Maritz Europa, StarCite Announce Strategic Partnership; Strengthens StarCite Marketplace As Largest In Europe, North America
LONDON & PHILADELPHIA--(BUSINESS WIRE)----Maritz Europa and StarCite, Inc. today announced a new strategic partnership designed to help both companies grow their share of the corporate strategic meetings management business in the burgeoning European market. StarCite is recognized as the largest North American, electronic lead generator for European-bound meetings. This agreement, combined with StarCite's growing global customer deployments, will make StarCite the largest electronic lead generator in Europe.
The technology, distribution and marketing agreement is designed to help StarCite expand its sales, use and service capabilities in Europe and help Maritz Europa leverage leading edge technology for both client and internal use.
Acting as a general sales agent for StarCite, Maritz Europa will bring StarCite's leading meeting management technology to its customers, suppliers, and other enterprises in the region. Maritz Europa serves clients in the automotive, pharmaceutical, technology, consumer products and other sectors. Additionally, Maritz Europa will encourage and promote the adoption of StarCite's technology in the European Supplier Community.
Internally, Maritz Europa plans to use StarCite's leading sourcing, marketplace and attendee management technologies for the meetings and events it manages for clients. The StarCite Online Marketplace is currently the largest, global marketplace for meetings and events with 77,000 suppliers. The technology allows enterprises to identify and manage sourcing to preferred suppliers, create a central calendar of all meetings and effortlessly consolidate data by business unit, vendor or enterprise.
StarCite also will rely on Maritz Europa's 30-year expertise in the European market to help it expand its presence in Europe and service an expanding client base.
Headquartered in Philadelphia, StarCite, Inc. is the leading provider of technology and services for the $300 billion global meetings and events industry. Its StarCite Online Marketplace last year delivered nearly 31,500 unique requests for proposals, representing $1.3 billion worth of lead opportunities to suppliers in 2004. StarCite offers the industry's leading online attendee management tools with more than 1 million transactions a year. More than 400 corporations, associations and third-parties rely on its technologies, processes and services to gain a competitive edge by more effectively managing their meetings and events spend.
Headquartered in Marlow, with offices in Germany, Spain and France, Maritz Europa is a division of Maritz, Inc., the world's largest source of integrated performance improvement, travel and marketing research services. Clients include 28 of the 50 largest companies in the world.
"More and more European companies are embarking on the road to drive through efficiencies and take costs out of their business. Whilst Europe presents a more complex cultural business environment than the U.S., the partnership with StarCite in Europe will allow us to mirror our successful strategy in the U.S. By using one common tool we can now move decisively towards meeting our clients' corporate objectives on an in-country, regional and global basis," said Dave Watkins, Chief Operating Officer of Maritz Europa. "We are all very excited about the partnership with StarCite in Europe as it allows Maritz to reinforce its position as market leader in Meetings Consolidation. Whilst not limited to the pharmaceutical market by any means, a number of our clients in this sector have already expressed a keen desire to adopt the technology as part of their pan-European approach to strategic sourcing."
Shaun Casey, Director of Maritz Europa, will lead this pan-European service with strategic sourcing centers in the UK and Germany. Having worked in several of these Continental European markets, Casey has gained a thorough understanding of marketplace realities.
"With global demand growing significantly, StarCite is committed to advancing our sales and servicing capabilities around the world. We're delighted to be partnering with Maritz Europa, one of the leading service providers in Europe, that shares our values and passion for improving meeting management in global corporations," said John Pino, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of StarCite, Inc., Philadelphia. "We look forward to working together to capitalize on the tremendous synergies that come from this partnership, which will allow us both to better serve our respective customers."
About Maritz Europa
Maritz Europa is one of Europe's market leaders in communications, event management and research services. With more than 400 employees in the UK, France, Germany and Spain, Maritz Europa provides customized marketing communications solutions to local, regional and global companies within EMEA. With more than 30 years' operating experience in Event Management alone in Europe, Maritz Europa provides local language support for a whole range of meetings, conferences, product launches and incentive travel worldwide.
For more information about Maritz Europa, please visit www.maritz.co.uk.
About StarCite, Inc.
StarCite, Inc. provides the most comprehensive suite of applications and services to the $300 billion meeting and events industry. StarCite helps drive efficiencies and cost savings to both corporate buyers and suppliers. More than 400 corporate, association and third-party meeting buyers rely on StarCite's Enterprise Meeting Solutions for workflow, procurement, supply chain management, spend analysis and attendee management. Thousands of industry suppliers rely on the StarCite Online Marketplace, Supplier Marketing Programs and Enabling Technologies to increase meeting revenues. Its StarCite International division represents destination management companies and other premier international travel suppliers using both technology and traditional means. StarCite is based in Philadelphia. Investors in StarCite include Internet Capital Group (Nasdaq:ICGE); Maritz Travel Company; Seaport Capital; Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc.; and TL Ventures. For more information about StarCite, or its technologies and services, please visit www.StarCite.com
StarCite, Inc. Mary Ann McNulty, 267-330-0510 mmcnulty@starcite.com or Maritz Shaun Casey, +44-0-1628-496121 shaun.casey@maritz.co.uk
05/10/2005 07:02 ET |
