„We are made for international projects.“

Italian based M-Cube acquired Storever in December 2019 to complement its existing solution offering and widen its footprint. Storever CEO Bernd Hofstoetter remained on board after the acquisition of the instore experience provider and shares with invidis what a real international player requires and why M-Cube is well positioned. “It’s not about money, it’s all about management execution”.

The 15m EUR acquisition of Storever enables M-Cube to provide combined digital signage and instore music services to 45.000 stores in 106 countries worldwide. Bernd Hofstoetter worked almost nine years for Mood Media before joining Storever in 2010. Speaking to Invidis, Bernd Hofstoetter identifies the reason for success of Storever. “We have been and remain as extended M-Cube Group a real international player. We think, work, communicate and market European.”  M-Cube has formed a leading European market player, now the challenge is to create an international management team and a structure to integrate more companies in the future. “The race is on – it’s not only about money, but market execution.” Market-leader will not be the integrator with the deepest pockets or most entities across all countries, but the organization able to deliver engaging, local(ized) concepts in a most efficient way. 

The Group expects more market consolidation as the COVID-19 epidemic is accelerating the trend for larger, financially stable service provider able to deliver digital experiences worldwide. The Group has as a strong asset several CMS systems. M-Cube was once Europe’s most important Scala integrator and is still today staunch supporter of Samsung MagicInfo. Carlipa and Storever on the other hand base all their projects on each company’s proprietary platform. Each platform has its advantages: Scala offers a huge installed base globally, Carlipa is famous for interactive use cases while Storever is known for good usability.

The group companies complement each other also in regional footprint. Italy is obviously the main market today, Storever and Carlipa are strongly present in France, UK for &Alchemy Digital while Storever is leader in Belgium and covers Spain and Germany. In Asia the Group is present in Hong Kong serving luxury brand clients from Europe and in Greater China but also serving Chinese clients directly.

Bernd Hofstoetter is convinced that sales and creative teams with local knowledge are necessary in each market as well as real multilanguage hotlines.  The combined group employs 200 experts and is ready for more growth. Especially the German team in Frankfurt is scheduled for expansion. The current customer portfolio covers many luxury brands from Italy and France, but also Lidl and McDonalds in selected markets, Delhaize Supermarkets, Euromaster, Bodystreet, Promod, Fossil, Orange, Benetton or Bata.