Vendman’s partnership agreement with German company Materna has been ‘the talk of Eu’Vend’, according to Ian Forde, Vendman’s Executive Chairman, Europe.
The partnership was unfurled in Cologne on Wednesday, the day after Planet Vending exclusively revealed news of the deal.
‘There’s been a fantastic amount of interest since we made the announcement’, Ian said. ‘As I’ve said before, Materna is the ultimate sales vehicle for Vendman in Germany. ‘They already have a large customer base, for instance for their cashless technologies, and now we’ve seen for ourselves that’s people are keen to investigate the additional benefits incumbent in having Vendman controlling the ‘back end’ of their vending operations.’
With around 1,700 employees throughout Europe, including highly specialized consultants, software developers; software architects and project managers – not to mention editors and marketing experts, Materna covers the complete spectrum of services, from strategy and consulting through to implementation and operations. The company has already developed payment apps that communicate with their telemetry system and they work with PayPal for cashless sales.
‘We’ve been here before in our own right, but sharing a stand with our new partner has taken to a different level’, Ian said. ‘Cologne is a great location and because it’s a stunning city, it attracts visitors from all over Europe. There was a tremendous buzz around the exhibition from the moment the doors opened and we had a constant flow of both existing and potential customers eager to find out what our partnership with Materna could add to their operations.’
‘We’ve made important strides in Europe in recent years and we’ve added to our portfolio accounts based in Germany, Holland and Belgium at the same time as working very hard with our British customers, to make sure that we continue to respond to their changing requirements’, Ian said. ‘We’re the UK’s number-one vending software company specifically because we’re not at all complacent, as our investment in our ‘In Pursuit of Excellence’ events has demonstrated in recent years. Having said that, it’s our aim to become Europe’s number one, too; that’s why we added significantly to our team last summer and that’s why we’ve established this link with Materna.’
