 
We offer a wide variety of technical and general business application software from a broad range of publishers and manufacturers. We market these products through our well-known catalogs, direct mail programs, advertisements in trade magazines, as well as through Internet and e-mail promotions. - We offer over 1000 programming and development tools.
- We represent over 100 software publishers including several exclusive lines.
- We specialize in locating hard-to-find and special order products.
STR is the reseller/VAR source for technical software and development tools. Over the past decade, STR has established strong relationships with thousands of resellers/VARs who can count on STR for supplying top programming products and outstanding customer service at competitive prices. This document describes: - OUR COMPANY PROFILE - OUR 20 YEARS EXPERIENCE - OUR ACTIVITIES - OUR MARKETING COMMITMENT - OUR DISTRIBUTION AND PRICING POLICY - OUR TECHNICAL EXPERIENCE & COMMITMENT OUR COMPANY PROFILE Nowadays, Europe and notably France, represent a source of considerable income for international software editors. Your development strategy has undoubtedly already taken this potential opportunity into consideration. More than a distributor, Software Technology Resources acts, in effect, as a virtual subsidiary organization, serving the needs of successful software editors seeking international representation and the full development of the opportunities for their products & services. Company Mission: “To provide the French market with advanced IT solutions, bringing them to their full potential through focused attention and to support our partners and customers with high quality information services. Founded: 1992 Founders: Gilles Ben Rekassa and Chantal Boudré, former managers of one of the largest French software republishing group. Funding: through private investment, profitable
Today, STR is now the most active distributor for Business Objects’ Crystal Reports; STR also the distributor and/or European partner with leading software editors amongst which Business Objects, activePDF, Vmware, Infragistics, ComponentOne, SoftArtisans, SoftVelocity, BCL Technologies, Macrovision, Dart Communication, Idera, Dundas Software, PDF Tools, SoftwareFX, Embarcadero, Altova, Altiris, Acronis, Ektron, Farpoint, /nsoftware, Kerio Technologies, etc, and also distributes the market leaders such as Microsoft, Sybase, Adobe, Symantec, Veritas, Computer Associates, etc…. With over 15 years experience in the French market, STR specializes in the field of development tools (Components, Development platforms…), Client/Server architectures, Business Intelligence, Internet development tools. As a republishing company, our services include Marketing, Promotion, Sales, Technical Support, Consulting and Training. In other words, we become a ‘virtual’ subsidiary. We promote the products and the editor’s name instead of promoting our name or a catalogue of products, as a typical catalogue reseller would do. OUR 20 YEARS EXPERIENCE Our company’s President has been involved in the high technology software business for over 25 years. We have launched several major technologies in France including ODBC and OLAP amongst others. In the software republishing business in France, we have also launched well renowned companies such as Peter Norton, Micrografx, Q+E Software and Crystal Reports. Our company’s excellent knowledge of the French market and its network for direct and indirect sales is a major asset. Our company is today a major partner for the leaders in the development tools and architectures business. We cooperate with the industry leaders and the databases publishers for launching new products and technologies. We promote the software through 60,000 developers, IT professionals, project managers, database administrators and CTOS recorded in our files, none of these files ever being bought. Our database has been built up over the years by our services. We are also able to negotiate with the major French organizations as well as the resellers, software houses and VARs. Amongst our large corporate customers: Thales, Méteo France, BNP, Banque de France, Alcatel, various ministries and governmental institutions, Phillips, France Télécom, Auchan, Accor, SNCF, Citroen Automobiles, Thomson, Guerlain SA, l’Assemblée Nationale, Société Générale, St Gobain, Cap Gemini … and so many others… OUR PANEL OF ACTIVITIES In the French market, our main objective is to be the reference for professionals to find the development software and architectures they need. To achieve this goal and to be successful, STR provides the following: - An efficient extensive marketing effort via various medias
- A very documented web site for developers (in French)
- Sales and technical teams devoted to the products
- Several pages of press advertisement each month
- Close press coverage
- Representation at major trade shows and exhibitions
- Technical support, consulting and training
- A wide network of VARs and resellers
- The largest French file of developers, project managers and CTOs
OUR MARKETING COMMITMENT The size and the quality of marketing efforts are essential to the success of a company. Our marketing activity represents a very large share of our revenue and increases proportionally to the development of one editor’s position on the French market. This is where we differ from most other distributors/resellers. The average monthly investment that we allocate to marketing for each company we republish is approximately 60% of the profit margin! Here are some of the actions we undertake for our partners: Ø FAX MAILING / DIRECT MAILING / EMAILING / MONTHLY NEWSLETTER: We typically run mailings for special promotions, announcement of releases, new products, etc. We obtain a very good return from these mailing shots as we target highly qualified leads. Our files are particularly adapted to find customers potentially interested in your type of products – software developers, project managers, CTOs, programmers etc. Ø ½ DAY SEMINARS / WORKSHOPS An activity that has been successful for STR. Basically, we send out invitations to specifically targeted prospects (existing customers, new prospects, other resellers …). This is followed by a phone call inviting them to attend a demonstration/workshop of the software and to participate in a Questions & Answers Session. So far these seminars have proven to be very successful, the attendees end up purchasing the softwares presented, and services around them. Ø PRESS ADVERTISING Advertising is essential in creating interest and awareness for the software. It is an excellent way to position products among those most renowned in the market. Advertising is very costly for STR, but we realize that it is crucial to the launch of a product and generating demand. We advertise in quite a few well known IT magazines here in France, amongst which: - PC Expert
- PC Achat
- Windows News
- PC Magazine
- Programmez!
- L’Informaticien
- Computer Art, …
Ø PRESS RELATIONS Not only are all our press releases sent to a large number of IT magazines on the French market each month thanks to excellent relations with the majority of IT journalists here, we have signed a partnership with www.news-eco.fr. This website enables us to reach over 700 IT journalists who are also members and have requested to receive information on new products, upgrades, etc. Not only can all our press releases be viewed on this site, they are sent to the IT section of all the major search engines (eg, Google, Lycos and Yahoo!) Ø BROCHURES Our Quarterly brochure is usually distributed in France and to all our French speaking prospects – roughly 30 000 to 45 000 copies are printed 3 times a year. They are sent out with every product we sell and every information request. Ø WEB ADVERTISING We have recently started various advertising campaigns community websites for IT specialists and developers (techheadbrothers.com, developpez.com), as well as targeted AdWords campaigns in order to strengthen our position on search engines and on the web in general. Ø SALES DEPARTMENT Our sales department consists of our Sales Director, Chantal Boudré and 3 sales consultants. We have divided the department into two sections – 2 representatives deal solely with supplier leads, leads from our website and incoming calls. The remaining 2 concentrate on client prospecting and our larger end solution products. When we receive a lead from a supplier it is treated within 24 hours. All of our product documentations are translated into French so the prospective customers receive information that they will fully understand. Web Promotion Please visit our web site at www.str.fr. The site provides developers with complete technical and commercial information about the products, as well as evaluation versions. Your page is permanently checked in order to have the latest information on the site. We also push your promotions and the launch of new products. Exhibitions We participate each year at all of the major French trade shows. As much as possible, we visit regularly the large internationally reknown trade shows, to sense the market trends, and maybe include new products onto our offering. Partnerships Cooperation with the leading publishers is very important. Our relationships with Microsoft, Business Objects and Adobe are very strong and profitable. All our existing partnerships allow us to reinforce our position onto the development tools market; we are becoming the reference in this market in France. We also have very good relations with database server companies, such as Oracle, Sybase, and others.
OUR DISTRIBUTION AND PRICING POLICY A Software vendor’s success in France is based on two major principles: a strong marketing commitment and a real sales strategy. Sales strategy Our sales strategy is based on a real knowledge of the particular areas of development tools and the Client/Server architecture. We sell through both direct and indirect channels. Although 60% of the sales are through our resellers’ network, most of our sales activity is targeted towards the direct approach. We create the market and the demand, which in turn generates reseller demand. In function with our new brochure development we focus mainly on two commercial activities: 1- A sales department composed of a team of highly experienced sales people. They have the technical knowledge and selling techniques to reach out to hundreds of potential customers that call each month following our various marketing activities. 2- A brochure reselling activity with 30 000 to 45 000 copies sent 3 times a year, in which our best sellers, new products, or products in need to be pushed are represented using full colour pages in order to generate the demand. This activity generates sales by mail and on our web site. Additionally, we organize seminars and presentation days for our reseller network. We help them in the understanding and use of your products and enable them to answer the demand with the right material that we provide. OUR TECHNICAL COMMITMENT Our high quality service is based on our desire to carry a specialized range of quality products in France. This allows us to be fully competent in providing the highest level of support to all users for the products that we sell. Our technical department consists of technical consultants and developers who carry out a wide variety of tasks including full technical support for all the products that we carry, consulting, training, development and on site demos/installation.
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