Export Award For The Atlantis Group

Export Award For The Atlantis Group - Experts In Direct Marketing & Customer Relationship Management

Successfully exporting integrated direct marketing and customer relationship management solutions, expertise and technology around the world and significantly increasing foreign exchange earnings has won Auckland company The Atlantis Group a Trade New Zealand Export Award.

[Note to editors: Media are invited to attend the presentation of the Trade New Zealand Export Award to The Atlantis Group by the Minister for Research Science & Technology, the Hon. Pete Hodgson, at 12.45pm on Tuesday 11 March at 132 Symonds St, Auckland.]

The Atlantis Group (TAG) Director Sarah Walsh says the company has achieved significant growth since it was started six and a half years ago, establishing a bluechip client list. It now operates offices in New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, the USA and Japan – countries that serve as strategic gateways to key regional markets for TAG.

Ms Walsh, one of three directors, says TAG exports the expertise and services of its two main companies - Atlantis Marketing and Visible Results. Atlantis Marketing focuses on being a one-stop-shop for all direct marketing services in the general business and healthcare areas while Visible Results provides Customer Relationship Management (CRM) services and technology to the retail area.

“Originally we identified an opportunity in New Zealand for high quality marketing databases and started Atlantis Marketing. As we became more involved with our clients we heard their concerns about the lack of an integrated solution provider in the direct marketing (DM) area. Traditionally they had to deal with a data provider, mail house and call centre to get a single campaign out. Atlantis Marketing evolved to fill this niche, and we discovered that the niche existed overseas as well.

“The Visible Results story is very similar, we found a very exciting CRM technology and built a fully integrated solution around it, something that significantly differentiated ourselves from our competition.”

Operating in a number of markets, TAG has developed a strong business model to ensure expansion into new areas is cost effective and timely.

“Our key competitive advantage is our ‘centralised brains trust’ in New Zealand. Strategic, technical and key operations teams are based in our head office, allowing the infrastructure in our international offices to be kept relatively light. About 70% of our 120 full time staff are based here in Auckland. The lower cost of operation in New Zealand compared to our main markets is a definite advantage.

“Our staff are also obviously a key strength. It’s true that being employed at TAG is less about experience and more about attitude, motivation and the desire to succeed. We have a fantastic team, both here and in all of our international offices.”

The light infrastructure has also allowed TAG to appoint representatives to promote their services in a further fifteen markets where they don’t have a full-time presence, including Chile, Columbia, Spain, the Philippines, Vietnam, China, Denmark and Israel.

Ms Walsh says the trends towards customer relationship management has helped drive the growth of the company.

“There has been a big increase in CRM as a form of marketing over recent years, and it is predicted to continue increasing in the foreseeable future. The CRM model really encompasses all methods of communication with clients – in the retail environment, through email, call centers and the mail. CRM is about capturing each of those communications, so companies can understand how the customer is responding and use that response to influence the way they speak to the customer next time.

“Our next big push is into Europe and the UK. We also recently purchased a significant interest in Global Online Systems, the company that owns the international license rights for Kachingo. This provides us with another CRM tool to add to our product set internationally.”

Trade New Zealand Account Manager David Wishart congratulated TAG on its Export Award.

“TAG listens to its clients, it understands their businesses as much as it can and provides an integrated solution that responds to their needs. And because the client just has to deal with one company it makes their life easier.” Sarah Walsh indicated that TAG’s ambition is to be seen as global CRM experts.

“We are certainly on the forefront of new developments in CRM around the world. Our growth plans and the clients we are currently attracting will push us to stay there – we’re definitely looking forward to what the next few years will bring.”

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