Memac Ogilvy, part of one of the largest marketing communications networks in the world, has selected next generation WAN Optimisation and Network Control specialist Exinda to manage its core applications across the network, streamlining bandwidth connections and enabling users in remote locations to receive excellent quality of experience.

Nadim Ghobril, Group IT Director for Memac Ogilvy explains, “We rely on being able to use our core applications, including video conferencing, video streaming, picture editing, email and social media 24/7, 365 days per year. All of these are bandwidth intensive, and prior to integrating Exinda, usage of any of these applications caused our network to become very slow and unresponsive between offices, especially at peak times. Our customers rely on us to deliver the highest quality experience, whether that’s through our marketing collateral or through activities like video conferencing. So a next generation WAN optimisation solution was therefore a must to ensure we could deliver customer satisfaction.

“Exinda’s Network Control and WAN Optimisation solution was chosen because it allowed us to have complete visibility of our network, enabling intuitive traffic shaping and therefore best use of core applications without any negative impact. It also enabled us to manage the bandwidth issues to our remote offices, providing staff in these locations with the essential tools to complete their jobs without the headache of regular latency issues.”

Exinda’s solutions take a strategic approach to WAN optimisation by intelligently applying its three-point WAN optimisation technology to a business’ issues. Exinda delivers an effective mix of acceleration, caching and containment for the optimal end-user experience of core applications and web content, providing IT managers with a full suite of analysis tools to ensure performance aligns with business SLAs.

Karl Barton, VP of Sales – EMEA for Exinda, comments, “We are very pleased to be working with a leading regional network like Memac Ogilvy who understands the value of having an optimal infrastructure to deliver award-winning services to its customers. We know that today’s enterprises require more than simple WAN optimisation; they need a solution that can deliver unbeatable quality of experience. Our policy based WAN optimisation solutions are ideal for delivering optimal user experience of cloud applications, video conferencing, web content and other bandwidth intensive applications.”

The Exinda solution was deployed by Data Consult, who are Memac Ogilvy’s preferred IT partner. Data Consult has an excellent understanding of the network infrastructure and the IT challenges facing the business.

About Exinda

Exinda is a leading global supplier of WAN optimization and Network Control solutions. Exinda enables organizations to assure a predictable user experience for strategic business applications through policy-based WAN optimization and Network Control that intelligently allocate network bandwidth and optimize traffic based on the priorities of the business. The company has helped more than 2,500 organizations in over 80 countries worldwide assure application performance, improve the end-user experience, contain recreational applications and reduce network operating costs for the IT executive. For more information, please visit http://www.exinda.com.

About Memac Ogilvy

Memac Ogilvy is part of one of the largest marketing communications’ networks in the world and building brands is at the core of Ogilvy & Mather’s worldwide activities. The company uses a holistic approach to brand building, touching every contact point a consumer might have with the brand, including packaging, merchandising and advertisements on billboards, television, radio or the web.

Monetate, a leading technology solution that allows online marketers to leverage Big Data to create personalized online customer experiences, announced today the latest release of the Ecommerce Quarterly, (EQ4 2012).

In addition to benchmarks and consumer online behavior insights, the report includes commentary from Evan LaPointe , a user experience and analytics expert.

(Download a free copy of the Monetate EQ4 2012 here)

While most, if not all, holiday ecommerce reporting ends after Cyber Monday, EQ4 2012 examines trends through Christmas Eve, including an analysis of key performance indicators such as conversion rates and average order values by device and inbound referrer. Among the report’s key insights:

• Ecommerce window closes on Free Shipping Day. During the last holiday season, ecommerce conversion rates plummeted after “Free Shipping Day” (Dec. 17) even as retailers continued free shipping promotions beyond the date. A consumer “doubt gap” on shipping has emerged, presenting an opportunity for retailers to prove to consumers they can deliver the goods in a shorter window, extending shopping opportunities.
• The soaring rate of mobile. On Christmas Day 2012, almost one-third of all ecommerce traffic came from smartphones (16%) and tablets (15.6%). Just a year earlier, less than half of that amount of traffic (14.5%) came from smartphones (6.4%) and tablets (8%). This development presents a true reflection of consumer preferences;  online business which doesn’t tailor its web experience for smartphones and tablets runs the risk of alienating (or losing) customers.
• Smartphone conversions remain low, but does it matter? Conversion rates on smartphone devices remain low (1.2% compared with 4% for tablets), yet smartphone traffic hovered over 10%.  These numbers point to consumers using smartphones primarily as “retailer prompted research” tools;  this sets the stage for retailers to get more creative in driving the smartphone experience through to conversion.

“One of the most telling insights from the EQ4 2012 is the Christmas Day device data,” said Kurt Heinemann , CMO, Monetate. “On Dec. 25th, 15 percent of all ecommerce traffic came from tablets, whereas the average tablet traffic percentage in December was about 10 percent. This reveals the mobile is increasingly the device of choice. When consumers have leisure time and any device at their disposal, they reach for the tablet or smartphone. Ecommerce had better be paying attention to this trend.”

Methodology

The Ecommerce Quarterly is a trend report that provides retailers with a snapshot of the changing shopping habits of the American consumer. The EQ analyzes a random sample of more than 100 million online shopping experiences using “same store” data across each calendar quarter. Averages throughout the EQ are calculated across the entire sample. Key performance indicators such as average order value and conversion rate will vary by industry/market type. These averages are published only to support the analysis in each release of the EQ and are not intended to be benchmarks for any ecommerce business.

About Monetate

Monetate empowers marketers to leverage Big Data to create more personalized and engaging online customer experiences. By providing more relevant web interactions, leading brands are able to anticipate and react to consumer preferences to generate stronger customer relationships and significantly increase profits.

Monetate drives billions of dollars of revenue every year for some of the best-known brands in the world, including Best Buy, Frontier Airlines, Aeropostale, The Sports Authority, and PETCO. The company’s comprehensive product suite and conversion expertise enable marketers to deliver a more relevant customer experience with unprecedented agility.

Leading marketers rely on Monetate’s cloud-based browser solutions to achieve a new level of speed and control, allowing them to run 16 times  more optimization campaigns compared to industry averages. Monetate solutions include advanced products for testing, merchandising, targeting and cross-channel consistency, providing an opportunity to bypass IT restraints and react in real time to customer demands. Monetate also helps marketers implement best practices and drive online revenue through its expert strategic services and content publishing teams.

Exinda, a global provider of next-generation WAN optimization and Network Control solutions, today announced that Lakeshore Toltest Corporation (LTC) has implemented Network Control solutions from Exinda to ensure the performance of its critical applications at remote construction sites around the globe.

LTC, one of the fastest-growing construction management companies in the world, operates more than 40 construction offices, primarily in the government services market, with a growing business in the oil and gas industry.

With construction sites in remote locations, such as Kabul, Afghanistan, and Williams County, North Dakota, LTC relies on expensive satellite links at many sites to maintain access to its critical services, which include e-mail, Skype for voice and SharePoint for other applications. With its connections continually maxed out, and expensive upgrades looming, LTC turned to Exinda for visibility into its bandwidth utilization.

“We need much better visibility and insight into what kind of data was moving over our network because the other option – a satellite upgrade – was very expensive,” said Jay Fowler , network manager for LTC.

“Voice via Skype is our most important application and we needed to make sure that it was always available, especially for conference calls. Access to the Internet overall, and to SharePoint specifically, is also important because that’s how we provide information to and from our partners. And as part of the puzzle, we also need to make sure we are keeping the morale of our personnel in mind, because some of these locations are very high stress, and access to the Internet and to their families is very important.”

With Exinda solutions in place at 18 locations, ranging from its principal offices in Maumee, Ohio, and Detroit, Mich., to remote sites in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guam, LTC has clear visibility into its traffic. The company uses Exinda’s policy-management capabilities to create custom policy configurations based on the needs of each site, for example, prioritizing Skype above all other traffic, dropping P2P traffic and restricting social sites like Facebook during work hours.

“We used to battle with this on a daily basis, but with Exinda, it’s not an issue at all. I estimate that Exinda has saved us hundreds of thousands of dollars in satellite and network upgrade costs across our locations,” Fowler said.

“Exinda is pleased to provide LTC the visibility it needs into its network traffic, and the ability to assure the performance of the applications that are most strategic to its business,” saidBrendan Reid , vice president of product marketing for Exinda.

“Exinda’s policy-based WAN optimization 2.0 capabilities give LTC the context to effectively balance applications such as Skype, which it utilizes for both business and recreational purposes. Without this intelligence and policies to govern the company’s bandwidth usage, critical applications can and will be impacted.”

About Exinda

Exinda is a leading global supplier of WAN optimization and Network Control solutions. Exinda enables organizations to assure a predictable user experience for strategic business applications through policy-based WAN optimization and Network Control that intelligently allocate network bandwidth and optimize traffic based on the priorities of the business. The company has helped more than 2,500 organizations in over 80 countries worldwide assure application performance, improve the end-user experience, contain recreational applications and reduce network operating costs for the IT executive. For more information, please visit http://www.exinda.com.

About LTC

LTC is among the fastest growing construction management companies in the industry, operating across government services and industrial/commercial markets globally through a network of over 40 offices.  Serving a wide variety of end markets, including facilities, infrastructure, energy, and oil and gas, LTC provides creative, sustainable solutions for our clients. With a staff of over 600 experienced management, technical, operations, and support staff worldwide, LTC has successfully executed construction projects totaling more than $1B over the last 5 years. For more information, please visit http://www.lakeshoretoltest.com.

Kareo, Inc., the cloud-based medical office software provider for small medical practices, announced today that the company has been named by Forbes as one of America’s Most Promising Companies.

Listed at number 58, Kareo is among the top 100 privately held, high-growth companies possessing compelling business models, quality management, growing teams, and supportive investors.

“It is an honor to be named to this prestigious list comprised of some of the most dynamic companies in the U.S.,” said Dan Rodrigues , founder and CEO of Kareo. “This achievement speaks to the commitment, focus, and success of the Kareo team in delivering solutions valued by small medical practices. Our team understands that the better we do our jobs, the better our customers can do theirs, namely delivering outstanding patient care.”

Kareo has grown rapidly and now serves over 17,000 medical professionals with its solutions. Small practices rely on Kareo’s intuitive and affordable cloud-based applications to effectively manage their operations by simplifying patient scheduling, improving billing processes, and navigating complex payment requirements.

By reducing the challenges of small practice management, medical providers can shift their focus to their core objective of delivering patient care. The company recently announced a $20.5 million round of funding, the introduction of Kareo Billing Services, a new full service option for small practice billing management, and the expansion of its leadership team with the hire of a Chief Marketing Officer.

Over the course of six months Forbes reviewed thousands of applications. The final assessment was based on growth in sales and hiring, quality of management team and investors, margins, market size and key partnerships. Forbes turned to CB Insights, a Manhattan-based data research firm specializing in assessing private companies, to refine the search. After verifying sales numbers, speaking with each company and debating their merits, Forbes produced a final ranking of the top 100 companies.

About Kareo

Kareo is the only medical office software and services provider dedicated to serving the small practice. Kareo believes that, with the right tools and support, small practices can do big things. Over 17,000 medical professionals count on Kareo to manage their offices intuitively and affordably. Quick to set up and simple to use, Kareo’s cloud-based software helps doctors get paid faster, keep cash flowing, and see the financial big picture through medical billing and practice management tools. Founded in 2004, Kareo’s mission is to free doctors’ hands for important work of patient care. For more information on Kareo, visit www.kareo.com.

Media Contact:

Jody Lomenzo
Feinstein Kean Healthcare | an Ogilvy Company
P 617 761 6733
[email protected]

OpenView Venture Partners, an expansion-stage venture capital firm focused on providing technology companies with deep operational support, announced today the release of a new eBook entitled, “Slaying Goliath: How Small Companies Can Compete Against Their Larger Competitors.”

Targeted at the founders and CEOs of expansion-stage technology companies, the eBook provides a road map companies can use to leverage the inherent advantages their small size affords them.

“Winning in a market that’s dominated by a big business may not be easy, but it’s also not impossible,” commented Scott Maxwell, Senior Managing Director and Founder of OpenView Venture Partners. “Our latest eBook demonstrates that the key to winning against larger companies is understanding your own strengths, identifying and exploiting your larger competitors’ weaknesses, and successfully defending against their attacks. It’s also about executing against your goals better, and faster, than most big businesses can.”

OpenView has been helping expansion-stage technology companies scale in a highly competitive landscape since it was founded in 2006. The eBook reflects much of the experience the firm has gathered since then working with B2B SaaS and Internet companies around the country. Specifically, it outlines how small companies can leverage their size to create an information, time, scope, scale, and innovation advantage. It also provides practical tips for undermining the strengths that large competitors typically have, including well-established customer relationships, a recognized brand name, and well-developed distribution channels.

“By reading this eBook, you will learn the practical strategies necessary to compete against your large competitors,” said Maxwell. “Utilizing them will force larger competitors to respond to you, rather than the other way around. That in turn will put you in a position to create opportunities in crowded markets that might have otherwise seemed impossible to grasp.”

OpenView’s eBooks support its mission of building great companies by providing expansion-stage companies with the operationally oriented tools and support they need to succeed. The firm’s recent eBooks span a variety of topics, including customer segmentation, marketing channel discovery, sales forecasts, competitive messaging, and operating reviews. To find out more, visit https://labs.openviewpartners.com/ebooks/ or sign up for OpenView’sfree newsletter to have eBooks like this and other great content delivered to you every week.

About OpenView Venture Partners

OpenView Venture Partners is an expansion-stage venture capital fund based in Boston that is focused on high-growth software, Internet, and technology-enabled companies. Through its staff of seasoned operating executives, who collectively bring several decades of technology and management experience to the firm, OpenView is able to help portfolio companies quickly optimize their product, go-to-market, and organizational and operational functions. Founded in 2006, the firm invests globally and has approximately $440 million in total capital under management.

About OpenView Labs

OpenView Labs is the strategic and operational consulting arm of OpenView Venture Partners, a global venture capital fund that invests in expansion-stage technology companies. The Labs team consults to the management of OpenView’s portfolio companies across an array of functional areas, including recruiting, go-to-market support, and research and analytics. Together with its network of senior advisors, the team supports OpenView’s portfolio companies on a range of initiatives ranging from methodology incubation and market research, to providing strategic coaching.

Spredfast, the leading independent social marketing software provider, today announced that it has raised $18 million in venture capital. The round was led by OpenView Venture Partners, with follow-on investment participation from existing investors Austin Ventures and InterWest Partners.

The funding comes as Spredfast reports 400 percent revenue growth and a doubling in employee headcount in 2012. The company plans to use the capital to fuel continued investment in its technology platform and to grow the team to support increased adoption of its social marketing platform.

With large companies now managing social programs across dozens of brands, localities and countries, the need for a robust technology solution that gives enterprises an efficient, effective way to manage their social interactions has never been greater. Spredfast’s Social Engagement Index shows that the average large company now manages social activity across 21 groups and nearly 100 social accounts. At the same time, social has become an integral part of the marketing mix and now commands larger budgets, driving the need for trusted mechanisms to tie social programs to business outcomes.

Spredfast offers the only social marketing platform designed to serve the evolving needs of leading brands. The company works with many of the world’s top companies and agencies to help them monitor, coordinate and measure social media with one robust platform.

“For the past few years we have been tracking the social media management space and believe the market is at an inflection point. Companies are no longer concerned with Likes, but rather with building real customer engagement and value across their social networks,” said Adam Marcus, Managing Director at OpenView Venture Partners. “We believe Spredfast has built the only true enterprise-class product to help the Fortune 1000 manage this incredibly important channel. We couldn’t be happier to partner with this tremendous team to build a category-defining company.”

The funding caps off a year of explosive growth for Spredfast. Recent company milestones include:

• New customer acquisitions of leading enterprise social brands, including AT&T, Caterpillar, Rackspace and Starbucks, as well as expanded relationships with AAA, T. Rowe Price, Whole Foods Market and Warner Brothers.
• Acceptance into Facebook’s Preferred Marketing Developer Program, Twitter’s Certified Products Program and LinkedIn’s Social Media Management Partner Program.
• Integration of Bazaarvoice ratings and reviews into the Spredfast platform for easy social amplification of authentic word-of-mouth.
• Innovative new product capabilities to help enterprise deployment of social, including role-specific workspaces, enhanced workflow automation, comparative performance analytics, and rich analytics and post targeting across Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube.

“Social is rapidly becoming the preferred interaction mechanism for consumers and business people alike. The time is fast approaching when your customers will no longer email or call you — they will send out a signal via social and expect a thoughtful response. They’ll expect you to know about them and for you to offer them something of value for their attention,” said Rod Favaron, CEO of Spredfast. “Spredfast’s customers understand the strategic advantage of laying the technical and organizational foundation for this future now, working with a trusted partner whose entire focus is social.”

About Spredfast:

Based in Austin, Texas, Spredfast provides social media management software that allows organizations to manage, monitor, and measure their social media programs at scale. Spredfast enables more people, in more places, to engage in more conversations from a single platform on supported social networks like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Foursquare, and popular blogging platforms. Some of the enterprise and agency adopters on board with Spredfast include AT&T, Jason’s Deli, Warner Brothers, Whole Foods Market, AARP, AGAIN Interactive, Coty Beauty, HomeAway and WCG. For more information, visit www.spredfast.com

About OpenView Venture Partners:

OpenView Venture Partners is an expansion-stage venture capital fund based in Boston that is focused on high-growth software, Internet, and technology-enabled companies. Through its staff of seasoned operating executives, who collectively bring several decades of technology and management experience to the firm, OpenView is able to help portfolio companies quickly optimize their product, go-to-market, and organizational and operational functions. Founded in 2006, the firm invests globally and has approximately $440 million in total capital under management.

Media Contacts: Brittany Edwards Spredfast [email protected] (512) 359-6055

Kevin Cain OpenView Venture Partners [email protected] (617) 478-0984

SOURCE Spredfast

Monetate, a leading technology solution that allows online marketers to leverage Big Data to create personalized online customer experiences, had a pivotal 2012, more than doubling its revenues, client list and employee base over the course of the year.

The firm signed over 100 enterprise brands, including Macy’s, White Stuff, Patagonia, Tommy Hilfiger , Lee Jeans, Frontier Airlines and National Geographic.

Chief marketing officers seeking to create a customer-centric online experience were a primary driver of Monetate’s growth, with continued broad adoption particularly in the retail, travel, financial and media sectors.  The introduction of the firm’s Certified Partner Program, and continued international expansion, also drove company growth.

“2012 was the year marketers began to understand it isn’t Big Data alone, but Big Data tied to action, which is the key to creating a relevant and personal customer interaction that increases brand loyalty and drives revenue,” said David Brussin, CEO and Founder of Monetate.  “Our ability to enable brands to aggregate everything they know about a customer to create meaningful and engaging online experiences was a critical factor in our success in 2012.”

(Click here to watch the recent “Big Data Demystified for the Marketer Webinar,” featuring Forrester Analyst Rob Brosnan)

Monetate also rolled out over 100 new product features last year with enhancements to customer segmentation solutions, analytics, product recommendations, testing and real-time targeting; the enhancements helped Monetate customers drive even more profitable results.

“Monetate makes it possible to act on Big Data in real time and see measurable results immediately, not months down the road,” said Elaine Rubin , Founder & Principal at Digital Prophets Network.  “Monetate takes what seems like a very daunting challenge – using data to create relevant web experiences for specific customers on the fly – and simplifies it for the online marketer.  Ease of use is among the main advantages of the solution, as it allows marketers to quickly and flexibly display web content and campaigns for specific customer segments, a capability at the top of every marketer’s current wish list.”

Growth and Recognition

In 2012, Monetate was also named as one of the Philadelphia 100, which honors the Philadelphia region’s fastest growing private companies, and one of Pennsylvania’s 100 Best Places to Work.

About Monetate

Monetate empowers marketers to leverage Big Data to create more personalized and engaging online customer experiences. By providing more relevant web interactions, leading brands are able to anticipate and react to consumer preferences to generate stronger customer relationships and significantly increase profits.

Monetate drives billions of dollars of revenue every year for some of the best-known brands in the world, including Best Buy, Frontier Airlines, Aeropostale, The Sports Authority and PETCO. The company’s comprehensive product suite and conversion expertise enable marketers to deliver a more relevant customer experience with unprecedented agility.

Leading marketers rely on Monetate’s cloud-based browser technology to achieve a new level of speed and control, allowing them to run 16 times more optimization campaigns compared to industry averages. The Monetate technology includes advanced products for testing, merchandising, targeting and cross-channel consistency, providing an opportunity to bypass IT restraints and react in real time to customer demands. Monetate also helps marketers implement best practices and drive online revenue through its expert strategic services and content publishing teams.