Facing the economic slowdown, the international agency specialized in the high tech decided to focus on the growing outsourcing of marketing services and to go for expansion.
All start-ups born during the euphoria of 1999-2000 are not dying. It is the opposite. Here is the example of Carnac, an international marketing agency specialized in the high tech, which was created in 1999 within the CICA of Sophia Antipolis. After two years of continuous development, Carnac had decided to become independent at the end of summer time, leaving the incubator embodied by the CICA. This settlement in bigger premises in the Beethoven quarters was becoming necessary because of a growing number of consultants in charge of the customer programme management, the agency explained. For the last three months, the team grew from 9 to 12 people.
New premises on Beethoven quarters
Carnac offers its services to high tech companies, from start-ups to multinational companies. They deal with the different stages of an innovative international strategy in marketing and communication, from its definition to its implementation. Since the last two years, Carnac has been managing strategic programmes for industry leaders such as Compaq, Intel, Cisco, Anixter and Marconi. It also worked with success to the international launching of several international start-ups such as Allaire (now Macromedia), and regional start-ups (however with an international nature), such as ActiVia Networks, Trendium and lastly Smart Fusion.
The CEO and founder of the company, Annie Blandel, expert in IT and marketing, formerly working for Digital Equipment Corporation and Shiva, where she held international management posts, didn't try to shrink the number of employees face to the current economic slowdown. "This slowdown made several companies to rationalize their internal resources and to search for a complementary external valuation" she estimated. "Thus, we reinforced our offer to answer the needs of the international market, and we now have the necessary premises to deliver our new services.
Among others, Carnac's services include a growing range of on-line marketing programmes (development of websites, e-marketing, on-line customer management and canvassing, internet and extranet project management, etc…), prospect management and identification services (development of messages, mailing and events management, qualification of prospects and contacts, etc…) and multilingual telemarketing. So many services now come along the new launching services (company, products) dedicated to start-ups and already much developed.