solution.
ABOUT HANCOCK FABRICS
Hancock Fabrics, Inc. (OTC symbol: HKFI)- America's Fabric Store - is committed to serving creative enthusiasts with a complete selection of fashion and home decorating textiles, sewing accessories, needlecraft supplies and sewing machines, through retail stores and an Internet store at www.hancockfabrics.com. Founded in 1957, Hancock remains committed to serving the nation’s home sewing and home decorating market. Hancock carries a complete selection of fabrics and accessories for the individual and the home and sells its merchandise at guaranteed low prices.
ABOUT VCOMMERCE CORPORATION
Vcommerce is the market leader in end-to-end eCommerce on-demand platform solutions. The company provides the most comprehensive suite of best-in-class capabilities, which include order capture ("Storefront"), order management, order fulfillment, supplier integration, and customer service. This is all delivered using a high performance SaaS (Software as a Service) platform that processes billions of dollars of revenue for its clients annually. Vcommerce customers span across all retail industry segments and include major brands such as Target, Overstock, Callaway, BJ’s Wholesale Club, and eToys. Located in Scottsdale, Arizona, the company is privately held. For more information, please visit www.vcommerce.com or call 480.922.9922.
ABOUT PRITHVI SOLUTIONS
Prithvi has been a citadel of Information Technology industry, growing considerably and consistently and has garnered a reputation for itself. Prithvi Information Solutions Limited has been growing 50% year over year since 2004 in IT solutions, Network engineering, software consulting, outsourcing and business solutions. Having strong technological finesse that is articulated by its enterprising solutions, Prithvi empowers its customers by giving them custom made IT solutions that sharpen their business prowess. With state -of- the- art- technology at their behest, depth of understanding of business, our accomplished team comprising more than 3000 IT professionals provide solutions that combine the rigor of corporate and project quality requirements with the real-world needs to minimize development costs and time-to-market. Operating from state-of-the-art research and development centers, Prithvi global reach spans USA, Europe, Middle East, Netherlands, Singapore and India. Please visit www.prithvisolutions.com
GoIndustry-DoveBid plc / Index: AIM / Epic: GOI / Sector: Support Services
22nd September 2008
GoIndustry-DoveBid plc
('GoIndustry DoveBid' or the 'Company')
DIRECTORS' DEALINGS
The Company was informed on 19 September 2008 that David Bailey, a non-executive director of the Company, purchased 200,000 ordinary shares of the Company (the "Shares") at an average price of 7.25 pence per Share on 19 September 2008. Subsequent to this purchase Mr. Bailey holds a total of 1,835,000 Shares, representing 0.39% of the issued share capital of the Company.
* * ENDS * *
For further information, visit www.goindustry.com or contact:
John Allbrook GoIndustry-DoveBid plc Tel: 020 7098 3700
Andrew Edwards Oriel Securities Limited Tel: 020 7710 7600
/ Gareth Price (Nomad and Broker)
Victoria Thomas St Brides Media & Finance Ltd Tel: 020 7236 1177
Notes to editors
GoIndustry-DoveBid plc, quoted on the London Stock Exchange's AIM market (Epic: GOI), is a global market leader in the valuation and sale of surplus industrial machinery and equipment. The Company combines traditional asset sales experience with innovative eCommerce technology and advanced direct marketing to service the needs of multi-national corporations, insolvency practitioners, dealers and asset based lenders around the world.
Orlando, Fla. (September 23, 2008) – Channel Intelligence, Inc. (CI), a leader of innovative marketing technology solutions for manufacturers and retailers, received the William C. Schwartz Industry Innovation Award representing Osceola County from the Metro Orlando Economic Development Commission (EDC). Selected for its innovation in online commerce, CI offers product suites that enable manufacturers and retailers to build their brands online while influencing sales.
The annual event is named in honor of the late William C. Schwartz, an inspirational community leader, business pioneer and innovator within the field of optics and photonics. Over 350 of the area’s business and community leaders attended, gathering at the Orlando Marriott Lake Mary to honor companies from each of the four counties served by the EDC—Orange, Seminole, Lake and Osceola counties—and from the City of Orlando.
“Our innovative solutions ensure that our client’s products are accurately and completely represented and placed in the proper location, making it easier for consumers to purchase those products,” said Alan Fulmer, co-founder and executive vice president of CI. “This results in higher web sales for our clients and increased loyalty from their consumers.”
A leader in e-commerce since 1999, this company has experienced phenomenal growth, which mirrors growth in online sales.
The EDC honored four other local companies for innovative practices, products and/or ideas including Laser Photonics of Seminole County, Covanta Energy of Lake County, HD Supply for City of Orlando and Siemens of Orange County, while Planar Energy Devices received the Florida High Tech Corridor Council Award. This is the second year the Florida High Tech Corridor Council’s Award for Innovation was also presented in conjunction with the program.
About Channel Intelligence, Inc. (CI)
CI is a product data technology and marketing company focused on helping retailers and manufacturers make their products easier for consumers to find and buy on the Internet and in local retail stores. The CI product database is capable of storing, managing, optimizing and analyzing hundreds of millions of products every day. This database powers product data for leading manufacturers and retailers in Computing, Hardware, Tools, Appliances, Consumer Electronics, Toys and other Consumer Product industries such as Apparel, Cosmetics and Jewelry. CI offers innovative suites of services for hundreds of the world’s best known manufacturers, retailers and publishers and provides distribution of product data to over 50 destination websites, including the proprietary CI Ad Network. Cultivating partnerships with some of the best solution providers in the eCommerce arena, CI is a partner company of Internet Capital Group (Nasdaq: ICGE) and Aweida Capital Management. CI was founded in 1999 by CEO Robert Wight and EVP Alan Fulmer and is headquartered in Orlando, Fla., with offices in Geneva, Switzerland and London, England. Learn more at www.channelintelligence.com.
# # #
Er wurde von der amerikanischen Außenministerin unter großem Beifall gespendet und von ICGE als immaterielles Vermögen von 1 Mrd. Dollar verbucht.
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Wertpapier: Actua |
CHINDUS Global Delivery Model and ATLAS Governance Model Recognized as Compelling Client Relationship Management Best Practices
San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) September 18, 2008 -- Freeborders, Inc., the leading provider of technology solutions developed from China, today announced that the company has won the 2008 Chinese Frost & Sullivan Award for its exceptional delivery of IT solutions and outsourcing services from China to Fortune 500 companies.
Based on its recent analysis of the IT outsourcing market, Frost & Sullivan recognized Freeborders for demonstrating outstanding achievement and superior performance in the areas of leadership, technological innovation, customer service and strategic product development. Industry analysts compared the market participants and measured the performance through in-depth interviews, analysis, and extensive secondary research in order to identify best practices in the outsourcing industry.
This set of best practices and tools, formalized and monitored for compliance, comprises all facets of client relationship management including delivery, contract, risk management, and implements customized best practices for all its clients.
"The most compelling feature of Freeborders, within the process and delivery of IT outsourcing, is its development and deployment of the CHINDUS model," says Frost & Sullivan Program Manager Farheen Pasha. "CHINDUS gets its name from its ability to leverage the best processes, services, and functions across three geographical regions: China, India, and the United States; it combines the experienced, world-class management teams of the United States, deep outsourcing expertise and governance models of India, and technical skills and large talent pool of the Chinese IT market."
"We are pleased to receive this accolade from a company as prestigious as Frost & Sullivan," said Jim Reesing Executive Vice President, Freeborders. "The adoption of the CHINDUS and ATLAS models by the IT community within the USA is confirmation of our unique ability to deliver service to US-based customers from China. CHINDUS and ATLAS are instrumental in our ability to post exceptional growth figures - doubling our global sourcing revenue in 2007 and prediction of another similar strong year in 2008."
The CHINDUS model sources project teams from multiple geographies, and provides companies with the true value and flexibility of global delivery in a consistent and predictable manner. Industry leaders areattracted to its benefits of risk diversification, cost effectiveness, speed to market, increased productivity, and scalability as well as its proven track record in outsourced software application development, software testing, and software application maintenance.
"Trained professionals using consistent processes with global standards certifications (such as CMMI Level 5, ISO 27001) and a high degree of process maturity deliver world-class project management and underscores Freeborders' focus on quality and productivity," notes Pasha. "Customers of automated testing and QA and application development outsourcing in the software field are pleased with Freeborders' ability to provide long-term time and cost savings and drastically reduced testing cycles."
"Relationship management is a core component of both the CHINDUS delivery model and ATLAS governance model pioneered by Freeborders," observes Pasha. "This set of best practices and tools, formalized and monitored for compliance, comprises all facets of client relationship management including delivery, contract, risk management, and implements customized best practices for all its clients."
Each year Frost & Sullivan presents this award to the company that has demonstrated outsourcing excellence and maximized customer value within the industry in China. The recipient provides a host of high quality IT outsourcing solutions while staying competitively priced and has demonstrated impressive responsiveness to customer needs and flexibility in product offerings to suit customer businesses. Freeborders accepted the award at the 2008 Growth Excellence Awards Banquet on September 17, 2008 at the Parc 55 Hotel in San Francisco, CA.
About Freeborders
Freeborders is the leading global provider of offshore IT services and solutions delivered from centers of excellence in China. Privately held and based in San Francisco, CA, Freeborders is recognized for offering best practices in outsourcing by combining its award-winning global delivery model, CHINDUSSM, with its governance model ATLAS. Freeborders provides a full suite of services that encompass all phases of a project lifecycle including strategy, design, development, testing, implementation integration, and extended support. Freeborders is assessed at Level 5 of the SEI's CMMI, and is ISO 27001certified. To learn more, visit www.freeborders.com.
About Frost & Sullivan
Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, partners with clients to accelerate their growth. The company's TEAM Research, Growth Consulting and Growth Team™ Membership empower clients to create a growth-focused culture that generates, evaluates and implements effective growth strategies. Frost & Sullivan employs over 45 years of experience in partnering with Global 1000 companies, emerging businesses and the investment community from more than 30 offices on six continents. For more information about Frost & Sullivan's Growth Partnerships, visit http://www.awards.frost.com.
“Strategic meetings management…is no longer just the latest industry buzz phrase,” began a new white paper issued by the National Business Travel Association (NBTA) Groups and Meetings Committee in June. “Today, nearly four years after this committee first introduced the concept and began defining the practice, more and more firms are joining the ranks of those enjoying the benefits of strategically managed meetings.”
In order to illustrate both the diversity and underlying complexity of strategic meetings management programs (SMMP), the NBTA report “Models of Success: Profiles in Strategic Meetings Management” provided detailed studies of three SMMP practitioners: PricewaterhouseCoopers, Xerox and Scotts Miracle-Gro. Despite some key differences, such as whether they outsource core meeting services, the three companies share a commitment to a fundamental SMMP model that is aimed at capturing all meetings-related costs and reporting them comprehensively and accurately to management.
Over the past few years, as SMMP has gained legitimacy as a discipline, it has become apparent that, until recently, very few large organizations have known what they actually spent on meetings or whether that money was well invested. Today, in the era of Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) financial reporting requirements and tightened budgets, that reality is changing very quickly.
“We want to make sure we have a very strict audit trail for Sarbanes-Oxley, and we want all of that information available to management,” said Pamela Ferranti, manager, meeting management solutions, at Webster, NY-based Xerox, which launched its SMMP in 2004.
The intense and growing interest in SMMP today, however, is driven by much broader motivations than SOX compliance, noted Debi Scholar, CMM, CMP, CTE, meeting and events services director at PricewaterhouseCoopers in Florham Park, NJ, and co-chair of the NBTA groups and meetings committee since 2004. “Today, more and more companies are looking strategically at their spend and trying to reduce it,” she said. “But there is a long way to go for many companies to actually adopt the practices. Many companies do not yet recognize the risks involved if they do not have a strategic meetings management program in place, and also they may not realize the savings they could achieve. I’ve talked to companies that think because they have their travel costs captured, their meeting spend must be included. They are far from capturing their total meeting spend.”
Defining An SMMP Process
The new NBTA report has helped to define what an SMMP should include and how it actually works. For example, every program should include “cost controls, financial objectives and clear definitions of program savings and cost avoidance,” it says. SMMPs should also “consider categorizing meetings by purpose, size, audience demographic, geographic region or budget and writing policies to suit each.” Perhaps most important, the report observes that “executive sponsorship is critical at program launch and for ongoing success.”
Basic program components include a formal meetings policy that “sets consequences for non-compliance and sets enterprise-level meeting data requirements to ensure comprehensive consolidated reporting,” as well as a meeting management technology platform, such as industry-leading innovator StarCite. A meeting registration process that captures and evaluates basic data on every proposed meeting and includes a consistently executed approval process are good starting points in the creation of an SMMP that will succeed. New tools such as captive meeting cards, from vendors such as American Express, U.S. Bancorp and Citibank, and Web-based financial reconciliation capabilities are vital ingredients in a recipe for actually collecting and analyzing all meeting-related financial information. “Reporting and subsequent analysis should be designed to measure a program’s return on investment (ROI), track program savings and funding, monitor compliance and establish or validate spend/cost benchmarks,” the NBTA paper concluded.
At first glance, such a list of requirements can seem daunting, but there is also an important lesson to be learned from going through the process over a protracted period of time, as Scholar has discovered at PricewaterhouseCoopers. “I think the important thing to realize is that SMMP is not a project with an end date,” she said. “Rather, it is a continuous improvement initiative. We’ve been trying to get our arms around meeting spend since 1999, and it has been a constant evolution over the years. We have been through reorganizations. We have looked at different business models. But the constant goal has been to improve, to understand how we can save money and also improve customer service. But it is a process that takes years. It does not happen overnight.”
Same Goal, Different Approaches
Both PricewaterhouseCoopers and Xerox have mature SMMPs in place and share the common goal of reducing meeting costs and reporting 100 percent of all expenditures. But their approaches are quite different.
For example, Xerox has eliminated the traditional role of meeting planner within the company and outsourced global responsibility to just two meeting services providers, while PricewaterhouseCoopers has elected to keep the process in-house. Another early adopter of SMMP, Lockheed Martin, is among the companies that have opted for a middle-ground solution that combines specialized outsourcing with an internal meeting services capability.
The point, Scholar said, is that there is no “one size fits all” model.
There is, however, a common fear and anxiety among many planners that SMMP will, by definition, eventually lead to the obsolescence of their traditional “tactical” role of merely booking airline seats and hotel rooms and finding a keynote speaker.
Ferranti believes that the process of forced obsolescence is already underway. “I was just at a conference yesterday,” she said, “and a lot of companies still have dedicated meeting planners. But the people I talked to were very interested in the fact that we have outsourced everything.” As she observes the current meetings industry, Ferranti sees a transitional model that consists of internal planners combined with some outsourcing. “But in terms of companies having a full team of internal tactical planners, I think that is becoming obsolete,” she said.
Scholar disagrees with that assessment. “I do not think that the tactical planner will become obsolete,” she noted. “I think instead what we’re talking about is that planners will have plenty of opportunities to be strategic when they are planning and delivering their meetings.” PricewaterhouseCoopers, she noted, has made a carefully considered and conscious decision to resource by using internal and outsourced planners as necessary.
This new dimension that the company has nurtured over the past few years is a discipline now formally being called “strategic meeting planning and delivery” by the NBTA committee.
Peter Moen, vice president, global business development, at Plymouth, MN-based Carlson Marketing, sees the situation from a different perspective. Moen, accustomed to dealing with management executives at client companies, witnesses the resistance to the concept of SMMP from many rank-and-file meeting planners who until now have considered third-party service providers such as Carlson “the enemy,” he said. But that paradigm is rapidly changing now, he added. In fact, a sea change is underway.
“More and more marketing organizations are getting behind the concept of SMMP,” he said. “In the early days, the procurement departments that cut their teeth on managing transient corporate travel expenses were trying to move the idea into the meeting and event space, but it wasn’t all that successful, mainly because the stakeholders who had meeting spend in their own budgets were not really part of that. It was procurement people who were trying to move it across the organization, with varying levels of buy-in, which determined the success or failure of whether the actual budget-holders bought into this. But over the last couple of years, we have seen marketing and sales organizations get behind this movement, and that is where we are now seeing the greatest success.”
A key step in the SMMP juggernaut, Moen explained, has been a transition from the one-dimensional objective of cost-cutting to the broader goal of adding a truly strategic component to the planning and execution of all meetings and events within a company. As a result, he said, resistance to SMMP from meeting planners and some stakeholders has clearly diminished. “Up until this point, the perception has been that they would lose control and get procurement driving the bus rather than themselves, but none of that has happened,” he said. “They’ve gotten the benefit that they’re looking for, but none of the fears they had have become real.” But Moen does acknowledge that “there is still a lot of resistance in the organizations that do not have that buy-in from sales and marketing organizations and other major meeting stakeholders.”
Capturing Total Meeting Spend
With implementation of the SMMP model, savings in the range of 20 to 30 percent can be accomplished without sacrificing any important meetings.
Money Talks
Despite any lingering controversy about the underlying intent or practical consequences for planners of SMMP initiatives, one thing is for sure — the discipline has led to dramatic cost savings and improvements in the overall efficiencies of the meeting delivery process.
At Bethesda, MD-based Lockheed Martin, for example, Richard Wooten, director of corporate travel services, has been able to reduce the company’s meeting expenditures by 27 percent, without sacrificing any important events. Based on her longstanding observation of the meetings industry and the implementation of the SMMP model, Scholar believes that savings comparable to Lockheed Martin’s –- in the range of 20 to 30 percent — can be accomplished without sacrificing any important meetings.
Lockheed Martin currently employs 570 “meeting arrangers,” which is Wooten’s term for their combined roster of professional meeting planners and others, such as administrative assistants, who plan smaller meetings. In total, Lockheed Martin will host about 1,200 meetings this year.
Among the key changes the company has made in order to accomplish its cost savings has been a decision to outsource site selection to HelmsBriscoe. “One of the things that really interested us and a main reason we brought HelmsBriscoe on board was to get competition between hotels going,” Wooten said. “In a lot of cases, with our meeting arrangers before, we weren’t seeing that.” Now, Wooten said, every meeting request that HelmsBriscoe processes includes at least three potential hotels in every destination. In addition, in order to leverage buying power and logistical efficiencies, Lockheed Martin has shortened its list of approved U.S. meeting destinations to 15 cities where the company has a hub of business activity.
Over the past year, Wooten has also implemented a captive meeting card program with U.S. Bancorp and entered into a comprehensive agreement with StarCite that will integrate its suite of sourcing and reporting tools into Lockheed’s existing Travelocity Business procurement system. In turn, the new StarCite/Travelocity platform, initially being deployed for smaller meetings, will eventually replace the company’s legacy proprietary system for managing large meetings, which will result in even greater cost savings because of reduced operating overhead, Wooten said.
But perhaps most important, he added, Lockheed Martin has recently begun to ask a simple question that is being posed by more and more companies — is this meeting really necessary?
“That dialogue has started to happen,” Wooten said. He is now working with Travelocity Business to develop a dynamic messaging system that will intervene at the point of purchase and define criteria for whether a meeting should be face-to-face, held in a virtual environment or not be conducted at all. After all, Wooten said, the least expensive alternative is the meeting that does not take place. Such a new sensibility in the meetings arena is a byproduct of the “demand management” discipline that has been applied to transient travel for years.
In fact, the concept of demand management, or the elimination of unnecessary face-to-face meetings, has been a top priority at both Xerox and PricewaterhouseCoopers.
When it comes to actually justifying whether a face-to-face meeting is warranted, “Xerox has been on that page for a couple of years now,” Ferranti said. As one way of eliminating any incentive to hype a particular meeting at an offsite venue, the company negotiated a fee-for-services contract with its two outsourced service providers, in lieu of traditional hotel commissions.
In addition, Ferranti works closely with an in-house videoconferencing department, which in turn outsources the actual technology, to determine instances where a videoconference can be substituted for a face-to-face meeting. As an example, she cited a recent global technical conference, hosted from Grenoble, France and Palo Alto, CA, that included small groups of participants from around the world.
PricewaterhouseCoopers has also enthusiastically embraced virtual meeting technologies as a key cost-cutting tool. “One of the three most important lessons I have learned as part of our SMMP is that many meetings can be held in a virtual environment,” Scholar said. “I am constantly working with planners and colleagues to understand and embrace virtual meeting technologies.”
The company’s virtual meetings team has reported to Scholar since 2002, making PricewaterhouseCoopers one of the first U.S. companies to have face-to-face and virtual meetings overseen by the same centralized meetings management organization. “So we constantly see an increasing number of virtual meetings that are occurring,” Scholar said, noting that between fiscal years 2006 and 2008, “we had over a 100 percent increase in virtual meetings. Just since last year, we have seen about a 27 percent increase.” However, she added, virtual meetings will never entirely replace face-to-face meetings.
Lessons Learned
Now that SMMP has become more mainstream and more companies are undertaking initiatives every day, several important lessons can be learned.
For example, Ferranti said she has come to understand how meetings were once defined in terms of cost, and how they must be measured in the era of SMMP. “If you think about meetings, some people say a meeting is just the air, ground, hotel, and food and beverage costs,” she said. “But it’s also registration, speaker fees, the promotional materials, the print collateral. So you can’t just look at meetings as air, hotel, ground, and food and beverage costs. You have to be able to capture all the data, in different currencies and across the entire organization.”
In the case of Xerox, the StarCite suite of products has helped the company do that very effectively — from initial sourcing through final expense consolidation and reporting, said Ferranti. The company’s goal is to eventually be able to track every penny of meeting costs, and then report it as a cost-per-attendee expense.
At PricewaterhouseCoopers, Scholar said she is close to being able to track and report 100 percent of the company’s meeting spend — a task considered nearly impossible not long ago. And she, too, has learned some key lessons from the SMMP process. “One big lesson is that SMMP always takes longer than what you thought and it is ever-changing,” she said. “So it never remains constant for long. It is constantly being updated.” C&IT
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