Testimony - SAGEMCOM
THE SAGEMCOM–STADE DE FRANCE BOX SCHEME
Our Stade de France Box contract (16 seats and 22 events) dates back to September 2013. It was signed on the basis of one simple observation: the better you know your customers, the smoother the negotiations... and what venue could be more conducive to this kind of relationship than the Stade de France? It is a place where customers and sales people will be happy to meet, where families can get together, where genuine friendships can be forged around powerful values like sports and excellence. There are 3 elements that lead us to prefer the Stade de France and to renew the contract every time:
- The quality and diversity of programming
- Attentive sales teams at hand, quality of service and responsiveness
- Lenôtre and the loyalty of the head waiters.
THE BOX SCHEME FOSTERS PROXIMITY WITH SAGEMCOM CUSTOMERS AND SUPPLIERS
Proximity is important, not only to strengthen commercial partnerships, but also to help researchers and engineers to get to know one another better… leading to a host of opportunities for better understanding market and user expectations.
The Box scheme is a VIP scheme: invitations stem from Chairman to Chairman and from heads of profit centres. Suppliers too are invited, so they are aware of how important they are to the company: Sagemcom works with more than 2,000 suppliers worldwide, many of whom are strategic partners.
The scheme is also used to invite known politicians, major partners in the world of finance and legal affairs, journalists and shareholders, as well as foreign customers when the show lineup is appropriate; for instance, some Canadian customers came especially from Canada to watch the Justin Timberlake concert.
Given the requirements surrounding the programming of the various events at the stadium, it is not unusual for an event to take place on a Saturday or Sunday. So in order to avoid risking cancellations for family reasons, Sagemcom actually encourages participants to bring the family, providing an extra chance of creating some proximity.
A WINNING INVESTMENT
Having a box has helped to forge strong relations with invited customers and partners: since there aren’t that many of them, meeting in the box has become something of a habit, sometimes nurturing real friendships, and above all boosting the image of Sagemcom and demonstrating the reality of its substantial proximity with its customers and partners, which is after all the aim of this scheme. Although Sagemcom does not concern itself with quantifying the worth of its box, there can be no doubt that the impact is a positive one.
A FEW WORDS ABOUT COMPANY
France’s Sagemcom group is Europe’s leader in the high-value-added communication terminals market (decoders, modem routers, electric meters etc.). With €1.3b in annual revenue, the Group has 4,200 employees (including 1,000 researchers and 200 sales agents worldwide) in over 40 countries (30% in France) and has been profitable ever since it was founded. More than 22 million terminals are designed, manufactured and delivered every year worldwide by Sagemcom.
Sagemcom’s customers are primarily 4 suppliers of communication products and 2 energy suppliers, established in France and all over the world. Yet behind those 6 companies and their corporate names there are dozens of men and women who are strategic partners for Sagemcom, both in sales and engineering, in France and abroad.
Apart from its website, the Group has no institutional communication, having always been a firm believer in relationships as the best means of promoting one’s image.
